FIC: Roads Untravelled 4/4
Dean didn’t really think this getting a dog for Sam thing through. Sure, he knew Sam would love the dog, but he didn’t consider that there was a third member of the Winchester family that the thing would have to get used to: Hel.
Sam sits on the floor with a squeaker toy, dragging it across the hardwood planks as the puppy chases after it, when Dean hears the back screen door slip open and claws click loudly on the floor. He freezes at the same time Sam does, both looking at each other with horrified expressions.
The puppy takes off in the direction that Hel had come from. Sam scrambles after it, but Dean is quicker, gripping the puppy too tightly, and it yips in pain. Dean lessens his grip, but doesn’t let go. Better he squeeze the puppy too tightly over Hel ripping the thing to shreds.
Dean sees Hel pad forward slowly, the shadow head coming up as she sniffs at the pup, who still yips and squirms in Dean’s grasp. Sam comes up behind him and grips his jacket tightly, a worried expression clear on his face.
“Hel,” Dean says slowly, “this is Sam’s new dog. I’m the one who purchased him, okay? That means no using him as a chew toy. He is Sam’s and that’s final, right?”
The hellhound does nothing but stare at him. Dean doesn’t feel confident putting the puppy down, but he slowly kneels, ready to toss the dog over his shoulder at Sam if Hel lunges at him. She sniffs the air again, walking towards Dean and the puppy, who is kicking at the air and sniffing as well. Dean almost chokes when Hel comes closer and the puppy actually tries to lick at Hel’s face. She rears back with a growl, and Sam’s hand tightens on his shoulder.
“Hel,” Dean says in a warning tone. “He’s just a puppy, okay? He doesn’t know any better. Is this going to be an issue?”
Hel crouches but doesn’t make a move to attack. Dean slowly lowers the puppy to the ground, keeping a firm hold on it. This time, when the puppy leans forward and licks, she doesn’t recoil.
“Dean, what’s happening?” Sam asks, a twinge of nervousness in his voice.
Dean lets the puppy go, and he pads around Hel, sniffing all over. She seems irritated when the puppy tries to climb her, but she nudges him back, and he runs a circle around her, barking happily and skidding on the slick floor. On the third loop around Hel, he slides too far and skids into a wall.
Hel turns toward Dean with exasperation. He stares right back when the dog gets back up and starts biting at Sam’s ankles before running to grab the squeaking chew toy.
Sam looks stricken as Dean stands, like he’s unsure whether or not it’s safe to play with the pup again. “I think they’ll be fine, Sammy. She tolerated him fine enough, and he doesn’t seem worried.”
Sam looks doubtful. “You’re sure?”
Dean waves him off. “What are you going to call the thing, anyway? I can’t keep calling him the bitch’s bitch in my head.”
Hel growls loudly, and Dean rolls his eyes, about to mutter an apology because this is his life now, apologizing to a hellhound for saying the word bitch, even when not aimed at her, when the puppy drops his chew toy and gives her a returning growl, playfully laying his front paws down on the ground and wagging his tail in the air. Dean doesn’t know who is more surprised, Sam or Hel.
The puppy leans up, barks, and then crouches back down, growling again.
Sam breaks the cycle of barking and growling. “Anubis. I’m naming him Anubis.”
Dean gives Sam a confused expression. He recognizes the name from somewhere, knows that it’s Egyptian, but that’s as far as his knowledge goes. He doesn’t even have to ask Sam to explain before Sam rolls his eyes.
“Anubis is a character in Egyptian mythology who ushers the dead to the underworld.” Sam shrugs, his shoulders hunching over as he looks between Dean and Hel self-consciously. “I just thought, with Hel’s name, it worked. Right? I couldn’t think of any other Norse mythology names that fit besides Fenrir, and that was just too much for him, you know?”
Dean gives Sam another confused expression, but Fenrir sounds more familiar than Anubis. “Isn’t that a werewolf in Harry Potter?”
Sam sighs, rubbing his eyes. “You know Harry Potter but not Anubis?”
“Shut up,” Dean mutters, turning back to Hel…and Anubis. He chuckles when he realizes his new nickname for the puppy: Anubitch. He spares a glance at Hel, who slinks away into the shadows, ignoring Anubis. The puppy bounds after her before realizing he doesn’t have his squeaker toy anymore. Sam picks it up, and Anubis is once again completely enamored with Sam. Dean follows Hel, deciding to give Sam and the new pup time to bond.
Hel lies on the back porch, lounging in the shade as the sun sets. Dean sits on the steps next to her. He scratches his neck, sighing. “He needed someone. You know? I’ve got you. Sam and I can’t talk to each other, not yet. Someday, maybe, just not now. I figured since having you here helped me, maybe a version of you could help Sam, too.”
She doesn’t make any motion, but Dean knows that she agrees. Her ears twitch when Sam laughs and the dog barks louder, but she relaxes quickly. “Thanks,” he whispers, watching the sun pass the horizon.
Hel and Anubis tolerate each other over the next month. Or rather, Hel tolerates Anubis and Anubis wants to be Hel’s bestest puppy friend ever. Dean thinks that the arrangement works out well because Sam spends most of his time at home keeping Anubis occupied so he won’t search out Hel for entertainment.
The first heavy storm that rolls through is a doozy. There are talks of possible tornadoes and huge hail, which means Dean stores the Impala in a container in Jackson and drives the beat up truck Sam bought for himself after Dean returned until the bad weather passes. The storm line blows through into the night, and the loud thunder makes the walls rattle.
A few seconds after lightning strikes, causing Dean to freeze in nervousness, thunder rumbles, and Sam jumps at the sudden noise. Both Hel and Anubis seem equally unnerved at the storm, or perhaps they were feeding off of Dean and Sam’s emotions. Anubis shakes, more jittery than Sam, and Dean almost feels bad for him because Sam was in no mental state to take care of his dog.
By unspoken agreement, Sam and Dean both sleep in Dean’s room. Neither of them will actually sleep, despite the blackout curtains pulled over the windows and the radio playing softly in the background. They face each other on the bed, and Dean blinks, trying to adjust his eyesight to the darkness and focus on Sam’s face. They stare at each other before Sam breaks the silence.
“Why lightning?”
Dean swallows tightly, memories flooding his senses. Phantom pains erupt from rusted hooks forced through his limbs and torso, making him ache. The metal chains linking him to other souls stuck in hell pull and tear into his skin. Then, a charge in the air, screams from far away, increasing as power rushed through the metal.
“It burns,” Dean whispers hoarsely. “Why thunder?”
Sam’s jaw clenches and he rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. Dean is about to bitch that he shared, sort of, when Sam opens his mouth to talk…and doesn’t stop.
“When I…destroyed Lilith, a storm erupted in the church. The lightning was superficial, it never struck the ground or destroyed anything, but the noise was…deafening. I thought I would never be able to hear again. I couldn’t hear for about two days after. And…” Sam trails off, taking a shuddering breath. “I couldn’t hear what Ruby told me, after she stood in front of me and took Lilith’s attack. She just looked at me and kept talking, but I couldn’t hear her and she died for me but I don’t know why because I couldn’t hear her because it was so loud and I didn’t know if I was going to die and you weren’t there and-”
Dean reaches forward and grabs Sam around his waist, hauling him across the empty space, pulling him close. His arm weighs Sam’s abdomen down while he uses his other hand to tuck Sam’s head into his shoulder.
“Breathe, Sam. You’re okay. I’m here.”
He may have been the smaller of the two, but Sam curls into him so tightly that he must have shrunk a quarter of his size. Dean rubs his hand up and down Sam’s side as he shakes, tangling their legs together. Sam’s hands grip Dean’s t-shirt tightly and pull at the material, but he doesn’t care.
Dean looks over Sam’s still trembling shoulder at the large group of blankets against the far wall where Hel has curled up. Dean almost can’t see through her shape, but he spies dark brown and white fur curled into the blankets as well. Anubis is tucked farther in, and Hel has a shadowy paw tucked over Anubis’ back, her large tail curling around the dog’s body.
Their eyes meet, and Dean smirks when Hel closes her blood red eyes and tucks her muzzle around Anubis’ head. He follows her example and brushes a kiss across Sam’s temple. He’s still shaking but his breathing isn’t as shallow. Dean pulls him close.
“I’m here, Sammy,” he whispers, closing his eyes. Before he can even consider his words, he whispers in Sam’s ear. “I know lightning burns because I remember it fucking searing me in the pit. I remember everything that happened. All of it.”
With that, the words spill out of Dean like water from a broken dam. He clenches his eyes closed even tighter, the muscles in his temples straining.
“I remember every little thing the demons ever did to me in hell. I was there for years and never had a moment of peace until Hel pulled me out. And I know why she did. This demon, Alistair, he was a sick son of a bitch. He would have hellhounds tear me to shreds just because he could, but Hel wouldn’t. She never growled at me or lunged or clawed me or anything else he wanted her to do. And I stood up for her once, got Alistair’s focus off of her and onto me, and I think that’s why when you killed her master and she was strong enough, she grabbed me and fled.”
Dean inhales sharply when Sam’s arms tighten around him, pulling him closer. After taking deep breaths, he opens his eyes again. “And she always wakes me up when I have nightmares of all the things that happened in the pit. That’s how I knew she wasn’t going to take me back.”
Sam looks up at Dean’s face. For a moment, he worries that Sam will do something stupid like apologize, but he leans his head on Dean’s shoulder instead. “I’m tired, Dean.”
He knows Sam isn’t talking about his lack of sleep because he understands. “Me too, Sammy.”
They have experienced horrors that no normal person should experience, but they’ve never stopped. Even after Sam killed Lilith and Dean came back from hell, they’re still hunting, and Dean is tired. “Let’s take a break. When Bobby calls next time, we can tell him we need more time for just us, okay? Like a mini-vacation.”
Sam huffs against his neck, shoulders shaking slightly with laughter. “You want to tell Bobby to let us have a vacation?”
“We’ve earned it,” Dean replies softly.
He burrows farther into Dean’s shoulder. “Okay.”
Dean grins and settles down to sleep.
“If you have a nightmare, I’ll wake you up,” Sam mumbles.
Dean has the best sleep since he came back, and even though the storm has passed by the next night, Sam doesn’t go back to his room.
They make excuses to Bobby when he calls, knowing Bobby doesn’t buy a word of the load of bullshit they’re selling.
Dean doesn’t care. They’ve both died and gone through hell, one of them literally, and Dean thinks they’ve earned a break. So, after their mini-vacation, they limit themselves to taking jobs only two hundred miles from Jackson.
Three months later, they’ve shortened that to one hundred miles. There are a few ghosts outside of towns smaller than Jackson, a few exorcisms inside of the city limits, but all of those hunts are small time. They spend most of their time working and fixing up the house, barely searching the internet for supernatural-related news. Eventually, Dean stops reading the paper altogether.
Before Dean knows it, he’s been out of the pit for a year and the run-down shack his brother took over is completely renovated with new wiring, plumping, and floors. They haven’t been on a hunt in over a month. Bobby calls twice, but neither time to mention a location or creature that needs to be removed; he just wants to know if the “damn mutts” are behaving, Bobby-speak for making sure they’re both doing okay. Sam works at the Jackson Library and tutors junior high and high school kids there during the afternoons and on some weekends. Dean has a part-time job at a garage but also helps out with the Main Street Renovation Project for an elderly couple whose granddaughter owns the town diner and makes the best pie ever.
Dean knows better than to let his guard down, but he’s the most relaxed he’s been in his entire life. Never before has he cherished a Sunday morning where he knows that he doesn’t have a single thing to do for the rest of the day. He takes deep breaths and lays in bed with Sam, who is still asleep but curled into Dean’s side. Dean runs his hand up and down Sam’s back, holding his palm still to feel Sam’s heartbeat. There’s a scar where Jake’s knife penetrated his spine, and Dean runs his hand over the flesh, feeling the raised skin. Sam curls into him even closer.
Dean turns on his side and stares at Sam’s relaxed face. A thunderstorm rolled through the night before, but he hadn’t realized until most of the storm had already passed. Neither he nor Sam flinched at lightning and thunder the entire night and went to bed not even caring about the storm.
With a grin, Dean leans forward and presses a kiss to Sam’s forehead. Sam inhales, blinking around blearily. “What time is it?” he asks, trying to burrow back into the bed.
“It’s early. You can go back to sleep.”
“…why th’ hell d’you wake me in the firs’ place?” he mumbles, and Dean chuckles.
“Because I wanted to experience your winning morning personality, Princess.”
He might as well get up and start breakfast because if Dean enjoys sleeping in on Sunday mornings, then Sam practically worships the hours before noon.
He rolls out of bed and almost trips over the dogs. Anubis is once again curled up against Hel, both of them sound asleep Anubis opens his eyes, but Dean prays he won’t get up. He can’t handle excited spaniel this early, even if he did get plenty of sleep.
Sam won’t be awake for at least another hour, so Dean takes his time reading the paper like some damn domesticated, stay-at-home dad. An hour later, when he hears a thud, then a bark and a growl, Dean smirks and makes a new pot of coffee.
For as long as he can remember, Dean’s lived out of a duffle bag and grimy hotel rooms. He looks around the renovated kitchen and at all of the imperfections. One of the counters is too high and some of the cabinet doors are crooked. The backsplash tile that Sam insisted on is cracked in the corner and the sink isn’t centered underneath the window. But this house is theirs.
Sam stumbles down the stairs and into the hallway leading back to the kitchen. Dean snickers when he stumbles over the piece of wood that separates the tile from the wood floor in the hallway, like he does every morning. His fingers run along the back of Dean’s shoulders lightly as he passes by. He pours his cup of coffee and then falls into his chair across from Dean with a sigh. He doesn’t even bother to take a sip, letting the steam billow up as he hunches over the cup.
“Morning, Sunshine.”
“Jerk.”
“Bitch.”
Hel growls as she walks in, and Dean rolls his eyes while Sam smirks behind his cup.
“Oh, shut up.”
Sam chuckles and takes a sip of the coffee. “Want to walk the dogs soon?”
“You mean do a perimeter check?” Dean asks, flicking open the paper to another page. He avoids the obits and goes straight to the local entertainment section.
“Dean, we walk the dogs around the property.” Laughter is clear in Sam’s voice, but Dean raises the paper so he can’t see his face.
“While we do the perimeter check.”
They have this argument almost every time they go outside, but Dean insists that they’re conducting perimeter checks and the dogs just happen to come along. They never argue over semantics for long and this morning is no different.
After they finish their coffee and pull on clothes, they start walking down the dusty road. Hel follows at a sedate pace but Anubis races around, barking and rushing between their legs. Sam trips, barely catching himself, while Dean snickers.
He pulls on Sam’s hand when Anubis bounds too close again, letting his fingers slide down to his wrist when Anubis comes back for round two. After that, Dean just doesn’t bother letting go.
Anubis runs circles around them until Hel bats him away with a growl. She usually tolerates the dog better than Dean, but even she has her limits. He seems to get the message and bounds to Sam’s side, occasionally dashing forward, but running circles as they catch up.
The sun is rising, and Dean squints against the light and the clouds beginning to roll in. He sighs, irritated. “Son of a bitch. Guess I’m taking the truck today.”
Sam grins at him. “You know, the Impala can drive in the mud just fine. The road out to the highway is packed down tight.”
Dean knows that. They’ve been living in this house for over a year, but Dean just can’t force his baby into the mud willingly. Having a second car makes all the difference.
“Shut up. What time is your shift?”
“Not until one,” Sam replies. “Since your precious car will not be sullied by the nasty rain, can you pick me up on your lunch break?”
“Sure,” Dean says easily, glancing over at Sam, who bites his lip and raises his eyebrows. “Oh come on, Sam, not the puppy dog eyes.”
“I know you’ll be going to Maggie’s before you come by and she always gives you extras if you ask.”
Sam stops walking and juts out his bottom lip even more. Hel huffs behind him, kicking up dust on the road, and keeps walking, Anubis happily following.
Dean holds out for another ten seconds before sighing loudly. “I’ll tell her I’m picking you up and ask for an extra piece of pie.”
Sam tugs on their hands, and they start walking forward again. “And you better not eat it yourself. Just because you ask for it doesn’t mean I’ll get to eat it.”
He gives Sam a dirty look but nods. He doesn’t stay annoyed for long because Sam grins at him like a little kid.
“Bitch,” he says, his own mouth tugging into a grin.
Sam opens his mouth to retort but Hel has stopped and turned around, growling loudly at him. Anubis barks, and Dean lets out a growl of his own. “Not you, Hel, for the last damn time. Not you. Jesus Christ.”
Sam chuckles, using his grip to pull Dean in tighter, slinging his hand over Dean’s shoulders. Sam pressing a kiss to his temple. “Jerk,” he whispers.
Dean shoves Sam off, rolling his eyes, but he laughs.
END
Notes and Acknowledgments
First of all, thank you to the mods of spn-reversebang for putting this all together. They did a spectacular job and made the whole process so easy.
Second, thanks to my absolutely amazing artist, lightthesparks. I was debating signing up for this when I perused through the art offered, saw her piece, and signed up on the spot. I stayed up until two am waiting for the claims to go up and beat out another author by eight seconds. Through the entire process of writing, she has gone above and beyond the call of duty, making dividers, icons, posters, banners, and being a great sounding board. I’ve told her she’s ruined me for other artists and her pieces are truly amazing. Thank you so much for making my first foray into Sam/Dean so painless!
And last, but never, ever least, all my worldly possessions go to jacyevans, my beta and best friend. After she stopped laughing at me for signing up to write a Sam/Dean, she held me hand and walked me through the fic, pointing out what needed to be chopped and showing me the many errors of my ways. Seriously, this fic would have sucked-sucked-without her help. She endured my tense changes, allergy to commas, and frantic all-caps texting for weeks and there are no words, my dear. No words. Except thanks.
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