Beatty, 1988 (part 8 of 9)
Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 + a/n | Full Story (.PDF) | Artwork by starry_ice
fear (iv).
Andrew Kimmel's got Dean under his arm, slung loose against his hip. John knows Dean's alive by the soft moan he makes as he's dropped to the ground.
Andrew Kimmel is different than what was inside Simon Walker--hasn't got sex sluicing off him. Just bare wire and jagged edges. "On time for once, Winchester--early, yet. I get the impression that ain't true too often. Should I be worried?" He knows a trap's waiting; just doesn't know where. But he's walking easy.
"We're meeting here on your terms; you start this off right, and you give me my boy." John feels like he should have a pistol level with Andrew Kimmel's head. Knows this is a different kind of evil. Still feels naked.
Andrew Kimmel is in his element. "You're not going to come get him?"
John won't be baited. No more than he already has been, he amends.
"Go on, Dean. Crawl over to your daddy."
John can see Dean has no intention of doing anything of the sort. Stay put, John. Don't coddle our boys.
John swallows, then speaks: "Plane's got a thing called a black box, logs where it's been. Box'll take you back to the airstrip we set out from. It'll take you to Sam."
Dean shudders. That boy's gonna be furious with you, Winchester.
Andrew Kimmel's not sure he should believe him.
"You can trust my word or you can trust my science. Don't know you put much stock in either, but I can tell you--box isn't near so creative, it starts thinking about ways to end you."
Andrew Kimmel's not moving so easy anymore. Decisions, decisions. He paces about, vulture-like, circling Dean (Dean is drawn up now, almost sitting. Keeps still like he's hurting somewhere). He must wonder where his partner's gone.
John thinks about Rita's beau and the stranger in bed. He'd nearly forgotten Rita. He turns to her now, but she is quiet. Just staring at Kimmel 'cause she's not sure what to make of that. She's no longer so thoughtlessly brave as to rush over to Dean. He thinks about a certain Jim Beatty and a certain street and a certain Miss Jenny Gardner and a certain assault arrest and he thinks, maybe she would've. A day ago, maybe she would've.
"You show me the box." Pace, circle. Panic. Didn't think demons did that.
"Check the plane yourself. It's actually orange-colored, that helps you any."
Kimmel shakes his head, no. No. Wants John to bring it out. Show me, he says. You give it to me.
Dean has collected himself as well as can be expected. Ready to split, if John gives him the go-ahead. Stay put. It'd be like running from a mastiff, got you already in its jaws. John gestures pointedly at his son. "And why would I do that?"
Pause. Shift. More pacing. Nothing like Simon. "Not used to working alone?" says John.
Too far. Andrew Kimmel yanks Dean up by the collar, and Dean makes a sound like three kinds of pain. Rita starts, but doesn't move beyond that.
Andrew Kimmel throws ragdoll Dean to the back of Beech Duchess and begins to gut the plane. He finds two things, easy enough. The first is a bright, orange thing inside (John's not even sure it's got the information--radio's clearly shot; black box was probably never tested against interference from Hell). The second is the Devil's Trap, outside. He finds that the dark spilling out under the plane isn't all shadows. And he stares, registers its meaning slow, like he's sifting through the fine print.
"Son of a bitch." Mild disbelief.
Too young, thinks John. Far too young, if he didn't see that coming. Maybe another decade or two. Andrew Kimmel snarls, lupine. John gives him a look, says You try anything, and I will leave you to rot. Imagine how long that trap's gonna last, in the bare stillness. Rain don't wash that away too quickly.
(The shower smelled like gasoline for a week.)
Andrew Kimmel regains his composure somewhat. Taunts. "Think this'll hold me, Winchester? Four years a hunter, against a millenia a demon--seniority rules."
"Four months topside?"--Rita. She's putting two with two, a manner to a body, a demon to a nightmare. If 'Winchester' threw her off from Richard Fainall, she doesn't care enough to make a scene of it. Her attention's all on Andrew Kimmel. "Been here since April, if I had to guess."
"Four months, two skins, and seven states," Andrew Kimmel allows. "Thirteen deaths and twice as many fucks, and nobody noticed a whit. 'Cept for you--sorry, doll.
"So you know what? Go ahead and leave me, Winchester; I've got plenty of time. There's nowhere I can't follow. I will find you. Easy enough to track you down--even snipped you right out of the air, not too long ago."
John doesn't take kindly to feeling hunted. "Had a sudden notion a hunter'd be flying out over Nellis, did you?"
"Call it serendipity, it makes you sleep easier. But I think you'd be surprised just how many of our number are cutting our teeth on Americana. And we're all looking for you; and the only thing working in your favor? Demons don't do teamwork. I've got my one, and even that gets crowded.
"Hell of a lot on your plate, Winchester. Pun unintended."
John ignores him. "I send you down, how long you think it'll take you to crawl back up?"
"You wouldn't."
That's where he's wrong. It comes to this fight, nothing is off limits. "Where you think I put your partner?"
"You'd be sorry if you did. Your wife--Mary, right? Not a soul alive knows more about pretty Mary Campbell than my sister. Do you some good, to talk a little. It's not a sin." Andrew Kimmel grins. "If you got the time. But see. You don't." Two, three seconds, and Andrew Kimmel's hugged snugly between the back passenger seats, Dean's renewed outbursts muffled beneath him. "You let me out, or I kill your boy.
"Don't worry; I'll let you watch."
They were ever gonna kill him, Dean'd be dead already. John knows this. Or the thinks he does. He's fairly certain. Rita's not so sure, if the way her eyes are juggling the demon and Dean, and John. Saccadic motion (and maybe they're asleep, and it's a bad dream, after all).
Finally, he draws Dean's gun. Says, "Try me."
--
Try me.
She can't see him, but she swears to God Dean wilts. It's like a charge goes out of the air.
If he didn't want you getting into trouble, he'd be here watchin' you, right?
But she has to trust Richard Fainall (or Winchester, perhaps; no one's what they say they are) as far as his business stretches. His boy and his demon and his little orange black box are on him.
Of course, some things are still on her.
Rumble in the ground and the screech of sirens breaks the biting concentration with which might-be-Fainall and definitely-ain't-Kimmel regard each other. Patriotic smattering of color in the distance. Headlights flood their operation, paint the satanic markings under Fainall's plane in harsh relief. Jenny Gardner steps out, says there's more on the way, says it's over. Hands on the ground, no sudden movement.
Fainall slams Rita with a hard glare full of questions and accusation. What the fuck did you do?
"What the hell you think you're doing!" He grabs her by the wrist, pulls her facing him. So close she can see the chap of his lips, taste the vitriol he spits in her face. "You stupid--" Stops. Gives her a jangling shake instead. Furious whisper, like wind 'round mountains. "I tell you there's something going 'round isn't human, and you call her? What'd you think she was gonna do? You think he's gonna get cuffed and processed, calm like that?"
She doesn't know what she was thinking. I'm afraid of you, is what she was thinking. Still afraid of you. Rita's never seen someone so overtaken by fury--and that's every bar brawl she's ever split, every bad night she's bit with (air res-ist-tance) Simon Walker.
Lean to his eyes is feral.
Lean to his eyes is terrified. "What the fuck did you--"
"Hey!" Sharp chirp. "Give a lady a little respect," say Jenny, cutting between them. "Shoulda known you were trouble, Richard Fainall. Just can't stay away, huh?" She lights a Darium Black, releases the first plume of smoke into Fainall's face with a smack of her lips.
Rita hasn't ever known her to smoke.
"Wasn't appendicitis, you know. That killed Mrs. Clarisse Fainall. You ever heard of an Indonesian stomach curse?" And she's standing so close, she'd be atop, were she able. She steps back abruptly, and turns to the plane and the trap and the demon and Dean. Lets the clove slip from her fingers, fall to the ground (and maybe that's surprise).
Snaps her fingers. Whole ring goes up in flames, and much else besides. And Rita's certain it's not. Surprise, that is. Some part of her isn't all too shocked, either.
Jenny turns on them, her eyes full-black. Fucking day is going to hell.
"Plane's a lot smaller than a house, Winchester. You remember your house? Two stories. Tidy garden. Even-handed mortgage and two-thousand down payment. Shame the nursery went first--new white paint. Nice big house to start your little domestic fantasy. It burned to smoke and mirrors in forty-seven minutes.
"How long you think it'll take to gut the plane? But then. Your boy'd asphyxiate first, wouldn't he."
Richard Fainall-Winchester isn't seething any longer--just bruised, and for a second, dead lost. Looks a lot like his boy when Rita watched him leave the diner. (Right into the Devil's arms--you let him walk right in.)
Then he's still again. Gunpoint doesn't waver.
"John." Mock exasperation. "Don't point that at me again. I let you rip poor Simon all to pieces, but I think it's in both our interests not to do that again." She cups her breasts. "Jenny's getting married this December."
Try me. Wordless this time, but no less distinct.
Hell-ain't-Jenny turns on Rita. You'd let him waste me, she accuses. Called me out here to die, and you knew it. Did you see what he did to poor old Simon Walker? You saw what was left of him, I'm sure. Pretty little thing. I prefer something a little finer, generally. More curves; less cock. That sort of thing.
Just keeps running her mouth, doesn't relent. "--swear I could feel him weep, every time I put his dick in something new. Because you know, it was the damnest thing. I could swear! He really loved you."
Hell-ain't-Jenny is buzzing with gleeful malice. Place is burning--and maybe Dean, too; she can't see. Richard Fainall's gonna shoot.
"And Rita." Smile, sway, seduction. "He's real sorry." It comes out like a laugh, and something in Rita rips. She feels a cool breath at her nape.
--
Old Jim'd been gone just long enough to be forgotten. But John sees him now, sees him behind Rita. Collapses on her like he's seeking comfort.
Fuck. Fuck.
John can see the end, suddenly. Bright and clear. End doesn't feature anyone but Jenny Gardner (who isn't even Jenny Gardner anymore). Rita drops like autumn, quick and cool and terrified.
Sun's gone now.
Fire's going strong.
--
That's what he missed. That night, that's what he missed.
Dean hadn't heard his mother scream. He remembers that night in pieces, with memories like rag scraps. One is scorching red; another, the sound of his father's orders alwayslistenalwayslisten. The last is just pain--pain in in his hands and arms and elbows, because it's hot and he's lost and Sammy is heavy and Dad is scared.
He doesn't remember Mom being there at all.
But then, it always was her not being that was problematic about that night. (He is lying in bed, riding out the last of the sudden panic that comes with waking from nightmares. He thinks he should call out for her, or snuggle into bed. He knows Dad is on the couch again, tonight. He also knows he won't do either, because he is four, and four is big enough to know it's gonna be okay, come morning. It's all gonna be okay.)
He would have remembered her scream. He knows it.
It would've sounded just like Rita's, now. Would've sounded high like fear and low like pain, shattered and shuddering like rag scrap memories, but strong, too--like it's the one sound keeping you sane. Like it cuts out, then it's all over, and you're lost.
Dean is already lost, and he knows it. But there's just not enough air.
It burns down his throat. It burns like everything else around him.
counting prayers.
Rita sees Simon. She sees the cum on his lips and then the blood on his cheeks; she sees him lying in bed with his little stranger, then him lying face-down, plastered sticky with red slush on the linoleum in Beatty Mercantile. She sees him in his fancy old car with the windows that make air res-ist-ance and she sees him stalk and skulk and it's all over because
he's dead
(you're dying) in
one
two
three
---
How long has it been? Not so long.
four
five
Sheepskin turns to thick black smoke when it catches fire.
Smoke turns to Andrew Kimmel when he swoops down, burning. Hands claw at Dean's throat.
Air turns to panic panic panic when the first runs out and the last boils over.
(six--!)
--
Ruby grabs him again, when they're inside. Sam doesn't realize that's what it is at first, the pain in his shoulder is so sharp and the whip-around so quick.
She drags him by the shoulder when his feet fall out from under him, and he writhes like a kite-tail behind her.
There was a tire swing
seven
eight
months ago, in a park in a town with no children. Sam had never been to a park, but for
nine
ten
(when's dad coming back?)
days it was all theirs. Dean twisted it up with Sam sitting on the tire face, legs dangling through the center--twisted so much Sam was
one
two
feet off the ground, the rope all tight and contorted, looked like burrs on an oak tree. Then Dean let go and Dean jumped on and the whole world spun and never never stopped.
Like dying, it never
three
four
(make it stop, Dean!)
Dean heaves a bologna sandwich into a trash can after. Sam cries, he feels so sick, and counts the times the sky shifts and his stomach lurches even though
it's over
(you're dying)
five
six
Seven times, they get back on, spin the tire swing again. 'Til there's nothing to throw up and no one remembers a world where you can see straight or walk straight
because everything is spinning so fast
eight
(nine times, now--around and around)
You can't remember Dad hasn't been home since before Christmas. How long has it been? You can't remember that Dean's last sandwich is mush in a trashcan, and yours is mush in your pocket. What do you eat, now? You can't remember anything but the dizzy and the sick and
They're not here now. Why aren't you here now? Just Pastor Jim. Pastor Jim and a girl with a knife with a smile that bleeds over her face like it's wrong there.
Fingers curl around beads in his pocket.
ten
And then--
(Hail Mary Hail Mary Hail Mary, whispered helplessly).
--
Was this what it was like for Mom? Being the
one
person left inside.
Dean feels Andrew Kimmel's hands clamp around his throat like hot irons.
--
Two
demons. Put the pieces together, and it's the two of them. Brother and sister (and Simon Walker and the Carson City stranger and Andrew Kimmel and now Miss Jenny Gardner, too).
Have to be put down now, or it's all over. Beech Duchess skirls when she lurches; been
three
minutes, maybe. Thirty seconds, maybe. Forever, maybe.
How long, you think, before it burns to scorched steel and broken glass (with Dean inside)?
--
fourfivesix
seven
Just breathe. Breathe. It's gonna be okay.
eight
nine
ten one two what comes next?
Smoke-tears swim down his cheeks.
--
Three
four
times around the rosary, and all Sam can hear is Pastor Jim's breathing, hard like he'd run around the world (chasing a ball of yarn).
Sam is
five
years old, and he is alone.
--
It's gonna be okay.
Dean is
six
seven
years old when he accepts what life is not anywhere near okay, but sometimes he forgets. Is surprised all over again.
The plane all but shies from the flames, shudders like she can feel the heat taste the smoke hear the panic singing in Dean's everywhere, and the cargo from the back topples down around him
(eight
boxes on fire).
He strikes out wildly, tries to push them from his view. They knock Andrew Kimmel from his perch atop Dean, which is one good thing, but their weight and their bulk and their falling give Dean the impression he's being burned and buried alive. The open boxes from the top, now upturned, spill out beads, beads, more beads. Andrew Kimmel's hands around his neck are replaced by a string of beads, blue and white and he can't get them off they're all tangled up why can't he just figure this out his hands aren't working, his brain's not working.
The one clear thought that sings out clear over the chaos: They're risking their lives for these?
The plane, and the leaving Sam, and the kelpies in California, and the shitty town, and Jim Beatty, and the demons.
All of that was for...
Dean bites his lip 'til it bleeds. Hot wet billows up, like there's a fire coming out from inside him, as well.
The thought lasts only a moment. Andrew Kimmel wrenches his cardboard tomb apart, and with him comes the real fire
he's on fire.
Andrew Kimmel is on fire, skin-peelng, burnt-smelling on fire, but it's more than that.
It's like he's got
nine
faces. They shift and move, snarling, writhing, like snakes like wolves like demons. Part black smoke, another bright, tight flesh. Just pieces of color and rage and emptiness, like--
Like everything bad that had ever happened, or could happen.
Rows and rows of teeth, nine faces with eighteen eyes, all crying and raging and crazy-gone.
Dean just stares. He can hardly separate Andrew Kimmel's new (true?) face from the warping, smoking scenery all around.
His fingers fly to the beads around his neck.
Is that what Hell looks like?
--
Ten
rounds, straight into Andrew Kimmel. John doesn't bother with the heart (Kimmel's already good as dead, and bleeding out isn't going to stop what's in him, now).
The hands go first, in a small explosion of small bones and sinew. The neck (brainstem, spinal cord, anything). Tendons and ligaments, joints and nerve clusters.
Anything.
This kind of practiced assault, it's not from four years of sleeping with ghosts and putting down banshees. Comes before that. Comes before Sam, and Dean, and even Mary. It's a sharp slide to a place where nothing matters but the job; the enemy.
It's a pretty good place to be, you need to be someone's savior, not their father.
"Don't you step outside that circle," John commands, even as the plane continues to burn. It seems wrong. It seems right. And then the difference between the two ceases to exist.
With Andrew Kimmel out of the way (pitched against sheepskin somewhere, probably; bleeding spasms conducted behind a curtain of smoke), Dean squirms his way to the ground. He is singed and coughing, but receptive enough. He stays inside the fire lines.
The demon commends him, or so she says. "Even if that's the last body in the world I'd want to have. Though there are others, I suppose, who aren't so picky. Might've been worth it to see what you did. First Simon, and now Andrew, too. You keep racking up the body count like this, I'm going to start feeling ashamed of myself, for being so kind.
"You're a ruthless man, John Winchester. Be interesting to see how far you'd go." And it's that smile again. Slinks across her lips, baiting.
"See," she says, and John sees; he sees her step forward, with the same sibilance as her smile. "Humans bleed fear. Demons, we just eat it. If you ever go to Hell, you'll know--you're never afraid. If you have nothing, and no one, and no prospects for either, that's when you really lose. And you're just going through the motions 'til you realize that from there on out, it means you're always going to win, because you're not afraid of anything."
As if to prove her point, Jim starts wailing. Bouncing around Rita, who's low to the ground, unconscious of everything but trying to breathe. It's like watching Dean all over again, watching someone shaken to their core and helpless against the attack. It softens John's foundations (just a little, but enough) and he can almost feel their prospects sinking.
"What about him?" he asks. (Don't look at Rita. Don't look back.)
The demon shrugs. "Rough neighborhood. Hard to keep together if you don' fit in. Of course, what he doens't realize is he's more a demon than a human, now. People back home can't touch him, don't even recognize him. It's been a long time."
Bald understatement. "And why's it they can't see him? I can. So can my boy."
Another shrug. She stands, slack-shouldered, hands nested in the loop of Jenny Garnder's belt. "He knows things."
And so do you. Things that give her that haughty air, things that breed in her smiles and spill slick over her words. Delicously secret things.
John has one bargaining chip. "And why do you want Sam?"
"Just want to take a little sampling, that's all. You're making it out to be a bigger deal than it is, being as uncooperative as you've been."
"It's been said," John allows.
"It's a good call." She bends down next to Rita, and casts her gaze upward at John. What're you gonna do?
What can you even do?
"Just not--quite--good enough." Black smoke pours from her ears and nose and mouth, Beech Duchess in miniature. Jenny's body goes slack as the smoke departs, as though she were a bean doll, her stuffing all gone out.
Then Rita takes a deep shuddering breath, still caught in the throes of panic.
All that black smoke gets gone, and so does the panic. Trouble is, Rita's gone, too.
She kisses John, chaste on the cheek (second time, Winchester--you ever gonna buy me dinner?), then turns to Dean.
Dean looks like death, and he looks like smoke. He looks like fear, at the same time looking like he's resolved to be anything but scared. He's looking like he can't even register what's happened--or doesn't want to, maybe.
More than anything, he's looking awful, awful young.
"Don't worry, Dean-o." Enthusiastic falsetto, like a teacher or a babysitter from bygone days--not Rita at all. "It's all going to be okay."
close your lies (i).
He's little Sammy Winchester. Everybody wants him.
An airplane makes the sky rumble as it zooms out overhead, to someplace far away. It's flying so low still, the basement rattles.
Sam wants Dad.
Sam wants Dean.
And, Sam thinks, he wants Mom. He wants the Mom who had friends, who showed him off like a diaper-wearing trophy. The Mom he's seen in pictures, a little--like the one on Pastor Jim's mantle before Dad shouted at him, made him take it down; or the one in the notebook Dad keeps, and won't let anyone see. He wants the Mom he suspects they celebrate every year, November 2nd. (Dad stays in for once, though he sleeps the whole time. Dean carefully cuts the crust from Sam's dinner--peanut butter and jelly.) He wants the Mom they can't talk about, and the Mom they can't talk to.
Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary.
Sam wants the Mom who's worse than a ghost--she is a complete and utter stranger. Because after all, she is only as far away as the rest of his family. (If that's what they are. You keep your brother close, Dad tells Dean, before he drives out to far-off nowhere. And then Dad takes Dean, too.)
Ruby shakes him like she knows his mind's gone someplace Not Here, and sends a shudder of force all down his body. It makes his bones hum, same way he felt hanging onto that upturned shopping cart, waiting for the dust to settle and telling Dean he hated, hated, hated him. Sam'd never been so scared in his life--at least 'til now.
If that's what they are. They're not here now.
Hail Mary Hail Mary Hail Mary.
Sam is done.
Ruby only has eyes for Pastor Jim. She's taunting him, in a way Sam thought was only Dean's--his and Dean's. Seems wrong. Maybe; vaguely.
Doesn't matter.
Sam's just done.
Ruby shakes him again, like he's a toy she wants Pastor Jim to fetch.
Sam whips the rosary into her face with as much sting and fury and upset as he can muster. Ruby snarls, unforgiving of his interruption--drops him as quick as the slap of beads. And Pastor Jim bolts, all but throws himself at the electric switches.
All the lights go out. It's dark, like the attic.
When they come on again, it's a cooler light, almost blue. Phosphorescent. It's got shadows painting a funny circle around Ruby's feet, from which Sam hastily slithers, like a discarded newt-tail. He doesn't need Pastor Jim shouting at him to do that.
When next he looks up--to look at Ruby, to look for Pastor Jim, somewhere in the black-and-blue bruised shadows--what he sees isn't real.
It can't be.
Stop looking at that book and go to sleep, Dean says, with a gun in his hands and a look in his eyes like he's primed to watch the sun come up. Nothin' to be afraid of.
Gimme that.
See, look. Says it's a tailypo. Real things don't have dumb names like that; just a dog, is all. So stop getting into Dad's stuff and sleep already, Curious George.
It's gonna be okay.
Back to real time--Pastor Jim's basement begs to differ. Might-be-Ruby's hurling curses and condemnations with a cold measured fury. They stick heavy in the air and her face and her arms and her body billow out, vacuum in--she is a thousand things and she is nothing and for Sam, she is proof:
His big brother lied.
Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 + a/n | Full Story (.PDF) | Artwork by starry_ice
fear (iv).
Andrew Kimmel's got Dean under his arm, slung loose against his hip. John knows Dean's alive by the soft moan he makes as he's dropped to the ground.
Andrew Kimmel is different than what was inside Simon Walker--hasn't got sex sluicing off him. Just bare wire and jagged edges. "On time for once, Winchester--early, yet. I get the impression that ain't true too often. Should I be worried?" He knows a trap's waiting; just doesn't know where. But he's walking easy.
"We're meeting here on your terms; you start this off right, and you give me my boy." John feels like he should have a pistol level with Andrew Kimmel's head. Knows this is a different kind of evil. Still feels naked.
Andrew Kimmel is in his element. "You're not going to come get him?"
John won't be baited. No more than he already has been, he amends.
"Go on, Dean. Crawl over to your daddy."
John can see Dean has no intention of doing anything of the sort. Stay put, John. Don't coddle our boys.
John swallows, then speaks: "Plane's got a thing called a black box, logs where it's been. Box'll take you back to the airstrip we set out from. It'll take you to Sam."
Dean shudders. That boy's gonna be furious with you, Winchester.
Andrew Kimmel's not sure he should believe him.
"You can trust my word or you can trust my science. Don't know you put much stock in either, but I can tell you--box isn't near so creative, it starts thinking about ways to end you."
Andrew Kimmel's not moving so easy anymore. Decisions, decisions. He paces about, vulture-like, circling Dean (Dean is drawn up now, almost sitting. Keeps still like he's hurting somewhere). He must wonder where his partner's gone.
John thinks about Rita's beau and the stranger in bed. He'd nearly forgotten Rita. He turns to her now, but she is quiet. Just staring at Kimmel 'cause she's not sure what to make of that. She's no longer so thoughtlessly brave as to rush over to Dean. He thinks about a certain Jim Beatty and a certain street and a certain Miss Jenny Gardner and a certain assault arrest and he thinks, maybe she would've. A day ago, maybe she would've.
"You show me the box." Pace, circle. Panic. Didn't think demons did that.
"Check the plane yourself. It's actually orange-colored, that helps you any."
Kimmel shakes his head, no. No. Wants John to bring it out. Show me, he says. You give it to me.
Dean has collected himself as well as can be expected. Ready to split, if John gives him the go-ahead. Stay put. It'd be like running from a mastiff, got you already in its jaws. John gestures pointedly at his son. "And why would I do that?"
Pause. Shift. More pacing. Nothing like Simon. "Not used to working alone?" says John.
Too far. Andrew Kimmel yanks Dean up by the collar, and Dean makes a sound like three kinds of pain. Rita starts, but doesn't move beyond that.
Andrew Kimmel throws ragdoll Dean to the back of Beech Duchess and begins to gut the plane. He finds two things, easy enough. The first is a bright, orange thing inside (John's not even sure it's got the information--radio's clearly shot; black box was probably never tested against interference from Hell). The second is the Devil's Trap, outside. He finds that the dark spilling out under the plane isn't all shadows. And he stares, registers its meaning slow, like he's sifting through the fine print.
"Son of a bitch." Mild disbelief.
Too young, thinks John. Far too young, if he didn't see that coming. Maybe another decade or two. Andrew Kimmel snarls, lupine. John gives him a look, says You try anything, and I will leave you to rot. Imagine how long that trap's gonna last, in the bare stillness. Rain don't wash that away too quickly.
(The shower smelled like gasoline for a week.)
Andrew Kimmel regains his composure somewhat. Taunts. "Think this'll hold me, Winchester? Four years a hunter, against a millenia a demon--seniority rules."
"Four months topside?"--Rita. She's putting two with two, a manner to a body, a demon to a nightmare. If 'Winchester' threw her off from Richard Fainall, she doesn't care enough to make a scene of it. Her attention's all on Andrew Kimmel. "Been here since April, if I had to guess."
"Four months, two skins, and seven states," Andrew Kimmel allows. "Thirteen deaths and twice as many fucks, and nobody noticed a whit. 'Cept for you--sorry, doll.
"So you know what? Go ahead and leave me, Winchester; I've got plenty of time. There's nowhere I can't follow. I will find you. Easy enough to track you down--even snipped you right out of the air, not too long ago."
John doesn't take kindly to feeling hunted. "Had a sudden notion a hunter'd be flying out over Nellis, did you?"
"Call it serendipity, it makes you sleep easier. But I think you'd be surprised just how many of our number are cutting our teeth on Americana. And we're all looking for you; and the only thing working in your favor? Demons don't do teamwork. I've got my one, and even that gets crowded.
"Hell of a lot on your plate, Winchester. Pun unintended."
John ignores him. "I send you down, how long you think it'll take you to crawl back up?"
"You wouldn't."
That's where he's wrong. It comes to this fight, nothing is off limits. "Where you think I put your partner?"
"You'd be sorry if you did. Your wife--Mary, right? Not a soul alive knows more about pretty Mary Campbell than my sister. Do you some good, to talk a little. It's not a sin." Andrew Kimmel grins. "If you got the time. But see. You don't." Two, three seconds, and Andrew Kimmel's hugged snugly between the back passenger seats, Dean's renewed outbursts muffled beneath him. "You let me out, or I kill your boy.
"Don't worry; I'll let you watch."
They were ever gonna kill him, Dean'd be dead already. John knows this. Or the thinks he does. He's fairly certain. Rita's not so sure, if the way her eyes are juggling the demon and Dean, and John. Saccadic motion (and maybe they're asleep, and it's a bad dream, after all).
Finally, he draws Dean's gun. Says, "Try me."
--
Try me.
She can't see him, but she swears to God Dean wilts. It's like a charge goes out of the air.
If he didn't want you getting into trouble, he'd be here watchin' you, right?
But she has to trust Richard Fainall (or Winchester, perhaps; no one's what they say they are) as far as his business stretches. His boy and his demon and his little orange black box are on him.
Of course, some things are still on her.
Rumble in the ground and the screech of sirens breaks the biting concentration with which might-be-Fainall and definitely-ain't-Kimmel regard each other. Patriotic smattering of color in the distance. Headlights flood their operation, paint the satanic markings under Fainall's plane in harsh relief. Jenny Gardner steps out, says there's more on the way, says it's over. Hands on the ground, no sudden movement.
Fainall slams Rita with a hard glare full of questions and accusation. What the fuck did you do?
"What the hell you think you're doing!" He grabs her by the wrist, pulls her facing him. So close she can see the chap of his lips, taste the vitriol he spits in her face. "You stupid--" Stops. Gives her a jangling shake instead. Furious whisper, like wind 'round mountains. "I tell you there's something going 'round isn't human, and you call her? What'd you think she was gonna do? You think he's gonna get cuffed and processed, calm like that?"
She doesn't know what she was thinking. I'm afraid of you, is what she was thinking. Still afraid of you. Rita's never seen someone so overtaken by fury--and that's every bar brawl she's ever split, every bad night she's bit with (air res-ist-tance) Simon Walker.
Lean to his eyes is feral.
Lean to his eyes is terrified. "What the fuck did you--"
"Hey!" Sharp chirp. "Give a lady a little respect," say Jenny, cutting between them. "Shoulda known you were trouble, Richard Fainall. Just can't stay away, huh?" She lights a Darium Black, releases the first plume of smoke into Fainall's face with a smack of her lips.
Rita hasn't ever known her to smoke.
"Wasn't appendicitis, you know. That killed Mrs. Clarisse Fainall. You ever heard of an Indonesian stomach curse?" And she's standing so close, she'd be atop, were she able. She steps back abruptly, and turns to the plane and the trap and the demon and Dean. Lets the clove slip from her fingers, fall to the ground (and maybe that's surprise).
Snaps her fingers. Whole ring goes up in flames, and much else besides. And Rita's certain it's not. Surprise, that is. Some part of her isn't all too shocked, either.
Jenny turns on them, her eyes full-black. Fucking day is going to hell.
"Plane's a lot smaller than a house, Winchester. You remember your house? Two stories. Tidy garden. Even-handed mortgage and two-thousand down payment. Shame the nursery went first--new white paint. Nice big house to start your little domestic fantasy. It burned to smoke and mirrors in forty-seven minutes.
"How long you think it'll take to gut the plane? But then. Your boy'd asphyxiate first, wouldn't he."
Richard Fainall-Winchester isn't seething any longer--just bruised, and for a second, dead lost. Looks a lot like his boy when Rita watched him leave the diner. (Right into the Devil's arms--you let him walk right in.)
Then he's still again. Gunpoint doesn't waver.
"John." Mock exasperation. "Don't point that at me again. I let you rip poor Simon all to pieces, but I think it's in both our interests not to do that again." She cups her breasts. "Jenny's getting married this December."
Try me. Wordless this time, but no less distinct.
Hell-ain't-Jenny turns on Rita. You'd let him waste me, she accuses. Called me out here to die, and you knew it. Did you see what he did to poor old Simon Walker? You saw what was left of him, I'm sure. Pretty little thing. I prefer something a little finer, generally. More curves; less cock. That sort of thing.
Just keeps running her mouth, doesn't relent. "--swear I could feel him weep, every time I put his dick in something new. Because you know, it was the damnest thing. I could swear! He really loved you."
Hell-ain't-Jenny is buzzing with gleeful malice. Place is burning--and maybe Dean, too; she can't see. Richard Fainall's gonna shoot.
"And Rita." Smile, sway, seduction. "He's real sorry." It comes out like a laugh, and something in Rita rips. She feels a cool breath at her nape.
--
Old Jim'd been gone just long enough to be forgotten. But John sees him now, sees him behind Rita. Collapses on her like he's seeking comfort.
Fuck. Fuck.
John can see the end, suddenly. Bright and clear. End doesn't feature anyone but Jenny Gardner (who isn't even Jenny Gardner anymore). Rita drops like autumn, quick and cool and terrified.
Sun's gone now.
Fire's going strong.
--
That's what he missed. That night, that's what he missed.
Dean hadn't heard his mother scream. He remembers that night in pieces, with memories like rag scraps. One is scorching red; another, the sound of his father's orders alwayslistenalwayslisten. The last is just pain--pain in in his hands and arms and elbows, because it's hot and he's lost and Sammy is heavy and Dad is scared.
He doesn't remember Mom being there at all.
But then, it always was her not being that was problematic about that night. (He is lying in bed, riding out the last of the sudden panic that comes with waking from nightmares. He thinks he should call out for her, or snuggle into bed. He knows Dad is on the couch again, tonight. He also knows he won't do either, because he is four, and four is big enough to know it's gonna be okay, come morning. It's all gonna be okay.)
He would have remembered her scream. He knows it.
It would've sounded just like Rita's, now. Would've sounded high like fear and low like pain, shattered and shuddering like rag scrap memories, but strong, too--like it's the one sound keeping you sane. Like it cuts out, then it's all over, and you're lost.
Dean is already lost, and he knows it. But there's just not enough air.
It burns down his throat. It burns like everything else around him.
counting prayers.
Rita sees Simon. She sees the cum on his lips and then the blood on his cheeks; she sees him lying in bed with his little stranger, then him lying face-down, plastered sticky with red slush on the linoleum in Beatty Mercantile. She sees him in his fancy old car with the windows that make air res-ist-ance and she sees him stalk and skulk and it's all over because
he's dead
(you're dying) in
one
two
three
---
How long has it been? Not so long.
four
five
Sheepskin turns to thick black smoke when it catches fire.
Smoke turns to Andrew Kimmel when he swoops down, burning. Hands claw at Dean's throat.
Air turns to panic panic panic when the first runs out and the last boils over.
(six--!)
--
Ruby grabs him again, when they're inside. Sam doesn't realize that's what it is at first, the pain in his shoulder is so sharp and the whip-around so quick.
She drags him by the shoulder when his feet fall out from under him, and he writhes like a kite-tail behind her.
There was a tire swing
seven
eight
months ago, in a park in a town with no children. Sam had never been to a park, but for
nine
ten
(when's dad coming back?)
days it was all theirs. Dean twisted it up with Sam sitting on the tire face, legs dangling through the center--twisted so much Sam was
one
two
feet off the ground, the rope all tight and contorted, looked like burrs on an oak tree. Then Dean let go and Dean jumped on and the whole world spun and never never stopped.
Like dying, it never
three
four
(make it stop, Dean!)
Dean heaves a bologna sandwich into a trash can after. Sam cries, he feels so sick, and counts the times the sky shifts and his stomach lurches even though
it's over
(you're dying)
five
six
Seven times, they get back on, spin the tire swing again. 'Til there's nothing to throw up and no one remembers a world where you can see straight or walk straight
because everything is spinning so fast
eight
(nine times, now--around and around)
You can't remember Dad hasn't been home since before Christmas. How long has it been? You can't remember that Dean's last sandwich is mush in a trashcan, and yours is mush in your pocket. What do you eat, now? You can't remember anything but the dizzy and the sick and
They're not here now. Why aren't you here now? Just Pastor Jim. Pastor Jim and a girl with a knife with a smile that bleeds over her face like it's wrong there.
Fingers curl around beads in his pocket.
ten
And then--
(Hail Mary Hail Mary Hail Mary, whispered helplessly).
--
Was this what it was like for Mom? Being the
one
person left inside.
Dean feels Andrew Kimmel's hands clamp around his throat like hot irons.
--
Two
demons. Put the pieces together, and it's the two of them. Brother and sister (and Simon Walker and the Carson City stranger and Andrew Kimmel and now Miss Jenny Gardner, too).
Have to be put down now, or it's all over. Beech Duchess skirls when she lurches; been
three
minutes, maybe. Thirty seconds, maybe. Forever, maybe.
How long, you think, before it burns to scorched steel and broken glass (with Dean inside)?
--
fourfivesix
seven
Just breathe. Breathe. It's gonna be okay.
eight
nine
ten one two what comes next?
Smoke-tears swim down his cheeks.
--
Three
four
times around the rosary, and all Sam can hear is Pastor Jim's breathing, hard like he'd run around the world (chasing a ball of yarn).
Sam is
five
years old, and he is alone.
--
It's gonna be okay.
Dean is
six
seven
years old when he accepts what life is not anywhere near okay, but sometimes he forgets. Is surprised all over again.
The plane all but shies from the flames, shudders like she can feel the heat taste the smoke hear the panic singing in Dean's everywhere, and the cargo from the back topples down around him
(eight
boxes on fire).
He strikes out wildly, tries to push them from his view. They knock Andrew Kimmel from his perch atop Dean, which is one good thing, but their weight and their bulk and their falling give Dean the impression he's being burned and buried alive. The open boxes from the top, now upturned, spill out beads, beads, more beads. Andrew Kimmel's hands around his neck are replaced by a string of beads, blue and white and he can't get them off they're all tangled up why can't he just figure this out his hands aren't working, his brain's not working.
The one clear thought that sings out clear over the chaos: They're risking their lives for these?
The plane, and the leaving Sam, and the kelpies in California, and the shitty town, and Jim Beatty, and the demons.
All of that was for...
Dean bites his lip 'til it bleeds. Hot wet billows up, like there's a fire coming out from inside him, as well.
The thought lasts only a moment. Andrew Kimmel wrenches his cardboard tomb apart, and with him comes the real fire
he's on fire.
Andrew Kimmel is on fire, skin-peelng, burnt-smelling on fire, but it's more than that.
It's like he's got
nine
faces. They shift and move, snarling, writhing, like snakes like wolves like demons. Part black smoke, another bright, tight flesh. Just pieces of color and rage and emptiness, like--
Like everything bad that had ever happened, or could happen.
Rows and rows of teeth, nine faces with eighteen eyes, all crying and raging and crazy-gone.
Dean just stares. He can hardly separate Andrew Kimmel's new (true?) face from the warping, smoking scenery all around.
His fingers fly to the beads around his neck.
Is that what Hell looks like?
--
Ten
rounds, straight into Andrew Kimmel. John doesn't bother with the heart (Kimmel's already good as dead, and bleeding out isn't going to stop what's in him, now).
The hands go first, in a small explosion of small bones and sinew. The neck (brainstem, spinal cord, anything). Tendons and ligaments, joints and nerve clusters.
Anything.
This kind of practiced assault, it's not from four years of sleeping with ghosts and putting down banshees. Comes before that. Comes before Sam, and Dean, and even Mary. It's a sharp slide to a place where nothing matters but the job; the enemy.
It's a pretty good place to be, you need to be someone's savior, not their father.
"Don't you step outside that circle," John commands, even as the plane continues to burn. It seems wrong. It seems right. And then the difference between the two ceases to exist.
With Andrew Kimmel out of the way (pitched against sheepskin somewhere, probably; bleeding spasms conducted behind a curtain of smoke), Dean squirms his way to the ground. He is singed and coughing, but receptive enough. He stays inside the fire lines.
The demon commends him, or so she says. "Even if that's the last body in the world I'd want to have. Though there are others, I suppose, who aren't so picky. Might've been worth it to see what you did. First Simon, and now Andrew, too. You keep racking up the body count like this, I'm going to start feeling ashamed of myself, for being so kind.
"You're a ruthless man, John Winchester. Be interesting to see how far you'd go." And it's that smile again. Slinks across her lips, baiting.
"See," she says, and John sees; he sees her step forward, with the same sibilance as her smile. "Humans bleed fear. Demons, we just eat it. If you ever go to Hell, you'll know--you're never afraid. If you have nothing, and no one, and no prospects for either, that's when you really lose. And you're just going through the motions 'til you realize that from there on out, it means you're always going to win, because you're not afraid of anything."
As if to prove her point, Jim starts wailing. Bouncing around Rita, who's low to the ground, unconscious of everything but trying to breathe. It's like watching Dean all over again, watching someone shaken to their core and helpless against the attack. It softens John's foundations (just a little, but enough) and he can almost feel their prospects sinking.
"What about him?" he asks. (Don't look at Rita. Don't look back.)
The demon shrugs. "Rough neighborhood. Hard to keep together if you don' fit in. Of course, what he doens't realize is he's more a demon than a human, now. People back home can't touch him, don't even recognize him. It's been a long time."
Bald understatement. "And why's it they can't see him? I can. So can my boy."
Another shrug. She stands, slack-shouldered, hands nested in the loop of Jenny Garnder's belt. "He knows things."
And so do you. Things that give her that haughty air, things that breed in her smiles and spill slick over her words. Delicously secret things.
John has one bargaining chip. "And why do you want Sam?"
"Just want to take a little sampling, that's all. You're making it out to be a bigger deal than it is, being as uncooperative as you've been."
"It's been said," John allows.
"It's a good call." She bends down next to Rita, and casts her gaze upward at John. What're you gonna do?
What can you even do?
"Just not--quite--good enough." Black smoke pours from her ears and nose and mouth, Beech Duchess in miniature. Jenny's body goes slack as the smoke departs, as though she were a bean doll, her stuffing all gone out.
Then Rita takes a deep shuddering breath, still caught in the throes of panic.
All that black smoke gets gone, and so does the panic. Trouble is, Rita's gone, too.
She kisses John, chaste on the cheek (second time, Winchester--you ever gonna buy me dinner?), then turns to Dean.
Dean looks like death, and he looks like smoke. He looks like fear, at the same time looking like he's resolved to be anything but scared. He's looking like he can't even register what's happened--or doesn't want to, maybe.
More than anything, he's looking awful, awful young.
"Don't worry, Dean-o." Enthusiastic falsetto, like a teacher or a babysitter from bygone days--not Rita at all. "It's all going to be okay."
close your lies (i).
He's little Sammy Winchester. Everybody wants him.
An airplane makes the sky rumble as it zooms out overhead, to someplace far away. It's flying so low still, the basement rattles.
Sam wants Dad.
Sam wants Dean.
And, Sam thinks, he wants Mom. He wants the Mom who had friends, who showed him off like a diaper-wearing trophy. The Mom he's seen in pictures, a little--like the one on Pastor Jim's mantle before Dad shouted at him, made him take it down; or the one in the notebook Dad keeps, and won't let anyone see. He wants the Mom he suspects they celebrate every year, November 2nd. (Dad stays in for once, though he sleeps the whole time. Dean carefully cuts the crust from Sam's dinner--peanut butter and jelly.) He wants the Mom they can't talk about, and the Mom they can't talk to.
Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary.
Sam wants the Mom who's worse than a ghost--she is a complete and utter stranger. Because after all, she is only as far away as the rest of his family. (If that's what they are. You keep your brother close, Dad tells Dean, before he drives out to far-off nowhere. And then Dad takes Dean, too.)
Ruby shakes him like she knows his mind's gone someplace Not Here, and sends a shudder of force all down his body. It makes his bones hum, same way he felt hanging onto that upturned shopping cart, waiting for the dust to settle and telling Dean he hated, hated, hated him. Sam'd never been so scared in his life--at least 'til now.
If that's what they are. They're not here now.
Hail Mary Hail Mary Hail Mary.
Sam is done.
Ruby only has eyes for Pastor Jim. She's taunting him, in a way Sam thought was only Dean's--his and Dean's. Seems wrong. Maybe; vaguely.
Doesn't matter.
Sam's just done.
Ruby shakes him again, like he's a toy she wants Pastor Jim to fetch.
Sam whips the rosary into her face with as much sting and fury and upset as he can muster. Ruby snarls, unforgiving of his interruption--drops him as quick as the slap of beads. And Pastor Jim bolts, all but throws himself at the electric switches.
All the lights go out. It's dark, like the attic.
When they come on again, it's a cooler light, almost blue. Phosphorescent. It's got shadows painting a funny circle around Ruby's feet, from which Sam hastily slithers, like a discarded newt-tail. He doesn't need Pastor Jim shouting at him to do that.
When next he looks up--to look at Ruby, to look for Pastor Jim, somewhere in the black-and-blue bruised shadows--what he sees isn't real.
It can't be.
Stop looking at that book and go to sleep, Dean says, with a gun in his hands and a look in his eyes like he's primed to watch the sun come up. Nothin' to be afraid of.
Gimme that.
See, look. Says it's a tailypo. Real things don't have dumb names like that; just a dog, is all. So stop getting into Dad's stuff and sleep already, Curious George.
It's gonna be okay.
Back to real time--Pastor Jim's basement begs to differ. Might-be-Ruby's hurling curses and condemnations with a cold measured fury. They stick heavy in the air and her face and her arms and her body billow out, vacuum in--she is a thousand things and she is nothing and for Sam, she is proof:
His big brother lied.
Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 + a/n | Full Story (.PDF) | Artwork by starry_ice