SPN Fic: a light to lead you home
Title: a light to lead you home
Fandom: Supernatural
Summary: Two months after Dean makes his deal, he and Sam go investigate a haunted lighthouse. In Iowa. S3 casefile. Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers through early S3; incest.
Word Count: ~6,900
Notes: Incredibly late fic for yanyann at the
. My eternal gratitude to familiardevil for the beta and hand holding and for cherie_morte and scorpiod1 for the support and encouragement.
There is a lighthouse in Iowa.
It stands ninety-feet tall, presides over a green sea of soybeans and corn, and, according to popular belief, is one of the most haunted structures in America.
They drive through the night to get there, fresh off an exorcism. Dean’s still adrenaline twitchy, but Sam falls asleep quickly, spent time alone with the demon before Dean could break down the door that separated him from his brother. Sam had already exorcised the thing by the time he made it through, and was checking the no longer there pulse of the host.
The sky is peach-colored ahead of them, lavender behind, when Dean finally decides to sleep. He wakes Sam up then and they switch seats. Sam is a silent and solemn figure next to him, hands steady as he navigates them into morning.
Dean dreams nothing but black, and he wakes about four hours later. The Impala is parked. Sam's seat is empty. For a disorienting moment, all Dean can see is a gray strip of asphalt running parallel to an angry blue sky.
After a second, he spots Sam striding towards the car, a white bag held in his hand, and the world rights itself. They’re in a McDonald’s parking lot.
“Breakfast,” announces Sam, opening the passenger door and handing the bag to Dean. “You good to drive again, sleeping beauty? We’re still another four hours from the lighthouse.”
“Should have driven faster then, Sammy,” says Dean, sliding over to the driver’s seat. He digs out two egg McGriddles, leaves the other two for Sam and hands the bag back.
“Some of us don’t enjoy baiting the cops,” says Sam dryly. “We have enough fun hunting ghosts for a living.”
“That’s just because you’re a seventy-year old woman,” says Dean. He takes a bite of his McGriddle and grimaces. "Just once," he says mournfully, "I'd like a home-cooked meal."
Sam's quiet for a long moment, and Dean thinks his brother has decided not to answer. It’s something he’s doing more and more these days, wrapped up in his thoughts and whatever foolhardy plans he’s got to break Dean’s deal.
Then Sam says, mock-thoughtful, "I guess we could wrap up a couple baked potatoes in aluminum foil and throw those into the engine block along with a couple of steaks. Give it an hour, and there you go. Home cooked meal."
"Very funny," says Dean, grinning in spite of himself. He pats the dashboard. "But she's a lady, not an oven. And I will haunt your ass if you treat her like one."
Sam really does go quiet after that.
“Hey,” he says, “I didn’t-”
“I should get some more sleep,” says Sam, cutting him off. He slouches down in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest. Dean considers talking anyway, but he knows Sam well enough by now to know when he shouldn’t pick and when he can get away with it. He even puts Johnny Cash into the tapedeck instead of Metallica. Sam’s had plenty of practice falling asleep to both of them, but he’ll have an easier time with Ring of Fire than Enter Sandman.
Dean’s just a damn good brother that way.
Nebraska rolls out ahead of him, empty and flat and bright, sunflowers leaning against fenceposts and cows wandering lazily in the fields. The night before, Dean had the stars and his still riled fear for Sam to keep him company; now he’s got nothing but his own thoughts.
He wonders idly if he should start making a list. Things he’d like to do before he dies. Fill it with the maudlin and the mundane. Most people, faced with a time limit like his, want to do things like go sky-diving, see Paris. Dean has no need for cheap adrenaline, no desire to travel more than he has. He just wants to keep working like always, keep his brother from killing himself.
It’s a deadend line of thought, and a dark one, and Dean’s left with nothing to occupy him besides a sleeping brother. A lifetime on the road and he still hasn’t found anything more entertaining. He switches over the cassettes then, and at Robert Plant’s first wail, Sam twitches and blinks awake.
“Asshole,” Sam mutters, rubbing at his eyes.
Dean smiles victoriously. “Morning sunshine! Let’s play eye spy.”
“Four,” says Sam. “You’re four.” But he sits up straight and glances out the window before gritting out, “Something yellow.”
They skip lunch, driving straight through the noon hour and Dean watches the sun wobble from its center position and start slipping down westward. It’s mid afternoon by the time they pull into town. It’s easy enough to find the lighthouse. Even if it weren’t the tallest structure for miles, there are signs everywhere pointing the way, playing up the haunted angle and advertising the one reason someone might want to stop in this dusty corner of the state.
To Dean’s surprise though, there are at least a dozen other tourists milling around the keeper’s house turned giftshop and keeping an eye on the “tours start here” sign.
The tour guide appears soon after Sam and Dean do. She’s an ever-smiling woman with a thick, gray rope of a braid and liverspots nestled among the creases of her constantly moving hands.
"Only six at a time," she chirps to the crowd at large. She waves them apart into knots of six and Sam and Dean find themselves attached a blonde couple with a towheaded toddler and a surly teenager whose expression becomes a little less surly once she spots Sam.
They’re lucky. The tour guide- her name tag reads Cynthia- favors them with a nod and a wave of her hand. They shuffle out behind her, Sam shooting Dean a bemused look as she launches into her spiel.
“The lighthouse,” she says, as they enter the structure- Dean looks up and up and up at the shell-like spiral of stairs that await them- “was built in 1847 by one of the founders of this town, Samuel-” Dean smirks and elbows Sam in the side; Sam calmly steps on his foot, and they begin the ascent up the stairs- “Towson, who built it in honor of his dead wife, Jean. Jean and Samuel were members of the underground railroad. Jean was especially ardent about the abolitionist cause and was known as the Lady of the Lantern-” air quotes- “by the people she helped.”
“She’s the one people keep seeing as a ghost?” interrupts the blonde mother. She’s flushed slightly, panting a bit as they all round another curve of the lighthouse stairs. Dean’s thighs are even beginning to feel a slight burn, and they’re all pressed tight together. Sam’s ass is right in front of his face and Dean thanks God that he’s not claustrophobic, and aims his gaze past his brother’s hip.
“That’s right!” says Cynthia, incredibly cheerful for so morbid a subject. “As the story goes, Jean would hang lanterns off her back porch to communicate with those traveling along the railroad. One lantern meant safety, two meant danger. And one night, while Samuel wasn’t in, one of the lanterns fell and set the house on fire.” Cynthia pauses. Her voice goes low and hushed like she’s imparting some dreadful secret, “Cynthia perished that night, but, really, some say she’s never left.”
Dean rolls his eyes at the drama. The story is nothing he hasn’t heard already. He and Sam did their research. He zones out the rest of her speech, a history on the building of the lighthouse and a noting of various historical facts of interest. He’s concentrated mostly on his breathing, trying to keep it relatively steady as the flight of stairs continues to not fucking end. He must huff anyway, because Sam shoots him a smirk over his shoulder and asks, all innocence, “Getting a little breathless there? Maybe you should take a break.”
“Maybe you should take a break,” sneers Dean in response, flipping him off. But Sam’s already turned away and finally, finally, they clamber to the top.
Cynthia immediately points to a glass case near the mouth of the staircase. It’s awkwardly located, and Dean nearly bumps into Sam when he stops to avoid it.
“And that,” she says proudly, “is Jean’s journal. It miraculously survived the fire and has been of great historical importance to historians studying the workings of the underground railroad.” She emphasizes each syllable of “great historical importance” loudly and precisely.
"So when the house burned down," says Sam to Cynthia, interrupting her continuous chatter, and doing a far better job at looking sweetly curious than Dean would have managed, "Jean's body would have burned up too, right?"
"That's right," says Cynthia cheerfully in response. "Jean's body was never found, though her husband did put up a rather nice tombstone in the town cemetery. In fact, we had some 'paranormal investigators' 'round here a couple years ago who said the lack of a body might even be what's keeping her here." She gives an exaggerated shiver. "Gruesome stuff."
"Huh," says Dean. "Paranormal investigators. Wonder how you get a job like that?"
Sam elbows him less than subtly in the side and Dean responds by punching him in the shoulder. Cynthia reacts to them with a wide and toothsome smile.
"I mean," says Dean, satisfied that Sam is rubbing his shoulder. "How often is Jean seen?"
The blonde family is eyeing them suspiciously now, but Cynthia hasn't dropped her smile.
"Every few months or so," she says. "Mainly by the janitorial staff. We generally don't allow people in here after dark, and that's when sightings are most common."
"So that means the lighthouse isn't actually in use," says the father.
"Oh, Lord no," laughs Cynthia. "That would..."
Dean wanders away from the small group to go stare out over the crop fields. A placard informs him that, on a clear day, he might be able to see all the way to Illinois.
"I don't know how you'd be able to tell," he says, when Sam comes to stand behind him.
"Tell what?" asks Sam, low-voiced. Dean points at the placard.
"Tell where Illinois even is," he says. "It's all just crops."
Sam puts his hand on the small of Dean's back and Dean wonders if Cynthia and the family can see it, or if Sam's body is blocking the view.
"So we're thinking it's the journal?" asks Sam.
"Do you even have to ask?" mutters Dean dryly.
The tour’s another fifteen minutes after that, the six of them wandering through the top of the lighthouse, examining the equipment and admiring the views. It’s the same view from every angle. More crops and the endless arc of the sky.
“Hey,” says Sam, still entirely too close to Dean, has been following him like a puppy all throughout, “I can see our house from here.”
“Yeah, asshole, the car’s right there,” bites back Dean, gesturing downward at the parking lot far below, the late afternoon light reflecting white off the Impala’s black polish.
Sam’s smile is half a grimace, and he doesn’t say anything in response. But he still keeps close to Dean when they finally go back down the stair. Tight turn after tight turn and Sam’s hand has moved up to the space between his shoulder blades, like he’s ready any moment to grab onto Dean’s shirt should Dean stumble.
“So that was helpful,” says Sam, once they’re outside. “What time should we head back over?”
“Late,” says Dean, “once the janitors are gone.” He shrugs, “Midnight?”
Sam nods, and they both move to head out, when Cynthia speaks from behind them.
“Now boys,” she chides gently, “you’re not running away without me letting you take your picture, are you?”
Sam’s smile has just as many watts to it as Cynthia’s, but it’s more obviously forced.
“No thanks,” he tries, but Dean cuts him off, slinging an arm around Sam’s shoulder and keeping him tied to the spot.
“We’d love to have our picture taken,” he says. Cynthia beams at him in response and raises the camera.
“You two are the cutest couple,” she says brightly, just as the camera flashes. Dean doesn’t choke at the words, but he feels Sam flinch slightly beneath his arm.
“You’re too kind,” replies Dean demurely. He lets go of Sam but first pats him comfortingly on the back, and the camera groans and rattles as it spits out the picture.
The image is still black when Cynthia hands the photo to Dean, and he stares down at it, waiting for the picture to bloom. It comes slowly, the white of their faces and their hands, followed by the solid blocks of color of their clothes, and then the details finally settle into place, Sam’s dimples and the cut of his eyes, looking not at the camera, but at Dean.
“You all right there, Dean?” shouts Sam, and Dean looks up. Sam’s ten yards away, snuck off while Dean was waiting for the image to materialize.
“Patience is a virtue,” he remarks dryly back. It’s a good picture, shame he doesn’t have anywhere to put it. There’s no Winchester family mantle. He turns to face Cynthia. “I owe you anything for this?”
She shakes her head. “Photos are courtesy of the tour,” she says, and then her voice drops into a low and conspiratorial tone. “You know,” she says, “they say in some of those pictures, you can actually see Jean’s ghost lurking in the background.”
Instinctively, Dean looks at the photo again, but there’s nothing there except him and Sam and the base of the lighthouse behind, the late afternoon light washing everything to golden. He smiles.
“No such luck this time,” he says, sticking the photo into the back pocket of his jeans. “But thanks again.” He jogs after his brother.
“I saw a diner,” says Sam quietly, brushing his hand against Dean’s shoulder, when Dean catches up to him, “about a block away.”
Dean nods and he and Sam walk shoulder to shoulder through the broad, flat streets of the town. It’s gone evening, which means the quiet buzz of tourists stopping to see a roadside attraction has died down completely. It’s just locals and Sam and Dean now.
The diner is wide-windowed and clean-looking, advertises that the food is “Just like Mom made” in bold, white letters just above a Help-wanted sign.
Dean asks for the kid's menu "for my little brother here," and Sam, as if to prove Dean's point, sticks out his tongue in retaliation. The waitress indulges them though, and brings over the paper kid's menu along with a cup of broken crayons.
"What kind of color is burnt siena anyway?" asks Dean morosely as Sam beats him the second time at tic-tac-toe while they wait for their food.
"The color of the crayon isn't the reason you keep losing," says Sam smugly, marking his victory x.
Dean rolls his eyes and snags the menu away, starts drawing a hangman's platform over "Bridget the Badger's" head.
"No, the reason you keep winning is that you cheat," shoots back Dean, counting up the letter's in the phrase.
"Sore loser," mutters Sam. He props his head up on his hands. "A."
Sam ends up guessing 'Sam Winchester wears women's underwear' before he gets hanged, but the epic scowl he levels makes it a victory for Dean all the same.
Dean eats pot roast and mashed potatoes and green beans, and who knows, maybe someone’s mom even made it. He remembers Mary cooking, an image of her standing at the stove and singing along softly to the radio. But if he’s being honest, he’s not sure if it’s a memory or just something he imagined, something he stole, maybe, from some long ago and otherwise forgotten tv show.
Sam kicks him under the table and steals a spoonful of mashed potatoes. He smirks at Dean from around the spoon, and Dean smiles, kicks him back.
He studies Sam from across the formica table, tries to see him the way someone like the blonde teenager would. He just sees his brother, the dark circles under his eyes that mean he hasn’t been sleeping well, his hair getting too long and tangling in the back, the broken skin on his lips from not drinking enough water, and the healing bruise on his cheekbone from a poltergeist the week before.
He’s just Sam, tired and vulnerable and his.
“Take a picture. It lasts-” says Sam, fidgety under Dean’s gaze, and then he groans as Dean smirks.
He whips the photo out of his pocket and lays it flat on the table. “Still don’t believe that we’re related,” he says. “I’m much better looking than you.”
Sam flips him off with one hand, gestures for the check with the other.
The waitress points them in the direction of a motel, and even though it, like everything else in town, is within easy walking distance, they swing by the lighthouse to pick up the Impala. It’s still too early to go looking for the ghost.
The motel is clean and neat as everything else in town, and the boy who checks them in could be Cynthia’s grandson, has the same wall of teeth. Maybe there’s something about being in the middle of nowhere with nothing but crops and the boundless sky that drives people to overfriendliness. Nothing to keep and hold their interest but each other.
It’s just past sunset by the time they drop their duffels on the motel floor. The light which comes in through the crease in the curtain is reddish, and paints the wall in bright and dying hues.
“Dean,” says Sam. He steps too close to Dean, too close in the darkening room and his hand hovering over Dean’s arm.
Dean turns to face him. It brings them even closer, so that he has to tilt his head back to keep his eyes steady on Sam’s.
“Sam,” he says amiably, like a greeting, and more calmly than his intentions should allow. “We got a couple of hours to kill before our usual breaking and entering.”
Sam’s eyes widen, flicker through confusion and shock and wariness before settling into an emotion Dean’s never quite been able to read, something that’s caught between pleasure and fear.
Sam’s hands are large and gentle as they frame Dean’s face.
“You sure?” he says softly, like he hadn’t spent the entire tour hovering over him, breath on the back of Dean’s neck. His thumbs brush along Dean’s cheekbones and Dean’s spine shivers.
Dean wraps his fingers in Sam’s shirt, but doesn’t make a move to either close or lengthen the distance.
He’s not sure why he’s decided to start this up now. This thing which is new and fragile between them. He kissed Sam, or he let Sam kiss him, night that they killed Yellow Eyes. Sam holding onto Dean with the fear of losing him and Dean clinging to Sam with the relief of keeping him.
They hadn’t done much beyond kissing, Dean pushing Sam into the wall, Sam wonderfully alive beneath his hands. It wasn’t a sex thing. Dean still looks at Sam and thinks brother before anything else, not his fault that that’s a more complicated word for him than it is for most others.
He’s trying to figure out a language that’ll make it possible to explain Sam why he did what he did.
That Sam’s always been what marks Dean’s way home.
“No,” he answers finally, detangling his fingers from Sam’s shirt. Sam drops his hands and nods, chewing the bottom of his lip.
“All right,” he says. “Okay. I’m,” he stutters on the word. “I’m gonna go for a walk.”
Dean nods, feeling dizzy, and sits down on the nearest bed.
“Don’t be out too late,” he says, hearing his voice distantly, and he’s sure ‘going for a walk’ means something more like read a book Sam shouldn’t have or call a contact Sam shouldn’t know in an attempt to break Dean’s deal. “We have to-”
Sam closes the door midway through Dean’s sentence and Dean goes quiet. He’s left in the empty motel room, the light fading fast around him. It’s July, and the days are already getting shorter.
He turns on the TV, nothing better to do, and there’s not much more they can learn about the ghost. He considers calling someone, but the only one he’s certain would pick up is Bobby, and Bobby’s the last person in the world who Dean wants to tell about his relationship problems with his brother.
He ends up falling asleep to the nightly news, to news of something awful happening somewhere far away to people Dean will never be able to help.
It’s pure black outside when Sam shakes him quietly awake. The room is all monotone, gray and shadow, and Sam a slightly darker shadow looming above him.
“Get your beauty sleep?” Sam asks, teeth white and brief as he flashes a smile.
“Don’t need it,” says Dean with a yawn and a stretch. “We discussed this at dinner. I got all the pretty genes in the family, Caveman.”
“You’re just jealous of my manly virility,” deadpans Sam. He pulls at Dean, hands on his arms, getting Dean onto his feet and into Sam’s immediate personal space, like Sam has two settings these days- faraway and Siamese twin.
“You ready to go?” asks Dean, stepping neatly away from Sam and ignoring his comment, “Or are you gonna stand around and talk all night?"
“Funny, you’re funny,” sneers Sam. He shoves Dean towards the door.
“And you’re funny looking,” says Dean cheerfully. He steps out of the motel and into the mild night air, Sam once again glued to his back.
The lighthouse is visible even at this distance, even unlit in the dark, a ghostly pillar running perpendicular to the black horizon.
Dean disables the cameras and alarm while Sam picks at the locks, and it’s the work of twenty minutes to get inside.
“These goddamn stairs,” grumbles Dean.
“Getting old,” smiles Sam, and then the smile falters.
Dean shoulders past him. “Whatever,” he snaps. “Can still beat you to the top.”
Sam’s smile makes a tentative return. “That a fact?”
Dean doesn’t bother with a proper answer. He tosses off a smirk and goes running up the stairs. The ghost knows they’re here, or she doesn’t, and all the noise in the world won’t make a difference. And winded or not won’t make much of a difference in Dean’s ability to shoot a salt bullet or burn a book.
Sam’s boots are heavy and loud behind him, the sound of their running echoing and tripling in the hollow spaces of the lighthouse. He hears Sam stifle a gasping laugh and starts laughing himself. It makes him even more winded and breathless and Sam grabs at his ankle and tries to drag him back.
“Hey!” protests Dean. “Cheating!” He kicks ineffectually at Sam with his free foot and hears Sam laugh more openly this time. Dean balances precariously on the ball of his trapped foot.
“For the last time,” says Sam smugly, moving his grip to the back of Dean’s jeans and holding him in place as he moves up the steps and carefully past Dean, “I don’t cheat. You’re just awful at everything.”
Dean holds very still while Sam maneuvers around him. Then, right when Sam slides past him, reaches out and yanks at lock of his hair.
Sam yelps with pain. It’s enough of an advantage for Dean to shove past
“Too bad,” he calls back, “because I do cheat.”
He makes it to the top first, heaving with silent, breathless laughter. Sam’s just behind him, equally out of breath. He punches Dean in the shoulder and mouths a smiling, “Jerk.”
Dean mouths “Bitch,” back at him, and they stand there for a moment, catching their breaths and grinning like moondumb idiots.
The ghost is completely silent. There’s no warning to her sudden presence, no crackle of static electricity nor shift in the temperature that Dean’s used to. None of the dawning sense of dread.
She’s just there, a flickering apparition of a thin, pale woman, her eyes hollow and dark. She lifts her arm to point at them, mouth opening around a soundless word. Dean bolts at her, shotgun raised. Sam levels his own shotgun and takes a step back to aim.
He goes tumbling down the stairs.
Dean shouts, wordless and loud. He has the presence of mind to blast some rocksalt, to no effect, before swinging around in one fluid movement and rushing off after Sam.
Sam’s only about ten feet down, managed to catch himself after a short tumble. He’s crouched, grimacing, one hand on the railing, but definitely not dead or wounded.
“Fucking idiot,” mutters Dean, hauling Sam up to his feet. “Literally fell head over ass.” He skims his hands down Sam’s body, making a quick, instinctive search for injuries. Sam bares his teeth in pain and clutches his head, but he’s fine. He’s fine. Dean’s heartbeat slows down to a little more close to normal.
“I’m the idiot,” mutters Sam, leaning a little more on Dean than is probably strictly necessary. “You’re the one who ran head on at the ghost.”
“Wasn’t a ghost,” says Dean tightly.
Sam’s head jerks up. “What?”
“Rocksalt didn’t affect it, and you noticed how it didn’t feel like a ghost?”
“So what is it?”
Dean shrugs. “Let’s go find out.”
The woman is still there when they get to the top. She’s in the same position, with the same expression of nothingness as when she first appeared. Dean and Sam watch as she raises her arm slowly in the same gesture, mouth making the same soundless word. She lowers her arm. The apparition remains there for a long moment, flickering. And then disappears.
Sam glances at Dean. “A death loop?” The apparition pops back. Cycles through everything again.
“Wouldn’t it be her dying then?” says Dean. “She’s just….pointing.”
“And you’re right,” says Sam, studying her. “She doesn’t feel like a ghost”
Sam strides forward, straight through the ghost, and Dean watches light ripple across his brother, the woman’s shape distort.
“Not a ghost,” says Sam decisively, stepping to the side. The woman appears again.
“It’s a projection,” says Dean, dumbstruck. “She’s just…She’s an illusion.”
“So, where’s she coming from?” says Sam, wondering aloud. He looks at the projection and then around the room.
“The journal,” says Dean abruptly. Sam gives him a curious look. Dean shrugs. “It’s at the right angle. And it makes sense for the glass case to be there.”
Sam nods and hmms in response, and goes to bend down in front of the case. The ghost disappears, and Sam’s chest lights up with the projection.
“Well, jinkies,” Sam says dryly. He looks back at Dean. “Looks like we’ve found ourselves a clue.”
Dean groans. “Jesus Christ. What kind of amateur hour shit is this?”
Sam stands up and steps away; the projection flickers back.
“So we both know who’s behind this, right?” asks Dean flatly. He eyes the “ghost” with distaste.
“I don’t know Shaggy,” says Sam, all mock-innocence and round eyes. “Could it be old man Wilson?”
They dismantle the glass case easily, disarming the alarm beforehand. Dean picks up the journal and, sure enough, it’s hollow. A projector peering out from inside it.
“I wonder if this Jean lady ever existed in the first place,” says Sam.
Dean shrugs. He’s irritated. “Who the fuck cares?” he says, and smashes the projector.
***
Cynthia’s home isn’t too hard to find.
Dean bangs on the door and rings the doorbell in quick succession. Sam stands nearby, looking uncomfortable.
“Dean,” he hisses, “this isn’t necessary. It’s not a ghost and you already smashed the projector.”
Dean ignores him and bangs on the door again. Somewhere in the house, a light flickers on. Dean hears light footsteps, and then the door opens a quarter-way with a soft snick. Cynthia peers out warily, a wedge of light falling across the doorstep.
Dean sticks his foot inside, to keep her from closing the door on them.
“Cynthia,” he says before she has the chance to speak. He bares his teeth in a grin. “You remember us from earlier today?”
Cynthia, to her credit, doesn’t back down. She fixes an equally cheerless smile on her face and throws her shoulders back.
“Of course,” she says. “Something I can do for you boys? Did you leave something in the lighthouse?”
“No,” says Dean, “but we’re pretty sure you did.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” sniffs Cynthia, but her mouth thins out in displeasure and there’s a defensive edge to her voice that makes Dean suspect a lie.
“There’s no ghost,” says Sam softly, breaking into the conversation. Dean frowns at him, wanted to trap Cynthia in her own words, but Sam ignores him. “It was a projection. And either you or someone else were using it to scare people into thinking there’s a ghost to, I don’t know, attract tourists.”
Cynthia hesitates, trying to figure out to lie or confess.
“Was?” she says eventually, stress on the past tense.
“We smashed the projector,” says Dean.
Cynthia looks suddenly miserable, mouth turned down and shoulder sagging. “No one was getting hurt by it,” she says defensively, her voice high and trembling.
“My brother-” says Dean angrily, at the memory of Sam falling down the stairs, and Cynthia’s eyes go wide and flick between them.
“Your brother?” she says.
Dean remembers then the impression he and Sam gave, the impression he purposefully reinforced, the impression that is no longer entirely false. He doesn’t blush, has a lifetime worth of training to lock down any emotion he doesn’t want to show or have, but it takes him a moment to find his voice.
“My brother,” he repeats savagely, “nearly killed himself when your ‘ghost’-”
“Dean,” says Sam tiredly, tugging on Dean’s arms “She’s right. No one was getting hurt by this except for tourists getting bilked out of a few bucks. And it’s over. It’s done.”
“But you did almost got hurt,” snaps Dean, rounding on Sam. “You fell down those fucking stairs.” And how the fuck is Dean gonna be able to die peaceful if he can’t even trust his brother around fake ghosts and stairs?
Sam shrugs wearily. “That’s because we have a damn stupid job, Dean.”
Dean knows that, wants more than anything for his sacrifice to mean something beyond Sam going through the same shit they’ve been doing the past two years. Sam’s the only one who ever stood a chance at normal anyway, and it’s one more thing Dean doesn’t think he’ll make his brother understand.
“Dean,” repeats Sam, one hand wrapped around Dean’s bicep, the other on Dean’s back, pressed between the shoulder blades again. “Come on Dean. Let’s just head back to the motel.”
Cynthia’s been watching the two of them with wide, darting eyes, a shell of a person without her gleaming defense of a smile. She’s ancient-looking like this, the fragile kind of old with transparent skin and arthritic bone, her gray hair lank around her shoulders. Dean sees her suddenly as just that, an old women trying to drum up revenue and interest in some absurd offroad tourist attraction, the story only a threat to those who went out of their way to make it one.
He sags into Sam’s grip, and Sam realizes he’s won the battle. He nods at Cynthia.
“Sorry ma’am for the trouble,” he says politely, pulling Dean away. “We’ll just be going now.”
Cynthia stares at them all through the walk down the driveway and as they get into the car. But Dean doesn’t think she’ll call the cops, so that’s something.
“Fucking waste of a day,” he snarls, angry all the same, as soon as they get inside the Impala. It’s still relatively early, enough to catch five or six hours of sleep before pointing the Impala to their next destination.
Sam makes an annoyed noise, and Dean glances at him.
“What?” he says, disgruntled. “It was.”
“So there wasn’t a ghost,” says Sam, and there’s definitely a peeved edge to his voice. “It just means we’re out of the gas it took to get us here.”
Dean frowns. “No,” he snaps. “It means we wasted a day doing something that didn’t help anyone. We chose this hunt over that manticore in Wisconsin Sam. What if it’s decided to move on from cows and started going after kids? I’ve got-“
He’s got ten months. And he’s angry, suddenly, his general irritation with the day and his residual panic over Sam suddenly flaring up and hot. He’s gt ten more months to do something worthwhile with his life.
“You’ve got 297 days left,” says Sam, voice hard and heavy as a stone, a damning finality to it. “And you know something Dean?” The stony reserve cracks, and Sam’s voice pitches sharply and suddenly upward, the way it’s always done when he’s furious. “I don’t care that there wasn’t a ghost, and I wouldn’t have cared if there was, I-”
He cuts himself off, lips curled in a snarl, hand fisted against the window.
“What,” insists Dean, and he shouldn’t be pushing at this. Today isn’t Sam’s fault any more than it’s Dean’s, but two years of just the two of them on the road together and they’ve trained themselves into taking advantage of each other. Sam’s the only person he can take his frustration out on. “What are you trying to say Sam?”
“I’m saying,” says Sam darkly, “any day we don’t get you out of the deal, is a waste of a day. I don’t care how many people we save along the way.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a waste then,” Dean snaps back. “You’re not going to break the deal Sam. I’m not gonna let you.”
The drive back to the motel is completely silent.
Sam slams the Impala’s door when he gets out, and the whole car shakes from it.
“Hey!” yelps Dean, scrambling out of the car.
Sam turns to face him. His shoulders are tensed and high, hands fisted at his side.
“What?” he snarls, and it’s clear that the drive back was just enough time for him to build his anger to a roar. Sam’s always been like that, pointed to far inward and always getting tangled in his own emotions.
“Just,” says Dean, and the drive had the opposite effect on him. He’s just tired now, wants this day done and behind them, and for all that it was a waste, it wasn’t such a bad day on reflection. “Just be careful with her, all right?” And then because he’s never been able to stop himself when he needed to, not when it comes to Sam, “She’s going to be the only thing you’ve got left here pretty soon. I gotta know she’s in trustworthy hands.”
Sam visibly wavers, and for a moment Dean isn’t sure if his brother is going to come over and strike him or cry. Sam walks away instead, headed to the motel door.
Dean licks his lips, tastes salt and, in the back of his throat, the drying taste of fear.
He darts forward, in front of Sam, and blocks him at the door.
“Dean,” snaps Sam, and Dean holds up a hand, places it on Sam’s chest. Remarkably, Sam goes silent, but he still eyes Dean angrily.
“Hey,” Dean says, “I’m…” and there’s nothing he can say. Today isn’t something he and Sam are ever gonna agree on. He reaches up and grips the back of Sam’s head, fingers curling in his hair, and pulls Sam toward him.
“You really need to look before you leap, okay?” he says, when their foreheads are touching.
Sam can’t hide a smile then. He rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to snap something back, and clearly the day’s saved. Sam’s just regular annoyed and amused with Dean.
So Dean kisses him.
It’s different from the last time; Sam doesn’t respond immediately. Dean wonders briefly if that’s his fault, if he’s frittered away the chances given him. Then Sam moves against him, tongue licking into Dean’s mouth.
Dean pushes him against the door, and Sam’s hands are wide and greedy as they slide up Dean’s sides. It’s a bruising kiss; Sam’s all teeth, nipping at Dean’s lips. Dean shoves his thigh between Sam’s legs for support, feels that Sam is getting hard already. Sam’s hands find skin, and Dean shudders at his touch.
He breaks off the kiss then, but he doesn’t move away this time.
“We should,” he says, panting. And he’s doing this. He’s doing this. “We should go inside.”
“Okay,” agrees Sam breathlessly. He doesn’t move. “If you weren’t,” he says, all hesitance, “you know, would you, would we…”
Dean shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits honestly. He’s doing this because it’s Sam, and he keeps almost losing him, and Dean doesn’t know how else to show Sam that he’s the one thing Dean needs to keep.
He thinks this is just going to backfire. That it’s just going to make Sam cling to him all the more.
“That’s,” says Sam, pained expression crossing his face. “I don’t know either,” he says, blurting out the words. “You’re just. Fuck.”
“I know,” laughs Dean. They’ve started rocking against each other, forming a steady rhythm, and Dean bites his lip as Sam’s thigh presses against his cock. “But really we should-”
“Yeah,” says Sam, and there’s just enough light to see that his pupils are blooming outward.
Dean pulls the motel key out of his pocket, fingers brushing against the photograph, and then fumbles with the doorknob.
He opens the door, and Sam pulls him through it.
***
Sam wakes up before Dean does the next morning. There’s the smell of coffee but no Sam. Dean finds the coffee- cold at this point, as if Sam expected him to wake earlier- on the nightstand, but no note from Sam, which means his brother is nearby. Probably.
The clock reads 11:13, and Dean realizes then that Sam’s let him sleep in. He must have woken up before the alarm, then turned it off to slip away.
Dean gets dressed quickly and does not panic. It’s bad enough to wake up and not find Sam on a regular morning, Sam with his history of sudden departures, but even Dean wouldn’t blame him at this point.
He should be freaking out about the sex, instead he’s just worried Sam has left, either taken or disgusted or even just figuring that the best way to save Dean is to not be distracted by him. But all of Sam’s stuff is here, his duffel bag neatly packed and his cellphone on the table. That doesn’t mean Sam’s safe, necessarily, just that he hasn’t run off of his own volition.
He does what John would do, a perimeter search of the motel. He finds Sam sitting crosslegged by the vending machines, nose in a book. It reminds Dean, ridiculously, of Sam as a kid. Twelve or thirteen and he would wander off somewhere, “for a little privacy,” he’d snap, and Dean would find him a couple hours later, engrossed in some novel.
“Whatchya reading?” he asks now, nudging Sam’s leg with his foot. He’s pretty sure it’s not a novel.
Sam startles, clearly having been oblivious to Dean’s approach. But his expression of surprise quickly switches over to one of defiance. He snaps the book shut and stands, ignoring Dean’s outstretched hand of assistance.
“A book,” he says, and Dean gets a glance at the book before Sam hides it behind himself. The word Demon is part of the title, written in an ornate golden script. He frowns, but he’s not going to start the day with an argument. It’s funny, he thinks, how last night didn’t change anything, different kind of tension that’s setting them at odds with each other.
“Well come on,” he says brusquely, “we’ve already wasted half the day.”
Sam glares at him, but he doesn’t disagree.
It’s short work to get packed and on the road, and as Dean reaches into his pocket of the jeans, same pair of jeans he wore yesterday, his fingers brush against the photograph again.
He pulls it out as soon as he gets in the car and looks at it. Sam watches him narrowly.
“Here,” Dean says, handing the photograph over to Sam. It’s crinkled and slightly creased, but still good. “Something to remember me by.”
He tries to say it jokingly, but the words fall flat even as he says them, create something awkward and ugly between them. Sam takes the photo from Dean anyway, spends a few moment smoothing out the wrinkles and staring down at it as Dean drives them out into the highway.
“No,” Sam, says, five minutes later and startling Dean. Sam rolls down the window.
“No what?” demands Dean. He looks over at Sam, and Sam, face set, tears the photo into four neat squares, half and then half again.
“I’m not going to need it.”
He tosses the squares out the window, and they flutter away, into the dust and the sky of the road behind them.
-End
AN: Feedback is good karma. Thanks for reading.
Fandom: Supernatural
Summary: Two months after Dean makes his deal, he and Sam go investigate a haunted lighthouse. In Iowa. S3 casefile. Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers through early S3; incest.
Word Count: ~6,900
Notes: Incredibly late fic for yanyann at the
. My eternal gratitude to familiardevil for the beta and hand holding and for cherie_morte and scorpiod1 for the support and encouragement.
There is a lighthouse in Iowa.
It stands ninety-feet tall, presides over a green sea of soybeans and corn, and, according to popular belief, is one of the most haunted structures in America.
They drive through the night to get there, fresh off an exorcism. Dean’s still adrenaline twitchy, but Sam falls asleep quickly, spent time alone with the demon before Dean could break down the door that separated him from his brother. Sam had already exorcised the thing by the time he made it through, and was checking the no longer there pulse of the host.
The sky is peach-colored ahead of them, lavender behind, when Dean finally decides to sleep. He wakes Sam up then and they switch seats. Sam is a silent and solemn figure next to him, hands steady as he navigates them into morning.
Dean dreams nothing but black, and he wakes about four hours later. The Impala is parked. Sam's seat is empty. For a disorienting moment, all Dean can see is a gray strip of asphalt running parallel to an angry blue sky.
After a second, he spots Sam striding towards the car, a white bag held in his hand, and the world rights itself. They’re in a McDonald’s parking lot.
“Breakfast,” announces Sam, opening the passenger door and handing the bag to Dean. “You good to drive again, sleeping beauty? We’re still another four hours from the lighthouse.”
“Should have driven faster then, Sammy,” says Dean, sliding over to the driver’s seat. He digs out two egg McGriddles, leaves the other two for Sam and hands the bag back.
“Some of us don’t enjoy baiting the cops,” says Sam dryly. “We have enough fun hunting ghosts for a living.”
“That’s just because you’re a seventy-year old woman,” says Dean. He takes a bite of his McGriddle and grimaces. "Just once," he says mournfully, "I'd like a home-cooked meal."
Sam's quiet for a long moment, and Dean thinks his brother has decided not to answer. It’s something he’s doing more and more these days, wrapped up in his thoughts and whatever foolhardy plans he’s got to break Dean’s deal.
Then Sam says, mock-thoughtful, "I guess we could wrap up a couple baked potatoes in aluminum foil and throw those into the engine block along with a couple of steaks. Give it an hour, and there you go. Home cooked meal."
"Very funny," says Dean, grinning in spite of himself. He pats the dashboard. "But she's a lady, not an oven. And I will haunt your ass if you treat her like one."
Sam really does go quiet after that.
“Hey,” he says, “I didn’t-”
“I should get some more sleep,” says Sam, cutting him off. He slouches down in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest. Dean considers talking anyway, but he knows Sam well enough by now to know when he shouldn’t pick and when he can get away with it. He even puts Johnny Cash into the tapedeck instead of Metallica. Sam’s had plenty of practice falling asleep to both of them, but he’ll have an easier time with Ring of Fire than Enter Sandman.
Dean’s just a damn good brother that way.
Nebraska rolls out ahead of him, empty and flat and bright, sunflowers leaning against fenceposts and cows wandering lazily in the fields. The night before, Dean had the stars and his still riled fear for Sam to keep him company; now he’s got nothing but his own thoughts.
He wonders idly if he should start making a list. Things he’d like to do before he dies. Fill it with the maudlin and the mundane. Most people, faced with a time limit like his, want to do things like go sky-diving, see Paris. Dean has no need for cheap adrenaline, no desire to travel more than he has. He just wants to keep working like always, keep his brother from killing himself.
It’s a deadend line of thought, and a dark one, and Dean’s left with nothing to occupy him besides a sleeping brother. A lifetime on the road and he still hasn’t found anything more entertaining. He switches over the cassettes then, and at Robert Plant’s first wail, Sam twitches and blinks awake.
“Asshole,” Sam mutters, rubbing at his eyes.
Dean smiles victoriously. “Morning sunshine! Let’s play eye spy.”
“Four,” says Sam. “You’re four.” But he sits up straight and glances out the window before gritting out, “Something yellow.”
They skip lunch, driving straight through the noon hour and Dean watches the sun wobble from its center position and start slipping down westward. It’s mid afternoon by the time they pull into town. It’s easy enough to find the lighthouse. Even if it weren’t the tallest structure for miles, there are signs everywhere pointing the way, playing up the haunted angle and advertising the one reason someone might want to stop in this dusty corner of the state.
To Dean’s surprise though, there are at least a dozen other tourists milling around the keeper’s house turned giftshop and keeping an eye on the “tours start here” sign.
The tour guide appears soon after Sam and Dean do. She’s an ever-smiling woman with a thick, gray rope of a braid and liverspots nestled among the creases of her constantly moving hands.
"Only six at a time," she chirps to the crowd at large. She waves them apart into knots of six and Sam and Dean find themselves attached a blonde couple with a towheaded toddler and a surly teenager whose expression becomes a little less surly once she spots Sam.
They’re lucky. The tour guide- her name tag reads Cynthia- favors them with a nod and a wave of her hand. They shuffle out behind her, Sam shooting Dean a bemused look as she launches into her spiel.
“The lighthouse,” she says, as they enter the structure- Dean looks up and up and up at the shell-like spiral of stairs that await them- “was built in 1847 by one of the founders of this town, Samuel-” Dean smirks and elbows Sam in the side; Sam calmly steps on his foot, and they begin the ascent up the stairs- “Towson, who built it in honor of his dead wife, Jean. Jean and Samuel were members of the underground railroad. Jean was especially ardent about the abolitionist cause and was known as the Lady of the Lantern-” air quotes- “by the people she helped.”
“She’s the one people keep seeing as a ghost?” interrupts the blonde mother. She’s flushed slightly, panting a bit as they all round another curve of the lighthouse stairs. Dean’s thighs are even beginning to feel a slight burn, and they’re all pressed tight together. Sam’s ass is right in front of his face and Dean thanks God that he’s not claustrophobic, and aims his gaze past his brother’s hip.
“That’s right!” says Cynthia, incredibly cheerful for so morbid a subject. “As the story goes, Jean would hang lanterns off her back porch to communicate with those traveling along the railroad. One lantern meant safety, two meant danger. And one night, while Samuel wasn’t in, one of the lanterns fell and set the house on fire.” Cynthia pauses. Her voice goes low and hushed like she’s imparting some dreadful secret, “Cynthia perished that night, but, really, some say she’s never left.”
Dean rolls his eyes at the drama. The story is nothing he hasn’t heard already. He and Sam did their research. He zones out the rest of her speech, a history on the building of the lighthouse and a noting of various historical facts of interest. He’s concentrated mostly on his breathing, trying to keep it relatively steady as the flight of stairs continues to not fucking end. He must huff anyway, because Sam shoots him a smirk over his shoulder and asks, all innocence, “Getting a little breathless there? Maybe you should take a break.”
“Maybe you should take a break,” sneers Dean in response, flipping him off. But Sam’s already turned away and finally, finally, they clamber to the top.
Cynthia immediately points to a glass case near the mouth of the staircase. It’s awkwardly located, and Dean nearly bumps into Sam when he stops to avoid it.
“And that,” she says proudly, “is Jean’s journal. It miraculously survived the fire and has been of great historical importance to historians studying the workings of the underground railroad.” She emphasizes each syllable of “great historical importance” loudly and precisely.
"So when the house burned down," says Sam to Cynthia, interrupting her continuous chatter, and doing a far better job at looking sweetly curious than Dean would have managed, "Jean's body would have burned up too, right?"
"That's right," says Cynthia cheerfully in response. "Jean's body was never found, though her husband did put up a rather nice tombstone in the town cemetery. In fact, we had some 'paranormal investigators' 'round here a couple years ago who said the lack of a body might even be what's keeping her here." She gives an exaggerated shiver. "Gruesome stuff."
"Huh," says Dean. "Paranormal investigators. Wonder how you get a job like that?"
Sam elbows him less than subtly in the side and Dean responds by punching him in the shoulder. Cynthia reacts to them with a wide and toothsome smile.
"I mean," says Dean, satisfied that Sam is rubbing his shoulder. "How often is Jean seen?"
The blonde family is eyeing them suspiciously now, but Cynthia hasn't dropped her smile.
"Every few months or so," she says. "Mainly by the janitorial staff. We generally don't allow people in here after dark, and that's when sightings are most common."
"So that means the lighthouse isn't actually in use," says the father.
"Oh, Lord no," laughs Cynthia. "That would..."
Dean wanders away from the small group to go stare out over the crop fields. A placard informs him that, on a clear day, he might be able to see all the way to Illinois.
"I don't know how you'd be able to tell," he says, when Sam comes to stand behind him.
"Tell what?" asks Sam, low-voiced. Dean points at the placard.
"Tell where Illinois even is," he says. "It's all just crops."
Sam puts his hand on the small of Dean's back and Dean wonders if Cynthia and the family can see it, or if Sam's body is blocking the view.
"So we're thinking it's the journal?" asks Sam.
"Do you even have to ask?" mutters Dean dryly.
The tour’s another fifteen minutes after that, the six of them wandering through the top of the lighthouse, examining the equipment and admiring the views. It’s the same view from every angle. More crops and the endless arc of the sky.
“Hey,” says Sam, still entirely too close to Dean, has been following him like a puppy all throughout, “I can see our house from here.”
“Yeah, asshole, the car’s right there,” bites back Dean, gesturing downward at the parking lot far below, the late afternoon light reflecting white off the Impala’s black polish.
Sam’s smile is half a grimace, and he doesn’t say anything in response. But he still keeps close to Dean when they finally go back down the stair. Tight turn after tight turn and Sam’s hand has moved up to the space between his shoulder blades, like he’s ready any moment to grab onto Dean’s shirt should Dean stumble.
“So that was helpful,” says Sam, once they’re outside. “What time should we head back over?”
“Late,” says Dean, “once the janitors are gone.” He shrugs, “Midnight?”
Sam nods, and they both move to head out, when Cynthia speaks from behind them.
“Now boys,” she chides gently, “you’re not running away without me letting you take your picture, are you?”
Sam’s smile has just as many watts to it as Cynthia’s, but it’s more obviously forced.
“No thanks,” he tries, but Dean cuts him off, slinging an arm around Sam’s shoulder and keeping him tied to the spot.
“We’d love to have our picture taken,” he says. Cynthia beams at him in response and raises the camera.
“You two are the cutest couple,” she says brightly, just as the camera flashes. Dean doesn’t choke at the words, but he feels Sam flinch slightly beneath his arm.
“You’re too kind,” replies Dean demurely. He lets go of Sam but first pats him comfortingly on the back, and the camera groans and rattles as it spits out the picture.
The image is still black when Cynthia hands the photo to Dean, and he stares down at it, waiting for the picture to bloom. It comes slowly, the white of their faces and their hands, followed by the solid blocks of color of their clothes, and then the details finally settle into place, Sam’s dimples and the cut of his eyes, looking not at the camera, but at Dean.
“You all right there, Dean?” shouts Sam, and Dean looks up. Sam’s ten yards away, snuck off while Dean was waiting for the image to materialize.
“Patience is a virtue,” he remarks dryly back. It’s a good picture, shame he doesn’t have anywhere to put it. There’s no Winchester family mantle. He turns to face Cynthia. “I owe you anything for this?”
She shakes her head. “Photos are courtesy of the tour,” she says, and then her voice drops into a low and conspiratorial tone. “You know,” she says, “they say in some of those pictures, you can actually see Jean’s ghost lurking in the background.”
Instinctively, Dean looks at the photo again, but there’s nothing there except him and Sam and the base of the lighthouse behind, the late afternoon light washing everything to golden. He smiles.
“No such luck this time,” he says, sticking the photo into the back pocket of his jeans. “But thanks again.” He jogs after his brother.
“I saw a diner,” says Sam quietly, brushing his hand against Dean’s shoulder, when Dean catches up to him, “about a block away.”
Dean nods and he and Sam walk shoulder to shoulder through the broad, flat streets of the town. It’s gone evening, which means the quiet buzz of tourists stopping to see a roadside attraction has died down completely. It’s just locals and Sam and Dean now.
The diner is wide-windowed and clean-looking, advertises that the food is “Just like Mom made” in bold, white letters just above a Help-wanted sign.
Dean asks for the kid's menu "for my little brother here," and Sam, as if to prove Dean's point, sticks out his tongue in retaliation. The waitress indulges them though, and brings over the paper kid's menu along with a cup of broken crayons.
"What kind of color is burnt siena anyway?" asks Dean morosely as Sam beats him the second time at tic-tac-toe while they wait for their food.
"The color of the crayon isn't the reason you keep losing," says Sam smugly, marking his victory x.
Dean rolls his eyes and snags the menu away, starts drawing a hangman's platform over "Bridget the Badger's" head.
"No, the reason you keep winning is that you cheat," shoots back Dean, counting up the letter's in the phrase.
"Sore loser," mutters Sam. He props his head up on his hands. "A."
Sam ends up guessing 'Sam Winchester wears women's underwear' before he gets hanged, but the epic scowl he levels makes it a victory for Dean all the same.
Dean eats pot roast and mashed potatoes and green beans, and who knows, maybe someone’s mom even made it. He remembers Mary cooking, an image of her standing at the stove and singing along softly to the radio. But if he’s being honest, he’s not sure if it’s a memory or just something he imagined, something he stole, maybe, from some long ago and otherwise forgotten tv show.
Sam kicks him under the table and steals a spoonful of mashed potatoes. He smirks at Dean from around the spoon, and Dean smiles, kicks him back.
He studies Sam from across the formica table, tries to see him the way someone like the blonde teenager would. He just sees his brother, the dark circles under his eyes that mean he hasn’t been sleeping well, his hair getting too long and tangling in the back, the broken skin on his lips from not drinking enough water, and the healing bruise on his cheekbone from a poltergeist the week before.
He’s just Sam, tired and vulnerable and his.
“Take a picture. It lasts-” says Sam, fidgety under Dean’s gaze, and then he groans as Dean smirks.
He whips the photo out of his pocket and lays it flat on the table. “Still don’t believe that we’re related,” he says. “I’m much better looking than you.”
Sam flips him off with one hand, gestures for the check with the other.
The waitress points them in the direction of a motel, and even though it, like everything else in town, is within easy walking distance, they swing by the lighthouse to pick up the Impala. It’s still too early to go looking for the ghost.
The motel is clean and neat as everything else in town, and the boy who checks them in could be Cynthia’s grandson, has the same wall of teeth. Maybe there’s something about being in the middle of nowhere with nothing but crops and the boundless sky that drives people to overfriendliness. Nothing to keep and hold their interest but each other.
It’s just past sunset by the time they drop their duffels on the motel floor. The light which comes in through the crease in the curtain is reddish, and paints the wall in bright and dying hues.
“Dean,” says Sam. He steps too close to Dean, too close in the darkening room and his hand hovering over Dean’s arm.
Dean turns to face him. It brings them even closer, so that he has to tilt his head back to keep his eyes steady on Sam’s.
“Sam,” he says amiably, like a greeting, and more calmly than his intentions should allow. “We got a couple of hours to kill before our usual breaking and entering.”
Sam’s eyes widen, flicker through confusion and shock and wariness before settling into an emotion Dean’s never quite been able to read, something that’s caught between pleasure and fear.
Sam’s hands are large and gentle as they frame Dean’s face.
“You sure?” he says softly, like he hadn’t spent the entire tour hovering over him, breath on the back of Dean’s neck. His thumbs brush along Dean’s cheekbones and Dean’s spine shivers.
Dean wraps his fingers in Sam’s shirt, but doesn’t make a move to either close or lengthen the distance.
He’s not sure why he’s decided to start this up now. This thing which is new and fragile between them. He kissed Sam, or he let Sam kiss him, night that they killed Yellow Eyes. Sam holding onto Dean with the fear of losing him and Dean clinging to Sam with the relief of keeping him.
They hadn’t done much beyond kissing, Dean pushing Sam into the wall, Sam wonderfully alive beneath his hands. It wasn’t a sex thing. Dean still looks at Sam and thinks brother before anything else, not his fault that that’s a more complicated word for him than it is for most others.
He’s trying to figure out a language that’ll make it possible to explain Sam why he did what he did.
That Sam’s always been what marks Dean’s way home.
“No,” he answers finally, detangling his fingers from Sam’s shirt. Sam drops his hands and nods, chewing the bottom of his lip.
“All right,” he says. “Okay. I’m,” he stutters on the word. “I’m gonna go for a walk.”
Dean nods, feeling dizzy, and sits down on the nearest bed.
“Don’t be out too late,” he says, hearing his voice distantly, and he’s sure ‘going for a walk’ means something more like read a book Sam shouldn’t have or call a contact Sam shouldn’t know in an attempt to break Dean’s deal. “We have to-”
Sam closes the door midway through Dean’s sentence and Dean goes quiet. He’s left in the empty motel room, the light fading fast around him. It’s July, and the days are already getting shorter.
He turns on the TV, nothing better to do, and there’s not much more they can learn about the ghost. He considers calling someone, but the only one he’s certain would pick up is Bobby, and Bobby’s the last person in the world who Dean wants to tell about his relationship problems with his brother.
He ends up falling asleep to the nightly news, to news of something awful happening somewhere far away to people Dean will never be able to help.
It’s pure black outside when Sam shakes him quietly awake. The room is all monotone, gray and shadow, and Sam a slightly darker shadow looming above him.
“Get your beauty sleep?” Sam asks, teeth white and brief as he flashes a smile.
“Don’t need it,” says Dean with a yawn and a stretch. “We discussed this at dinner. I got all the pretty genes in the family, Caveman.”
“You’re just jealous of my manly virility,” deadpans Sam. He pulls at Dean, hands on his arms, getting Dean onto his feet and into Sam’s immediate personal space, like Sam has two settings these days- faraway and Siamese twin.
“You ready to go?” asks Dean, stepping neatly away from Sam and ignoring his comment, “Or are you gonna stand around and talk all night?"
“Funny, you’re funny,” sneers Sam. He shoves Dean towards the door.
“And you’re funny looking,” says Dean cheerfully. He steps out of the motel and into the mild night air, Sam once again glued to his back.
The lighthouse is visible even at this distance, even unlit in the dark, a ghostly pillar running perpendicular to the black horizon.
Dean disables the cameras and alarm while Sam picks at the locks, and it’s the work of twenty minutes to get inside.
“These goddamn stairs,” grumbles Dean.
“Getting old,” smiles Sam, and then the smile falters.
Dean shoulders past him. “Whatever,” he snaps. “Can still beat you to the top.”
Sam’s smile makes a tentative return. “That a fact?”
Dean doesn’t bother with a proper answer. He tosses off a smirk and goes running up the stairs. The ghost knows they’re here, or she doesn’t, and all the noise in the world won’t make a difference. And winded or not won’t make much of a difference in Dean’s ability to shoot a salt bullet or burn a book.
Sam’s boots are heavy and loud behind him, the sound of their running echoing and tripling in the hollow spaces of the lighthouse. He hears Sam stifle a gasping laugh and starts laughing himself. It makes him even more winded and breathless and Sam grabs at his ankle and tries to drag him back.
“Hey!” protests Dean. “Cheating!” He kicks ineffectually at Sam with his free foot and hears Sam laugh more openly this time. Dean balances precariously on the ball of his trapped foot.
“For the last time,” says Sam smugly, moving his grip to the back of Dean’s jeans and holding him in place as he moves up the steps and carefully past Dean, “I don’t cheat. You’re just awful at everything.”
Dean holds very still while Sam maneuvers around him. Then, right when Sam slides past him, reaches out and yanks at lock of his hair.
Sam yelps with pain. It’s enough of an advantage for Dean to shove past
“Too bad,” he calls back, “because I do cheat.”
He makes it to the top first, heaving with silent, breathless laughter. Sam’s just behind him, equally out of breath. He punches Dean in the shoulder and mouths a smiling, “Jerk.”
Dean mouths “Bitch,” back at him, and they stand there for a moment, catching their breaths and grinning like moondumb idiots.
The ghost is completely silent. There’s no warning to her sudden presence, no crackle of static electricity nor shift in the temperature that Dean’s used to. None of the dawning sense of dread.
She’s just there, a flickering apparition of a thin, pale woman, her eyes hollow and dark. She lifts her arm to point at them, mouth opening around a soundless word. Dean bolts at her, shotgun raised. Sam levels his own shotgun and takes a step back to aim.
He goes tumbling down the stairs.
Dean shouts, wordless and loud. He has the presence of mind to blast some rocksalt, to no effect, before swinging around in one fluid movement and rushing off after Sam.
Sam’s only about ten feet down, managed to catch himself after a short tumble. He’s crouched, grimacing, one hand on the railing, but definitely not dead or wounded.
“Fucking idiot,” mutters Dean, hauling Sam up to his feet. “Literally fell head over ass.” He skims his hands down Sam’s body, making a quick, instinctive search for injuries. Sam bares his teeth in pain and clutches his head, but he’s fine. He’s fine. Dean’s heartbeat slows down to a little more close to normal.
“I’m the idiot,” mutters Sam, leaning a little more on Dean than is probably strictly necessary. “You’re the one who ran head on at the ghost.”
“Wasn’t a ghost,” says Dean tightly.
Sam’s head jerks up. “What?”
“Rocksalt didn’t affect it, and you noticed how it didn’t feel like a ghost?”
“So what is it?”
Dean shrugs. “Let’s go find out.”
The woman is still there when they get to the top. She’s in the same position, with the same expression of nothingness as when she first appeared. Dean and Sam watch as she raises her arm slowly in the same gesture, mouth making the same soundless word. She lowers her arm. The apparition remains there for a long moment, flickering. And then disappears.
Sam glances at Dean. “A death loop?” The apparition pops back. Cycles through everything again.
“Wouldn’t it be her dying then?” says Dean. “She’s just….pointing.”
“And you’re right,” says Sam, studying her. “She doesn’t feel like a ghost”
Sam strides forward, straight through the ghost, and Dean watches light ripple across his brother, the woman’s shape distort.
“Not a ghost,” says Sam decisively, stepping to the side. The woman appears again.
“It’s a projection,” says Dean, dumbstruck. “She’s just…She’s an illusion.”
“So, where’s she coming from?” says Sam, wondering aloud. He looks at the projection and then around the room.
“The journal,” says Dean abruptly. Sam gives him a curious look. Dean shrugs. “It’s at the right angle. And it makes sense for the glass case to be there.”
Sam nods and hmms in response, and goes to bend down in front of the case. The ghost disappears, and Sam’s chest lights up with the projection.
“Well, jinkies,” Sam says dryly. He looks back at Dean. “Looks like we’ve found ourselves a clue.”
Dean groans. “Jesus Christ. What kind of amateur hour shit is this?”
Sam stands up and steps away; the projection flickers back.
“So we both know who’s behind this, right?” asks Dean flatly. He eyes the “ghost” with distaste.
“I don’t know Shaggy,” says Sam, all mock-innocence and round eyes. “Could it be old man Wilson?”
They dismantle the glass case easily, disarming the alarm beforehand. Dean picks up the journal and, sure enough, it’s hollow. A projector peering out from inside it.
“I wonder if this Jean lady ever existed in the first place,” says Sam.
Dean shrugs. He’s irritated. “Who the fuck cares?” he says, and smashes the projector.
***
Cynthia’s home isn’t too hard to find.
Dean bangs on the door and rings the doorbell in quick succession. Sam stands nearby, looking uncomfortable.
“Dean,” he hisses, “this isn’t necessary. It’s not a ghost and you already smashed the projector.”
Dean ignores him and bangs on the door again. Somewhere in the house, a light flickers on. Dean hears light footsteps, and then the door opens a quarter-way with a soft snick. Cynthia peers out warily, a wedge of light falling across the doorstep.
Dean sticks his foot inside, to keep her from closing the door on them.
“Cynthia,” he says before she has the chance to speak. He bares his teeth in a grin. “You remember us from earlier today?”
Cynthia, to her credit, doesn’t back down. She fixes an equally cheerless smile on her face and throws her shoulders back.
“Of course,” she says. “Something I can do for you boys? Did you leave something in the lighthouse?”
“No,” says Dean, “but we’re pretty sure you did.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” sniffs Cynthia, but her mouth thins out in displeasure and there’s a defensive edge to her voice that makes Dean suspect a lie.
“There’s no ghost,” says Sam softly, breaking into the conversation. Dean frowns at him, wanted to trap Cynthia in her own words, but Sam ignores him. “It was a projection. And either you or someone else were using it to scare people into thinking there’s a ghost to, I don’t know, attract tourists.”
Cynthia hesitates, trying to figure out to lie or confess.
“Was?” she says eventually, stress on the past tense.
“We smashed the projector,” says Dean.
Cynthia looks suddenly miserable, mouth turned down and shoulder sagging. “No one was getting hurt by it,” she says defensively, her voice high and trembling.
“My brother-” says Dean angrily, at the memory of Sam falling down the stairs, and Cynthia’s eyes go wide and flick between them.
“Your brother?” she says.
Dean remembers then the impression he and Sam gave, the impression he purposefully reinforced, the impression that is no longer entirely false. He doesn’t blush, has a lifetime worth of training to lock down any emotion he doesn’t want to show or have, but it takes him a moment to find his voice.
“My brother,” he repeats savagely, “nearly killed himself when your ‘ghost’-”
“Dean,” says Sam tiredly, tugging on Dean’s arms “She’s right. No one was getting hurt by this except for tourists getting bilked out of a few bucks. And it’s over. It’s done.”
“But you did almost got hurt,” snaps Dean, rounding on Sam. “You fell down those fucking stairs.” And how the fuck is Dean gonna be able to die peaceful if he can’t even trust his brother around fake ghosts and stairs?
Sam shrugs wearily. “That’s because we have a damn stupid job, Dean.”
Dean knows that, wants more than anything for his sacrifice to mean something beyond Sam going through the same shit they’ve been doing the past two years. Sam’s the only one who ever stood a chance at normal anyway, and it’s one more thing Dean doesn’t think he’ll make his brother understand.
“Dean,” repeats Sam, one hand wrapped around Dean’s bicep, the other on Dean’s back, pressed between the shoulder blades again. “Come on Dean. Let’s just head back to the motel.”
Cynthia’s been watching the two of them with wide, darting eyes, a shell of a person without her gleaming defense of a smile. She’s ancient-looking like this, the fragile kind of old with transparent skin and arthritic bone, her gray hair lank around her shoulders. Dean sees her suddenly as just that, an old women trying to drum up revenue and interest in some absurd offroad tourist attraction, the story only a threat to those who went out of their way to make it one.
He sags into Sam’s grip, and Sam realizes he’s won the battle. He nods at Cynthia.
“Sorry ma’am for the trouble,” he says politely, pulling Dean away. “We’ll just be going now.”
Cynthia stares at them all through the walk down the driveway and as they get into the car. But Dean doesn’t think she’ll call the cops, so that’s something.
“Fucking waste of a day,” he snarls, angry all the same, as soon as they get inside the Impala. It’s still relatively early, enough to catch five or six hours of sleep before pointing the Impala to their next destination.
Sam makes an annoyed noise, and Dean glances at him.
“What?” he says, disgruntled. “It was.”
“So there wasn’t a ghost,” says Sam, and there’s definitely a peeved edge to his voice. “It just means we’re out of the gas it took to get us here.”
Dean frowns. “No,” he snaps. “It means we wasted a day doing something that didn’t help anyone. We chose this hunt over that manticore in Wisconsin Sam. What if it’s decided to move on from cows and started going after kids? I’ve got-“
He’s got ten months. And he’s angry, suddenly, his general irritation with the day and his residual panic over Sam suddenly flaring up and hot. He’s gt ten more months to do something worthwhile with his life.
“You’ve got 297 days left,” says Sam, voice hard and heavy as a stone, a damning finality to it. “And you know something Dean?” The stony reserve cracks, and Sam’s voice pitches sharply and suddenly upward, the way it’s always done when he’s furious. “I don’t care that there wasn’t a ghost, and I wouldn’t have cared if there was, I-”
He cuts himself off, lips curled in a snarl, hand fisted against the window.
“What,” insists Dean, and he shouldn’t be pushing at this. Today isn’t Sam’s fault any more than it’s Dean’s, but two years of just the two of them on the road together and they’ve trained themselves into taking advantage of each other. Sam’s the only person he can take his frustration out on. “What are you trying to say Sam?”
“I’m saying,” says Sam darkly, “any day we don’t get you out of the deal, is a waste of a day. I don’t care how many people we save along the way.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a waste then,” Dean snaps back. “You’re not going to break the deal Sam. I’m not gonna let you.”
The drive back to the motel is completely silent.
Sam slams the Impala’s door when he gets out, and the whole car shakes from it.
“Hey!” yelps Dean, scrambling out of the car.
Sam turns to face him. His shoulders are tensed and high, hands fisted at his side.
“What?” he snarls, and it’s clear that the drive back was just enough time for him to build his anger to a roar. Sam’s always been like that, pointed to far inward and always getting tangled in his own emotions.
“Just,” says Dean, and the drive had the opposite effect on him. He’s just tired now, wants this day done and behind them, and for all that it was a waste, it wasn’t such a bad day on reflection. “Just be careful with her, all right?” And then because he’s never been able to stop himself when he needed to, not when it comes to Sam, “She’s going to be the only thing you’ve got left here pretty soon. I gotta know she’s in trustworthy hands.”
Sam visibly wavers, and for a moment Dean isn’t sure if his brother is going to come over and strike him or cry. Sam walks away instead, headed to the motel door.
Dean licks his lips, tastes salt and, in the back of his throat, the drying taste of fear.
He darts forward, in front of Sam, and blocks him at the door.
“Dean,” snaps Sam, and Dean holds up a hand, places it on Sam’s chest. Remarkably, Sam goes silent, but he still eyes Dean angrily.
“Hey,” Dean says, “I’m…” and there’s nothing he can say. Today isn’t something he and Sam are ever gonna agree on. He reaches up and grips the back of Sam’s head, fingers curling in his hair, and pulls Sam toward him.
“You really need to look before you leap, okay?” he says, when their foreheads are touching.
Sam can’t hide a smile then. He rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to snap something back, and clearly the day’s saved. Sam’s just regular annoyed and amused with Dean.
So Dean kisses him.
It’s different from the last time; Sam doesn’t respond immediately. Dean wonders briefly if that’s his fault, if he’s frittered away the chances given him. Then Sam moves against him, tongue licking into Dean’s mouth.
Dean pushes him against the door, and Sam’s hands are wide and greedy as they slide up Dean’s sides. It’s a bruising kiss; Sam’s all teeth, nipping at Dean’s lips. Dean shoves his thigh between Sam’s legs for support, feels that Sam is getting hard already. Sam’s hands find skin, and Dean shudders at his touch.
He breaks off the kiss then, but he doesn’t move away this time.
“We should,” he says, panting. And he’s doing this. He’s doing this. “We should go inside.”
“Okay,” agrees Sam breathlessly. He doesn’t move. “If you weren’t,” he says, all hesitance, “you know, would you, would we…”
Dean shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits honestly. He’s doing this because it’s Sam, and he keeps almost losing him, and Dean doesn’t know how else to show Sam that he’s the one thing Dean needs to keep.
He thinks this is just going to backfire. That it’s just going to make Sam cling to him all the more.
“That’s,” says Sam, pained expression crossing his face. “I don’t know either,” he says, blurting out the words. “You’re just. Fuck.”
“I know,” laughs Dean. They’ve started rocking against each other, forming a steady rhythm, and Dean bites his lip as Sam’s thigh presses against his cock. “But really we should-”
“Yeah,” says Sam, and there’s just enough light to see that his pupils are blooming outward.
Dean pulls the motel key out of his pocket, fingers brushing against the photograph, and then fumbles with the doorknob.
He opens the door, and Sam pulls him through it.
***
Sam wakes up before Dean does the next morning. There’s the smell of coffee but no Sam. Dean finds the coffee- cold at this point, as if Sam expected him to wake earlier- on the nightstand, but no note from Sam, which means his brother is nearby. Probably.
The clock reads 11:13, and Dean realizes then that Sam’s let him sleep in. He must have woken up before the alarm, then turned it off to slip away.
Dean gets dressed quickly and does not panic. It’s bad enough to wake up and not find Sam on a regular morning, Sam with his history of sudden departures, but even Dean wouldn’t blame him at this point.
He should be freaking out about the sex, instead he’s just worried Sam has left, either taken or disgusted or even just figuring that the best way to save Dean is to not be distracted by him. But all of Sam’s stuff is here, his duffel bag neatly packed and his cellphone on the table. That doesn’t mean Sam’s safe, necessarily, just that he hasn’t run off of his own volition.
He does what John would do, a perimeter search of the motel. He finds Sam sitting crosslegged by the vending machines, nose in a book. It reminds Dean, ridiculously, of Sam as a kid. Twelve or thirteen and he would wander off somewhere, “for a little privacy,” he’d snap, and Dean would find him a couple hours later, engrossed in some novel.
“Whatchya reading?” he asks now, nudging Sam’s leg with his foot. He’s pretty sure it’s not a novel.
Sam startles, clearly having been oblivious to Dean’s approach. But his expression of surprise quickly switches over to one of defiance. He snaps the book shut and stands, ignoring Dean’s outstretched hand of assistance.
“A book,” he says, and Dean gets a glance at the book before Sam hides it behind himself. The word Demon is part of the title, written in an ornate golden script. He frowns, but he’s not going to start the day with an argument. It’s funny, he thinks, how last night didn’t change anything, different kind of tension that’s setting them at odds with each other.
“Well come on,” he says brusquely, “we’ve already wasted half the day.”
Sam glares at him, but he doesn’t disagree.
It’s short work to get packed and on the road, and as Dean reaches into his pocket of the jeans, same pair of jeans he wore yesterday, his fingers brush against the photograph again.
He pulls it out as soon as he gets in the car and looks at it. Sam watches him narrowly.
“Here,” Dean says, handing the photograph over to Sam. It’s crinkled and slightly creased, but still good. “Something to remember me by.”
He tries to say it jokingly, but the words fall flat even as he says them, create something awkward and ugly between them. Sam takes the photo from Dean anyway, spends a few moment smoothing out the wrinkles and staring down at it as Dean drives them out into the highway.
“No,” Sam, says, five minutes later and startling Dean. Sam rolls down the window.
“No what?” demands Dean. He looks over at Sam, and Sam, face set, tears the photo into four neat squares, half and then half again.
“I’m not going to need it.”
He tosses the squares out the window, and they flutter away, into the dust and the sky of the road behind them.
-End
AN: Feedback is good karma. Thanks for reading.