Beneath Every Layer of Skin - Prologue
“Dean,” Sam says wearily, “I think we're lost.”
The elder Winchester rolls his eyes, lips pursed and dramatic down to the square of his shoulders, though there's no comedy to it. “We're not lost.”
They've been on the road too long- all day, and the day before, driving straight through states with barely a stop, on the I-90 most of the way through. There are no lights along this stretch of highway either, wherever they are. The last place they passed through had been some nowhere town, mid Pennsylvania, but Sam's been drifting in and out for at least an hour since then, a soft rock station and the roar of the road soothing him like a lullaby. There's no telling what state they're in. The third car passenger snores loudly, breaking the monotony of the road. He's been sleeping for much longer than Sam, since they passed through Ohio, in an uninterrupted slumber shared only by the dead and the drunk.
Sam squirms in his seat and scratches idly at the v-shaped scab on his palm. His eyelashes try to flutter shut again, lured by the first soft patter of fresh rain on the windshield. Dean swears.
“Where are we then?” Sam says, rubbing his eyes. He tries to stretch his aching legs, but they bump uselessly against the front of the car, a few inches short of properly stretching.
“Pennsylvania,” Dean says.
Sam rocks out of his seat, yet attempting to stretch. “What, still? How long was I out?”
“A while,” Dean says. His eyes are fixed firmly on the road, illuminated by the headlights. Nothing is visible beyond the beams, but for shadows. There is no moon.
“Dean,” Sam mumbles, falling defeated to his seat, “Where in Pennsylvania?”
Dean doesn't say a thing.
“Dean.”
“Alright, alright,” he says, “I may have taken the wrong junction somewhere. So what? We'll hit a town soon enough.” The rain becomes heavy, thudding on the roof like hail. Dean frowns and finally turns on the wipers, their annoying squeak filling the cabin, though the third passenger does not stir. Sam rakes his eyes across the tense line of his brother's shoulders, his worn face barely visible in the reflection of the Impala's lights off the tarmac. Sam's fingers twitch, diverting halfway from their unintended path to turn the dial of the radio ever so slightly louder. He quickly turns away.
“So we're lost.”
A half smile shoots Sam's way, though he's faced the wrong direction to see it. “Shut up, Sammy.”
For a few miles, there's a distinct broken silence. The rain thuds and the wipers squeak. The sleeping passenger snores in time with 'Hotel California' and the engine roars with the proud distinction of all well aged cars. Sam does not fall back to sleep, but he does not acknowledge either of his fellow travelers.
“Something interesting out the window?” Dean asks. The road is becoming rough, jostling them in their seats. The third passenger still does not stir and Sam does not answer.
Another mile, Dean lets loose a particularly loud yawn. Sam sighs.
“Did you check the--” he pauses involuntarily to yawn in response, “-map?”
“Nope,” Dean says simply.
Sam's eyes hesitantly wander over to Dean, catching the purplish bags building beneath his brother's heavy eyes. “Dude, pull over anyway. Wait for morning. Get some sleep. We're all bushed, man- I'm exhausted and exhausted means, you know...” On cue, blood starts to leak from Dean's hairline, collecting in the corners of his eyes like tears.
Dean's lips flutter downwards, fine lines bracketing his mouth's displeasure. He looks ten years older in the half-light. “We'll pull up to some fleabag motel soon. There's always one on roads like these. Last stop for fifty miles, you know.”
The thick layer of blood spreads, painting over the fine dusting of freckles laid against Dean's cheekbones and coating his plush mouth like grotesque lipstick. Sam breathes, closes his eyes, and clutches his hands into trembling fists, nails digging deep into the skin of his palms. When he opens his eyes, the image has faded away and there's fresh blood under his nails.
“No, we should have hit one, like, an hour ago.” He turns back to the window, but can see nothing but the black-green of trees blurring by in the darkness. “Seriously, you're not the least bit suspicious?”
“Damn it, Sam,” Dean says, between clenched teeth. “Of course, I'm suspicious. I am suspicious all the freakin' time. But car trips are generally kinda long and boring, okay, and I- I don't know, ask him, alright? His crazy-time directions lead us here.” He jerks a thumb at the sleeping passenger.
Sam follows the accusatory gesture, guilty eyes finally daring to trace the lines of Castiel's face. Everything looks wrong, his hair too long and no longer perfectly tousled, slender torso swimming in one of Sam's old shirts and a pair of Dean's old jeans. He looks breakable in sleep, nothing like an angel of the lord. He badly needs a shave. Sam's eyes linger in silence, until Castiel snores and the ripe scent of alcohol drifts out of the back seat. “Are we thinking it's a trap?”
“I never doubted it was. But it was also the only lead we had to follow.”
“We had other options, Dean.”
“Not really.”
Pain rattles around Sam's skull and he presses his fingers into his temples, trying to stem the oncoming headache. It doesn't do much, except make it worse.
Dean glances over when Sam doesn't retort, preoccupied as he is by the pressure building behind his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine, watch the road.”
The soft rock station plays a few more songs, but begins to cut out halfway through 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. It hums with the telltale static of remote roads for a few miles, before a frustrated Dean turns it off. He rummages around in the space between their seats, looking at the cassettes as he pulls them out one by one.
Sam fights the urge to close his eyes again when Dean pops in their lone Chicago cassette and 'Wishing You Were Here' begins to play. “Here, this should put you right back to sleep. And probably me too.” Dean never had liked the tape.
“Thanks. But pull over soon, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I will.” Dean's eyes connect with Sam's and hold for a few seconds too long.
Sam clears his throat. “Dean, keep your eyes on the-”
The car jolts, dropping substantially, its tire caught in some rut and scraping bottom. Sam's words die in his mouth as he grips the seat desperately.
Broken chunks of the road flash before the Impala's swerving headlights, a large wave of asphalt buckled and rising out of the ground before them, snarled in a way no road should be, as if it were rushing lava suddenly hardened. A deep crevice splits the road down the middle - that's where the Impala's tires end up.
Dean puts all his weight onto the brake, grunting with effort, but the car only squeals wildly, almost flips, and finally crunches head on to a stop against the raised section of road, pitching all three occupants of the car forward. In the second before his nose slams into the dashboard, Sam sees a face illuminated by a flash of headlight, smiling with teeth too sharp and too white shining out of the pitch night. There's the crunch of someone's bone, perhaps his own, shattering glass, and then nothing.
Part One