"This Above All," NC-17, Sam/Giles (5/7)
A tap on the window has Sam gasping and whipping his head around to look up into the eyes of the purported bible salesman, like just thinking about the Southerner has manifested him outside of Sam’s car window.
Sam races through options, hand hovering over the ignition, eyes searching out the cell phone on their periphery, expression blank, schooled to neutrality with long years of practice.
If he opens the door, he can push the guy back and away, but it leaves him vulnerable to attack, then, and loses him the advantage of the car, a formidable weapon. Plus, he’s wearing his seatbelt, and there’s no way to undo it without telescoping his intention.
He could start the car to roll down the electric window, which gives him the advantage of almost immediate escape, but turning over the engine might spook the Southerner and alert him to Sam’s intentions, and if the other man has a weapon, Sam’s vulnerable in the moment it takes to turn the key and put the car in drive.
“I just want to talk to you, son,” the man drawls, innocuous smile stretching his face strangely at the corner of Sam’s sight.
Option three, then. He turns the key toward him, engaging the electronics, and cracks the window a couple of inches.
“What do you want?” He hates that he’s positioned below the man, that the man is looking down on him, hates that he can’t see both of the man’s hands, can’t see much except the part of the man blocking the window.
“Why don’t you step out of the car so we can talk like two civilized men? I know it’s a dangerous world we live in, but righteous men have nothing to fear from each other.”
Sam has to bite back the bark of nervous and derisive laughter that tries to leave him just then. He has a strong feeling that they have very different definitions of “righteous.”
Nevertheless, he finds himself doing as the other suggested. He undoes his seat belt and reaches for his cell phone, intending to keep it at hand.
“Don’t bother, son,” the man says offhandedly, “It won’t work.”
Sam glances up to catch a look of self-satisfaction on the other’s face just before his expression morphs into innocent concern.
He tries the phone anyway, and feels a sinking sensation in his stomach at the way the display remains dark, no matter what button he pushes. The phone bounces on the seat when he drops it.
The man steps back as Sam pushes his door open and gets out.
“You’re a tall one, aren’t you? Must’ve eaten your Wheaties as a boy, huh? Or was it Lucky Charms?”
The frisson of cold fear he’s had since the tap on the window turns to a river of ice running through his core, making him shiver and take a step back and away from the other before he even realizes he’s doing it.
“I know you,” the man continues, as though Sam has said something, as though they’re having an actual conversation.
“I know you clear through. You want to do what’s right and good and just, but you aren’t sure what that means anymore. Your daddy didn’t teach you enough, did he, and he neglected the scriptures shamefully. That’s maybe why you don’t know what you are, Samuel. But I’m here to tell you, cousin, that I’m not the one you should be worried about. I’m not your enemy, son. You and me, we’re on the same side.”
“And what side is that?” Sam is proud of the steadiness of his voice, despite the way his fear is making his throat ache.
“Why, the only side that matters, Samuel-the winning side. It’s not the meek who’ll inherit the earth, you know? That’s just some pabulum they put out to keep the sheep quiet. It’s ones like you and me, the truly righteous, who’ll be at the left hand come judgment day.”
Sam shakes his head. “I’m nothing like you. You’re a killer.”
The other laughs, then, a rich and hearty sound that curdles the dinner in his stomach and makes Sam have to swallow down his rising gorge.
“Samuel, Samuel, Samuel. We’re all killers, boy, make no mistake. Besides, those women were filthy whores, and they deserved what they got.”
“Who made you judge?”
The man’s smile is decidedly unpleasant, a mix of zealotry and hatred that makes Sam wish he were anywhere else but in the line of that ugly look.
“Son, I’m the closest thing this world has to a righteous judge of sinners. But even I have my faults. I reckon, for instance, that I should have known that California has both a Sunnyvale and a Sunnydale. Well, no matter, I suppose. A whore’s a-“
The other pauses then, mid-sentence, and Sam has the momentary impression that the man is listening to a voice Sam cannot hear. It raises every hair on his body and makes him shudder.
“But I’ve been remiss in my manners and have failed to introduce myself,” the Southerner says finally, turning his eyes back to Sam.
He feels pinned in place, without volition and utterly vulnerable.
“I’m Caleb. I guess you could say we’re related, though you’re from the less…savory…side of the family.”
“You’re not my family.”
There are a lot of things Sam is uncertain of, but the identity of his family is not one of them.
“Oh, but we are, in a manner of speaking. Our true nature flows from the same all-powerful wellspring.”
“And what spring would that be?”
“The First, of course, praised be.”
“You’re crazy.”
He doesn’t see the blow coming, doesn’t really understand that he’s been struck until he opens his eyes to see the world tilted at an angle and hears the ringing in his ears.
“You should be more respectful of your elders, boy.”
Sam’s raising his hand to defend himself when the other man pauses mid-strike, again as though he’s receiving inaudible instruction. Then, instead of landing a killing blow, Caleb changes the motion, opening his hand to cup Sam’s cheek almost gently.
Sam jerks away, a movement that makes the world whirl and swoop sickeningly. Caleb repeats the gesture, bringing his other hand up, too, so that Sam’s face is trapped in the brackets of Caleb’s strong, dry hands.
Sam makes a sound in his throat, a whimper, maybe, or keening, and he wonders if it’s possible to die of humiliation and terror, both, when Caleb leans in close like he would kiss Sam.
Caleb pauses mere inches from Sam’s face, his breath on Sam’s cheek an obscene parody of a caress, as he whispers, “Go your way. Your faith has made you whole,” and brushes the gentlest of kisses on each of Sam’s eyelids, which flutter and jump beneath the assault.
When Caleb removes his hands, Sam feels himself falling, down, down, plummeting as from some great height, not stopped by the concrete parking lot but plunging forever into darkness.
He takes in a breath to scream, but he cannot, and the darkness swallows him gasping.
The chirrup of his cell phone wakes him, and for a long, disorienting series of rings, Sam thinks that he’s in his dorm room and has overslept.
When he finally recognizes that he’s sitting behind the wheel of his rental car, three things occur to him in immediate succession:
One, Caleb is gone.
Two, Caleb put him back in the car.
Three, his head hurts worse than the time he and Dean downed a half a bottle of tequila between them and then went to work on their father’s stash of JD.
A distant fourth thought has him picking up the phone and answering it with a slurred, “What?”
“Hey, Sam. It’s me.”
It’s a testament to just how much pain he’s in that Sam almost asks, “Who’s me?” before recognizing his brother’s voice.
He manages a croaked, “Dean?” before having to clear his throat and close his eyes against the nausea just speaking brings.
Dean’s laughter is a rush of wind against Sam’s ear, and he winces and moves the phone a little away. “You drunk, college boy?”
Sam squints at the time display on the phone, sees that it’s just after midnight, considers that it was Friday.
“Yeah, maybe a little,” he lies, trying to hold it together long enough to bluff his way through this call.
“Well, hold that thought and I’ll join you, little brother.”
And it’s more than his current circumstances that make Sam pause to work out that line.
“What?”
“I’m about six hours out and heading your way. We’ve got a job in Sausalito in a couple of days, thought I’d drop by to see my baby brother. You’re on spring break, right? Babes, bikinis, and brews!”
Sam’s overwhelmed between the pain in his head and the clenching of his heart at the thought of seeing Dean again after so long.
Then he remembers what’s just happened, remembers Caleb’s words and the terrible touch of his lips on his eyes, and Sam shivers, shoulders open the door, and splatters vomit in waves on the ground.
Somehow, he manages to keep hold of the phone, though, and as he wipes his mouth with the back of one hand, he brings the cell up to his ear with the other, just in time to hear Dean say, “You there?”
“Yeah, Dean, I’m here.” He hopes he doesn’t sound as wrecked as he feels.
“So are you gonna be around when I get there in the morning?”
He feels the tears come, feels them gather hot at the corners of his eyes. He’s never wanted to see his brother more. He misses his family with a fierce, almost violent yearning, and it’s the hardest thing he’s ever said, he thinks, harder even than telling Dean he was leaving for college, when he says, “No, actually, I…uh…I have plans with some friends to go away for the week. We’re leaving in the morning.”
There’s the tiniest pause, so brief that anyone but Sam would miss what it means, and he knows his brother is gathering his disappointment behind the armor of deflection.
He expects it when Dean says, “Hey, no problem. I can get more chicks without your sorry, sad ass dragging around behind me, anyway.”
“I’m sorry, Dean,” he says, knowing that what he means and what Dean will understand are two very different things.
“Doesn’t matter. Hey, you take care of yourself, okay? Don’t drink yourself into the hospital or something stupid like that.”
And it’s the simple fact that Dean means it, that he obviously worries about Sam despite everything that’s happened to separate them in the last year, that has the tears finally spilling in twin tracks down his cheeks.
He has to muffle the phone against his shoulder to clear his throat before he can say, “Take care of yourself, too, Dean.”
Nothing but the dial tone then.
Puking his guts up seems to have helped the headache, and though he can’t seem to get his hands to stop shaking, Sam’s vision is clear enough, so he starts the car and pulls up to the edge of the road. He thinks of turning left, back the way he’d come, but when he remembers that that will take him by Caleb’s motel, he doesn’t care that it might be cowardly-he turns right and loops around to a parallel street that will take him out to the highway.
Once there, he doesn’t even consider heading north to Palo Alto. He can be in Sunnydale in the time it would have taken Dean to arrive at Stanford.
Sam has to warn Giles of what’s coming.
Of course, he could do that by phone from the safe distance of his dorm room.
But Sam knows an excuse when he’s telling it to himself, and the real reason for his drive is to see Giles in person, to derive some comfort from the man’s steadiness, some reassurance from his sense of command.
And he wouldn’t say no to another kiss, maybe to wipe away the reminder of Caleb’s warm hands on his face, of the man’s breath and lips against his eyelids.
He has to pull over to heave up a thin stream of bitter yellow bile before continuing on his way.
Later, Sam couldn’t tell how he’d gotten to Sunnydale, really. He doesn’t remember much about the drive. He doesn’t think he put in a CD or even turned on the radio. He might have stopped somewhere for a bathroom break and to clean up, but he’s not sure. His mouth tastes like the way six weeks of dirty laundry smells, a stench he’d gotten familiar with the few times Dad went away on a long trip and left Dean in charge. Dean hates doing laundry.
This is the nature of his thoughts, scattered and associative, as he pulls up to the darkened office of the Downtowner Motel. The sun is coming up, lighting the strangely silent scene. There are no cars in the lot, no signs of life. He notices that the pool has a thin patina of scum-wrappers and cigarette stubs, a condom or two-and that someone recently put a lawn chair through the plastic front of the soda machine.
The remains of the chair hunch like the carcass of an alien insect not far from the registration window.
No one answers his repeated calls, and when he presses the buzzer, he can hear no sound from inside the dimly lit office.
Shrugging, he goes around to the door, tries it, is surprised to find it open.
Inside, the air is stale and dense, like the place has been shut up for a long time, disused. He wonders if the motel is actually out of business.
Not above squatting, and having had ample practice in his time, Sam snags a key from the pegboard behind the desk and helps himself to a handful of mints in the dish by the register and then drives the car the long way around to the back of the two-storey motel, where it can’t be seen from the street.
He shoulders his backpack, locks the car, and finds a set of exterior stairs to take him to Room 112. He likes the tactical advantage of height, of being able to see better what might be coming.
The room is identical to many he’s been in over his lifetime and it feels strangely like coming home. Maybe because he’s wrung out and reeling, he finds tears coming easily again, but he dashes them away in favor of sitting wearily on the end of the bed and calling up Giles’ cell number on his display.
Sam hesitates.
Maybe the man doesn’t want to see him. Maybe he’ll be upset that Sam has presumed to come.
Then Sam remembers the imminent threat, the soulless eyes of Caleb and his terrible, fiery zeal, and he presses send.
“Sam? Are you alright?”
Sam pauses to think before answering. He’s about as far from alright as he can get and still be breathing in and out, but he doesn’t want to say that to Giles, who, after all, isn’t his keeper, or really anything else of Sam’s.
Sighing a little, suddenly so tired that he finds it hard to put words together, he says, “I’ll be okay,” which might be true, though he can’t tell it at the moment.
“What happened?”
Sam wonders if Giles is a little bit prescient or if he’s just used to fielding phone calls at strange hours.
“I found the killer. Or, I guess, he found me.”
“Are you sure you’re alright? Are you hurt?”
“No. Yes. I mean, no, I’m not hurt. And yes, I’m alright.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m…”
“Sam?”
“I’m in Sunnydale. I’m at the Downtowner Motel.”
“What room?”
“112.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Sam takes a breath to answer, to assure Giles that he can wait until it’s a less ridiculous hour, but once again, he’s talking to a dial tone.
Sighing, he drops the phone and lets his body fall back on the bed.
He doesn’t even feel his shoulders rebound off the mattress.
Again, when he comes to, he has a sense of disconnection, as though he’s gone to sleep one place and woken up in another, only this time, it’s not in his car, he’s happy to see.
Unless Giles has taken to riding shotgun.
“I let you sleep awhile,” the man says instead of “good morning.”
Sam struggles up onto his elbows to try to see the time on the bedside clock.
“It’s eight-thirty,” the older man adds, handing Sam a cup of coffee in a plastic travel mug.
When Sam sits up to take a sip, Giles holds out sugar packets, creamer, and a plastic spoon.
“I wasn’t sure how you take it,” he apologizes, and Sam smiles, getting his first words out at last, “At this point, I’d take it cold and black.” But he sets it down on the nightstand and adds the sugar and cream nevertheless.
Giles sits for a few minutes, apparently content to let the caffeine do its work on Sam’s sluggish brain.
Expecting a hundred questions, Sam is surprised to hear Giles say, “You look awful.”
Without benefit of a handy mirror, Sam guesses he’ll have to take the other man’s word. He just nods, still exhausted, and downs another long draught of the coffee.
“What happened?”
Sam unreels the whole story, from the woman and three kids in the trailer to the diner to the confrontation with Caleb in the gas station parking lot.
When he gets to what Caleb said about Sam being related to him, Sam finds himself suddenly unsure of what Giles might think, the hunter in him aware of how what the killer said might sound to outsiders. Then he reminds himself that Giles isn’t really an outsider, and he plunges ahead, anxious now to get it all out, like he’s squeezing a pus-filled wound free of stinking poison.
Still, he can’t look at the other man as he reveals what Caleb did to him, kissing him and intoning those few words like some kind of ritual. He feels a sense of shame bone-deep, though he knows he’s done nothing wrong, and it makes him have to suck back a sob that wants to find its way out of his throat.
When he finishes, Sam’s embarrassed to discover that he’s breathing fast, his hands clutching the plastic cup hard to keep it from shaking out of his grip. He can’t look at Giles, can’t hear, either, over the beating of his heart, the blood pounding in his ears, afraid all over again even though he’s left the monster three hundred miles behind him.
Giles’ hand is warm and firm on his knee, and Sam examines it, fastening his eyes there like it might somehow keep him grounded, keep him sane.
“You’re safe now, Sam. It’s alright.”
Sam doubts it, but he’s used enough to Dean’s hollow reassurances, to the necessity of bravado in a life like theirs, so he nods like he believes it and lets out a long, slow breath, trying to get his heart rate under control.
“The First lies, Sam. It’s safe to say lying is what it does best, in fact. You shouldn’t worry about what Caleb said…though I am concerned that he knows all about you, what you look like and where you live.”
Sam nods wearily. He’d already thought of that himself.
“I think you should plan to stay here, at least for a little while. Of course,” and here Giles laughs, a humorless sound that falls flat in the still motel room air, “If he is on his way to Sunnydale, you might be safer elsewhere.”
Sam shakes his head. “Nowhere is safe, Giles. He’s a harbinger. This is end-of-the-world shit.”
Giles removes his hand and stands to pace away and stare out the narrow space between the curtains, which predictably don’t quite close.
“Do you want me to leave?” Sam says it softly, an offering, his heart heavy, knowing what answer he wants but willing to take what he gets.
“No.” Giles sighs out a heavy breath. “God help me, but no. I don’t want you to leave, Sam. And I’m afraid that’s rather selfish of me. I shouldn’t even be thinking about-“
Sam suspects where the sentence was going despite its derailment, and he rises, unsteady on his feet but sure of himself when he approaches the older man and puts his arms around him, bending to bury his face against the man’s neck, taking in his scent, warm skin, aftershave, a hint of the coffee he must have drunk for breakfast.
Giles brings his hands up to wrap around Sam’s right arm where it crosses his chest and leans his head back against Sam’s shoulder, baring his neck to Sam’s burrowing lips, which he trails up to the soft skin just behind the older man’s ear.
Giles sucks in a sudden breath and exhales Sam’s name, turning in the younger man’s arms, face tipping upward to meet Sam in an almost chaste kiss that deepens into something passionate and then ravenous as Giles moves Sam backward, away from the window, toward the waiting bed.
The back of Sam’s knees hit the edge of the mattress and he sits hard, pulling away from Giles’ mouth as he falls.
Chest heaving, eyes wide with a rush of emotions, Sam looks up at the older man, whose lips bear the marks of his hunger.
“Sam-“ Giles starts, and Sam can see in his eyes the indecision.
“It’s alright,” it’s Sam’s turn to say. “This isn’t why I came here.”
Giles’ face takes on a knowing and possessive expression, and Sam feels an answering heat and weight low down in his body.
“Although I’m not ruling it out,” he adds, and Giles’ lips curve up in a rakish grin.
“There will be time for this later,” Giles promises. And then, almost as an afterthought, a low “I hope.”
Sam rests his hand on Giles’ sternum, spreading his fingers wide against the soft cotton of his sweater, wishing the man weren’t wearing it or the collared shirt beneath. Still, he can feel the steady rhythm of the man’s heart, and he finds it comforting.
“I think you should get some more sleep, Sam. There are some things I need to look into. I’ll come back in the afternoon and bring us some supper, shall I?”
“I’d like that,” he answers, ignoring the sudden zing of apprehension that shoots through him at the thought of being left alone. Suddenly, the room no longer feels familiar. But he shakes off the unpleasant sensation and lets his fingers trail away as Giles steps back and turns for the door.
“Don’t go out, if you can help it? Sunnydale isn’t safe, even in the daylight. Not anymore. Just…lock up and-“
“I’ll salt and ward the door and window,” he says dutifully, like he’s heard the warning a thousand times. It’s not hard to do, since he has.
Giles gives him a rueful look. “Sorry.”
“Go,” Sam says, waving at the door. “Bring me back food.”
This way to Chapter Six.