FIC: Knit Two, Purl One (1/1) (PG)
Title: Knit Two, Purl One
Rating: PG
Word count: 1,943
Warnings: none
Summary: What started as a way for Sam to keep himself out of trouble turns out to be the key to solving a case. Now, he just needs to keep Dean from finding out what it is he can do...
A/N: Written for spn_summergen for TheYmp and never claimed! Hope you enjoy.
It started as a way to keep himself out of trouble, or at least to try and stay grounded. Seeing Lucifer out of the corner of his eye was one thing, but if Sam happened to glance at his hands when they were unoccupied, he was liable to see them covered in blood, or carved away to the bone, or randomly missing a joint or two. Pressing his thumb to his scar only worked so many times, and he couldn't waste it on a small hallucination. He had to save it for the big ones.
If his hands were busy doing something, it didn't seem to happen as often. And they had enough to worry about with Cas missing and the Leviathans on the loose that he needed to have his head in the game. So he cleaned the guns, typed on his laptop, and generally tried to keep busy.
The idea came to him in passing. He was walking through a small-town library on his way back to the archives when he passed a back room where a book club was meeting. One of the women seated in a circle was teasing another about having brought her knitting along, when the first one said, "Sometimes it helps my brain to be doing something else with my hands."
When Sam left with the photocopied newspaper articles he was after and the local history volume he'd charmed the librarian into letting him borrow with his FBI ID, he also had a beginner's guide to knitting tucked under his arm.
Reading through the book wasn't actually that helpful. It assumed you had needles and yarn and were following along with the instructions, not furtively reading while your brother was in the shower of the motel room with only one functional lamp. So the next time Sam was on his own for a few hours, he went to the nearest big box store and got the cheapest navy blue yarn he could find and a basic pair of knitting needles.
It took a few days before he had some alone time again. This time when he opened the book, he had his own materials to practice with. It took a little getting used to, but he picked up the technical terminology fast enough, and he could see that after some practice, his hands would remember the repetitive motions the same way he could clean the guns without looking.
That was, if he could get some practice.
It felt like Dean was always hovering, always keeping an eye on him. Sam couldn't blame him, not with the way Lucifer was always hovering, too, at the corner of his vision or sometimes right in front of him. Pressing down into his scar helped, but it didn't erase the worried lines from Dean's face.
But Sam persevered, and he found time to himself, and eventually he produced a lumpy blue scarf that was way too long, even for him. He kept it stuffed in the bottom of his bag, and when they swung through a big city, he left it wrapped around a tree near a homeless shelter with a "free" sign. It wouldn't be cold for a month or two yet, but someone could probably make use of it.
Then all hell broke lose inside his head, and Sam had enough sanity left to rationalize that holding sharp objects on a regular basis probably wasn't a good idea. By the time Cas took on Sam's crazy as his own form of atonement, Sam had almost forgotten how to cast on stitches.
When he found the needles in the bottom of his bag, there was just enough of the navy yarn left to practice a few simple squares and get back in the rhythm. He didn't need the activity as a distraction anymore, but it was still nice to have something of his own to work on when Dean wasn't looking. Of course, once or twice he almost got caught, and his furtive movements led to Dean watching him like a hawk for about a week to make sure his hallucinations hadn't returned.
Then they were in a small town in upstate New York, looking into a series of disappearances that happened around the new moon. Eventually, they figured out that all of the missing women had been members of the same organization in the small town.
"A knitting club, Sam, can you believe that?" Dean scoffed. "Probably a front for a coven or something."
"Maybe they just like to knit," Sam said mildly.
Dean shook his head. "How many scarves does one person need? Naw, I bet it's a front."
Still, Dean led the way into the Knit Two, Purl One yarn shop right on the center of Main Street. They went in as reporters, not wanting to risk running into local law enforcement when their pictures might still be on the most wanted list thanks to those damn Leviathans. Dean started in with some open-ended questions but quickly closed in on the knitting club.
"Well, yes, everyone who's gone missing is part of the circle," the silver-haired woman who'd introduced herself as Kathleen explained. "But most of the women who live here are. It's a small town, and even people who don't knit like to come by for the social aspect."
"You said 'circle,'" Dean noted sharply. "What do you mean by that?"
As Kathleen's brow furrowed, Sam came up behind Dean and lightly elbowed him. "It's not called a knitting club, it's a knitting circle." He pointed to the sign hanging behind the cash register.
"I see you know your terminology," Kathleen cooed at Sam.
"Uh, yeah, I read a lot," Sam replied. "So anyway, about those-"
"Actually, Sammy here is a closet knitter," Dean said with a sly sideways look.
For a wild moment, Sam thought he had been found out. Then he caught the barely-there smirk on Dean's face, and he remembered a B&B in New England and a creepy-ass doll collection. Feeling oddly reassured, he turned back to Kathleen and said sheepishly, "Actually, yes, I am a knitter."
He could feel Dean's surprised glance, but Kathleen only beamed at him. "Well, come in, why don't you?" she asked, gesturing towards the back of the store. "We don't get many men who want to join, but you're more than welcome."
Sam frowned. "You're meeting right now?"
"Every Wednesday at two," she replied. "I'm sure there are some others here who would be happy to answer your questions."
He exchanged a look with Dean, who was still frowning like he was trying to figure out how Sam had so happily gone along with his bluff. When he raised an eyebrow, Dean said, "Yeah, why don't you do that? I'll go and see if I can talk to the sheriff."
It was Sam's turn to be confused, since he thought they had agreed to avoid the authorities. But Kathleen was already taking his arm, and Dean was already turning away, so he allowed himself to be led into the back room.
There were eight women sitting in a circle of chairs, most of them with their laps full of knitting. Their expressions ranged from surprise to wariness when Kathleen introduced Sam as a reporter wanting to know more about the missing women. He took it as concern about a stranger asking questions about their friends, but after a few minutes, he started to wonder if there wasn't something else going on.
The youngest woman of the group was knitting at the very tips of her needles. That would make the stitches too small, and indeed, it looked like she was struggling because the tension was too tight. That might be a beginner's mistake; Sam himself had done that a time or two.
The redhead next to Sam kept putting an extra increase into some of her rows. The piece was going to end up a trapezoid instead of a square, but she didn't seem to notice. It could have just been a practice square, but he was pretty sure Kathleen had introduced her as one of their longest-standing members.
The woman across the circle from him kept looking at him while her fingers worked and her needles clacked. He would have been really impressed-he still had to look at what he was doing-except that she had dropped more than one stitch and didn't seem to notice that the middle of her knitting had several unraveling holes in it. She just kept looking at him.
Sam cleared his throat and stood up. "Thank you for your time, ladies. This should be enough for now." He gave Kathleen a smile. "I'll let you get back to work."
"Are you sure?" she asked. "I was just about to make tea, and Erin made some lovely cookies. We'd love for you to try some."
"No, that's okay," he said quickly. "I can show myself out."
As he turned to go, he accidentally bumped against the redhead. "Sorry," he said with a quick smile.
She stared up at him, blank-faced. Then she returned to her misshapen knitting.
Unnerved, Sam hurried out of the shop and back onto the street. As soon as he was around the corner, he stuck a hand in his pocket, on the side where he'd brushed against the redhead. His fingers closed around a small bag, finely woven with almost delicate yarn, tied with a bright red ribbon.
Immediately, he set it on the ground and pulled out a lighter. The flames were just beginning to consume the bag when Dean showed up. "Just a knitting circle, huh?" he asked, pointing at the flaming hex bag.
"Shut up," Sam retorted.
"Man, I hate witches." Dean shook his head. "I grabbed her business card and looked up her home address. Found an altar in the garage and smashed it good. Came back here to warn you, but apparently you already figured it out."
Sam hid a smile. Dean's words were casual, but he could hear the fear underneath them that the coven had gotten a hold of Sam and he was going to be too late. He tapped his temple. "My grapefruit's fully functioning again, you know."
"Guess so." Dean looked at him for a moment longer and then shook his head again. "Fucking witches."
Later that night, they went back and broke into the knitting shop. Behind the skeins of yarn and racks of patterns, they found a cabinet with tiny drawers that held dried herbs, small bones, and more of the delicate knit bags.
They dragged the cabinet out behind the store and set it on fire, right there in the alley. The brick walls of the store were safe enough from the flames, and so they waited only until the whole thing was aflame before walking away. No use waiting around to watch it burn and getting caught by the fire department.
They were almost back to the Impala when Dean asked, "Say, how'd you know they were witches, anyway?"
Sam shrugged. "They just seemed off."
"What, were they not knitting the right way or something?" Dean scoffed.
"Something like that." Sam paused, enjoying the confusion on Dean's face. He took a deep breath and said, "One of them wasn't casting on the right way, and another was dropping stitches left and right when all she needed was a crochet hook to fix it. Made me wonder, you know?"
Dean's eyebrows were halfway up his forehead, but to Sam's surprise, he didn't say a word. He merely cast Sam a thoughtful look before getting in the car.
Sam smiled to himself, feeling some of the tension he'd been holding in his shoulders relax. Maybe next year for Christmas, he'd forgo the usual nudie mags for Dean and go for a nice, hand-knitted scarf instead.
Rating: PG
Word count: 1,943
Warnings: none
Summary: What started as a way for Sam to keep himself out of trouble turns out to be the key to solving a case. Now, he just needs to keep Dean from finding out what it is he can do...
A/N: Written for spn_summergen for TheYmp and never claimed! Hope you enjoy.
It started as a way to keep himself out of trouble, or at least to try and stay grounded. Seeing Lucifer out of the corner of his eye was one thing, but if Sam happened to glance at his hands when they were unoccupied, he was liable to see them covered in blood, or carved away to the bone, or randomly missing a joint or two. Pressing his thumb to his scar only worked so many times, and he couldn't waste it on a small hallucination. He had to save it for the big ones.
If his hands were busy doing something, it didn't seem to happen as often. And they had enough to worry about with Cas missing and the Leviathans on the loose that he needed to have his head in the game. So he cleaned the guns, typed on his laptop, and generally tried to keep busy.
The idea came to him in passing. He was walking through a small-town library on his way back to the archives when he passed a back room where a book club was meeting. One of the women seated in a circle was teasing another about having brought her knitting along, when the first one said, "Sometimes it helps my brain to be doing something else with my hands."
When Sam left with the photocopied newspaper articles he was after and the local history volume he'd charmed the librarian into letting him borrow with his FBI ID, he also had a beginner's guide to knitting tucked under his arm.
Reading through the book wasn't actually that helpful. It assumed you had needles and yarn and were following along with the instructions, not furtively reading while your brother was in the shower of the motel room with only one functional lamp. So the next time Sam was on his own for a few hours, he went to the nearest big box store and got the cheapest navy blue yarn he could find and a basic pair of knitting needles.
It took a few days before he had some alone time again. This time when he opened the book, he had his own materials to practice with. It took a little getting used to, but he picked up the technical terminology fast enough, and he could see that after some practice, his hands would remember the repetitive motions the same way he could clean the guns without looking.
That was, if he could get some practice.
It felt like Dean was always hovering, always keeping an eye on him. Sam couldn't blame him, not with the way Lucifer was always hovering, too, at the corner of his vision or sometimes right in front of him. Pressing down into his scar helped, but it didn't erase the worried lines from Dean's face.
But Sam persevered, and he found time to himself, and eventually he produced a lumpy blue scarf that was way too long, even for him. He kept it stuffed in the bottom of his bag, and when they swung through a big city, he left it wrapped around a tree near a homeless shelter with a "free" sign. It wouldn't be cold for a month or two yet, but someone could probably make use of it.
Then all hell broke lose inside his head, and Sam had enough sanity left to rationalize that holding sharp objects on a regular basis probably wasn't a good idea. By the time Cas took on Sam's crazy as his own form of atonement, Sam had almost forgotten how to cast on stitches.
When he found the needles in the bottom of his bag, there was just enough of the navy yarn left to practice a few simple squares and get back in the rhythm. He didn't need the activity as a distraction anymore, but it was still nice to have something of his own to work on when Dean wasn't looking. Of course, once or twice he almost got caught, and his furtive movements led to Dean watching him like a hawk for about a week to make sure his hallucinations hadn't returned.
Then they were in a small town in upstate New York, looking into a series of disappearances that happened around the new moon. Eventually, they figured out that all of the missing women had been members of the same organization in the small town.
"A knitting club, Sam, can you believe that?" Dean scoffed. "Probably a front for a coven or something."
"Maybe they just like to knit," Sam said mildly.
Dean shook his head. "How many scarves does one person need? Naw, I bet it's a front."
Still, Dean led the way into the Knit Two, Purl One yarn shop right on the center of Main Street. They went in as reporters, not wanting to risk running into local law enforcement when their pictures might still be on the most wanted list thanks to those damn Leviathans. Dean started in with some open-ended questions but quickly closed in on the knitting club.
"Well, yes, everyone who's gone missing is part of the circle," the silver-haired woman who'd introduced herself as Kathleen explained. "But most of the women who live here are. It's a small town, and even people who don't knit like to come by for the social aspect."
"You said 'circle,'" Dean noted sharply. "What do you mean by that?"
As Kathleen's brow furrowed, Sam came up behind Dean and lightly elbowed him. "It's not called a knitting club, it's a knitting circle." He pointed to the sign hanging behind the cash register.
"I see you know your terminology," Kathleen cooed at Sam.
"Uh, yeah, I read a lot," Sam replied. "So anyway, about those-"
"Actually, Sammy here is a closet knitter," Dean said with a sly sideways look.
For a wild moment, Sam thought he had been found out. Then he caught the barely-there smirk on Dean's face, and he remembered a B&B in New England and a creepy-ass doll collection. Feeling oddly reassured, he turned back to Kathleen and said sheepishly, "Actually, yes, I am a knitter."
He could feel Dean's surprised glance, but Kathleen only beamed at him. "Well, come in, why don't you?" she asked, gesturing towards the back of the store. "We don't get many men who want to join, but you're more than welcome."
Sam frowned. "You're meeting right now?"
"Every Wednesday at two," she replied. "I'm sure there are some others here who would be happy to answer your questions."
He exchanged a look with Dean, who was still frowning like he was trying to figure out how Sam had so happily gone along with his bluff. When he raised an eyebrow, Dean said, "Yeah, why don't you do that? I'll go and see if I can talk to the sheriff."
It was Sam's turn to be confused, since he thought they had agreed to avoid the authorities. But Kathleen was already taking his arm, and Dean was already turning away, so he allowed himself to be led into the back room.
There were eight women sitting in a circle of chairs, most of them with their laps full of knitting. Their expressions ranged from surprise to wariness when Kathleen introduced Sam as a reporter wanting to know more about the missing women. He took it as concern about a stranger asking questions about their friends, but after a few minutes, he started to wonder if there wasn't something else going on.
The youngest woman of the group was knitting at the very tips of her needles. That would make the stitches too small, and indeed, it looked like she was struggling because the tension was too tight. That might be a beginner's mistake; Sam himself had done that a time or two.
The redhead next to Sam kept putting an extra increase into some of her rows. The piece was going to end up a trapezoid instead of a square, but she didn't seem to notice. It could have just been a practice square, but he was pretty sure Kathleen had introduced her as one of their longest-standing members.
The woman across the circle from him kept looking at him while her fingers worked and her needles clacked. He would have been really impressed-he still had to look at what he was doing-except that she had dropped more than one stitch and didn't seem to notice that the middle of her knitting had several unraveling holes in it. She just kept looking at him.
Sam cleared his throat and stood up. "Thank you for your time, ladies. This should be enough for now." He gave Kathleen a smile. "I'll let you get back to work."
"Are you sure?" she asked. "I was just about to make tea, and Erin made some lovely cookies. We'd love for you to try some."
"No, that's okay," he said quickly. "I can show myself out."
As he turned to go, he accidentally bumped against the redhead. "Sorry," he said with a quick smile.
She stared up at him, blank-faced. Then she returned to her misshapen knitting.
Unnerved, Sam hurried out of the shop and back onto the street. As soon as he was around the corner, he stuck a hand in his pocket, on the side where he'd brushed against the redhead. His fingers closed around a small bag, finely woven with almost delicate yarn, tied with a bright red ribbon.
Immediately, he set it on the ground and pulled out a lighter. The flames were just beginning to consume the bag when Dean showed up. "Just a knitting circle, huh?" he asked, pointing at the flaming hex bag.
"Shut up," Sam retorted.
"Man, I hate witches." Dean shook his head. "I grabbed her business card and looked up her home address. Found an altar in the garage and smashed it good. Came back here to warn you, but apparently you already figured it out."
Sam hid a smile. Dean's words were casual, but he could hear the fear underneath them that the coven had gotten a hold of Sam and he was going to be too late. He tapped his temple. "My grapefruit's fully functioning again, you know."
"Guess so." Dean looked at him for a moment longer and then shook his head again. "Fucking witches."
Later that night, they went back and broke into the knitting shop. Behind the skeins of yarn and racks of patterns, they found a cabinet with tiny drawers that held dried herbs, small bones, and more of the delicate knit bags.
They dragged the cabinet out behind the store and set it on fire, right there in the alley. The brick walls of the store were safe enough from the flames, and so they waited only until the whole thing was aflame before walking away. No use waiting around to watch it burn and getting caught by the fire department.
They were almost back to the Impala when Dean asked, "Say, how'd you know they were witches, anyway?"
Sam shrugged. "They just seemed off."
"What, were they not knitting the right way or something?" Dean scoffed.
"Something like that." Sam paused, enjoying the confusion on Dean's face. He took a deep breath and said, "One of them wasn't casting on the right way, and another was dropping stitches left and right when all she needed was a crochet hook to fix it. Made me wonder, you know?"
Dean's eyebrows were halfway up his forehead, but to Sam's surprise, he didn't say a word. He merely cast Sam a thoughtful look before getting in the car.
Sam smiled to himself, feeling some of the tension he'd been holding in his shoulders relax. Maybe next year for Christmas, he'd forgo the usual nudie mags for Dean and go for a nice, hand-knitted scarf instead.