SPN fic: The Secrets of Copper Country [Part Two]

[on_verra]

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Part Two

At first each day that passes by is exactly like the others. Every morning Sam wakes up in a tapestried room at the top of the grand staircase, right next door to Dean's room. Every morning he takes a shower in the only bathroom with indoor plumbing. He always gets second shower after Dean, and sometimes he can beat one off before the hot water runs out, but sometimes not.

He knows that Dean is probably doing the same and is slightly annoyed by the lack of consideration, but it would be way too weird to discuss. That is not a conversation that Sam wants to have. Maybe he should try to get first shower and stay in for a long time, just to prove his point, but he isn't that passive-aggressive. Besides, its not like he wants Dean thinking his masturbation habits are being scrutinized in detail... Oh god, Sam should really try not to think about this anymore, and just take what he can get. It's not that big a deal, and it's not like he can't do it some other time if the urge strikes.

Every morning he and Dean eat breakfast together in the kitchen; and after each breakfast Sam gazes out of the window into the snow, which seems to spread out on all sides and climb up to the sky.

It's a bit strange not to be sharing a bedroom, but Dean hasn't mentioned it and Sam's not about to be the first one. Sam is still suffering from insomnia, but at least it helps that he can hear Dean moving around at night in the room he's claimed just across the hall. It seems like Dean has been keeping some intentional distance between them since they arrived, but perhaps it's just a harmless symptom of the solitude that comes with being snowed in. It's easy to get lost inside your own head.

While they eat, they discuss what they plan to do with themselves. There is little talk of going outside, and there is no talk at all as to whether either of them is feeling the promised ill effects of the Manor. Sam isn't sure whether that's a good sign, since Dean would probably never bring it up on his own anyway, but he doesn't want to push.

Dean has claimed responsibility for cleaning out the cellars and patching the third-floor ceilings, with the instructions and gear that Tamara left behind. He doesn't have much experience with home repair, but waves off Sam's misgivings with a quick "How hard can it be?"

For his part, Sam takes on exploring the rest of the house. He knows he should spend some time in the library, but he can't help wondering about all the other closed doors, and so he goes about systematically opening each one, with a lock pick in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Each long corridor seems to branch out into other corridors, and some lead up short flights of steps which mount to others again. There are doors, and doors, and there are paintings and photographs on the walls. Sometimes they are old and European-looking, probably old family portraits from England, but mostly they are more Keweenaw curiosities. Maps, landscapes, group shots of miners and other local folk, diagrams of mining paraphernalia. At one point, Sam finds himself in a long gallery covered in this stuff. He walks along slowly, pausing in front of each image to stare at the faces of long-dead miners and pioneers. They seem to stare back, as if wondering what Sam Winchester is doing in their house.

Even though Dean is hanging around somewhere, it seems to Sam as if there is no one in all the huge rambling house but his own self.

Sam can't help thinking about how strange it is that people could live in such opulent mansions, and how, stranger still, someone would try to replicate a wealthy Old World lifestyle in a place like this. He remembers back when he was a kid and wanted nothing more than to stay put in a simple home of his own, never imagining that a home could be like this. It wasn't until he'd made friends at Stanford, and until encountering cases like that one back in Connecticut - back at that haunted inn, where the little girl nearly drowned a few years ago - that he learned people in America could have homes like this one. He hopes that the rich appreciate what they have, but he seriously doubts it. This train of thought makes him angry, so he tries to let it go.

The next room he tries takes a while to open, because the door has been painted shut from the outside. He gets it eventually; one last big push, and he plows into a big bedroom with embroidered hangings and animal skins on the walls. Two very broad windows look out toward the front drive, and between them is a deer head that reminds Sam of their last motel. There aren't any copper trinkets around, but over the mantel there is another portrait. This one is of a stiff, plain little boy. Alexander's son, maybe. Sam guesses that this was his room, and that it was painted shut after he grew up and left his mother behind. This thought makes Sam angry, too.

After that, he opens more doors and more. He sees so many rooms that he thinks there must really be a hundred, though he hasn't been counting. In one room he finds walls lined with deep wardrobes that open to reveal all kinds of suits and coats, gowns and dresses, cloaks and gloves and hats. In another he finds a collection of dried flowers, some in vases and some still hanging upside-down from the walls and ceilings on pieces of twine tied to copper hooks. The floor is strewn with petals that flutter when he enters and remind him of a snow globe, or a tornado. He thinks he can still smell roses, though it might only be the power of suggestion.

In another room, which looks like a lady's sitting-room or something, the hangings on the wall are all embroidered velvet, and in a mirror-backed cabinet there are dozens of little figurines made with varying amounts of copper. The craftsmanship is impressive, the tiny people and animals done in great detail.
Sam smiles to himself at the most charming one - it's a little girl feeding an elephant, her delicate arm outstretched toward its curved trunk, connected by the thinnest sliver of copper. Sam opens the cabinet and reaches in to touch it.

As his fingers close around it, a bolt of cold shoots through Sam almost like a current. For a split second, it feels like he can't open his hand to put the thing back down. It must be a trick of the light, gone before he even registers what he thinks he's seeing, but it looks like, like - just for that second - like there's a dark, greenish verdigris tinge spreading across his palm, across the back of his hand and up his forearm. Before he can panic, it's gone, and he replaces the figurine as his heartbeat stutters back to normal.
Sam remembers instantly the last time he saw a darkness spreading across his skin and through his veins like that. He holds himself completely still for a moment, just looking at his reflection in the mirrored cabinet. Now he's even less sure if he's just experienced a legitimate event, if it was just an illusion, or if the house has finally decided to start fucking with him. With his weak spots.

Well, that is not cool.

Sam resolves to find Dean. Two or three times he loses his way by turning down the wrong corridor and is obliged to roam around until he finds the right one, but as he reaches what he thinks is ground level, he is some distance from where he thought he would emerge and does not know exactly where he is. It's while he's just standing there that the silence is broken by a mournful sound. It's distant and muffled through the walls, but it sounds like someone crying.

He takes a couple of furtive steps, edging along the hall with his hands skimming the tapestries, and then springs away, startled. One panel of tapestry was the covering of a door which falls open, revealing another part of the corridor behind it. At the far end, there is Dean, stalking forward with his jeans soaked to the knees in dirty water and a very upset expression on his face.

"Hey! Dean!"

Dean jolts and looks up at the sound of his brother's voice, his expression turning to a harsh scowl. The collar of his shirt is askew. "Dude, you scared the crap out of me!"

"Sorry, I didn't know you'd be here. I was coming to find you." Sam's voice is nearly a whisper, though he isn't sure why. "Did - did you just hear something weird, like someone crying?"

Dean's face goes blank. "No man, I didn't hear anything. Just the wind outside. Now lemme go change before dinner. I'm fucking freezing."

"Uh, yeah, sure. I'll come with you. I'm still trying to get my bearings in this place."

"Aw, little Sammy, are you lost?"

"Come on, it's like a maze! You try wandering around all day."

"Maybe later. First, I wanna finish the basement." Dean tilts his head and points a finger downward toward the cellars for emphasis, then shivers and rubs his hands on his thighs. "Did you eat lunch today? I didn't and I'm starving. Let's go cook us a couple of steaks."

And so Dean leads Sam back to the warm core of the house.

*~ *~*

A couple of nights later, Sam is in the library. He's rigged up an extension cord with some kind of flood light, and it rests on a stool near the doors, brightening the whole room with high-wattage neon. It's well after midnight, and Dean has already gone to bed.

Sam's been reading up on local history, most of which is related to the copper industry. All of the books here are contemporaneous with the mining era, and he's sure that if he could get onto the internet, or to a modern library, he'd be able to find out a lot more about the history of the area and about the Alexander family. He takes notes to that effect on one of the yellow legal pads he dug out from the trunk of the car.

In the meantime, he's learning way more that he will ever need to know about the properties and uses of copper, mostly just to keep his mind occupied, but he's also reading up on traditional English gardening, trying to figure out what could be going on out back. He also found some faded, hand-drawn illustrations of the Manor and its grounds.

Earlier, he had gone back upstairs to the servants' quarters to find that first viewpoint again. Dean's dirty fingerprint on the glass was still as clear as if it had been etched there, and somehow Sam didn't want to disturb it as he stared out again toward that bizarrely verdant place. It was proof that they had been in that spot before, with Tamara. That she - that other people - still existed in the world, and had only recently walked and breathed here.

The solitude is obviously taking its toll on him, that's all. But he can shake it off; he's got work to do.

For now, Sam just scans the library cabinets again, looking for the occult texts that Tamara mentioned. No dark works jump out at him, but he does find a shelf filled with 19th century theosophical and spiritualist titles, and below it a group of early psychology books, many of which are in German. He really should brush up on his German.

He has a feeling that if only he could pull together all of the bits and pieces that he already knows, he could figure out the mystery of the Manor and its gardens and the strange effects they have on people. There's something missing, some piece of the puzzle that he sets his mind to finding. He hasn't bothered bringing this up with his brother, because he doesn't think Dean will have anything insightful to say.

He needs to figure this out on his own.

Thinking about the strange effect the Manor is supposed to have on people - affect, even, if his old SAT prep memory serves - Sam is pretty sure he's dodged that bullet so far. He hasn't noticed anything weird since what he's calling the Figurine Incident, about which he's decided not to tell Dean. If it wasn't real, it isn't any of Dean's business. He's kind of annoyed with Dean, actually, at Dean's continued distance, at the way Dean disappears into his own room each night, even though they still eat meals together every day, and sometimes ask each other for help with repair work and heavy lifting. Sam did try to mention this problem at dinner once, but Dean only said that he was enjoying the quiet for a change. Sam didn't feel like arguing with that.

Sam retrieves a new stack of books - transcendentalism, this time - and brings them over to the desk, dropping them down with a dull thud.

From elsewhere in the house, there comes an echoing thud. Sam glances first at the ceiling, and then the walls and the parquet floor when it happens again. The thud is followed by a wailing cry, muffled just as it was last time. He can't tell where it's coming from. The paneling and tapestries in this house don't make for great acoustics.

"What the hell is that?" Sam mumbles aloud to himself. He tries to freeze in place and listen carefully, but the cry does not come again.

Sam doesn't go to bed for a few more hours. He knows he won't sleep, so there's no point in trying.

*~ *~*

Breakfast the next day is warm instant oatmeal for Sam, while Dean fries the last of the fresh eggs.

"Looks like we're starting on canned beans tomorrow," says Dean as he slides his empty, yellow-spattered plate a few inches up the table.

"I told you, man. Should have rationed better."

Dean flips him the bird. "Beans, beans, the magical fruit..."

"And the serenade that comes with them? Oh my god, I have never been happier that I have my own room."

"Don't be like that, you know you love my funky style." Dean chugs back the last of his coffee.

Sam ignores his brother's juvenile humor in favor of looking out of what's become his usual tableside window. He notices that not only has the snow stopped, but it's shaping up to be a rather beautiful day. It's still below freezing, but the sun is strong enough that he can see water running in rivulets down the outer windowsills as the ice melts.

"Hey, maybe we should go outside today, do a once-around."

Dean shakes his head and stands to take away the dirty dishes. "Nah, I don't really feel like it. There's still too much snow. And I need to get back downstairs."

Sam eyes him warily. "Are you sure you don't need help? What is there left to do?"

"I'm restacking the old dry crates now that the water's been pumped out of the wine cellar, and taking out the rotten ones. But don't worry about it, I'm almost done anyway. Just hit the books."

"Okay... but you'll tell me if - "

"Seriously, don't worry about it." Dean looks at Sam over his shoulder and waves a soapy hand in the air before turning back to the sink. "Man, it's too bad there's nothing drinkable down there. What I would give for a bottle of Jack..."

"Well, I think I'm gonna go outside later. Come find me if you change your mind."

"Yes, sir!" Dean turns again and mock-salutes him, then nods firmly with his jaw set. His eyes don't quite meet Sam's, instead focusing somewhere a little off to the side.

Sam is halfway down the hall before it occurs to him that there was something slightly off about Dean this morning, something that Sam can't quite put his finger on. It's like Dean was... trying just a little too hard to act normal, and the impression was magnified by that last exchange. He turns hard on the ball of his foot and heads back to the kitchen, but Dean has already gone, leaving only a rumpled dish towel across the back of his chair.

*~ *~*

Sam's not sure whether he'll need a shovel or if he can just trudge through the snow, but he grabs one anyway before heading around back, taking the long way around the perimeter of the house. He has to walk out a few yards first, to where the snow isn't as deep as the drifts that abut the building as if helping to hold it upright.

As he walks on, he can feel the snow getting softer and wetter. The sun has done its work, especially on the eastern side. He scans the façade of the house to get his bearings, wonders idly which of the windows belong to which of the rooms he's opened.

As the rear yard comes into view, his steps start to sink further into the slush, down to where he thinks he's hitting ground. If this weather holds, it may not be long before all of the snow is gone. Hopefully it won't cause more flooding as it melts.

Sam scrapes off a long stone bench and sits down for a minute, enjoying the fresh air. A breeze blows powdery snow out of the hedges, and across what look like cider apple trees aligned to make a small orchard. There were probably all kinds of vegetable and fruit gardens planted here at one point, as well as flower gardens. Sam wonders if any of them will still produce. The orchard bodes well - there are some frozen, shriveled apples still clinging on.

Getting up and circling around a defunct stone fountain topped with a corroded copper dancing girl, Sam pushes through a gap in the shrubbery and follows what seems to be a pathway leading to the walled gardens. He imagines what this all must have looked like when the Manor was new. Probably not much different than the illustrations he'd seen in the library.

The snow is more solid here, crunching and compressing just a few inches under his boots as he comes to the first corner of wall. He can see, half-revealed, a wild curtain of vines spreading and weaving their way across the stone. The walls seem to be made of what the he's learned is called poor rock - leftover chunks of mined rock that have been stripped of their mineral wealth. Even here, then, the Alexanders had been mindful of recycling their material resources. Sam is kind of impressed.

Soon he reaches a door in the wall, which stands open on rusty hinges. It leads into the first garden, and on the adjacent wall there is another door leading into the next. Each walled garden seems to open into another, at least through the first four spaces that Sam can see. He presses on until he comes to another door, which is closed. A faint hope arises that the door won't open, that he's found a door to the mysterious green garden, one that's been somehow overlooked. But the door opens with only a little resistance from the snow and the complaining joints, and Sam finds himself in just another plain white square.

At the far end, however, is another wall, this one without any door to be seen. There's nothing special about the wall itself, except perhaps that it has less ice on it than the others he's passed. Sam runs a hand across the stones, their sharp edges worn away, and it comes away wet, but not cold. He can hear birdsong, and thinks it must be coming from over the wall. It's almost as if the birds there are calling to him. He can see the bright green tops of trees above the wall, and they are... resplendent. Sam thinks that's a great word, and he says it aloud to himself.

Sam stalks purposefully back the way he came, getting through all of the gardens in quick succession. Exiting the main door, he follows the walls all the way to the farthest point, making a circuit around the back of the secret garden, between the wall and the forest beyond. Some of the trees come right up the wall, and Sam has to go around them. The forest is a patchwork of dark and light, tall evergreens interspersed with bare cedar and birch, and he's enveloped by that familiar woodsy rot smell that all forests share.

He doesn't find any door. In fact it's almost as if the wall itself has grown taller, morphing, trying to keep him out.

"Dammit!" Sam throws the shovel down as he reaches the main garden door again, right back where he started. His exclamation echoes back to him, and setting off a group of black birds that whoosh out from within the walls, cross over the yard, and disappear.

*~ *~*

"I'm telling you, it was weird."

They're in a small parlor behind the kitchen, one of the rooms that was meant to become an office in the '70s. Dean has discovered an old turntable that some bored soul must have brought in back then. The needle is pristine and the motor still runs, with a little manual boost. There's a box of records, and none of them date past 1972. Dean is in classic rock heaven, feet up on an ottoman and arms crossed behind his head, while Sam paces back and forth and tells him about the garden walk.

"Eh, we knew that already, dude," says Dean, a little too noncommittally for Sam's liking.

"I don't know why you can't take this more seriously."

"Believe me, Sam. I wanna run through your wicked garden." Dean puts a hand over his heart and grins sagely at his own joke. He waits a beat for Sam's inevitable groan, and then looks disappointed when it doesn't come. "Of course I take it seriously, I just - I don't know why you're making such a big deal. I mean, we're gonna be stuck here for a while anyway, so we might as well wait until spring before we go dicking around outside."

Sam stops the record, the needle bouncing once against the vinyl with a scratchy pop.

"Hey, what'd Deep Purple ever do to you?"

"Will you just listen to me? I think you're avoiding the issue here." Sam can feel his pulse speeding up but he can't seem to calm himself. "What else is new?"

"Oh come on, Sam. I'm going just as stir crazy as you are. So I'm trying to relax." Dean glances at the hissing turntable and his tone goes nasty. "Which is obviously working out real well."

"Well, I guess I'll just leave you alone then." Sam's voice is crisp and cold as ice as he rushes out of the room.

Sam doesn't need Dean to understand, and he doesn't need Dean's help. He can handle this himself. He's got everything under control.

*~ *~*

Sam goes outside every day after that. Sometimes he doesn't bother meeting Dean for breakfast, and sometimes he doesn't even shower. He just pulls on some clothes and heads right for the door. The cold air stirs his blood, makes him stronger.

Each day the snow thaws more and more, soaking everything until the gardens feel more like marshes and Sam's explorations leave his legs caked in mud. He's becoming a little obsessed, losing track of time as he goes around and around the garden walls. He's sure that he's missing something, and he's just as sure that he'll find it.

Slowly, the other gardens start to awaken, in that primitive way that gardens do when they've been left to run wild from lack of care. There's a pale green haze everywhere, helping to soften the drab grays and bright whites, though still nothing like what's in the locked garden, which taunts Sam at every turn. He leans against that wall, feeling a pulsating warmth against his shoulders, and stares back at the house.

Somehow the Manor looks worse now, even more imposing and gray than it appeared in the deep winter. It reminds him of a derelict mental hospital, or maybe a prison. He pictures Dean cooped up in there somewhere, alone and doing who knows what. It kind of unsettles him.

In fact, he realizes with a surge of adrenaline, it may even unsettle him more than not finding the door into the secret garden.

He tears himself away from the wall and makes a beeline for the house.

*~ *~*

Sam looks for Dean everywhere. He checks the bedrooms, the kitchen and parlor, the third floor. The house is eerily quiet, with no sign of his brother. Eventually Sam retraces his old route, following the tapestries and searching for the covered corridor that leads to the basement stairway. He pauses at the top of the stairs, listening for movement.

What he hears, once again, is that muffled sobbing sound. He inches slowly down the rough stone steps. He is silent as the grave, just like his childhood training taught him. When he reaches the bottom, it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. What he sees when they do is Dean. Dean, sitting on the floor in the corner, crying with his head in his hands.

Sam breathes in sharply, and Dean's head jerks up. His mouth opens as if he's about to say something, to yell at Sam for sneaking around and finding him like this. Instead he says nothing. As if whatever he could say is already too obvious for words.

So. The crying was Dean. The whole time, just Dean. This is what he's been doing with himself all day.

"Dean."

His brother just gapes at him as if he's looking at a particularly impressive ghost.

"Dean, you need to get out of this basement."

"I - I can't." The voice that comes out is weak and trembling. "I have to - I should be here."

Sam doesn't feel much sympathy, but instead... something else. Something far more selfish and dark that coils like a snake, low in his gut like sadistic lust.

"You should be here. In the basement," says Sam, voice flat and incredulous. "Well if you really think you deserve to be in the basement, then maybe you do."

Dean's eyes widen.

"I mean, really. What good are you anywhere else? Poor Dean."

Sam feels almost disembodied, hysterical. He hears himself distantly, like he can't stop what comes out of his mouth. But he doesn't want to. It's gratifying, the effect he's having here. The power.

Dean levers himself up, one hand on a piece of copper piping that sticks out from the wall, where ancient corrosion stains have made a dry puddle of green in the shadows. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam thinks he sees a creeping darkness traveling up his brother's arm, but when he looks directly at it there's nothing there. Just Dean's bare hands hanging in fists at his sides, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Sam's mind flashes briefly through other memories of Dean's hands, strong and capable with a gun. Dean's hands, gentle on his hot forehead when they were kids. Dean's hands, bound at the wrist and draining of color during a hunt gone wrong.

"You're so sensitive, Dean. And scared. What are you so scared of, huh?"

"I'm not..."

"Yeah, right," Sam snorts. "Underneath all your bullshit posturing, deep down you're always so scared. I always did say you were overcompensating."

"Fuck you."

"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you..."

Deans eyes go even wider at that, and he splutters helplessly. It's almost comical. But Sam's not done.

"Because you need someone to tell you what to do. You pretend to have this big problem with authority, but oh man, that is such a fucking lie. Sometimes I actually wonder how Alistair didn't wear you down sooner. You need to be owned and controlled. You practically beg for it."

"At least I don't wanna do the controlling." Dean finally finds his voice. "That's your problem. You can't control everything, Sam."

"Watch me."

Sam reaches out and grabs Dean by the front of his filthy t-shirt, tossing him toward the stairs. Dean's shins hit stone and he yelps in pain as he falls forward to catch himself. Sam's hand feels sticky where it touched Dean, who possibly hasn't changed his clothes in days.

"Now I want you to get upstairs."

Dean goes, practically crawling. He looks back toward Sam a couple of times.

"Go on, go." It's like talking to a dog that's been kicked a thousand times. "And you are not coming back down here."

When they reach the light of the corridor above, Sam can really see how tired and drained Dean looks. It's coming off him in waves, but it's almost like relief, too. Like all Dean needed was Sam's attention, and direction.

Sam can work with that.

"Go clean yourself up, and get some sleep. "

"This isn't over - "

"Yeah, whatever. I say when this is over. And tomorrow, you're going outside."

That night, Sam watches his brother sleep. At first he sits motionless in a chair by the bed, and later he moves to Dean's side to stroke a soothing hand up and down his back. Dean's nightmares are so familiar to Sam now. So easy to understand, and so hard to assuage. But he tries his best, and he doesn't look away for a moment.

*~ *~*

The next day, Dean does go outside, though Sam doesn't want him anywhere near the gardens just yet. They take a new and unexplored route, hiking along an overgrown bridle path that starts on the other side of the back lawn and winds through the forest. Dean forges ahead, doing his best to push branches and brambles out of the way. It's a very chilly day despite the sun, and every cloud of breath Dean lets out draws Sam's eyes like a beacon. Sam watches every step Dean takes, closely, with a calm feeling that he dimly places somewhere between benevolence and predation.

The path was once lined with cobblestones of poor rock, and they can still be made out under layers of soil and plant. Dean walks uncharacteristically gently, as if wanting to leave as little trace of himself as possible. Sam walks heavily, and with purpose.

Eventually the path forks. One way looks like more of the same, and the other heads slightly downhill. Sam thinks he can hear the sound of running water.

"Which way, Sam?" Dean is holding his breath, and shivering despite his heavy jacket and the exertion of their hike. "This is your show."

Sam stares, considering every detail of his brother before he gives his reply.

*~ *~*

Sam uses furniture and boxes to block off all access to the cellars, and watches Dean for signs of disagreement, knowing that he won't find any. They spend almost all of their time together, but they don't speak much. They eat and they dust, they inventory and they polish. They read and listen to music. Sam watches while Dean checks on the car. He posts himself in the bathroom doorway while Dean takes his showers, and makes sure to set some task for Dean to complete while he takes his own. They keep the driveway clear and the weapons clean. Dean sleeps, and Sam fakes sleep. Days pass by in this same rhythm.

Sam has stopped circling the secret garden, and circles his brother instead. There is an invisible gravity between them. It's like a new game, or maybe an old one. Like something that's been forgotten, but was always there, simmering just beneath the surface whenever they were left alone for long stretches of time.

Of course it occurs to Sam that Dean might be acting this way because of the house. Dean always did have a tendency toward self-loathing, not to mention his oddly selective obedience. The house just seems to have brought those traits out. Maybe it's like Tamara suspected: the happier things drained away, the negative made manifest. But it's still all Dean. Of that there no question.

If Sam were entirely in his right mind, he might worry about himself, too. He might worry about the intensity of his focus, like an appetite that seems to grow rather than shrink when it's fed.

But then again, it might not make much of a difference.

*~ *~*

The library has produced an early map of the whole Alexander property during the construction of the Manor, and it shows the route of the bridle path, as well as a few other paths and trails. One leads over and down the west side of the mountain ridge - the central spine of the peninsula - and connects, eventually, to what must now be another point on the paved modern road. There's a path leading to a small lake. There's another path that circumnavigates an area marked with only some weird, cryptic initials. Sam makes a mental note to check that out soon.

Since they've got this map and the weather is getting a nicer, Sam sometimes lets Dean go off alone. The outside air is doing wonders for him, though Sam suspects it has as much to do with Sam's permission as it does with the air itself. Sam takes to walking the paths alone, as well, and knows that he could easily track his brother any time.

Sam knows this, and Dean knows it, too.

Now Sam walks again next to the garden walls, dragging his fingers against the stone and through the hanging green vines that have multiplied like crazy. He pulls a few strands along after him like tangled hair, and instead of breaking they are thick with life, tugging back with a force that seems almost sentient. He lets go as he comes to the final stretch of wall, where an entrance still eludes him. He stares in defiance for a moment, and then he passes the last corner and heads into the trees.

There is a leafy green cover now, the once-bare trees coming into bloom. The sun glints through in dappled shafts, and the smell of rotting wood is stronger, enhanced by whatever other dead matter has been uncovered by spring thaw, attracting small swarms of black gnats. There are still some chunks of ice and snow scattered on the softening ground, and dripping from the needles of the evergreens.

Sam's boots are squelching in the mud, but he finds more than enough dry earth and forest debris to stand on as he heads in the direction of the bridle path. He doesn't need the map. He knows the way.

When he comes to the fork, he takes the downhill path and the sound of running water gets louder. He comes to a creek into which the estate's snow run-off seems to be flowing, fast and loud. An old stone bridge still stands, spanning the few feet across, and Sam continues on, as silent as he can manage, toward the lake. The path is remarkably clear.

Just as the lake comes into view, a thin strip of silver light on the edge of his vision, Sam thinks he hears something. There's the sound of snapping twigs, and then a kind of thunk, like the dead weight of a body. Something unnatural to the surroundings that makes Sam still for a moment, unsure and at the same time completely certain of what he is going to see.

He presses onward, slowly and silently, and there is Dean. Dean is leaning against a birch tree with his back to Sam, facing out toward the lake's small beach. The lake is still frozen in parts, and a ghostly fog sublimates from the ice while broken branches litter the strangely dark sand. Sam can see Dean mostly in silhouette, a stray sunbeam making one shoulder of his leather jacket gleam lightly as his arm moves in a steady rhythm. And that's when Sam knows for sure: Dean is jerking off.

Sam remains utterly still and silent for another long moment as Dean's arm moves, a slow teasing up and down motion, and his head thunks against the tree. A few drops of water shake down from the branches and into Dean's hair. Sam is close enough to see them roll down onto his brother's neck, catching on his collar, and he registers that he's gone half-hard in his jeans, too.

He lets out a short huff, and Dean stops abruptly, going as still as Sam, as still as a deer in headlights. He turns around slowly and his eyes fix immediately on Sam. His hand hasn't moved from his cock, but his lower body is still shielded from this angle.

Sam says nothing, but finds himself taking a few more steps forward. Dean lets out the breath he's been holding, and moves to tuck himself back into his pants. Sam hears his own blood pumping through his veins like an omen, and then he hears himself say, "No."

Dean freezes again, his eyes glassy as they dart over Sam's face and body. He clears his throat and opens his mouth as if to speak, but he says nothing.

"No," Sam says again, all casual, because this is a game he can play to win. "Don't mind me. I get it. You came out here for some privacy."

Dean flushes, uncharacteristically shy. "I, uh - "

Mesmerized by the flush on Dean's skin, Sam wants to touch it and see if it will warm his hands from the chill of the forest air. It's not quite an impulse, because Sam is beyond impulse, deliberate in everything he does. Like when they were teenagers and he would play at making Dean uncomfortable with questions that he already knew the answers to, questions about his body, or about sex, just to watch him squirm and feign coolness. But there is no more feigning now.

Sam reaches out and cups his left hand, perhaps more harshly than he means to, around the back of Dean's neck. The bark of the tree is rough against his knuckles, but he is rewarded with a choked gasp. He can see now that Dean's cock is still hard, straining out from his open zipper and twitching slightly when Sam glances down at it with a tilt of his head. Dean's flannel shirt is open and the faded t-shirt beneath is rucked up, showing the fine hairs on his lower stomach. Some water has caught there, too, though it might be sweat, and it gleams as it trickles down.

Sam doesn't let go of Dean's neck, but Dean isn't fighting. He's just letting his hands scrabble sort of helplessly against the tree at his back, legs planted apart and breath coming faster now. And so Sam slides his other hand to his own zipper, lets it down slowly, and lets the bulge of his growing erection show against his boxers.

"You look scared again, Dean." Sam pitches his voice low and dark. "It's a good look on you. But you know what would look even better on you?"

"S-sam...," says Dean in a quick, panicked whisper, and he comes unfrozen then, halfheartedly trying to dodge away. Sam only grips tighter and then pushes down, using the hand on Dean's neck to nudge him onto his knees, and the other hand on his chest, to keep his upper body pinned back against the tree. Dean is folded there at a slightly awkward angle. It wouldn't be hard for him to get away, but it's not like he's trying to. He looks dazed, biting his bottom lip raw as he stares up. He looks gorgeous, just like Sam always imagined in the most secret corners of his imagination, the ones he hasn't let himself visit in years.

Sam lets go of him, then, and instead works himself slowly to full hardness just inches above Dean's upturned face.

"You're not going anywhere. Because I've realized something, Dean. I know what you really want. You always have. You want to be put in your place."

Dean's cock has shown no signs of going down. It's bobbing up toward his stomach now, and there is moisture glistening from the tip, the smell of it mingling with the smells of the lake and the forest around them. "Look at you. So eager for it, so hungry. I know what you want, and I'm going to give it to you."

Dean is staring at Sam's cock, transfixed. Sam snorts. "It kind of looks like yours, doesn't it? I'm bigger, maybe, but then I'm bigger than you, everywhere. Have you seen a lot of cock before? I bet you have. All that time in Hell. Or maybe all those years on the road without me. Someone like you, with your constant bragging about girls? Always knew you were hiding something."

Dean says nothing, which is neither confirmation nor denial. Sam continues, going for the next punch.

"I wonder if it's a family resemblance, huh?" He strokes himself again, relishing the feeling as his cock fills even further with blood. "Do you think we got it from Dad?"

That makes Dean flinch. He makes a tiny noise, and Sam's heart races even faster, practically leaping out of his chest. He moves his legs apart and then forward to tighten against Dean's arms, holding him in place more firmly, and then cants his hips closer to trail the head of his cock down the side of Dean's face before pressing it against Dean's lips.

Sam speaks calmly and evenly, with a deceptive gentleness that belies the red haze of his lust. "Open your mouth."

Dean still hasn't moved, but he keeps his lips closed. He looks like he's at war with himself. But not with Sam, never with Sam.

"Open your mouth. Or do you want me... to open it for you?"

Dean sinks his hands into the dirt around the highest roots of the tree, and still keeps his lips closed.

Sam reaches down with the arm he's been using to hold himself up, and clamps two fingers around his brother's nose. Dean's face goes an even deeper shade of red as he struggles not to breathe, not to open his mouth for Sam and let this go any further, to where there's no going back. But Sam isn't having that. There's already no going back.

"You won't last long like this." He knows exactly what to say next. "Open your fucking mouth, Dean. That's an order."

Before Sam has even finished speaking, Dean is parting his lips wide on a desperate inhale. But before Sam can even push inside, he is coming all over Dean's jaw, in messy spurts through the hair at his temple, and down his shirt collar. Dean shudders and closes his eyes, and it's one of the most beautiful things Sam has ever seen.

"God, Dean, look what you do to me. I couldn't even...You have no idea, what you look like down there." He pauses for a moment, letting his breath come back to normal. Dean is still panting, too, and still doesn't move. He just kneels there with his cock still hanging out of his jeans, softening in a puddle of his own come, which Sam can see everywhere - on his jeans, in his bellybutton.

"That was good for you, huh. Knew it would be. Did you touch yourself, or did you get off just from this, by itself?" Sam gestures between them, knowing Dean will understand what he means. They're both still panting, and Sam is talking mostly to himself. "Knew you wanted this. I should have known before. Been pushing me for so long, haven't you..."

Sam grabs Dean's sticky chin and tilts his head up so that he can look straight into his eyes again. "Haven't you, Dean?"

Dean wipes his face with his sleeve and finally speaks.

"Yeah, Sammy."

That's all, and then Sam pulls him up to stand.

"About time. Now lets get back to the house." He looks out across the lake, at the graying sky. "I think it's going to rain."

"Yeah," Dean says again, softly. He looks like he's still processing what just happened and might start to freak out.

"Stop thinking, man." Once again, Sam knows exactly what to say. He still has one hand on Dean's shoulder, and he squeezes. "That's what you have me for. Just let go."

And with a deep breath, Dean does.

*~ *~*

Time slips by, or perhaps it doesn't. It could be hours, or days. Sam isn't paying much attention, too caught up in the thrill of his new-found power over his brother. He feels drunk with it. A switch has been flipped inside him, or inside both of them, and he doesn't ever want to turn it off. He can hardly believe that he ever lived without this, without Dean's skin under his hands, pliant and devoted. It's solemn and essential, like a ritual.

It's night, and Sam has Dean laid out on the bare floor, only moonlight and Sam's long shadow cast upon his body. They're in an empty room upstairs, all the furniture moved out or never there to start with, and Sam is leaning against the windowsill. He can see the protection tattoo on Dean's chest, rising and falling as he breathes, and Sam feels a pulse of ownership and pride.

"Keep your eyes closed, Dean. And don't move."

It's like Dean is hypnotized, so intense is his desire to do whatever Sam says. He's wholly inside of it, like he has no other care in the world. Sam wants to keep him there, wants to push him ever further inside. Dean has always pushed him so hard, and now he understands why. He's only returning the favor.

"I'm going to ask you something." Sam speaks slowly as he stalks closer with the grace of a panther. "Do you like yourself, Dean?"

Dean furrows his eyebrows for a moment before he whispers, "No."

Sam kneels down between his brother's knees and puts both hands on his legs. "What was that?"

"No." Dean shivers and his eyelids flutter. His head is tipped back, baring his throat like an offering.

"Eyes closed." Sam commands, and then softens his voice again. "Why not, Dean?"

"Because..." Dean's arms briefly come up toward his face as if he wants to shield himself, but he quickly puts them back down the way Sam said. "'Cause I - "

"Shhhh...." Sam strokes down Dean's stomach. "It's okay, you don't have to answer. I just want you to think about it, so that I can tell you all the reasons that you're wrong."

"God, Sam..." He's broken out in a chill sweat, and Sam crawls up his body to lick a stripe up his neck.

"You don't have to hate yourself. All of those things that you think you need punishing for? None of them are your fault." He's blanketing Dean completely now, and Dean bucks up into him with a low moan.

"You don't need to be punished. You don't need it. But if you want it... let me take care of you."

"It's - it's the house..." Dean pants out as his biceps strain where Sam is squeezing around them.

"What?"

"It's the house. Otherwise you would never..."

"Never what, Dean?" Sam mumbles into his neck and brings one hand down to cradle his ass against the floor. Dean's body rocks into his touch.

"I always... but I could never... you, you would never..." His voice is desperate and pleading for Sam to understand. "God, we - this isn't supposed to -"

"This isn't supposed to happen?" Sam grinds down against his brother's cock and they both hiss with pleasure. "Because I'm your brother. Is that what you were going to say? That's where you're wrong, man. This is exactly what's supposed to happen. I want this as much as you do. You don't even know..."

Sam splays one large hand on Dean's sternum and makes his way back down Dean's body, resting his face against the soft skin of Dean's abs as if he has all the time in the world, even as Dean's hips strain up to seek further contact and heat.

"It's not the house," Sam whispers before sucking a bruise into Dean's hipbone. Dean will be covered in bruises before Sam is done, and he will love every second of it. "It's just us. This is all... just us."

*~ *~*

"Sam?"

"Hmm?" Sam looks up from his books. He's found another English work on landscape configurations, which he hopes might yield some information about the precise sequence of the garden walls, and also an old, painfully arcane treatise about seasonal horticulture that takes the twelve signs of the zodiac very seriously, not to mention the four bodily humors.

They're not in the library, but in Sam's bed. Dean's been asleep for a few hours already, and now he stirs slightly awake, cracking one eye open just enough to look at Sam.

"Have you found anything?" His voice is quiet and small against the pillow.

"Depends on what you think I'm looking for," Sam snorts and tugs on the neck of Dean's shirt. They're both fully-dressed, grudging concession to another cold snap.

Dean rouses himself just a bit more and twists away from Sam's grip, turning his face away from the light, away from Sam. "No. This, this is bad..."

"We've been over this, Dean."

"No, I mean, the garden. It's getting worse. When I sleep, I can feel it, making me - "

"Wait, did you say the garden?" Suddenly Sam can sense it, too. Something is stirring down below in the dark in that garden. Of course Dean would be the one more in tune with the environment. Irony at its finest.

"You were right," Dean slurs. "We should have solved this sooner, before..."

"I will find the way in." Sam ignores the other implications of Dean's rambling.

"I know..." Dean drifts, and Sam will be surprised if he remembers this conversation in the morning.

*~ *~*

Sam is just coming out of the bathroom when he hears a door slam hard, the sound reverberating and final.

"Dean?" He calls into the hallway, but there's no reply. There's a change in the air, like the near-imperceptible pressure of another person entering or leaving a room, and Sam knows that he's alone in the house.

He pulls his boots on as fast as he can and runs to the front doors. He stares out across the courtyard and down the drive, but there's no sign of his brother. He runs next to the back door nearest the kitchen, flinging it open just in time to see Dean disappear into the trees.

"Dean!" He shouts once, twice, feeling his anger well up to choke him as he sprints as fast as he can to catch up.

"Where are you going?" His own voice echoes back to him. "You know you can't leave."

"We can't stay here!" Dean's voice is an echo, too, and Sam can't yet tell which direction it's coming from, maybe somewhere to the north. "This is so fucked, Sam!"

"You think so? Well I don't!" Sam is so angry that he can't even care how angry he sounds, his tone completely at odds with his next words. "I think this is the best thing that could have happened!"

"It's the garden. It's messing with our minds!" Now his voice might come from the west. "We have to get away from here, then we can forget this whole mess!"

Sam moves forward a few feet, looking for tracks and bent branches, any clue that will help him find where Dean got off the path.

"There's nothing I want to forget - don't you get it yet? Or do you need me to mark it all over you?"

"Listen to yourself, man! We can't do this anymore, should never have started!" His voice is moving away now, easier to track as it recedes to the west. "It's this place!"

"Even if it is, you never said you didn't want this - " Sam darts ahead toward Dean's voice, and finds himself in an open space filled with large rock outcroppings where no trees have taken root. He can make out old numbers and long grooves gouged into the rockface, and knows where he must be.

Unwittingly or not, Dean has led him into that weird area marked on the original property map.

"No." Dean's voice comes more softly now, but still carries. "But that doesn't matter."

And then Sam sees Dean dart from behind a tall rock at the far end of the clearing. Sam moves to follow, and that's when the ground gives beneath him. For a split second he thinks he's slipped on a patch of black ice, but then he's heading feet first into darkness, and only has time to think mineshaft before he's out cold.

Next...