fic(spn): And miles to go before I sleep
title: And miles to go before I sleep
rating: PG-13
characters: sam, dean
genre: gen, h/c, s1 casefic, after a fashion.
warnings: just language this time.
notes: 5,000 words. Title and cut text from Robert Frost's poem which I hope everyone knows. Thanks to slayerkate for zeee beta. :)
Written for spn_reversebang and based off of xloz_91x's art prompt, which struck my fancy the moment I saw Dean with that shotgun and read the words 'season one' in the prompt idea. Thank you for being incredibly easy to work with. :) Go give feedback on her art here!
summary: Dean is looking for someplace safe and warm to stop because Sam is injured. The cabin they find turns out to be neither of those things.
The Impala whips around corners like something out of Kerouac, through a rainbow of leaves falling heavy as rain. Wind from the south whips and presses hard against the side of the car, completely not helping the already abysmal gas mileage. Dean holds the steering wheel at an almost forty-five degree angle on the straight-aways, pushing his force of nature against the force of nature. He knows he’s running out of gas, using the hills to his advantage as much as possible, but it’s not going to be enough.
Sam moans around every curve they go, blood still trickling down the wound on his side. “Just hold on,” Dean says, white-knuckling the wheel. He can feel the rain coming in his bones, feel his hands stiffen as he grips harder, presses the pedal down further, the car fishtailing around the curves, kicking up pieces of the broken pavement in its wake. This road’s not one on the maps, only half-pavement and mostly fallen away gravel, long forgotten by anyone who isn’t a local.
“Dean,” Sam says. It comes out hoarse, his voice rough with pain, used up from yelling for his brother. Dean had been too far away to help him, to come protect him. Guilt rips through Dean with every wheezing breath Sam takes. “Where do you think we’re going to go, Dean?” The effort it takes him to speak is obviously crushing, but he tries anyway. Sam, ever the logical one, Dean thinks. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Do you even know where you’re going?”
“I’ll find somewhere,” Dean says. I always find somewhere.
Around another curve the Impala goes, hugging the road as tight as she can. With just one slip of the wheel, she could be careening into a rock wall, so Dean pulls as tight as he can, against the centrifugal motion he’s built up in her body. The curve turns into a steep long hill, the kind that normally requires a lower gear just to climb. The Impala might have been a speeding black bullet moments before, but now she’s just a giant piece of metal struggling against gravity, and failing. Dean watches the little arrow on the gas gauge sink further and further down. Fifteen mph on the odometer and she makes it over the hill, but it’s not a downhill run from there, no speed to pick back up and continue on. Just a flat road with trees so close on both sides if Dean were claustrophobic he’d be having a moment.
Then like an oasis in the Mojave, there’s a break in the trees and a little cabin appears on the edge of the road. The Impala slows to a crawl, little idiot light on the dash glaring bright orange in Dean’s face. He does his best to steer her off the road into the cabin’s small, overgrown driveway before she stops moving completely. He’s not willing to risk leaving her on the road, even if the next passer-by won’t be for days.
The cabin’s timing is both perfect and not, a legit reason to not continue plowing through the landscape well into the night. Dean’s only excuse not to stop is Sam’s side wound, but with the time passing, even that seems less dire than he originally thought. As Dean helps Sam out of the car, he notices Sam’s shirt is mostly soaked through with his blood, but the wound itself has mostly stopped bleeding.
It’s an older cabin, dusty and stale on the inside, like no one’s been around in years. Dean suspects it was mostly used as a hunting retreat, elk or deer or some other large game more than likely hiding in the surrounding woods. He has to lean hard into the door to open it, nearly stumbling into the floor once it gives under his weight. Inside it is one big area, living room, kitchen and bedroom all in one. The furniture is dated but in good condition - stiff-backed chairs, a sofa bed, and two elaborately carved rockers - and everything is covered in thin plastic protective covers. Dean helps Sam over to the sofa, and the plastic crinkles when Sam gently settles into its tiny frame.
The Ozark Howler they’d been hunting had snuck up on Sam as he guarded the cave opening, while Dean was inside checking to make sure that there weren’t more. Sam had heard the Howler’s eerie howl and yelled for Dean, but he was too late. One of the Howler’s massive paws had caught him in the side as he turned, knocking him to the ground in the process. Luckily, Dean had heard the roar and come charging, killing the giant cat with one round from his shotgun before it could continue tearing into Sam.
Dean flips at the light switches, not actually expecting them to work, so he’s understandably surprised when the two large lamps on either side of the large room slowly flicker once, twice, before staying on, a steady, barely audible hum emitting from them. He chuckles slightly. “Okay then. Better than the Hilton. You just stay right there and I’ll get the bags.”
“Can you get your shirt off?” Dean asks. Sam’s spread out on the sofa bed on his back, breathing shallow, his face distorting in pain with every few breaths. “We need to get it cleaned up, see if it needs stitches.”
Sam winces. “It needs stitches.”
“Want me to cut the shirt off?” It’s not often Dean wishes for a hospital, but his hands are shaking and faced with the prospect of using sharp objects at the moment, he could really use some help. It’s not like he’s never done it before; Dad got hurt on hunts all the time, stumbling back into the motel room at two am, mumbling at Dean and sometimes already with whiskey on his breath. Usually Dean would still be awake, fresh back from a trip at a bar or doing some research for a case, but sometimes he’d be asleep and he’d snap out of bed lightning-quick. Either way he’d do what needed to be done, cutting, stitching, bandaging, all of it. Sam though, Dad had always taken care of Sam when he’d gotten hurt while Dean looked on with worry.
Sam tries to take the shirt off with his good side, but freezes before he gets it off even halfway, his face contorting in pain. “You’re gonna have to. I think I bled too much on it and it’s stuck to me now. Not to mention, ow.”
Dean hesitates with the scissors for only a moment before swiftly cutting into the shirt. His hands are steady. They’re quickly running out of clothes to wear, not to mention extra spending money, and with a wound like this it’ll be awhile before Sam is up to hustling with the best of them. Dean can only hope they’re due for another round of fresh credit cards soon; it’s been awhile since they’ve stopped at a post office.
He peels the shirt off from around the mess, blood smeared so completely around the wound he can barely distinguish the four gashes from the Howler’s claw underneath. Sam swears as Dean has to practically scrape off the remaining bit of cloth, dried and glued in the injury. This time it’s Dean’s turn to wince. “I’m sorry, man, I’ve gotta.” He works as quickly as possible, every whimper Sam makes like a shock to his own heart. He cleans the excess blood off with alcohol swabs, completely draining their stockpile. Sam grimaces with every touch of Dean’s hands. Once clean, Dean discovers Sam was mostly wrong, there isn’t actually much need for stitches, just a few on the biggest of the four cuts, a deep slash from the top of Sam’s ribcage almost to his hip. Dean covers the rest in a tight gauze wrap and instructs Sam not to move.
Sam makes a face and rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, because I’m totally going to go run a marathon now.”
“Dude, I never know with you anymore. You’re like a mystery wrapped in an enigma inside a taco. Or however that goes.”
“You don’t even know what you’re saying half the time, do you?”
“Part of my charm.” Dean cleans up the mess he’s made best he can, throwing the ruined shirt and blood-covered materials in the trash can by the door, forming a plan to burn it all later just in case. His hands are shaking again. “Behave, I’m gonna see if I can get the shower working. I’ve got your blood all over me which frankly, is annoying.” And scary, he wants to add. Instead, he throws an overly cocky smile in Sam’s direction and heads to the bathroom before saying something he’s sure he would regret later.
The water runs brown, then yellow, and then finally mostly clear before Dean even bothers to stick his hand under the flow to test the temperature. In recent years he’s learned to tolerate cold showers but his preference of course, still lies in a scalding hot shower - something he’s apparently not going to get tonight, as the water is only slightly warmer than room temperature.
Just as he steps into the cramped shower stall, the vanity lights he turned on by the mirror flicker, not surprising in an old cabin like this one. In fact, Dean is still a little surprised anything in it works at all. He hopes whoever keeps up the bills on the place doesn’t stop by for a visit and find two unexpected guests in the meantime. He waits for the power to die completely, but the lights flicker for a few moments more before settling back into a steady hum, so he grabs the bar of soap and tries to hurry through his shower.
He’s about to shut off the faucet when he hears the creak of the door opening. He peeks through the curtain, a lecture ready about stressing stitches and a ‘Sam, you really need to be resting right now’ on his lips. There’s no one there. “Huh.” The faucet’s stuck on, and it takes some effort for him to pull it back over to the ‘off’, his wet hands slipping on the tarnished metal. When he finally looks up after getting the stream down to barely a drip, Sam is leaning against the door frame and clutching his side, his face a pale white. “Damn it!” Dean exclaims, “Okay, seriously. One, don’t just go appearing out of nowhere like that. Two, why are you out of bed? It obviously hurts to stand.”
Sam hesitates. “Did you uh, see anything strange in the last half hour?”
“You mean other than water the color of diarrhea and some electrical issues? No. Why?”
“Didn’t see anything like…weird?” Sam’s gaze shifts to the lights above the mirror.
Dean follows his line of sight. “Oh fuck. This place is haunted, isn’t it?”
Sam nods. “Creepy little girl with a doll just stared at me for like five minutes. When I finally managed to stand up, she disappeared. I thought maybe she’d come in here after you.”
It makes a bit of sense, deserted cabin in the middle of nowhere, but still in decent condition, like someone had left in a hurry but never bothered to truly abandon the place. “Nothing’s ever easy, is it?” Dean sighs. “Okay, we’ll figure it out. But uh, you think you can make it back to bed by yourself now?”
Sam frowns. “Yeah. I made it in here okay. Well, mostly. I used a lot of furniture to support me. Why?”
Dean shivers and hopes it’s not because of any other-worldly presence in the room. “Well it’s just, I’m naked and I’d really like to dry off and get dressed.”
“Oh!” Sam laughs awkwardly. “Yeah, sorry. I’ll go now.”
“And don’t get up without permission again!” Dean yells back at him after he closes the door. He imagines Sam giving him the finger in response, or something equally as defiant.
Sam’s on the bed, still awake, when Dean finally exits the bathroom. He’s got the bedspread pulled up to his waist, but he’s exposed from chest-up. Dean wonders if the weight of the blankets hurts him or if he’s still just a little wary of using them in the first place. The sofa bed was the only piece of furniture from which they’d removed the cover, hesitantly determining that sleeping on crinkly plastic would be uncomfortable and annoying. Dean was pretty sure neither of them tried to think too hard about the quality or age of the sheets. “See you finally settled in,” he comments.
“Tried to, at least. It’s cold.” Sam shivers unconsciously. “I tried to make a fire, but I discovered it’s really hard to lift wood when you’re injured.”
Dean kicks himself for not thinking of that before showering. “Shit, Sam, here, let me get one going.”
“Good luck.” Sam shrugs. “I got one going a couple times, but every time I’d make it back to the bed, our wonderful new friend would appear and of course the fire would go out.”
“Fantastic.” Dean picks up one of the logs and finds Sam’s statement more than accurate. It’s hard to lift the log, even uninjured. “Holy crap, these are heavy.”
“Yeah, I think it’s the type of wood. Oak, maybe. Not to mention they’re pretty big pieces.”
The flame roars up and holds steady when Dean tosses the wood into the fireplace. “There. Guess she just likes me better.” Sam rolls his eyes at Dean’s overly cocky grin. “You find out anything about her?”
“Well, her name is Marjorie.”
“Wow. Really. That’s…that’s a little old fashioned. And she just told you?”
Sam coughs, then cringes.“I asked.”
“Huh.” The look on Dean’s face is one of pure amusement. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say our little ghost had a crush on you or something.”
“Shut up. She could just be nice or something.”
“Yeah I’m sure that’s it. Polite ghosts, who knew?” There’s a first for everything, Dean supposes, but he’s not going to mention that, as it is far more fun to give Sam a hard time. Though when Sam coughs and flinches in pain again, Dean thinks perhaps he should stop teasing.
“Anyway,” Sam pushes on through Dean’s quiet snickering, “I looked around as best I could, but there isn’t any paperwork of any type that I could find, let alone something to help us figure out who she is. There aren’t even any pictures, at least not that I saw. I got tired pretty quickly.” Sam shifts on the bed and Dean watches his face twist up.
“Well considering I told you not to get out of bed at all, you did an okay job. I suppose I’m glad you listen so well.”
“Oh sarcasm, so original.”
“Shut up and enjoy the fire I just made for you, bitch.”
“It’s not like you weren’t cold too, you jerk. If you hadn’t made that fire I’d just have to listen to you bitch all night and hog the blankets.”
Dean shivers as if on command and he knows Sam hasn’t missed it, so he can’t rebuke that claim. He tries to deny the other one. “I do not hog the blankets… okay maybe when you were twelve, but it’s been a long time since we’ve shared a bed. I’ve gotten better.”
“Sure you have, Dean.”
The leftover Vicodin Dean salvaged off a dead man several weeks ago has finally taken its toll on Sam’s system, his eyes glazing over and his speech starting to slur. He’d refused to take it at first, insisting he needed to be alert with a ghost around, but after barely making it to the bathroom and back, Sam had finally given in to Dean, a testament to how much pain he was actually in. Dean made Sam eat some of the cold Chef Boyardee cans he keeps in a box in the trunk as THE last resort box, because meatballs are disgusting cold, Dean thinks. And there aren’t a lot of foods that he thinks that about. Afterward, Dean had crawled up into the bed as well, cold even with the fire giving off heat at a steady pace.
For the last hour or so they’ve been talking, and talking like they haven’t since they were teenagers, Dean thinks, before Sam got it in his head that college was the best place to go, before Sam left Dean obligated to clean up Dad’s messes, since he no longer had Sam’s. It’s bittersweet, in Dean’s eyes, this discussion, but Sam’s talking about Stanford and Jess and college degrees, so Dean can’t help but sit back and listen. It’s more conversation than they’ve had in three years.
“And she walks up to this guy and just kicks him in the shins and takes the girl’s purse back, no questions asked. I thought he was gonna go after her, but he just stood there, like he was in shock that some blonde bimbo would have the balls to even get near him, you know?” Sam laughs, then winces and clutches his side.
Dean hasn’t seen Sam laugh so full in a long time. “Easy, tiger, don’t mess up my pretty handiwork.”
Sam nods slowly, his head lolling to the side, facing away from Dean. “I miss her.”
Silence overtakes the room, and Dean lets it. Sam doesn’t talk about Jess, doesn’t ever mention her, but Dean knows he dreams about her death, when Sam wakes up screaming her name almost every night of the week. They never talk about it. There’s really not much he can say in response that will do any good. He listens to Sam’s breathing slow as he drifts off.
“We’re not going to stop looking, right?” It comes out so slow and garbled it takes Dean a moment to register what Sam has said, but once he does there’s no mistaking what Sam means.
“No, Sam, I promise. We will find Dad. Even if it’s the last thing we do.”
Sam’s head whips back around to Dean. “Don’t say that, Dean. Not you.” He says it with a vehemence Dean can’t even speak, shocked at the intensity in Sam’s voice.
He composes himself after a moment and gently places a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “We’ll find Dad, Sammy.”
It’s like something out a horror movie, Dean thinks, as he walks further into the land behind the cabin. Once he’d determined Sam was safely asleep, or at least mostly safe, ghost not forgotten, Dean had decided to see if he could find out anything more about the place and who the little girl might be. A chipped stone pathway mostly overgrown leads him to an old garage with a ’55 Cadillac under a tarp inside, along with two ‘80s model Dodges parked beside it, both with recently expired plates. Suddenly, Dean becomes a lot more aware of his surroundings, half expecting Jason Voorhees to pop out from behind the next tree, for the Impala to become the next car stashed away. He’s being ridiculous and he knows it.
After some consideration, he settles on pilfering the gas from the two vans, doing it the old fashioned way, mouth, sharp eyes, and some PVC tubing he pulled off a cluttered work bench in the corner of the garage. It takes a few tries before he gets the tubing all the way to the bottom of the tank, and it tastes like dust and ashes when he wraps his mouth around it and draws up the gas into the can he’d fetched from the Impala’s trunk upon discovery of the garage, kept there for emergencies such as this one. He’s only ever siphoned gas once, and he hopes never to have the experience again.
He should be heading back, he knows he should, it’s nearing two am and pitch black as can be in these woods, deadly quiet and increasingly cold the further away from the cabin he gets. Not to mention he’s still carrying a full gas can and his arms are starting to feel weak from the weight of it. But somewhere out here are the bones of that little girl, he just knows it, so he keeps walking, flashlight trained steadily in front of him, eyes and ears sharp to his surroundings. After awhile he can’t even see the cabin anymore when he looks back, but he knows he can still find his way if he follows the path back the way he came. The air is rather frigid, and every breath he takes is a visible puff in the night. As he stops to pull his coat closer around him, the little girl Sam must have seen flickers in front of him.
“Why is it always creepy children?” For a moment he kicks himself for only bringing the flashlight and no other weapons, but she simply smiles at him and points toward a deformed old tree just to Dean’s left. She clutches her dolly tightly in her other arm, its beady eyes glaring at him, almost making him more uncomfortable than her presence itself.
“In there,” she rasps, her voice only adding to the chill Dean feels, like two icicles scraping against each other and shattering in the process.
Dean opens his mouth to ask why she’s helping him, to explain that this isn’t how spirits usually work, but he decides it’s probably better to keep his thoughts to himself, choosing instead to say, “I’ll find you,” as she stares intently at him before flickering away at his response.
The tree twists up and up and up, but even with Dean craning his neck as far back as it will go, he still cannot see the top. It’s entirely dead in places, lifeless branches just hanging and creaking in the wind. He circles it twice, running his hands over the bark like a blind man trying to learn his bearings. Dean remembers helping Sam making a leaf collection for his science class a long time ago - eighth grade, if he thinks hard enough. He thinks Sam would probably still remember what kind of tree this one is, his mind a repository for all sorts of knowledge, but Dean knows nothing beyond ‘big’ and ‘old.’ He thinks maybe it’s an oak tree because of the way the leaves are shaped, like shriveled swollen fingers grasping at the sky, but the bark is a funny shade of grey, almost like an aged and sickly sycamore. The trunk is split in the middle and ugly, an uneven ‘v’ forming at about Dean’s chest level, but it’s only on his fingertips’ second pass that he feels the deformity in the bark right at the tip of the ‘v’. It’s as though the tree has grown up and around it, unable to continue growing normally and instead choosing to split in two to continue protecting the defect. Dean uses quite a bit of effort to rip it out of the tree.
It’s a box. A very ornately carved box, with elephants in tutus and a chorale of mice on the lid. It’s not very big, only slightly larger than both of Dean’s hands together, but Dean knows before he even opens it what he’s going to find inside. The tree shudders when he finally gets the box free, like it knows it’s finally free of the burden of hiding this secret for however many years. Its branches shake in the wind, red and brown leaves falling to the ground in a halo around him. One catches in his hair and he can feel it tickle at the tip of his ear before he reaches up to pull it away. The tree groans as he flings the leaf to the ground, and he takes several steps away from it in respect before pulling out his lighter. He runs his hands over the box, feeling the rises and dips in the carving, tracing the little elephants around the edge. It’s a lot of effort for something that ended up forgotten, wedged in a tree for who knows how long.
The Bic flips once, twice in his hands before lighting up, his fingers nearly numb from the cold, and there’s still hesitation in them as he goes to ignite the box. For a moment he considers taking the bones out and saving the box, but rationality takes over and he realizes he simply has no need for such an object, not to mention it’s a little creepy to be stealing bones out of their final resting place, no matter how unique or ornate that place may be. The box catches fire quickly, the wood dry after having been sheltered inside the old trunk. Dean’s quick to toss the box away before it burns his fingers, and he watches as it burns to nothing, leaving only a small brown circle in the grass by his feet. He thinks maybe he sees the little girl flicker once more in the corner of his eye before disappearing with the flames, but he doesn’t dwell. She won’t return again.
It’s pushing daylight when Dean finally makes it back, his arms sore from carrying the heavy gas can and his feet tired from the hike. He pours the gas into the Impala’s tank, listens as she fills up to at least three-quarters full. Then he throws the can back in the trunk, forgotten and just taking up space until another night such as this one, because as much as he doesn’t ever want this to happen again, he knows it’s a possibility. Next time it might be him with a hole in his side, or next time maybe there won’t be any injuries, just a car out of gas. Either way he’s glad he keeps the can in the back, even if it does take up some precious cargo space.
The cabin door sticks again as he tries to sneak his way in, failing miserably. It’s cold inside again, the fire died down to barely a flicker through no fault of the little ghosts, just the passing of time, and his whole body shivers as he practically freezes in the spot, weariness finally setting in. Once he can move again, he throws another log on the fire, choosing the smallest of the bunch in an attempt to save himself from exerting any more effort, yawning furiously as he does so.
His yawn is interrupted by the sight of Sam standing in front of him as he turns around. Like a ninja, Dean sluggishly thinks.
“I woke up and you were gone. And then Marjorie was there and she said something and then she disappeared and I thought-“
“She was in a box in a tree. It was a pretty box…” He feels like an idiot after he says it, but he just can’t help wondering about the intricate design of the thing. He expects Sam to ask more questions about the box, ask the nature of the carving and the details, like maybe they meant something, like maybe there’s more to the case than they thought. Dean doesn’t know why he cares, tries to shake it off. The case is solved, ghost dead, end of story.
Instead, Sam asks, “Were you appreciating the craftsmanship while she was in here watching me sleep?”
“She was in here…” For a moment Dean feels guilty, for leaving Sam alone with a ghost on the loose, for taking the time to do exactly what Sam’s accusing him of, for letting him get hurt in the first place.
“Dean?”
Sam must see the remorse on his face, Dean thinks. He trudges on, pushing the feeling down. “Like you know what she was doing, you were out like a light, with good reason. I think that’s the most solid I’ve seen you sleep since--,” The sentence hangs in the air, Dean kicking himself for not thinking it through. They’d just been talking about Jess the night before, and Dean’s sure she’s still fresh on Sam’s mind. That is, if he remembers the conversation. Dean looks to Sam, looks for some clues at to what he’s thinking.
It’s clear by his expression that Sam does indeed remember. He doesn’t bother to finish Dean’s sentence. “Have you slept?”
Dean frowns at the abrupt but understandable change of topic. He thinks about lying because he wants to get back on the road, get somewhere he knows is safe, a motel, a hospital, somewhere near civilization, but his body betrays him as he’s about to speak, huge yawn pushing through, no way he can hide his fatigue. “Nah. Took care of Marjorie after I found us some fuel, conveniently enough. We can get out of here whenever you feel like getting dressed.”
Sam’s color is better and Dean notes he’s already moving around more without pain, always the quick healer in the family, but he responds, “I could use to sleep a few more hours, actually. I think when I woke up and discovered you were gone, it set back my healing process.” He grins mockingly.
Dean reaches out and smacks him gently upside the head. “Hey now. I could have let that creepy-ass girl keep antagonizing you. You know, you’re probably right, she was probably in here standing over your beanstalk frame as you slept, her little doll staring into your soul. Maybe if I’d waited a little longer she could’ve stolen your life force and I wouldn’t even have to worry about your smart ass.”
Feigning a shocked slash hurt expression, Sam turns around quickly and storms away. Or tries to storm away, as he gets about three steps in and then Dean watches as Sam realizes he’s moved too quickly and doubles over in pain. “I gotcha,” Dean says, rushing to catch him before he falls. “I gotcha.”
~
rating: PG-13
characters: sam, dean
genre: gen, h/c, s1 casefic, after a fashion.
warnings: just language this time.
notes: 5,000 words. Title and cut text from Robert Frost's poem which I hope everyone knows. Thanks to slayerkate for zeee beta. :)
Written for spn_reversebang and based off of xloz_91x's art prompt, which struck my fancy the moment I saw Dean with that shotgun and read the words 'season one' in the prompt idea. Thank you for being incredibly easy to work with. :) Go give feedback on her art here!
summary: Dean is looking for someplace safe and warm to stop because Sam is injured. The cabin they find turns out to be neither of those things.
The Impala whips around corners like something out of Kerouac, through a rainbow of leaves falling heavy as rain. Wind from the south whips and presses hard against the side of the car, completely not helping the already abysmal gas mileage. Dean holds the steering wheel at an almost forty-five degree angle on the straight-aways, pushing his force of nature against the force of nature. He knows he’s running out of gas, using the hills to his advantage as much as possible, but it’s not going to be enough.
Sam moans around every curve they go, blood still trickling down the wound on his side. “Just hold on,” Dean says, white-knuckling the wheel. He can feel the rain coming in his bones, feel his hands stiffen as he grips harder, presses the pedal down further, the car fishtailing around the curves, kicking up pieces of the broken pavement in its wake. This road’s not one on the maps, only half-pavement and mostly fallen away gravel, long forgotten by anyone who isn’t a local.
“Dean,” Sam says. It comes out hoarse, his voice rough with pain, used up from yelling for his brother. Dean had been too far away to help him, to come protect him. Guilt rips through Dean with every wheezing breath Sam takes. “Where do you think we’re going to go, Dean?” The effort it takes him to speak is obviously crushing, but he tries anyway. Sam, ever the logical one, Dean thinks. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Do you even know where you’re going?”
“I’ll find somewhere,” Dean says. I always find somewhere.
Around another curve the Impala goes, hugging the road as tight as she can. With just one slip of the wheel, she could be careening into a rock wall, so Dean pulls as tight as he can, against the centrifugal motion he’s built up in her body. The curve turns into a steep long hill, the kind that normally requires a lower gear just to climb. The Impala might have been a speeding black bullet moments before, but now she’s just a giant piece of metal struggling against gravity, and failing. Dean watches the little arrow on the gas gauge sink further and further down. Fifteen mph on the odometer and she makes it over the hill, but it’s not a downhill run from there, no speed to pick back up and continue on. Just a flat road with trees so close on both sides if Dean were claustrophobic he’d be having a moment.
Then like an oasis in the Mojave, there’s a break in the trees and a little cabin appears on the edge of the road. The Impala slows to a crawl, little idiot light on the dash glaring bright orange in Dean’s face. He does his best to steer her off the road into the cabin’s small, overgrown driveway before she stops moving completely. He’s not willing to risk leaving her on the road, even if the next passer-by won’t be for days.
The cabin’s timing is both perfect and not, a legit reason to not continue plowing through the landscape well into the night. Dean’s only excuse not to stop is Sam’s side wound, but with the time passing, even that seems less dire than he originally thought. As Dean helps Sam out of the car, he notices Sam’s shirt is mostly soaked through with his blood, but the wound itself has mostly stopped bleeding.
It’s an older cabin, dusty and stale on the inside, like no one’s been around in years. Dean suspects it was mostly used as a hunting retreat, elk or deer or some other large game more than likely hiding in the surrounding woods. He has to lean hard into the door to open it, nearly stumbling into the floor once it gives under his weight. Inside it is one big area, living room, kitchen and bedroom all in one. The furniture is dated but in good condition - stiff-backed chairs, a sofa bed, and two elaborately carved rockers - and everything is covered in thin plastic protective covers. Dean helps Sam over to the sofa, and the plastic crinkles when Sam gently settles into its tiny frame.
The Ozark Howler they’d been hunting had snuck up on Sam as he guarded the cave opening, while Dean was inside checking to make sure that there weren’t more. Sam had heard the Howler’s eerie howl and yelled for Dean, but he was too late. One of the Howler’s massive paws had caught him in the side as he turned, knocking him to the ground in the process. Luckily, Dean had heard the roar and come charging, killing the giant cat with one round from his shotgun before it could continue tearing into Sam.
Dean flips at the light switches, not actually expecting them to work, so he’s understandably surprised when the two large lamps on either side of the large room slowly flicker once, twice, before staying on, a steady, barely audible hum emitting from them. He chuckles slightly. “Okay then. Better than the Hilton. You just stay right there and I’ll get the bags.”
“Can you get your shirt off?” Dean asks. Sam’s spread out on the sofa bed on his back, breathing shallow, his face distorting in pain with every few breaths. “We need to get it cleaned up, see if it needs stitches.”
Sam winces. “It needs stitches.”
“Want me to cut the shirt off?” It’s not often Dean wishes for a hospital, but his hands are shaking and faced with the prospect of using sharp objects at the moment, he could really use some help. It’s not like he’s never done it before; Dad got hurt on hunts all the time, stumbling back into the motel room at two am, mumbling at Dean and sometimes already with whiskey on his breath. Usually Dean would still be awake, fresh back from a trip at a bar or doing some research for a case, but sometimes he’d be asleep and he’d snap out of bed lightning-quick. Either way he’d do what needed to be done, cutting, stitching, bandaging, all of it. Sam though, Dad had always taken care of Sam when he’d gotten hurt while Dean looked on with worry.
Sam tries to take the shirt off with his good side, but freezes before he gets it off even halfway, his face contorting in pain. “You’re gonna have to. I think I bled too much on it and it’s stuck to me now. Not to mention, ow.”
Dean hesitates with the scissors for only a moment before swiftly cutting into the shirt. His hands are steady. They’re quickly running out of clothes to wear, not to mention extra spending money, and with a wound like this it’ll be awhile before Sam is up to hustling with the best of them. Dean can only hope they’re due for another round of fresh credit cards soon; it’s been awhile since they’ve stopped at a post office.
He peels the shirt off from around the mess, blood smeared so completely around the wound he can barely distinguish the four gashes from the Howler’s claw underneath. Sam swears as Dean has to practically scrape off the remaining bit of cloth, dried and glued in the injury. This time it’s Dean’s turn to wince. “I’m sorry, man, I’ve gotta.” He works as quickly as possible, every whimper Sam makes like a shock to his own heart. He cleans the excess blood off with alcohol swabs, completely draining their stockpile. Sam grimaces with every touch of Dean’s hands. Once clean, Dean discovers Sam was mostly wrong, there isn’t actually much need for stitches, just a few on the biggest of the four cuts, a deep slash from the top of Sam’s ribcage almost to his hip. Dean covers the rest in a tight gauze wrap and instructs Sam not to move.
Sam makes a face and rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, because I’m totally going to go run a marathon now.”
“Dude, I never know with you anymore. You’re like a mystery wrapped in an enigma inside a taco. Or however that goes.”
“You don’t even know what you’re saying half the time, do you?”
“Part of my charm.” Dean cleans up the mess he’s made best he can, throwing the ruined shirt and blood-covered materials in the trash can by the door, forming a plan to burn it all later just in case. His hands are shaking again. “Behave, I’m gonna see if I can get the shower working. I’ve got your blood all over me which frankly, is annoying.” And scary, he wants to add. Instead, he throws an overly cocky smile in Sam’s direction and heads to the bathroom before saying something he’s sure he would regret later.
The water runs brown, then yellow, and then finally mostly clear before Dean even bothers to stick his hand under the flow to test the temperature. In recent years he’s learned to tolerate cold showers but his preference of course, still lies in a scalding hot shower - something he’s apparently not going to get tonight, as the water is only slightly warmer than room temperature.
Just as he steps into the cramped shower stall, the vanity lights he turned on by the mirror flicker, not surprising in an old cabin like this one. In fact, Dean is still a little surprised anything in it works at all. He hopes whoever keeps up the bills on the place doesn’t stop by for a visit and find two unexpected guests in the meantime. He waits for the power to die completely, but the lights flicker for a few moments more before settling back into a steady hum, so he grabs the bar of soap and tries to hurry through his shower.
He’s about to shut off the faucet when he hears the creak of the door opening. He peeks through the curtain, a lecture ready about stressing stitches and a ‘Sam, you really need to be resting right now’ on his lips. There’s no one there. “Huh.” The faucet’s stuck on, and it takes some effort for him to pull it back over to the ‘off’, his wet hands slipping on the tarnished metal. When he finally looks up after getting the stream down to barely a drip, Sam is leaning against the door frame and clutching his side, his face a pale white. “Damn it!” Dean exclaims, “Okay, seriously. One, don’t just go appearing out of nowhere like that. Two, why are you out of bed? It obviously hurts to stand.”
Sam hesitates. “Did you uh, see anything strange in the last half hour?”
“You mean other than water the color of diarrhea and some electrical issues? No. Why?”
“Didn’t see anything like…weird?” Sam’s gaze shifts to the lights above the mirror.
Dean follows his line of sight. “Oh fuck. This place is haunted, isn’t it?”
Sam nods. “Creepy little girl with a doll just stared at me for like five minutes. When I finally managed to stand up, she disappeared. I thought maybe she’d come in here after you.”
It makes a bit of sense, deserted cabin in the middle of nowhere, but still in decent condition, like someone had left in a hurry but never bothered to truly abandon the place. “Nothing’s ever easy, is it?” Dean sighs. “Okay, we’ll figure it out. But uh, you think you can make it back to bed by yourself now?”
Sam frowns. “Yeah. I made it in here okay. Well, mostly. I used a lot of furniture to support me. Why?”
Dean shivers and hopes it’s not because of any other-worldly presence in the room. “Well it’s just, I’m naked and I’d really like to dry off and get dressed.”
“Oh!” Sam laughs awkwardly. “Yeah, sorry. I’ll go now.”
“And don’t get up without permission again!” Dean yells back at him after he closes the door. He imagines Sam giving him the finger in response, or something equally as defiant.
Sam’s on the bed, still awake, when Dean finally exits the bathroom. He’s got the bedspread pulled up to his waist, but he’s exposed from chest-up. Dean wonders if the weight of the blankets hurts him or if he’s still just a little wary of using them in the first place. The sofa bed was the only piece of furniture from which they’d removed the cover, hesitantly determining that sleeping on crinkly plastic would be uncomfortable and annoying. Dean was pretty sure neither of them tried to think too hard about the quality or age of the sheets. “See you finally settled in,” he comments.
“Tried to, at least. It’s cold.” Sam shivers unconsciously. “I tried to make a fire, but I discovered it’s really hard to lift wood when you’re injured.”
Dean kicks himself for not thinking of that before showering. “Shit, Sam, here, let me get one going.”
“Good luck.” Sam shrugs. “I got one going a couple times, but every time I’d make it back to the bed, our wonderful new friend would appear and of course the fire would go out.”
“Fantastic.” Dean picks up one of the logs and finds Sam’s statement more than accurate. It’s hard to lift the log, even uninjured. “Holy crap, these are heavy.”
“Yeah, I think it’s the type of wood. Oak, maybe. Not to mention they’re pretty big pieces.”
The flame roars up and holds steady when Dean tosses the wood into the fireplace. “There. Guess she just likes me better.” Sam rolls his eyes at Dean’s overly cocky grin. “You find out anything about her?”
“Well, her name is Marjorie.”
“Wow. Really. That’s…that’s a little old fashioned. And she just told you?”
Sam coughs, then cringes.“I asked.”
“Huh.” The look on Dean’s face is one of pure amusement. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say our little ghost had a crush on you or something.”
“Shut up. She could just be nice or something.”
“Yeah I’m sure that’s it. Polite ghosts, who knew?” There’s a first for everything, Dean supposes, but he’s not going to mention that, as it is far more fun to give Sam a hard time. Though when Sam coughs and flinches in pain again, Dean thinks perhaps he should stop teasing.
“Anyway,” Sam pushes on through Dean’s quiet snickering, “I looked around as best I could, but there isn’t any paperwork of any type that I could find, let alone something to help us figure out who she is. There aren’t even any pictures, at least not that I saw. I got tired pretty quickly.” Sam shifts on the bed and Dean watches his face twist up.
“Well considering I told you not to get out of bed at all, you did an okay job. I suppose I’m glad you listen so well.”
“Oh sarcasm, so original.”
“Shut up and enjoy the fire I just made for you, bitch.”
“It’s not like you weren’t cold too, you jerk. If you hadn’t made that fire I’d just have to listen to you bitch all night and hog the blankets.”
Dean shivers as if on command and he knows Sam hasn’t missed it, so he can’t rebuke that claim. He tries to deny the other one. “I do not hog the blankets… okay maybe when you were twelve, but it’s been a long time since we’ve shared a bed. I’ve gotten better.”
“Sure you have, Dean.”
The leftover Vicodin Dean salvaged off a dead man several weeks ago has finally taken its toll on Sam’s system, his eyes glazing over and his speech starting to slur. He’d refused to take it at first, insisting he needed to be alert with a ghost around, but after barely making it to the bathroom and back, Sam had finally given in to Dean, a testament to how much pain he was actually in. Dean made Sam eat some of the cold Chef Boyardee cans he keeps in a box in the trunk as THE last resort box, because meatballs are disgusting cold, Dean thinks. And there aren’t a lot of foods that he thinks that about. Afterward, Dean had crawled up into the bed as well, cold even with the fire giving off heat at a steady pace.
For the last hour or so they’ve been talking, and talking like they haven’t since they were teenagers, Dean thinks, before Sam got it in his head that college was the best place to go, before Sam left Dean obligated to clean up Dad’s messes, since he no longer had Sam’s. It’s bittersweet, in Dean’s eyes, this discussion, but Sam’s talking about Stanford and Jess and college degrees, so Dean can’t help but sit back and listen. It’s more conversation than they’ve had in three years.
“And she walks up to this guy and just kicks him in the shins and takes the girl’s purse back, no questions asked. I thought he was gonna go after her, but he just stood there, like he was in shock that some blonde bimbo would have the balls to even get near him, you know?” Sam laughs, then winces and clutches his side.
Dean hasn’t seen Sam laugh so full in a long time. “Easy, tiger, don’t mess up my pretty handiwork.”
Sam nods slowly, his head lolling to the side, facing away from Dean. “I miss her.”
Silence overtakes the room, and Dean lets it. Sam doesn’t talk about Jess, doesn’t ever mention her, but Dean knows he dreams about her death, when Sam wakes up screaming her name almost every night of the week. They never talk about it. There’s really not much he can say in response that will do any good. He listens to Sam’s breathing slow as he drifts off.
“We’re not going to stop looking, right?” It comes out so slow and garbled it takes Dean a moment to register what Sam has said, but once he does there’s no mistaking what Sam means.
“No, Sam, I promise. We will find Dad. Even if it’s the last thing we do.”
Sam’s head whips back around to Dean. “Don’t say that, Dean. Not you.” He says it with a vehemence Dean can’t even speak, shocked at the intensity in Sam’s voice.
He composes himself after a moment and gently places a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “We’ll find Dad, Sammy.”
It’s like something out a horror movie, Dean thinks, as he walks further into the land behind the cabin. Once he’d determined Sam was safely asleep, or at least mostly safe, ghost not forgotten, Dean had decided to see if he could find out anything more about the place and who the little girl might be. A chipped stone pathway mostly overgrown leads him to an old garage with a ’55 Cadillac under a tarp inside, along with two ‘80s model Dodges parked beside it, both with recently expired plates. Suddenly, Dean becomes a lot more aware of his surroundings, half expecting Jason Voorhees to pop out from behind the next tree, for the Impala to become the next car stashed away. He’s being ridiculous and he knows it.
After some consideration, he settles on pilfering the gas from the two vans, doing it the old fashioned way, mouth, sharp eyes, and some PVC tubing he pulled off a cluttered work bench in the corner of the garage. It takes a few tries before he gets the tubing all the way to the bottom of the tank, and it tastes like dust and ashes when he wraps his mouth around it and draws up the gas into the can he’d fetched from the Impala’s trunk upon discovery of the garage, kept there for emergencies such as this one. He’s only ever siphoned gas once, and he hopes never to have the experience again.
He should be heading back, he knows he should, it’s nearing two am and pitch black as can be in these woods, deadly quiet and increasingly cold the further away from the cabin he gets. Not to mention he’s still carrying a full gas can and his arms are starting to feel weak from the weight of it. But somewhere out here are the bones of that little girl, he just knows it, so he keeps walking, flashlight trained steadily in front of him, eyes and ears sharp to his surroundings. After awhile he can’t even see the cabin anymore when he looks back, but he knows he can still find his way if he follows the path back the way he came. The air is rather frigid, and every breath he takes is a visible puff in the night. As he stops to pull his coat closer around him, the little girl Sam must have seen flickers in front of him.
“Why is it always creepy children?” For a moment he kicks himself for only bringing the flashlight and no other weapons, but she simply smiles at him and points toward a deformed old tree just to Dean’s left. She clutches her dolly tightly in her other arm, its beady eyes glaring at him, almost making him more uncomfortable than her presence itself.
“In there,” she rasps, her voice only adding to the chill Dean feels, like two icicles scraping against each other and shattering in the process.
Dean opens his mouth to ask why she’s helping him, to explain that this isn’t how spirits usually work, but he decides it’s probably better to keep his thoughts to himself, choosing instead to say, “I’ll find you,” as she stares intently at him before flickering away at his response.
The tree twists up and up and up, but even with Dean craning his neck as far back as it will go, he still cannot see the top. It’s entirely dead in places, lifeless branches just hanging and creaking in the wind. He circles it twice, running his hands over the bark like a blind man trying to learn his bearings. Dean remembers helping Sam making a leaf collection for his science class a long time ago - eighth grade, if he thinks hard enough. He thinks Sam would probably still remember what kind of tree this one is, his mind a repository for all sorts of knowledge, but Dean knows nothing beyond ‘big’ and ‘old.’ He thinks maybe it’s an oak tree because of the way the leaves are shaped, like shriveled swollen fingers grasping at the sky, but the bark is a funny shade of grey, almost like an aged and sickly sycamore. The trunk is split in the middle and ugly, an uneven ‘v’ forming at about Dean’s chest level, but it’s only on his fingertips’ second pass that he feels the deformity in the bark right at the tip of the ‘v’. It’s as though the tree has grown up and around it, unable to continue growing normally and instead choosing to split in two to continue protecting the defect. Dean uses quite a bit of effort to rip it out of the tree.
It’s a box. A very ornately carved box, with elephants in tutus and a chorale of mice on the lid. It’s not very big, only slightly larger than both of Dean’s hands together, but Dean knows before he even opens it what he’s going to find inside. The tree shudders when he finally gets the box free, like it knows it’s finally free of the burden of hiding this secret for however many years. Its branches shake in the wind, red and brown leaves falling to the ground in a halo around him. One catches in his hair and he can feel it tickle at the tip of his ear before he reaches up to pull it away. The tree groans as he flings the leaf to the ground, and he takes several steps away from it in respect before pulling out his lighter. He runs his hands over the box, feeling the rises and dips in the carving, tracing the little elephants around the edge. It’s a lot of effort for something that ended up forgotten, wedged in a tree for who knows how long.
The Bic flips once, twice in his hands before lighting up, his fingers nearly numb from the cold, and there’s still hesitation in them as he goes to ignite the box. For a moment he considers taking the bones out and saving the box, but rationality takes over and he realizes he simply has no need for such an object, not to mention it’s a little creepy to be stealing bones out of their final resting place, no matter how unique or ornate that place may be. The box catches fire quickly, the wood dry after having been sheltered inside the old trunk. Dean’s quick to toss the box away before it burns his fingers, and he watches as it burns to nothing, leaving only a small brown circle in the grass by his feet. He thinks maybe he sees the little girl flicker once more in the corner of his eye before disappearing with the flames, but he doesn’t dwell. She won’t return again.
It’s pushing daylight when Dean finally makes it back, his arms sore from carrying the heavy gas can and his feet tired from the hike. He pours the gas into the Impala’s tank, listens as she fills up to at least three-quarters full. Then he throws the can back in the trunk, forgotten and just taking up space until another night such as this one, because as much as he doesn’t ever want this to happen again, he knows it’s a possibility. Next time it might be him with a hole in his side, or next time maybe there won’t be any injuries, just a car out of gas. Either way he’s glad he keeps the can in the back, even if it does take up some precious cargo space.
The cabin door sticks again as he tries to sneak his way in, failing miserably. It’s cold inside again, the fire died down to barely a flicker through no fault of the little ghosts, just the passing of time, and his whole body shivers as he practically freezes in the spot, weariness finally setting in. Once he can move again, he throws another log on the fire, choosing the smallest of the bunch in an attempt to save himself from exerting any more effort, yawning furiously as he does so.
His yawn is interrupted by the sight of Sam standing in front of him as he turns around. Like a ninja, Dean sluggishly thinks.
“I woke up and you were gone. And then Marjorie was there and she said something and then she disappeared and I thought-“
“She was in a box in a tree. It was a pretty box…” He feels like an idiot after he says it, but he just can’t help wondering about the intricate design of the thing. He expects Sam to ask more questions about the box, ask the nature of the carving and the details, like maybe they meant something, like maybe there’s more to the case than they thought. Dean doesn’t know why he cares, tries to shake it off. The case is solved, ghost dead, end of story.
Instead, Sam asks, “Were you appreciating the craftsmanship while she was in here watching me sleep?”
“She was in here…” For a moment Dean feels guilty, for leaving Sam alone with a ghost on the loose, for taking the time to do exactly what Sam’s accusing him of, for letting him get hurt in the first place.
“Dean?”
Sam must see the remorse on his face, Dean thinks. He trudges on, pushing the feeling down. “Like you know what she was doing, you were out like a light, with good reason. I think that’s the most solid I’ve seen you sleep since--,” The sentence hangs in the air, Dean kicking himself for not thinking it through. They’d just been talking about Jess the night before, and Dean’s sure she’s still fresh on Sam’s mind. That is, if he remembers the conversation. Dean looks to Sam, looks for some clues at to what he’s thinking.
It’s clear by his expression that Sam does indeed remember. He doesn’t bother to finish Dean’s sentence. “Have you slept?”
Dean frowns at the abrupt but understandable change of topic. He thinks about lying because he wants to get back on the road, get somewhere he knows is safe, a motel, a hospital, somewhere near civilization, but his body betrays him as he’s about to speak, huge yawn pushing through, no way he can hide his fatigue. “Nah. Took care of Marjorie after I found us some fuel, conveniently enough. We can get out of here whenever you feel like getting dressed.”
Sam’s color is better and Dean notes he’s already moving around more without pain, always the quick healer in the family, but he responds, “I could use to sleep a few more hours, actually. I think when I woke up and discovered you were gone, it set back my healing process.” He grins mockingly.
Dean reaches out and smacks him gently upside the head. “Hey now. I could have let that creepy-ass girl keep antagonizing you. You know, you’re probably right, she was probably in here standing over your beanstalk frame as you slept, her little doll staring into your soul. Maybe if I’d waited a little longer she could’ve stolen your life force and I wouldn’t even have to worry about your smart ass.”
Feigning a shocked slash hurt expression, Sam turns around quickly and storms away. Or tries to storm away, as he gets about three steps in and then Dean watches as Sam realizes he’s moved too quickly and doubles over in pain. “I gotcha,” Dean says, rushing to catch him before he falls. “I gotcha.”
~