Fic: Four Words
Title: Four Words
Author: brightly_lit
Rating: PG
Genre: gen, hurt!Sam, teen!chesters, angst, h/c, family matters, family feels
Word Count: ~4,900
Characters: Sam, John, Dean
Warnings: Some blood, imminent death, language
Summary: Running away again at 15, a series of unlikely events leads him straight into a dire situation, and Sam knows, without a doubt, that these are his last hours on Earth.
"He couldn’t die without someone knowing he’d been here on this planet, caring and suffering and living. He just couldn’t."
It wasn’t that Dad was mean or whatever; he was all right, most of the time. Dean, too. Whenever Sam ran away, Dean always got on his case, but he didn’t get it. It wasn’t anything specific. It was that Sam was unhappy. Nothing about his life or the way they lived was anything he wanted. He wasn’t cut out for this, any of it--fighting, hunting, traveling, moving around, not having any friends. Dad had told him if he was really so unhappy he could go live with Bobby, but out in the boonies in a junk yard wouldn’t be better. Bobby was so crabby and silent, it was like having no one around at all. There was a life somewhere out there that Sam was always meant to live. Whenever he ran away, that was him going in search of it.
At his last school, he mentioned to one of his friends that he ran away sometimes. They thought he meant, like, for a few hours, or maybe a couple of days. When he said he would find a squat and go to school all on his own for a few weeks before Dad and Dean found him--that he even had a dog once--he got that stare he was always getting that told him “This is not how normal people do things.” It seemed like he got that stare more and more often. He was sick of getting that stare. That was another good reason to run away right there, because he knew the longer he stayed with Dad and Dean, the more often he’d get that stare, until the freakishness was so much a part of him, he couldn’t even live among normal people anymore, just like Dad, because if anyone knew anything about him, it would always inevitably be that stare, and worse. He had to get out before that happened, or before a monster killed him, before living with Dad and Dean turned him into something he never wanted to be. There was a sense of inevitability about that that only grew stronger the older he got, and he couldn’t let it happen. He would do anything to keep it from happening.
The one good thing about growing up like that was that here, now, at fifteen, he had all the necessary survival skills. They’d always caught him before, but he had lots of plans for this time to prevent their ever finding him. He’d been planning this for months.
Step one of his plan: leave immediately after they fell asleep and travel all night. He thought he’d be able to hitch a ride by now, but there were almost no cars on this little mountain road, except one police car that went by three times. After the second time, Sam always hid in the trees when a car was coming lest he get picked up by the cops, then by the time he saw it wasn’t the cop and ran out to the road, it was too late and they didn’t see him, or maybe he looked threatening running out like that, so they kept right on driving.
Well, whatever. Walking all night, he’d probably put a good fifteen miles between himself and Dad and Dean’s campsite. Walking on the road, he hadn’t left any tracks. They’d have no idea which direction he’d gone, but they sure wouldn’t guess the road, unless they knew he’d hitch, in which case they’d figure he was long gone by now. Now that the sun was rising, more cars would be coming by, and he’d find a ride in no time. Once he was in another town, he’d be super careful to stay under the radar, and at the first sign of trouble, he’d head for another place. He’d have a jerry-rigged alarm system on his squat and make sure there was a back way to escape from. He’d be ready for them this time. Not being able to hitch a ride in the middle of the night did throw a wrench into his plans--he was really tired by now, after walking all night, on no sleep--but no plan ever went perfectly, and he wasn’t discouraged; in fact, he was feeling excited about his chances of staying gone this time. If Dad did find him, he would be furious, just like always, but whatever he did, if it was bad enough, Sam could just run away again, a vicious cycle.
It was just bad luck--well, and his growing fatigue probably contributed. The sunlight glinted off a semi coming the opposite direction, on his side of the road. He stepped a little off the road but was blinded by the glare and didn’t realize there was no shoulder here, only a hill dropping off directly from the asphalt. If he could see, he could have recovered, but he had no idea what the terrain was like where his foot landed. He didn’t know about the soft sandy dirt that gave way, didn’t anticipate the brambly bush or that it would come right out of that soft soil and tumble with him when he tried to grab onto it. He fell against a boulder--the kind that was common here in the Rockies, decorated with yellow and sage-green lichen--hardly a soft landing, but he was glad he’d escaped with only a few scrapes and bruises.... Then the boulder gave way in the sandy dirt and Sam had to scramble again, stumbling against it, beside it, falling along with it, trying to get out of its way as it slowly started to roll downhill. There was no way to anticipate which direction it would go, but Sam couldn’t get any purchase in the soft dirt, he just couldn’t.
He realized he’d ended up slightly to the side of and below the boulder, and that it was coming right for him. He had time for the flash of the thought, “This can’t be happening,” and he ran downhill as fast as he could, hoping to outrun it, going head over heels almost instantly as he sprained his leg against another unexpectedly hard stone hidden under the soft dirt. He remembered this sensation of absolute helplessness from a very few other times in his life, when things had gone awry during a hunt, or when Dad had successfully shouted him down, but this was the first time he was sure he’d be dead at the end of it. All he could do was observe his tumble, which seemed to last an inordinately long time, and wonder how it would end. His life didn’t flash before his eyes or anything, just brambles and hard rocks and trees going past. He landed against a thick tree with a huff as it knocked the wind out of him, and then here came the boulder--uncannily, right for him, like he was cursed. If he didn’t know better, he would swear some witch or something had followed him and caused this incredibly unlikely series of events to transpire exactly like this. Something wanted him dead. It had always seemed to be so. Whatever it was--demons or monsters or God or mere fate--had finally succeeded.
He cringed at the last second, felt the impact, the shudder all the way down into the earth, waiting for the end ... only to open his eyes a few seconds later, evidently not dead. Not even in much pain, somehow, except for all the bruising and the sprain. Then he saw it, all the blood trickling down his nose. Man, dying took way longer than he’d expected. The blood was getting in his eyes, flowing across his nostrils at this askew angle, facing mostly downward, making it hard for him to breathe, then it was going in his mouth--lots of it. He struggled and was able to free his hands--one from under his body, the other’s sleeve caught on a branch from which he extricated it--and he wiped his face. So much blood. He traced it to a cut on his scalp that was sure to be only one of many. He looked at his hands. All scratched up, but otherwise fine. He looked down at his body and tried to get up, but he couldn’t.
He tried again and heard the tree he’d fallen against groan. Camping in the wilderness so much, Sam knew a lot about nature. Trees made that sound only when they were rubbing against each other or when they were significantly distressed. He looked around, everywhere he could see, and then he realized the situation he was in: the tree that had broken Sam’s tumble had stopped the boulder, too, pinning Sam between them at the waist. His ribcage and his hips were both only just too wide to fit through the small opening he now existed in. There was a small chance that he might be able to fight and struggle hard enough to get himself out of there, but it would surely stir the boulder from its precarious perch. If it went one way, it would crush his torso and head; the other, it would crush his legs. The chances of him being able to weasel his way through that tiny hole before that happened were nil.
Anyway, he seemed abruptly to have lost all his strength. It was more than just the fatigue, his tumble down the hillside, and getting the wind knocked out of him. Part of it was that he couldn’t get a deep breath, his waist slightly squeezed as it was, but it wasn’t that, either; it probably had to do with the blood loss, as his head continued to ooze unceasingly. Who knew where else he might be bleeding from below the waist or somewhere on his torso that he couldn’t see. He felt around a little, but his hands were already so sticky, he couldn’t tell if his jacket was wet with blood or if it was just the blood that was already on his hands.
Still, if he was going to do something, it had to be now. He would only grow weaker the longer he lay here--soon too weak to function at all. He was the logical one, Dad always said, so he put his mind to work on the problem. Trouble was, he didn’t have a lot of options. Even if someone was there to help him, they might not be able to do anything. The Impala couldn’t hold the boulder’s weight; it’d rip the bumper right off it. Only a really big truck and a winch ... but unless they were very careful with how they handled the boulder, Sam would still be crushed. They couldn’t blast apart the boulder without blasting him apart. They couldn’t cut down the tree without putting Sam in the boulder’s path, but if he only had a little more room to wiggle out of .... Boulders weren’t soft--and neither were trees, but you could cut them down. Maybe he could wear away enough of the bark right by his stomach to free himself.
He cast around for a sharp rock to hack with and finally found one barely within reach. He worked on it for twenty minutes solid before he must have drifted off. He was just so tired, and getting more tired by the minute. He knew head wounds bled a lot, but this seemed excessive. Just how deep was this cut? He felt at it again. It was hard to tell now that his hair was matted with blood both wet and dried, but it seemed like more than one cut, each pretty big.
As he tried his best to continue hacking at the tree, the reality of his situation started to set in. Though he’d lived a life that forced him to contemplate the wide varieties of ways he might die, this one had never occurred to him. He’d always hoped it would be as close to instant as possible; this was agonizingly far from it. He’d especially never imagined this helplessness. It wasn’t exactly that he had no options; it was that he had no good ones. Maybe, if he were thinking more clearly, and if he had more time, he would eventually be able to think of something, but that was all the crueler--to know that if he had a little more time, a little more strength, a little more space between his literal rock and hard place, he might have been all right. He thought he’d go out in some epic battle with a badass monster, not this slow fade out of existence, all alone in the middle of nowhere.
Still, though, whether in the middle of nowhere or not, in a battle with a monster or not, there was no one but Dad and Dean who would mourn his death. He had no friends at the moment. Though he tried to make friends at every school he went to, probably none of them remembered him. He was just the kid who came to town for a few weeks and left the way he came. No one even knew who he was; Dad usually registered them at schools under a fake last name. Dad had long ago erased all records of their existence that he could, taking them off the grid as completely as possible. That had only rankled him a little before, a minor irritation among much more immediate ones, but now, with his life almost at its end ... what had he even lived for, if no one remembered him and no one knew his name? He’d never had a girlfriend. (Sandy Mortensen in fifth grade didn’t count; they’d only ever held hands.) Never kissed anyone. Never been to a school dance, or a concert, or a real party at a friend’s house. He’d never voted, never drunk a beer, never driven the Impala any distance (Dean once let him drive like fifteen feet and then made him stop, claiming he’d “veered a little,” but he hadn’t; Dean was just incredibly anal about that car). Sam hadn’t graduated from high school--heck, he’d barely started high school. Never took the SATs, never applied to a college, however far-fetched a fantasy actually going to college might be. Dean would try to say he’d saved lives, but he’d barely done that, just helped Dad and Dean out in a few hunts. His life ... his life was over before it even began.
He’d be enraged at all that he’d been denied, but it was too late for that now. It was too late for anything. He just couldn’t believe it had come to this. All the suffering, all the fear, all the uncertainty and regrets and worries and deprivation ... what was it all for? Nothing, maybe. Maybe Dad was right; maybe heaven didn’t exist. Maybe no one cared about humans on Earth. Maybe their lives meant nothing, here and then gone, another body in the soil to fertilize the trees. No wonder Dad spent his life hunting. Even if nobody ever knew what he’d done to save them, at least he got the chance to do a little good in this world before he was taken out of it.
Sam dozed more often than not now. When he woke, he would try to hack away at the tree, but it was starting to hurt his hands. When he looked at them, he saw that the rock had made blisters which had burst and bled. Still, he tried. What did he have to lose? As the light lowered and the chill of evening began to settle here in the shade of the hill, he gave up on scraping at the tree once he got a gander at the results of his efforts and saw that the only evidence of his entire day’s work was a few splinters in the bark. He’d barely made a dent.
Face-down there in the dirt, he started writing in the soft sand with his finger. He couldn’t die without someone knowing he’d been here on this planet, caring and suffering and living. He just couldn’t. “Sam Winchester,” it said. “b. 5/2/83, d. ...” He calculated. Would he be dead before midnight? Probably. October in the Rockies, the ground he lay against would certainly get very cold. It might well snow. “d. 10/11/98. From Lawrence, KS. brother Dean, dad John, mom Mary, deceased.” He didn’t know what compelled him to write this stuff in particular, except that it was the most fundamental information about his existence, that which made him who he was. These were all the people and things and places he’d tried to get away from all his life. In the end, they were the only things that mattered.
It occurred to him that he actually had the chance to write his own epitaph. He thought a long time about what he wanted his last words to be. Ultimately, it didn’t seem to matter what anyone was going to think about some dead body someone found in the forest some days or weeks in the future, only what the only two people who knew him and loved him thought. He didn’t have a lot of space left in which to write, or a lot of strength, so he said as succinctly as possible what he most wanted Dad and Dean to know. He didn’t want them to think he’d gone down without a fight, that he’d just lay there and let himself die. He especially hated that he’d died right after running away; that was a terrible way to leave them. Even more than he was upset about dying, he was upset about leaving them like that. Of all the strange mistakes and missteps that had brought him to this point, that seemed to be the cruelest. If he had to suffer and then die, why did it have to be the way that would hurt Dad and Dean the most? So he wrote, “I tried,” and beneath it, “I’m sorry,” an ‘x’ after the last word to try to add emphasis, though when he looked at it, it didn’t seem to add anything but confusion. He would fix it, but he was too tired to lift his head anymore. He would rest, and then, if he still could, he’d fix it later.
A familiar sound cut through the haze in his brain. What was that? A comforting roar he’d been hearing since before he was born. But how could a roar be comforting? Then a sputtering, then more silence, the silence into which he descended and from which he soon would never emerge ... but then something drew him out of it, the way things had been drawing him away from wherever he was and whatever he was doing all his life. Dad. It was Dean, and Dad, shouting. Were they really here, or was it wishful thinking?
He croaked back, but even though he couldn’t think clearly, he knew the sound got muffled and lost in the dirt under his cheek. He heard them call again, and he tried to call back louder this time, but he couldn’t gather enough strength or breath to create sufficient volume.
Then someone was skidding down the hill right where he must have, because dirt and pebbles were hitting him in the face. He lifted his arm as best he could to protect it. He heard cursing, then Dean was there, cussing up a storm. He barely got any words out around all the cursing. “Holy shit, Sam! Sammy? What the hell did you--how the fuck did you-- DAD!” he suddenly screamed, turning his head away. “HE’S HERE!”
Sam managed to turn his head enough to see Dean, and he thought the smile he felt inside made it to his lips. More pebbles, then Dad was there. “Sam,” was all he said, but there was so much in that word--so much love, and fear, and pain, and worry, and anger, and ... just so much everything. He felt his dad’s hand on his matted head, then felt his hand wedge in next to the rock and the tree at Sam’s middle. He got up and did the same thing with Sam’s lower half. Sam wasn’t sure what state his legs were in--they’d seemed to go mostly numb sometime after noon--but feeling his dad’s firm hands on them, he was pretty sure nothing was wrong with them but cuts and bruises and the sprain. When his dad spoke again, Sam could swear his voice shook. He thought vaguely that that had never happened before, ever, no matter what kind of danger they were in. “Dean, get the chainsaw,” he ordered. Ah, the chainsaw. Worked great on vampires, if you could catch them in the nest asleep or dose them up with dead man’s blood first.
Dean’s voice definitely shook. “Wh--what, sir?”
“You heard me.”
There was a long silence, then, “Yes, sir.” More pebbles and dirt as he mounted the hill.
Dad hunkered down next to Sam’s head. “Sammy, drink something,” he said, and cradling Sam’s head on his knees, he tilted his head gently and poured a little bottled water in his mouth. Most of it hit the dirt, but Sam got a little. “See if you can find a straw!” he shouted to Dean, then to Sam, he mumbled, “You boys and your fast food--there must be one back there on the floor, right?” He stroked Sam’s hair softly. “You really did it this time, Sam,” he whispered, but the kiss Sam was pretty sure he placed on his head belied the threat of his words. Sam waited for him to tell him that’s what happened when you ran away, something about how he’d been begging for trouble, but those words never came; just some mutters, mostly his name, and more water.
Dean announced his return with a lot of grunting as he gallumphed down the hill. He must have found a straw, because soon it was in Sam’s mouth. Sam hadn’t paid much attention to his growing thirst, maybe because he expected to die of blood loss or exposure before thirst got him ... though that would have been the next most likely culprit. He sucked in water with all his strength, which didn’t amount to much. Still, those few sips of water were a greater comfort than he could have imagined, and brought him a little bit back to his senses.
He was so fixated on the effort and the sensation he didn’t clearly hear the argument going on between his brother and father for most of it. “Couldn’t we call somebody?” Dean said uneasily.
“Who, Dean?”
“I dunno. The cops?”
“You know what law enforcement is like. In these little mountain towns? Sam would be dead before they got all the necessary equipment here. Hell, he’d probably be dead before they even decided what they were gonna do.”
“I tried,” Sam murmured, but the conversation went on over him.
“But Dad--”
“He’s dead either way!” their dad suddenly shrieked. Wow, he must be terrified; he never, ever lost his cool like that. When he spoke again, his voice was already much calmer and more even. “This is the only chance, Dean. Now stand on the other side of the boulder--far enough that it can’t get you--” he added heavily “--and get ready to pull your brother out of its way as fast as you can if it comes my way. If it comes your way, just get out of the way and I’ll try to pull him out. Maybe we’ll have a little time before it gets some momentum.”
“But--what about you, Dad?” Dean said. He sounded scared, too--really scared. Dean liked to pretend he was so cool, but actually, he sounded like this a lot. It was because of Dad that he always tried so hard to pretend he was just like him. “If it comes your way ... it’ll get you, too.”
“Well, hopefully it’ll stay put,” Dad said pointedly. “That’s the idea.” Sam noticed Dad didn’t answer Dean’s question. Sam tried to complain--he couldn’t express how much he didn’t want to get crushed by a boulder, but the idea of its getting Dad too, as he tried to get Sam out, was at least twice as bad--but then Dad was pulling the cord on the chainsaw. Sam heard its much less comforting rumble as it idled. Dad felt around at the tree next to Sam’s side again. “Sam, you have to stay perfectly still. No matter what, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said automatically. Dad must have the same idea about carving out the part of the trunk of the tree the boulder didn’t touch, leaving the boulder where it was, he just had way better tools for the job. If there was anyone in the world he felt safe operating a chainsaw inches from him, it was his father. Still, Sam had used chainsaws to cut wood for a campfire or to build shelter enough times to know they were unpredictable. It was a calculated risk. Even if Dad did accidentally cut him, at least it was better than certain death. Still, why did Dad risk his own life like this? Sawing away at that tree could easily jar the boulder loose. It took a while for Sam’s slow-moving brain to figure it out. In the reverse situation, letting his father die without doing whatever he could to try to save him would be worse than dying. He literally wouldn’t be able to live with that. Dad must feel the same way.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t known his father loved him. Of course he knew. But this was the first time he’d seen it demonstrated so plainly. Dad didn’t rethink it. He didn’t hesitate for a second. He put the saw against the tree and the smell of burning wood filled Sam’s nostrils as the sawdust cascaded over him.
Dean’s constant commentary--“Oh, God!” “I think I saw it move!--wait, no”--must not have been helping matters, because Dad said sharply, “Shut it, Dean.”
For his part, Sam lay perfectly still as he’d been ordered to, trying to prepare for the worst, wondering if there was any way he could keep from flinching if he suddenly got cut. He felt the heat of the saw or the wood as Dad worked steadily and efficiently. It seemed to go on for a long time. He saw that his last words and his epitaph were mostly unmarred by Dad and Dean’s footsteps, but now that they were here, there were so many things he wanted to say to them in case this didn’t work and he died in the next few seconds. “I’m sorry, Dad,” he said, working hard to be heard over the sound of the chainsaw.
“Not now, Sam!” his dad said urgently. He thought he heard his voice shaking again.
“But if I never get another chance--”
“Later!” said Dad, and that was clearly that. The epitaph would have to be enough--four little words to sum up his whole short life. He couldn’t seem to drum up the urgency Dad and Dean obviously felt. Either he would live or he wouldn’t. Given that he’d spent most of the day coming to terms with his imminent death, that there was even the smallest chance that he might survive at all seemed impossible, miraculous.
Then, suddenly, Dad was shouting for Dean to stand back. He set the chainsaw aside, gripped Sam tightly, and dragged him with remarkable speed and force out of the opening he’d widened--such speed and force that they both fell over several feet away from the tree. His dad pressed Sam’s head to his chest, watching breathlessly. From his position, Sam could see the boulder, too, but it didn’t go anywhere. Not that it would have mattered at this point--everyone was out of its way. Maybe it was just that they’d been so worried about that for all these agonizing minutes. He felt some of the tension leave his father’s body as he said, “Thank God. Dean, I’ve got your brother; you get the chainsaw. And be careful--that thing could start to roll again any time. The tree could fall, too--I cut a lot out of the base.”
“Yes, sir.”
His dad didn’t even try to make Sam walk, which was a good thing, because after laying in one position all day, he could hardly work his legs. He could hardly stand up, either, maybe because of the sprain or the blood loss, but all those things would heal in time now that he was home safe again, the only home he’d ever known: back with his father and brother. Dad just lifted him in his arms and carried him up the steep hillside. He could hear Dean picking through the forest twenty yards away or more. It seemed like a good time to say what had to be said. “I’m sorry,” Sam croaked softly. “Dad, last night, when I--”
“Don’t say anything, son.”
“But I--I feel--”
“I saw what you wrote. I know how you feel. It’s over and you’re all right. That’s what matters.”
Into the quiet of the mountainside and Dad’s soft grunts of exertion as he carried his ever-taller son up the steep hill, Sam said, “I love you, Dad.” They didn’t really say it, in their family. Somehow, three guys on the road, living their hardcore lifestyle, Dean so macho, both boys now teenagers, it didn’t get said anymore, even if Dad said it sometimes when they were little. It was supposed to just be assumed, but Sam was filled with a need to say it, because in those four words was contained all the other things he wanted to say right now but was too tired to.
Dad hesitated for only a couple of seconds. “Love you, too, son,” he said, “always,” and suddenly, it felt like everything had been said that ever needed to be. Apparently, sometimes four words were enough.
~ The End ~
Notes:
- It's satisfying to write about John being hard on the boys, but at least as satisfying writing about the great love in that family.
Author: brightly_lit
Rating: PG
Genre: gen, hurt!Sam, teen!chesters, angst, h/c, family matters, family feels
Word Count: ~4,900
Characters: Sam, John, Dean
Warnings: Some blood, imminent death, language
Summary: Running away again at 15, a series of unlikely events leads him straight into a dire situation, and Sam knows, without a doubt, that these are his last hours on Earth.
"He couldn’t die without someone knowing he’d been here on this planet, caring and suffering and living. He just couldn’t."
It wasn’t that Dad was mean or whatever; he was all right, most of the time. Dean, too. Whenever Sam ran away, Dean always got on his case, but he didn’t get it. It wasn’t anything specific. It was that Sam was unhappy. Nothing about his life or the way they lived was anything he wanted. He wasn’t cut out for this, any of it--fighting, hunting, traveling, moving around, not having any friends. Dad had told him if he was really so unhappy he could go live with Bobby, but out in the boonies in a junk yard wouldn’t be better. Bobby was so crabby and silent, it was like having no one around at all. There was a life somewhere out there that Sam was always meant to live. Whenever he ran away, that was him going in search of it.
At his last school, he mentioned to one of his friends that he ran away sometimes. They thought he meant, like, for a few hours, or maybe a couple of days. When he said he would find a squat and go to school all on his own for a few weeks before Dad and Dean found him--that he even had a dog once--he got that stare he was always getting that told him “This is not how normal people do things.” It seemed like he got that stare more and more often. He was sick of getting that stare. That was another good reason to run away right there, because he knew the longer he stayed with Dad and Dean, the more often he’d get that stare, until the freakishness was so much a part of him, he couldn’t even live among normal people anymore, just like Dad, because if anyone knew anything about him, it would always inevitably be that stare, and worse. He had to get out before that happened, or before a monster killed him, before living with Dad and Dean turned him into something he never wanted to be. There was a sense of inevitability about that that only grew stronger the older he got, and he couldn’t let it happen. He would do anything to keep it from happening.
The one good thing about growing up like that was that here, now, at fifteen, he had all the necessary survival skills. They’d always caught him before, but he had lots of plans for this time to prevent their ever finding him. He’d been planning this for months.
Step one of his plan: leave immediately after they fell asleep and travel all night. He thought he’d be able to hitch a ride by now, but there were almost no cars on this little mountain road, except one police car that went by three times. After the second time, Sam always hid in the trees when a car was coming lest he get picked up by the cops, then by the time he saw it wasn’t the cop and ran out to the road, it was too late and they didn’t see him, or maybe he looked threatening running out like that, so they kept right on driving.
Well, whatever. Walking all night, he’d probably put a good fifteen miles between himself and Dad and Dean’s campsite. Walking on the road, he hadn’t left any tracks. They’d have no idea which direction he’d gone, but they sure wouldn’t guess the road, unless they knew he’d hitch, in which case they’d figure he was long gone by now. Now that the sun was rising, more cars would be coming by, and he’d find a ride in no time. Once he was in another town, he’d be super careful to stay under the radar, and at the first sign of trouble, he’d head for another place. He’d have a jerry-rigged alarm system on his squat and make sure there was a back way to escape from. He’d be ready for them this time. Not being able to hitch a ride in the middle of the night did throw a wrench into his plans--he was really tired by now, after walking all night, on no sleep--but no plan ever went perfectly, and he wasn’t discouraged; in fact, he was feeling excited about his chances of staying gone this time. If Dad did find him, he would be furious, just like always, but whatever he did, if it was bad enough, Sam could just run away again, a vicious cycle.
It was just bad luck--well, and his growing fatigue probably contributed. The sunlight glinted off a semi coming the opposite direction, on his side of the road. He stepped a little off the road but was blinded by the glare and didn’t realize there was no shoulder here, only a hill dropping off directly from the asphalt. If he could see, he could have recovered, but he had no idea what the terrain was like where his foot landed. He didn’t know about the soft sandy dirt that gave way, didn’t anticipate the brambly bush or that it would come right out of that soft soil and tumble with him when he tried to grab onto it. He fell against a boulder--the kind that was common here in the Rockies, decorated with yellow and sage-green lichen--hardly a soft landing, but he was glad he’d escaped with only a few scrapes and bruises.... Then the boulder gave way in the sandy dirt and Sam had to scramble again, stumbling against it, beside it, falling along with it, trying to get out of its way as it slowly started to roll downhill. There was no way to anticipate which direction it would go, but Sam couldn’t get any purchase in the soft dirt, he just couldn’t.
He realized he’d ended up slightly to the side of and below the boulder, and that it was coming right for him. He had time for the flash of the thought, “This can’t be happening,” and he ran downhill as fast as he could, hoping to outrun it, going head over heels almost instantly as he sprained his leg against another unexpectedly hard stone hidden under the soft dirt. He remembered this sensation of absolute helplessness from a very few other times in his life, when things had gone awry during a hunt, or when Dad had successfully shouted him down, but this was the first time he was sure he’d be dead at the end of it. All he could do was observe his tumble, which seemed to last an inordinately long time, and wonder how it would end. His life didn’t flash before his eyes or anything, just brambles and hard rocks and trees going past. He landed against a thick tree with a huff as it knocked the wind out of him, and then here came the boulder--uncannily, right for him, like he was cursed. If he didn’t know better, he would swear some witch or something had followed him and caused this incredibly unlikely series of events to transpire exactly like this. Something wanted him dead. It had always seemed to be so. Whatever it was--demons or monsters or God or mere fate--had finally succeeded.
He cringed at the last second, felt the impact, the shudder all the way down into the earth, waiting for the end ... only to open his eyes a few seconds later, evidently not dead. Not even in much pain, somehow, except for all the bruising and the sprain. Then he saw it, all the blood trickling down his nose. Man, dying took way longer than he’d expected. The blood was getting in his eyes, flowing across his nostrils at this askew angle, facing mostly downward, making it hard for him to breathe, then it was going in his mouth--lots of it. He struggled and was able to free his hands--one from under his body, the other’s sleeve caught on a branch from which he extricated it--and he wiped his face. So much blood. He traced it to a cut on his scalp that was sure to be only one of many. He looked at his hands. All scratched up, but otherwise fine. He looked down at his body and tried to get up, but he couldn’t.
He tried again and heard the tree he’d fallen against groan. Camping in the wilderness so much, Sam knew a lot about nature. Trees made that sound only when they were rubbing against each other or when they were significantly distressed. He looked around, everywhere he could see, and then he realized the situation he was in: the tree that had broken Sam’s tumble had stopped the boulder, too, pinning Sam between them at the waist. His ribcage and his hips were both only just too wide to fit through the small opening he now existed in. There was a small chance that he might be able to fight and struggle hard enough to get himself out of there, but it would surely stir the boulder from its precarious perch. If it went one way, it would crush his torso and head; the other, it would crush his legs. The chances of him being able to weasel his way through that tiny hole before that happened were nil.
Anyway, he seemed abruptly to have lost all his strength. It was more than just the fatigue, his tumble down the hillside, and getting the wind knocked out of him. Part of it was that he couldn’t get a deep breath, his waist slightly squeezed as it was, but it wasn’t that, either; it probably had to do with the blood loss, as his head continued to ooze unceasingly. Who knew where else he might be bleeding from below the waist or somewhere on his torso that he couldn’t see. He felt around a little, but his hands were already so sticky, he couldn’t tell if his jacket was wet with blood or if it was just the blood that was already on his hands.
Still, if he was going to do something, it had to be now. He would only grow weaker the longer he lay here--soon too weak to function at all. He was the logical one, Dad always said, so he put his mind to work on the problem. Trouble was, he didn’t have a lot of options. Even if someone was there to help him, they might not be able to do anything. The Impala couldn’t hold the boulder’s weight; it’d rip the bumper right off it. Only a really big truck and a winch ... but unless they were very careful with how they handled the boulder, Sam would still be crushed. They couldn’t blast apart the boulder without blasting him apart. They couldn’t cut down the tree without putting Sam in the boulder’s path, but if he only had a little more room to wiggle out of .... Boulders weren’t soft--and neither were trees, but you could cut them down. Maybe he could wear away enough of the bark right by his stomach to free himself.
He cast around for a sharp rock to hack with and finally found one barely within reach. He worked on it for twenty minutes solid before he must have drifted off. He was just so tired, and getting more tired by the minute. He knew head wounds bled a lot, but this seemed excessive. Just how deep was this cut? He felt at it again. It was hard to tell now that his hair was matted with blood both wet and dried, but it seemed like more than one cut, each pretty big.
As he tried his best to continue hacking at the tree, the reality of his situation started to set in. Though he’d lived a life that forced him to contemplate the wide varieties of ways he might die, this one had never occurred to him. He’d always hoped it would be as close to instant as possible; this was agonizingly far from it. He’d especially never imagined this helplessness. It wasn’t exactly that he had no options; it was that he had no good ones. Maybe, if he were thinking more clearly, and if he had more time, he would eventually be able to think of something, but that was all the crueler--to know that if he had a little more time, a little more strength, a little more space between his literal rock and hard place, he might have been all right. He thought he’d go out in some epic battle with a badass monster, not this slow fade out of existence, all alone in the middle of nowhere.
Still, though, whether in the middle of nowhere or not, in a battle with a monster or not, there was no one but Dad and Dean who would mourn his death. He had no friends at the moment. Though he tried to make friends at every school he went to, probably none of them remembered him. He was just the kid who came to town for a few weeks and left the way he came. No one even knew who he was; Dad usually registered them at schools under a fake last name. Dad had long ago erased all records of their existence that he could, taking them off the grid as completely as possible. That had only rankled him a little before, a minor irritation among much more immediate ones, but now, with his life almost at its end ... what had he even lived for, if no one remembered him and no one knew his name? He’d never had a girlfriend. (Sandy Mortensen in fifth grade didn’t count; they’d only ever held hands.) Never kissed anyone. Never been to a school dance, or a concert, or a real party at a friend’s house. He’d never voted, never drunk a beer, never driven the Impala any distance (Dean once let him drive like fifteen feet and then made him stop, claiming he’d “veered a little,” but he hadn’t; Dean was just incredibly anal about that car). Sam hadn’t graduated from high school--heck, he’d barely started high school. Never took the SATs, never applied to a college, however far-fetched a fantasy actually going to college might be. Dean would try to say he’d saved lives, but he’d barely done that, just helped Dad and Dean out in a few hunts. His life ... his life was over before it even began.
He’d be enraged at all that he’d been denied, but it was too late for that now. It was too late for anything. He just couldn’t believe it had come to this. All the suffering, all the fear, all the uncertainty and regrets and worries and deprivation ... what was it all for? Nothing, maybe. Maybe Dad was right; maybe heaven didn’t exist. Maybe no one cared about humans on Earth. Maybe their lives meant nothing, here and then gone, another body in the soil to fertilize the trees. No wonder Dad spent his life hunting. Even if nobody ever knew what he’d done to save them, at least he got the chance to do a little good in this world before he was taken out of it.
Sam dozed more often than not now. When he woke, he would try to hack away at the tree, but it was starting to hurt his hands. When he looked at them, he saw that the rock had made blisters which had burst and bled. Still, he tried. What did he have to lose? As the light lowered and the chill of evening began to settle here in the shade of the hill, he gave up on scraping at the tree once he got a gander at the results of his efforts and saw that the only evidence of his entire day’s work was a few splinters in the bark. He’d barely made a dent.
Face-down there in the dirt, he started writing in the soft sand with his finger. He couldn’t die without someone knowing he’d been here on this planet, caring and suffering and living. He just couldn’t. “Sam Winchester,” it said. “b. 5/2/83, d. ...” He calculated. Would he be dead before midnight? Probably. October in the Rockies, the ground he lay against would certainly get very cold. It might well snow. “d. 10/11/98. From Lawrence, KS. brother Dean, dad John, mom Mary, deceased.” He didn’t know what compelled him to write this stuff in particular, except that it was the most fundamental information about his existence, that which made him who he was. These were all the people and things and places he’d tried to get away from all his life. In the end, they were the only things that mattered.
It occurred to him that he actually had the chance to write his own epitaph. He thought a long time about what he wanted his last words to be. Ultimately, it didn’t seem to matter what anyone was going to think about some dead body someone found in the forest some days or weeks in the future, only what the only two people who knew him and loved him thought. He didn’t have a lot of space left in which to write, or a lot of strength, so he said as succinctly as possible what he most wanted Dad and Dean to know. He didn’t want them to think he’d gone down without a fight, that he’d just lay there and let himself die. He especially hated that he’d died right after running away; that was a terrible way to leave them. Even more than he was upset about dying, he was upset about leaving them like that. Of all the strange mistakes and missteps that had brought him to this point, that seemed to be the cruelest. If he had to suffer and then die, why did it have to be the way that would hurt Dad and Dean the most? So he wrote, “I tried,” and beneath it, “I’m sorry,” an ‘x’ after the last word to try to add emphasis, though when he looked at it, it didn’t seem to add anything but confusion. He would fix it, but he was too tired to lift his head anymore. He would rest, and then, if he still could, he’d fix it later.
A familiar sound cut through the haze in his brain. What was that? A comforting roar he’d been hearing since before he was born. But how could a roar be comforting? Then a sputtering, then more silence, the silence into which he descended and from which he soon would never emerge ... but then something drew him out of it, the way things had been drawing him away from wherever he was and whatever he was doing all his life. Dad. It was Dean, and Dad, shouting. Were they really here, or was it wishful thinking?
He croaked back, but even though he couldn’t think clearly, he knew the sound got muffled and lost in the dirt under his cheek. He heard them call again, and he tried to call back louder this time, but he couldn’t gather enough strength or breath to create sufficient volume.
Then someone was skidding down the hill right where he must have, because dirt and pebbles were hitting him in the face. He lifted his arm as best he could to protect it. He heard cursing, then Dean was there, cussing up a storm. He barely got any words out around all the cursing. “Holy shit, Sam! Sammy? What the hell did you--how the fuck did you-- DAD!” he suddenly screamed, turning his head away. “HE’S HERE!”
Sam managed to turn his head enough to see Dean, and he thought the smile he felt inside made it to his lips. More pebbles, then Dad was there. “Sam,” was all he said, but there was so much in that word--so much love, and fear, and pain, and worry, and anger, and ... just so much everything. He felt his dad’s hand on his matted head, then felt his hand wedge in next to the rock and the tree at Sam’s middle. He got up and did the same thing with Sam’s lower half. Sam wasn’t sure what state his legs were in--they’d seemed to go mostly numb sometime after noon--but feeling his dad’s firm hands on them, he was pretty sure nothing was wrong with them but cuts and bruises and the sprain. When his dad spoke again, Sam could swear his voice shook. He thought vaguely that that had never happened before, ever, no matter what kind of danger they were in. “Dean, get the chainsaw,” he ordered. Ah, the chainsaw. Worked great on vampires, if you could catch them in the nest asleep or dose them up with dead man’s blood first.
Dean’s voice definitely shook. “Wh--what, sir?”
“You heard me.”
There was a long silence, then, “Yes, sir.” More pebbles and dirt as he mounted the hill.
Dad hunkered down next to Sam’s head. “Sammy, drink something,” he said, and cradling Sam’s head on his knees, he tilted his head gently and poured a little bottled water in his mouth. Most of it hit the dirt, but Sam got a little. “See if you can find a straw!” he shouted to Dean, then to Sam, he mumbled, “You boys and your fast food--there must be one back there on the floor, right?” He stroked Sam’s hair softly. “You really did it this time, Sam,” he whispered, but the kiss Sam was pretty sure he placed on his head belied the threat of his words. Sam waited for him to tell him that’s what happened when you ran away, something about how he’d been begging for trouble, but those words never came; just some mutters, mostly his name, and more water.
Dean announced his return with a lot of grunting as he gallumphed down the hill. He must have found a straw, because soon it was in Sam’s mouth. Sam hadn’t paid much attention to his growing thirst, maybe because he expected to die of blood loss or exposure before thirst got him ... though that would have been the next most likely culprit. He sucked in water with all his strength, which didn’t amount to much. Still, those few sips of water were a greater comfort than he could have imagined, and brought him a little bit back to his senses.
He was so fixated on the effort and the sensation he didn’t clearly hear the argument going on between his brother and father for most of it. “Couldn’t we call somebody?” Dean said uneasily.
“Who, Dean?”
“I dunno. The cops?”
“You know what law enforcement is like. In these little mountain towns? Sam would be dead before they got all the necessary equipment here. Hell, he’d probably be dead before they even decided what they were gonna do.”
“I tried,” Sam murmured, but the conversation went on over him.
“But Dad--”
“He’s dead either way!” their dad suddenly shrieked. Wow, he must be terrified; he never, ever lost his cool like that. When he spoke again, his voice was already much calmer and more even. “This is the only chance, Dean. Now stand on the other side of the boulder--far enough that it can’t get you--” he added heavily “--and get ready to pull your brother out of its way as fast as you can if it comes my way. If it comes your way, just get out of the way and I’ll try to pull him out. Maybe we’ll have a little time before it gets some momentum.”
“But--what about you, Dad?” Dean said. He sounded scared, too--really scared. Dean liked to pretend he was so cool, but actually, he sounded like this a lot. It was because of Dad that he always tried so hard to pretend he was just like him. “If it comes your way ... it’ll get you, too.”
“Well, hopefully it’ll stay put,” Dad said pointedly. “That’s the idea.” Sam noticed Dad didn’t answer Dean’s question. Sam tried to complain--he couldn’t express how much he didn’t want to get crushed by a boulder, but the idea of its getting Dad too, as he tried to get Sam out, was at least twice as bad--but then Dad was pulling the cord on the chainsaw. Sam heard its much less comforting rumble as it idled. Dad felt around at the tree next to Sam’s side again. “Sam, you have to stay perfectly still. No matter what, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said automatically. Dad must have the same idea about carving out the part of the trunk of the tree the boulder didn’t touch, leaving the boulder where it was, he just had way better tools for the job. If there was anyone in the world he felt safe operating a chainsaw inches from him, it was his father. Still, Sam had used chainsaws to cut wood for a campfire or to build shelter enough times to know they were unpredictable. It was a calculated risk. Even if Dad did accidentally cut him, at least it was better than certain death. Still, why did Dad risk his own life like this? Sawing away at that tree could easily jar the boulder loose. It took a while for Sam’s slow-moving brain to figure it out. In the reverse situation, letting his father die without doing whatever he could to try to save him would be worse than dying. He literally wouldn’t be able to live with that. Dad must feel the same way.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t known his father loved him. Of course he knew. But this was the first time he’d seen it demonstrated so plainly. Dad didn’t rethink it. He didn’t hesitate for a second. He put the saw against the tree and the smell of burning wood filled Sam’s nostrils as the sawdust cascaded over him.
Dean’s constant commentary--“Oh, God!” “I think I saw it move!--wait, no”--must not have been helping matters, because Dad said sharply, “Shut it, Dean.”
For his part, Sam lay perfectly still as he’d been ordered to, trying to prepare for the worst, wondering if there was any way he could keep from flinching if he suddenly got cut. He felt the heat of the saw or the wood as Dad worked steadily and efficiently. It seemed to go on for a long time. He saw that his last words and his epitaph were mostly unmarred by Dad and Dean’s footsteps, but now that they were here, there were so many things he wanted to say to them in case this didn’t work and he died in the next few seconds. “I’m sorry, Dad,” he said, working hard to be heard over the sound of the chainsaw.
“Not now, Sam!” his dad said urgently. He thought he heard his voice shaking again.
“But if I never get another chance--”
“Later!” said Dad, and that was clearly that. The epitaph would have to be enough--four little words to sum up his whole short life. He couldn’t seem to drum up the urgency Dad and Dean obviously felt. Either he would live or he wouldn’t. Given that he’d spent most of the day coming to terms with his imminent death, that there was even the smallest chance that he might survive at all seemed impossible, miraculous.
Then, suddenly, Dad was shouting for Dean to stand back. He set the chainsaw aside, gripped Sam tightly, and dragged him with remarkable speed and force out of the opening he’d widened--such speed and force that they both fell over several feet away from the tree. His dad pressed Sam’s head to his chest, watching breathlessly. From his position, Sam could see the boulder, too, but it didn’t go anywhere. Not that it would have mattered at this point--everyone was out of its way. Maybe it was just that they’d been so worried about that for all these agonizing minutes. He felt some of the tension leave his father’s body as he said, “Thank God. Dean, I’ve got your brother; you get the chainsaw. And be careful--that thing could start to roll again any time. The tree could fall, too--I cut a lot out of the base.”
“Yes, sir.”
His dad didn’t even try to make Sam walk, which was a good thing, because after laying in one position all day, he could hardly work his legs. He could hardly stand up, either, maybe because of the sprain or the blood loss, but all those things would heal in time now that he was home safe again, the only home he’d ever known: back with his father and brother. Dad just lifted him in his arms and carried him up the steep hillside. He could hear Dean picking through the forest twenty yards away or more. It seemed like a good time to say what had to be said. “I’m sorry,” Sam croaked softly. “Dad, last night, when I--”
“Don’t say anything, son.”
“But I--I feel--”
“I saw what you wrote. I know how you feel. It’s over and you’re all right. That’s what matters.”
Into the quiet of the mountainside and Dad’s soft grunts of exertion as he carried his ever-taller son up the steep hill, Sam said, “I love you, Dad.” They didn’t really say it, in their family. Somehow, three guys on the road, living their hardcore lifestyle, Dean so macho, both boys now teenagers, it didn’t get said anymore, even if Dad said it sometimes when they were little. It was supposed to just be assumed, but Sam was filled with a need to say it, because in those four words was contained all the other things he wanted to say right now but was too tired to.
Dad hesitated for only a couple of seconds. “Love you, too, son,” he said, “always,” and suddenly, it felt like everything had been said that ever needed to be. Apparently, sometimes four words were enough.
~ The End ~
Notes:
- It's satisfying to write about John being hard on the boys, but at least as satisfying writing about the great love in that family.