"Deep and Secret," Supernatural, R
Title: deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth
Author: Alizarin
Fandom: SPN
Rating: R
Episode guide: No spoilers. Set in S1.
Warnings: Unrequited one-way Wintension.
Summary: Dean and Sam really don’t want to know each others' secrets.
“A bed-and breakfast,” Dean said, looking over the crumpled notes Sam had given him.
“Yeah, and it ain’t no Motel 6,” Sam said, and cracked a trademark Dean grin. He was getting good at them he could tell, because Dean looked at him like he was completely nuts.
“You don’t like our usual accommodations,” Dean said, “Feel free to get a fucking job and contribute to the hunting fund.”
“Well, if you had let me graduate from college,” Sam retorted without thinking. But the spice went out of that conversation a while ago and now it was just salt on the wounds.
“Just hurry up.” At Dean’s words Sam turned around and headed to the john while Dean filled the car with gas.
Gas station number nine million and eight, on their road to everywhere and nowhere.
The bed-and-breakfast was a unique surprise. Nestled deep in a pretty pine forest, it stretched out lazily along a green meadow and just over a tiny stream with a wooden bridge. The sun spread out smoothly over the stream’s surface and then broke into a musical rush over scattered rocks further along.
“It’s so pretty,” Sam said, breathing in air that actually felt fresh. They were outside a lot, but the air elsewhere always felt humid and stifling, heavy with rain or danger. “It’s green and gorgeous.”
“Don’t get all Robert Frost on me, little bro,” Dean said, but there was a hint of a smile in his voice. “Don’t forget why we’re here.”
As if Sam could forget, just once, why they were anywhere.
“Gerald Nickelson,” the man said, stepping from underneath the shade of the patio, nodding at Dean first, Sam second. “Your pop was a real good friend.”
“Was?” Sam asked, immediately suspicious.
“Haven’t seen him in a coon’s age,” Nickelson replied easily, the tanned skin around his eyes crinkling up at Sam. “Used to be, we’d go fishin’, hiking, drink some beers, but I haven’t seen him in 10 years now.”
“He called and told us you needed some help,” Dean said, “So we’re here and we figure you know what Dad does and therefore, what we do.” Dean was wearing sunglasses and Sam noticed how cool he looked, leaning up against his stupid car, in his macho leather jacket, as if he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone by trying to fill Dad’s shoes. But Nickelson didn’t seem to mind, just waved the boys inside, and gave them his last room. “This room in the house is on the house,” he joked, “breakfast included, naturally.” And he apologized that the only free room had one double bed, but Dean didn’t even blink. Sam figured he’d be the one sleeping on the floor, unless he could win the rights to the bed in some sort of late-night poker game or something.
“I’ll let you boys get settled, washed up, then I’ve got some cold chicken we can eat and I’ll tell you about my little ghost problem.” Nickelson waved a lazy hand and disappeared down the stairs.
Dean hauled his bag up on the bed with a clank from the guns inside. Sam powered up his laptop and set it on the antique desk that overlooked the back garden and the forest behind.
“Well if this isn’t the cutest place we’ve ever stayed,” Dean said, “I don’t know what is.”
“Blue ruffled curtains not really your style, Dean?”
Dean disappeared into the bathroom. “Oooooh,” he said in a false squeak. “Tiny soaps all wrapped up with fancy writin’ on ‘em! And the tub has clawed feet!”
“If we do a good job for this guy, maybe he’ll give you a discount someday when you’ve got a girlfriend and you can bring her here,” Sam said.
“I’m a one-note man, Sammy. I only got room for the hunt and maybe some one-night stands. That’s it.”
“Geez, lighten up,” Sam said, running his hand through his hair. He hated it when Dean talked like that, as if they were never going to have a normal life again. And he hated even more that he could see it happening for him, but he honestly couldn’t picture it for Dean.
They trampled downstairs after unpacking, the act of which consisted of throwing a few t-shirts over the backs of chairs and setting up an internet connection through a phone line. (“Why can’t wireless be everywhere?” Sam whined.)
A woman who introduced herself as Nancy, and must have been Gerald’s daughter, greeted them in the kitchen. She fed them chicken and string beans and told them about the figures that emerged from the forest every few years and scared away customers. It was happening again and bed and breakfasts weren’t cheap to run, so Nancy explained why she felt summoning some special help was necessary.
“Where’d Mr. Nickelson go?” Dean asked at one point.
“He’ll be back, probably after the other guests go to bed,” Nancy said. She looked out the window as she cleared their plates. “He doesn’t spend a lot of time with guests, but he’ll be back. He’ll want to talk to you boys.”
Dean nodded patiently and then once Nancy had turned her back, he rolled his eyes at Sam. Sam could practically hear Dean thinking family drama. They stayed seated around the wobbly dining table in the kitchen, listening to the other guests come in through the front room and patter around to their respective rooms. Nancy had suggested they wait and see before asking the guests any questions. She didn’t want them to get freaked out despite Dean’s assurances that they were totally smooth at that kind of thing. That’s when Sam had rolled his eyes.
Nickelson came in around 11 o’clock and sat down heavily in a chair at the table. He rubbed his hands together, told them that he’d tell them as much as he could, and then it would be up to them.
“As your father would say, first the facts, then it’s hunting time.”
“We say the same thing,” Dean said proudly. Sam didn’t have the heart to remind him that they said no such thing, and that Dean was fond of going off in act now think later mode, leaving the brainy stuff to him. He pressed his lips together so as not to ruin his brother’s moment.
“The ghosts appear right there, at the edge of the clearing,” Nickelson began. They come out from the forest. If you stare long enough at anything, you can make yourself believe you’re seeing things, and staring at the forest is no different. Stare into it, you start to see the moonlight on the trees, deep inside; you start to see figures going past, moving around in there. But what I’m talking about isn’t one of those times, it’s something else. A little girl, a mother, a young boy, all have appeared right there,” he pointed out the window into the dark, “and they want something.”
“What,” Sam asked, “What do they want?”
“They want to know your secrets. When they've got them, they go.”
“Gives new meaning to skeletons in the closet, huh?” Dean smirked.
“They'll leave you alone in exchange for a secret,” Sam said, eyebrows as high as he could manage without being disrespectful.
“Something like that,” Nickelson replied. “And at this point in time, we have no more secrets to give them.”
“So you and your family have appeased them before by giving them something, telling them something, and then they go away.” Dean looked skeptical.
“We’ve given up a lot, Dean,” Nickelson said, gazing at him speculatively. “So did your father, once.”
“Why didn’t Dad get this sonnafabitch?”
“Maybe he was relieved to have somewhere for his secret to go,” Nickelson looked uncertain. “It's hard to resist the temptation to lay your burdens down. Now if you’ll excuse me, boys, that’s about as much as I’ve got to tell you. Extra rock salt is in the shed, along with some shovels. If you find them, I’d suggest you take care of them before you confess anything. Once you’ve spilled your secrets, they won’t be back until next time.”
*~*
Sam trailed along after Dean letting his boots drag a bit through the wet leaves on the ground. “This sucks,” he muttered. It was chilly and clear, a three-quarter moon gave them enough light, and they’d been trudging around in the dark for hours. “Sucks. Sucks. Sucks.” Each footstep deserved the word.
“Shut up, already,” Dean said. “You’re such a baby sometimes, I swear to god.”
“Seriously. We’re out in this million-acre forest of shitty bare-assed trees, looking for some ghosts who want to get in on some gossip. It’s stupid, Dean, you have to admit that this is one of the wilder goose chases we’ve been on.”
“When I say shut up, what does that mean to you?”
“It means that you agree with me and don’t want to appear to be agreeing,” Sam said.
“I thought I saw something, just up ahead,” Dean said.
"Remember what Nickelson said - people see things in here when they look hard enough. The moon plays tricks.”
“Doesn’t play tricks on me.” Dean stopped short as they heard a low rumbling. The trees had gathered in close around them, and a tense, knit canopy of roots and dead leaves above their heads shook in the wind. “Now that's just the wind, if you ask me,” Dean said.
Sam stumbled, bent down to look at what had caught his boot. He raised his voice above the wind. “Look at the stones on the ground, Dean, they’re smooth but they're square; maybe this is an old cemetery. Dean, this has to be it!”
Dean nodded and dropped to his haunches, fingering the dirt. “Sammy, you’re pretty observant for a white boy. Roots have upset the lay of the land, but these stones are grave markers. Fuck. We’ll never find the bones without digging all night, and how will we know which ones we’re even looking for?”
“We won’t. Dean this is weird.”
The wind picked up speed, sounding tortured in Sam’s ears, and he thought he could almost hear several different voices.
"Dean?"
The ground rolled under their feet and began to rupture. Tree limbs suddenly shot up through the damp and leathery cover of dead leaves, spinning up through the earth, rocking the slabs of stone, shaking loose roots from long-dead things and bringing up white bones and smooth worn skulls. The bones skittered around on the ground and tumbled in the dirt. Sam instinctively grabbed at one, pulling out a spindly skeletal arm.
“A dozen skeletons here,” Dean called out, “Maybe more. And a pretty angry spirit at work.”
Dean’s voice sounded far away but Sam could see his flashlight ducking and weaving a few yards away, his face flashing in and out of the dark. “Fuck this,” Sam called back, “Let’s salt and burn them all now.
“Wait, I want to see…”
“Don’t wait, Dean!”
Dean whirled around suddenly, looking straight at Sam. It was a look Sam was pretty sure he’d never seen before. At least, he’d never seen it when Dean knew he was watching. Dean advanced on him. Sam raised the skeleton arm just in case Dean was possessed or something.
“Are you possessed… or, or, something?” Sam shouted.
The ground rolled again, pitching Dean forward and Sam stumbled back, the bones went flying out of his hand and he landed hard on his ass in the dirt. He rolled over and Dean was there, right there, and he was both relieved and scared.
“Dean?”
Dean was pressed up against him, rolling to face him, rolling over him in fact, pinning him into the dirt. With horror, Sam felt his brother’s hot breath on his neck, felt a hardness against his thigh, felt the brush of Dean’s lips on that spot just under his ear. He broke into a cold sweat and a clammy knot of fear gathered in his stomach. He shoved Dean away as hard as he could.
Dean was looking at him, as if he were sure Sam would change his mind. But Sam knew his mind. He knew what Dean wanted, because he’d always known somehow. And deep down, it repulsed him. It was Dean’s secret, and Sam would give anything not to know; it was something he wished to God wasn’t true.
Sam’s secret was out too. He didn’t feel the same. He could never… not with his brother, not ever.
The bones stopped jittering and jigsawed back into the dirt. The wind suddenly stopped and the silence drowned out the thump of Sam's pulse.
They left before dawn. Dean peeled out of the parking lot into the grey pre-morning light like the hounds of hell were on his tail.
The note they left for Gerald Nickelson read:
See you in 10 years.
~*~
The White Mans Burden
Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.
Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.
Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood---
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent
Pablo Neruda
.
Author: Alizarin
Fandom: SPN
Rating: R
Episode guide: No spoilers. Set in S1.
Warnings: Unrequited one-way Wintension.
Summary: Dean and Sam really don’t want to know each others' secrets.
“A bed-and breakfast,” Dean said, looking over the crumpled notes Sam had given him.
“Yeah, and it ain’t no Motel 6,” Sam said, and cracked a trademark Dean grin. He was getting good at them he could tell, because Dean looked at him like he was completely nuts.
“You don’t like our usual accommodations,” Dean said, “Feel free to get a fucking job and contribute to the hunting fund.”
“Well, if you had let me graduate from college,” Sam retorted without thinking. But the spice went out of that conversation a while ago and now it was just salt on the wounds.
“Just hurry up.” At Dean’s words Sam turned around and headed to the john while Dean filled the car with gas.
Gas station number nine million and eight, on their road to everywhere and nowhere.
The bed-and-breakfast was a unique surprise. Nestled deep in a pretty pine forest, it stretched out lazily along a green meadow and just over a tiny stream with a wooden bridge. The sun spread out smoothly over the stream’s surface and then broke into a musical rush over scattered rocks further along.
“It’s so pretty,” Sam said, breathing in air that actually felt fresh. They were outside a lot, but the air elsewhere always felt humid and stifling, heavy with rain or danger. “It’s green and gorgeous.”
“Don’t get all Robert Frost on me, little bro,” Dean said, but there was a hint of a smile in his voice. “Don’t forget why we’re here.”
As if Sam could forget, just once, why they were anywhere.
“Gerald Nickelson,” the man said, stepping from underneath the shade of the patio, nodding at Dean first, Sam second. “Your pop was a real good friend.”
“Was?” Sam asked, immediately suspicious.
“Haven’t seen him in a coon’s age,” Nickelson replied easily, the tanned skin around his eyes crinkling up at Sam. “Used to be, we’d go fishin’, hiking, drink some beers, but I haven’t seen him in 10 years now.”
“He called and told us you needed some help,” Dean said, “So we’re here and we figure you know what Dad does and therefore, what we do.” Dean was wearing sunglasses and Sam noticed how cool he looked, leaning up against his stupid car, in his macho leather jacket, as if he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone by trying to fill Dad’s shoes. But Nickelson didn’t seem to mind, just waved the boys inside, and gave them his last room. “This room in the house is on the house,” he joked, “breakfast included, naturally.” And he apologized that the only free room had one double bed, but Dean didn’t even blink. Sam figured he’d be the one sleeping on the floor, unless he could win the rights to the bed in some sort of late-night poker game or something.
“I’ll let you boys get settled, washed up, then I’ve got some cold chicken we can eat and I’ll tell you about my little ghost problem.” Nickelson waved a lazy hand and disappeared down the stairs.
Dean hauled his bag up on the bed with a clank from the guns inside. Sam powered up his laptop and set it on the antique desk that overlooked the back garden and the forest behind.
“Well if this isn’t the cutest place we’ve ever stayed,” Dean said, “I don’t know what is.”
“Blue ruffled curtains not really your style, Dean?”
Dean disappeared into the bathroom. “Oooooh,” he said in a false squeak. “Tiny soaps all wrapped up with fancy writin’ on ‘em! And the tub has clawed feet!”
“If we do a good job for this guy, maybe he’ll give you a discount someday when you’ve got a girlfriend and you can bring her here,” Sam said.
“I’m a one-note man, Sammy. I only got room for the hunt and maybe some one-night stands. That’s it.”
“Geez, lighten up,” Sam said, running his hand through his hair. He hated it when Dean talked like that, as if they were never going to have a normal life again. And he hated even more that he could see it happening for him, but he honestly couldn’t picture it for Dean.
They trampled downstairs after unpacking, the act of which consisted of throwing a few t-shirts over the backs of chairs and setting up an internet connection through a phone line. (“Why can’t wireless be everywhere?” Sam whined.)
A woman who introduced herself as Nancy, and must have been Gerald’s daughter, greeted them in the kitchen. She fed them chicken and string beans and told them about the figures that emerged from the forest every few years and scared away customers. It was happening again and bed and breakfasts weren’t cheap to run, so Nancy explained why she felt summoning some special help was necessary.
“Where’d Mr. Nickelson go?” Dean asked at one point.
“He’ll be back, probably after the other guests go to bed,” Nancy said. She looked out the window as she cleared their plates. “He doesn’t spend a lot of time with guests, but he’ll be back. He’ll want to talk to you boys.”
Dean nodded patiently and then once Nancy had turned her back, he rolled his eyes at Sam. Sam could practically hear Dean thinking family drama. They stayed seated around the wobbly dining table in the kitchen, listening to the other guests come in through the front room and patter around to their respective rooms. Nancy had suggested they wait and see before asking the guests any questions. She didn’t want them to get freaked out despite Dean’s assurances that they were totally smooth at that kind of thing. That’s when Sam had rolled his eyes.
Nickelson came in around 11 o’clock and sat down heavily in a chair at the table. He rubbed his hands together, told them that he’d tell them as much as he could, and then it would be up to them.
“As your father would say, first the facts, then it’s hunting time.”
“We say the same thing,” Dean said proudly. Sam didn’t have the heart to remind him that they said no such thing, and that Dean was fond of going off in act now think later mode, leaving the brainy stuff to him. He pressed his lips together so as not to ruin his brother’s moment.
“The ghosts appear right there, at the edge of the clearing,” Nickelson began. They come out from the forest. If you stare long enough at anything, you can make yourself believe you’re seeing things, and staring at the forest is no different. Stare into it, you start to see the moonlight on the trees, deep inside; you start to see figures going past, moving around in there. But what I’m talking about isn’t one of those times, it’s something else. A little girl, a mother, a young boy, all have appeared right there,” he pointed out the window into the dark, “and they want something.”
“What,” Sam asked, “What do they want?”
“They want to know your secrets. When they've got them, they go.”
“Gives new meaning to skeletons in the closet, huh?” Dean smirked.
“They'll leave you alone in exchange for a secret,” Sam said, eyebrows as high as he could manage without being disrespectful.
“Something like that,” Nickelson replied. “And at this point in time, we have no more secrets to give them.”
“So you and your family have appeased them before by giving them something, telling them something, and then they go away.” Dean looked skeptical.
“We’ve given up a lot, Dean,” Nickelson said, gazing at him speculatively. “So did your father, once.”
“Why didn’t Dad get this sonnafabitch?”
“Maybe he was relieved to have somewhere for his secret to go,” Nickelson looked uncertain. “It's hard to resist the temptation to lay your burdens down. Now if you’ll excuse me, boys, that’s about as much as I’ve got to tell you. Extra rock salt is in the shed, along with some shovels. If you find them, I’d suggest you take care of them before you confess anything. Once you’ve spilled your secrets, they won’t be back until next time.”
*~*
Sam trailed along after Dean letting his boots drag a bit through the wet leaves on the ground. “This sucks,” he muttered. It was chilly and clear, a three-quarter moon gave them enough light, and they’d been trudging around in the dark for hours. “Sucks. Sucks. Sucks.” Each footstep deserved the word.
“Shut up, already,” Dean said. “You’re such a baby sometimes, I swear to god.”
“Seriously. We’re out in this million-acre forest of shitty bare-assed trees, looking for some ghosts who want to get in on some gossip. It’s stupid, Dean, you have to admit that this is one of the wilder goose chases we’ve been on.”
“When I say shut up, what does that mean to you?”
“It means that you agree with me and don’t want to appear to be agreeing,” Sam said.
“I thought I saw something, just up ahead,” Dean said.
"Remember what Nickelson said - people see things in here when they look hard enough. The moon plays tricks.”
“Doesn’t play tricks on me.” Dean stopped short as they heard a low rumbling. The trees had gathered in close around them, and a tense, knit canopy of roots and dead leaves above their heads shook in the wind. “Now that's just the wind, if you ask me,” Dean said.
Sam stumbled, bent down to look at what had caught his boot. He raised his voice above the wind. “Look at the stones on the ground, Dean, they’re smooth but they're square; maybe this is an old cemetery. Dean, this has to be it!”
Dean nodded and dropped to his haunches, fingering the dirt. “Sammy, you’re pretty observant for a white boy. Roots have upset the lay of the land, but these stones are grave markers. Fuck. We’ll never find the bones without digging all night, and how will we know which ones we’re even looking for?”
“We won’t. Dean this is weird.”
The wind picked up speed, sounding tortured in Sam’s ears, and he thought he could almost hear several different voices.
"Dean?"
The ground rolled under their feet and began to rupture. Tree limbs suddenly shot up through the damp and leathery cover of dead leaves, spinning up through the earth, rocking the slabs of stone, shaking loose roots from long-dead things and bringing up white bones and smooth worn skulls. The bones skittered around on the ground and tumbled in the dirt. Sam instinctively grabbed at one, pulling out a spindly skeletal arm.
“A dozen skeletons here,” Dean called out, “Maybe more. And a pretty angry spirit at work.”
Dean’s voice sounded far away but Sam could see his flashlight ducking and weaving a few yards away, his face flashing in and out of the dark. “Fuck this,” Sam called back, “Let’s salt and burn them all now.
“Wait, I want to see…”
“Don’t wait, Dean!”
Dean whirled around suddenly, looking straight at Sam. It was a look Sam was pretty sure he’d never seen before. At least, he’d never seen it when Dean knew he was watching. Dean advanced on him. Sam raised the skeleton arm just in case Dean was possessed or something.
“Are you possessed… or, or, something?” Sam shouted.
The ground rolled again, pitching Dean forward and Sam stumbled back, the bones went flying out of his hand and he landed hard on his ass in the dirt. He rolled over and Dean was there, right there, and he was both relieved and scared.
“Dean?”
Dean was pressed up against him, rolling to face him, rolling over him in fact, pinning him into the dirt. With horror, Sam felt his brother’s hot breath on his neck, felt a hardness against his thigh, felt the brush of Dean’s lips on that spot just under his ear. He broke into a cold sweat and a clammy knot of fear gathered in his stomach. He shoved Dean away as hard as he could.
Dean was looking at him, as if he were sure Sam would change his mind. But Sam knew his mind. He knew what Dean wanted, because he’d always known somehow. And deep down, it repulsed him. It was Dean’s secret, and Sam would give anything not to know; it was something he wished to God wasn’t true.
Sam’s secret was out too. He didn’t feel the same. He could never… not with his brother, not ever.
The bones stopped jittering and jigsawed back into the dirt. The wind suddenly stopped and the silence drowned out the thump of Sam's pulse.
They left before dawn. Dean peeled out of the parking lot into the grey pre-morning light like the hounds of hell were on his tail.
The note they left for Gerald Nickelson read:
See you in 10 years.
~*~
The White Mans Burden
Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.
Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.
Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood---
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent
Pablo Neruda
.