SPN Fic: The only light we'll see (Gen, preseries, PG-13)
Title: The only light we'll see
Author: dotfic
Rating: Gen, PG-13, futurefic & preseries
Warning: ( skip) character death
W/C: 7,500
Disclaimer: I'm sure I owe apologies to various somebodies.
a/n: Coda, of sorts, for the flashback portions of 4x13. Thank you to deirdre_c and pheebs1 for their Winchester-fu and beta skills and cheerleading, and marinarusalka for being scientific.
Summary: In the summer of 1998, two brothers set out to find to find a dead body.
It was harder than it had been three weeks ago to take those stairs. They'd always been narrow, the steps high, yet Sam didn't used to have to grip the wooden railing so fiercely, or pause for breath halfway up. Three weeks ago, a lot of things hadn't seemed as difficult as they felt now, when lifting a shotgun ceased to be an easy motion, free of ache or strain. Sam leaned against the wall of the garage, halfway up to the door leading to his office, and paused with the sun hot on his face and shoulders. He looked towards the lawn, where a brown-haired boy with gangly legs and arms showed a smaller girl how to do a roundhouse kick. The girl kept falling on her butt, and the boy kept laughing, face breaking into a challenging smile that made Sam's chest hurt.
He continued, trailing his fingers over the sigils carved lightly into the side of the building. Dean had put those in place himself twenty years ago while Sam had watched from below, correcting his technique and calling up suggestions. Finally Dean had told him to go screw himself and to let him finish in peace, both of them aware that Dean knew exactly how to carve the protections, and that Sam knew it.
Three weeks ago, Sam could walk past those marks without hesitation, without noting them.
Inside his office, it was cool even without turning on the A/C, the shade of the trees making it dim inside. Sam flicked on a lamp and sat down at the desk in front of the window, the slats of the blinds throwing lines of light over him, onto the bare wood floors. He closed them, then opened the laptop, hit the touch-screen, and brought up the document he wanted.
Sam had read the obituary a hundred times, looked at the outdated, decades-old picture used for it, rolled the lines of text over in his mind. There was very little there, not nearly enough, not by a long shot, but his family still had their secrets to keep.
He flicked the screen away from the obit and pulled up a blank document instead.
Three weeks ago, his fingers hadn't trembled when they poised over the touch-pad keyboard. Three weeks ago, he hadn't started having old nightmares again.
It always ends bloody or sad, Dean had told him once.
"No, it doesn't," Sam said aloud, into the silence of the room, over the faint burring of the cicadas outside. He felt his mouth twitch into a smile, and two weeks ago that wouldn't have hurt. "Not always, you son of a bitch."
Sometimes it ended at the age of eighty-seven with a heart-attack at home, and a large gathering at the funeral. It was the final flipped-up middle finger to every dark thing that'd tried to take them out one way or another over the decades.
He put the screen back on the obit again, stared at it until the words began to blur, then blinked and switched to the blank document. His fingers were steady when he started to tap them on the pad.
Cottage Grove, OR
Summer 1998
There's a step behind Sam on the porch, but he doesn't turn around. He feels the floorboard move with his brother's weight.
"Hey," Dean says. He sits down, then tugs on the leg of Sam's jeans so he's forced to sit down on the porch step too. "Dad's fine."
Lately Sam's starting to see things in Dean he couldn't before. Like now, the way Dean's palm rubs along the leg of his jeans, how his finger catches in the frayed patch and fidgets there. The worry radiates from him on a clear enough frequency, even though Dean's face doesn't look scared, only a little too pale in the blue glow of the bug zapper, his freckles dark.
Sam turns away from Dean and stares out into the Oregon night that's full of thick green woods and the sound of buzzing insects.
Everything would be okay now, sure. They both know the procedures as well as Sam knows three-quarters of all of Shakespeare's sonnets and Dean knows the track order on every album Zeppelin ever put out--no, they know this better. Dad's inside on the couch, comfortably full of painkillers, leg propped up. Piece of cake.
"It wasn't the poltergeist that did this to Dad," Dean says. "That house was freakin' old and the floorboards were rotted." His hand rubs against his jeans again. "I wanted to go with him but you heard him. There's no arguing with him when he sounds like that."
Sam swallows. He really wanted to stay home and catch up on some math. "Yeah, I guess," he says.
Above them the bug zapper snaps.
"Here, look at this." Dean nudges Sam with his elbow and opens Dad's journal. He flips through the pages and hands the journal to Sam.
It's all there in the notes, the ink a strange shade in the murky light: one week ago, a kid named Jacob Hurley went on a cross-country hike by himself, and vanished. The search effort was ongoing, but since then, there had been reports of strange lights and cold spots in the area where the kid was hiking. Two men fishing on the Row River said they saw a boy who disappeared before their eyes. A naturalist working with Rails-to-Trails felt hands pushing her when no one was near. A group of teens out walking the tracks for kicks claimed they met a boy who said his name was Jacob. One of them handed Jacob a beer and when Jacob gave the can back, frost covered it, and Jacob was gone. They swore up and down that something shoved them -- one guy wound up with a twisted ankle, another with a bad cut on his arm.
"Those guys were drunk," Dean says. "I'm not sure how much I want to trust that story." He rolls his shoulders, and Sam sees the movement of muscle beneath his brother's white t-shirt, wonders if he'll ever be that strong. "Still, a haunting's a haunting," Dean adds. "I'll find him, salt and burn, easy-peasy."
Sam balances the journal on his knees. "Dad didn't say..."
"He's worried about this one, and he's in no shape to go hiking," Dean says, and when Sam turns to look up at him, Dean's jaw is tight. "Longer Jacob's ghost is out there, the angrier he's going to get. It could take days for Dad to be back at one-hundred percent."
"You should ask him first." A mosquito lands on Sam's arm. Sam slaps it into a gooey mess, then flicks it off into the darkness. He thinks about Dad's leg, the denim torn and blood-stained.
"He should've let me go with him," Dean says, getting to his feet. He leaps down onto the lawn.
"So it's a good idea for you to go out to Row River by yourself?" Sam feels a little flicker of anger in his chest, and can't quite tell why. Maybe it's how Dean looks all loose and charged up as if him going after a ghost is no big deal when Dad's flat on his back because of one.
"This is different," Dean says, leaning down with an easy motion to grab the journal back from Sam. "The spirit Dad went after, that person passed eighty years ago. This one's a kid who died last week ago. Anyway, I'm gonna wait until Dad's feeling a little better, and then I'll take care of this. You have to cover for me."
The sweat tickles the back of Sam's neck, a breeze coming through to disturb the heat, chilling him.
By the next morning, Dad's better, sitting up and hobbling around.
"You can't do this alone," Sam says as he sits on Dean's bed watching Dean put his gear into his backpack.
Dean stops, holding his favorite knife in its leather sheath in his palm. He pauses, then puts the knife in next to the canister of salt. "Yeah, I can, Sammy." He puts in his revolver, then zips the backpack closed and lifts his boot up onto the seat of the chair, busying himself with the laces. He keeps his eyes down. "Why, you want to come with me?"
"No," Sam says. "I've got stuff to do."
"Dude, it's summer."
"I still have to study. The way we move around all the time, I'll fall behind if I don't--"
"Sure, whatever." Dean finishes with his boot laces, thumps his foot to the floor, and lifts the backpack with an easy swing. "Watch after Dad, Shrimp." He ruffles Sam's hair and Sam squirms away.
He follows Dean through the house, out onto the porch, and watches him walking away alone into the hot morning sunlight, through a cloud of midges that swirl around his head. Dean flaps an arm at them impatiently.
"Dean, wait!"
Dean turns around, quicker than Sam expected.
"I want to come with you," Sam says, and Dean's mouth twitches, then goes into a straight line.
"Fine," Dean says, letting out a sigh.
That can't be right, but Sam thinks he just saw his brother hide a smile--for second his eyes going all glad.
They tell Dad that Dean's taking Sam out for some target practice, and Dad's good with it.
Sitting on the curb outside the deli where Dean buys them sandwiches, they look at the journal again. The kid, Jacob, was only a year older than Sam when he vanished. He attended Cottage Grove High School. That's about all they know.
"He was hiking by himself." Sam scratches at a mosquito bite on his leg through his jeans. "Maybe he didn't have a lot of friends?"
"Who knows? Don't scratch, you'll make the bite itch worse." Dean peers into the brown paper bag and pulls out a Hostess apple pie. "I brought calamine if you need it." He eats the pie in two bites.
"I wonder what happened to him. I mean, how did he die?"
"That's what we're supposed to find out, genius. So we can find his rotting corpse and burn it."
The cherry pie is so sweet the filling tingles a little on Sam's tongue. He thinks Jacob Hurley probably ate Hostess cherry pies, or maybe he liked jelly donuts better. Sam wonders if he had a brother or sister, if he was youngest or oldest. He finishes the pie, licks the last of the filling from the corners of his mouth, ignoring the napkin Dean holds out to him.
"Let's go." Dean's on his feet, and reaches down to tug on the sleeve of Sam's t-shirt.
"Quit it," Sam says, pulling back, but Dean's laughing and before Sam can do anything, Dean has him in a headlock. "Jackass."
"Geek," Dean laughs, tightening his grip.
Sam uses all the moves Dean taught him, tries to fake Dean out, tries to twist out of the headlock or grab at Dean's ankle but Dean is bigger than he is and better at this. They struggle for a minute, and then Dean lets him go with a little push.
"Gotta work on that technique, kiddo."
"Screw you." He's sick of Dean always winning. It's not like Sam isn't a really good fighter, he took down that bully at Truman. He didn't need Dean to do that for him.
Backpack slung over his shoulder, Dean's already walking away down the street. "C'mon, Sammy. Got work to do," he calls over his shoulder.
Tugging his t-shirt back into place, Sam hurries after Dean.
They walk across town, which doesn't take long, and have to cross the highway, where Dean twists his fingers into the collar of Sam's shirt, holding him while the cars rush by, as if he's a stupid little kid who can't figure out how to get across. Then the way's clear, and Sam pulls away from Dean, walking a little ahead of him across the highway. After that, the houses are fewer, and it's mostly woods.
The day's growing warmer. Sam's wishing he'd worn shorts instead of jeans, but Dean and Dad would've given him a hard time about leaving his legs too vulnerable. Denim wasn't that much protection--it wasn't like the stuff Batman wore--but it had kept some of Dean and Dad's injuries from being worse.
"Hey." Dean stops, nods towards the chain-link fence that started up ahead, on their left. "You know, we cut through Old Man Reiner's place, we can shave off an hour of hiking."
"Uh...I dunno." Sam catches up to Dean and they both stand looking at the fence, where a dirty, battered metal sign reads TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW. "What about his dog?"
"It's just a dog, Sam." Dean takes a few steps back, runs at the fence, and leaps, his fingers and toes gripping into the links. The whole fence shakes with the impact, trees rustling.
Imitating Dean's movements, Sam follows. It doesn't take him long to climb over the fence; he drops to the gravel on the other side only a few moments behind Dean. He might not be as tall as Dean, but he's fast.
All the beat-up old cars remind Sam of Uncle Bobby's. Dean starts across the junkyard with his backpack, stride long and easy. The sun makes his hair look lighter. Gravel crunching beneath his sneakers, Sam walks in his brother's path, wondering if Jacob cut through Old Man Reiner's. One of the neighbor's kids told Sam and Dean about Old Man Reiner's dog and cutting through the junkyard. Afterwards Dean said the kid was full of shit, as was the rumor that the dog had been trained to go after a certain part of a guy's anatomy. Dean said none of the local kids had the rocks to take the shortcut through Old Man Reiner's for real, so they made that part up.
A scratching sound comes from the cars to Sam's left. He turns, but can't see anything. Dean is way ahead, almost lost to view past stacks of rusted oil drums and metal chairs.
Then Sam hears the growling.
He freezes, trying to pinpoint where it's coming from: behind him and to the right. He really, really doesn't want to turn around and see. He has to, but he can't. He just can't.
His mouth is so dry when he says Dean's name it comes out as thin squeak of sound. "Dean," he tries again, louder.
Dean stops and turns, shoulders sagging with annoyance at first, before every line of him goes straight and tense.
"Walk towards me, real slow," Dean says, his voice tight. "Now," he adds, biting off the word and sounding exactly like Dad.
Sam obeys as the growling increases in pitch. When he reaches Dean, Sam takes a look over his shoulder, and sees a barrel-chested, big black dog on top of a partially gutted car. It's the largest dog Sam has ever seen, except maybe the Barghest he saw Dad and Dean take out in Rhode Island. Sam watched through the Impala's windshield, and when it was over he had to breathe deep, slow breaths so he didn't barf, because he was sure the creature was going to tear his father and brother into bloody pieces.
There's a chain attached to this dog's collar. Dean's gaze flicks from the dog, along the chain, over the rest of the junkyard. He's measuring how long he thinks the chain reaches, looking for cover, processing a hundred things at once, Sam knows how that works.
"You keep walking," Dean says. "Head for the back fence, like we planned, and get over it into the woods."
"But--"
"I'll be right behind you."
The dog hasn't stopped growling and it hasn't leapt at them, as if it's deciding whether they're worth the trouble or not.
"Dean--"
"I said go." Dean's fingers clench Sam's shoulder for the push, a grip so tight it's almost vicious, and it hurts.
Sam starts walking, but he keeps looking over his shoulder. Dean and the black dog are in a kind of stand-off, Dean not staring at it, because that would provoke it, but facing the dog and kind of looking at the cars and the sky and the tree-line, and the dog with its hackles up staring right at Dean. Its eyes are black and intense, and it sniffs the wind like it's learning Dean.
When Sam's halfway to the back fence, a wind kicks up, knocking a sheet of metal. The growl explodes into barking, followed by the sound of the chain and a heavy body hitting the ground. Sam turns, and Dean's racing towards him, the dog in his wake.
"Run," Dean yells.
Trying really hard not to think about the legends about Old Man Reiner's dog, Sam turns and starts to run, but then he hears Dean grunt behind him. Sam knows that grunt, it's for when Dean's hurt but determined to fight. He looks back and Dean's down. Sam's not sure how, if he tripped--there's a lot of battered old junk strewn on the ground--or if the dog did it, but the dog's got its jaws clamped around the cuff of Dean's jeans.
It's tugging and snarling. Dean kicks the dog in the face, and the beast yelps, giving Dean enough time to pull his leg out of reach and scramble to his feet. He's got his knife in his hands, but Sam sees how he's holding it; Dean doesn't want to use it. He kills Old Man Reiner's dog and the next thing is a couple of cops showing up at their doorstep, telling Dad they have a few questions to ask his son. Plus Sam knows Dean likes dogs, and it's their fault for trespassing.
Dean's running towards Sam but the dog's still on his heels.
The plank of wood is in Sam's hands but he doesn't remember picking it up, it's just there suddenly, and Sam runs back towards Dean, ignoring the way Dean starts cussing him out between gasps for breath.
As the dog leaps at Dean, Sam swings the wood like a baseball bat. He feels the impact as it connects with flesh and hears the dog's high yelp of pain.
The dog falls back, limping with a whine-snarl, as Sam throws aside the plank. He and Dean run for the fence. Dean tucks the knife away into his backpack and then they climb, swinging their bodies over the top at the same time before they drop into the cool shadows of the woods on the other side. The muddy bank of a creek squishes under their feet.
They stagger a few yards deeper into the woods, and then Dean flops down onto his back, still cussing at Sam with a long, low, breathless stream of words.
"Next time...I tell you...to run...do it...asshole."
Sam sits down next to him. "I saved your bacon, asshole. Did it bite you?"
Sitting up, Dean rolls back the cuffs of his jeans, revealing unbroken skin. "Never touched me." He tugs the leg of his jeans down again and pulls out a map that's folded and creased from being stuck in his pocket. He spreads it flat on a patch of grass. "We're probably about here," he says, jabbing his finger against the paper. "We keep going that way, we'll find the tracks where one of the sightings were."
There are birds singing off in the trees and the sound of running water is peaceful. They could be any two brothers out on a hike except that they're looking for a ghost.
At times Sam can't believe this is his life. He watches Dean fold the map and tuck it away again into his back pocket, noting the scar that runs along Dean's lower arm that seems like Dean's always had it, only Sam remembers the day Dean got that wound as vividly as if it'd been a few hours ago. The scar's pale and white and thin, barely noticeable, short fine hairs grown over it.
Sam thinks about a few years from now, being as old as Dean is now and being on hunts. He pictures himself being as old as Dad and being on hunts. There's a long trail of them stretching behind -- stretching way behind, into the years when Sam didn't know that's what Dad did instead of actually being a salesman -- and then stretching ahead, hunt after hunt after hunt. Salt and iron and silver and sterilized needle going through torn up skin.
He scrambles to his feet, unable to sit still. "Great, let's go then," he snaps.
"Whoa, chill. Dead kid's not going anywhere." Dean's getting to his feet, more slowly than Sam. For Dean, Sam guesses, maybe this is like any regular hike because for Dean, this is regular. This is fun.
"Yeah but we need to get back not too late, or Dad might worry."
"We'll get in back time. I'm telling ya, this ain't a tough hunt." Dean starts walking, pushing aside a low-hanging branch. He holds it for Sam to pass. "Unless we can't find the body, but he didn't go missing that long ago. We should be able to."
"When the FBI and the park rangers everyone else couldn't?"
Dean looks back over his shoulder and shrugs. "Sure," he says, like it's a given and Sam's stupid to even doubt it.
Sam lets out a sigh, making sure it's loud enough for Dean to hear it, but Dean's sort of right. Their father always noticed shit the authorities missed, that's kind of the point. Dean can do it too, and Sam knows he's also got a good eye -- at least Dad's said so a few times. Dad doesn't think much of the police anyway, thinks they're sloppy and don't try to find answers hard enough. Sam's not sure about that. The police are doing their job just like they are.
The reason they see stuff other people can't is that they're not a part of it. They're not in it, and he and Dean and Dad are looking different because they are. Different, that is. Maybe that's why Sam believes what Dean's telling him.
He watches Dean moving steadily ahead of him, alert but relaxed and that sense of restrained energy his brother often seems to have, ready to snap out at a second's warning.
Maybe it's just easier to believe in Dean's confidence.
They find the tracks and follow them, out in the open under the hot sun. Empty soda and beer cans, some shiny and recent, mix with the tall grass and wildflowers. Some of the wooden sleepers are almost rotted away.
Dean starts humming under his breath, the sound blending with the buzz of insects. Sweat tickles the back of Sam's neck and he feels his hair sticking to his forehead. He takes another swallow of water from the plastic bottle, finishes that one off. There's another one in Dean's pack, they'd never go out on a long hike like this without water. But as they follow the line of the tracks (stretching ahead like they'll never end, the sleepers like the hunts Sam imagines having, one after the other), Sam thinks suddenly of Lord of the Rings and how Frodo and Sam had no water, walking across Mordor. Which makes Dean Frodo and Sam...Sam, since this...quest...well, it's Dean's idea, it's what Dean thinks is his mission, to find this dead kid and get rid of the ghost, instead of waiting for Dad. They're not saving the entire world or anything, like in the book, just making hikers safer.
Ahead of him, Dean's not humming any more, now Sam catches words, sung in a deliberate drawl.
"I was booooorn in a cross-fire hurricaaane, and I howwwwled at my ma in the driving rain..."
Sam knows this one. He joins in. "But it's aaaaalllll riiiiight now, in fact it's a gas."
Dean hums the drum-line in between the two of them singing the rest of the song at the top of their lungs, because there's no one else out there to hear them. Their steps fall into the same rhythm, Dean leading, Sam following and Sam starts to feel as if he could walk forever like this. Wishes they could for a while, and not have to deal with whatever might be there at the other end of things.
He thinks about the Hurley kid, maybe he stepped where Sam's stepping now. Maybe, if he had a sibling, and he'd gone hiking with him instead of going by himself, he wouldn't be dead.
His sweat goes cold, and he shivers, the rhythm of his stride breaking so he's no longer in sync with Dean.
When the chilly hand shoves him, right in the middle of his back, Sam goes sprawling, dirt and stones jabbing against his palms. He's glad now he wore jeans instead of shorts, as his knees scrape against a sleeper. He manages not to hit the steel rails, but his wind's knocked out of him.
He hears Dean's steps running towards him. "Jesus H. Christ. Sam?" And then Dean gripping his shoulders, turning him over, slow and careful. "Sammy?"
There's a crack in Dean's voice, a frantic note and Sam manages to say, "'m fine. Wind knocked outta me."
He stares up past Dean's head at the blue sky and the big piles of clouds while Dean grabs his hands, turns them over to inspect the palms. There's only a little bit of blood, a few small scrapes.
"You klutz." Dean shakes his head, helping Sam sit up.
"No, I think it was Jacob."
The disgusted look wipes from Dean's face. "You sure?"
"I felt a hand shove me."
"Shit." Dean reaches for his pack, pulling out the revolver that's loaded with iron cartridges. He hands Sam the canister of salt, then gets to his feet.
In the bright hot sun, the wildflowers around them, Sam thinks how ridiculous it is to have an invisible cold hand shoving him in the middle of his back.
"All the ghost attacks were out here," Dean says, turning in a slow circle. "Must mean we're getting close."
Sam's hands are shaking, just a little. He closes them between his knees. "Can we take a break?"
Dean crouches next to him, gun in a loose, comfortable grasp. "Yeah." He nods towards Sam's knee. "Get the peroxide and shit out of my pack, we'll get you cleaned up."
Jacob seems like he's done for the moment. A wind blows from the lake, rustling through the trees and high grasses. Sam grabs the box of band-aids from Dean and puts them on himself -- he's not some six-year-old who needs babying -- while Dean looks down the tracks, first one direction, then the other, still holding the gun.
When nothing happens after ten minutes, Dean stands down and they keep going.
It's past noon when they stop to eat, sitting in the shade of a cluster of saplings near the tracks.
Sam pries up the bread on his ham and cheese sandwich. It has the wrong kind of mustard, but at least there's no mayo. He takes a bite and decides Dean's sandwiches are better, at least they are when the three of them aren't eating instant mac and cheese day after day when money's tight. With Dad and Dean busy on hunts and then Dad getting injured, no one's gone shopping in a while. Dean doesn't skimp on the layers of cheese, like the deli did, and Dean knows the right kind of mustard to get.
"Hey, Dean?"
"Huh?" Dean's busy devouring his own sandwich, leaning back on his elbow with his legs stretched out.
"If you could eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?"
"That's easy, man. M&M's. Peanut M&M's."
"That's not food."
"Sure it is. You've got your peanuts -- that's protein -- and chocolate." They go on eating for a while and then Dean slaps Sam's sneaker. "Okay, you?"
Dean's looking at him like he seriously wants to know, as if it matters to him.
"Um." Sam finished chewing and swallows. "I don't know." He really doesn't. He likes a lot of things--hot dogs, sloppy joes, lasagna, grilled cheese sandwiches, fried clams, subs.
"Dude, you started with the stupid question. Just pick something." Dean finishes off the rest of his sandwich and sits up.
"Fine. Grilled cheese sandwiches."
"Lame."
"And peanut M&M's aren't?"
"They're cooler than grilled cheese sandwiches."
Sam has to restrain himself from kicking Dean in the shin. "Whatever."
Leaning over, Dean feints a punch at Sam, stopping just short of his chin, and Sam jerks back.
Dean laughs and punches Sam in the arm twice, hard enough to sting. "Two for flinching."
"Asswipe," Sam says, rubbing his arm as he gets to his feet.
They reach the bridge. Across the gorge, pine trees point to the sky, and Sam hears the sound of running water far below. He inches towards the edge, and looks down the rough slope that leads down to water, fast-moving and bright in the sun. Dean moves up next to Sam and leans, also peering down. He swallows hard and steps back quickly.
Sam's stomach jumps -- Dean doesn't normally get nervous on hunts, only if someone gets hurt. Sam can't see any cause for it.
"Dean?" Sam asks.
Then Dean's hand is warm on the back of his neck. "You just step careful when we're goin' across, nice and steady, and don't look down." He nods towards the trestle bridge. "You first, so I can keep an eye on you."
Dean says that confident and smug, as if he hadn't looked inexplicably terrified a second ago, as if Sam's an idiot who can't figure out how to walk across a bridge.
"I don't need a babysitter."
Dean makes a rude noise. "Yeah, you do. Now get going, before I'm thirty."
Sam steps onto the first sleeper. They seemed solid enough while they were following the tracks on the ground, but these are over open air and now he notices how pitted and ancient the wood looks. No trains have been through here in decades. He takes another step, and another, moving steadily, just how Dean said. Behind him he hears Dean humming low under his breath. Not like before, when it sounded kind of aimless and happy, followed by singing. This time he keeps it low in his throat and quiet as if he doesn't want Sam to hear. It sounds like a track from Dean's Metallica mix.
Another step. Now Sam sees the glimmer of water past his sneakers. A hawk screams, and Sam's head jerks up in time to catch the tiny outline against the blue sky, flying away from them.
"Keep your eyes on the road," Dean says behind him.
He's about halfway across the bridge when the hair on the back of his arms goes up, goosebumps forming on his skin. As Sam watches, his breath becomes visible, rising in small clouds into the hot summer air.
"Dean?" Sam says, and hears the way his voice quivers, wishes it wouldn't do that.
"Get down, Sammy," Dean says, again with the tone of authority that makes him feel the same as if Dad were right there.
He obeys, fingers gripping tight around the edge of a sleeper. Sam looks over his shoulder to see Dean lower the pack from his shoulder and start to unzip it, probably going for the gun or the salt canister.
Dean's entire body lurches, his expression going from determined and calm to full alarm. The backpack lands with a thump on a sleeper and Dean goes over the side.
Sam only knows he screams Dean's name because he hears the echo of it. He turns and crawls frantically along the sleepers, heart going so fast he's nearly blind with the rush of blood.
Dean's fingers cling to the rail and he's got his other elbow onto the wood platform of the bridge, while his body dangles down. His jaw is locked in a tight line.
A hand-print of frost appears on the wood of the trestle platform, right near Dean's fingers. Dean sees it too, and curses.
Teeth chattering, Sam grabs the pack, unzips it, and pulls out the gun and the salt. He feels weirdly separate from what's happening, from his own actions, going on auto-pilot, remembering all of Dad and Dean's lessons. Salt circle, always a salt circle, but he can't make one unbroken on the trestle bridge. Sam puts down a line along the rail and sprinkles salt over Dean, feeling stupid and hopeless.
The ghost of Jacob Hurley materializes beside them. He's wearing khaki shorts and a blue and white striped t-shirt, backpack slung over one shoulder, the headphones of a walkman around his neck. Sam can see the trees in the distance through his body.
Jacob flickers and when he reappears he's right over Dean, kneeling with his fingers digging into Dean's shoulder. Dean's face twists with pain.
Sam pulls back hard on the trigger and fires. He hasn't shot a gun outside of target practice, not since the monster in his closet when he was nine. He's ready for the kick.
The spirit wavers, releasing Dean, but doesn't vanish. Sam fires again, but it's not enough.
"Salt," Dean bellows at him, slinging a leg up onto the platform.
Sam flings the salt at Jacob's ghost. The spirit flickers and vanishes this time. Dropping the canister and the gun onto the backpack, Sam turns, grabs Dean's arms, and pulls until Dean's lying completely on the bridge.
Breathing too fast, a shine of sweat on his forehead, Dean lies there for fifteen, twenty, thirty seconds. He swallows a few times.
"Dude, are you going to puke?" Sam asks, and it comes out nasty because he feels like he might break out into ridiculous, big sobs at any second.
"No," Dean says, then rolls over and pushes himself up.
Sam ducks under Dean's arm and helps him to his feet.
"Shit," Dean says. "Shit. Wish this line was older and made of plain old iron instead of steel." He spits over the side of the bridge, rolls his shoulders, and then he's gathering up the gun, backpack, and canister like nothing happened. His hands are steady, but Sam notices how he keeps his eyes ahead, not looking down at the sleepers or the bridge at all. He grips Sam's shoulder, pulling at Sam's t-shirt as he tugs him a little closer, then forward. "Let's get off here before Casper the Snot-nosed Brat gets back."
Dean's fingers stay twisted into Sam's t-shirt all the way to the other side.
Crouching in the dust, Dean stares across the trestle bridge, then looks down at the river below.
"I think I know what happened," Dean says, and nods his head downstream. "We'll find him washed up along there, someplace."
"Yeah." He imagines Jacob Hurley, how maybe he walked the rail like a balance beam, messing around the way kids to, arms spread wide. Maybe something startled him, a hawk, and he lost his balance.
After they climb down the slope to the river, grabbing onto bushes to keep themselves from sliding too fast, Dean sits on a boulder at the water's edge. Sam wonders why he stopped.
Elbows leaning on his knees, Dean bows his head for a moment, his amulet swinging forward. He takes a few deep breaths. "Man, I hate heights," he says, voice low.
And then Sam knows why Dean gripped his shirt so tightly. This is as close to a thank you as Sam's going to hear.
They follow the river, while Sam tries to pay attention to the trees, mud, and fallen logs but keeps seeing Dean up on the bridge, body jerking and falling, over and over.
Sam wants this to be done. One of his sneakers sinks into a patch of mud. He pulls it out with a loud squelch.
Dean turns to look at Sam over his shoulder, and grins. "Gotta watch where you're stepping, Sammy." He picks up a long stick and pokes it into a tangled patch of undergrowth. Then Dean walks on, sun falling over him filtered through the trees until it looks like his hair is a moving patchwork of blond and brown.
"Quit calling me 'Sammy'," Sam mumbles, going more slowly. He lets Dean get farther and farther ahead, and watches as he pokes his stick into more bushes, how he turns his head to scan the forest floor, searching for Jacob.
In the end, it's Sam who finds him. The wind shifts, and the heavy almost-sweet smell of mud changes to something else. Sam stumbles to a stop and gags. He tugs the collar of his t-shirt up to cover his nose and mouth as he turns.
There's a patch of blue under the tangle of leaves. Coughing, Sam edges closer. He tugs a long stick free and pokes it into the mess of fallen branches, pushing them aside.
He must've made some kind of noise, although he doesn't remember calling for Dean or screaming or anything, but Dean's right up behind him all of a sudden.
"Day-um," Dean breathes.
The kid's eyes stare sightlessly upward, his skin bloated and discolored. Flies swirl over him.
Sam feels Dean's hand tugging him back but Sam resists and takes a step forward. He can't stop staring, seeing how similar and yet distorted the kid's face is from his ghost's. It's definitely the same guy, though. Jacob Hurley walked the trestle bridge, thought it'd be fun to use the rail like a balance beam, and he fell. He was alone, and he fell, down into the river.
Like Dean almost did.
Now Dean's also got his t-shirt tugged up over his nose, and he's holding the canister of salt, the accelerant, and his lighter in his hands.
"Here." Dean pushes them into Sam's hands. "Your find. You should do the honors."
Sam looks down at the objects Dean's giving him. His hands stay slack. Railroad sleepers and hunts, stretching on forever.
"No," he says, his voice soft.
"What?" Dean looks confused. He tugs his shirt down. "Dude, you know how to do this. Just sprinkle it on and light 'er up. What's wrong with you?"
"I said no." Sam shoves the salt, accelerant and lighter hard at Dean's chest, hard enough that Dean staggers back a step, clutching the items on reflex. Sam turns his back on Dean and the body of Jacob Hurley and starts walking fast back towards the trestle bridge.
His chest aches and he clenches his hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
He's almost back to the trestle bridge when he hears Dean behind him, making no effort to be quiet.
"Sammy--Sam. Sam, hang on." Dean breaks into a run, curves around to cut him off. He's got his backpack over his shoulder, the salt and lighter fluid nowhere in sight. Sam smells it on the wind, Dean's taken care of the salt-and-burn. Sam keeps on walking but Dean puts out his hands and grabs Sam's shoulders, stopping him. "C'mon, talk to me."
"I don't..."
"What? What the hell is up with you, man? You don't what?" Sam tries to push past Dean, but Dean won't let him. "We've got a job to do."
"I don't want it." Sam pushes to get past Dean again. When Dean tightens his grip, Sam shoves him in the solar plexus, almost a punch.
"Hey, easy--"
When Sam swings at Dean in earnest, Dean dodges it and, lightning-quick, has Sam's arm twisted up behind his back, immobilizing him. He shrugs out of the backpack, letting it fall.
It doesn't hurt unless Sam squirms, which Sam does. He leg-sweeps Dean, causing him to lose his balance and they go down together. This time, Sam's punch connects with Dean's stomach and he hears Dean grunt at the impact.
Mud soaking into his jeans, Sam takes another swing, this time at Dean's face and Dean rolls out of the way and up onto his feet.
Sam remains where he is, on his knees by the river. The supports of the trestle bridge swim in his vision. Sam wraps his arms around himself, tears hot against his face.
"I don't want it," Sam says. "Hunting, the rest of my life."
Dead things and things with claws and red hungry eyes and Dean falling from the bridge and Dad with his torn-up leg and the real monster in his closet.
He can't stop the sob from breaking out of him, just hunches over and lets it take him.
Then he's aware of Dean kneeling in the mud beside him, feels the warmth as Dean wraps his arms around him, practically picking him up, like he's a little kid. Sam pushes his face against his brother's t-shirt, smelling sweat and mud and smoke and gun oil.
When the sobs finally subside, he pushes himself back and Dean lets go of him and stands up. It's really hard to tell what's going on in Dean's head as he looks down at Sam. His face has gone blank in the way Dean's face goes blank when he doesn't want anyone to know what he's thinking.
"We gotta get back," Dean says, his voice a little scratchy. He clears his throat.
Sam watches his brother walk towards the base of the trestle bridge and thinks, I'll never be as brave as you.
They climb up to the tracks and start walking back the way they came. The sun's lower in the sky, light slanting gently, turning the weeds and wildflowers to gold. After a few miles, Dean stops taking point and falls back so he's in step with Sam. The quiet between them settles into comfort.
Later on, Sam will remember the walk home as when it all really changed.
Later on, he'll have hundreds of moments when he'll long to be in that walk with Dean along the tracks again.
Sam finished typing, stared at the last paragraph, then leaned back in his chair. The ache was gone. The sun had moved, and the office seemed colder.
He sat a while, fingering the amulet that hung around his neck, remembering. The last time he'd seen his father alive, and the last time he'd seen his father; faces, words, the burn of whiskey, the smell of sulfur, the way a kiss tasted, how it felt to have claws tear into him, to have his body slammed to the ground, white-hot brightness of the inexplicable, his brother's hands pulling him away from fire, the rhythms of the Rituale Romanum.
After he closed the file and stood up, a twinge of pain shot through his chest, along his arm. Sam's breath caught. Then the pain subsided, and cold swept over him, not the deep chill that signaled a spirit, but uncanny all the same, and he had no idea what to make of it.
Sam turned off the computer and left the office, heading back down the stairs. It was easier than going up, and easier than it had been for years walking down. His fingers trailed over the markings again.
When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he saw the big black car parked in the drive, chrome bright, Dean leaning against the hood, lips curving in an easy half-smile.
"Hey, Sammy. You ready to go?"
"Uh, yeah. I think so." Sam scratched at the back of his head. "But I don't...how come you're..."
"Pulled a few strings." Dean's half-smile flashed into a grin. "I got connections."
Sam laughed, and Dean opened the driver's side door, which squeaked as loud as ever. Sam ducked into the car from the other side.
As they rolled down the long drive, Sam turned around to look back.
"You don't need to worry about them," Dean said, adjusting the rear-view mirror. "They'll be all right."
They pulled out onto the highway.
~end
Additional notes:
+Maps: google map of Cottage Grove and Row River and Row River National Recreational Trail website. I'm not at all sure of the distances, and fudged local geography for the sake of the story.
+The rails to trails program at Row River was completed in 1998. I pretended it was later.
+This website was helpful in figuring out where to set the story, since I wanted to try to put the Winchesters in the places where Stand By Me was filmed.
+Brownsville was the town used in the movie as the fictional Castle Rock.
+A part of me can't let go of this as my mental image of young Dean.
Author: dotfic
Rating: Gen, PG-13, futurefic & preseries
Warning: ( skip) character death
W/C: 7,500
Disclaimer: I'm sure I owe apologies to various somebodies.
a/n: Coda, of sorts, for the flashback portions of 4x13. Thank you to deirdre_c and pheebs1 for their Winchester-fu and beta skills and cheerleading, and marinarusalka for being scientific.
Summary: In the summer of 1998, two brothers set out to find to find a dead body.
It was harder than it had been three weeks ago to take those stairs. They'd always been narrow, the steps high, yet Sam didn't used to have to grip the wooden railing so fiercely, or pause for breath halfway up. Three weeks ago, a lot of things hadn't seemed as difficult as they felt now, when lifting a shotgun ceased to be an easy motion, free of ache or strain. Sam leaned against the wall of the garage, halfway up to the door leading to his office, and paused with the sun hot on his face and shoulders. He looked towards the lawn, where a brown-haired boy with gangly legs and arms showed a smaller girl how to do a roundhouse kick. The girl kept falling on her butt, and the boy kept laughing, face breaking into a challenging smile that made Sam's chest hurt.
He continued, trailing his fingers over the sigils carved lightly into the side of the building. Dean had put those in place himself twenty years ago while Sam had watched from below, correcting his technique and calling up suggestions. Finally Dean had told him to go screw himself and to let him finish in peace, both of them aware that Dean knew exactly how to carve the protections, and that Sam knew it.
Three weeks ago, Sam could walk past those marks without hesitation, without noting them.
Inside his office, it was cool even without turning on the A/C, the shade of the trees making it dim inside. Sam flicked on a lamp and sat down at the desk in front of the window, the slats of the blinds throwing lines of light over him, onto the bare wood floors. He closed them, then opened the laptop, hit the touch-screen, and brought up the document he wanted.
Sam had read the obituary a hundred times, looked at the outdated, decades-old picture used for it, rolled the lines of text over in his mind. There was very little there, not nearly enough, not by a long shot, but his family still had their secrets to keep.
He flicked the screen away from the obit and pulled up a blank document instead.
Three weeks ago, his fingers hadn't trembled when they poised over the touch-pad keyboard. Three weeks ago, he hadn't started having old nightmares again.
It always ends bloody or sad, Dean had told him once.
"No, it doesn't," Sam said aloud, into the silence of the room, over the faint burring of the cicadas outside. He felt his mouth twitch into a smile, and two weeks ago that wouldn't have hurt. "Not always, you son of a bitch."
Sometimes it ended at the age of eighty-seven with a heart-attack at home, and a large gathering at the funeral. It was the final flipped-up middle finger to every dark thing that'd tried to take them out one way or another over the decades.
He put the screen back on the obit again, stared at it until the words began to blur, then blinked and switched to the blank document. His fingers were steady when he started to tap them on the pad.
Cottage Grove, OR
Summer 1998
There's a step behind Sam on the porch, but he doesn't turn around. He feels the floorboard move with his brother's weight.
"Hey," Dean says. He sits down, then tugs on the leg of Sam's jeans so he's forced to sit down on the porch step too. "Dad's fine."
Lately Sam's starting to see things in Dean he couldn't before. Like now, the way Dean's palm rubs along the leg of his jeans, how his finger catches in the frayed patch and fidgets there. The worry radiates from him on a clear enough frequency, even though Dean's face doesn't look scared, only a little too pale in the blue glow of the bug zapper, his freckles dark.
Sam turns away from Dean and stares out into the Oregon night that's full of thick green woods and the sound of buzzing insects.
Everything would be okay now, sure. They both know the procedures as well as Sam knows three-quarters of all of Shakespeare's sonnets and Dean knows the track order on every album Zeppelin ever put out--no, they know this better. Dad's inside on the couch, comfortably full of painkillers, leg propped up. Piece of cake.
"It wasn't the poltergeist that did this to Dad," Dean says. "That house was freakin' old and the floorboards were rotted." His hand rubs against his jeans again. "I wanted to go with him but you heard him. There's no arguing with him when he sounds like that."
Sam swallows. He really wanted to stay home and catch up on some math. "Yeah, I guess," he says.
Above them the bug zapper snaps.
"Here, look at this." Dean nudges Sam with his elbow and opens Dad's journal. He flips through the pages and hands the journal to Sam.
It's all there in the notes, the ink a strange shade in the murky light: one week ago, a kid named Jacob Hurley went on a cross-country hike by himself, and vanished. The search effort was ongoing, but since then, there had been reports of strange lights and cold spots in the area where the kid was hiking. Two men fishing on the Row River said they saw a boy who disappeared before their eyes. A naturalist working with Rails-to-Trails felt hands pushing her when no one was near. A group of teens out walking the tracks for kicks claimed they met a boy who said his name was Jacob. One of them handed Jacob a beer and when Jacob gave the can back, frost covered it, and Jacob was gone. They swore up and down that something shoved them -- one guy wound up with a twisted ankle, another with a bad cut on his arm.
"Those guys were drunk," Dean says. "I'm not sure how much I want to trust that story." He rolls his shoulders, and Sam sees the movement of muscle beneath his brother's white t-shirt, wonders if he'll ever be that strong. "Still, a haunting's a haunting," Dean adds. "I'll find him, salt and burn, easy-peasy."
Sam balances the journal on his knees. "Dad didn't say..."
"He's worried about this one, and he's in no shape to go hiking," Dean says, and when Sam turns to look up at him, Dean's jaw is tight. "Longer Jacob's ghost is out there, the angrier he's going to get. It could take days for Dad to be back at one-hundred percent."
"You should ask him first." A mosquito lands on Sam's arm. Sam slaps it into a gooey mess, then flicks it off into the darkness. He thinks about Dad's leg, the denim torn and blood-stained.
"He should've let me go with him," Dean says, getting to his feet. He leaps down onto the lawn.
"So it's a good idea for you to go out to Row River by yourself?" Sam feels a little flicker of anger in his chest, and can't quite tell why. Maybe it's how Dean looks all loose and charged up as if him going after a ghost is no big deal when Dad's flat on his back because of one.
"This is different," Dean says, leaning down with an easy motion to grab the journal back from Sam. "The spirit Dad went after, that person passed eighty years ago. This one's a kid who died last week ago. Anyway, I'm gonna wait until Dad's feeling a little better, and then I'll take care of this. You have to cover for me."
The sweat tickles the back of Sam's neck, a breeze coming through to disturb the heat, chilling him.
By the next morning, Dad's better, sitting up and hobbling around.
"You can't do this alone," Sam says as he sits on Dean's bed watching Dean put his gear into his backpack.
Dean stops, holding his favorite knife in its leather sheath in his palm. He pauses, then puts the knife in next to the canister of salt. "Yeah, I can, Sammy." He puts in his revolver, then zips the backpack closed and lifts his boot up onto the seat of the chair, busying himself with the laces. He keeps his eyes down. "Why, you want to come with me?"
"No," Sam says. "I've got stuff to do."
"Dude, it's summer."
"I still have to study. The way we move around all the time, I'll fall behind if I don't--"
"Sure, whatever." Dean finishes with his boot laces, thumps his foot to the floor, and lifts the backpack with an easy swing. "Watch after Dad, Shrimp." He ruffles Sam's hair and Sam squirms away.
He follows Dean through the house, out onto the porch, and watches him walking away alone into the hot morning sunlight, through a cloud of midges that swirl around his head. Dean flaps an arm at them impatiently.
"Dean, wait!"
Dean turns around, quicker than Sam expected.
"I want to come with you," Sam says, and Dean's mouth twitches, then goes into a straight line.
"Fine," Dean says, letting out a sigh.
That can't be right, but Sam thinks he just saw his brother hide a smile--for second his eyes going all glad.
They tell Dad that Dean's taking Sam out for some target practice, and Dad's good with it.
Sitting on the curb outside the deli where Dean buys them sandwiches, they look at the journal again. The kid, Jacob, was only a year older than Sam when he vanished. He attended Cottage Grove High School. That's about all they know.
"He was hiking by himself." Sam scratches at a mosquito bite on his leg through his jeans. "Maybe he didn't have a lot of friends?"
"Who knows? Don't scratch, you'll make the bite itch worse." Dean peers into the brown paper bag and pulls out a Hostess apple pie. "I brought calamine if you need it." He eats the pie in two bites.
"I wonder what happened to him. I mean, how did he die?"
"That's what we're supposed to find out, genius. So we can find his rotting corpse and burn it."
The cherry pie is so sweet the filling tingles a little on Sam's tongue. He thinks Jacob Hurley probably ate Hostess cherry pies, or maybe he liked jelly donuts better. Sam wonders if he had a brother or sister, if he was youngest or oldest. He finishes the pie, licks the last of the filling from the corners of his mouth, ignoring the napkin Dean holds out to him.
"Let's go." Dean's on his feet, and reaches down to tug on the sleeve of Sam's t-shirt.
"Quit it," Sam says, pulling back, but Dean's laughing and before Sam can do anything, Dean has him in a headlock. "Jackass."
"Geek," Dean laughs, tightening his grip.
Sam uses all the moves Dean taught him, tries to fake Dean out, tries to twist out of the headlock or grab at Dean's ankle but Dean is bigger than he is and better at this. They struggle for a minute, and then Dean lets him go with a little push.
"Gotta work on that technique, kiddo."
"Screw you." He's sick of Dean always winning. It's not like Sam isn't a really good fighter, he took down that bully at Truman. He didn't need Dean to do that for him.
Backpack slung over his shoulder, Dean's already walking away down the street. "C'mon, Sammy. Got work to do," he calls over his shoulder.
Tugging his t-shirt back into place, Sam hurries after Dean.
They walk across town, which doesn't take long, and have to cross the highway, where Dean twists his fingers into the collar of Sam's shirt, holding him while the cars rush by, as if he's a stupid little kid who can't figure out how to get across. Then the way's clear, and Sam pulls away from Dean, walking a little ahead of him across the highway. After that, the houses are fewer, and it's mostly woods.
The day's growing warmer. Sam's wishing he'd worn shorts instead of jeans, but Dean and Dad would've given him a hard time about leaving his legs too vulnerable. Denim wasn't that much protection--it wasn't like the stuff Batman wore--but it had kept some of Dean and Dad's injuries from being worse.
"Hey." Dean stops, nods towards the chain-link fence that started up ahead, on their left. "You know, we cut through Old Man Reiner's place, we can shave off an hour of hiking."
"Uh...I dunno." Sam catches up to Dean and they both stand looking at the fence, where a dirty, battered metal sign reads TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW. "What about his dog?"
"It's just a dog, Sam." Dean takes a few steps back, runs at the fence, and leaps, his fingers and toes gripping into the links. The whole fence shakes with the impact, trees rustling.
Imitating Dean's movements, Sam follows. It doesn't take him long to climb over the fence; he drops to the gravel on the other side only a few moments behind Dean. He might not be as tall as Dean, but he's fast.
All the beat-up old cars remind Sam of Uncle Bobby's. Dean starts across the junkyard with his backpack, stride long and easy. The sun makes his hair look lighter. Gravel crunching beneath his sneakers, Sam walks in his brother's path, wondering if Jacob cut through Old Man Reiner's. One of the neighbor's kids told Sam and Dean about Old Man Reiner's dog and cutting through the junkyard. Afterwards Dean said the kid was full of shit, as was the rumor that the dog had been trained to go after a certain part of a guy's anatomy. Dean said none of the local kids had the rocks to take the shortcut through Old Man Reiner's for real, so they made that part up.
A scratching sound comes from the cars to Sam's left. He turns, but can't see anything. Dean is way ahead, almost lost to view past stacks of rusted oil drums and metal chairs.
Then Sam hears the growling.
He freezes, trying to pinpoint where it's coming from: behind him and to the right. He really, really doesn't want to turn around and see. He has to, but he can't. He just can't.
His mouth is so dry when he says Dean's name it comes out as thin squeak of sound. "Dean," he tries again, louder.
Dean stops and turns, shoulders sagging with annoyance at first, before every line of him goes straight and tense.
"Walk towards me, real slow," Dean says, his voice tight. "Now," he adds, biting off the word and sounding exactly like Dad.
Sam obeys as the growling increases in pitch. When he reaches Dean, Sam takes a look over his shoulder, and sees a barrel-chested, big black dog on top of a partially gutted car. It's the largest dog Sam has ever seen, except maybe the Barghest he saw Dad and Dean take out in Rhode Island. Sam watched through the Impala's windshield, and when it was over he had to breathe deep, slow breaths so he didn't barf, because he was sure the creature was going to tear his father and brother into bloody pieces.
There's a chain attached to this dog's collar. Dean's gaze flicks from the dog, along the chain, over the rest of the junkyard. He's measuring how long he thinks the chain reaches, looking for cover, processing a hundred things at once, Sam knows how that works.
"You keep walking," Dean says. "Head for the back fence, like we planned, and get over it into the woods."
"But--"
"I'll be right behind you."
The dog hasn't stopped growling and it hasn't leapt at them, as if it's deciding whether they're worth the trouble or not.
"Dean--"
"I said go." Dean's fingers clench Sam's shoulder for the push, a grip so tight it's almost vicious, and it hurts.
Sam starts walking, but he keeps looking over his shoulder. Dean and the black dog are in a kind of stand-off, Dean not staring at it, because that would provoke it, but facing the dog and kind of looking at the cars and the sky and the tree-line, and the dog with its hackles up staring right at Dean. Its eyes are black and intense, and it sniffs the wind like it's learning Dean.
When Sam's halfway to the back fence, a wind kicks up, knocking a sheet of metal. The growl explodes into barking, followed by the sound of the chain and a heavy body hitting the ground. Sam turns, and Dean's racing towards him, the dog in his wake.
"Run," Dean yells.
Trying really hard not to think about the legends about Old Man Reiner's dog, Sam turns and starts to run, but then he hears Dean grunt behind him. Sam knows that grunt, it's for when Dean's hurt but determined to fight. He looks back and Dean's down. Sam's not sure how, if he tripped--there's a lot of battered old junk strewn on the ground--or if the dog did it, but the dog's got its jaws clamped around the cuff of Dean's jeans.
It's tugging and snarling. Dean kicks the dog in the face, and the beast yelps, giving Dean enough time to pull his leg out of reach and scramble to his feet. He's got his knife in his hands, but Sam sees how he's holding it; Dean doesn't want to use it. He kills Old Man Reiner's dog and the next thing is a couple of cops showing up at their doorstep, telling Dad they have a few questions to ask his son. Plus Sam knows Dean likes dogs, and it's their fault for trespassing.
Dean's running towards Sam but the dog's still on his heels.
The plank of wood is in Sam's hands but he doesn't remember picking it up, it's just there suddenly, and Sam runs back towards Dean, ignoring the way Dean starts cussing him out between gasps for breath.
As the dog leaps at Dean, Sam swings the wood like a baseball bat. He feels the impact as it connects with flesh and hears the dog's high yelp of pain.
The dog falls back, limping with a whine-snarl, as Sam throws aside the plank. He and Dean run for the fence. Dean tucks the knife away into his backpack and then they climb, swinging their bodies over the top at the same time before they drop into the cool shadows of the woods on the other side. The muddy bank of a creek squishes under their feet.
They stagger a few yards deeper into the woods, and then Dean flops down onto his back, still cussing at Sam with a long, low, breathless stream of words.
"Next time...I tell you...to run...do it...asshole."
Sam sits down next to him. "I saved your bacon, asshole. Did it bite you?"
Sitting up, Dean rolls back the cuffs of his jeans, revealing unbroken skin. "Never touched me." He tugs the leg of his jeans down again and pulls out a map that's folded and creased from being stuck in his pocket. He spreads it flat on a patch of grass. "We're probably about here," he says, jabbing his finger against the paper. "We keep going that way, we'll find the tracks where one of the sightings were."
There are birds singing off in the trees and the sound of running water is peaceful. They could be any two brothers out on a hike except that they're looking for a ghost.
At times Sam can't believe this is his life. He watches Dean fold the map and tuck it away again into his back pocket, noting the scar that runs along Dean's lower arm that seems like Dean's always had it, only Sam remembers the day Dean got that wound as vividly as if it'd been a few hours ago. The scar's pale and white and thin, barely noticeable, short fine hairs grown over it.
Sam thinks about a few years from now, being as old as Dean is now and being on hunts. He pictures himself being as old as Dad and being on hunts. There's a long trail of them stretching behind -- stretching way behind, into the years when Sam didn't know that's what Dad did instead of actually being a salesman -- and then stretching ahead, hunt after hunt after hunt. Salt and iron and silver and sterilized needle going through torn up skin.
He scrambles to his feet, unable to sit still. "Great, let's go then," he snaps.
"Whoa, chill. Dead kid's not going anywhere." Dean's getting to his feet, more slowly than Sam. For Dean, Sam guesses, maybe this is like any regular hike because for Dean, this is regular. This is fun.
"Yeah but we need to get back not too late, or Dad might worry."
"We'll get in back time. I'm telling ya, this ain't a tough hunt." Dean starts walking, pushing aside a low-hanging branch. He holds it for Sam to pass. "Unless we can't find the body, but he didn't go missing that long ago. We should be able to."
"When the FBI and the park rangers everyone else couldn't?"
Dean looks back over his shoulder and shrugs. "Sure," he says, like it's a given and Sam's stupid to even doubt it.
Sam lets out a sigh, making sure it's loud enough for Dean to hear it, but Dean's sort of right. Their father always noticed shit the authorities missed, that's kind of the point. Dean can do it too, and Sam knows he's also got a good eye -- at least Dad's said so a few times. Dad doesn't think much of the police anyway, thinks they're sloppy and don't try to find answers hard enough. Sam's not sure about that. The police are doing their job just like they are.
The reason they see stuff other people can't is that they're not a part of it. They're not in it, and he and Dean and Dad are looking different because they are. Different, that is. Maybe that's why Sam believes what Dean's telling him.
He watches Dean moving steadily ahead of him, alert but relaxed and that sense of restrained energy his brother often seems to have, ready to snap out at a second's warning.
Maybe it's just easier to believe in Dean's confidence.
They find the tracks and follow them, out in the open under the hot sun. Empty soda and beer cans, some shiny and recent, mix with the tall grass and wildflowers. Some of the wooden sleepers are almost rotted away.
Dean starts humming under his breath, the sound blending with the buzz of insects. Sweat tickles the back of Sam's neck and he feels his hair sticking to his forehead. He takes another swallow of water from the plastic bottle, finishes that one off. There's another one in Dean's pack, they'd never go out on a long hike like this without water. But as they follow the line of the tracks (stretching ahead like they'll never end, the sleepers like the hunts Sam imagines having, one after the other), Sam thinks suddenly of Lord of the Rings and how Frodo and Sam had no water, walking across Mordor. Which makes Dean Frodo and Sam...Sam, since this...quest...well, it's Dean's idea, it's what Dean thinks is his mission, to find this dead kid and get rid of the ghost, instead of waiting for Dad. They're not saving the entire world or anything, like in the book, just making hikers safer.
Ahead of him, Dean's not humming any more, now Sam catches words, sung in a deliberate drawl.
"I was booooorn in a cross-fire hurricaaane, and I howwwwled at my ma in the driving rain..."
Sam knows this one. He joins in. "But it's aaaaalllll riiiiight now, in fact it's a gas."
Dean hums the drum-line in between the two of them singing the rest of the song at the top of their lungs, because there's no one else out there to hear them. Their steps fall into the same rhythm, Dean leading, Sam following and Sam starts to feel as if he could walk forever like this. Wishes they could for a while, and not have to deal with whatever might be there at the other end of things.
He thinks about the Hurley kid, maybe he stepped where Sam's stepping now. Maybe, if he had a sibling, and he'd gone hiking with him instead of going by himself, he wouldn't be dead.
His sweat goes cold, and he shivers, the rhythm of his stride breaking so he's no longer in sync with Dean.
When the chilly hand shoves him, right in the middle of his back, Sam goes sprawling, dirt and stones jabbing against his palms. He's glad now he wore jeans instead of shorts, as his knees scrape against a sleeper. He manages not to hit the steel rails, but his wind's knocked out of him.
He hears Dean's steps running towards him. "Jesus H. Christ. Sam?" And then Dean gripping his shoulders, turning him over, slow and careful. "Sammy?"
There's a crack in Dean's voice, a frantic note and Sam manages to say, "'m fine. Wind knocked outta me."
He stares up past Dean's head at the blue sky and the big piles of clouds while Dean grabs his hands, turns them over to inspect the palms. There's only a little bit of blood, a few small scrapes.
"You klutz." Dean shakes his head, helping Sam sit up.
"No, I think it was Jacob."
The disgusted look wipes from Dean's face. "You sure?"
"I felt a hand shove me."
"Shit." Dean reaches for his pack, pulling out the revolver that's loaded with iron cartridges. He hands Sam the canister of salt, then gets to his feet.
In the bright hot sun, the wildflowers around them, Sam thinks how ridiculous it is to have an invisible cold hand shoving him in the middle of his back.
"All the ghost attacks were out here," Dean says, turning in a slow circle. "Must mean we're getting close."
Sam's hands are shaking, just a little. He closes them between his knees. "Can we take a break?"
Dean crouches next to him, gun in a loose, comfortable grasp. "Yeah." He nods towards Sam's knee. "Get the peroxide and shit out of my pack, we'll get you cleaned up."
Jacob seems like he's done for the moment. A wind blows from the lake, rustling through the trees and high grasses. Sam grabs the box of band-aids from Dean and puts them on himself -- he's not some six-year-old who needs babying -- while Dean looks down the tracks, first one direction, then the other, still holding the gun.
When nothing happens after ten minutes, Dean stands down and they keep going.
It's past noon when they stop to eat, sitting in the shade of a cluster of saplings near the tracks.
Sam pries up the bread on his ham and cheese sandwich. It has the wrong kind of mustard, but at least there's no mayo. He takes a bite and decides Dean's sandwiches are better, at least they are when the three of them aren't eating instant mac and cheese day after day when money's tight. With Dad and Dean busy on hunts and then Dad getting injured, no one's gone shopping in a while. Dean doesn't skimp on the layers of cheese, like the deli did, and Dean knows the right kind of mustard to get.
"Hey, Dean?"
"Huh?" Dean's busy devouring his own sandwich, leaning back on his elbow with his legs stretched out.
"If you could eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?"
"That's easy, man. M&M's. Peanut M&M's."
"That's not food."
"Sure it is. You've got your peanuts -- that's protein -- and chocolate." They go on eating for a while and then Dean slaps Sam's sneaker. "Okay, you?"
Dean's looking at him like he seriously wants to know, as if it matters to him.
"Um." Sam finished chewing and swallows. "I don't know." He really doesn't. He likes a lot of things--hot dogs, sloppy joes, lasagna, grilled cheese sandwiches, fried clams, subs.
"Dude, you started with the stupid question. Just pick something." Dean finishes off the rest of his sandwich and sits up.
"Fine. Grilled cheese sandwiches."
"Lame."
"And peanut M&M's aren't?"
"They're cooler than grilled cheese sandwiches."
Sam has to restrain himself from kicking Dean in the shin. "Whatever."
Leaning over, Dean feints a punch at Sam, stopping just short of his chin, and Sam jerks back.
Dean laughs and punches Sam in the arm twice, hard enough to sting. "Two for flinching."
"Asswipe," Sam says, rubbing his arm as he gets to his feet.
They reach the bridge. Across the gorge, pine trees point to the sky, and Sam hears the sound of running water far below. He inches towards the edge, and looks down the rough slope that leads down to water, fast-moving and bright in the sun. Dean moves up next to Sam and leans, also peering down. He swallows hard and steps back quickly.
Sam's stomach jumps -- Dean doesn't normally get nervous on hunts, only if someone gets hurt. Sam can't see any cause for it.
"Dean?" Sam asks.
Then Dean's hand is warm on the back of his neck. "You just step careful when we're goin' across, nice and steady, and don't look down." He nods towards the trestle bridge. "You first, so I can keep an eye on you."
Dean says that confident and smug, as if he hadn't looked inexplicably terrified a second ago, as if Sam's an idiot who can't figure out how to walk across a bridge.
"I don't need a babysitter."
Dean makes a rude noise. "Yeah, you do. Now get going, before I'm thirty."
Sam steps onto the first sleeper. They seemed solid enough while they were following the tracks on the ground, but these are over open air and now he notices how pitted and ancient the wood looks. No trains have been through here in decades. He takes another step, and another, moving steadily, just how Dean said. Behind him he hears Dean humming low under his breath. Not like before, when it sounded kind of aimless and happy, followed by singing. This time he keeps it low in his throat and quiet as if he doesn't want Sam to hear. It sounds like a track from Dean's Metallica mix.
Another step. Now Sam sees the glimmer of water past his sneakers. A hawk screams, and Sam's head jerks up in time to catch the tiny outline against the blue sky, flying away from them.
"Keep your eyes on the road," Dean says behind him.
He's about halfway across the bridge when the hair on the back of his arms goes up, goosebumps forming on his skin. As Sam watches, his breath becomes visible, rising in small clouds into the hot summer air.
"Dean?" Sam says, and hears the way his voice quivers, wishes it wouldn't do that.
"Get down, Sammy," Dean says, again with the tone of authority that makes him feel the same as if Dad were right there.
He obeys, fingers gripping tight around the edge of a sleeper. Sam looks over his shoulder to see Dean lower the pack from his shoulder and start to unzip it, probably going for the gun or the salt canister.
Dean's entire body lurches, his expression going from determined and calm to full alarm. The backpack lands with a thump on a sleeper and Dean goes over the side.
Sam only knows he screams Dean's name because he hears the echo of it. He turns and crawls frantically along the sleepers, heart going so fast he's nearly blind with the rush of blood.
Dean's fingers cling to the rail and he's got his other elbow onto the wood platform of the bridge, while his body dangles down. His jaw is locked in a tight line.
A hand-print of frost appears on the wood of the trestle platform, right near Dean's fingers. Dean sees it too, and curses.
Teeth chattering, Sam grabs the pack, unzips it, and pulls out the gun and the salt. He feels weirdly separate from what's happening, from his own actions, going on auto-pilot, remembering all of Dad and Dean's lessons. Salt circle, always a salt circle, but he can't make one unbroken on the trestle bridge. Sam puts down a line along the rail and sprinkles salt over Dean, feeling stupid and hopeless.
The ghost of Jacob Hurley materializes beside them. He's wearing khaki shorts and a blue and white striped t-shirt, backpack slung over one shoulder, the headphones of a walkman around his neck. Sam can see the trees in the distance through his body.
Jacob flickers and when he reappears he's right over Dean, kneeling with his fingers digging into Dean's shoulder. Dean's face twists with pain.
Sam pulls back hard on the trigger and fires. He hasn't shot a gun outside of target practice, not since the monster in his closet when he was nine. He's ready for the kick.
The spirit wavers, releasing Dean, but doesn't vanish. Sam fires again, but it's not enough.
"Salt," Dean bellows at him, slinging a leg up onto the platform.
Sam flings the salt at Jacob's ghost. The spirit flickers and vanishes this time. Dropping the canister and the gun onto the backpack, Sam turns, grabs Dean's arms, and pulls until Dean's lying completely on the bridge.
Breathing too fast, a shine of sweat on his forehead, Dean lies there for fifteen, twenty, thirty seconds. He swallows a few times.
"Dude, are you going to puke?" Sam asks, and it comes out nasty because he feels like he might break out into ridiculous, big sobs at any second.
"No," Dean says, then rolls over and pushes himself up.
Sam ducks under Dean's arm and helps him to his feet.
"Shit," Dean says. "Shit. Wish this line was older and made of plain old iron instead of steel." He spits over the side of the bridge, rolls his shoulders, and then he's gathering up the gun, backpack, and canister like nothing happened. His hands are steady, but Sam notices how he keeps his eyes ahead, not looking down at the sleepers or the bridge at all. He grips Sam's shoulder, pulling at Sam's t-shirt as he tugs him a little closer, then forward. "Let's get off here before Casper the Snot-nosed Brat gets back."
Dean's fingers stay twisted into Sam's t-shirt all the way to the other side.
Crouching in the dust, Dean stares across the trestle bridge, then looks down at the river below.
"I think I know what happened," Dean says, and nods his head downstream. "We'll find him washed up along there, someplace."
"Yeah." He imagines Jacob Hurley, how maybe he walked the rail like a balance beam, messing around the way kids to, arms spread wide. Maybe something startled him, a hawk, and he lost his balance.
After they climb down the slope to the river, grabbing onto bushes to keep themselves from sliding too fast, Dean sits on a boulder at the water's edge. Sam wonders why he stopped.
Elbows leaning on his knees, Dean bows his head for a moment, his amulet swinging forward. He takes a few deep breaths. "Man, I hate heights," he says, voice low.
And then Sam knows why Dean gripped his shirt so tightly. This is as close to a thank you as Sam's going to hear.
They follow the river, while Sam tries to pay attention to the trees, mud, and fallen logs but keeps seeing Dean up on the bridge, body jerking and falling, over and over.
Sam wants this to be done. One of his sneakers sinks into a patch of mud. He pulls it out with a loud squelch.
Dean turns to look at Sam over his shoulder, and grins. "Gotta watch where you're stepping, Sammy." He picks up a long stick and pokes it into a tangled patch of undergrowth. Then Dean walks on, sun falling over him filtered through the trees until it looks like his hair is a moving patchwork of blond and brown.
"Quit calling me 'Sammy'," Sam mumbles, going more slowly. He lets Dean get farther and farther ahead, and watches as he pokes his stick into more bushes, how he turns his head to scan the forest floor, searching for Jacob.
In the end, it's Sam who finds him. The wind shifts, and the heavy almost-sweet smell of mud changes to something else. Sam stumbles to a stop and gags. He tugs the collar of his t-shirt up to cover his nose and mouth as he turns.
There's a patch of blue under the tangle of leaves. Coughing, Sam edges closer. He tugs a long stick free and pokes it into the mess of fallen branches, pushing them aside.
He must've made some kind of noise, although he doesn't remember calling for Dean or screaming or anything, but Dean's right up behind him all of a sudden.
"Day-um," Dean breathes.
The kid's eyes stare sightlessly upward, his skin bloated and discolored. Flies swirl over him.
Sam feels Dean's hand tugging him back but Sam resists and takes a step forward. He can't stop staring, seeing how similar and yet distorted the kid's face is from his ghost's. It's definitely the same guy, though. Jacob Hurley walked the trestle bridge, thought it'd be fun to use the rail like a balance beam, and he fell. He was alone, and he fell, down into the river.
Like Dean almost did.
Now Dean's also got his t-shirt tugged up over his nose, and he's holding the canister of salt, the accelerant, and his lighter in his hands.
"Here." Dean pushes them into Sam's hands. "Your find. You should do the honors."
Sam looks down at the objects Dean's giving him. His hands stay slack. Railroad sleepers and hunts, stretching on forever.
"No," he says, his voice soft.
"What?" Dean looks confused. He tugs his shirt down. "Dude, you know how to do this. Just sprinkle it on and light 'er up. What's wrong with you?"
"I said no." Sam shoves the salt, accelerant and lighter hard at Dean's chest, hard enough that Dean staggers back a step, clutching the items on reflex. Sam turns his back on Dean and the body of Jacob Hurley and starts walking fast back towards the trestle bridge.
His chest aches and he clenches his hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
He's almost back to the trestle bridge when he hears Dean behind him, making no effort to be quiet.
"Sammy--Sam. Sam, hang on." Dean breaks into a run, curves around to cut him off. He's got his backpack over his shoulder, the salt and lighter fluid nowhere in sight. Sam smells it on the wind, Dean's taken care of the salt-and-burn. Sam keeps on walking but Dean puts out his hands and grabs Sam's shoulders, stopping him. "C'mon, talk to me."
"I don't..."
"What? What the hell is up with you, man? You don't what?" Sam tries to push past Dean, but Dean won't let him. "We've got a job to do."
"I don't want it." Sam pushes to get past Dean again. When Dean tightens his grip, Sam shoves him in the solar plexus, almost a punch.
"Hey, easy--"
When Sam swings at Dean in earnest, Dean dodges it and, lightning-quick, has Sam's arm twisted up behind his back, immobilizing him. He shrugs out of the backpack, letting it fall.
It doesn't hurt unless Sam squirms, which Sam does. He leg-sweeps Dean, causing him to lose his balance and they go down together. This time, Sam's punch connects with Dean's stomach and he hears Dean grunt at the impact.
Mud soaking into his jeans, Sam takes another swing, this time at Dean's face and Dean rolls out of the way and up onto his feet.
Sam remains where he is, on his knees by the river. The supports of the trestle bridge swim in his vision. Sam wraps his arms around himself, tears hot against his face.
"I don't want it," Sam says. "Hunting, the rest of my life."
Dead things and things with claws and red hungry eyes and Dean falling from the bridge and Dad with his torn-up leg and the real monster in his closet.
He can't stop the sob from breaking out of him, just hunches over and lets it take him.
Then he's aware of Dean kneeling in the mud beside him, feels the warmth as Dean wraps his arms around him, practically picking him up, like he's a little kid. Sam pushes his face against his brother's t-shirt, smelling sweat and mud and smoke and gun oil.
When the sobs finally subside, he pushes himself back and Dean lets go of him and stands up. It's really hard to tell what's going on in Dean's head as he looks down at Sam. His face has gone blank in the way Dean's face goes blank when he doesn't want anyone to know what he's thinking.
"We gotta get back," Dean says, his voice a little scratchy. He clears his throat.
Sam watches his brother walk towards the base of the trestle bridge and thinks, I'll never be as brave as you.
They climb up to the tracks and start walking back the way they came. The sun's lower in the sky, light slanting gently, turning the weeds and wildflowers to gold. After a few miles, Dean stops taking point and falls back so he's in step with Sam. The quiet between them settles into comfort.
Later on, Sam will remember the walk home as when it all really changed.
Later on, he'll have hundreds of moments when he'll long to be in that walk with Dean along the tracks again.
Sam finished typing, stared at the last paragraph, then leaned back in his chair. The ache was gone. The sun had moved, and the office seemed colder.
He sat a while, fingering the amulet that hung around his neck, remembering. The last time he'd seen his father alive, and the last time he'd seen his father; faces, words, the burn of whiskey, the smell of sulfur, the way a kiss tasted, how it felt to have claws tear into him, to have his body slammed to the ground, white-hot brightness of the inexplicable, his brother's hands pulling him away from fire, the rhythms of the Rituale Romanum.
After he closed the file and stood up, a twinge of pain shot through his chest, along his arm. Sam's breath caught. Then the pain subsided, and cold swept over him, not the deep chill that signaled a spirit, but uncanny all the same, and he had no idea what to make of it.
Sam turned off the computer and left the office, heading back down the stairs. It was easier than going up, and easier than it had been for years walking down. His fingers trailed over the markings again.
When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he saw the big black car parked in the drive, chrome bright, Dean leaning against the hood, lips curving in an easy half-smile.
"Hey, Sammy. You ready to go?"
"Uh, yeah. I think so." Sam scratched at the back of his head. "But I don't...how come you're..."
"Pulled a few strings." Dean's half-smile flashed into a grin. "I got connections."
Sam laughed, and Dean opened the driver's side door, which squeaked as loud as ever. Sam ducked into the car from the other side.
As they rolled down the long drive, Sam turned around to look back.
"You don't need to worry about them," Dean said, adjusting the rear-view mirror. "They'll be all right."
They pulled out onto the highway.
~end
Additional notes:
+Maps: google map of Cottage Grove and Row River and Row River National Recreational Trail website. I'm not at all sure of the distances, and fudged local geography for the sake of the story.
+The rails to trails program at Row River was completed in 1998. I pretended it was later.
+This website was helpful in figuring out where to set the story, since I wanted to try to put the Winchesters in the places where Stand By Me was filmed.
+Brownsville was the town used in the movie as the fictional Castle Rock.
+A part of me can't let go of this as my mental image of young Dean.
