"So the Story Goes"
“So the Story Goes”
Disclaimer/Author’s Note: This is basically just an amalgamation of my very favorite things in the world: Stephen King novels, Dean, and Dean being sick. Title is taken from “Come Sail Away” by Styx. This totally decided to set itself in Season 4 (after 4.02), because I love me some angsty, secretive boys. Aaand… this turned into the Cujo of stories, so it’s much, much longer than I had anticipated.
Story is dedicated to mad_server and Enkidu07, for both being so incredibly awesome and helping me out with all my strange research questions.
Wordcount: too many
Prompt: I took my own prompt on this one. It was about a page long. If you REALLY want to see it, it's over on the Again, But With Colds meme. The basic gist was that the boys are investigating a case in Bangor, ME, which happens to be where Stephen King lives. The case involves the re-enactments of scenes from SK's books. Naturally, Dean's sick. Sam's bitchy. There is much angst. Oh, and Sam gets Dean to "rest" by renting some of those god-awful adaptations of SK's books.
Sequel: (I LIKE IT IT LIKES ME.) "Supernatural Superserious," in which Dean comes down with a strange supernatural malady after the boys return to Bangor to do a little ghost-busting for the King.
They’re barely within the city limits and they can already feel the eerie air of not-quite-right-ness that lingers over the town. Or maybe it lingers over their heads, which would explain why they always seem to feel it.
“Bangor, Maine,” Dean reads out. “Hey, isn’t that where your idol lives, Sammy?”
Sam scowls, places his finger in the thick paperback as a temporary bookmark.
“You gonna try to get an autograph?” Dean smiles. “Maybe a headshot? You could hang it up on your side of the car. Sleep with it under your pillow…”
“Shut up, jerk.”
“Oooh, such florid prose! You gonna show some of that to Uncle Steve, Sammy?”
“Really, Dean, I mean it.”
“Oh, you mean it. It’s all I can do not to jump out of the car. Anyway, don’t you think this is quite the coinky-dink? I mean, your favorite author? About the weirdest case we’ve ever seen, and that’s in a long history of things that make Webster redefine ‘weird’?” Dean coughs softly into his collar.
“He’s not my favorite author.”
“Oh, I see. How come you’re reading his book, then?”
Sam shoves the paperback copy of The Shining between the door and the seat.
“I mean, are you trying to get your shine back or somethin’?” Dean’s voice catches on the last word, and he hacks for quite a bit. As soon as he’s caught his breath again, he promptly sneezes all over the steering wheel.
“Gross, dude, what was that?”
“Nothin,’” Dean’s scrubbing the wheel with his sleeve. “Just a tickle in my throat. It’s good now.”
“Ah-hah,” Sam smirks. “You sure we won’t have to made a side trip down to Stovington?”
Dean turns on the right blinker.
“Aw, shut up.”
~~~~~
The Impala’s parked in front of the office of the Crimson King Motel. Sam’s getting out of the car to pay for their room so that they can ditch their stuff and then poke around town a bit. He’s almost to the door when Dean rolls down his window and calls out, “Hey Sam, make sure the room’s not 217 or 1408!” Sam flips up the collar of his jacket and looks huffy. Dean smiles to himself. Mission accomplished.
If the first interview is setting the bar for the weirdness that’s going to go on during this case, Dean’s not sure if they should just skip town now or maybe pull a Jack Torrance and then burn the place to the ground.
“Poor little Muffin never knew what hit him!” the old lady’s saying, her hand patting the dog’s head rather more forcefully than Dean would’ve thought possible for her age.
“Those kids nowadays riding their murdercycles all over town without looking where they’re going!”
“Murdercycles?” Dean repeats, and Sam shoots him a look. Dean’s not looking at him, but he can feel it. He makes a mental note to speak with him about that later.
“Ahem.” Sam clears his throat meaningfully, and Dean returns to the questions.
“So you’re sure that, uh… Muffin… was dead?”
“As a doornail,” Mrs. Bates chirps cheerfully. “But he’s back now, and that’s all that matters!”
Dean rubs his temples. So much sunshine makes his head hurt.
“But Muffin didn’t come back on his own,” Sam interjects. “You had to have done something.”
Yeah, something, Dean thinks, the memory rising up in his throat as he directs a wet cough into his fist. Cold metal on his palm, delicate bones that he broke in his haste, wind blowing its dead breath down his neck, wondering, if you flipped a coin and it always landed tails up, was it still by chance?
Mrs. Bates has the audacity to look modest. “Oh… it wasn’t all me,” she allows. “I just gave him a proper burial in the cemetery!”
Walking down Mrs. Bates’ front porch steps, it’s starting to feel like all this talk of subverted resurrection is flaying his brain. Of all topics, it’s not really in Dean’s top ten. In fact, it doesn’t really make the list.
The dog had tried to lick his hand as they left, and it was all Dean could do to keep from taking out his Taurus and shooting the poor bastard. It was obviously still dead, no amount of demonic reanimation could fool him anymore. You could always recognize one of your own.
Back in the car, engine running, “What the hell,” says Sam.
Dean looks at him for a long moment. “I know I forgot to send you a postcard from there, Sammy, but trust me: this ain’t hell. It’s weird, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think demons have anything to do with it.”
They’re halfway to the next house before Sam says, “Oh.”
~~~~~
Sam rattles off what they know about the next victim as they’re adjusting the transformation from law enforcement to clergy. Fourteen-year-old girl suddenly flips out and kills her father for confiscating her cell phone after she went over her monthly texting limit.
Sipping tea from a floral cup, Dean’s thinking that maybe it’s time to retire the priest getup. The collar feels like it’s choking him, and besides, after being downstairs you kind of forget about what’s upstairs. Live a lifetime in a basement, forget that you can climb up out of it. You jump in the hole, though, you always remember that you got yourself there, and getting out won’t be as easy as the freefall down. Gravity, yeah, gravity was a given, but it’s about the only one besides pain.
Dean’s rubbing his throat as Sam asks the necessary things.
“So you’re saying that your daughter just… went crazy?” Sam says, in a proper, celibate tone.
“Yes,” Mrs. Duvall states emphatically. “It was that new cell phone. You know some people say that video games are responsible for violence in children. I say it’s the cell phones- they scrambled her brain!”
Dean’s starting to think that maybe the priest deal isn’t so bad after all, as long as he can finish up the wine. He zones out while Sam finishes up the interview, stands when Sam stands, follows his brother out the door.
Subject number three, the last of the day, seems to think that he’s acquired some sort of new talent for growing crops. He’s dug up his whole lawn and turned it into a cornfield. Dean’s not really paying attention by this point, so he’s not sure whether this guy plans to kill his wife and plant her as fertilizer, or use crucified policemen as scarecrows.
On the way back to the motel, Sam’s making a list of the other people they’re supposed to interview tomorrow, but he stops when Dean sneezes three times in a row. He gives Dean a sidelong glance, of the type which even death row on the fiery mile doesn’t grant immunity to.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks.
Dean swallows, feels his throat scratch in a mildly threatening kind of way that means that soon he’ll be hacking up his lungs and possibly other organs too, in case the lungs get lonely and need a little company.
“S’alright, Sam. Just a little headache.”
It’s more than that, but he’s still not sure if he’s just not used to pain on a scale that doesn’t begin at off the charts.
Later, in the motel bathroom at two in the morning, where Sam finds him wrestling with the cap of the Tylenol bottle (Tylenol- 1, Dean- 0), he can’t cover it up anymore. Sam doesn’t say anything, just purses one side of his mouth in that quintessential way and sits next to him on the edge of the bathtub. He takes the bottle from him and opens it in a single movement.
“Bitch,” Dean whispers. “Must’ve been stuck.” He ducks his head down and coughs into his t-shirt as Sam presses pills into his palm.
“Good thing you didn’t shut the door,” Sam says quietly while his hand sneaks its way over to Dean’s forehead. Dean merely glares at him as his concerned frown at the unnatural heat morphs into a smile as he continues, “I might’ve had to use the axe.”
Sam’s busying himself with getting a glass of water at the sink as Dean rasps, “You brought the axe inside?”
Sam sighs. Dean grimaces as he swallows the pills. He’ll have to remember in the morning to tell Sam to put out a hit on his sense of humor, because apparently he lost it while Dean was downstairs.
~~~~~
Morning comes earlier than Dean thinks it used to, or maybe it’s just the strange static that’s filled his ears while he was sleeping. Or the porcupine family that’s nesting in both his frontal lobes and the back of his throat. He sits up slowly, testing it, but it’s ruined by the surprise sneeze.
“Guuhhuutsch-shugg!”
Mental note for next time: porcupines startle easily.
Sam’s standing over him with the Tylenol bottle and a glass of water the next time he cautiously blinks awake. Dean takes the pills without complaint, swallows them with a slight painful twist to his mouth, and rasps out, “Thanks, Annie.”
“Dean-”
“What, are you going to cut off my foot?” Dean lapses into some coughing, which sounds as though it’s coming from somewhere deep down in his chest. (And why shouldn’t it come from so deep within? You had to fill up the empty space with something, right?)
Dean keeps coughing, and Sam doesn’t say anything. When he finally finishes, spots of color high on his otherwise pale face, he’s not really aware that they were having a conversation before. He remembers Alastair’s chuckle, holding his own heart in his hand, thinking how didn’t hell just make everything literal. The words are burning to ash in his mouth, words that he can’t say but which are choking him anyway. For once, not literally, like the deserved demise of the obsessed nurse, but figuratively.
~~~~~
Sam’s wary of him coming along on today’s interviews and research, but Dean just knocks back some more Tylenol mixed with Jack and wheezily insists that he’ll be fine. Sam’s not sure if that can ever be true again, but it’s an old pattern, a scar that they can keep tracing the knife over again and again just because it’s already there, so will it make a difference if they re-open it, instead of starting over from a new place?
They stop for breakfast at a diner, first, and Dean’s lethargically twirling his spoon in his coffee cup when Sam nudges him and inclines his head discreetly at the man going out the door.
“That’s him.”
“That’s who?” Dean says tiredly.
“Him.”
“Huh,” Dean says, taking a sip from his cup. “Funny, I didn’t notice the manifestation of all that is evil come in.” He coughs into his sleeve. “What’d you do, Sam? Check his receipt for the initials ‘R.F.’?”
“No,” Sam huffs. “I mean it was him.”
“Sam,” Dean says slowly, resting his chin in his hand. He rubs underneath his eyes, grates out, “Tak.”
“What?”
“Just… just tell me who it was, Sam.”
“Stephen King,” says Sam, with a hint of what Dean might mark as reverence if either of them had any faith left between them.
“Oh. Him.”
“Yes, him. So do you think he’s the one doing this? For publicity?”
“I don’t think you can fake all that, Sam. Killing people and everything. And-ah-hah-hiiutsch-schoo!-I dod’t thig he deeds the press.”
Dean fumbles for a napkin from the dispenser, rips the first one, then on the second attempt comes out with about twenty more than he’d anticipated. He shoves the stack deep into his jacket pocket with a disgusted look, and wipes his nose with the first.
“So what do you think we’re dealing with here?”
There’s a long pause, and Dean cracks a smile like a compound fracture.
“Well,” he drawls. “It’s not a djinn, because I can see your fantasy, too.”
The pout’s always worth it, because it’s something that Dean can count on when he’s lost all methods of measurement beyond the forty tallies carved into his ribs, in the place where his soul (heart?) used to be.
“Not funny, Dean.”
Dean shrugs, pokes his fork into his barely-touched breakfast.
“Honestly, Sam, it almost looks like the Trickster again.”
A look of complete rage flashes across Sam’s face for a moment, but Dean could’ve imagined that. Yeah, the Trickster killed him a couple of times, but it wasn’t really worthy of such anger, right?
“Oh… I got a nerve to pick with him, and then another, and another, until he doesn’t have a brainstem anymore.”
Dean’s glad that Sam’s not having steak for breakfast, because he doesn’t think sharp objects and his brother would be the best mix right now.
“Isn’t the expression, ‘bone to pick’?”
“Dean, brainstems don’t have bones.”
“Okay, then.” Dean raises his eyebrows, and then gives a slight, rasping laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Sam demands. “Because I’m not seeing another showdown with the Trickster as being high on my bucket list.”
“I don’t know, Sammy… just, maybe you should think about channeling some of that anger. You could try painting…”
Sam looks as though he’s contemplating whether he could stake his brother with a paintbrush and make it look like an accident.
Dean runs a hand through his hair, shivers slightly.
“Eat up, Sammy, you’ve been looking a little skinny lately. You sure you haven’t run over any Gypsies recently?”
~~~~~
It’s Dean’s turn to pout when Sam makes him stay at the library instead of coming with to interview the next subjects. It’s only your typical homicidal car/supernatural insomnia kind of deal. Routine, really.
“I’m not sure I trust libraries anymore,” Dean says as Sam’s leaving. He gives a pointed, sidelong glance at the librarian. “She might eat me if I don’t put the books back.”
There’s a slight lacquer of sweat on Dean’s forehead, and so Sam’s not sure if he’s kidding. He sighs, and nods his head toward the officer leaning up against one of the free-standing shelves, eating a doughnut and sipping coffee. “Think you’ll be okay, bud, see, even the law hangs out here.”
Dean coughs and looks absolutely pitiful. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he whispers.
Sam’s not sure what it is, something either added to or missing from Dean’s voice that’s beyond how screwed-up it is right now. It’s like an equation that’s no longer equal. Variables changing, axes shifting. Lines becoming parabolas. Constants that are no longer a given. Regardless, something in his brother’s voice tells him that there’s so much more behind the currently pale façade- the edges have been rough for a long time, that’s for sure, but now it’s something completely different. Sam’s reminded perversely of Buffalo Bill, and he tries to shake off the disturbing image of Dean stitching himself a new skin that’s a tougher callus but still paper-thin. It’s tearing now, whatever illness he’s picked up catalyzing the reaction. Maybe it’s litmus paper, Sam thinks to himself, sardonically.
That same thing that’s prickling at him from the thorns in his brother’s voice seem related to the ones that pierce him every time Dean’s eyes meet his own, that thing makes him reach out and place the back of his hand to Dean’s forehead.
The fact that Dean doesn’t do anything, doesn’t even try to swat him away, tells Sam more about his current state of health than any thermometer reading could.
“Captain Trips,” Sam half-laughs.
“Huh?” Dean asks, looking disoriented and pale and like he feels like he could die. Oh wait, he already did.
“Guess what,” Sam tells him, now the goddamn memory prickling along with everything else, all queued up to torture him for everything they did and didn’t do and forgive me all my trespasses and I’ll pass on the wafer, but I’ll take the rest of that wine, thanks (Coming home from school, Dean helping him with his homework, tucking him in at night, saying Guess what even though Sam can already Guess what because what is always Dad being gone longer, ditching them for just a little bit more of their childhood. Yeah, right, what childhood.).
“Guess what,” he repeats. “You get to blow this joint. Sorry that we’re not dancing on the banisters or anything.”
“S’okay,” Dean mumbles. “M’cooler than Bender, anyway.”
“Yeah, you are,” Sam says in a properly hushed library tone, now herding Dean toward the exit.
Dean glares at the policeman and the librarian as they leave, and Sam shakes his head, feeling as though this case couldn’t get much weirder, and Dean being sick on top of it all is just whipped cream on top of the pie they’ve been served. It’s a deep dish, one that Sam doesn’t think will ever empty. Hell’s always got a fire going.
~~~~~
Back in the Impala, Sam makes Dean put on his jacket, feels like he’s talking to a disobedient dog when he tells Dean to stay in the car.
It’s when he gets back with the supplies, though, that it hits him that it’s when normally misbehaving dogs don’t act up that something’s really wrong. Newsflash, Sam, he thinks. You knew that already.
And Dean’s like that even when Sam goes off to interview people without him. He’d crashed out on the bed after Sam had gotten some meds and water into him, and he’s still there when he gets back.
He stirs when Sam shuts the door, even though he’d tried to do it quietly. He’s still hyper-attuned to everything Sam does, has been since they were kids, that quality amplified even more since Sam died and came back.
“S’mmy?”
“Dean.”
There’s more in those two words than it would seem. Webster couldn’t define it, but it’s something that shouldn’t really be spelled out in so many words, something that couldn’t abide such stringent regimes of definition.
Dean rolls over, coughs without opening his eyes, and mumbles something that Sam thinks is asking him how the interviews went.
“It was fine, dude. I didn’t even nee-I mean, it was better that you weren’t there coughing all over everyone. Some weird shit, man. Weird, weird shit.”
“S’our job,” Dean says into the pillow.
“Yeah, I know, but not to this degree. At least, I don’t think so. This can’t be coincidence. I mean, in the town where he lives? In such painstaking detail? He has to have something to do with it.”
“Mmmpphh.”
“Okay, fine, Patient Zero. I’ll let you sleep.”
~~~~~
It’s late when Sam’s writing at the motel room desk, and he jumps when Dean’s suddenly standing next to him.
“What is it, Dean? You okay?”
Dean merely sniffles and tries to grab the paper Sam’s been working on, trying to categorize anything that’s the same amongst the recent victims of whatever weirdness is going on in this town- that is, besides the fact that all of them have been re-enacting a scene from one of Stephen King’s writings. Sam twitches the paper away from his brother and Dean croaks, “Oooh, are you writing a play, Sam? Can’t I see your manuscript?”
Sam forces a laugh, pushes the chair back from the desk, and tells Dean to go back to bed.
“Sorry, Gerald, I’m not really into the games…” he mutters before his voice cracks, degrading into a fit of long, wheezy coughing.
“Hey,” Sam says. “Why don’t you take some more meds before you go back to sleep? It might help.”
Dean’s already halfway under the covers, and he nods and then sneezes. “Hkk-utsch-shuh!”
He blows his nose gratefully into the tissues that Sam brings along with the cold meds. Sam tries not to watch as Dean tips back the dosage, because the cherry-red syrup looks far too much like demon blood, because of the viscosity.
Dean’s down for the count almost as soon as his head touches the pillow, but Sam- Sam lies awake for a long time, trying to convince himself that he’s not going to turn into Jack Torrance. He bets Lloyd would be able to procure some of the good stuff for him, though. That Lloyd was the best bartender around.
~~~~~
“I had a dream,” Dean tells him in a croak when he wakes up, his eyes still overbright. “About the Man in Black.”
“You had a dream about Johnny Cash?”
Dean treats him to a glare that could reduce potted plants to cacti.
“No. The other one. The one who walks.”
Sam pauses, his mouth full of foam. He spits into the sink and comes back into the main room, still holding his toothbrush.
“Dude, how high is your fever? I thought you took some more Tylenol.”
Dean hacks into the bedspread. “I did. I think it’s the town.”
“Huh,” Sam muses.
“That’s profound, Sammy. You’re gonna be a bestseller.” Dean’s smiling now, for some reason, and Sam gives him a look.
“… By which I mean, the tabloids are going to fly off the shelves after you kill me with an axe.”
“What?”
“Well, you don’t have a wife. I figure I’m the closest thing.”
“I figure you shouldn’t take so much cold medicine.”
Dean shrugs, more or less agreeing.
“Dude, you were really out of it yesterday,” Sam tells him. “What was up at the library? Don’t think I didn’t see you give the librarian the finger when we were leaving.”
“Ahhhuugusch-shuh! I thod you were the Kigg scholar here, dot be.”
“So did I.”
“Hummphh.”
~~~~~
Dean wants to go and check out the King as soon as possible, but Sam says that they have to wait.
“Come on, you’re still sick as he-uh… still pretty sick, Dean. We can stay in and do some research.”
“Oh, resurge. By favoride.”
“I’ll go and rent some of those god-awful adaptations. You can watch them while I actually do research.”
Dean mulls it over, pretends like he’s actually considering moving from the bed. “I guess.”
Which is how they end up watching Pet Sematary with all the curtains closed and the lights off.
“How dumb can you be?” Dean coughs from the bed, his cheeks flushed. “It seems like common sense. If the cat comes back evil, chances are the kid will, too.” The words are out of his mouth before he can take them back, rescind them. But he of all people should have learned the lesson that what’s done stays done. That when you tie a knot in the string, even if you get it untangled, it won’t ever be the same- it’ll still retain some memory of how it was when it was a knot. He draws in a deep breath that sets off the coughing; hoping that will distract Sam from what he’s just said. Hopes that Sam doesn’t remember pulling over on a deserted mountain road, remember him saying that what’s dead should stay dead, because heaven and hell both know that neither of them can make it stick for too long. Who’d’ve thought, you could fail at death, too- the one thing everyone was supposed to excel at.
“Yeah, well, if people weren’t dumb there wouldn’t be a story,” Sam calls from the desk, where he’s doing Internet searches.
Yeah, Dean’s got that theme down pat now.
Sam doesn’t say anything again until Dean’s midway through the next film.
“Hey, Sammy,” Dean calls in a rasp. “Think this is your kinda movie. There’s a ‘Loser’s Club.’”
Sam turns to the screen for a few moments, then quickly averts his gaze.
“Oh, and a clown, too. I know how much you love those.”
“Dean, maybe that’s enough movies for one day.”
“What? But I didn’t even get to the possessed trucks yet!”
“Dean, we already lived that one.”
Dean pauses the movie and considers.
“Fair enough.”
“Besides, you never read his story about the airplane, did you?”
“He wrote about an airplane?” He coughs into the comforter again, and leans his head back against the headboard. “Well, of course he wrote about an airplane, he is a horror writer.”
Sam rolls his eyes. Dean can’t see it in the dark, but he can tell. “Just leave the clown thing alone, okay? Or I’ll get an audiobook version of the airplane story and replace all your music with copies of it.”
Dean’s caught with his mouth open mid-retaliation. He coughs instead.
“How’s the superflu?” Sam asks.
“Ahh-hutsch-etsch!”
“That good, huh?”
~~~~~
“At least we don’t have to go through the Lincoln Tunnel,” Sam remarks. That’s about the only silver lining he can find in their current situation. Breaking into Stephen King’s house isn’t exactly high on Sam’s list of things to do before nine a.m. when his brother’s nearly dead on his feet (Nice choice of phrase, Sam, could say the same for you, huh? Dead on your feet, both of you. What a pair.).
The next morning finds them poking around outside the tall black wrought-iron gates of an iconic house. The fence has spider webs and bats worked into in it, and Dean scuffs his boot along its edge and mutters something that Sam can’t quite hear.
“Dean, if your voice hurts that much, you’re going back in the car.”
Dean clears his throat with a painful noise, and repeats, more loudly, “I said, I hope we don’t find any hanged mobsters in there.”
“Well… I guess we could always set him straight on the vampire portrayal, huh?”
Dean barks a short laugh, doubles over to cough.
“You going to make it?”
“Yeah- m’gonna MacGyver the shit out of this fence.”
“You are so not a MacGyver.”
Dean makes a hand gesture at Sam that’s almost elegant in its creativity.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m more of a McClane.”
He’s walking along the edge of the wrought iron bars, tapping them with some stick he picked up somewhere. Sam’s following behind at a distance, not really expecting much beyond the eventual scaling over or tunneling under this fence, the former leading to probable injury in Dean’s current condition, and the latter leaving a trail of dirt to likely post-traumatic issues. Neither is something Sam cares to deal with today.
“M-O-O-N, that spells Yahtzee!” Dean crows throatily from somewhere up ahead, and then he’s on the other side of the fence before Sam can really register it.
“How-what?”
“He’s Stephen King, Sam. Obviously his fence has got to have a secret entrance.”
“Oh, how silly of me. I should’ve known.”
~~~~~
Dean cuts himself going through the gap in the fence, and only makes any mention of it when Sam points it out, and even then, Dean gives his arm only a perfunctory glance, brushing Sam off when he tries to look at it.
He’s striding off across the lawn, his deep coughs like Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs, the elbow of Sam’s jacket darkening with blood. It’s almost as though he didn’t even notice, and Sam’s not sure if he wants to test the hypothesis that he truly didn’t.
He catches up with his brother at the back door of the house.
“Seriously, Dean, this plan is so far-fetched and unlikely to work…”
“It’s also yours,” Dean reminds him with a quick grin, and Sam catches a glimpse of the photo negative that was his brother before Hell burnt all the film.
They’re interrupted by a man in khakis and a sweater, hands in pockets, who stands and considers them for a long moment.
“Are you going to knock, or just stand there all day? I didn’t realize we were holding auditions for new statues.” He speaks quietly, but he has their full attention instantly. Dean slowly moves his hand behind his back to rest reassuringly on his pistol.
Coming up with an answer on the spot is made exponentially harder by the cold drugs running through his system and, also, his freakishly tall brother gesturing at him from behind the man, pointing and mouthing.
“Uh… think I’ll knock, your Majesty.”
“You know, I could probably write a book detailing the various versions of that line I’ve been subjected to throughout the years.”
“I’m sure you could.” Dean snuffles and drags the sleeve of Sam’s jacket under his nose before continuing, “I must say, your pictures don’t do you justice.”
“You’re bleeding,” Stephen King notes.
“Yeah… your fence kinda bit me.”
“Better that than the topiary,” Sam chimes in, his face reddening.
Both King and Dean rotate to face him, and there’s an awkward pause.
“I take it you two aren’t just my typical fans,” King remarks with a detached air.
Dean gives a pinched smile, ducks his head and coughs into his shoulder. “You could say that.”
The whole exchange feels rather surreal to Sam. Even more so when King invites them in, presumably so that Dean can get a drink of water and something to put on his arm.
It’s not until they’ve left, though, that Sam gets a chance to tell Dean his suspicions about the author. King walks with them out to the front fence, shades his eyes and says quietly, “That’s a beautiful car you have.”
For some reason Sam has to bite back a laugh and the urge to say the word “Christine.” He’s not entirely sure what the etiquette is on making reference to an author’s works in the presence of said author, though, and since his earlier topiary comment fell flat, he decides to let it go. Dean acknowledges his car’s beauty, and makes a mock bow as King unlocks the fence for them.
Sam takes him by the (non-bloodied) elbow when they reach the Impala, and Dean yanks his arm back.
“Dude, what was that?” Sam says in a rush.
“I was just… uh… uhh-huutsch-schh!-ugh… The mad is abtly nabed, Sabby… oh. I bead-” Dean sniffs and spits on the ground. “-it was obviously a teenage nerd’s wet dream…”
Sam glares at his brother.
“What, you didn’t enjoy meeting your idol? Oh, I’m sorry, we forgot your manuscript at the motel. Are you terribly disappointed?”
“Dean, enough with the Shining references.”
Dean pouts slightly and then shivers as he leans back against the car.
“Whatever.” Sam runs his hand through his hair. “Let’s… let’s find somewhere to get lunch, and discuss the clue I found.”
Dean pauses with the passenger door open. “You found a clue?”
“Sure, Freddy.”
“Stephen King didn’t write Nightmare on Elm Street.”
“Freddy as in Scooby-Doo.”
“… you’re aware that would make you Velma.”
~~~~~
“Look, that place says ‘Roadhouse,’ on the sign,” Dean comments with another shiver.
“I don’t think it’ll be anything like the real Roadhouse,” Sam says quietly. “And I’m also pretty sure you just want to get inside a place that has heat.”
He pulls into the parking lot of the Texas Roadhouse anyway.
When they get inside, Dean all but collapses into a booth. It appears as though whatever last dregs of energy he summoned up for the morning’s antics at the King mansion have deserted him.
“Whoa, man. I thought you were doing better today.”
“Was.”
“Oh.”
“So,” Sam says after they’ve ordered and Dean’s burrowed his head into his crossed arms on the table. “I think I know what we’re dealing with.”
Dean mumbles something that Sam can’t quite make out.
“No, I’m not going to pay for this in pennies,” Sam says loudly.
Dean lifts his head up. “I said, ‘Pennywise.’” His voice creaks on the emphasis.
“Remember the airplane story,” Sam threatens as the waitress brings their order. Dean merely flaps a hand in response. He fiddles with the placement of his silverware, lining up the knife and fork so that they’re exactly even.
“Anyway,” continues Sam, “I think that this must be the Trickster. It’s his M.O. Stephen King stories are perfect for his kind of thing. It’s like a field day.”
Dragging his hand under his nose, Dean says, “Yeah, where have the cops been? You’d think we’d’ve bumped into them by now.”
“About that,” Sam says around a bite of steak. “Uh… I ran into them when I was checking out that car, and I don’t think we want to see them again. I don’t know, King kind of has a thing for villainous law enforcement…”
“’Nough said,” Dean coughs. “You were saying?”
“Yeah. Uh… I’m pretty sure it’s the Trickster. And I think it’s Stephen King.”
Dean just gives him a glassy gaze. “Sam, we’re not playing ‘the six degrees of Stephen King’ here.”
“No, no. He wasn’t limping, Dean. The real Stephen King got hit by a car a few years ago and completely shattered his leg.”
Dean leans his head back against the booth and looks at the ceiling. “If God existed, I’d-uhh-huh-huuguhxx-shoo!-askg hib to sabe be frob by sufferig.”
“Don’t worry,” Sam deadpans. “He’s probably moonlighting as an alcoholic writer with a Harley and ‘Nam issues.”
“Whad?”
“Nevermind.”
Dean’s looking more tired by the second. Sam thinks about gravity, and constant acceleration. Endpoints. Decides that it’s time to go back to the motel and crash.
~~~~~
Motel room bathroom, Dean perched on the edge of the bathtub, Sam’s not feeling the déjà vu at all. Yeah, right.
“Seriously, Dean, this cut is pretty deep.”
Dean winces slightly as Sam dabs the hydrogen peroxide, and lets out a cough that rumbles deep in his chest.
“It’s not pig’s blood, Sissy, so I think you’ll be okay,” he manages, the words sounding as though he’s biting them off from razor-filled candy.
“You might think all this is funny, Dean, but I’m kind of missing the punchline. You’re still sick, and you’re not going to get better if you keep going out and pretending like you’re at the top of your game when you can barely walk straight.”
There’s a lot of things Dean could respond to with this: he considers telling Sam that he’s just jealous that he got to drink out of Stephen King’s cup- or at least that’s what he thought it was at the time. He thinks about setting Sam straight (huh- a pun) on the walking thing. He contemplates saying nothing- they’ve always been good at the charged silences. Electrons love them like no other.
“Who says I want to get better?” says Dean instead. “I deserve it.”
And there’s nothing to say to that, either. Sam’s not sure if it’s the combination of the fever or the cold meds kicking in or what, exactly, but he’s still thinking about it long after Dean’s passed out under the covers.
~~~~~
Dean sleeps for most of the next two days, only emerging from his comatose state to whisper nonsense things to Sam, many of which relate to some King work. In a different lifetime, where they had the time and luxury to really, truly joke with each other, he might’ve teased his brother about it later. But here, now- Dean’s fever is spiking and he’s telling Sam adamantly (albeit hoarsely) to, “watch out for the cat, Sammy, he came back wrong.”
When it finally breaks for good, Dean stirs from tangled sheets, his hair sticking up in all directions.
“Welcome back,” Sam says. “I feel like I should clap.
“Too bad we don’t know any politicians,” he continues. “We could get you to shake their hands.”
“Wha’?”
“Yeah, I guess The Dead Zone isn’t really your flavor of King.”
Dean clears his throat, croaks out, “So he’s got flavors now, Sammy? Do I want to know?”
“…And that’s how I know you’re back.”
“In black,” Dean says, and lapses into a coughing fit.
“You know, AC/DC is Stephen King’s favorite band, too…”
Dean’s finger is an arrow directed at Sam’s chest as he makes his way to the bathroom. He’s hacking into the collar of his shirt, but the meaning is clear nonetheless: if they never hear one more word of Stephen King, their lives will be as blissful and carefree as can be. Yeah fucking right.
~~~~~
The next morning finds Dean parking the Impala in the closest parking space to the door of Nicky’s Cruisin’ Diner.
“That was a handicapped space,” Sam notes.
“I’m aware.” Dean directs a deep cough into his fist.
They’re there so early that their target hasn’t even arrived yet. As the waitress brings their coffee, she nods out the window at the Impala.
“The car show’s not til next weekend, honey.”
“Huh?” Dean’s always eloquent, especially on the spot.
The waitress blushes and bustles away to get their food. Sam kicks Dean’s foot under the table as the bell over the door tinkles. Dean takes a leisurely sip of coffee before getting up and discreetly marrying the nose of his Colt MK IV to the back of the Trickster as Stephen King’s jacket.
Around the side of the restaurant’s as good a place as any to hash it out with the Trickster. Isn’t that what they did last time?
Sam supposes that he shouldn’t be surprised anymore, given what they do for a living, but this case- the first “real” case he and Dean have taken since Dean got back-God. What a case.
Turns out not to be the Trickster. Or, actually, yes and no. Ambiguity, what a wonderful concept in this world masquerading as black and white.
It’s Loki. The ‘real Loki,’ as he calls himself. He seems pretty rightly pissed to have been impersonated.
Dean thinks about pointing out that, currently, Loki is impersonating America’s best-known horror writer, but thinks better of it. Talking might’ve made him cough, and that might’ve messed up Sam’s stake job. By which Dean doesn’t mean anything to do with ‘Salem’s Lot, though he appreciates the irony.
~~~~~
Their things have already been packed into the trunk, so they leave directly from the diner, and Sam could say that they’ve never been happier to leave a town behind, but that would leave out that one in South Dakota.
Driving out of town, Sam thinks that if he learned anything from reading Stephen King, it’s that whatever comes back doesn’t come back the same. He didn’t need the books to tell him that, but still. They would do well to remember the lesson. Reinforce it.
“Come Sail Away” by Styx is playing as they cross the city limits. Dean turns it up a little bit, and Sam chuckles.
“What? Styx rocks, dude.”
Sam checks the station, and shakes his head disbelievingly. Irony has long since ceased to be funny most of the time, but it still catches them off guard every once in a while.
“You know that Stephen King funds this station, right? He and his wife own it.”
There’s silence from both Dean, and then, suddenly, from the radio.
Dean sighs, smothers a cough with the back of his hand.
“We just can’t get away from it, you know? We can never drive far enough.”
There’s silence for too long, and Dean flips the radio back on for the ending of the song, so that the metaphorical sound of whatever’s following them fills the car and reminds them again of the story written out in their blood.
Maybe Sam spoke too soon; maybe he does still want to read Stephen King. At least with him, you can flip the last page and be done. He has a feeling their ending isn’t going to wrap up quite so neatly.
Author’s Note, part 2: So, I’m fully aware that few people share my enthusiasm for Stephen King, so here’s the list of works that I referenced, in order. Some works (esp. The Shining and The Stand) were mentioned more than once. If anyone is confused by anything I referenced, I’m very happy to explain! :)
The Shining, The Stand, The Dark Tower, “1408,” Pet Sematary, Cell, Secret Window, Secret Garden, “Children of the Corn,” The Green Mile, Misery, Desperation, Duma Key, Thinner, Christine, Insomnia, The Library Policeman, Gerald’s Game, It, Maximum Overdrive, The Langoliers, ‘Salem’s Lot, Carrie, The Dead Zone
Disclaimer/Author’s Note: This is basically just an amalgamation of my very favorite things in the world: Stephen King novels, Dean, and Dean being sick. Title is taken from “Come Sail Away” by Styx. This totally decided to set itself in Season 4 (after 4.02), because I love me some angsty, secretive boys. Aaand… this turned into the Cujo of stories, so it’s much, much longer than I had anticipated.
Story is dedicated to mad_server and Enkidu07, for both being so incredibly awesome and helping me out with all my strange research questions.
Wordcount: too many
Prompt: I took my own prompt on this one. It was about a page long. If you REALLY want to see it, it's over on the Again, But With Colds meme. The basic gist was that the boys are investigating a case in Bangor, ME, which happens to be where Stephen King lives. The case involves the re-enactments of scenes from SK's books. Naturally, Dean's sick. Sam's bitchy. There is much angst. Oh, and Sam gets Dean to "rest" by renting some of those god-awful adaptations of SK's books.
Sequel: (I LIKE IT IT LIKES ME.) "Supernatural Superserious," in which Dean comes down with a strange supernatural malady after the boys return to Bangor to do a little ghost-busting for the King.
They’re barely within the city limits and they can already feel the eerie air of not-quite-right-ness that lingers over the town. Or maybe it lingers over their heads, which would explain why they always seem to feel it.
“Bangor, Maine,” Dean reads out. “Hey, isn’t that where your idol lives, Sammy?”
Sam scowls, places his finger in the thick paperback as a temporary bookmark.
“You gonna try to get an autograph?” Dean smiles. “Maybe a headshot? You could hang it up on your side of the car. Sleep with it under your pillow…”
“Shut up, jerk.”
“Oooh, such florid prose! You gonna show some of that to Uncle Steve, Sammy?”
“Really, Dean, I mean it.”
“Oh, you mean it. It’s all I can do not to jump out of the car. Anyway, don’t you think this is quite the coinky-dink? I mean, your favorite author? About the weirdest case we’ve ever seen, and that’s in a long history of things that make Webster redefine ‘weird’?” Dean coughs softly into his collar.
“He’s not my favorite author.”
“Oh, I see. How come you’re reading his book, then?”
Sam shoves the paperback copy of The Shining between the door and the seat.
“I mean, are you trying to get your shine back or somethin’?” Dean’s voice catches on the last word, and he hacks for quite a bit. As soon as he’s caught his breath again, he promptly sneezes all over the steering wheel.
“Gross, dude, what was that?”
“Nothin,’” Dean’s scrubbing the wheel with his sleeve. “Just a tickle in my throat. It’s good now.”
“Ah-hah,” Sam smirks. “You sure we won’t have to made a side trip down to Stovington?”
Dean turns on the right blinker.
“Aw, shut up.”
~~~~~
The Impala’s parked in front of the office of the Crimson King Motel. Sam’s getting out of the car to pay for their room so that they can ditch their stuff and then poke around town a bit. He’s almost to the door when Dean rolls down his window and calls out, “Hey Sam, make sure the room’s not 217 or 1408!” Sam flips up the collar of his jacket and looks huffy. Dean smiles to himself. Mission accomplished.
If the first interview is setting the bar for the weirdness that’s going to go on during this case, Dean’s not sure if they should just skip town now or maybe pull a Jack Torrance and then burn the place to the ground.
“Poor little Muffin never knew what hit him!” the old lady’s saying, her hand patting the dog’s head rather more forcefully than Dean would’ve thought possible for her age.
“Those kids nowadays riding their murdercycles all over town without looking where they’re going!”
“Murdercycles?” Dean repeats, and Sam shoots him a look. Dean’s not looking at him, but he can feel it. He makes a mental note to speak with him about that later.
“Ahem.” Sam clears his throat meaningfully, and Dean returns to the questions.
“So you’re sure that, uh… Muffin… was dead?”
“As a doornail,” Mrs. Bates chirps cheerfully. “But he’s back now, and that’s all that matters!”
Dean rubs his temples. So much sunshine makes his head hurt.
“But Muffin didn’t come back on his own,” Sam interjects. “You had to have done something.”
Yeah, something, Dean thinks, the memory rising up in his throat as he directs a wet cough into his fist. Cold metal on his palm, delicate bones that he broke in his haste, wind blowing its dead breath down his neck, wondering, if you flipped a coin and it always landed tails up, was it still by chance?
Mrs. Bates has the audacity to look modest. “Oh… it wasn’t all me,” she allows. “I just gave him a proper burial in the cemetery!”
Walking down Mrs. Bates’ front porch steps, it’s starting to feel like all this talk of subverted resurrection is flaying his brain. Of all topics, it’s not really in Dean’s top ten. In fact, it doesn’t really make the list.
The dog had tried to lick his hand as they left, and it was all Dean could do to keep from taking out his Taurus and shooting the poor bastard. It was obviously still dead, no amount of demonic reanimation could fool him anymore. You could always recognize one of your own.
Back in the car, engine running, “What the hell,” says Sam.
Dean looks at him for a long moment. “I know I forgot to send you a postcard from there, Sammy, but trust me: this ain’t hell. It’s weird, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think demons have anything to do with it.”
They’re halfway to the next house before Sam says, “Oh.”
~~~~~
Sam rattles off what they know about the next victim as they’re adjusting the transformation from law enforcement to clergy. Fourteen-year-old girl suddenly flips out and kills her father for confiscating her cell phone after she went over her monthly texting limit.
Sipping tea from a floral cup, Dean’s thinking that maybe it’s time to retire the priest getup. The collar feels like it’s choking him, and besides, after being downstairs you kind of forget about what’s upstairs. Live a lifetime in a basement, forget that you can climb up out of it. You jump in the hole, though, you always remember that you got yourself there, and getting out won’t be as easy as the freefall down. Gravity, yeah, gravity was a given, but it’s about the only one besides pain.
Dean’s rubbing his throat as Sam asks the necessary things.
“So you’re saying that your daughter just… went crazy?” Sam says, in a proper, celibate tone.
“Yes,” Mrs. Duvall states emphatically. “It was that new cell phone. You know some people say that video games are responsible for violence in children. I say it’s the cell phones- they scrambled her brain!”
Dean’s starting to think that maybe the priest deal isn’t so bad after all, as long as he can finish up the wine. He zones out while Sam finishes up the interview, stands when Sam stands, follows his brother out the door.
Subject number three, the last of the day, seems to think that he’s acquired some sort of new talent for growing crops. He’s dug up his whole lawn and turned it into a cornfield. Dean’s not really paying attention by this point, so he’s not sure whether this guy plans to kill his wife and plant her as fertilizer, or use crucified policemen as scarecrows.
On the way back to the motel, Sam’s making a list of the other people they’re supposed to interview tomorrow, but he stops when Dean sneezes three times in a row. He gives Dean a sidelong glance, of the type which even death row on the fiery mile doesn’t grant immunity to.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks.
Dean swallows, feels his throat scratch in a mildly threatening kind of way that means that soon he’ll be hacking up his lungs and possibly other organs too, in case the lungs get lonely and need a little company.
“S’alright, Sam. Just a little headache.”
It’s more than that, but he’s still not sure if he’s just not used to pain on a scale that doesn’t begin at off the charts.
Later, in the motel bathroom at two in the morning, where Sam finds him wrestling with the cap of the Tylenol bottle (Tylenol- 1, Dean- 0), he can’t cover it up anymore. Sam doesn’t say anything, just purses one side of his mouth in that quintessential way and sits next to him on the edge of the bathtub. He takes the bottle from him and opens it in a single movement.
“Bitch,” Dean whispers. “Must’ve been stuck.” He ducks his head down and coughs into his t-shirt as Sam presses pills into his palm.
“Good thing you didn’t shut the door,” Sam says quietly while his hand sneaks its way over to Dean’s forehead. Dean merely glares at him as his concerned frown at the unnatural heat morphs into a smile as he continues, “I might’ve had to use the axe.”
Sam’s busying himself with getting a glass of water at the sink as Dean rasps, “You brought the axe inside?”
Sam sighs. Dean grimaces as he swallows the pills. He’ll have to remember in the morning to tell Sam to put out a hit on his sense of humor, because apparently he lost it while Dean was downstairs.
~~~~~
Morning comes earlier than Dean thinks it used to, or maybe it’s just the strange static that’s filled his ears while he was sleeping. Or the porcupine family that’s nesting in both his frontal lobes and the back of his throat. He sits up slowly, testing it, but it’s ruined by the surprise sneeze.
“Guuhhuutsch-shugg!”
Mental note for next time: porcupines startle easily.
Sam’s standing over him with the Tylenol bottle and a glass of water the next time he cautiously blinks awake. Dean takes the pills without complaint, swallows them with a slight painful twist to his mouth, and rasps out, “Thanks, Annie.”
“Dean-”
“What, are you going to cut off my foot?” Dean lapses into some coughing, which sounds as though it’s coming from somewhere deep down in his chest. (And why shouldn’t it come from so deep within? You had to fill up the empty space with something, right?)
Dean keeps coughing, and Sam doesn’t say anything. When he finally finishes, spots of color high on his otherwise pale face, he’s not really aware that they were having a conversation before. He remembers Alastair’s chuckle, holding his own heart in his hand, thinking how didn’t hell just make everything literal. The words are burning to ash in his mouth, words that he can’t say but which are choking him anyway. For once, not literally, like the deserved demise of the obsessed nurse, but figuratively.
~~~~~
Sam’s wary of him coming along on today’s interviews and research, but Dean just knocks back some more Tylenol mixed with Jack and wheezily insists that he’ll be fine. Sam’s not sure if that can ever be true again, but it’s an old pattern, a scar that they can keep tracing the knife over again and again just because it’s already there, so will it make a difference if they re-open it, instead of starting over from a new place?
They stop for breakfast at a diner, first, and Dean’s lethargically twirling his spoon in his coffee cup when Sam nudges him and inclines his head discreetly at the man going out the door.
“That’s him.”
“That’s who?” Dean says tiredly.
“Him.”
“Huh,” Dean says, taking a sip from his cup. “Funny, I didn’t notice the manifestation of all that is evil come in.” He coughs into his sleeve. “What’d you do, Sam? Check his receipt for the initials ‘R.F.’?”
“No,” Sam huffs. “I mean it was him.”
“Sam,” Dean says slowly, resting his chin in his hand. He rubs underneath his eyes, grates out, “Tak.”
“What?”
“Just… just tell me who it was, Sam.”
“Stephen King,” says Sam, with a hint of what Dean might mark as reverence if either of them had any faith left between them.
“Oh. Him.”
“Yes, him. So do you think he’s the one doing this? For publicity?”
“I don’t think you can fake all that, Sam. Killing people and everything. And-ah-hah-hiiutsch-schoo!-I dod’t thig he deeds the press.”
Dean fumbles for a napkin from the dispenser, rips the first one, then on the second attempt comes out with about twenty more than he’d anticipated. He shoves the stack deep into his jacket pocket with a disgusted look, and wipes his nose with the first.
“So what do you think we’re dealing with here?”
There’s a long pause, and Dean cracks a smile like a compound fracture.
“Well,” he drawls. “It’s not a djinn, because I can see your fantasy, too.”
The pout’s always worth it, because it’s something that Dean can count on when he’s lost all methods of measurement beyond the forty tallies carved into his ribs, in the place where his soul (heart?) used to be.
“Not funny, Dean.”
Dean shrugs, pokes his fork into his barely-touched breakfast.
“Honestly, Sam, it almost looks like the Trickster again.”
A look of complete rage flashes across Sam’s face for a moment, but Dean could’ve imagined that. Yeah, the Trickster killed him a couple of times, but it wasn’t really worthy of such anger, right?
“Oh… I got a nerve to pick with him, and then another, and another, until he doesn’t have a brainstem anymore.”
Dean’s glad that Sam’s not having steak for breakfast, because he doesn’t think sharp objects and his brother would be the best mix right now.
“Isn’t the expression, ‘bone to pick’?”
“Dean, brainstems don’t have bones.”
“Okay, then.” Dean raises his eyebrows, and then gives a slight, rasping laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Sam demands. “Because I’m not seeing another showdown with the Trickster as being high on my bucket list.”
“I don’t know, Sammy… just, maybe you should think about channeling some of that anger. You could try painting…”
Sam looks as though he’s contemplating whether he could stake his brother with a paintbrush and make it look like an accident.
Dean runs a hand through his hair, shivers slightly.
“Eat up, Sammy, you’ve been looking a little skinny lately. You sure you haven’t run over any Gypsies recently?”
~~~~~
It’s Dean’s turn to pout when Sam makes him stay at the library instead of coming with to interview the next subjects. It’s only your typical homicidal car/supernatural insomnia kind of deal. Routine, really.
“I’m not sure I trust libraries anymore,” Dean says as Sam’s leaving. He gives a pointed, sidelong glance at the librarian. “She might eat me if I don’t put the books back.”
There’s a slight lacquer of sweat on Dean’s forehead, and so Sam’s not sure if he’s kidding. He sighs, and nods his head toward the officer leaning up against one of the free-standing shelves, eating a doughnut and sipping coffee. “Think you’ll be okay, bud, see, even the law hangs out here.”
Dean coughs and looks absolutely pitiful. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he whispers.
Sam’s not sure what it is, something either added to or missing from Dean’s voice that’s beyond how screwed-up it is right now. It’s like an equation that’s no longer equal. Variables changing, axes shifting. Lines becoming parabolas. Constants that are no longer a given. Regardless, something in his brother’s voice tells him that there’s so much more behind the currently pale façade- the edges have been rough for a long time, that’s for sure, but now it’s something completely different. Sam’s reminded perversely of Buffalo Bill, and he tries to shake off the disturbing image of Dean stitching himself a new skin that’s a tougher callus but still paper-thin. It’s tearing now, whatever illness he’s picked up catalyzing the reaction. Maybe it’s litmus paper, Sam thinks to himself, sardonically.
That same thing that’s prickling at him from the thorns in his brother’s voice seem related to the ones that pierce him every time Dean’s eyes meet his own, that thing makes him reach out and place the back of his hand to Dean’s forehead.
The fact that Dean doesn’t do anything, doesn’t even try to swat him away, tells Sam more about his current state of health than any thermometer reading could.
“Captain Trips,” Sam half-laughs.
“Huh?” Dean asks, looking disoriented and pale and like he feels like he could die. Oh wait, he already did.
“Guess what,” Sam tells him, now the goddamn memory prickling along with everything else, all queued up to torture him for everything they did and didn’t do and forgive me all my trespasses and I’ll pass on the wafer, but I’ll take the rest of that wine, thanks (Coming home from school, Dean helping him with his homework, tucking him in at night, saying Guess what even though Sam can already Guess what because what is always Dad being gone longer, ditching them for just a little bit more of their childhood. Yeah, right, what childhood.).
“Guess what,” he repeats. “You get to blow this joint. Sorry that we’re not dancing on the banisters or anything.”
“S’okay,” Dean mumbles. “M’cooler than Bender, anyway.”
“Yeah, you are,” Sam says in a properly hushed library tone, now herding Dean toward the exit.
Dean glares at the policeman and the librarian as they leave, and Sam shakes his head, feeling as though this case couldn’t get much weirder, and Dean being sick on top of it all is just whipped cream on top of the pie they’ve been served. It’s a deep dish, one that Sam doesn’t think will ever empty. Hell’s always got a fire going.
~~~~~
Back in the Impala, Sam makes Dean put on his jacket, feels like he’s talking to a disobedient dog when he tells Dean to stay in the car.
It’s when he gets back with the supplies, though, that it hits him that it’s when normally misbehaving dogs don’t act up that something’s really wrong. Newsflash, Sam, he thinks. You knew that already.
And Dean’s like that even when Sam goes off to interview people without him. He’d crashed out on the bed after Sam had gotten some meds and water into him, and he’s still there when he gets back.
He stirs when Sam shuts the door, even though he’d tried to do it quietly. He’s still hyper-attuned to everything Sam does, has been since they were kids, that quality amplified even more since Sam died and came back.
“S’mmy?”
“Dean.”
There’s more in those two words than it would seem. Webster couldn’t define it, but it’s something that shouldn’t really be spelled out in so many words, something that couldn’t abide such stringent regimes of definition.
Dean rolls over, coughs without opening his eyes, and mumbles something that Sam thinks is asking him how the interviews went.
“It was fine, dude. I didn’t even nee-I mean, it was better that you weren’t there coughing all over everyone. Some weird shit, man. Weird, weird shit.”
“S’our job,” Dean says into the pillow.
“Yeah, I know, but not to this degree. At least, I don’t think so. This can’t be coincidence. I mean, in the town where he lives? In such painstaking detail? He has to have something to do with it.”
“Mmmpphh.”
“Okay, fine, Patient Zero. I’ll let you sleep.”
~~~~~
It’s late when Sam’s writing at the motel room desk, and he jumps when Dean’s suddenly standing next to him.
“What is it, Dean? You okay?”
Dean merely sniffles and tries to grab the paper Sam’s been working on, trying to categorize anything that’s the same amongst the recent victims of whatever weirdness is going on in this town- that is, besides the fact that all of them have been re-enacting a scene from one of Stephen King’s writings. Sam twitches the paper away from his brother and Dean croaks, “Oooh, are you writing a play, Sam? Can’t I see your manuscript?”
Sam forces a laugh, pushes the chair back from the desk, and tells Dean to go back to bed.
“Sorry, Gerald, I’m not really into the games…” he mutters before his voice cracks, degrading into a fit of long, wheezy coughing.
“Hey,” Sam says. “Why don’t you take some more meds before you go back to sleep? It might help.”
Dean’s already halfway under the covers, and he nods and then sneezes. “Hkk-utsch-shuh!”
He blows his nose gratefully into the tissues that Sam brings along with the cold meds. Sam tries not to watch as Dean tips back the dosage, because the cherry-red syrup looks far too much like demon blood, because of the viscosity.
Dean’s down for the count almost as soon as his head touches the pillow, but Sam- Sam lies awake for a long time, trying to convince himself that he’s not going to turn into Jack Torrance. He bets Lloyd would be able to procure some of the good stuff for him, though. That Lloyd was the best bartender around.
~~~~~
“I had a dream,” Dean tells him in a croak when he wakes up, his eyes still overbright. “About the Man in Black.”
“You had a dream about Johnny Cash?”
Dean treats him to a glare that could reduce potted plants to cacti.
“No. The other one. The one who walks.”
Sam pauses, his mouth full of foam. He spits into the sink and comes back into the main room, still holding his toothbrush.
“Dude, how high is your fever? I thought you took some more Tylenol.”
Dean hacks into the bedspread. “I did. I think it’s the town.”
“Huh,” Sam muses.
“That’s profound, Sammy. You’re gonna be a bestseller.” Dean’s smiling now, for some reason, and Sam gives him a look.
“… By which I mean, the tabloids are going to fly off the shelves after you kill me with an axe.”
“What?”
“Well, you don’t have a wife. I figure I’m the closest thing.”
“I figure you shouldn’t take so much cold medicine.”
Dean shrugs, more or less agreeing.
“Dude, you were really out of it yesterday,” Sam tells him. “What was up at the library? Don’t think I didn’t see you give the librarian the finger when we were leaving.”
“Ahhhuugusch-shuh! I thod you were the Kigg scholar here, dot be.”
“So did I.”
“Hummphh.”
~~~~~
Dean wants to go and check out the King as soon as possible, but Sam says that they have to wait.
“Come on, you’re still sick as he-uh… still pretty sick, Dean. We can stay in and do some research.”
“Oh, resurge. By favoride.”
“I’ll go and rent some of those god-awful adaptations. You can watch them while I actually do research.”
Dean mulls it over, pretends like he’s actually considering moving from the bed. “I guess.”
Which is how they end up watching Pet Sematary with all the curtains closed and the lights off.
“How dumb can you be?” Dean coughs from the bed, his cheeks flushed. “It seems like common sense. If the cat comes back evil, chances are the kid will, too.” The words are out of his mouth before he can take them back, rescind them. But he of all people should have learned the lesson that what’s done stays done. That when you tie a knot in the string, even if you get it untangled, it won’t ever be the same- it’ll still retain some memory of how it was when it was a knot. He draws in a deep breath that sets off the coughing; hoping that will distract Sam from what he’s just said. Hopes that Sam doesn’t remember pulling over on a deserted mountain road, remember him saying that what’s dead should stay dead, because heaven and hell both know that neither of them can make it stick for too long. Who’d’ve thought, you could fail at death, too- the one thing everyone was supposed to excel at.
“Yeah, well, if people weren’t dumb there wouldn’t be a story,” Sam calls from the desk, where he’s doing Internet searches.
Yeah, Dean’s got that theme down pat now.
Sam doesn’t say anything again until Dean’s midway through the next film.
“Hey, Sammy,” Dean calls in a rasp. “Think this is your kinda movie. There’s a ‘Loser’s Club.’”
Sam turns to the screen for a few moments, then quickly averts his gaze.
“Oh, and a clown, too. I know how much you love those.”
“Dean, maybe that’s enough movies for one day.”
“What? But I didn’t even get to the possessed trucks yet!”
“Dean, we already lived that one.”
Dean pauses the movie and considers.
“Fair enough.”
“Besides, you never read his story about the airplane, did you?”
“He wrote about an airplane?” He coughs into the comforter again, and leans his head back against the headboard. “Well, of course he wrote about an airplane, he is a horror writer.”
Sam rolls his eyes. Dean can’t see it in the dark, but he can tell. “Just leave the clown thing alone, okay? Or I’ll get an audiobook version of the airplane story and replace all your music with copies of it.”
Dean’s caught with his mouth open mid-retaliation. He coughs instead.
“How’s the superflu?” Sam asks.
“Ahh-hutsch-etsch!”
“That good, huh?”
~~~~~
“At least we don’t have to go through the Lincoln Tunnel,” Sam remarks. That’s about the only silver lining he can find in their current situation. Breaking into Stephen King’s house isn’t exactly high on Sam’s list of things to do before nine a.m. when his brother’s nearly dead on his feet (Nice choice of phrase, Sam, could say the same for you, huh? Dead on your feet, both of you. What a pair.).
The next morning finds them poking around outside the tall black wrought-iron gates of an iconic house. The fence has spider webs and bats worked into in it, and Dean scuffs his boot along its edge and mutters something that Sam can’t quite hear.
“Dean, if your voice hurts that much, you’re going back in the car.”
Dean clears his throat with a painful noise, and repeats, more loudly, “I said, I hope we don’t find any hanged mobsters in there.”
“Well… I guess we could always set him straight on the vampire portrayal, huh?”
Dean barks a short laugh, doubles over to cough.
“You going to make it?”
“Yeah- m’gonna MacGyver the shit out of this fence.”
“You are so not a MacGyver.”
Dean makes a hand gesture at Sam that’s almost elegant in its creativity.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m more of a McClane.”
He’s walking along the edge of the wrought iron bars, tapping them with some stick he picked up somewhere. Sam’s following behind at a distance, not really expecting much beyond the eventual scaling over or tunneling under this fence, the former leading to probable injury in Dean’s current condition, and the latter leaving a trail of dirt to likely post-traumatic issues. Neither is something Sam cares to deal with today.
“M-O-O-N, that spells Yahtzee!” Dean crows throatily from somewhere up ahead, and then he’s on the other side of the fence before Sam can really register it.
“How-what?”
“He’s Stephen King, Sam. Obviously his fence has got to have a secret entrance.”
“Oh, how silly of me. I should’ve known.”
~~~~~
Dean cuts himself going through the gap in the fence, and only makes any mention of it when Sam points it out, and even then, Dean gives his arm only a perfunctory glance, brushing Sam off when he tries to look at it.
He’s striding off across the lawn, his deep coughs like Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs, the elbow of Sam’s jacket darkening with blood. It’s almost as though he didn’t even notice, and Sam’s not sure if he wants to test the hypothesis that he truly didn’t.
He catches up with his brother at the back door of the house.
“Seriously, Dean, this plan is so far-fetched and unlikely to work…”
“It’s also yours,” Dean reminds him with a quick grin, and Sam catches a glimpse of the photo negative that was his brother before Hell burnt all the film.
They’re interrupted by a man in khakis and a sweater, hands in pockets, who stands and considers them for a long moment.
“Are you going to knock, or just stand there all day? I didn’t realize we were holding auditions for new statues.” He speaks quietly, but he has their full attention instantly. Dean slowly moves his hand behind his back to rest reassuringly on his pistol.
Coming up with an answer on the spot is made exponentially harder by the cold drugs running through his system and, also, his freakishly tall brother gesturing at him from behind the man, pointing and mouthing.
“Uh… think I’ll knock, your Majesty.”
“You know, I could probably write a book detailing the various versions of that line I’ve been subjected to throughout the years.”
“I’m sure you could.” Dean snuffles and drags the sleeve of Sam’s jacket under his nose before continuing, “I must say, your pictures don’t do you justice.”
“You’re bleeding,” Stephen King notes.
“Yeah… your fence kinda bit me.”
“Better that than the topiary,” Sam chimes in, his face reddening.
Both King and Dean rotate to face him, and there’s an awkward pause.
“I take it you two aren’t just my typical fans,” King remarks with a detached air.
Dean gives a pinched smile, ducks his head and coughs into his shoulder. “You could say that.”
The whole exchange feels rather surreal to Sam. Even more so when King invites them in, presumably so that Dean can get a drink of water and something to put on his arm.
It’s not until they’ve left, though, that Sam gets a chance to tell Dean his suspicions about the author. King walks with them out to the front fence, shades his eyes and says quietly, “That’s a beautiful car you have.”
For some reason Sam has to bite back a laugh and the urge to say the word “Christine.” He’s not entirely sure what the etiquette is on making reference to an author’s works in the presence of said author, though, and since his earlier topiary comment fell flat, he decides to let it go. Dean acknowledges his car’s beauty, and makes a mock bow as King unlocks the fence for them.
Sam takes him by the (non-bloodied) elbow when they reach the Impala, and Dean yanks his arm back.
“Dude, what was that?” Sam says in a rush.
“I was just… uh… uhh-huutsch-schh!-ugh… The mad is abtly nabed, Sabby… oh. I bead-” Dean sniffs and spits on the ground. “-it was obviously a teenage nerd’s wet dream…”
Sam glares at his brother.
“What, you didn’t enjoy meeting your idol? Oh, I’m sorry, we forgot your manuscript at the motel. Are you terribly disappointed?”
“Dean, enough with the Shining references.”
Dean pouts slightly and then shivers as he leans back against the car.
“Whatever.” Sam runs his hand through his hair. “Let’s… let’s find somewhere to get lunch, and discuss the clue I found.”
Dean pauses with the passenger door open. “You found a clue?”
“Sure, Freddy.”
“Stephen King didn’t write Nightmare on Elm Street.”
“Freddy as in Scooby-Doo.”
“… you’re aware that would make you Velma.”
~~~~~
“Look, that place says ‘Roadhouse,’ on the sign,” Dean comments with another shiver.
“I don’t think it’ll be anything like the real Roadhouse,” Sam says quietly. “And I’m also pretty sure you just want to get inside a place that has heat.”
He pulls into the parking lot of the Texas Roadhouse anyway.
When they get inside, Dean all but collapses into a booth. It appears as though whatever last dregs of energy he summoned up for the morning’s antics at the King mansion have deserted him.
“Whoa, man. I thought you were doing better today.”
“Was.”
“Oh.”
“So,” Sam says after they’ve ordered and Dean’s burrowed his head into his crossed arms on the table. “I think I know what we’re dealing with.”
Dean mumbles something that Sam can’t quite make out.
“No, I’m not going to pay for this in pennies,” Sam says loudly.
Dean lifts his head up. “I said, ‘Pennywise.’” His voice creaks on the emphasis.
“Remember the airplane story,” Sam threatens as the waitress brings their order. Dean merely flaps a hand in response. He fiddles with the placement of his silverware, lining up the knife and fork so that they’re exactly even.
“Anyway,” continues Sam, “I think that this must be the Trickster. It’s his M.O. Stephen King stories are perfect for his kind of thing. It’s like a field day.”
Dragging his hand under his nose, Dean says, “Yeah, where have the cops been? You’d think we’d’ve bumped into them by now.”
“About that,” Sam says around a bite of steak. “Uh… I ran into them when I was checking out that car, and I don’t think we want to see them again. I don’t know, King kind of has a thing for villainous law enforcement…”
“’Nough said,” Dean coughs. “You were saying?”
“Yeah. Uh… I’m pretty sure it’s the Trickster. And I think it’s Stephen King.”
Dean just gives him a glassy gaze. “Sam, we’re not playing ‘the six degrees of Stephen King’ here.”
“No, no. He wasn’t limping, Dean. The real Stephen King got hit by a car a few years ago and completely shattered his leg.”
Dean leans his head back against the booth and looks at the ceiling. “If God existed, I’d-uhh-huh-huuguhxx-shoo!-askg hib to sabe be frob by sufferig.”
“Don’t worry,” Sam deadpans. “He’s probably moonlighting as an alcoholic writer with a Harley and ‘Nam issues.”
“Whad?”
“Nevermind.”
Dean’s looking more tired by the second. Sam thinks about gravity, and constant acceleration. Endpoints. Decides that it’s time to go back to the motel and crash.
~~~~~
Motel room bathroom, Dean perched on the edge of the bathtub, Sam’s not feeling the déjà vu at all. Yeah, right.
“Seriously, Dean, this cut is pretty deep.”
Dean winces slightly as Sam dabs the hydrogen peroxide, and lets out a cough that rumbles deep in his chest.
“It’s not pig’s blood, Sissy, so I think you’ll be okay,” he manages, the words sounding as though he’s biting them off from razor-filled candy.
“You might think all this is funny, Dean, but I’m kind of missing the punchline. You’re still sick, and you’re not going to get better if you keep going out and pretending like you’re at the top of your game when you can barely walk straight.”
There’s a lot of things Dean could respond to with this: he considers telling Sam that he’s just jealous that he got to drink out of Stephen King’s cup- or at least that’s what he thought it was at the time. He thinks about setting Sam straight (huh- a pun) on the walking thing. He contemplates saying nothing- they’ve always been good at the charged silences. Electrons love them like no other.
“Who says I want to get better?” says Dean instead. “I deserve it.”
And there’s nothing to say to that, either. Sam’s not sure if it’s the combination of the fever or the cold meds kicking in or what, exactly, but he’s still thinking about it long after Dean’s passed out under the covers.
~~~~~
Dean sleeps for most of the next two days, only emerging from his comatose state to whisper nonsense things to Sam, many of which relate to some King work. In a different lifetime, where they had the time and luxury to really, truly joke with each other, he might’ve teased his brother about it later. But here, now- Dean’s fever is spiking and he’s telling Sam adamantly (albeit hoarsely) to, “watch out for the cat, Sammy, he came back wrong.”
When it finally breaks for good, Dean stirs from tangled sheets, his hair sticking up in all directions.
“Welcome back,” Sam says. “I feel like I should clap.
“Too bad we don’t know any politicians,” he continues. “We could get you to shake their hands.”
“Wha’?”
“Yeah, I guess The Dead Zone isn’t really your flavor of King.”
Dean clears his throat, croaks out, “So he’s got flavors now, Sammy? Do I want to know?”
“…And that’s how I know you’re back.”
“In black,” Dean says, and lapses into a coughing fit.
“You know, AC/DC is Stephen King’s favorite band, too…”
Dean’s finger is an arrow directed at Sam’s chest as he makes his way to the bathroom. He’s hacking into the collar of his shirt, but the meaning is clear nonetheless: if they never hear one more word of Stephen King, their lives will be as blissful and carefree as can be. Yeah fucking right.
~~~~~
The next morning finds Dean parking the Impala in the closest parking space to the door of Nicky’s Cruisin’ Diner.
“That was a handicapped space,” Sam notes.
“I’m aware.” Dean directs a deep cough into his fist.
They’re there so early that their target hasn’t even arrived yet. As the waitress brings their coffee, she nods out the window at the Impala.
“The car show’s not til next weekend, honey.”
“Huh?” Dean’s always eloquent, especially on the spot.
The waitress blushes and bustles away to get their food. Sam kicks Dean’s foot under the table as the bell over the door tinkles. Dean takes a leisurely sip of coffee before getting up and discreetly marrying the nose of his Colt MK IV to the back of the Trickster as Stephen King’s jacket.
Around the side of the restaurant’s as good a place as any to hash it out with the Trickster. Isn’t that what they did last time?
Sam supposes that he shouldn’t be surprised anymore, given what they do for a living, but this case- the first “real” case he and Dean have taken since Dean got back-God. What a case.
Turns out not to be the Trickster. Or, actually, yes and no. Ambiguity, what a wonderful concept in this world masquerading as black and white.
It’s Loki. The ‘real Loki,’ as he calls himself. He seems pretty rightly pissed to have been impersonated.
Dean thinks about pointing out that, currently, Loki is impersonating America’s best-known horror writer, but thinks better of it. Talking might’ve made him cough, and that might’ve messed up Sam’s stake job. By which Dean doesn’t mean anything to do with ‘Salem’s Lot, though he appreciates the irony.
~~~~~
Their things have already been packed into the trunk, so they leave directly from the diner, and Sam could say that they’ve never been happier to leave a town behind, but that would leave out that one in South Dakota.
Driving out of town, Sam thinks that if he learned anything from reading Stephen King, it’s that whatever comes back doesn’t come back the same. He didn’t need the books to tell him that, but still. They would do well to remember the lesson. Reinforce it.
“Come Sail Away” by Styx is playing as they cross the city limits. Dean turns it up a little bit, and Sam chuckles.
“What? Styx rocks, dude.”
Sam checks the station, and shakes his head disbelievingly. Irony has long since ceased to be funny most of the time, but it still catches them off guard every once in a while.
“You know that Stephen King funds this station, right? He and his wife own it.”
There’s silence from both Dean, and then, suddenly, from the radio.
Dean sighs, smothers a cough with the back of his hand.
“We just can’t get away from it, you know? We can never drive far enough.”
There’s silence for too long, and Dean flips the radio back on for the ending of the song, so that the metaphorical sound of whatever’s following them fills the car and reminds them again of the story written out in their blood.
Maybe Sam spoke too soon; maybe he does still want to read Stephen King. At least with him, you can flip the last page and be done. He has a feeling their ending isn’t going to wrap up quite so neatly.
Author’s Note, part 2: So, I’m fully aware that few people share my enthusiasm for Stephen King, so here’s the list of works that I referenced, in order. Some works (esp. The Shining and The Stand) were mentioned more than once. If anyone is confused by anything I referenced, I’m very happy to explain! :)
The Shining, The Stand, The Dark Tower, “1408,” Pet Sematary, Cell, Secret Window, Secret Garden, “Children of the Corn,” The Green Mile, Misery, Desperation, Duma Key, Thinner, Christine, Insomnia, The Library Policeman, Gerald’s Game, It, Maximum Overdrive, The Langoliers, ‘Salem’s Lot, Carrie, The Dead Zone