SPN FIC - Random Chances (sequel to "Chicago")
Ooh. I'm early. :)
RL left me alone, so after 5 hours of mad typing (and an hour of wrestling with LJ), here it is: the sequel to "Chicago."
Length: 5,400 words
Pairings: Doug/Carol (from ER)
Rating: PG, for a bit of language
Spoilers: none
And I'll warn you: somebody dies in this.
It helps if you're familiar with ER, but not entirely necessary. The first bit of this takes place at the end of season 4's (episode 7), "Fathers and Sons."
Thanks to Kripke & Co., and John Wells & Co., for being kind enough to let fans play in their sandboxes. I'm obviously not making a nickel off this. Feedback is my only reward (and yes, that's a hint).
And thanks to the peculiarities of LJ, I have to do this in two parts. Link to the conclusion is down at the bottom. Jeez effing LOUISE.
Random Chances
By Carol Davis
Barstow, California
Mark sees the car first.
An hour ago, they were scattering Doug’s father’s ashes into the wind. “I hated the bastard,” he said. “But I loved him.”
Now they’re in Doug’s father’s old Cadillac, riding with the top down in spite of the brutal desert heat that’s like sitting under a magnifying glass being fried like a bug. Carol’s got her hair pulled back into a scrunchie to keep it out of her face, and she figures her nose and the tops of her ears have turned the color of ketchup.
Doug, driving with one hand on the wheel, arcs the Caddy into the parking lot of their motel, into a parking space near the end of the row.
The black car is three slots away.
“Looks like some kind of classic car rally,” Mark comments.
Doug follows his gaze and snorts. “That’s an Impala,” he says derisively.
“So?”
“You figure it’s a classic because it’s old?”
“I figure it’s a classic because it’s a classic.”
With another, louder, snort, Doug announces, “It’s a goddamn Impala, Mark,” and shuts off the Caddy’s mammoth engine.
If they were on a basketball court, Mark would run Doug into a wall - or try to. As it is, he climbs out of the Caddy and strolls over to stand near the black car, hands in the pockets of his jeans. Doug turns to Carol to have his motion seconded but all she can muster is a shrug. An old car is an old car as far as she’s concerned. On top of that, it’s been a long day, and right now her thoughts are on cold drink -dinner - sleep, in that order.
Okay, maybe cold drink - dinner - sex - sleep, since she came all the way to Barstow to be with Doug.
She gets out of the car and moves toward the door of Doug’s room, hoping he’ll follow. But he doesn’t. Bouncing the Caddy’s keys in his hand, he walks toward the black car and makes a face at Mark.
“It’s in good shape,” Mark points out.
“Not gonna give this up, are you?”
It’s a stupid conversation, and all Carol can think is that Mark is trying to distract Doug from thoughts of his father, who died a couple of days ago when he hit a pickup truck. Driving drunk, doing 120 miles an hour. It wasn’t a good end, and you could say “at least it was quick” except for the fact that Doug’s dad took two other people with him.
So, fine, she thinks, talk about old cars.
She looks around as they squabble: at the few other cars in the lot, at the lawn chairs Mrs. Kellogg, the manager, stuck here and there for her guests. Her head is starting to ache from the heat and lack of food and water.
Doug is peering into the car, looking at the odometer.
And a voice says, very indignantly, “You wanna back off?”
There’s somebody under the black car. Carol can see sneakered feet and the cuffs of a pair of jeans sticking out near the passenger door. For a crazy second - due to the heat and the headache, no doubt - she thinks of the way the feet of the Wicked Witch’s sister stick out from underneath Dorothy’s house after it falls on her. Doug and Mark both frown at the car as the owner of the sneakered feet inches out into the open, moving slowly to avoid tearing up his back on the gravel of the parking lot.
“This your car?” Doug asks.
“No,” says the owner of the sneakers. “I’m trying to steal the engine and then tunnel out of here.”
It’s a kid. A little taller than Doug, but slimmer. Blondish hair. Hellishly good-looking. His gray t-shirt and jeans are smeared with dirt and what has to be oil from the car.
And boy, is he ticked.
Mark takes note of the way the kid and Doug look at each other and backs off to join Carol. He folds his arms across his chest and leans back against one of the support posts of the portico that shades the room doors. “Got a tape measure?” he chuckles softly.
They’ll need one, because the kid has sized up the Caddy and he and Doug are a heartbeat away from dropping their pants in the parking lot to see whose apparatus is bigger.
“It’s blue,” the kid says.
He means the Caddy. Which is indeed robin’s-egg blue. And about seventy-five feet long. If they’re going by size, Doug wins.
“What’s wrong with blue?” Doug counters. He looks to Mark and Carol for support and gets nothing for his trouble but a twin pair of shrugs. Annoyed, he says to the kid, “That’s a ‘fifty-seven Cadillac Eldorado.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“It’s blue,” says the kid. “Who’d you buy it from? Elvis?”
Mark’s head shifts gently back and forth, and he sighs. “What I said earlier about seeing Doug grow up? I take it back.”
“You started this,” Carol reminds him.
There’s somebody beside them then: a younger kid. The one by the car’s eighteen or so, this one’s maybe fourteen. He smiles at Carol and Mark and spends a minute considering the contest taking place alongside the black Impala. “Does he, like, do kickboxing or anything?” he asks, meaning Doug.
“He plays basketball,” Mark replies.
The kid thinks that over, then announces, “My brother can take him.”
“I don’t think we’re gonna let it come to that.”
“Does he know that?”
Doug has started gesturing at the Caddy and extolling all of its many virtues. Which is ridiculous, because he doesn’t intend to keep the car. It’s part of another time, another life, and he doesn’t like most of the things it reminds him of. He said part of that out loud a little while ago, said the rest with his eyes. But he’s in a mood. An hour ago he tossed his father’s ashes into the wind. The father who was gone more than he was there. The father he hated and loved.
Carol smiles at the younger boy. When he smiles back he looks familiar, and for a moment she tries to figure out why, then dismisses it. There’s nothing distinctive about him; he’s a tallish, lanky kid with brown hair and a sweet face. A typical kid brother. She sees kids all the time at the hospital and though she hates to admit it, all the faces kind of blend into one another. She can’t let them be too distinct, not if she wants to keep her distance.
“Dean?” the boy calls over to his brother. “Rule. Remember?”
And that’s enough to make the older kid back off. Reluctantly, and with a scowl, but he steps back.
Not that he and Doug really would have hit each other in the first place. But it’s hot out, and dusty and dry, and Doug’s in a mood. So is the kid, from the look of him. He shoves a hand through his hair and shrugs at Doug in a way that means he’s apologizing.
Not that he’s got anything to apologize for, really. Doug insulted his car.
“Doug?” she says.
He looks at her, and she can tell he’s wondering why he let himself get into this. He does the no-words apologizing thing too and the kid nods an acceptance.
“I’m an idiot,” Doug says as he walks past Mark and Carol.
The younger kid takes his place, moving in to stand close to his brother. He says something Carol can’t make out that makes his brother - Dean - roll his eyes. The only part of Dean’s response that Carol can hear is the younger boy’s name: Sammy.
That sounds familiar, too, and she doesn’t know why.
Cold drink, dinner, sex, sleep.
She wakes up a little after two in the morning and lies on her back listening to the snuffle and buzz of Doug’s snoring. The noise is so varied that it sounds like he’s having a conversation with himself.
“He loves you very much,” Mark told her a few hours ago.
He does, and she loves him back, so she can’t bring herself to be annoyed at the noise. In fact, she loves it, too, a little. Loves the way he sprawls on his belly with his face half-smooshed into the pillow so she can see the muscles of his shoulders.
The air conditioner is running softly, and he’s snoring, so she barely hears the noise outside.
But she does hear it, just enough to become uneasy. It’s a howl, sort of. An animal noise. Not very far away.
It gets louder and very strident, just for a moment, and she shudders.
Then someone - something? - someone? - screams.
“Doug,” she says. He doesn’t respond, so she says it again, nudging his arm firmly enough to rouse him. “Can you hear that?”
“Nuh?” he mumbles.
“Outside.”
“Coyotes.”
Is that what a coyote sounds like? She lives in Chicago. “Are you sure?”
“Desert. Go backasleep.”
She can’t, even though he does. A coyote couldn’t get in here; she doesn’t think one would even try to, if that’s indeed what’s making that sound. No, she decides, it wouldn’t try, even if it were rabid. There’s one more sound that’s almost a wail, and then the night falls silent except for the air conditioner and Doug’s snoring. She lies there listening to it for almost half an hour. It’s two-thirty in the morning when she hears a car, loud and rumbling, coming up close to the motel before the engine cuts off.
Then there are voices outside, muffled, but urgent. Scuffling sounds.
She slips out of bed and moves near the door, listening. Carefully she uses a finger to move the drapes aside just enough to peek out the window. The black Impala, which was gone when she and Doug and Mark got back from dinner, is now parked outside and off to the left a little. It’s skewed in the parking space, and the passenger door is open.
“Sam,” a voice says, and she can’t decide if it’s Dean or someone else speaking. Either way, it’s just wrong. If that boy is fourteen, he ought to be sleeping, not out doing… Were they drinking? Both those kids are too young for that.
She pulls on shorts and a t-shirt, shoves her feet into sandals and eases the door open. Doug doesn’t stir; even if he did he’d only tell her to mind her own business. She moves out onto the walkway, pulling the door almost shut behind her, and looks toward the car.
Sam is there, holding a duffel bag.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
He’s exhausted, worried, scared. At least that’s what it looks like. “I’m okay,” he says hurriedly. “Thank you. I’m okay.”
The security lights don’t allow for a really good look. But there’s something smeared on Sam’s shirt and his jawline and there are dark splotches on the walkway. She’s been a nurse for a long time. The dark stuff is blood. “Who’s hurt?”
Sam’s mouth sags a little. “Ahhh…”
“Sam.”
He knows her. She can see it. And all of a sudden she knows why he’s familiar, in a way that’s so clear it’s like a movie replaying in her head. A while back, in Chicago, he came running across the street to ask her for help because his brother was sick - the same brother who crawled out from under that black car when Doug insulted it. It’s weird that they’re all here now, in Barstow, but…whatever. They’re here. And again, he needs her.
“I can help,” she tells him.
“No. Please. It’s -“
The voice she heard before says “Saaaam,” and it’s a groan filled with pain. “It’s all right,” she tells Sam as she skirts around him and pushes open the door of the room he was aiming for.
It wasn’t Dean who groaned, although he’s obviously hurt. The side of his face is scraped and starting to bruise, and he’s holding his left arm in a way that suggests his shoulder’s popped. They’ve only turned on one lamp but it’s enough for Carol to see that Dean’s shirt and jeans are painted with blood.
But he’s not the one who groaned.
Her gaze follows Dean’s to the bed. Sitting there, head slumped, arms curled around himself, is the boys’ father. The dark man who sat silently in Chairs that night in Chicago. The one who eluded John Carter and smuggled his boys out of the hospital without anybody seeing them go. Slowly his head comes up and he fixes her with an even stare.
“Sam,” he grinds out with his eyes still locked on Carol.
Rather than answer, Sam unzips the duffel and up-ends it over the bed. Things tumble out: bandages, a suture kit, bottles of hydrogen peroxide, smaller bottles of prescription meds. There’s a whole pharmacy there, and Carol is willing to bet all of it was stolen from drugstores, hospitals, clinics, a little at a time. Her brain tries to ask Who are these people? but she cuts it off. There’s no good way to categorize people, to say who’s worthy of her care and who isn’t. Whoever they are, it’s a man and two kids, and two of them are hurt.
Sam isn’t saying it out loud this time, but he wants her help. Needs it, because he’s a kid and it’s the middle of the night. That’s all the motivation she needs.
The boys’ father wants nothing to do with a hospital, even though someone - something? - got him with a knife along the curve of his bottom rib. He’s got a couple of puncture wounds, too, and another slice close to his ear.
“The man I’m with is a doctor,” she tries, but he shakes his head.
Patching him and Dean up takes almost two hours. Doug and Mark could do it faster, she supposes, but they’re sleeping. And she knows what the boys’ father knows: Doug and Mark might do this without objecting much, but their first call when they got back to their own rooms would be to the police. She remembers what happened in Chicago, the way these three vanished into the night. They’d need to do that now, if she involved Doug or Mark, and that would be hell on their injuries. Not only that, it would mean Sam would have to drive.
Both Dean and his father gulp down a couple of pills. They murmur a thank you, and from the boys’ father it’s a dismissal.
And a warning.
His eyes ask her if she’ll keep their secret. He hates that she’s involved, but it is what it is. For no reason she can pin down, she nods.
Sam’s fingers curl around her arm and he leads her outside, his grip just firm enough to keep her from pulling away, from staying inside that room. “Are you all right, Sam?” she asks when they’re outside, the door almost fully shut behind them.
He shrugs, dips his head.
“Sam?”
He looks at her then, and his life is written in his eyes. The life he has, the life he doesn’t want, the life he wishes he had.
I hate him, it says. But I love him.
And there’s nothing for her to do but go back to Doug, back to bed. Back to her own life.
Part 2 is here:
http://ficwriter1966.livejournal.com/8881.html#cutid2