Tracks in the Snow are All I Have Left
Title: Tracks in the Snow are All I Have Left
Author: dontmembersam
Pairings/characters: Sam/Dean
Rating: Bare R, mostly from intimations
Warnings: Angst, heavy angst
Third season spoilers: None
Canon: Past any existing episodes, some months before Dean’s deal comes due
Disclaimers: I have no rights to the actors, the characters or Supernatural in any way. Nor am I reaping any financial benefits from this story. It is pure (twisted) imagination on my part.
Words: 2,006
Unbeta’d so all mistakes are mine (except the grammar ones, they’re Sam’s. I love first-person POV)
P.S. If your brain starts trying to read this faster than you think it should, just go with it. It’s supposed to. This is something different for me so feedback would be wonderful.
Yukon Territory, deep into the winter
It’s been eight months and I’m running slower, but I’m moving. I’m maybe two, maybe three miles behind Dean now. He’s going slower, too, but still with more speed than my worn out body can manage. Why, even after all this time, why keeps running through my head, cycling in a never-ending chain strangling my heart and stealing my breath.
Eight months-240 days-a thousand times why. Why did my brother leave me in that motel? Why did he leave, but mostly, why there? Why didn’t he trust me? If there’s some kind of danger I should be at his side, not chasing his shadow, panicking at even the slightest hint that I’ve lost him.
Tracks in the snow are my only lifeline now. A line I’m grasping with ever growing desperation. If this journal begins to sound disjointed at times, bear with me. Some I write as I huddle around or in or under whatever shelter I can find. Most, though, I’m penning from memory at the end of days.
I wonder sometimes if it matters, but if we, neither of us, leave this forest alive than at least those few friends that stood by us won’t come looking to join us.
I’m deep in the Canadian wilderness now; I haven’t heard or seen a human soul in days. But there are other sounds out there in the darkness. Some I recognize and some I wish I didn’t. Seems demons don’t pay much attention to borders and I’m running out of salt.
The wolves are getting bolder, too, venturing closer to the fire every night. One in particular keeps reappearing; a huge female with reddish-brown fur, at least it looks that color in the sputtering flames. She stands apart from the rest, seeming to just…watch as she circles my fire.
It doesn’t matter. As long as they stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of theirs. I just want my brother back. Besides, when the wolves are near, the demons aren’t. Makes sense, I guess, since wolves were sent to protect man from Legion.
I have to laugh at the irony. We’ve nearly wiped out one of the few species that might have been willing to join the war. On second thought, it’s just too fucking sad. I’m going to sleep now that the sun is rising; the scant hours of pre-dawn to total rise are the only safe ones anymore…I don’t know why.
***
I have him! Dean. He’s is asleep in my arms. He’s different, not the man he was when he left me, but I don’t fucking care and I shout it to the world, vowing to destroy anyone and anything that tries to take him away from me.
***
I’d finally gotten close enough that the blood spotting Dean’s tracks was still fresh. I staggered up a last rise and my heart stopped. Dean. No, it wasn’t. A man, but not Dean. This man stood alone, naked and still in the snow.
His path, tracked from the opposite direction, led from where Dean’s ended, the footprints deepening and then smeared, as if he had been carrying something before he’d turned and re-walked the same steps. To wait. That was enough for me.
I was tired, too exhausted to think, no fight left. Dean had led me here. For some reason only he knew. The fights, all the furious battles for the right to choose my own path…none of it mattered anymore.
I dropped my pack, swung the rifle’s strap over my head, and started down the hill. To Dean. Weak from hunger, unarmed; I went into that cave as helpless as the day I was born. I didn’t even flinch as my arms were taken in an unbreakable grip.
Silhouetted in the firelight were men and women, interspersed with wolves of all sizes and colors. And they were all staring at Dean. Dean, God, I think my heart actually stopped.
He was on his knees, his arms bent back over a thick branch held by two huge, hirsute men. Some kind of bit was caught between his teeth, forcing his mouth wide. The corners were ripped from rough rubbing, his lips dry and cracked.
His bared chest was covered by vicious scratches, bites, and other marks I couldn’t identify. Twigs and leaves decorated his matted hair. He was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
I sagged in the grip of my captors, letting them take the weight. I was so fucking tired of it. Dean was struggling to get to me, at least that’s what I wanted to believe. It’d been so long since my hands had touched him, since my lips have soothed the heat between us. I needed.
I begged, no pride left, all burned away with the freezing loneliness. Please let me. Just let me. I must have been more pathetic than I thought. Pitying, they dragged me, legs scraping along in the dirt. I don’t care, I don’t…Dean.
My arms were on him, sliding under the bar and around, pressing my thin form tight to his battered chest. The bit fell away, was taken away. I gave him the little spit I had left, laving the cracks in his lips, pulling in the scent-his scent-as his breath ghosted into my open mouth. I’m home, no matter what happens from here, I’ve come home.
The men pulled the branch free, allowing me to cradle Dean in my lap, but not stepping away. Oh, his hands; they were raw, the flesh ripped, skin almost gone. I’d seen over his shoulder…his feet were the same. What had they done to him?
I couldn’t tear myself away from Dean, nothing, not these people, not Dean’s own fear, not an inch of air would come between us again. The voice rolled over me, asking…nonsense.
I was not his master and he was never a possession to be ‘given’ to me. Who were these people that they dared treat my brother like this? Didn’t they know he was my world? My protector. My lover and beloved.
Again the question, “Will you master him?”
He’s not a fucking slave! Let him go. I’ll take him away. You’ll never see us again.
They ignored me, she asked again.
“Will you master him?”
Dean’s body vibrated under my hands, his trembling grew worse every time I refused, denied…alright, alright, I screamed, I’ll master him. I’ll do anything for him. I’ll die for him, die without you, Dean.
“Take him, then, and do not let your love destroy him.”
They faded. I stared right at them and they just…faded away. What are they? Where are they? A soft whimper. I looked at him, at Dean. His eyes so bright now, so different from the haunted terror he could never hide from me. His hands caressed my face, fingers marking me in blood as they… His blood. Mine. Dean.
***
Dean. How many times can I say it before I believe it’s real? Dean. He won’t answer. Not with my name, not now, but I hear it. I feel it as his strength cushions me from the night and the cold. I bury my face in his warm belly and pray.
His skin shivers as my tiny words tickle, but never pulls away, never leaves, never out of my sight. He’s known my fears; too well and for too long they were his own. My tongue fights through to trace the scars that never disappear.
My legs wrap him in my own strength-my gift-never refused. He growls as I take his seed, screaming from his thrusts. Can they hear us, my saviors? Do they smile at what they’ve done, sing with me, laugh to hear the absolute joy in my cries?
***
The battle raged for days, one side and then the other claiming victory only to feel the attacks begin again. How many times did I clutch at Dean, demanding he stay with me, not give in, not go into the fire? I lost track after a dozen passed. My heart shattered every time his body convulsed, terrified it would be the last…but always, always he followed my voice through the agony. Returned.
It’s silent, now, or at least to me it is. The screeching howls, snarling and tearing flesh and damned flesh alike. Maybe I just don’t want to hear anymore. Pristine ground torn and defiled. I stand. It is. It is quiet again, the forest is sounding almost normal.
The blood should draw flies; pull the scavengers from their dens and burrows. It stains the snow, ignored. Nothing here is that desperate or disrespectful. How did they leave so much blood and no bodies? I don’t know and I don’t care. It never happened.
It. The flames shivving the sky. Never. The Celtic crosses carved to the four winds. No. The howling that tears at my heart and soul. Yes. It. did. Happen. This is the last entry. I’m sure it will be. If they don’t come ba…no, they will.
There; I can see them, the few left, lined on the ridge above. I knew they’d return. He’s with them again. The price for their help, payment for the deaths. They’re waiting. Do they really believe I have a choice? Dean didn’t. He doesn’t. He’s coming for me.
I’m done now. It’s over. I won’t be coming back, not for a long time…maybe never. We’ve beaten it. Dean’s free and I’m not. Thank God, I’m not. I take it, the burden I’ll never refuse. Mine. Warm and alive and deadly. Mine. Dean.
***
This is for you now, Bobby. I’ve made sure it will reach you before it’s too late.
We can see the clouds gathering, Bobby. See them clearer from here than you can. Give them to us. Send them to the wolves. I wait at their side, Dean at mine, comfort in his silent presence.
The war’s not over for us…not yet. We’re here. Waiting.
Hell, maybe we’ll come to you.
The end
This was based on an Algonquin legend my Acadian Grandma told me:
A man and his brother were the last; the battle had taken everyone else in their tribe and was turning against them. The man was dealt a mortal blow, but he refused to die and leave his brother alone. He dragged his dying body to Eagle and begged a new life, offering anything if he could just stay with his brother. Eagle said it was not his place to decide Bear’s hand, so the man crawled to Bear and repeated his plea, again offering anything. Bear was offended that anyone dared doubt him, so he agreed. He took the man’s skin, leaving him raw and bleeding in the snow, but unable to die.
The man’s brother tracked him for months and years, following the trail of blood until he finally collapsed next to the man, breathing his last into the man’s mouth. The man’s heartbroken howls drew Wolf. They touched her as no human had done before. Never fearing Bear as the others did, Wolf challenged him. Their battle raged across days, darkening the sky and ripping trees from the mountain. Finally Bear made his mistake; he killed Wolf’s mate.
Enraged, Wolf tore Bear to pieces and scattered his pelt to the four winds. Then, taken by the brothers’ devotion to each other, her own heart broken and bleeding, Wolf lay down over the man, pressed her mouth to the brother’s and offered her life to Eagle.
From that day, any who traveled through that mountain could ask and their journey would end safely. Asked how they came through, they’d answer, “We don’t know, but every morning two sets of tracks circled our camp.”
My Grandma says her Grandmother swore to her dying day that she’d seen them running through the forest by her home; the brother strong from Wolf’s gift of life and the man by his side, head pressed to his brother’s hip, proudly wearing Wolf’s gifted skin.
Just thought I’d share this, ‘cause it always made me smile, no matter how many times I heard it. (I think my brother and I probably spent years trying to see them before we grew up and moved away) Growing up sucks.