Spoonful of Sugar 4-5/? | spn gen
Note: Chapter 5 is clearly marked if you just want to scroll down to the latest addition.
Spoonful of Sugar 4-5/?
Author’s notes: This chapter is told from Sam’s POV. kroki-refur assured me that changing POVs probably wouldn’t suck, so I’m hoping that she’s right.
The first thing Sam noticed was the absence of sound. Sensations bombarded him as the fog in his head slowly dissipated. The floor beneath him was wood, rough and wide planked and the smell of dirt lingered between the cracks. He was prone on his side, his hands were bound behind his back with bailing twine, scratchy and thin, and there were splinters in his elbow where his weight pressed down awkwardly. His shoulders felt taut and sore and he fought the urge to adjust his position into something more comfortable, Dad had always said to assess a situation before doing anything else.
A few more shallow breaths, the smell of dirt was everywhere, and Sam felt a growing tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with his position on the floor. He wasn’t in the city anymore. It was country-quiet, and Sam realized that the faint sounds that he had attributed to his confused state were actually wind chimes, the gentle clack of bamboo shoots. Caleb’s friend, the woman from the city, had had a set. Sam remembered Dean saying something, Dean hadn’t liked the chimes, said they weren’t musical at all. Sam had liked the sound, then, more a reverberation than a musical note. Now they sounded sinister, like the echoes of dried bones clashing.
Dean. Where was he? Sam cursed himself for not thinking of his brother earlier. The last thing he remembered was walking back to the hotel, Dean teasing him, then Dean falling, falling backwards and…
“You awake, boy?”
Sam couldn’t help the jolt that traveled up his spine, the voice was gruff and graveled, coming from behind his right shoulder.
“Yeah, you awake,”
The floor trembled slightly as heavy footsteps crossed the room until Sam could make out a pair of feet, the jutting curve of wide ankles, the hem of a thin red dress. Sam rolled himself back enough so he could look up the length of the speaker, it wasn’t a far distance. The old woman was short and wide and her legs rolled out slightly in a sturdy gait as she walked. She collapsed back into a wicker rocking chair that squeaked with the back and forwards motion. Her dark, lined face was starkly contrasted against the shock of white curls cropped close to her skull and the thick fingers that were clasped in her lap were misshapen, as though they had been broken repeatedly at the middle knuckle. She didn’t look threatening, but Sam had been there when a twelve year old girl possessed by a demon had almost eviscerated Dean and he knew better than to let down his guard.
The woman seemed content to watch and rock, and eventually Sam twisted himself up into a seated position. The skin on his left side was raw and he banged his knees against the floor but he managed all the same. The woman didn’t seem put out by his efforts, she didn’t call out to anyone or move at all. Dean wasn’t anywhere in sight, and Sam wagered that Dean was still in Hialeah or else he’d be filling the air with his bellowing.
“Where are we?” Sam asked, and then was surprised at the sound of his voice, more a croaking sound than anything else, and he wondered for the first time how long he’d been unconscious. It had been dusk then, it was daylight now, no way to tell more than that without being able to see the sun in the sky.
“This is my home,” the woman said after a moment’s pause. “My home,”
That’s pretty fucking helpful, Sam thought uncharitably, mindful of how much he sounded like Dean. Dean probably would have worked himself loose by now and have been hoofing it back to civilization, wherever that was. Sam shifted his arms behind him, testing the bonds, wincing as the coarse fibers of the twine abraded already chafed skin, quickly realizing that nothing short of a knife would free him.
All in all, Sam thought he was doing a good job of distracting himself from all the fears that had assaulted him upon wakening on the floor. He was hyperaware of everything Dad hadn’t said about the vessel, about the priest, and suddenly every guarded look and pointed silence seemed significant, if only Dad had said something, something Sam could use…
If only that goddamn woman would stop her goddamn rocking, stupid chair, Sam looked away, twisting himself at the hips to take in the rest of the room. The only entrance was a wide doorway to the left opened up into what appeared to be a vestibule. The walls were cheap wood paneling and unadorned, a staircase with several missing spindles climbed the side of the far wall. The room they occupied now was barely furnished with only the rocking chair, a side table, and an overstuffed loveseat upholstered with what appeared to be shag carpet.
“Why am I here?” Sam asked, turning back to the woman. She seemed to have lost interest in him completely, gazing at the ceiling and humming tunelessly instead. “Okay,” Sam muttered.
The shriek of rusted hinges filled the still air and Sam stiffened as a screen door banged closed. Dust spilled loose from the corners of the ceiling as a large black man came into view, the same man from the botanica, the same man from the motel.
“What the hell did you do to my brother?” Sam demanded through gritted teeth, unconsciously jerking his arms behind his back.
“Don’t worry about your brother, he’s fine. I left him in your motel room, just sleeping,” the man smiled wide, baring two rows of gleaming white teeth. He was wearing loose khakis, battered nylon sandals, and a short-sleeved blue button up. The shirt was a size too small and the middle button strained against the curve of his belly.
“What should I worry about, then?” Sam said, resisting the urge to scurry back across the floor as the man approached. He wasn’t overly tall, but right now he loomed over Sam.
“You don’t gotta worry,” the man said. The woman was watching him, a vaguely pleased expression on her face, still rocking, still with the damn squeaking. The man squatted down on his haunches, groaning slightly as he did so, until he was almost eye-level with Sam. “Do you know why I chose you, Sam?”
Sam swallowed, unable to look away from the man’s dark gaze. His bravado was quickly deserting him now, and he wished more than anything for Dean’s presence. Dean always kept people from looking too closely at Sam, always protected him from this kind of uncomfortable focus by drawing attention to himself.
“I’m a palero. Do you know what that means?” the man said.
“It means, it means that you use witchcraft, Palo,” Sam fumbled over the unfamiliar word, staring at a point over the man’s shoulder.
“That’s right,” the man, the palero, said. He was unbuttoning his shirt and Sam felt a new trill of fear as dark, scarred flesh was exposed. “Do you see these? I am rayado,” the man gestured at his chest were a mass of lines were visible. There were smaller lines on his forearms that Sam hadn’t noticed before, all neat and thin. “That means I am cut in Palo, initiated,”
“What did you do to the girl?” Sam asked. The palero frowned as he buttoned his shirt again.
“She was weak, she didn’t last as long as I’d hoped,” he said.
“That’s not what I asked,” Sam said, trying to sound more confident than he really felt. The palero laughed, slapping a palm down on his knee.
“Listen to this one, old mother. What a tongue on him,” he said, delighted. “You’re not weak, are you Sam?”
“How do you know my name?” Sam whispered.
“You want to know why I chose you?” the palero asked again. Sam nodded mutely, not trusting himself to speak.
“Because your spirit called out to me, and that’s the truth. I’ve seen you, Sam,” he said, and Sam got the distinct impression that he didn’t mean with his eyes. “You and I got work to do, now,”
The palero gripped Sam’s biceps and Sam winced. The man looked soft but there was no mistaking the strength in his arms. He pulled Sam to his feet easily and Sam swayed with sudden vertigo.
“You just gonna sit here, real quiet,” the palero walked Sam backwards until his legs hit the edge of the loveseat. “Listen close, now, you can sit here under your own power or I can give you somethin’ that’ll make you real nice, understand?”
Sam sat down and looked up at the palero.
“I understand,” he said.
More men came, and the palero left with two and two remained. They were obviously there to watch Sam, and they dragged two chairs from somewhere, kitchen probably, and shuffled a battered deck of cards cross the side table.
Sam waited, for what he wasn’t sure. For the palero to come back, for nightfall, for something other than all this stupid waiting and silence and squeaking. He waited for Dad and Dean to come. They wouldn’t, of course. They didn’t know where he was, hell, Sam didn’t know where he was. He might have tried to run, wanted to so bad, but he’d seen the long driveway out the window. Nothing but brown grass and dusty roads and nowhere to go.
It was dark when the palero and the others returned and Sam’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He wished for the warm bottles of water stacked underneath the chair in the motel room. He wished for the hideous brown wall paper and the pink stucco and he wished for the smell of Dean’s sweat, which was a pretty weird thing to wish for, actually.
The palero was holding a large black sack which bulged at strange angles and Sam knew immediately that there were bones inside. The woman got up from the chair, about goddamn time, and left the room. She returned moments later with a wooden tray. Sam could just make out four tapered candles, a curved hunting knife and a bowl filled with black powder. The palero handed the black sack to one of the men and laid down on his back across the bare floor. Sam watched, fascinated despite himself, as the old woman covered him with a white sheet.
One of the men produced a package of matches and lit the wicks of the tapers before placing them on either side of the palero’s prone form while another man carefully tipped out small mounds of black powder along the width of the blade. He bent at the knees to lay the knife at the feet of the palero and then backed away with tight, quick movements. The air in the room seemed to still then, not even disturbed by the breathing of seven people.
The form beneath the white sheet jerked and the fabric above the palero’s mouth was sucked in and then quickly expelled as an awful roar filled the room. The palero twisted on the floor, howling and roaring and Sam could see sweat glistening on the faces of the four men. The woman remained impassive, standing with her gnarled hands clasped in front of her.
Finally the palero stopped thrashing with only snuffling growls emanating from beneath the sheet. One of the men stepped forward.
“Spirit,” he called loudly, “Will you agree to serve this palero in all deeds?”
The palero stilled completely and it seemed like the men were all holding their breath. Suddenly the powder on the knife, gunpowder Sam realized, ignited with a muted bang and a spray of sparks. The men all smiled and moments later the palero tore the sheet from himself, grinning triumphantly.
“Friends,” he boomed, “We have our nganga.”
Sam felt the last vestiges of calm slipping away from him, like water through a sieve.
* * *
The man had stripped off Sam’s shirt and washed his torso with water from a small basin. They took his sneakers and washed his feet and calves and Sam felt a surge of relief when no one tried to remove his shorts. He turned his face away when the facecloth was smoothed across his neck and cheeks, shivering slightly in the sudden cool of the room.
“These beads show that you belong to me, Sam. They will protect you from most things,” the palero said as he affixed a short, single strand of brown beads around Sam’s neck.
“Fuck your beads,” Sam said. The bed he was laying on was a single with a metal frame. His wrists were tied to the makeshift headboard and his ankles were secured to the bottom corners, he had enough leverage to shift his limbs on the mattress, but little else.
The black sack had indeed contained bones; a grisly assortment of fingers, toes, fibia, ribs, and the skull. The palero had placed the bones into an iron cauldron, the spirit’s name written on a piece of paper was place inside alongside the bones. There were coins, branches, crossroad dirt, and other sundry items inside the cauldron, a medium with which the palero could invoke his nganga, the spirit.
“Maybe a spoonful of sugar will sweeten him up some,” the woman said. Sam glanced over at where she was sitting; she was holding some kind of plant pod in her hand. She cut the skin open and scraped away a brown resin from the inside. There was a long pipe with a metal attachment on the table beside her.
“Opium, Sam,” the palero said, “Old mother is right. We have guests tonight, and it’ll help you,”
“Help me what?” Sam demanded as the woman placed a pea-sized amount of resin into the metal base of the pipe.
“You need to open up, that’s why the nganga couldn’t speak to me, it has to speak through you. You need to be open for that.” The palero’s voice was gentle and he touched Sam’s forehead, a grim benediction.
“I won’t,” Sam bucked against the bonds with one of the palero’s big hands clamped down over his mouth and nose. The palero held him easily as Sam strained uselessly. Sam’s eyes stung as the woman brought the pipe over to the bed, she was holding a lighter under the metal and smoke was wafting from the tip of the pipe.
“Breathe deep, Sam, breathe in real deep,” the palero murmured as he moved his hand from Sam’s face to hold his head in place. Sam wheezed helplessly as the woman moved the pipe closer, sucking in great lungfuls of acrid smoke. Water streamed from his eyes as he felt his chest expanding and contracting.
Finally the palero released him completely and the woman stepped away from the bed. Sam tried to track her movements, but everything felt so heavy so he let his head loll against the mattress instead. Slowly he became aware of movement in the room and saw that there was an older couple seated in the far corner, watching him with startled eyes.
There's a mat on the floor, the palero is talking but Sam can't make out any words, he feels like he's underwater, distorted and floating. The palero is shaking something in his hand, his fist extends and small shells, cowrie shells a voice in his head says, fly out and bounce against the mat. Some land upright and the small openings are like mouths, writhing and gaping on the straw mat. Sam recoils with a sharp cry. The couple is watching him again, their lips are moving but Sam doesn't hear anything.
Fuckers, he wanted to say but what came out was a mash of syllables and consonants that sounded more like a groan than a word.
The palero was crouching on his haunches in front of the cauldron, muttering as he sprayed it with a sharp smelling amber liquid. More smoke, and Sam panicked for a moment until he realized it was a cigar. The palero blew a plume of smoke across the mouth of the cauldron. Sam lost track of him for a moment, a blur that crossed the room, and then he was back in front of the cauldron, drawing a symbol in chalk on the floor. More mounds of gunpowder igniting and then the palero was filling the room with chanting. Sam felt like the sound of it was seeping into his chest, pushing outwards against his ribs.
Movement across the room drew his slow gaze and he watched as the shadows cast by the couple moved, moved away from them and up the wall, shifting and blurring, a dark mass climbing the ceiling.
“Wuh?” Sam muttered, and then shirked away as the shadow started sliding down the wall behind the headboard. His ribs were pushing, harder and harder out until the light dimmed and the shadow swallowed him.
Sam screamed and his spine arched up until he thought his wrists might dislocate. The shadow was clawing around inside him, burrowing down and into his flesh, and blood, and bone. The palero was laughing and Sam was screaming and the shadow was eating him.
Part 5
The heat hadn’t gone down in any appreciable way, the denim of his jeans clung to his legs and staring out at the landscape of tall brown grass, watching the relentless shimmer just above the dried out stalks, was making Dean’s head pound. The windows were rolled up tight to keep the dust from the dirt road out; the stale air Dad had coaxed out of the vents did little to cool the sweat on their skin.
Dean hadn’t said anything when Dad hustled him into the Impala, hadn’t wanted to ask about where the new information that had them leaving Hialeah in the rearview mirror and heading for this remote patch of nothing. Just another question to add to all the others he hadn’t asked, that Dad wouldn’t answer anyway. Dean couldn’t bear to hear another goddamn platitude, another line, not when it was about Sam, all along it had been about Sam and Dean hadn’t wanted to see.
“He said there’s some kind of farmhouse out here,” John said, fingers curled tight around the steering wheel, knuckles white against his tan.
“He?” Dean asked dully, his forehead touching the window. Sweat dripped down, pooling in his eyebrows before making a stinging path into already irritated eyes. Dad doesn’t answer, just cleared his throat and thumped the wheel with the heel of his hand.
“Keep an eye out, Dean,” he said, voice strained and starting to crack around the edges. Dean didn’t need to be told, he couldn’t close his eyes against the heat. Sam was out there, with nothing but his shorts and his t-shirt and his sneakers and it was stupid, but Dean would have felt so much better if Sam had been wearing more clothes, if more of his body had been covered, protected. What would happen to the skin around his ankles and wrists, exposed and delicate?
“Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,” Dad said, and Dean closed his eyes now. Nothing good had ever happened when Dad talked with that voice, nothing good was going to be waiting up the road. Dean heard the rattle of gravel as Dad hit the brakes, felt the back tires slide out as the Impala lurched to a stop. The squeal of the front door, Dad still hadn’t remember to get the WD-40 out of the trunk, and Dad was yelling Sam’s name and Dean didn’t want to open his eyes but he’s always been brave for Sammy, always known to put on his game face when things were going pear-shaped because Sam always looked to him first, always looked to see what Dean was doing before he could formulate his own reaction.
Dean doesn’t see anything at first, just the dust that Dad is kicking up as he jogs up the road, arms swinging awkwardly at his side, almost like in that show Sammy used to love, with the gorillas.
There’s a figure up ahead, just walking slow and steady and Dean hasn’t even fully registered the sight before he was throwing open his own door and sneakers skidding out, sweat in his eyes and knees on the gravel.
“Fuck,” he said, heedless of the blood and cloth and skin he left on the side of the road behind him, pushing up and off and on Dad’s heels in seconds, pushing past and his mouth is open, his mouth is open and he must be talking, but Sammy didn’t stop or look or do anything, except walk.
He would have walked past them, but Dad grabbed him by the arms.
“Sam,” Dad said, gruff and wobbly. Sam just stared over Dad’s shoulder, arms hanging loose at his sides chin tucked down.
Sam was wearing a t-shirt Dean didn’t recognize and Dad was pulling at it, rough and almost ripping the material and Dean croaked, wanted to tell Dad stop, but he saw it then.
The blood. The shirt was covered in it, dried out and discoloured but recognizable now. Everything else came in degrees, like an old fashioned slideshow. Sam was barefoot. snap. Bruises on his throat, snap on his wrists, snap, and his ankles snap. Blood on his cheek, but no cuts or scrapes beneath it snap.
“Sammy, son,” Dad shook Sam, just a little, and Sam’s head rolled but he didn’t blink and he didn’t cry, he just kept on staring. “Where were you coming from?” Dad’s big hand came up then, cupped against Sam’s cheek. The blood cracked and flaked, old and dry.
Sam’s eyes shifted then, just enough to meet Dad’s gaze. He turned, looked behind, the direction he’d been coming from, frowning in the distance.
Dean looked down the road, there was nothing, just grass and dust and that shimmering heat. How long had Sam been walking?
“Dad, Dad, he needs water,” Dean said, words falling over each other, “Out of the sun, he needs,”
Dad’s hands moved, running down Sam’s shoulders, arms, waist and legs. Checking for breaks, checking for wounds. His feet were dirty and red, and Dean’s chest felt so tight, thinking about Sam walking with no shoes.
“S’okay Sammy,” Dad said, sliding his arms around and picking Sam up, like Sam was a baby and weighed nothing at all. Dean trailed after them as Dad carried Sam to the car, ran ahead at the last minute to open the back door, to fumble in the backseat for the leftover water bottles. The water was piss warm and as Dean unscrewed the cap he apologized, sorry Sammy, so sorry, and held the rim of the bottle up to Sam’s lips. Sam made no move to take the water himself, but he swallowed when Dean tipped the bottle up, until he didn’t anymore and the water slid down his chin, washing the dust from his skin.
“Sammy,” Dad said, “Whose blood is this?”
Sam didn’t answer. He didn’t talk on the drive back to Hialeah, and he didn’t talk when Dad left them in the car with the Magnum to pack up their room. He didn’t talk when they crossed into Alabama. It was just him and Dean in the backseat, bundled up in the dark and smelling vaguely like antiseptic after Dean bandaged the sores on his feet and cuts on his wrists and ankles.
Dad wasn’t asking any more questions, but when they finally stopped just as the sun was coming up, parked outside a well lit motel, Dean saw his hands hover over the welts on Sam’s skin.
“They must have tied you up pretty tight,” he said and Dean looked away. Dad bowed his head and didn’t move, stayed hunched over half in the car half out, just breathing, loud exhalations that were the only noise Dean could hear.
“Cold,” Sam said, voice dull and distant. “Cold, daddy,”
Dad made a sound, caught somewhere between a moan and a growl and his hands fisted in the sweatshirt they’d dressed Sam in earlier.
“Dean,” he said finally. “Go and check us in, okay?”
Dean wanted to argue. That was Dad’s job, Dean had never been allowed to check them in, especially when Sammy was hurt, Dad knew that Dean was the one who stayed with Sammy, it was his job.
“Dean,” Dad said, gruff and tired and everything Dean hated about hunts that went wrong.
Dean opened the other door, scooted across the bench seat and slid his legs across. He felt like his joints were filled with water instead of bone and cartilage, stumbled a little as he stood. He didn’t look back, didn’t listen to the soft murmurs of Dad’s voice and the absence of any response.
***
Dad carried Sam again, Dean trailed behind with the gear and their duffels, feeling clumsy and angry and out of place and so damned scared. Sam wasn’t just hurt, he was different, broken somehow in a way that stitches and pills and warm soup wouldn’t touch. He just, he wasn’t Sam, and seeing this stranger wearing his brother’s face was the most godawful thing Dean had ever experienced. He didn’t even want to think about what could do that to a person, what could do that to Sam. Sam might have been a serious pain in Dean’s ass and a complete brat six days out of the week, but Dean had always seen strength in his brother that belied his young age.
Dad was worse.
The phone was ringing, but he didn’t answer it, wouldn’t let Dean answer it. He just sat on the edge of the bed Sam was sprawled on, propped up by pillows like a freaking rich chick in a movie, almost swaddled in blankets. He stroked Sam’s hair and murmured nonsense comforts against the shell of his ear. Dean sat on the other side with his hands in his lap, watching. Sam didn’t even acknowledge the attention, head tilted to the side and gaze fixed on the far corner of the ceiling, eyes slowly tracking the shadows across the plaster.
“I don’t think we should have left,” Dean said, and was almost as surprised as Dad seemed. He’d opened his mouth to say something, something about the ringing phone, not about that.
“What do you mean?” Dad said, gruff, and dismissive.
“Sam was covered in blood. It wasn’t his and that much, someone is dead and Sam is not going to tell us what happened. Something is wrong with him, Dad, and,”
“Do you think I don’t know that? Jesus, Dean, what’s with all the goddamn questions?” Dad turned away, from him and Sam, but kept his palm braced against Sam’s ribcage, to comforting himself or his son, Dean couldn’t tell.
“The phone is ringing,” Dean said. He watched as Dad’s shoulders visibly slumped. “What the fuck is going on? I deserve to know, I need to know,”
“Hey, hey,”
Suddenly Dad was crouched in front of Dean, but Dean barely registered him, a tightness in his chest, like a sack of rocks and he couldn’t breathe past it. Dad’s palms were warm and dry against his face and Dean closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Dad said, and Dean shook his head.
“Tell me,” Dean said, but Dad just held on.
The phone kept on ringing. No one said anything, until Sam started screaming.
Spoonful of Sugar 4-5/?
Author’s notes: This chapter is told from Sam’s POV. kroki-refur assured me that changing POVs probably wouldn’t suck, so I’m hoping that she’s right.
The first thing Sam noticed was the absence of sound. Sensations bombarded him as the fog in his head slowly dissipated. The floor beneath him was wood, rough and wide planked and the smell of dirt lingered between the cracks. He was prone on his side, his hands were bound behind his back with bailing twine, scratchy and thin, and there were splinters in his elbow where his weight pressed down awkwardly. His shoulders felt taut and sore and he fought the urge to adjust his position into something more comfortable, Dad had always said to assess a situation before doing anything else.
A few more shallow breaths, the smell of dirt was everywhere, and Sam felt a growing tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with his position on the floor. He wasn’t in the city anymore. It was country-quiet, and Sam realized that the faint sounds that he had attributed to his confused state were actually wind chimes, the gentle clack of bamboo shoots. Caleb’s friend, the woman from the city, had had a set. Sam remembered Dean saying something, Dean hadn’t liked the chimes, said they weren’t musical at all. Sam had liked the sound, then, more a reverberation than a musical note. Now they sounded sinister, like the echoes of dried bones clashing.
Dean. Where was he? Sam cursed himself for not thinking of his brother earlier. The last thing he remembered was walking back to the hotel, Dean teasing him, then Dean falling, falling backwards and…
“You awake, boy?”
Sam couldn’t help the jolt that traveled up his spine, the voice was gruff and graveled, coming from behind his right shoulder.
“Yeah, you awake,”
The floor trembled slightly as heavy footsteps crossed the room until Sam could make out a pair of feet, the jutting curve of wide ankles, the hem of a thin red dress. Sam rolled himself back enough so he could look up the length of the speaker, it wasn’t a far distance. The old woman was short and wide and her legs rolled out slightly in a sturdy gait as she walked. She collapsed back into a wicker rocking chair that squeaked with the back and forwards motion. Her dark, lined face was starkly contrasted against the shock of white curls cropped close to her skull and the thick fingers that were clasped in her lap were misshapen, as though they had been broken repeatedly at the middle knuckle. She didn’t look threatening, but Sam had been there when a twelve year old girl possessed by a demon had almost eviscerated Dean and he knew better than to let down his guard.
The woman seemed content to watch and rock, and eventually Sam twisted himself up into a seated position. The skin on his left side was raw and he banged his knees against the floor but he managed all the same. The woman didn’t seem put out by his efforts, she didn’t call out to anyone or move at all. Dean wasn’t anywhere in sight, and Sam wagered that Dean was still in Hialeah or else he’d be filling the air with his bellowing.
“Where are we?” Sam asked, and then was surprised at the sound of his voice, more a croaking sound than anything else, and he wondered for the first time how long he’d been unconscious. It had been dusk then, it was daylight now, no way to tell more than that without being able to see the sun in the sky.
“This is my home,” the woman said after a moment’s pause. “My home,”
That’s pretty fucking helpful, Sam thought uncharitably, mindful of how much he sounded like Dean. Dean probably would have worked himself loose by now and have been hoofing it back to civilization, wherever that was. Sam shifted his arms behind him, testing the bonds, wincing as the coarse fibers of the twine abraded already chafed skin, quickly realizing that nothing short of a knife would free him.
All in all, Sam thought he was doing a good job of distracting himself from all the fears that had assaulted him upon wakening on the floor. He was hyperaware of everything Dad hadn’t said about the vessel, about the priest, and suddenly every guarded look and pointed silence seemed significant, if only Dad had said something, something Sam could use…
If only that goddamn woman would stop her goddamn rocking, stupid chair, Sam looked away, twisting himself at the hips to take in the rest of the room. The only entrance was a wide doorway to the left opened up into what appeared to be a vestibule. The walls were cheap wood paneling and unadorned, a staircase with several missing spindles climbed the side of the far wall. The room they occupied now was barely furnished with only the rocking chair, a side table, and an overstuffed loveseat upholstered with what appeared to be shag carpet.
“Why am I here?” Sam asked, turning back to the woman. She seemed to have lost interest in him completely, gazing at the ceiling and humming tunelessly instead. “Okay,” Sam muttered.
The shriek of rusted hinges filled the still air and Sam stiffened as a screen door banged closed. Dust spilled loose from the corners of the ceiling as a large black man came into view, the same man from the botanica, the same man from the motel.
“What the hell did you do to my brother?” Sam demanded through gritted teeth, unconsciously jerking his arms behind his back.
“Don’t worry about your brother, he’s fine. I left him in your motel room, just sleeping,” the man smiled wide, baring two rows of gleaming white teeth. He was wearing loose khakis, battered nylon sandals, and a short-sleeved blue button up. The shirt was a size too small and the middle button strained against the curve of his belly.
“What should I worry about, then?” Sam said, resisting the urge to scurry back across the floor as the man approached. He wasn’t overly tall, but right now he loomed over Sam.
“You don’t gotta worry,” the man said. The woman was watching him, a vaguely pleased expression on her face, still rocking, still with the damn squeaking. The man squatted down on his haunches, groaning slightly as he did so, until he was almost eye-level with Sam. “Do you know why I chose you, Sam?”
Sam swallowed, unable to look away from the man’s dark gaze. His bravado was quickly deserting him now, and he wished more than anything for Dean’s presence. Dean always kept people from looking too closely at Sam, always protected him from this kind of uncomfortable focus by drawing attention to himself.
“I’m a palero. Do you know what that means?” the man said.
“It means, it means that you use witchcraft, Palo,” Sam fumbled over the unfamiliar word, staring at a point over the man’s shoulder.
“That’s right,” the man, the palero, said. He was unbuttoning his shirt and Sam felt a new trill of fear as dark, scarred flesh was exposed. “Do you see these? I am rayado,” the man gestured at his chest were a mass of lines were visible. There were smaller lines on his forearms that Sam hadn’t noticed before, all neat and thin. “That means I am cut in Palo, initiated,”
“What did you do to the girl?” Sam asked. The palero frowned as he buttoned his shirt again.
“She was weak, she didn’t last as long as I’d hoped,” he said.
“That’s not what I asked,” Sam said, trying to sound more confident than he really felt. The palero laughed, slapping a palm down on his knee.
“Listen to this one, old mother. What a tongue on him,” he said, delighted. “You’re not weak, are you Sam?”
“How do you know my name?” Sam whispered.
“You want to know why I chose you?” the palero asked again. Sam nodded mutely, not trusting himself to speak.
“Because your spirit called out to me, and that’s the truth. I’ve seen you, Sam,” he said, and Sam got the distinct impression that he didn’t mean with his eyes. “You and I got work to do, now,”
The palero gripped Sam’s biceps and Sam winced. The man looked soft but there was no mistaking the strength in his arms. He pulled Sam to his feet easily and Sam swayed with sudden vertigo.
“You just gonna sit here, real quiet,” the palero walked Sam backwards until his legs hit the edge of the loveseat. “Listen close, now, you can sit here under your own power or I can give you somethin’ that’ll make you real nice, understand?”
Sam sat down and looked up at the palero.
“I understand,” he said.
More men came, and the palero left with two and two remained. They were obviously there to watch Sam, and they dragged two chairs from somewhere, kitchen probably, and shuffled a battered deck of cards cross the side table.
Sam waited, for what he wasn’t sure. For the palero to come back, for nightfall, for something other than all this stupid waiting and silence and squeaking. He waited for Dad and Dean to come. They wouldn’t, of course. They didn’t know where he was, hell, Sam didn’t know where he was. He might have tried to run, wanted to so bad, but he’d seen the long driveway out the window. Nothing but brown grass and dusty roads and nowhere to go.
It was dark when the palero and the others returned and Sam’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He wished for the warm bottles of water stacked underneath the chair in the motel room. He wished for the hideous brown wall paper and the pink stucco and he wished for the smell of Dean’s sweat, which was a pretty weird thing to wish for, actually.
The palero was holding a large black sack which bulged at strange angles and Sam knew immediately that there were bones inside. The woman got up from the chair, about goddamn time, and left the room. She returned moments later with a wooden tray. Sam could just make out four tapered candles, a curved hunting knife and a bowl filled with black powder. The palero handed the black sack to one of the men and laid down on his back across the bare floor. Sam watched, fascinated despite himself, as the old woman covered him with a white sheet.
One of the men produced a package of matches and lit the wicks of the tapers before placing them on either side of the palero’s prone form while another man carefully tipped out small mounds of black powder along the width of the blade. He bent at the knees to lay the knife at the feet of the palero and then backed away with tight, quick movements. The air in the room seemed to still then, not even disturbed by the breathing of seven people.
The form beneath the white sheet jerked and the fabric above the palero’s mouth was sucked in and then quickly expelled as an awful roar filled the room. The palero twisted on the floor, howling and roaring and Sam could see sweat glistening on the faces of the four men. The woman remained impassive, standing with her gnarled hands clasped in front of her.
Finally the palero stopped thrashing with only snuffling growls emanating from beneath the sheet. One of the men stepped forward.
“Spirit,” he called loudly, “Will you agree to serve this palero in all deeds?”
The palero stilled completely and it seemed like the men were all holding their breath. Suddenly the powder on the knife, gunpowder Sam realized, ignited with a muted bang and a spray of sparks. The men all smiled and moments later the palero tore the sheet from himself, grinning triumphantly.
“Friends,” he boomed, “We have our nganga.”
Sam felt the last vestiges of calm slipping away from him, like water through a sieve.
* * *
The man had stripped off Sam’s shirt and washed his torso with water from a small basin. They took his sneakers and washed his feet and calves and Sam felt a surge of relief when no one tried to remove his shorts. He turned his face away when the facecloth was smoothed across his neck and cheeks, shivering slightly in the sudden cool of the room.
“These beads show that you belong to me, Sam. They will protect you from most things,” the palero said as he affixed a short, single strand of brown beads around Sam’s neck.
“Fuck your beads,” Sam said. The bed he was laying on was a single with a metal frame. His wrists were tied to the makeshift headboard and his ankles were secured to the bottom corners, he had enough leverage to shift his limbs on the mattress, but little else.
The black sack had indeed contained bones; a grisly assortment of fingers, toes, fibia, ribs, and the skull. The palero had placed the bones into an iron cauldron, the spirit’s name written on a piece of paper was place inside alongside the bones. There were coins, branches, crossroad dirt, and other sundry items inside the cauldron, a medium with which the palero could invoke his nganga, the spirit.
“Maybe a spoonful of sugar will sweeten him up some,” the woman said. Sam glanced over at where she was sitting; she was holding some kind of plant pod in her hand. She cut the skin open and scraped away a brown resin from the inside. There was a long pipe with a metal attachment on the table beside her.
“Opium, Sam,” the palero said, “Old mother is right. We have guests tonight, and it’ll help you,”
“Help me what?” Sam demanded as the woman placed a pea-sized amount of resin into the metal base of the pipe.
“You need to open up, that’s why the nganga couldn’t speak to me, it has to speak through you. You need to be open for that.” The palero’s voice was gentle and he touched Sam’s forehead, a grim benediction.
“I won’t,” Sam bucked against the bonds with one of the palero’s big hands clamped down over his mouth and nose. The palero held him easily as Sam strained uselessly. Sam’s eyes stung as the woman brought the pipe over to the bed, she was holding a lighter under the metal and smoke was wafting from the tip of the pipe.
“Breathe deep, Sam, breathe in real deep,” the palero murmured as he moved his hand from Sam’s face to hold his head in place. Sam wheezed helplessly as the woman moved the pipe closer, sucking in great lungfuls of acrid smoke. Water streamed from his eyes as he felt his chest expanding and contracting.
Finally the palero released him completely and the woman stepped away from the bed. Sam tried to track her movements, but everything felt so heavy so he let his head loll against the mattress instead. Slowly he became aware of movement in the room and saw that there was an older couple seated in the far corner, watching him with startled eyes.
There's a mat on the floor, the palero is talking but Sam can't make out any words, he feels like he's underwater, distorted and floating. The palero is shaking something in his hand, his fist extends and small shells, cowrie shells a voice in his head says, fly out and bounce against the mat. Some land upright and the small openings are like mouths, writhing and gaping on the straw mat. Sam recoils with a sharp cry. The couple is watching him again, their lips are moving but Sam doesn't hear anything.
Fuckers, he wanted to say but what came out was a mash of syllables and consonants that sounded more like a groan than a word.
The palero was crouching on his haunches in front of the cauldron, muttering as he sprayed it with a sharp smelling amber liquid. More smoke, and Sam panicked for a moment until he realized it was a cigar. The palero blew a plume of smoke across the mouth of the cauldron. Sam lost track of him for a moment, a blur that crossed the room, and then he was back in front of the cauldron, drawing a symbol in chalk on the floor. More mounds of gunpowder igniting and then the palero was filling the room with chanting. Sam felt like the sound of it was seeping into his chest, pushing outwards against his ribs.
Movement across the room drew his slow gaze and he watched as the shadows cast by the couple moved, moved away from them and up the wall, shifting and blurring, a dark mass climbing the ceiling.
“Wuh?” Sam muttered, and then shirked away as the shadow started sliding down the wall behind the headboard. His ribs were pushing, harder and harder out until the light dimmed and the shadow swallowed him.
Sam screamed and his spine arched up until he thought his wrists might dislocate. The shadow was clawing around inside him, burrowing down and into his flesh, and blood, and bone. The palero was laughing and Sam was screaming and the shadow was eating him.
Part 5
The heat hadn’t gone down in any appreciable way, the denim of his jeans clung to his legs and staring out at the landscape of tall brown grass, watching the relentless shimmer just above the dried out stalks, was making Dean’s head pound. The windows were rolled up tight to keep the dust from the dirt road out; the stale air Dad had coaxed out of the vents did little to cool the sweat on their skin.
Dean hadn’t said anything when Dad hustled him into the Impala, hadn’t wanted to ask about where the new information that had them leaving Hialeah in the rearview mirror and heading for this remote patch of nothing. Just another question to add to all the others he hadn’t asked, that Dad wouldn’t answer anyway. Dean couldn’t bear to hear another goddamn platitude, another line, not when it was about Sam, all along it had been about Sam and Dean hadn’t wanted to see.
“He said there’s some kind of farmhouse out here,” John said, fingers curled tight around the steering wheel, knuckles white against his tan.
“He?” Dean asked dully, his forehead touching the window. Sweat dripped down, pooling in his eyebrows before making a stinging path into already irritated eyes. Dad doesn’t answer, just cleared his throat and thumped the wheel with the heel of his hand.
“Keep an eye out, Dean,” he said, voice strained and starting to crack around the edges. Dean didn’t need to be told, he couldn’t close his eyes against the heat. Sam was out there, with nothing but his shorts and his t-shirt and his sneakers and it was stupid, but Dean would have felt so much better if Sam had been wearing more clothes, if more of his body had been covered, protected. What would happen to the skin around his ankles and wrists, exposed and delicate?
“Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,” Dad said, and Dean closed his eyes now. Nothing good had ever happened when Dad talked with that voice, nothing good was going to be waiting up the road. Dean heard the rattle of gravel as Dad hit the brakes, felt the back tires slide out as the Impala lurched to a stop. The squeal of the front door, Dad still hadn’t remember to get the WD-40 out of the trunk, and Dad was yelling Sam’s name and Dean didn’t want to open his eyes but he’s always been brave for Sammy, always known to put on his game face when things were going pear-shaped because Sam always looked to him first, always looked to see what Dean was doing before he could formulate his own reaction.
Dean doesn’t see anything at first, just the dust that Dad is kicking up as he jogs up the road, arms swinging awkwardly at his side, almost like in that show Sammy used to love, with the gorillas.
There’s a figure up ahead, just walking slow and steady and Dean hasn’t even fully registered the sight before he was throwing open his own door and sneakers skidding out, sweat in his eyes and knees on the gravel.
“Fuck,” he said, heedless of the blood and cloth and skin he left on the side of the road behind him, pushing up and off and on Dad’s heels in seconds, pushing past and his mouth is open, his mouth is open and he must be talking, but Sammy didn’t stop or look or do anything, except walk.
He would have walked past them, but Dad grabbed him by the arms.
“Sam,” Dad said, gruff and wobbly. Sam just stared over Dad’s shoulder, arms hanging loose at his sides chin tucked down.
Sam was wearing a t-shirt Dean didn’t recognize and Dad was pulling at it, rough and almost ripping the material and Dean croaked, wanted to tell Dad stop, but he saw it then.
The blood. The shirt was covered in it, dried out and discoloured but recognizable now. Everything else came in degrees, like an old fashioned slideshow. Sam was barefoot. snap. Bruises on his throat, snap on his wrists, snap, and his ankles snap. Blood on his cheek, but no cuts or scrapes beneath it snap.
“Sammy, son,” Dad shook Sam, just a little, and Sam’s head rolled but he didn’t blink and he didn’t cry, he just kept on staring. “Where were you coming from?” Dad’s big hand came up then, cupped against Sam’s cheek. The blood cracked and flaked, old and dry.
Sam’s eyes shifted then, just enough to meet Dad’s gaze. He turned, looked behind, the direction he’d been coming from, frowning in the distance.
Dean looked down the road, there was nothing, just grass and dust and that shimmering heat. How long had Sam been walking?
“Dad, Dad, he needs water,” Dean said, words falling over each other, “Out of the sun, he needs,”
Dad’s hands moved, running down Sam’s shoulders, arms, waist and legs. Checking for breaks, checking for wounds. His feet were dirty and red, and Dean’s chest felt so tight, thinking about Sam walking with no shoes.
“S’okay Sammy,” Dad said, sliding his arms around and picking Sam up, like Sam was a baby and weighed nothing at all. Dean trailed after them as Dad carried Sam to the car, ran ahead at the last minute to open the back door, to fumble in the backseat for the leftover water bottles. The water was piss warm and as Dean unscrewed the cap he apologized, sorry Sammy, so sorry, and held the rim of the bottle up to Sam’s lips. Sam made no move to take the water himself, but he swallowed when Dean tipped the bottle up, until he didn’t anymore and the water slid down his chin, washing the dust from his skin.
“Sammy,” Dad said, “Whose blood is this?”
Sam didn’t answer. He didn’t talk on the drive back to Hialeah, and he didn’t talk when Dad left them in the car with the Magnum to pack up their room. He didn’t talk when they crossed into Alabama. It was just him and Dean in the backseat, bundled up in the dark and smelling vaguely like antiseptic after Dean bandaged the sores on his feet and cuts on his wrists and ankles.
Dad wasn’t asking any more questions, but when they finally stopped just as the sun was coming up, parked outside a well lit motel, Dean saw his hands hover over the welts on Sam’s skin.
“They must have tied you up pretty tight,” he said and Dean looked away. Dad bowed his head and didn’t move, stayed hunched over half in the car half out, just breathing, loud exhalations that were the only noise Dean could hear.
“Cold,” Sam said, voice dull and distant. “Cold, daddy,”
Dad made a sound, caught somewhere between a moan and a growl and his hands fisted in the sweatshirt they’d dressed Sam in earlier.
“Dean,” he said finally. “Go and check us in, okay?”
Dean wanted to argue. That was Dad’s job, Dean had never been allowed to check them in, especially when Sammy was hurt, Dad knew that Dean was the one who stayed with Sammy, it was his job.
“Dean,” Dad said, gruff and tired and everything Dean hated about hunts that went wrong.
Dean opened the other door, scooted across the bench seat and slid his legs across. He felt like his joints were filled with water instead of bone and cartilage, stumbled a little as he stood. He didn’t look back, didn’t listen to the soft murmurs of Dad’s voice and the absence of any response.
***
Dad carried Sam again, Dean trailed behind with the gear and their duffels, feeling clumsy and angry and out of place and so damned scared. Sam wasn’t just hurt, he was different, broken somehow in a way that stitches and pills and warm soup wouldn’t touch. He just, he wasn’t Sam, and seeing this stranger wearing his brother’s face was the most godawful thing Dean had ever experienced. He didn’t even want to think about what could do that to a person, what could do that to Sam. Sam might have been a serious pain in Dean’s ass and a complete brat six days out of the week, but Dean had always seen strength in his brother that belied his young age.
Dad was worse.
The phone was ringing, but he didn’t answer it, wouldn’t let Dean answer it. He just sat on the edge of the bed Sam was sprawled on, propped up by pillows like a freaking rich chick in a movie, almost swaddled in blankets. He stroked Sam’s hair and murmured nonsense comforts against the shell of his ear. Dean sat on the other side with his hands in his lap, watching. Sam didn’t even acknowledge the attention, head tilted to the side and gaze fixed on the far corner of the ceiling, eyes slowly tracking the shadows across the plaster.
“I don’t think we should have left,” Dean said, and was almost as surprised as Dad seemed. He’d opened his mouth to say something, something about the ringing phone, not about that.
“What do you mean?” Dad said, gruff, and dismissive.
“Sam was covered in blood. It wasn’t his and that much, someone is dead and Sam is not going to tell us what happened. Something is wrong with him, Dad, and,”
“Do you think I don’t know that? Jesus, Dean, what’s with all the goddamn questions?” Dad turned away, from him and Sam, but kept his palm braced against Sam’s ribcage, to comforting himself or his son, Dean couldn’t tell.
“The phone is ringing,” Dean said. He watched as Dad’s shoulders visibly slumped. “What the fuck is going on? I deserve to know, I need to know,”
“Hey, hey,”
Suddenly Dad was crouched in front of Dean, but Dean barely registered him, a tightness in his chest, like a sack of rocks and he couldn’t breathe past it. Dad’s palms were warm and dry against his face and Dean closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Dad said, and Dean shook his head.
“Tell me,” Dean said, but Dad just held on.
The phone kept on ringing. No one said anything, until Sam started screaming.