[Nym] Whistling in the darkness (PG)
Title: Whistling in the darkness
Author: nymeria
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gen, or Sam/Dean pre-slash if you take into account the fic this is based off.
Notes: This is a... prequel? Outtake? - from monkiedude's wonderful (Sam/Dean) fic There the Crevasse.
For: Monkie, of course. ♥
Beta: impertinence.
Word Count: 4,046.
Dean was seven when he first realised that he wasn't quite like other people.
It wasn't a gradual dawning of knowledge. He was in class, watching his teacher write on the chalkboard and letting the gentle chatter of background noise wash over him, and then he looked around and realised: nobody else heard it. His classmates worked in silence, frowning down at their books, puzzled even though Anne in the front row was practically screaming the answers at the top of her lungs, and Dean knew, then, that they couldn't hear her.
Even at seven, he knew he couldn't tell people. Dad had drilled it into them young; we don't tell people what's not their business to know. We don't tell the teacher that we spent our weekends learning Latin exorcism chants, in preparation for when we get big and old enough to help Daddy on his hunts. We don’t tell the teacher we can load a handgun in a thirty seconds, and we’re working on cutting that down.
Dean didn't need to tell his father to know what he'd say, that this was one of those things that wasn't anybody else's business, like mom being murdered instead of dying in an accident. That still didn't stop him from asking the teacher if she knew anything about hearing people's thoughts, though; she blinked at him, confused, and he hastily added that it was for a comic he was drawing, about a ninja with special abilities. She laughed and wrote the word 'telepathy' neatly on a scrap of paper, gave it to him and told him she would like to see the comic when he finished it.
He spent that weekend at the town library, charming the librarians into making photo-copies of dictionaries and encyclopaedias, perching in corners and reading crappy pulp novels with a frown on his face. By the time school rolled around again, Dean had learned three things: Everyone who read minds apparently eventually went crazy, nobody knew what the hell telepathy actually entailed, and there was no way he was telling his dad.
The latter was actually the most frustrating. Even as a relatively gullible seven-year-old, Dean knew the stuff about psychics being rounded up by the government and used as spies was a total lie, but even so, he wasn't prepared for the off-chance that his father would disbelieve him-or worse. Dad wanted to hunt non-human creatures, and frankly Dean didn't want to take a risk. Easier to hide it, anyway. At least, up until he went crazy, whenever that might be.
The books usually described the ability to hear thoughts as being bombarded with a terrible cacophony and, after Dean carefully looked up the word 'cacophony' in the dictionary, he'd decided that was retarded. Reading minds was no different to having an extra set of ears, and you couldn't turn off your normal ears, either. He'd discovered generally people couldn't speak and think at the same time; to get a good internal monologue going, most people had to shut their mouths, and vice versa. It wasn't a problem.
Besides, it made him a better big brother. Sammy was talking now, but not like Dean or Daddy, and he still tripped over long words. It was up to Dean to know if 'binky' meant blanket or his brother's favourite much-chewed-upon teddy bear, and he knew, with a sense of pride, that Daddy really appreciated his help.
Really, when it came down to it, it was just a matter of logic.
The years passed. Dean got bigger and, as promised, started hunting with his father. He never told anyone - not his 'educational psychiatrist' ("Dean, your teachers think you're a very smart boy, but you're just not trying enough."), not his one high-school girlfriend, not even Sammy. It was made easier by the fact that he never could read his dad - not that he tried, of course - and also? Didn't go nuts.
He was seventeen when their dad got a possible lead on the thing that took their mom, and before he could blink, he found himself dumped with babysitting Sam while staying with a colleague of their father's, some big guy in a Native American tribe. Sam bitched the whole drive over there, whining about missing school, about the lack of a decent library to do his homework in, and Dean just rolled his eyes, looked out the passenger window. Sam bitched most of the time these days, and even knowing as he did that his little brother was in pain, that his growth spurts hurt him and left him cold and hungry and scared, Dean didn't really feel too sorry for him. Been there, done that.
Still, he couldn't deny that his heart sank when their dad pulled into a parking space next to the tiny house with the dented roof. He had a vague feeling this was going to be like the summer with Caleb from two years ago; he and Sam put to work fixing up the place while the bastard stood out on his porch with a handgun, terrorising the wildlife. ‘My most favourite summer vacation ever’, Sammy had called it in an essay he wrote for his new school that fall, and Dean'd been proud of his little brother's ability to convey sarcasm textually.
John left them with three simple rules: don't piss the guy off, don't trash the place, and don't piss the guy off. Sammy had saluted sarcastically, muttered a grouchy "Yes, Sir," but John had been in too much of a hurry to give him more than a filthy look. He hadn't even gotten out of the car; had scolded them through the window when Dean got both their duffels out of the trunk.
"I'll see you two in a week or so," he said, eyeing Sam. "Be good."
"Yessir," Dean said, treading on Sam's foot when his brother thought something nasty. "Good luck."
"Thanks." John turned away and wound the window up, and Sam grabbed his duffel off Dean, shouldered it and fixed his elder brother with a glare.
"Gee, Dean, agree with the old man any more?" he sneered. Dean sighed and settled the budding argument the best way he knew: he put Sam in a headlock and gave him a fearsome noogie.
When they ended their scuffle -- Sam panting for breath, covered in dust, and looking somewhat like an electrocuted hedgehog -- the guy was standing on the porch, watching them. He wasn't a tall guy, even without being compared to Sammy; he wore a pair of faded jeans and a chequered old shirt, watched them both with dark eyes over the top of a hook nose and a lit cigarette. "You the Winchesters?" he asked, not removing the dog-end.
"Yessir," Dean replied quickly. "I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam."
The man nodded and Sam straightened up, self-consciously dusting off his shirt. Dean bent down and retrieved his duffel; the guy took a deep pull on the cigarette then dropped it, grinding it out with the heel of his sneaker. "You'll be bunking down in the room on the first floor. Second door to your right."
The brothers glanced at each other, and Dean didn't need telepathy to read the caution rolling off Sam. He shrugged, all affected casual indifference, and went first. After a while, Sam fell into step behind him, bitching under his breath about having to wash his damn jeans.
The room was small but serviceable. It contained a two-drawer dresser and a set of bunk beds, the top of which Dean promptly claimed, in part because Sam always hated sleeping on the top bunk, and in part because it was hard to get a bucket of water up the rickety ladder if he pissed Sam off. Sam whined for the hell of it, though, and then made a big deal of claiming the top drawer of the dresser. Dean watched his little brother fastidiously unpack his clothing, re-folding each item before placing it in the drawer, and made sure to snap his gum extra-loud. Sam pretended not to notice or care.
"Dean," he said, as he pushed the drawer shut. "Doesn't it irritate you?"
"Oh, here we go," Dean muttered, flopping down into his belly and planting his face in the thin pillow. Sam thought something unflattering about his attention span and said aloud, "Dean. How can it not piss you off that we're, like, a sack of potatoes or whatever to him?"
"Dunno," Dean said into his pillow, then raised his head to cough out the dust he'd accidentally swallowed.
"I mean, we don't even know this guy's name," Sam continued, ignoring Dean with a casual confidence picked up from experience. "We don't know what the lead he's after is, or even how much danger he'll be in -"
"Drop it, Sam" Dean said wearily, punching his pillow then climbing back down the ladder. He swung nimbly onto Sam's bed before his feet touched the floor, aiming to see if Sam's pillow was any better, and his brother yelped in protest, scrabbling across the room to save his stuff and nearly tripping over his own feet as he did so.
The ensuing secondary tussle was interrupted when Sam's belly grumbled, and he stopped squirming and just looked sort of sheepish, all fluffy curls and jeans slightly too short for him. Dean snorted and sat up, suggested poking around in Whatsisname's kitchen, and his baby brother was all too willing to agree. They snooped around for their host, but when unable to find him, decided to help themselves to peanut butter, jelly, and the guy's bread. Sam jiggled impatiently at Dean's elbow while he made sandwiches - four for Sam, two for himself - and pounced on his as soon as they were done. They ate at the guy's kitchen counter, elbow to elbow, Sam wolfing down his food so fast Dean had to reach out and grab his wrist, admonish him to slow down before getting indigestion.
"I'm not a little kid anymore, Dean," Sam said, glaring, expression fixed into something Dean privately called his Bitchface.
"If you choke to death I'll just stand and laugh," Dean said, earning him the Bitchface, maximum power level.
Sam did slow down, though, so he guessed it was an accomplishment after all.
Throughout their stay, Dean caught the guy looking at him at the oddest moments. It wasn't a pervy look, or friend of his father's or not, Dean would've kicked his ass - it was considering, thoughtful. The guy didn't speak much, and Sam and Dean were content to keep to their room or the yard, keeping each other company in a way they were used to. You don't travel around the country, swapping schools every six months - a year, if you were lucky - without leaning to make your sibling your best friend, and play fights aside, Sam and Dean were perfectly capable of getting along without anything else to do.
The guy came out to them around lunchtime on a Tuesday, four days after they'd turned up. They were sitting on the back porch, feet hanging over the edge of the dusty ground, discussing in low tones the hottest celebrities they could think of - Dean was pushing a certain actress, Sam a female pop star, and Dean was working on not reacting at Sam's sudden mental image of a popular male TV star topless - when the back door opened with a creak.
"There you are," their host said, stepping onto the porch. His voice was gruff. Dean had told Sam that's what happened if you smoked too many cigarettes, and Sam had wrinkled his nose up in disgust. Both of them twisted to glance over at him now, Dean shifting a little, automatically preparing to get between Sam and the intruder if he tried anything.
"Sir," he said, pleasantly, and Sam looked away, went back to kicking his sneakers. Four days and they didn't even know the guy's name. Dean hadn't seen him around that much, either, but enough to know, bizarrely, the guy was like Dad - Dean couldn't read him.
"I need some potatoes for dinner tonight," the guy said, ignoring Dean's greeting. "Sam, I want you to go to the store for me."
"What? No!" Sam snapped his head back, glaring something fierce at the older man. "That's like, a forty-minute walk, like hell am I going when you've got a car parked at the side of the house."
Their host seemed unaffected by the outburst, just bought a tobacco pouch out from the back pocket of his jeans and began rolling himself a cigarette. "Language," he said. "Just go, kiddo. I need to talk to your brother a while."
"Me?" Dean asked, not as surprised as he could've been, at the same time as Sam snapped, "Whatever you have to say to him, you can say it with me there."
"No, I can't," the guy said evenly. "Now beat it, or we ain't having dinner tonight."
"Sam, it's okay," Dean interjected, still watching the older man. "I think he can be trusted. Besides, he's going to give you twenty bucks, and you get to keep the change."
Sam opened his mouth to protest and then paused, ever-mercenary. The guy raised his eyebrows, glancing up from his cigarette to Dean, and then nodded slowly, reaching into his other pocket and pulling out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. "Don't spend it all at once," he admonished, and Sam snorted in disgust, grabbed the money before hopping off the porch and hitching his jeans up.
"See you in a bit," he said.
"Get me some chips, jerk," Dean ordered, and Sam flipped him off, giving him one last curious glance before trudging around the side of the house, towards what passed for the main road here. Dean watched him go, and then glanced down at his feet when he went out of sight. With a sigh, the older man came and sat down next to him, where Sam had been, although not as close.
"So," he said, and Dean glanced over at him - baseball cap, unbuttoned shirt, white undershirt, dusty blue jeans. Everything he wore always looked faded and well-worn; Dean suspected he bought his clothes new every month and then ran them over a couple of times before wearing them.
"If this is about the jello -"
"I think you know what this is about," his host said quietly, leaning forward to lick the tobacco paper and beginning to roll it up. "Frankly, kiddo, I'm surprised you've let it go on this long. Your dad don't know, right?"
Dean knew there was only two ways this could go, so he picked the sensible route. "No," he said. "I never told him."
His host sighed, nodded. "Probably a wise decision. Your old man, he's got his head screwed on right when it comes to family, but he's antsy around us. Probably would've treated you differently."
Dean made a non-committal noise, glanced down at his feet. The man turned away, fumbled in his pockets for a lighter. "So, you - you're like me?" he asked, twitching one of his feet, watching the laces flop.
"Not exactly," the guy said, voice muffled around the cigarette in his mouth. He retrieved a well-used Zippo from one of his pockets and bent forward to light up. As he did so, something slipped free of his undershirt; a gold pendant, on a leather thong. Dean glanced away, licked his lips. "I don't think I know anyone like you, kid. Be impressed. You're unique. How many people can say that?"
Dean snorted, picked at a loose thread on the knee of his jeans. "I'm a freak," he said, but there was no heat in it. "Why are you bringing this up?"
"Because I think you ought to know that there's... things. Exercises you can do, to shut people out. Right now, you stick out like a sore thumb to those who care to look." The guy took a deep drag, let the air out in a cloud of smoke through his nostrils. "They ain't complicated, but they help."
"Like what?" Dean asked, glancing up when he ran out of loose thread. His host was watching him, beady eyes dark and somehow gleaming. They reminded Dean a little of a crow. "Chant a spell every morning in front of a mirror? Draw a giant rune on my forehead?"
"Or just recite Led Zeppelin in your head." He shrugged. "You do like Zeppelin, right? John said something about it on the phone."
"Yeah. It's Sam who likes that whiny grunge shit." Dean sighed, placing his hands back on the porch and leaning back.
"Thank God I only have record players around here," the guy muttered, and Dean snorted, grinning. "Look, Dean, it don't have to be hard. I can teach you how to defend yourself. There are things that like psychics."
"Like what?" Dean asked, raising an eyebrow, and the guy sighed, took a deep drag on his cigarette.
"Like certain types of demons. Unprotected psychics are also the most commonly possessed. Kids, for instance."
Dean sighed, rubbed his face with his hands. "So you're saying unless I listen to you, I'm a danger to my family?"
His host nodded slowly, looking away. "Pretty much."
"It... um..." Dean swallowed, licked his lips. He really wasn't sure how to voice his next question, although he'd been dwelling on it since he was ten. "The thing that came for my mom, it... was it..."
"Had nothing to do with you," the guy said, and although Dean got the impression there was something else he wasn't saying, he couldn't deny the way something in his chest eased up, the way it was easier to breathe again.
"Okay," he managed, nodding. "Okay."
His host patted his shoulder comfortingly, and Dean ducked his head, breathed in for a few seconds until he had himself under control. "For a couple of hours every day, from now until you leave, I can teach you how to shield yourself. If you want, I mean."
"That'd be good," Dean said, and his voice sounded raspy to his own ears. "Sam won't like it, though."
"Sam's..." the man paused, unsure what to say. "Sam's different from you. You'll see what I mean, eventually."
"He's not - psychic too, is he?" Dean asked, worried, and breathed a sigh of relief when the guy shook his head.
"Not that I can sense," his host added. "Kids are born with it. You were listening to thoughts when you were a baby. Sam's totally normal."
"Good. One freak in this family is enough," Dean said, with conviction.
"Mmm." The guy took another drag on his cigarette and let the air go in a slow cloud, glanced over at Dean. "So. What were you saying about the jello?"
"Dean?" Sam's voice sounded oddly small in their shared bedroom, and Dean sighed, sat up in the dark.
"What's wrong?" he asked, trying to keep his irritation out of his voice. He'd learnt how to reach out for Sam, how to check on his location and health from a mile away, although not how to block him out. He resisted doing that now; he always felt incredibly guilty when he spied on his brother.
"What are you - what do you talk about? When you and he..." Sam trailed off, and Dean sighed, threw back the covers. Loneliness and rejection was practically pouring out of Sam, although Dean felt like a moron when he climbed slowly down the ladder to Sam's bunk, slid under the scratchy quilt, curled around his baby brother. They hadn't done this for at least six months. Sam turned towards him, lying on his side, face profiled by the dim light let in through the tiny bedroom window.
"We have sex, Sam," he teased, and then felt like a jerk when Sam blinked, when thoughts flickered through Sam's head of his own awkward male-orientated fantasies, of seeking advice and help from his elder brother. He sighed, brushing Sam's hair off his cheek. "Or not. We just talk. I think he's lonely."
"So why does he snub me?" Sam asked, sounding a little hurt and a lot petulant. Dean rolled his eyes.
"Probably your charming personality," he said, and his brother scowled at him.
"You're hilarious," Sam snapped, turning over to put his back to Dean. His brother sighed and reached out, placing his hand on the small of Sam's back where Sam ached most frequently from his growing pains and rubbing gently.
"I'm also incredibly hot," he countered, and Sam laughed despite himself, quickly turning it into a growl. He was Sam, though, and Dean knew him better than anyone, and so a couple of minutes later he uncurled, rolled over to face Dean again. His brother ruffled his hair fondly. "Look, all we do is talk about gun stuff. Turns out the guy has a raging hard-on for handguns. And I know you hate talking about guns, and I also know you snuck four books into your duffel when we left, despite dad telling you to throw away the lot."
"Can't I keep anything secret from you?" Sam muttered grumpily, but he seemed a lot calmer, appeased. Dean grinned at him, shook his head.
"Not a chance," he said. "I'm too amazing."
Sam rolled his eyes but didn't correct him. "Your feet are cold," he said instead, wrinkling his nose, and Dean laughed.
"Yeah, well... your face is cold," he offered for lack of a better comeback, and Sam's face split into a smile as welcome as it was bright. Dean messed up his little brother's hair again, because he could, and thought wistfully it would be nice if Dad didn't come pick them up tomorrow, if they could stay just another day like this.
... And then it was five years later and Dean was riding shotgun in the car, had a helluva headache because Dad was pissed about something and Sam was pissed about something and even worse, Sam was planning to announce his Stanford thing tonight and Dean couldn't think of a single way that'd go down well. He pressed his cheek to the window of the Impala, rubbed at his temple with his left hand, and glanced in the mirror at Sam, sitting in the back seat. His brother has his arms folded, glaring out the window at the squat building their dad had entered some minutes ago.
John emerged with their mail in his hands, looking vaguely puzzled. They didn't normally check their Kentucky PO Box - this was the first time in six months - and there weren't really that many letters in his father's hands. When his dad opened the door and slid behind the wheel and handed over a letter with Dean's name written on in faded ballpoint, that was when Dean understood what was odd. They didn't get mail, not in their real names. His dad had one too, a long thing in a white envelope; Dean's was silver, and bulging.
"What is it?" Sam asked, curious, leaning forward over the edge of the seat. Their dad glanced up sharply, but didn't scold him, instead opening his own letter.
"Dunno," Dean said, and ripped the top open with his thumbnail, emptying it on his palm. When the little golden pendant on the leather thong fell out, he just curled his fingers around it, closed his eyes and sighed.
"Huh," their dad said. "Old Cheveyo died. The letter's from his daughter. You remember him; you stayed with him in the summer of '96."
"Yeah," Dean replied, quietly. "I remember him."
He uncurled his fingers, looking again at the horned warrior, and nodded. He wasn't stupid enough to believe the pendant carried any sort of psychic weight, that wearing it would help him block his power, but he knew what it was, what it could mean. His eyes flicked at the mirror, at the reflection of Sam, hanging off the back of his seat all puppy-dog eyes and honest curiosity.
"Well, okay then," he murmured, and smiled.
-fini
First: I'd like to thank impertinence, recruited out of nowhere, who responded by ribbing me about writing something not incestous porn and talking about cockroaches. I don't know either.
The title of this little keyboard abortion comes from the David Henry poem Crevasse. As I finished the html mark-up for this fic, I got an email from Monkie informing me the original title - There The Crevasse - is from the Tenacious D song Wonderboy, so now I feel like a total pretentious Eng Lit kid. Next I'll write Sam/Sam/Dean porn with a title pulled from Ulysses, just watch and wait!
THREE FICS. TWO DAYS. OH MY GOD, SELF.
Author: nymeria
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gen, or Sam/Dean pre-slash if you take into account the fic this is based off.
Notes: This is a... prequel? Outtake? - from monkiedude's wonderful (Sam/Dean) fic There the Crevasse.
For: Monkie, of course. ♥
Beta: impertinence.
Word Count: 4,046.
Dean was seven when he first realised that he wasn't quite like other people.
It wasn't a gradual dawning of knowledge. He was in class, watching his teacher write on the chalkboard and letting the gentle chatter of background noise wash over him, and then he looked around and realised: nobody else heard it. His classmates worked in silence, frowning down at their books, puzzled even though Anne in the front row was practically screaming the answers at the top of her lungs, and Dean knew, then, that they couldn't hear her.
Even at seven, he knew he couldn't tell people. Dad had drilled it into them young; we don't tell people what's not their business to know. We don't tell the teacher that we spent our weekends learning Latin exorcism chants, in preparation for when we get big and old enough to help Daddy on his hunts. We don’t tell the teacher we can load a handgun in a thirty seconds, and we’re working on cutting that down.
Dean didn't need to tell his father to know what he'd say, that this was one of those things that wasn't anybody else's business, like mom being murdered instead of dying in an accident. That still didn't stop him from asking the teacher if she knew anything about hearing people's thoughts, though; she blinked at him, confused, and he hastily added that it was for a comic he was drawing, about a ninja with special abilities. She laughed and wrote the word 'telepathy' neatly on a scrap of paper, gave it to him and told him she would like to see the comic when he finished it.
He spent that weekend at the town library, charming the librarians into making photo-copies of dictionaries and encyclopaedias, perching in corners and reading crappy pulp novels with a frown on his face. By the time school rolled around again, Dean had learned three things: Everyone who read minds apparently eventually went crazy, nobody knew what the hell telepathy actually entailed, and there was no way he was telling his dad.
The latter was actually the most frustrating. Even as a relatively gullible seven-year-old, Dean knew the stuff about psychics being rounded up by the government and used as spies was a total lie, but even so, he wasn't prepared for the off-chance that his father would disbelieve him-or worse. Dad wanted to hunt non-human creatures, and frankly Dean didn't want to take a risk. Easier to hide it, anyway. At least, up until he went crazy, whenever that might be.
The books usually described the ability to hear thoughts as being bombarded with a terrible cacophony and, after Dean carefully looked up the word 'cacophony' in the dictionary, he'd decided that was retarded. Reading minds was no different to having an extra set of ears, and you couldn't turn off your normal ears, either. He'd discovered generally people couldn't speak and think at the same time; to get a good internal monologue going, most people had to shut their mouths, and vice versa. It wasn't a problem.
Besides, it made him a better big brother. Sammy was talking now, but not like Dean or Daddy, and he still tripped over long words. It was up to Dean to know if 'binky' meant blanket or his brother's favourite much-chewed-upon teddy bear, and he knew, with a sense of pride, that Daddy really appreciated his help.
Really, when it came down to it, it was just a matter of logic.
The years passed. Dean got bigger and, as promised, started hunting with his father. He never told anyone - not his 'educational psychiatrist' ("Dean, your teachers think you're a very smart boy, but you're just not trying enough."), not his one high-school girlfriend, not even Sammy. It was made easier by the fact that he never could read his dad - not that he tried, of course - and also? Didn't go nuts.
He was seventeen when their dad got a possible lead on the thing that took their mom, and before he could blink, he found himself dumped with babysitting Sam while staying with a colleague of their father's, some big guy in a Native American tribe. Sam bitched the whole drive over there, whining about missing school, about the lack of a decent library to do his homework in, and Dean just rolled his eyes, looked out the passenger window. Sam bitched most of the time these days, and even knowing as he did that his little brother was in pain, that his growth spurts hurt him and left him cold and hungry and scared, Dean didn't really feel too sorry for him. Been there, done that.
Still, he couldn't deny that his heart sank when their dad pulled into a parking space next to the tiny house with the dented roof. He had a vague feeling this was going to be like the summer with Caleb from two years ago; he and Sam put to work fixing up the place while the bastard stood out on his porch with a handgun, terrorising the wildlife. ‘My most favourite summer vacation ever’, Sammy had called it in an essay he wrote for his new school that fall, and Dean'd been proud of his little brother's ability to convey sarcasm textually.
John left them with three simple rules: don't piss the guy off, don't trash the place, and don't piss the guy off. Sammy had saluted sarcastically, muttered a grouchy "Yes, Sir," but John had been in too much of a hurry to give him more than a filthy look. He hadn't even gotten out of the car; had scolded them through the window when Dean got both their duffels out of the trunk.
"I'll see you two in a week or so," he said, eyeing Sam. "Be good."
"Yessir," Dean said, treading on Sam's foot when his brother thought something nasty. "Good luck."
"Thanks." John turned away and wound the window up, and Sam grabbed his duffel off Dean, shouldered it and fixed his elder brother with a glare.
"Gee, Dean, agree with the old man any more?" he sneered. Dean sighed and settled the budding argument the best way he knew: he put Sam in a headlock and gave him a fearsome noogie.
When they ended their scuffle -- Sam panting for breath, covered in dust, and looking somewhat like an electrocuted hedgehog -- the guy was standing on the porch, watching them. He wasn't a tall guy, even without being compared to Sammy; he wore a pair of faded jeans and a chequered old shirt, watched them both with dark eyes over the top of a hook nose and a lit cigarette. "You the Winchesters?" he asked, not removing the dog-end.
"Yessir," Dean replied quickly. "I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam."
The man nodded and Sam straightened up, self-consciously dusting off his shirt. Dean bent down and retrieved his duffel; the guy took a deep pull on the cigarette then dropped it, grinding it out with the heel of his sneaker. "You'll be bunking down in the room on the first floor. Second door to your right."
The brothers glanced at each other, and Dean didn't need telepathy to read the caution rolling off Sam. He shrugged, all affected casual indifference, and went first. After a while, Sam fell into step behind him, bitching under his breath about having to wash his damn jeans.
The room was small but serviceable. It contained a two-drawer dresser and a set of bunk beds, the top of which Dean promptly claimed, in part because Sam always hated sleeping on the top bunk, and in part because it was hard to get a bucket of water up the rickety ladder if he pissed Sam off. Sam whined for the hell of it, though, and then made a big deal of claiming the top drawer of the dresser. Dean watched his little brother fastidiously unpack his clothing, re-folding each item before placing it in the drawer, and made sure to snap his gum extra-loud. Sam pretended not to notice or care.
"Dean," he said, as he pushed the drawer shut. "Doesn't it irritate you?"
"Oh, here we go," Dean muttered, flopping down into his belly and planting his face in the thin pillow. Sam thought something unflattering about his attention span and said aloud, "Dean. How can it not piss you off that we're, like, a sack of potatoes or whatever to him?"
"Dunno," Dean said into his pillow, then raised his head to cough out the dust he'd accidentally swallowed.
"I mean, we don't even know this guy's name," Sam continued, ignoring Dean with a casual confidence picked up from experience. "We don't know what the lead he's after is, or even how much danger he'll be in -"
"Drop it, Sam" Dean said wearily, punching his pillow then climbing back down the ladder. He swung nimbly onto Sam's bed before his feet touched the floor, aiming to see if Sam's pillow was any better, and his brother yelped in protest, scrabbling across the room to save his stuff and nearly tripping over his own feet as he did so.
The ensuing secondary tussle was interrupted when Sam's belly grumbled, and he stopped squirming and just looked sort of sheepish, all fluffy curls and jeans slightly too short for him. Dean snorted and sat up, suggested poking around in Whatsisname's kitchen, and his baby brother was all too willing to agree. They snooped around for their host, but when unable to find him, decided to help themselves to peanut butter, jelly, and the guy's bread. Sam jiggled impatiently at Dean's elbow while he made sandwiches - four for Sam, two for himself - and pounced on his as soon as they were done. They ate at the guy's kitchen counter, elbow to elbow, Sam wolfing down his food so fast Dean had to reach out and grab his wrist, admonish him to slow down before getting indigestion.
"I'm not a little kid anymore, Dean," Sam said, glaring, expression fixed into something Dean privately called his Bitchface.
"If you choke to death I'll just stand and laugh," Dean said, earning him the Bitchface, maximum power level.
Sam did slow down, though, so he guessed it was an accomplishment after all.
Throughout their stay, Dean caught the guy looking at him at the oddest moments. It wasn't a pervy look, or friend of his father's or not, Dean would've kicked his ass - it was considering, thoughtful. The guy didn't speak much, and Sam and Dean were content to keep to their room or the yard, keeping each other company in a way they were used to. You don't travel around the country, swapping schools every six months - a year, if you were lucky - without leaning to make your sibling your best friend, and play fights aside, Sam and Dean were perfectly capable of getting along without anything else to do.
The guy came out to them around lunchtime on a Tuesday, four days after they'd turned up. They were sitting on the back porch, feet hanging over the edge of the dusty ground, discussing in low tones the hottest celebrities they could think of - Dean was pushing a certain actress, Sam a female pop star, and Dean was working on not reacting at Sam's sudden mental image of a popular male TV star topless - when the back door opened with a creak.
"There you are," their host said, stepping onto the porch. His voice was gruff. Dean had told Sam that's what happened if you smoked too many cigarettes, and Sam had wrinkled his nose up in disgust. Both of them twisted to glance over at him now, Dean shifting a little, automatically preparing to get between Sam and the intruder if he tried anything.
"Sir," he said, pleasantly, and Sam looked away, went back to kicking his sneakers. Four days and they didn't even know the guy's name. Dean hadn't seen him around that much, either, but enough to know, bizarrely, the guy was like Dad - Dean couldn't read him.
"I need some potatoes for dinner tonight," the guy said, ignoring Dean's greeting. "Sam, I want you to go to the store for me."
"What? No!" Sam snapped his head back, glaring something fierce at the older man. "That's like, a forty-minute walk, like hell am I going when you've got a car parked at the side of the house."
Their host seemed unaffected by the outburst, just bought a tobacco pouch out from the back pocket of his jeans and began rolling himself a cigarette. "Language," he said. "Just go, kiddo. I need to talk to your brother a while."
"Me?" Dean asked, not as surprised as he could've been, at the same time as Sam snapped, "Whatever you have to say to him, you can say it with me there."
"No, I can't," the guy said evenly. "Now beat it, or we ain't having dinner tonight."
"Sam, it's okay," Dean interjected, still watching the older man. "I think he can be trusted. Besides, he's going to give you twenty bucks, and you get to keep the change."
Sam opened his mouth to protest and then paused, ever-mercenary. The guy raised his eyebrows, glancing up from his cigarette to Dean, and then nodded slowly, reaching into his other pocket and pulling out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. "Don't spend it all at once," he admonished, and Sam snorted in disgust, grabbed the money before hopping off the porch and hitching his jeans up.
"See you in a bit," he said.
"Get me some chips, jerk," Dean ordered, and Sam flipped him off, giving him one last curious glance before trudging around the side of the house, towards what passed for the main road here. Dean watched him go, and then glanced down at his feet when he went out of sight. With a sigh, the older man came and sat down next to him, where Sam had been, although not as close.
"So," he said, and Dean glanced over at him - baseball cap, unbuttoned shirt, white undershirt, dusty blue jeans. Everything he wore always looked faded and well-worn; Dean suspected he bought his clothes new every month and then ran them over a couple of times before wearing them.
"If this is about the jello -"
"I think you know what this is about," his host said quietly, leaning forward to lick the tobacco paper and beginning to roll it up. "Frankly, kiddo, I'm surprised you've let it go on this long. Your dad don't know, right?"
Dean knew there was only two ways this could go, so he picked the sensible route. "No," he said. "I never told him."
His host sighed, nodded. "Probably a wise decision. Your old man, he's got his head screwed on right when it comes to family, but he's antsy around us. Probably would've treated you differently."
Dean made a non-committal noise, glanced down at his feet. The man turned away, fumbled in his pockets for a lighter. "So, you - you're like me?" he asked, twitching one of his feet, watching the laces flop.
"Not exactly," the guy said, voice muffled around the cigarette in his mouth. He retrieved a well-used Zippo from one of his pockets and bent forward to light up. As he did so, something slipped free of his undershirt; a gold pendant, on a leather thong. Dean glanced away, licked his lips. "I don't think I know anyone like you, kid. Be impressed. You're unique. How many people can say that?"
Dean snorted, picked at a loose thread on the knee of his jeans. "I'm a freak," he said, but there was no heat in it. "Why are you bringing this up?"
"Because I think you ought to know that there's... things. Exercises you can do, to shut people out. Right now, you stick out like a sore thumb to those who care to look." The guy took a deep drag, let the air out in a cloud of smoke through his nostrils. "They ain't complicated, but they help."
"Like what?" Dean asked, glancing up when he ran out of loose thread. His host was watching him, beady eyes dark and somehow gleaming. They reminded Dean a little of a crow. "Chant a spell every morning in front of a mirror? Draw a giant rune on my forehead?"
"Or just recite Led Zeppelin in your head." He shrugged. "You do like Zeppelin, right? John said something about it on the phone."
"Yeah. It's Sam who likes that whiny grunge shit." Dean sighed, placing his hands back on the porch and leaning back.
"Thank God I only have record players around here," the guy muttered, and Dean snorted, grinning. "Look, Dean, it don't have to be hard. I can teach you how to defend yourself. There are things that like psychics."
"Like what?" Dean asked, raising an eyebrow, and the guy sighed, took a deep drag on his cigarette.
"Like certain types of demons. Unprotected psychics are also the most commonly possessed. Kids, for instance."
Dean sighed, rubbed his face with his hands. "So you're saying unless I listen to you, I'm a danger to my family?"
His host nodded slowly, looking away. "Pretty much."
"It... um..." Dean swallowed, licked his lips. He really wasn't sure how to voice his next question, although he'd been dwelling on it since he was ten. "The thing that came for my mom, it... was it..."
"Had nothing to do with you," the guy said, and although Dean got the impression there was something else he wasn't saying, he couldn't deny the way something in his chest eased up, the way it was easier to breathe again.
"Okay," he managed, nodding. "Okay."
His host patted his shoulder comfortingly, and Dean ducked his head, breathed in for a few seconds until he had himself under control. "For a couple of hours every day, from now until you leave, I can teach you how to shield yourself. If you want, I mean."
"That'd be good," Dean said, and his voice sounded raspy to his own ears. "Sam won't like it, though."
"Sam's..." the man paused, unsure what to say. "Sam's different from you. You'll see what I mean, eventually."
"He's not - psychic too, is he?" Dean asked, worried, and breathed a sigh of relief when the guy shook his head.
"Not that I can sense," his host added. "Kids are born with it. You were listening to thoughts when you were a baby. Sam's totally normal."
"Good. One freak in this family is enough," Dean said, with conviction.
"Mmm." The guy took another drag on his cigarette and let the air go in a slow cloud, glanced over at Dean. "So. What were you saying about the jello?"
"Dean?" Sam's voice sounded oddly small in their shared bedroom, and Dean sighed, sat up in the dark.
"What's wrong?" he asked, trying to keep his irritation out of his voice. He'd learnt how to reach out for Sam, how to check on his location and health from a mile away, although not how to block him out. He resisted doing that now; he always felt incredibly guilty when he spied on his brother.
"What are you - what do you talk about? When you and he..." Sam trailed off, and Dean sighed, threw back the covers. Loneliness and rejection was practically pouring out of Sam, although Dean felt like a moron when he climbed slowly down the ladder to Sam's bunk, slid under the scratchy quilt, curled around his baby brother. They hadn't done this for at least six months. Sam turned towards him, lying on his side, face profiled by the dim light let in through the tiny bedroom window.
"We have sex, Sam," he teased, and then felt like a jerk when Sam blinked, when thoughts flickered through Sam's head of his own awkward male-orientated fantasies, of seeking advice and help from his elder brother. He sighed, brushing Sam's hair off his cheek. "Or not. We just talk. I think he's lonely."
"So why does he snub me?" Sam asked, sounding a little hurt and a lot petulant. Dean rolled his eyes.
"Probably your charming personality," he said, and his brother scowled at him.
"You're hilarious," Sam snapped, turning over to put his back to Dean. His brother sighed and reached out, placing his hand on the small of Sam's back where Sam ached most frequently from his growing pains and rubbing gently.
"I'm also incredibly hot," he countered, and Sam laughed despite himself, quickly turning it into a growl. He was Sam, though, and Dean knew him better than anyone, and so a couple of minutes later he uncurled, rolled over to face Dean again. His brother ruffled his hair fondly. "Look, all we do is talk about gun stuff. Turns out the guy has a raging hard-on for handguns. And I know you hate talking about guns, and I also know you snuck four books into your duffel when we left, despite dad telling you to throw away the lot."
"Can't I keep anything secret from you?" Sam muttered grumpily, but he seemed a lot calmer, appeased. Dean grinned at him, shook his head.
"Not a chance," he said. "I'm too amazing."
Sam rolled his eyes but didn't correct him. "Your feet are cold," he said instead, wrinkling his nose, and Dean laughed.
"Yeah, well... your face is cold," he offered for lack of a better comeback, and Sam's face split into a smile as welcome as it was bright. Dean messed up his little brother's hair again, because he could, and thought wistfully it would be nice if Dad didn't come pick them up tomorrow, if they could stay just another day like this.
... And then it was five years later and Dean was riding shotgun in the car, had a helluva headache because Dad was pissed about something and Sam was pissed about something and even worse, Sam was planning to announce his Stanford thing tonight and Dean couldn't think of a single way that'd go down well. He pressed his cheek to the window of the Impala, rubbed at his temple with his left hand, and glanced in the mirror at Sam, sitting in the back seat. His brother has his arms folded, glaring out the window at the squat building their dad had entered some minutes ago.
John emerged with their mail in his hands, looking vaguely puzzled. They didn't normally check their Kentucky PO Box - this was the first time in six months - and there weren't really that many letters in his father's hands. When his dad opened the door and slid behind the wheel and handed over a letter with Dean's name written on in faded ballpoint, that was when Dean understood what was odd. They didn't get mail, not in their real names. His dad had one too, a long thing in a white envelope; Dean's was silver, and bulging.
"What is it?" Sam asked, curious, leaning forward over the edge of the seat. Their dad glanced up sharply, but didn't scold him, instead opening his own letter.
"Dunno," Dean said, and ripped the top open with his thumbnail, emptying it on his palm. When the little golden pendant on the leather thong fell out, he just curled his fingers around it, closed his eyes and sighed.
"Huh," their dad said. "Old Cheveyo died. The letter's from his daughter. You remember him; you stayed with him in the summer of '96."
"Yeah," Dean replied, quietly. "I remember him."
He uncurled his fingers, looking again at the horned warrior, and nodded. He wasn't stupid enough to believe the pendant carried any sort of psychic weight, that wearing it would help him block his power, but he knew what it was, what it could mean. His eyes flicked at the mirror, at the reflection of Sam, hanging off the back of his seat all puppy-dog eyes and honest curiosity.
"Well, okay then," he murmured, and smiled.
-fini
First: I'd like to thank impertinence, recruited out of nowhere, who responded by ribbing me about writing something not incestous porn and talking about cockroaches. I don't know either.
The title of this little keyboard abortion comes from the David Henry poem Crevasse. As I finished the html mark-up for this fic, I got an email from Monkie informing me the original title - There The Crevasse - is from the Tenacious D song Wonderboy, so now I feel like a total pretentious Eng Lit kid. Next I'll write Sam/Sam/Dean porn with a title pulled from Ulysses, just watch and wait!
THREE FICS. TWO DAYS. OH MY GOD, SELF.