Chapter 4: Phone Calls (part 1)
“Hey Kiddo, get bitten by any monsters?” asks Dean.
Sam snaps back, “Nope, I think that it just had it out for you, Grandpa.” Chal, who insisted that the boys talk to each other, left the room after passing him in the phone. Sam thinks that it’s one thing for her and John to talk on the phone, they’re practicing some messed up courtship ritual, but making him and Dean talk is just weird. The awkwardness of being on the phone with Dean lasts for all of about two seconds, because Dean immediately starts asking questions about their secret, the one that unites them, and does so while referring to Sam as “kiddo” which, while condescending, demonstrates familiarity.
“I can’t help it if I’m delicious,” retorts Dean.
Sam smiles which is okay because Dean can’t see it. “I’ll take your word for that.”
“That would be a waste.”
“Huh?” asks Sam. He feels dense, suddenly, because that couldn’t be flirtation could it?
“Genius, my ass,” says Dean. “So, everything’s okay there? No more waheela attacks?”
Dean’s dad must still be in the room, otherwise Dean wouldn’t be using this coded language to check up on the waheela cub. It’s been three days and already Cujo has let Sam pet it, though warily, mistrusting pink eyes on him at all times. “Nope.” Then, he whispers, “Even let me pet it.”
“You be careful.”
“Yes, mom.” Sam leans back in his computer chair, long legs draped over the only section of desk with exposed surface, the only area without textbooks, papers, knick-knacks, pencils, or CDs. He grips the squishy pink stress-relief ball that Chal bought him from Office Depot. It smells funny, like latex, but it’s hard not to touch it, subtly amusing to squeeze the soft texture and watch as it slowly returns to its original shape.
“I can’t be both your mom and your grandpa, Sam. Pick an insult and stick with it.”
“Does ‘dick’ work?” Sam smiles at the combination of both curse and rhetorical question.
Dean’s voice lowers, implying secrecy. “Sometimes it does.” And Sam looks at the white cordless phone as though it’s responsible for the innuendo that Dean is tossing out. Before he can answer, which would probably take long enough to read War and Peace, Dean says, “Well, I’m gonna get back to the Simpsons. Have we talked in enough to make Chal happy? Ow!” Sam can’t hear whatever John’s doing or saying, but Dean sounds huffy when he says, “I’m passing the phone back to Dad.”
“Night, Dean.”
“Night, Danny Boy.”
Their second conversation occurs three days later and goes much the same way, with Chal pushing the phone into his hand and John doing the same to Dean. He feels like he’s in a reverse Parent Trap where the parents try to get the kids together.
“Hey, Sam. I am totally voluntarily talking to you with no pressure from my dad.”
This time, Sam hears the thunk that precedes Dean’s exclamation of surprised pain. “Ow. Dad! Not your shoe!” says Dean. “My back’s gonna reek for days.”
Sam laughs, textbook jiggling to the motion of his belly. “You should watch it; your dad’s kind of scary.”
“Yep!” agrees Dean, sounding proud. “So, how’s Nick?”
Sam looks over at Chal. She’s repotting a plant on the dining room table. He considers going into his room, but that just feels like giving in to whatever Chal is trying to foist upon him. “I’d rather not talk about that now,” he says softly.
“You should give me your cell phone number.”
Sam’s surprised. “You’d call me?” He winces at the optimistic immaturity, wants to just pass the phone back to Chal and say, “Never mind, I’m way too dorky for him.”
“Dude, I spend hours driving and sitting in hotel rooms watching the fucking paint dry. Sure. What the hell else better do I have to do?”
“Flatterer,” jokes Sam, but he’s relieved. He knows that their folks are kind of shoving them into a friendship and he doesn’t want to be that pesky younger kid that follows the older one around everywhere. He gives Dean his cell number three times since the first time Dean doesn’t have a pen handy and the second time he gets the numbers wrong.
“I’ll bug you tomorrow once we get under way. We’re driving up to Maine in the a.m.”
“Cool,” says Sam. Tomorrow is a Saturday and except for sleeping, he doesn’t have any big plans to celebrate the start of the weekend. “What’s in Maine?”
“Ghost, I think. Dad just kind of tells me where to go and I worry about how to kill it once we get there.”
Sam grins. Chal always goes overboard with her strategizing, as though she’s still part of her old garrison. “Cool.”
“Go get Chal; I’m putting Dad back on.”
“Okay.”
“Bye, Danny Boy.”
It would be lame for him to wait around outside for Dean’s call and that totally isn’t what he’s doing by sitting all alone in the Ram listening to the radio, volume low, and re-reading the same pages of a book while sneaking peeks at his cellphone. And if he happens to answer Dean’s call before the first ring finishes, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s excited to have Dean calling him of his volition, separate from John’s prodding.
“Hello?”
“Sammy!” Dean yells over the sound of the Rolling Stones. “A waheela is not for petting. It’s a monster.”
There haven’t been any signs that Cujo is anything but the bear puppy that it looks like. Not only has it been letting it pet him, but now it waits for him when it hears the shed door open, already anticipating that it will be Sam. He’d been pleased when it had done it, but then it occurred to him that it only makes Chal going out the shed that much more dangerous. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to find a new place for the adorable beast. “Tell that to Cujo.”
“What?”
“Turn down the music, you dumbass.”
The music disappears entirely and Dean says, “You do NOT get radio control in my baby, especially when you’re not even in it!”
“Just thought it’d be easier to not have to yell everything.”
Stubbornly, Dean sidesteps admitting the logic of that thinking. “So, why are you treating a waheela like a puppy?”
“It is a puppy, Dean. It’s a waheela puppy. If it grows up domesticated…”
Dean interrupts, “Don’t give me that nature versus nurture crap.”
Sam thinks that of all people, Dean Winchester shouldn’t think the nature versus nurture argument is crap. He is practically the poster child of the argument for “nurture.” Of course, Dean might be in denial, might think that regardless of his upbringing he’d always be proficient with handling firearms and familiar with torture techniques. That would be some messed up innate talents.
“Fine, how about the “benefit of the doubt” crap?” Sam asks.
Dean pauses. “Just be careful, Sammy. Don’t let its cuteness make you forget that it’s a killer.”
Chal does this to him all the time, underestimating his intelligence, inundating him with a repetition of warnings that even a small child could figure out unaided. “Whatever,” he huffs, tossing his book, Arthur C. Clarke, onto the dash of the Ram.
“So, tell me about Nick.”
“I haven’t really been working on him. I’ve got finals coming up.” Sam has been drawing, but he’s not sure yet if he has another comic on his hands or just some doodles. So far it’s just been forest scenes, mostly because he’s been replaying the night of the waheela hunt over and over in his mind. His pencil has been creating leaves and bark, the plants darkened by a moonless night sky. He likes them, thinks the atmosphere adequately reflects the spooky woods that night, but they might just be one-offs with no real story behind them.
“Finals? God, I’m glad I’m out of school.”
Sam knows how Dean feels. He likes learning, but hates school. He’s heard that college is better, that you have more say in the things you learn there, but the thought of doing core curriculum stuff pisses him off. He just wants to read what he wants, learn what he wants. “Yeah, rub it in…”
“What classes are you good at?” asks Dean.
“I don’t know. English.”
“Yeah, well, it is the language you speak.”
“I’m pretty good at languages in general,” Sam says, ignoring the insult. “I mean, I know a lot of Latin and so that helps with Italian. I learned some Korean when I was in Alabama.”
“Wait, you learned Korean in Alabama?”
“Yeah, kind of unconventional, but I was friends with a girl whose family had just come from Korea.”
“Nice,” says Dean. “A girl or a girlfriend?”
Sam smiles. Ji-eun would have had his ass if he’d tried to kiss her, but then, they’d been like ten. The first few months of their tentative friendship, she’d still thought boys were icky, and he’d only gone so far in changing her mind with his bug collecting and fart humor. He wonders what she’s grown up to be like, if she still roller skates. “Just a friend.”
“You going to college?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
A loud honk blasts Sam’s ear drum and he pulls the phone back from his ear. He hears Dean cursing. “I hate New York. Hey, why don’t we cut this short?” asks Dean.
“Sure.”
“I’ll talk at you later, Kiddo.”
The line goes silent before Sam gets the chance to say goodbye.
On Monday afternoon Dean’s phone beeps with the message, Call when Solo. He’s just gotten back from lunch at Yum Diner (the name does not reflect the quality of the cuisine) and is lying on the lumpy twin bed considering napping through the intestinal acrobatics required to digest the Yum Time Special. He calls Sam back right away looking forward to distracting himself with the pleasantness of conversation with his friend.
“I’m as Solo as Han,” he says after Sam says hello. He’s seen the posters, knows that Sam will get it.
“You can officially call Cujo a bitch,” says Sam.
“Did it bite you?” His concern is tempered by the fact that Sam’s not too injured to text.
“No, I mean Cujo is female.”
“No shit?” Dean’s eyes flick to where his jacket is lying across his duffel on the second bed. “But she didn’t like my jacket!”
“Maybe she’s a lesbian waheela.” Dean hears the smile in Sam’s voice. “I flipped her over, and yeah, before you ask, she did try and bite me, but anyway, I didn’t see a dick, so either she’s a girl or she takes after you.”
“Fuck that, my dick is awesome.” He’s staring at the air conditioning unit, a Friedrich. It’s not hot enough to necessitate the cooler, but he will probably turn on the fan part at some point, just to air the room out. They’d been all out of non-smoking rooms and while Dean can appreciate a good cigar, stale cigarette is not exactly like potpourri. “Almost too big really.”
Sam laughs. “Just keep telling yourself that.”
A wicked thought slips off Dean’s lips. “Bigger than you could take, Sammy.” The line goes quiet and Dean thinks he’s gone too far. He waits for Sammy to say something but silence drags the moment like the last day before summer vacation. He switches topics. “You’re not teaching the damn waheela to fetch, are you?”
“I’ve rolled a ball for her a bit,” Sam’s voice is softer, more subdued.
Dean likes that he’s shocked the teasing arrogance out of Sam. He just loves causing reactions in the kid, possibly because it’s so easy to do. “Jesus Christ, it’s a monster not Lassie!”
“Are we gonna have this conversation every fucking time we talk?”
Sam’s words should sound pouty, but instead, their tone reminds Dean of his dad right when his temper hits its limit. That voice in John’s throat means that Dean’s about to get the cold shoulder because he’s pushing dad too much. Not wanting the punishment of silence, Dean backs down. “Nah, I’m dropping it now. Tell me something else going on with you besides looking for monster dick.” He hadn’t even meant the double entendre but it amuses him greatly when he notices it.
“Well, I started a new comic.”
Dean feels stupidly sad for Nick, doesn’t want the poor junkie abandoned. “Oh yeah? What’s it about?”
“It’s called Hunters. I’m not sure I like it yet, only done a few panels.”
“I’m sure it kicks ass. Do I get to see it next time?”
“You’re still heading to Maine right?”
Dean hadn’t meant to imply that he was going to be in Michigan anytime soon. “Yeah, but you still need time to draw it.”
“If I get any time.”
“Still dealing with finals?”
“Not for two more weeks, but that means that a lot of end of year projects are coming due.”
“Sucks.” Dean doesn’t really know what else to say. He’d hated school, felt like it was a façade, just a mask of order in a world of chaos. Knowing how many electrons were in a plutonium atom wasn’t going to save your ass from a witch hex. “Well, I’m gonna get some use out of this crappy bed.”
“For sleep?” asks Sam.
Dean likes that he’s asking, maybe getting braver, though it could just be in reference to it being afternoon. “This time,” he says provocatively.
Sam laughs. “What, did your leather jacket fail to bag you company?”
Definitely braver, thinks Dean. “One of these days, your smart mouth is going to get you into trouble.”
“Goodnight, Dean.”
“Yeah, whatever,” says Dean, ending the call with a smile.
On Monday night, Sam’s mixing up a bowl of hummus and sucking down the occasional fingerful when Chal enters the kitchen with a smile illuminating her face. Dean’s coming, he thinks. That smile would probably be reserved for John, but where one Winchester is, another seems to follow. She doesn’t care that he’s got chickpeas and garlic on his fingers, just reaches out for him and pulls him into a tight hug.
“You okay?” he asks, surprised, and then worried as he realizes that she’s crying. His arms close around her, hands stretched backwards to avoid covering her with food. “Chal?”
She smiles up at him, chin on his chest. “I am great.”
“You’re crying….”
Chal laughs, rubs the back of her wrist across her wet lashes. “Indeed. I’ve been a human too long, it seems.”
“What’s wrong?” He remembers the last time that she cried. She had run over a possum in the Ram. Her response had been as intense as though she’d hit a person. He’d had to talk her out of calling an ambulance. She kept insisting that, regardless of what Sam said, the paramedics would have to try and revive the possum because it was a living thing and that was their job.
She releases him and laughs. “Nothing is wrong. We have another pet.”
“A possum?” he asks.
She tilts her head in that way that means she doesn’t understand something; she doesn’t know the strange connection that Sam now has to her tears and possums. “No, not a possum. A waheela.”
Dean’s gonna kill me, Sam thinks. “How did you…? Did you go out to the shed?”
Chal nods. “I bought boxes for the move. I was unloading them. So, what’s its name?” she asks excitedly.
Sam knew that Chal would take the news better than Dean’s dad, but he had no idea that she would be happy about it. Considering this thing could grow up to be another thing that they have to hunt, she should be at least a little frustrated, not shedding happy tears in their kitchen. “Cujo.”
“Cujo,” she repeats, obviously not associating the name with Stephen King. “Cujo Ackles. It’s a good name. I approve of the choice.”
“I’ll let Dean know.”
“Oh!” her hands clasp in front of her mouth and she looks like she might scream. “You and Dean saved the cub?”
Perhaps admitting that hadn’t been the smartest thing that he’d ever done. Sam Ackles, snitch by accidental oversharing. “Oh. Yeah, but, Chal, you can’t tell his dad! He would be so mad if he knew!”
She hugs him again and this is going past the point of weirdness. He uses the heels of his palm to push her back. “Chal, what the hell?”
She’s crying again and smiling still and Sam wonders when she got so erratic. The answer is easy enough, though. She started acting weird when John showed up, when she got her crush. If this is what women act like when they’re in love, he’s glad she’s waited so long to date, and that he likes dudes. “I’m just happy.”
“You’re happy we saved the waheela?”
“Yes, Sam.”
“Okay, so you’re not mad?”
“No.”
He blinks at her. She blinks back. “I’m going to finish making dinner,” he says slowly as though dealing with a crazy person, which he feels that he might be.
“I am going to bring Cujo into its new home.” She nods at him and then leaves him standing there in the kitchen befuddled and smelling of garlic.
Don’t kill me.
The text is from Sam and Dean knows instantly what it means. Hell, it’s been amazing that the kid has managed to keep the damn waheela secret for this long. There’s no way that John would fail to notice Dean hiding something for nine days. Of course, Dean’s dad has that freaky marine paranoia going on that contributes so much to his being a good hunter. At the moment, Dad’s scribbling down notes from a book he’s studying. Normally after checking into a motel, they split off for their own rooms and don’t see each other until morning, but this hunt is more of a night gig, and they’ll be leaving soon to investigate. Sleep will have to wait for sunrise, if they’re lucky.
What? Dean types, turns off the TV and waits for a response. He hasn’t really been paying attention to the movie anyway.
Cujo. Chal knows.
I give you one task, Sam.
Dean isn’t mad. He is a touch concerned about how Sam is going to react when Chal puts Cujo down and even sad that the beast has to bite it, because it really is cute and Sam is pretty attached.
She was happy.
Run that by me again?
She brought it in and bathed it.
Dean re-reads the text then shakes his head. This is what moms are supposed to be like, he knows, all nurturing and stuff, but she should know better even if Sam doesn’t. He wonders why the Ackles family is so damned caring. It could have something to do with living in a home rather than on the road, but Dean suspects that maybe they just haven’t had to do that many awful things, like having to kill something that looks human, or torturing someone to get information out of the demon inside them, or choosing to let a child be bait so that a monster will never kill again; maybe they haven’t done those hunter things that leave him gasping for breath pouring with sweat in the middle of the night.
She won’t tell your dad.
She’d better not.
By this point, if Chal likes the beast, then there’s not a hell of a lot his dad is going to do about it. The two have spoken on the phone every day and not just simple calls to check in, but long conversations; Dean has heard his voice, not the words, but the voice, through the walls as they talk for hours. His dad is way too smitten to bitch about her new pet. Dean himself might get an earful, but Sam’s stupid impromptu pet won’t have anything to fear from Chal’s sweetheart.
How pissed? 1-10.
Just keep her quiet.
I will.
Sam misses a call from Dean while he’s in class and it drives him crazy to wait until the walk home to return it, but knowing that he’ll have more time to talk provides enough incentive for him to wait. They haven’t spoken since he told Dean about Chal discovering Cujo. He hadn’t even had the nerve to call Dean then, had used text messaging so that he wouldn’t have to hear the angry disappointment. Then, when the text messages coming in from Dean hadn’t seemed that mad, Sam worried that he’d fucked up and Dean was washing his hands of the matter and he’d wished he’d called so that he could at least gauge Dean’s temper by his voice.
Dean is his speed dial 3 (Chal is 2) but pressing the button only takes him to Dean’s answering service. Sam lets out a sort of growl at the phone and walks the short route home in a huff.
Chalendra wants to tell John about their boys’ act of mercy not because she thinks that John would understand (she’s quite certain he would not), but because she has never been prouder of Sam. She wants to say to him, “Look at what a kind-hearted human your son has grown into! Your strength and bravery are in him and they go so well with the lessons I have taught him!” This is why pride is a sin; she wants to take credit for how Sam has turned out, but that’s Sam’s glory to have, not hers; her role was important, but in the end, his actions are his responsibility and no one else’s. And he chose to save the baby waheela, had saved it with his brother, uniting to give the orphaned creature a chance. She loves him so much and wants to shout to all that the boy she has raised from infancy is now a man with a good heart.
So, hearing John’s voice this morning doesn’t cheer her, but frustrates her. He’s talking about the hunt that he and Dean were on the previous night and normally she’d be taking notes, asking questions. Instead, she’s staring at the cardboard boxes, still flat, that lay against the wall by the door and speculating about what John’s reaction would be to Cujo’s existence. Cujo itself is hiding, has been ever since she’d bathed it last night. Chal figures that soon enough it will uncover itself, the need for food and companionship an undeniable motivator in so many of God’s living creatures.
“Chal, you there?” asks John.
“Yes, sorry, I am looking at all the boxes that I must assemble to prepare for the move.” She’s sidestepping, but it’s a true enough statement.
“If you need help, you know that…”
She cuts him off. “Again, it’s fine. We will have movers for the difficult part.”
“Have you told him that you’re going to Texas yet?”
“Not yet. He’ll be pleased, but he has made the relocation choice often since he’s been older, and it won’t be too surprising for him.”
John laughs. “You have such a soft spot for that boy.”
Chal has had a soft spot for Sam Winchester since the night that she rescued him.
Sam snaps back, “Nope, I think that it just had it out for you, Grandpa.” Chal, who insisted that the boys talk to each other, left the room after passing him in the phone. Sam thinks that it’s one thing for her and John to talk on the phone, they’re practicing some messed up courtship ritual, but making him and Dean talk is just weird. The awkwardness of being on the phone with Dean lasts for all of about two seconds, because Dean immediately starts asking questions about their secret, the one that unites them, and does so while referring to Sam as “kiddo” which, while condescending, demonstrates familiarity.
“I can’t help it if I’m delicious,” retorts Dean.
Sam smiles which is okay because Dean can’t see it. “I’ll take your word for that.”
“That would be a waste.”
“Huh?” asks Sam. He feels dense, suddenly, because that couldn’t be flirtation could it?
“Genius, my ass,” says Dean. “So, everything’s okay there? No more waheela attacks?”
Dean’s dad must still be in the room, otherwise Dean wouldn’t be using this coded language to check up on the waheela cub. It’s been three days and already Cujo has let Sam pet it, though warily, mistrusting pink eyes on him at all times. “Nope.” Then, he whispers, “Even let me pet it.”
“You be careful.”
“Yes, mom.” Sam leans back in his computer chair, long legs draped over the only section of desk with exposed surface, the only area without textbooks, papers, knick-knacks, pencils, or CDs. He grips the squishy pink stress-relief ball that Chal bought him from Office Depot. It smells funny, like latex, but it’s hard not to touch it, subtly amusing to squeeze the soft texture and watch as it slowly returns to its original shape.
“I can’t be both your mom and your grandpa, Sam. Pick an insult and stick with it.”
“Does ‘dick’ work?” Sam smiles at the combination of both curse and rhetorical question.
Dean’s voice lowers, implying secrecy. “Sometimes it does.” And Sam looks at the white cordless phone as though it’s responsible for the innuendo that Dean is tossing out. Before he can answer, which would probably take long enough to read War and Peace, Dean says, “Well, I’m gonna get back to the Simpsons. Have we talked in enough to make Chal happy? Ow!” Sam can’t hear whatever John’s doing or saying, but Dean sounds huffy when he says, “I’m passing the phone back to Dad.”
“Night, Dean.”
“Night, Danny Boy.”
Their second conversation occurs three days later and goes much the same way, with Chal pushing the phone into his hand and John doing the same to Dean. He feels like he’s in a reverse Parent Trap where the parents try to get the kids together.
“Hey, Sam. I am totally voluntarily talking to you with no pressure from my dad.”
This time, Sam hears the thunk that precedes Dean’s exclamation of surprised pain. “Ow. Dad! Not your shoe!” says Dean. “My back’s gonna reek for days.”
Sam laughs, textbook jiggling to the motion of his belly. “You should watch it; your dad’s kind of scary.”
“Yep!” agrees Dean, sounding proud. “So, how’s Nick?”
Sam looks over at Chal. She’s repotting a plant on the dining room table. He considers going into his room, but that just feels like giving in to whatever Chal is trying to foist upon him. “I’d rather not talk about that now,” he says softly.
“You should give me your cell phone number.”
Sam’s surprised. “You’d call me?” He winces at the optimistic immaturity, wants to just pass the phone back to Chal and say, “Never mind, I’m way too dorky for him.”
“Dude, I spend hours driving and sitting in hotel rooms watching the fucking paint dry. Sure. What the hell else better do I have to do?”
“Flatterer,” jokes Sam, but he’s relieved. He knows that their folks are kind of shoving them into a friendship and he doesn’t want to be that pesky younger kid that follows the older one around everywhere. He gives Dean his cell number three times since the first time Dean doesn’t have a pen handy and the second time he gets the numbers wrong.
“I’ll bug you tomorrow once we get under way. We’re driving up to Maine in the a.m.”
“Cool,” says Sam. Tomorrow is a Saturday and except for sleeping, he doesn’t have any big plans to celebrate the start of the weekend. “What’s in Maine?”
“Ghost, I think. Dad just kind of tells me where to go and I worry about how to kill it once we get there.”
Sam grins. Chal always goes overboard with her strategizing, as though she’s still part of her old garrison. “Cool.”
“Go get Chal; I’m putting Dad back on.”
“Okay.”
“Bye, Danny Boy.”
It would be lame for him to wait around outside for Dean’s call and that totally isn’t what he’s doing by sitting all alone in the Ram listening to the radio, volume low, and re-reading the same pages of a book while sneaking peeks at his cellphone. And if he happens to answer Dean’s call before the first ring finishes, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s excited to have Dean calling him of his volition, separate from John’s prodding.
“Hello?”
“Sammy!” Dean yells over the sound of the Rolling Stones. “A waheela is not for petting. It’s a monster.”
There haven’t been any signs that Cujo is anything but the bear puppy that it looks like. Not only has it been letting it pet him, but now it waits for him when it hears the shed door open, already anticipating that it will be Sam. He’d been pleased when it had done it, but then it occurred to him that it only makes Chal going out the shed that much more dangerous. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to find a new place for the adorable beast. “Tell that to Cujo.”
“What?”
“Turn down the music, you dumbass.”
The music disappears entirely and Dean says, “You do NOT get radio control in my baby, especially when you’re not even in it!”
“Just thought it’d be easier to not have to yell everything.”
Stubbornly, Dean sidesteps admitting the logic of that thinking. “So, why are you treating a waheela like a puppy?”
“It is a puppy, Dean. It’s a waheela puppy. If it grows up domesticated…”
Dean interrupts, “Don’t give me that nature versus nurture crap.”
Sam thinks that of all people, Dean Winchester shouldn’t think the nature versus nurture argument is crap. He is practically the poster child of the argument for “nurture.” Of course, Dean might be in denial, might think that regardless of his upbringing he’d always be proficient with handling firearms and familiar with torture techniques. That would be some messed up innate talents.
“Fine, how about the “benefit of the doubt” crap?” Sam asks.
Dean pauses. “Just be careful, Sammy. Don’t let its cuteness make you forget that it’s a killer.”
Chal does this to him all the time, underestimating his intelligence, inundating him with a repetition of warnings that even a small child could figure out unaided. “Whatever,” he huffs, tossing his book, Arthur C. Clarke, onto the dash of the Ram.
“So, tell me about Nick.”
“I haven’t really been working on him. I’ve got finals coming up.” Sam has been drawing, but he’s not sure yet if he has another comic on his hands or just some doodles. So far it’s just been forest scenes, mostly because he’s been replaying the night of the waheela hunt over and over in his mind. His pencil has been creating leaves and bark, the plants darkened by a moonless night sky. He likes them, thinks the atmosphere adequately reflects the spooky woods that night, but they might just be one-offs with no real story behind them.
“Finals? God, I’m glad I’m out of school.”
Sam knows how Dean feels. He likes learning, but hates school. He’s heard that college is better, that you have more say in the things you learn there, but the thought of doing core curriculum stuff pisses him off. He just wants to read what he wants, learn what he wants. “Yeah, rub it in…”
“What classes are you good at?” asks Dean.
“I don’t know. English.”
“Yeah, well, it is the language you speak.”
“I’m pretty good at languages in general,” Sam says, ignoring the insult. “I mean, I know a lot of Latin and so that helps with Italian. I learned some Korean when I was in Alabama.”
“Wait, you learned Korean in Alabama?”
“Yeah, kind of unconventional, but I was friends with a girl whose family had just come from Korea.”
“Nice,” says Dean. “A girl or a girlfriend?”
Sam smiles. Ji-eun would have had his ass if he’d tried to kiss her, but then, they’d been like ten. The first few months of their tentative friendship, she’d still thought boys were icky, and he’d only gone so far in changing her mind with his bug collecting and fart humor. He wonders what she’s grown up to be like, if she still roller skates. “Just a friend.”
“You going to college?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
A loud honk blasts Sam’s ear drum and he pulls the phone back from his ear. He hears Dean cursing. “I hate New York. Hey, why don’t we cut this short?” asks Dean.
“Sure.”
“I’ll talk at you later, Kiddo.”
The line goes silent before Sam gets the chance to say goodbye.
On Monday afternoon Dean’s phone beeps with the message, Call when Solo. He’s just gotten back from lunch at Yum Diner (the name does not reflect the quality of the cuisine) and is lying on the lumpy twin bed considering napping through the intestinal acrobatics required to digest the Yum Time Special. He calls Sam back right away looking forward to distracting himself with the pleasantness of conversation with his friend.
“I’m as Solo as Han,” he says after Sam says hello. He’s seen the posters, knows that Sam will get it.
“You can officially call Cujo a bitch,” says Sam.
“Did it bite you?” His concern is tempered by the fact that Sam’s not too injured to text.
“No, I mean Cujo is female.”
“No shit?” Dean’s eyes flick to where his jacket is lying across his duffel on the second bed. “But she didn’t like my jacket!”
“Maybe she’s a lesbian waheela.” Dean hears the smile in Sam’s voice. “I flipped her over, and yeah, before you ask, she did try and bite me, but anyway, I didn’t see a dick, so either she’s a girl or she takes after you.”
“Fuck that, my dick is awesome.” He’s staring at the air conditioning unit, a Friedrich. It’s not hot enough to necessitate the cooler, but he will probably turn on the fan part at some point, just to air the room out. They’d been all out of non-smoking rooms and while Dean can appreciate a good cigar, stale cigarette is not exactly like potpourri. “Almost too big really.”
Sam laughs. “Just keep telling yourself that.”
A wicked thought slips off Dean’s lips. “Bigger than you could take, Sammy.” The line goes quiet and Dean thinks he’s gone too far. He waits for Sammy to say something but silence drags the moment like the last day before summer vacation. He switches topics. “You’re not teaching the damn waheela to fetch, are you?”
“I’ve rolled a ball for her a bit,” Sam’s voice is softer, more subdued.
Dean likes that he’s shocked the teasing arrogance out of Sam. He just loves causing reactions in the kid, possibly because it’s so easy to do. “Jesus Christ, it’s a monster not Lassie!”
“Are we gonna have this conversation every fucking time we talk?”
Sam’s words should sound pouty, but instead, their tone reminds Dean of his dad right when his temper hits its limit. That voice in John’s throat means that Dean’s about to get the cold shoulder because he’s pushing dad too much. Not wanting the punishment of silence, Dean backs down. “Nah, I’m dropping it now. Tell me something else going on with you besides looking for monster dick.” He hadn’t even meant the double entendre but it amuses him greatly when he notices it.
“Well, I started a new comic.”
Dean feels stupidly sad for Nick, doesn’t want the poor junkie abandoned. “Oh yeah? What’s it about?”
“It’s called Hunters. I’m not sure I like it yet, only done a few panels.”
“I’m sure it kicks ass. Do I get to see it next time?”
“You’re still heading to Maine right?”
Dean hadn’t meant to imply that he was going to be in Michigan anytime soon. “Yeah, but you still need time to draw it.”
“If I get any time.”
“Still dealing with finals?”
“Not for two more weeks, but that means that a lot of end of year projects are coming due.”
“Sucks.” Dean doesn’t really know what else to say. He’d hated school, felt like it was a façade, just a mask of order in a world of chaos. Knowing how many electrons were in a plutonium atom wasn’t going to save your ass from a witch hex. “Well, I’m gonna get some use out of this crappy bed.”
“For sleep?” asks Sam.
Dean likes that he’s asking, maybe getting braver, though it could just be in reference to it being afternoon. “This time,” he says provocatively.
Sam laughs. “What, did your leather jacket fail to bag you company?”
Definitely braver, thinks Dean. “One of these days, your smart mouth is going to get you into trouble.”
“Goodnight, Dean.”
“Yeah, whatever,” says Dean, ending the call with a smile.
On Monday night, Sam’s mixing up a bowl of hummus and sucking down the occasional fingerful when Chal enters the kitchen with a smile illuminating her face. Dean’s coming, he thinks. That smile would probably be reserved for John, but where one Winchester is, another seems to follow. She doesn’t care that he’s got chickpeas and garlic on his fingers, just reaches out for him and pulls him into a tight hug.
“You okay?” he asks, surprised, and then worried as he realizes that she’s crying. His arms close around her, hands stretched backwards to avoid covering her with food. “Chal?”
She smiles up at him, chin on his chest. “I am great.”
“You’re crying….”
Chal laughs, rubs the back of her wrist across her wet lashes. “Indeed. I’ve been a human too long, it seems.”
“What’s wrong?” He remembers the last time that she cried. She had run over a possum in the Ram. Her response had been as intense as though she’d hit a person. He’d had to talk her out of calling an ambulance. She kept insisting that, regardless of what Sam said, the paramedics would have to try and revive the possum because it was a living thing and that was their job.
She releases him and laughs. “Nothing is wrong. We have another pet.”
“A possum?” he asks.
She tilts her head in that way that means she doesn’t understand something; she doesn’t know the strange connection that Sam now has to her tears and possums. “No, not a possum. A waheela.”
Dean’s gonna kill me, Sam thinks. “How did you…? Did you go out to the shed?”
Chal nods. “I bought boxes for the move. I was unloading them. So, what’s its name?” she asks excitedly.
Sam knew that Chal would take the news better than Dean’s dad, but he had no idea that she would be happy about it. Considering this thing could grow up to be another thing that they have to hunt, she should be at least a little frustrated, not shedding happy tears in their kitchen. “Cujo.”
“Cujo,” she repeats, obviously not associating the name with Stephen King. “Cujo Ackles. It’s a good name. I approve of the choice.”
“I’ll let Dean know.”
“Oh!” her hands clasp in front of her mouth and she looks like she might scream. “You and Dean saved the cub?”
Perhaps admitting that hadn’t been the smartest thing that he’d ever done. Sam Ackles, snitch by accidental oversharing. “Oh. Yeah, but, Chal, you can’t tell his dad! He would be so mad if he knew!”
She hugs him again and this is going past the point of weirdness. He uses the heels of his palm to push her back. “Chal, what the hell?”
She’s crying again and smiling still and Sam wonders when she got so erratic. The answer is easy enough, though. She started acting weird when John showed up, when she got her crush. If this is what women act like when they’re in love, he’s glad she’s waited so long to date, and that he likes dudes. “I’m just happy.”
“You’re happy we saved the waheela?”
“Yes, Sam.”
“Okay, so you’re not mad?”
“No.”
He blinks at her. She blinks back. “I’m going to finish making dinner,” he says slowly as though dealing with a crazy person, which he feels that he might be.
“I am going to bring Cujo into its new home.” She nods at him and then leaves him standing there in the kitchen befuddled and smelling of garlic.
Don’t kill me.
The text is from Sam and Dean knows instantly what it means. Hell, it’s been amazing that the kid has managed to keep the damn waheela secret for this long. There’s no way that John would fail to notice Dean hiding something for nine days. Of course, Dean’s dad has that freaky marine paranoia going on that contributes so much to his being a good hunter. At the moment, Dad’s scribbling down notes from a book he’s studying. Normally after checking into a motel, they split off for their own rooms and don’t see each other until morning, but this hunt is more of a night gig, and they’ll be leaving soon to investigate. Sleep will have to wait for sunrise, if they’re lucky.
What? Dean types, turns off the TV and waits for a response. He hasn’t really been paying attention to the movie anyway.
Cujo. Chal knows.
I give you one task, Sam.
Dean isn’t mad. He is a touch concerned about how Sam is going to react when Chal puts Cujo down and even sad that the beast has to bite it, because it really is cute and Sam is pretty attached.
She was happy.
Run that by me again?
She brought it in and bathed it.
Dean re-reads the text then shakes his head. This is what moms are supposed to be like, he knows, all nurturing and stuff, but she should know better even if Sam doesn’t. He wonders why the Ackles family is so damned caring. It could have something to do with living in a home rather than on the road, but Dean suspects that maybe they just haven’t had to do that many awful things, like having to kill something that looks human, or torturing someone to get information out of the demon inside them, or choosing to let a child be bait so that a monster will never kill again; maybe they haven’t done those hunter things that leave him gasping for breath pouring with sweat in the middle of the night.
She won’t tell your dad.
She’d better not.
By this point, if Chal likes the beast, then there’s not a hell of a lot his dad is going to do about it. The two have spoken on the phone every day and not just simple calls to check in, but long conversations; Dean has heard his voice, not the words, but the voice, through the walls as they talk for hours. His dad is way too smitten to bitch about her new pet. Dean himself might get an earful, but Sam’s stupid impromptu pet won’t have anything to fear from Chal’s sweetheart.
How pissed? 1-10.
Just keep her quiet.
I will.
Sam misses a call from Dean while he’s in class and it drives him crazy to wait until the walk home to return it, but knowing that he’ll have more time to talk provides enough incentive for him to wait. They haven’t spoken since he told Dean about Chal discovering Cujo. He hadn’t even had the nerve to call Dean then, had used text messaging so that he wouldn’t have to hear the angry disappointment. Then, when the text messages coming in from Dean hadn’t seemed that mad, Sam worried that he’d fucked up and Dean was washing his hands of the matter and he’d wished he’d called so that he could at least gauge Dean’s temper by his voice.
Dean is his speed dial 3 (Chal is 2) but pressing the button only takes him to Dean’s answering service. Sam lets out a sort of growl at the phone and walks the short route home in a huff.
Chalendra wants to tell John about their boys’ act of mercy not because she thinks that John would understand (she’s quite certain he would not), but because she has never been prouder of Sam. She wants to say to him, “Look at what a kind-hearted human your son has grown into! Your strength and bravery are in him and they go so well with the lessons I have taught him!” This is why pride is a sin; she wants to take credit for how Sam has turned out, but that’s Sam’s glory to have, not hers; her role was important, but in the end, his actions are his responsibility and no one else’s. And he chose to save the baby waheela, had saved it with his brother, uniting to give the orphaned creature a chance. She loves him so much and wants to shout to all that the boy she has raised from infancy is now a man with a good heart.
So, hearing John’s voice this morning doesn’t cheer her, but frustrates her. He’s talking about the hunt that he and Dean were on the previous night and normally she’d be taking notes, asking questions. Instead, she’s staring at the cardboard boxes, still flat, that lay against the wall by the door and speculating about what John’s reaction would be to Cujo’s existence. Cujo itself is hiding, has been ever since she’d bathed it last night. Chal figures that soon enough it will uncover itself, the need for food and companionship an undeniable motivator in so many of God’s living creatures.
“Chal, you there?” asks John.
“Yes, sorry, I am looking at all the boxes that I must assemble to prepare for the move.” She’s sidestepping, but it’s a true enough statement.
“If you need help, you know that…”
She cuts him off. “Again, it’s fine. We will have movers for the difficult part.”
“Have you told him that you’re going to Texas yet?”
“Not yet. He’ll be pleased, but he has made the relocation choice often since he’s been older, and it won’t be too surprising for him.”
John laughs. “You have such a soft spot for that boy.”
Chal has had a soft spot for Sam Winchester since the night that she rescued him.