Step Nine 2/?
Chapter Two
Sam trudged into the motel room, feeling miserable, a failure. Everything he was doing was useless. He wasn’t helping anybody. Bobby was right, he was just bringing more anguish to people he’d already hurt.
“Oh you have freakin got to be kidding me.” Dean dropped his duffle at the threshold with a dissatisfied thunk, looking around the room Sam hadn’t bothered to glance up enough yet to see. Pink. The walls were Pepto Bismal pink. Fru-fru ruffled purple comforters. The little table by the lace covered window was made of some kind of clear bubbled acrylic with . . . were the chairs meant to look like high heels?
Something unhinged inside Sam’s chest, vibrating softly as it rose to the surface, a familiar current so long buried he’d forgotten it ever existed. Laughter. Simple laughter. He felt it quiver in his throat, slip past his lips in a quiet chuckle. He couldn’t help it, the room was so ridiculous, Dean’s features so pained over a color, Death’s wall so fragile against the enormity of Hell and raindrops splattered like blood . . . and God, how could he be sure this wasn’t another part of Hell seeping through the wall because he was certain, staying in this cartoon catastrophe of a room with Dean running an all night commentary of how Snow White and all seven dwarves must have thrown up all this shit had to be some sort of version of Hell, right?
“What kind of motel is this!” Dean stomped out of the room, glanced at the normal looking clapper-board exterior, then clomped back inside, arms shooting up in exasperation.
And Sam lost it. Laughter roared out of him like a meal coming up wrong.
His shoulders shook with it, stomach clenching and unclenching like a pump, and Dean . . . Dean’s arms dropped. He stared at Sam the same way he’d done when he’d first come to get him at Stanford, when he thought Sam didn’t notice, like he hadn’t seen him in years, which Sam supposed was exactly right, exactly this. He’d been MIA, gone, left the building, and it skewered Sam’s heart to see such a look on his older brother until Dean’s face cracked, eyes crinkling at the corners as his mouth widened and the deep tenor of his older sibling’s laugh curled around the garish room, warming the very air.
The rich tones sank inside Sam’s skin, a salve drifting like a blanket to settle over his wounded soul and for a brief moment Sam was able to look at Dean and see his brother, grinning and laughing, not bent backwards under a snarly haired vampire’s dripping wrist. He missed this. He missed Dean. God, how he’d missed him.
So desperately that the tears already coating his eyes from laughing, now clogged in his throat while the hilarity of it all still warmed his chest, and tiny gasping hiccupping sounds wrestled between sadness and joy to see which would be the victor and spill out first.
His arms pressed against his stomach, trying to hold in the warmth, cling to it just a while longer when despair won out and Sam found himself sunk to his knees, shoulders lifting and dropping as they traveled the current of huge shattering sobs.
Dean was also on his knees, palms snaked around Sam’s shoulders. Dean’s arms rose and fell with Sam’s harried breathing. He didn’t say anything, just let Sam ride it through, rode it through with him, until the gasping ceased, breathing grew easier.
Swallowing tightly, Sam nodded, looking at the white carpet, the black compact fridge, anywhere but at Dean. “Do you . . . “ he winced at the ragged sound of his voice, cleared his throat. “Do you want to change rooms?”
Dean squeezed Sam’s arm. “Not for anything.”
Sam gave a half smile at that and nodded. He gazed around the pink walls, lingered on the high heel chairs and felt a genuine smile settle at his lips. He was a complete mess, he knew that, but for the first time in months-hell, years, centuries even-he’d felt a tiny moment of peace.
#
Sam moved the poached eggs around on his plate.
“There’s a possible hunt the next county over,” Dean said around the last bite of his blueberry pancakes. “We could be there by this afternoon.”
Sam’s forehead furrowed. “I haven’t gone back to that gas station yet.”
“I know, but Sam . . .” Dean put his fork down. “This one’s tearing you up. I can tell. Maybe it’s one of those you need to just let be. ‘Cause from where I’m sitting, it’s too personal, too close to-“
“What happened to Madison?” Sam glanced up from his uneaten eggs. “Is that what you were going to say?”
Dean didn’t back down. He never backed down. “Actually. Yeah. Yes.”
The waitress came to refill their coffees, well Dean’s coffee since Sam hadn’t touched his yet. And her skin started curling away from her face in thin strips like a potato peeler was taken to her, revealing shiny bloodied bone beneath. All the other customers in the diner turned in their booths to stare at Sam, faces flaying away in various degrees of bleeding disrepair. In the booth across from them, a man’s lips shredded away into stringy pieces. His teeth fell from torn gums onto the table. Click. Click. Click-click. Click.
“Can I get you anything else, hon?” The waitress was saying. Sam’s gaze jerked back to her. Pretty little thing really, smooth unblemished skin. Whole. “Sir?”
“No,” Sam whispered, eyes darting around the booths where diners were busily occupied with their own breakfasts. “Nothing for me. Thanks.”
Brows lowered, Dean stared at him.
Sam looked down at his plate, feeling the heaviness of his brother studying him. Sam waited until the waitress had moved far enough away. “I need to do this.”
Dean didn’t say anything, forcing Sam to look up. His sibling’s lips were pursed, brows colliding over worried eyes. Finally Dean sighed, eased up, leaned back against his bench. “Look. All I’m saying is give it some time. This one’s killing you, man. We go the next county over, pop ourselves some ghost, then come right back. The guy will still be there and you’ll have a little more time to sort out . . .” Dean waggled his fingers “. . . whatever it is you’re afraid of saying to him. Besides, Sam, people in present danger supersedes anything else.”
Sam looked away again. “Yeah, okay. Of course you’re right. So what’s the hunt?”
“Would you believe a bona-fide scalp-taking mountain man?”
TBC
Next Chapter
Chapter 1