Fic: Heart, Throat
Genre: gen; angst, drama, hurt/comfort; pre-series
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~6400
Characters: Sam, Dean, John
Warnings: language, mentions of canon-level gore
Notes: Written for crowroad3 for the 2019 spn_summergen exchange!
Summary: For the prompt, Lightning storm. In which Sam Winchester would rather not be there; in which Sam Winchester may or may not be the reason they're there at all. 1998 and a case that never quite resolves.
“Do you remember this place? From when you were about five?”
Sam glances around at the red booth seats, the waitresses in yellow dresses. There’s a Lost Dog sign on the bulletin board. An elderly man doing a crossword puzzle in the corner. This must be the tenth diner Sam has been to this month; they all look the same to him now.
“No,” says Sam. “You do?”
Dean laughs loud and easy, sprawls in the back corner of the booth. “Yeah, it was one of the best days of my life!”
Dad chuckles at that, sets his elbows on the table. “I remember.”
Sam looks down at the crayon marks on the table. Great. Two against one.
Dean leans forward, performance mode in full throttle. Sam imagines the entire diner angling toward Dean like a cartoon, the waitresses leaning in with their butts daintily poked out behind them, trays held mid-air, blinking huge eyes.
“So Dad orders us this milkshake, right? It’s got all these sprinkles on it-you picked it out, and you are so fucking excited to dig into that thing. When the waitress brings it out, it’s like you’re seeing the Holy Grail. And you’re taking your first big sip through the red straw-it’s like, this holy moment. And I let rip the loudest fucking fart that this diner has heard before or since. And the milkshake just shoots out your nose. I mean, it gets on my face, it covers the entire fucking table… Man, I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. And you cried for like ten minutes after that-you were traumatized. I think Dad ended up drinking most of the milkshake-we were too busy wigging out to care.”
That part Sam does remember. He did care.
“It’s a damn shame they don’t have that on the menu anymore,” Dad says, shaking his head.
“It’s a motherfucking tragedy, is what it is.”
At this last comment, the waitress serving a young family a few tables down flips her head to glare in their direction. Sam mouths Sorry and she rolls her eyes.
“Tone it down a little, Dean?” Sam tries.
“What?” says Dean, cheerfully oblivious.
“Nothing.”
Sam resents both Dad’s conscientious use of curse words around Sam and, by contrast, Dean’s heedless spew of vulgarities. Sam suspects that Dad is measuring whether his youngest son is man enough for the language, as if Sam hadn’t been exposed to far worse since he was young enough to cry over milkshakes in public. As for Dean, Sam can’t definitively categorize his behavior as either braggadocio or a misguided attempt to welcome Sam into a world he’s not sure he wants.
Dad brings out the newspaper articles on the case, and for a minute he and Dean are reviewing one together, leaning toward each other from opposite sides of the table. Dean’s shoulders almost match Dad’s. Sam hunches in on himself. He might be finally surpassing shrimp stature, but no matter how many extra reps he puts in or how much he eats-and he eats a lot-he can’t keep up with his growth height-wise. Dean, Sam’s pretty sure, never went through an awkward beanpole stage.
Sam almost hates to read the articles again. He can imagine the violent death of “Luke Martin, devout churchgoer” all the more vividly for the vague terms used to describe it. And the victim’s wife, Cheryl, looks so young in her picture. Their daughter is going into kindergarten.
It’s hard to know what the monster is-if it is a monster-before they investigate, but Dad says according to a fellow hunter in the area, there’s enough weird to warrant a case. And right in their county, too. What are the odds?
Lucky them.
When the food comes, Dad takes one of the two burgers he ordered and drops it in front of Sam. “Put some meat on your bones,” he says.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam sees the waitress smirk.
This is going to be a great week, he can tell.
------
Sam takes in the church, the high spires and the sharp thin shadows of its architecture, and wonders why he never before thought of churches as foreboding.
This morning’s conversation went something like this:
Sam said he’d rather be doing research. Dad said he and Dean were coming. Sam argued that he’d be more helpful at the library, since an interview doesn’t require three people and Dad never lets them participate anyway. Dad said this was an opportunity for Sam to watch and learn. Sam said maybe this wasn’t something he wanted to learn.
“I want you and Dean close, Sam,” Dad finally said, voice harsh. “We don’t know what we’re walking into here.”
Sam was rankled by the implication that he and Dean needed coddling, but his curiosity won out. “What don’t we know?”
“We’ll find out,” said Dad. Before they left, he tucked a gun into his waistband.
Sam doesn’t want to find out anymore.
As they’re walking up the church steps, he grabs for the railing. Dean turns his head. “You good?”
“Yeah,” says Sam, standing up straight. Because he is. What the hell.
When Dad opens the heavy wooden door and steps inside, Sam has to push himself to follow. God, he hates this. There’s only so much Sam is willing to take out of their food supply for a quick lunch, and apparently it’s not enough to keep up with his metabolism. He’s off-kilter and fuzzy.
To distract himself, he tries to take in the room: possible threats, potential weapons, exits and escape routes. When his eyes skim over the confessional, something in his chest curls over. What does someone like him confess in there-the hundreds of lies, the things-people?-he’s helped kill? The prospect of it feels like a shroud. Exits, he thinks: exits, exits. Whatever the threat may be here, it isn’t hiding-it’s all around, it’s molasses-heavy oxygen and vibrating malevolence. Maybe it’s God himself, staring, pinning you with the weight of his judgment. Maybe it’s something else, something smothering and dark. Weapons would be useless here. All Sam can think about is how to get out.
“Sam?” Dean’s in front of him. Standing between him and the door. Sam‘s heart rate jumps. He steps to the side.
“Hey. Come on. Let’s sit down.” Dean has a hand under his elbow, is pulling him toward a pew, toward the heart of the church.
Sam can’t go in there.
“No,” Sam says, loud enough to hear over the buzzing in his head. “I need to-I need to go outside.”
He’s stumbling to the door before he knows what he’s doing. His vision is greyed but he knows his exit, he knows his exit.
He makes it to the bottom of the steps outside before he has to sit down. Puts his arms across his knees and drops his head against his arms, breathes deep and deliberate so he won’t throw up. When he can stand up, he walks down the sidewalk to the Impala where it’s parked along the road. He lowers himself into the grass and leans against the car in the shade.
Dean comes out of the church and jogs over, then stands on the sidewalk with his hands in the pockets of that stupid leather jacket like he’s waiting for Sam to say something.
In that jacket, in Sam’s peripheral vision, Sam imagines mistaking Dean for their father. But Dean’s not big enough for that. Sam doesn’t think he ever will be.
“Where’s Dad?” Sam finally says, not looking up.
“Doing his job.”
“Didn’t want to come out here to watch me hurl?”
“Did you hurl?” Dean says with more enthusiasm than Sam appreciates, looking around as if for evidence.
“Jeez. No.”
“Should’ve.”
Sam groans and puts his head on his arms again. Takes a second to stew in how stupid he feels.
“You need some grub?”
Sam sighs. “Yeah, probably.”
Dean holds out a five dollar bill, which Sam takes reluctantly.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He means that literally, Sam’s pretty sure.
Sam stands up slowly, trying to make it look casual under Dean’s eye. “Dad send you out here to babysit, or what?”
“Just trying to help.”
“Okay. Well, I can walk to the convenience store by myself.”
Dean hovers for a second. “Okay. Sure. Don’t let anything stupid happen to you.”
“It’s two blocks, Dean.”
Dean shrugs. “Dad says it’s a weird town.”
The store is unremarkable. The young clerk, apparently bored and unused to having a customer at this hour, watches him roam the aisles. Sam settles for a small bag of chips.
“Mid-day snack?” says the clerk with altogether too much interest. He moves his head so jauntily that his dark curls literally spring around his face.
“Yeah, sure,” says Sam, tapping his bill on the counter. He can feel the guy’s lopsided smile directed at him even as we walks out the door. It makes him walk a little faster than he wants to.
When he gets back to the Impala, he’s more nauseated than hungry. But he opens the bag anyway, leans against the car and stares the church down.
He won’t go back inside. Tactically it’s a bad move-he’s not necessary and his reappearance would only be distracting. He knows how this works. But he needs to prove something to himself. Not sure what it is he’s proving, but determined to do it anyway, Sam walks toward the church wall.
His feet hesitate with each step. By the time he gets close, he’s vibrating again, his veins squirming. Defiant, he raises a hand to touch the stone.
Something appears around the corner. Sam whirls.
Wide eyes, blue and human. Sam’s inches away from another ordinary person. His arms are half-raised for a threat.
“Sorry,” Sam breathes, just as the other person says the same. He takes a step back, and said step produces a distinct crunch. He looks down. There are potato chips scattered across the sidewalk.
“Sorry,” repeats the person. “I didn’t see you there.”
It’s Cheryl Martin. The victim’s wife. She’s prettier in real life than the newspaper photo. She has thick eyelashes and a pretty-if underpowered-smile.
“Me too. I mean, I also didn’t see you. And sorry.” Sam feels his face warm.
“You feeling okay? I was in the church earlier… they said you might be sick.”
“Yeah. Just, uh-low blood sugar.” He gestures with the bag.
“Sorry about those.”
“It’s okay,” he lies: “I’ve eaten enough already.”
He steps back a little, and she makes no move to leave. She looks lost and lonely and starved for stupid conversation about chips on the sidewalk. The sentiment is so strong and familiar that Sam has to look away. He tries to think of something else to say.
She asks if that’s his father inside.
He tells her how his dad’s a policeman, how himself and his brother are along for the ride to learn about the job. His brother, he’s interested in becoming a cop. Sam has to write about it for school.
The lies loosen him up. Each lie is a step away from who Sam Winchester has been, and that makes him feel more like himself. And more like a terrible person.
Maybe those two things are the same. He’s thought about that.
“That’s some school project,” Cheryl says, shifting her purse on her shoulder.
She’s about to leave, Sam thinks; she’s about to leave having heard only lies from me.
“I’ve heard about what happened to you,” he blurts. “To your family. I just want to say I’m sorry.”
He hasn’t had the chance to interact with many of the monsters' victims. Not that he wants to. But the one thing he’s always known he would say, if given the chance, is that he’s sorry.
Now, he wonders if he’s made a bad move. Cheryl looks almost stricken. He notices a loose strand of hair he hadn’t seen before, a smudge in her eyeliner, the way her fingers twist at the strap of her purse. He realizes belatedly how sincerely he’d spoken. His ears feel hot.
“Sorry,” he says, again. The word is starting to decay into a featureless glob of sound.
“No,” says Cheryl; “it’s okay.” She takes a breath, hugging herself. “Luke really wasn’t like that, you know. I mean, Luke bakes snickerdoodles for our daughter’s fundraisers. He sings Aerosmith off-key when we’re alone together.”
Sam nods. He doesn’t know what “like that” means. “I’ve heard he was a great guy.”
“A wonderful guy.”
Sam panics for a moment while she struggles to hold herself together. He feels shamefully relieved when she pushes her hair out of her face and straightens her posture.
“I… didn’t realize they’d share any details with minors.”
“My dad has his own standards for what’s appropriate to share, I guess. Actually,” he says hurriedly, trying to shift the conversation, “I’m more interested in folklore. Local legends and stories. That’s really what I’m writing about for school.”
Cheryl chuckles sadly as she steps around him. “Yeah. My daughter, too.” She takes a step away, but she stops, still facing him.
“Your daughter?” he prompts stupidly.
“She says she saw a dragon.”
------
Luke Martin had been torn to shreds. Something with claws, for sure. Big ones.
But Dad and Dean had also found sulfur at the scene.
“Do demons have claws?” Sam asks impatiently. He’s already peeved, because Dad hadn’t called Sam, Sam had called him, and two hours after they’d left the scene. If Dad’s going to shunt him away to research duty, the least he can do is be efficient about it.
“I don’t know. Dad says sometimes, probably.”
Oh, and Dean is on the other end, because Dad couldn’t be bothered to talk.
“Well, does he have any other ideas?”
“Nothing he’s sharing.”
Sam hasn’t mentioned his conversation with Cheryl. If Dad can withhold information, he can, too.
“Best part, though, Sam? Too gnarly for the newspaper. Ready for this? Dude’s head was found, quote, ‘affixed to the church architecture.’ Like, stuck up there kinda near the entrance. Some old lady spotted it first.”
Sam feels sick.
When Dad and Dean finally come to pick him up, the library has been closed for half an hour. In that time, he’s able to come up with some crap about looking up kitsunes and skinwalkers and even Japanese cat-monsters-he bullshits the names and isn’t questioned on it-to satisfy Dad’s questions. To Sam’s shock, his failure to identify a single decent lead is all but dismissed.
In the morning, Dean tunes into a local channel on the motel TV. The newscaster warns of a grisly story, and Sam starts at the photograph of a young man with thick dark hair and a crooked smile. A faithful volunteer with the local Catholic charities. Head found on the church building this morning. Body found ripped apart.
Described by friends and family as sweet, shy, and retiring. Last night, was reportedly seen holding a woman at knifepoint behind the convenience store.
------
When Dad leaves them both at the library, Sam goes for it.
"What do you think about gargoyles?"
Dean shrugs. "Are we talking the Manhattan Clan, or..."
"No, dude, like as a monster."
"Never heard of them."
"Me neither. But listen.”
It makes sense. Maybe. For years and years, this town had been virtually blemish-free. And it was practically the holiest church around. “And suddenly the members start acting weird? And afterward end up brutally murdered? That's weird."
"That's definitely weird, but it's not specifically... gargoyle weird. I thought gargoyles were those things that sit on top of creepy old buildings. Like, made of stone and shit."
“Not necessarily. I think they might be more like serpent-creatures, or dragons. Anyway, according to a lot of the lore, gargoyles are meant to be protectors against evil. It’s why they put gargoyle images on churches, to protect against evil spirits or serve as a warning. So maybe these two guys had turned evil, or turned demon, or whatever, and the gargoyle had to take them out.”
“Where the hell did you get this idea?”
Sam only pauses for half a second. “Census records. French Catholic immigrants.”
“Good god, you are the biggest geek.”
“Okay. Honestly?” Sam sets down his book and sits across from Dean. “I was looking up dragons because Cheryl said her daughter saw a dragon.”
“Cheryl Martin, Cheryl?”
“Yeah.”
“When did you talk to her?”
“When she came out of that church.”
“You think a five-year-old is a reliable witness?”
“Why not?”
“Okay, but why now? If this gargoyle dragon has been patrolling this place since who-knows-when, why has this never happened before? Where are these demons coming from? Why are they posse-ing up here?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t researching demons. But the gargoyle thing makes sense-right?”
Sam’s desperate for Dean to believe him. He holds his breath waiting for a reply.
Dean shoves his chair back on two legs and blows out a cheekful of air. “I guess it’s as good a guess as any.”
------
When Dad says he wants Sam out on the hunt, he immediately asks why. Dean shoots him a look, like Shut up and take the compliment. Because Dean would do that. Dean would, that’s how he’d take it. But Sam wants to know the catch. He hasn’t been the most compliant member of Dad’s team during this process.
“We need more manpower,” is what Dad says. “This monster could be a bad son of a bitch and we need all hands on deck. So you’re not going to have one of your teenage episodes during this hunt-because if you do, you die. You understand?”
There’s something in Dad that Sam doesn’t recognize, some undercurrent that’s not quite on-course.
“You understand me, Sam?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Grab your jacket and check the trunk.”
Sam doesn’t know what to prep or look for. He starts checking everything, starting with the demon basics and moving toward the heavy-hitting weapons. He tests the machete, forgetting he had sharpened it just last week. He’s sucking the blood off his thumb when Dean walks up.
“Need a band-aid?”
“Shut up.”
“Dad says it’s not a gargoyle.”
“What the hell is it, then?”
They don’t know.
------
Turns out, they’re not hunting so much as scouting. Need to get a closer look, Dad says. Draw the creature out. Sam will be the getaway car.
“I can’t drive,” Sam points out.
“Yes, you can,” Dean scoffs.
“Not legally.”
“Such a stickler for the rules, Sammy.”
Sam hates this job. Wait and watch while you ride alternating waves of boredom, resentment, and all-consuming anxiety. Sometimes you hear awful noises in the distance, and then sit through the following silence barely breathing. Sometimes you have to make the call on whether to call 911, on whether your brother or your dad is almost-dead enough for a hospital to be the best option. Sam had been in that position once, his bloody thumb hovering over the buttons while he pressed shaking fingers against his father’s pulse.
Sam had asked where Dad’s hunter friend was, the one from nearby who had pointed them toward this case. Dad had simply replied, “Unavailable.”
So here was Sam, sitting at the edge of the parking lot behind the church, trying not to look at its spires, to think of Dad or Dean’s head mounted on them, tendons dangling and blood oozing out from misshapen lips.
He shoves his palms against his eye sockets, takes a second to breathe. He hates this church. He hates this church.
A bright light flashes behind his eyelids. He looks up and sees Dad and Dean, little silhouettes, disappearing around the corner of the building. He pictures them in this brain: they’re the only thing keeping him from driving back to the motel at any given moment. His leg starts bouncing without his say-so, his lungs fold in on themselves.
Holy shit, he needs to leave.
He can’t leave. He can’t leave. Dad and Dean.
He has his fingers on the key in the ignition, almost turns it. Stops himself and shakes out his hand.
He realizes he’s crying. He hates himself.
A bolt of lightning shoots through the sky, illuminating the angles of the church in garish pale blue.
Something is moving in the shadows.
Sam sits up, brandishing his machete. It won’t do jack squat against whatever this is. It’s huge, sinewy and slinky. He waits for the lightning again. When it comes, he’s ready. Clear as day, he sees it, a long shape almost matching the length of the church. It’s scaly, with huge claws and a face out of a nightmare Sam hasn’t yet suffered.
The bottom drops out of Sam’s everything. He’s sinking through the floor of the Impala, under the pavement of the parking lot, where all the worst of the anxiety he’s exhaled has pooled and deepened and mutated.
Dad and Dean appear in the next flash, and the monster is staring straight at them.
Sam tries to scream. Can’t make a sound. Can’t see.
The next time the lightning comes, the monster is slithering toward the Impala.
Sam steps out onto the pavement.
------
He comes to in the Impala, slumped behind the driver’s seat. There’s a pain along his right side. He pulls his shirt aside to find a wide bandage, red with blood, covering him mid-ribcage to hip. He breathes through the burn of it. Decides not to sit up just yet. Thinks maybe if he doesn’t move, he won’t stir up the black stuff that’s inside him.
Dad and Dean are talking. Sam inhales and exhales the hum of their voices. Existence hurts. He squeezes against the window, goes rigid to keep from squirming.
Lightning flashes outside, and this time thunder rumbles. Sam feels it reverberate in him as a pronouncement of Wrong. It keeps thrumming louder.
“...damn idiot,” Dad is saying.
“...gank the motherfucker,” Dean is saying.
Sam boils over in a scream.
The world contracts, the suddenly tips, then jolts into clarity-rough hands holding him upright, Dad shouting loud and close: “Tell me what’s wrong! Sam!”
“Nothing,” says Sam automatically. Half of the word sticks to the glue at the back of his throat.
“Why did you scream like that?” Dad demands. “Answer me.”
The car is stopped, idling. Dad fills up the doorway. His grip on Sam’s arms is hot and tight. Dean hovers from a distance, somewhere in the right highway lane, staring. Sam feels flushed and stupid. He tries to wrench himself from Dad’s grasp. Dad only grips tighter.
“Answer me, Sam.”
Dean reaches inside the car and turns the key. The protective hum of the engine drops away. In the quiet Sam can hear Dean breathing, Dad breathing, his own breathing.
Sam feels naked and trapped. He wants to scream again.
“Fuck off,” he says instead. “I’m fine.”
“Sam.” Dad’s voice is like the thunder.
“I’m having a fucking ‘teenage episode,’ Dad!”
Sam glares hard, waits to take whatever’s going to be thrown back.
Dad stares. Sam is sharply aware of his chest expanding with each breath, the way it moves his arms in Dad’s grip. When Dad lets go, it’s deliberate: his fingers don’t relax. He stands up. “Get in the car, Dean.”
“Jesus,” Dean breathes.
Dad starts the engine. “Close the door, Sam.”
There are five minutes of silence while they drive. Then Dad, his voice low and hard: “You don’t ever scream like that, Sam. You don’t ever do that unless you’re dying. You understand me?”
His eyes bore into Sam from the rear-view mirror. “Yes, sir,” says Sam, to make it all stop. But Dad’s gaze targets him all the way back to the motel, and Sam can’t squeeze far enough into the door to escape it.
------
As soon as Sam opens the car door, his stomach heaves in a dramatic attempt to turn him inside out. His body is trying to expel his liver and doing a terrible job. Dad leans a little over the puddle of rain-streaked vomit to lay an awkward hand on Sam’s shoulder and ask if he’s okay. Sam takes a few breaths and decides he feels more shocked than anything else. He stands up and walks to their room. Makes it to a bed and sits upright, by some miracle doesn’t explode.
Dad announces he’s heading back out. Dread surges through Sam so intensely he almost retches with it. “Wait, Dad-where are you going?”
“You’ll be fine,” says Dad. “Dean’s here.”
“Not what I asked,” says Sam, over-loud, because Dad is already stepping toward the door. Sam’s entire being is in the wrong timeline, the wrong dimension, and he’s burning for it.
“Keep an eye on him,” Dad says to Dean, without a glance toward Sam. “Call me if anything comes up.”
“If what comes up? Dad!”
The door slams. The engine of the car turns over.
A pocket of rage bursts in Sam’s chest and washes through his body.
“Fuck you,” he spits.
“You good?” says Dean, who very much wants the answer to be Yes.
Sam says No. And Fuck.
He finds himself desperately agreeing to a card game. The cards go globular then blank in Sam’s vision, splitting apart and then uniting in watercolor clarity. He doubles forward onto the table, doggedly keeping up with his turns. They maintain a terrible facade for longer than Sam thinks he’s able to participate. He’s being squeezed in a vise. Drowned in a vacuum.
Finally he bolts for the door. Dean grabs him by the collar and holds him back. Sam tries to fight him. Gets his arms pinned.
“Sam. Hey. Where are you going?”
Sam gasps, “I don’t know.”
“Well, stop it, okay? Breathe.”
Sam’s heart beats in hard, inescapable thuds. He’s stuck in a fight-or-flight response and what he needs to get away from is himself. He’s not going to survive this.
He survives long enough to come to on his bed with his veins on fire. He has to make his breaths louder than the pain to be sure he exists apart from it.
He remembers Dean talking to Dad on the phone. And telling him that Dad had a cure.
Sam focuses on making it to the next thunderclap. Then the next.
He doesn’t hear Dad come in, just feels it like a drop in barometric pressure.
Things get worse after that before they get better. He imagines he’s in the motel bathtub, feeling trapped and seeing red, limbs streaking wet against the sides even though Dad never turns on the faucets. But Sam thinks he hallucinated that part: that’s when he heard Dad say I’m sorry.
------
Sam wakes with a jolt that doesn’t translate to his body. Dull plaid wallpaper, ceiling paint cracking and peeling in the northwest corner. He inhales deeply and the sheets smell faintly of smoke. He knows who and where he is, and that feels crucial and comforting.
“Rise and shine, bitch.”
That feels crucial and comforting, too.
Sam stretches. He expected the throb in his side; what surprises him is that his entire body is thoroughly sore. He counts down from ten to make himself sit up, starts back over at ten again after getting to zero and feeling how heavy his head is. When he heaves himself upright, it feels like all his dreams from the night before slide out of the back of his head. They leave behind a distinct blank space. He almost lays back down to see if his brain will resettle and fill back in.
“Where’s Dad?” he asks, mostly to put off the ordeal of sitting up. He feels light-headed and isn’t sure how much of the sensation is physical.
“On his way back. He said we could hit the road as soon as you were walking and talking again.”
“Did you call him while I was still asleep?”
“You were halfway awake. Anyway. I’m ready to skip town.”
Sam opens his eyes again to see Dean tossing his toothbrush into his bag. He’s wet from the shower, casually shirtless. Under his thin shirt, Sam’s arms feel like toothpicks.
“Hey,” Dean says. “Breakfast.” He indicates a slouching muffin and a bottle of Gatorade sitting on the off-kilter nightstand. “Dad said drink at least half of that.”
Sam rolls his eyes, unscrews the cap, and starts chugging without pausing to breathe. By the time he’s gotten through two-thirds of the bottle, he’s almost puked, but not quite.
Dean’s staring, sluggishly exasperated. “What the fuck, Sam.”
“Just trying to make Dad happy.” He sets the Gatorade down firmly to disguise the way his hands are trembling, and quickly swipes up the muffin and takes a bite before Dean can say anything. He feels weak and useless. He won’t admit it, but he’s grateful for the Gatorade.
Dean goes back to packing, eyes pinched and mouth slack.
“You look terrible,” says Sam, honestly.
“Yeah, well, it’s a family trait,” Dean mumbles.
“Dad gave you whiskey last night.” Sam remembers Dad’s voice, directed at Dean: Here, calm down. And several times: Sit down, Dean. Sit.
Dean gives Sam a face-Come on, Sam, like you’ve never had a drink-but Sam is just struck, hard, by how young and vulnerable he looks.
“Drink some water,” Sam says, and escapes to the bathroom.
He has to sit down for a minute before he can brush his teeth. He’s wearing different clothes than he was last night. Sweatpants and a Led Zeppelin shirt that used to be Dean’s. Even his underwear is different. He doesn’t remember changing. Dean hasn’t volunteered any commentary on this, so Sam carefully doesn’t ask. He doesn’t think Dean knows anything about it. That makes it worse.
“Couldn’t leave a towel for me, you jerk?” Sam shouts.
Dean’s brief response is unintelligible.
“What?”
The bathroom door flies open. “Shut up, okay? For fuck’s sake.” Dean winces away from the bathroom light.
“Towels?” Sam tries again, in a stage whisper.
“Weren’t any towels. Why do you think I’m dripping like a wet t-shirt contestant?”
Sam scans the bathroom again. “Why would-”
“I dunno, Sam.”
“Is he okay? Was he bleeding when he came in?”
“No, he was fine.”
The empty space in Sam’s mind yawns wider. He puts a hand against his skull like he can shove the thoughts back together.
“He was probably cleaning up after you peeing the bed again.”
“Ten years ago, Dean.”
“Seven.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Sam glances around the bathroom and in his bag, sure he’s missing something but not sure what he’s looking for.
“Are you gonna shower or what?”
There’s an edge to Dean’s voice. He’s pacing, bag already packed. Sam doesn’t think Dean knows how much pleading is in his face. That makes him feel sick, that Dean doesn’t know.
“Nah, I guess not,” Sam says, and starts throwing his stuff in his bag. His clothes from yesterday are nowhere to be found. Dean doesn’t ask what he’s looking for, doesn’t offer to help. Sam doesn’t ask him.
He does ask if Dad killed the thing.
“Yeah, that’s where he’s been.”
“So… I’m good now.” His side burns when he walks. Like a normal wound.
Dean’s looking at the floor. “Guess so.”
“Dean, what the hell happened to me?”
Dean itches his eye. “You’ll have to ask Dad.”
Dean doesn’t know any more than he does. Dean’s not hiding the answers, he’s hiding from them.
Sam clutches the Gatorade bottle.
“Jesus,” says Dean. “Let’s go.”
Dean squints against the sunlight. Sam shifts his backpack so it won’t touch his right side.
“How’s the kidney stone?”
It takes a moment for Sam to register what the man said. A genial-looking guy in his mid-forties who’s apparently just walked up to his motel room door from a red pick-up truck. He’s standing there with his key in the lock, a polite grimace on his face.
Sam’s brain is still skipping when Dean, with a languid smile, replies, “She’s great. How’s your wife?”
The man stares for a moment, affronted, before entering his room and firmly shutting the door.
Sam dashes to catch up with Dean. “What the hell was that?” he demands.
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
“No, I mean you.”
Dean shrugs.
“Jesus Christ,” Sam mutters.
Dean heads into the office, and Sam sits on a sticky bench, trying to catch his breath and sort out the pain.
“Alibi,” he says, when Dean comes back out of the office key-free.
“What?”
“Kidney stone guy.”
“Oh, right. Makes sense.”
“...Do teenagers even get kidney stones?”
“You did.”
“Right.”
There’s a short silence. Sam comments, “Nosy neighbors.”
“Loud kid with a kidney stone”
How loud?
“Where’re we meeting Dad?”
“Not here.”
They trudge down the street side by side. Dean wipes one hand down his face, then two.
“You okay?”
Dean shrugs backward-Dad’s leather resettles on his shoulders. “Peachy. You?”
Sam’s side burns and pulls with each step, his stomach tight and his face twisted against the pain. His breaths scrape against the roof of his mouth. His limbs tremble when he moves them and his legs threaten to fold. His vision wavers. His heart feels tired.
He’s standing and walking through sheer force of will. It’s how he knows he’s alive.
“I’m okay,” says Sam.
Dad’s waiting for them in an alley. Sam hears the engine start before they even round the corner. Dad starts driving as soon as the doors are closed, before Sam has a moment to reorient himself to a sense of stability. Dad doesn’t say a word, but he looks at them hard, and Sam feels pinned-like a bug in a collection-by his stare in the rearview mirror.
Gravel crunches under the wheels as they turn onto a highway at the edge of town. When the road is humming underneath them, Dad finally speaks.
“You take care of the key?”
Dean: “Yes, sir.”
“You run into anyone?”
“Kidney stone,” says Sam.
“He’s good,” says Dean.
“Did you get enough to eat, Sam?”
The question is like an unexpected shove, tipping Sam sideways so that he has to plant a hand on the seat to stay upright. Dean’s head turns ever so slightly to the left. Sam looks at the back of his neck and feels very alone in the back seat. Time passes in quickening heartbeats. He opens his mouth and takes a preparatory breath, then another.
Dad says, “We’ll make a stop.”
Sam’s face burns. He turns toward the window, dizzied by the passing trees.
Dean clears his throat. “You kill it?”
“I took care of it.”
“It’s dead?” says Sam.
“It’s dead.”
Sam wants to ask How. What he says is, “It was a gargoyle, wasn’t it?”
It’s four long seconds before Dad replies, “It was.”
Sam recalls the gargoyle, in picture-perfect cut-out, staring at Dean and Dad and their weapons. Then the gargoyle, coming after Sam with its hideous face.
Sam’s head is too light; it separates and hovers somewhere near the edge of the interstate. He hears his own voice muffled through the car window.
“Why did you kill it?”
“You know better than to ask that.”
“Why?”
“It’s a monster, Sam. It was killing people.”
“It was killing demons.”
“It went after you.”
Sam’s head reattaches, feels like a balloon threatening to pop as the silence in the car sharpens.
“So,” Sam says, “that was another fucking revenge mission?”
The Impala decelerates.
Dean moves: scratches his nose, looks to the window like he’s tracking something going by in the trees, flicks his eyes toward Sam when he turns his head far enough.
Then Dad presses the gas, and they speed back up until the shadows flicker across the windows at a familiar speed.
“The gargoyle was dangerous,” says Dad, hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. “It had to be taken care of before it could hurt anyone else.”
“Like it hurt me.”
“Yes.”
Sam looks doggedly at Dad. “What did it do to me?”
Dad says nothing.
“It was venom, right?”
Dad doesn’t move, doesn’t even adjust the steering wheel, as if the road itself bends to meet him. “Drink your Gatorade, Sam.”
Sam punches the door with his fist. “Why the hell-”
“Like a fucking platypus,” Dean says abruptly.
Sam stares. Dad stares. For a moment, Dean seems more bewildered than either of them, as if he’s just realized he spoke out loud. He sits up a little straighter.
“They’ve got the, uh, poison claw things. On their back feet. Ethan said he knew someone who got stung or stabbed or whatever? ...Anyway. I saw those on the dragon. Gargoyle. It had dew claws. Could be venomous. Makes sense.”
Dad nods. "Probably."
"Probably?" exclaims Sam weakly. "You healed me with a ‘probably’?!"
"I know someone who had the antidote. That’s all I needed."
“Who?”
“Someone in the area. You don’t know them.”
“Who?”
“I don’t want you to know them.”
The emptiness in Sam’s head suddenly becomes thick and heavy. He lets it fall against the window.
“Gatorade, Sam.”
He’s found the bottle and unscrewed the lid before he realizes he doesn’t know if it was Dad or Dean who spoke. But it’s Dean who’s turned toward him, is looking at him to make sure he drinks, doesn’t spill the stuff in his lap like an idiot.
There’s something very important he wants to ask before he falls asleep. He dives into his brain-mess to look for it, but then finds what he’s looking for in a patient package on his tongue.
“Why did you say ‘I’m sorry’?”
Dad glances at the rearview mirror. “What do you mean?”
“Bathtub.”
When he doesn’t hear an answer, he’s afraid he might have dozed through it. “Dad,” he prompts.
Dad sighs. “I’m sorry you have to live it, Sam. This life.”
Sam closes his eyes. He thinks, Not forever.
His heartbeats are even, now, and strong.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~6400
Characters: Sam, Dean, John
Warnings: language, mentions of canon-level gore
Notes: Written for crowroad3 for the 2019 spn_summergen exchange!
Summary: For the prompt, Lightning storm. In which Sam Winchester would rather not be there; in which Sam Winchester may or may not be the reason they're there at all. 1998 and a case that never quite resolves.
“Do you remember this place? From when you were about five?”
Sam glances around at the red booth seats, the waitresses in yellow dresses. There’s a Lost Dog sign on the bulletin board. An elderly man doing a crossword puzzle in the corner. This must be the tenth diner Sam has been to this month; they all look the same to him now.
“No,” says Sam. “You do?”
Dean laughs loud and easy, sprawls in the back corner of the booth. “Yeah, it was one of the best days of my life!”
Dad chuckles at that, sets his elbows on the table. “I remember.”
Sam looks down at the crayon marks on the table. Great. Two against one.
Dean leans forward, performance mode in full throttle. Sam imagines the entire diner angling toward Dean like a cartoon, the waitresses leaning in with their butts daintily poked out behind them, trays held mid-air, blinking huge eyes.
“So Dad orders us this milkshake, right? It’s got all these sprinkles on it-you picked it out, and you are so fucking excited to dig into that thing. When the waitress brings it out, it’s like you’re seeing the Holy Grail. And you’re taking your first big sip through the red straw-it’s like, this holy moment. And I let rip the loudest fucking fart that this diner has heard before or since. And the milkshake just shoots out your nose. I mean, it gets on my face, it covers the entire fucking table… Man, I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. And you cried for like ten minutes after that-you were traumatized. I think Dad ended up drinking most of the milkshake-we were too busy wigging out to care.”
That part Sam does remember. He did care.
“It’s a damn shame they don’t have that on the menu anymore,” Dad says, shaking his head.
“It’s a motherfucking tragedy, is what it is.”
At this last comment, the waitress serving a young family a few tables down flips her head to glare in their direction. Sam mouths Sorry and she rolls her eyes.
“Tone it down a little, Dean?” Sam tries.
“What?” says Dean, cheerfully oblivious.
“Nothing.”
Sam resents both Dad’s conscientious use of curse words around Sam and, by contrast, Dean’s heedless spew of vulgarities. Sam suspects that Dad is measuring whether his youngest son is man enough for the language, as if Sam hadn’t been exposed to far worse since he was young enough to cry over milkshakes in public. As for Dean, Sam can’t definitively categorize his behavior as either braggadocio or a misguided attempt to welcome Sam into a world he’s not sure he wants.
Dad brings out the newspaper articles on the case, and for a minute he and Dean are reviewing one together, leaning toward each other from opposite sides of the table. Dean’s shoulders almost match Dad’s. Sam hunches in on himself. He might be finally surpassing shrimp stature, but no matter how many extra reps he puts in or how much he eats-and he eats a lot-he can’t keep up with his growth height-wise. Dean, Sam’s pretty sure, never went through an awkward beanpole stage.
Sam almost hates to read the articles again. He can imagine the violent death of “Luke Martin, devout churchgoer” all the more vividly for the vague terms used to describe it. And the victim’s wife, Cheryl, looks so young in her picture. Their daughter is going into kindergarten.
It’s hard to know what the monster is-if it is a monster-before they investigate, but Dad says according to a fellow hunter in the area, there’s enough weird to warrant a case. And right in their county, too. What are the odds?
Lucky them.
When the food comes, Dad takes one of the two burgers he ordered and drops it in front of Sam. “Put some meat on your bones,” he says.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam sees the waitress smirk.
This is going to be a great week, he can tell.
------
Sam takes in the church, the high spires and the sharp thin shadows of its architecture, and wonders why he never before thought of churches as foreboding.
This morning’s conversation went something like this:
Sam said he’d rather be doing research. Dad said he and Dean were coming. Sam argued that he’d be more helpful at the library, since an interview doesn’t require three people and Dad never lets them participate anyway. Dad said this was an opportunity for Sam to watch and learn. Sam said maybe this wasn’t something he wanted to learn.
“I want you and Dean close, Sam,” Dad finally said, voice harsh. “We don’t know what we’re walking into here.”
Sam was rankled by the implication that he and Dean needed coddling, but his curiosity won out. “What don’t we know?”
“We’ll find out,” said Dad. Before they left, he tucked a gun into his waistband.
Sam doesn’t want to find out anymore.
As they’re walking up the church steps, he grabs for the railing. Dean turns his head. “You good?”
“Yeah,” says Sam, standing up straight. Because he is. What the hell.
When Dad opens the heavy wooden door and steps inside, Sam has to push himself to follow. God, he hates this. There’s only so much Sam is willing to take out of their food supply for a quick lunch, and apparently it’s not enough to keep up with his metabolism. He’s off-kilter and fuzzy.
To distract himself, he tries to take in the room: possible threats, potential weapons, exits and escape routes. When his eyes skim over the confessional, something in his chest curls over. What does someone like him confess in there-the hundreds of lies, the things-people?-he’s helped kill? The prospect of it feels like a shroud. Exits, he thinks: exits, exits. Whatever the threat may be here, it isn’t hiding-it’s all around, it’s molasses-heavy oxygen and vibrating malevolence. Maybe it’s God himself, staring, pinning you with the weight of his judgment. Maybe it’s something else, something smothering and dark. Weapons would be useless here. All Sam can think about is how to get out.
“Sam?” Dean’s in front of him. Standing between him and the door. Sam‘s heart rate jumps. He steps to the side.
“Hey. Come on. Let’s sit down.” Dean has a hand under his elbow, is pulling him toward a pew, toward the heart of the church.
Sam can’t go in there.
“No,” Sam says, loud enough to hear over the buzzing in his head. “I need to-I need to go outside.”
He’s stumbling to the door before he knows what he’s doing. His vision is greyed but he knows his exit, he knows his exit.
He makes it to the bottom of the steps outside before he has to sit down. Puts his arms across his knees and drops his head against his arms, breathes deep and deliberate so he won’t throw up. When he can stand up, he walks down the sidewalk to the Impala where it’s parked along the road. He lowers himself into the grass and leans against the car in the shade.
Dean comes out of the church and jogs over, then stands on the sidewalk with his hands in the pockets of that stupid leather jacket like he’s waiting for Sam to say something.
In that jacket, in Sam’s peripheral vision, Sam imagines mistaking Dean for their father. But Dean’s not big enough for that. Sam doesn’t think he ever will be.
“Where’s Dad?” Sam finally says, not looking up.
“Doing his job.”
“Didn’t want to come out here to watch me hurl?”
“Did you hurl?” Dean says with more enthusiasm than Sam appreciates, looking around as if for evidence.
“Jeez. No.”
“Should’ve.”
Sam groans and puts his head on his arms again. Takes a second to stew in how stupid he feels.
“You need some grub?”
Sam sighs. “Yeah, probably.”
Dean holds out a five dollar bill, which Sam takes reluctantly.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He means that literally, Sam’s pretty sure.
Sam stands up slowly, trying to make it look casual under Dean’s eye. “Dad send you out here to babysit, or what?”
“Just trying to help.”
“Okay. Well, I can walk to the convenience store by myself.”
Dean hovers for a second. “Okay. Sure. Don’t let anything stupid happen to you.”
“It’s two blocks, Dean.”
Dean shrugs. “Dad says it’s a weird town.”
The store is unremarkable. The young clerk, apparently bored and unused to having a customer at this hour, watches him roam the aisles. Sam settles for a small bag of chips.
“Mid-day snack?” says the clerk with altogether too much interest. He moves his head so jauntily that his dark curls literally spring around his face.
“Yeah, sure,” says Sam, tapping his bill on the counter. He can feel the guy’s lopsided smile directed at him even as we walks out the door. It makes him walk a little faster than he wants to.
When he gets back to the Impala, he’s more nauseated than hungry. But he opens the bag anyway, leans against the car and stares the church down.
He won’t go back inside. Tactically it’s a bad move-he’s not necessary and his reappearance would only be distracting. He knows how this works. But he needs to prove something to himself. Not sure what it is he’s proving, but determined to do it anyway, Sam walks toward the church wall.
His feet hesitate with each step. By the time he gets close, he’s vibrating again, his veins squirming. Defiant, he raises a hand to touch the stone.
Something appears around the corner. Sam whirls.
Wide eyes, blue and human. Sam’s inches away from another ordinary person. His arms are half-raised for a threat.
“Sorry,” Sam breathes, just as the other person says the same. He takes a step back, and said step produces a distinct crunch. He looks down. There are potato chips scattered across the sidewalk.
“Sorry,” repeats the person. “I didn’t see you there.”
It’s Cheryl Martin. The victim’s wife. She’s prettier in real life than the newspaper photo. She has thick eyelashes and a pretty-if underpowered-smile.
“Me too. I mean, I also didn’t see you. And sorry.” Sam feels his face warm.
“You feeling okay? I was in the church earlier… they said you might be sick.”
“Yeah. Just, uh-low blood sugar.” He gestures with the bag.
“Sorry about those.”
“It’s okay,” he lies: “I’ve eaten enough already.”
He steps back a little, and she makes no move to leave. She looks lost and lonely and starved for stupid conversation about chips on the sidewalk. The sentiment is so strong and familiar that Sam has to look away. He tries to think of something else to say.
She asks if that’s his father inside.
He tells her how his dad’s a policeman, how himself and his brother are along for the ride to learn about the job. His brother, he’s interested in becoming a cop. Sam has to write about it for school.
The lies loosen him up. Each lie is a step away from who Sam Winchester has been, and that makes him feel more like himself. And more like a terrible person.
Maybe those two things are the same. He’s thought about that.
“That’s some school project,” Cheryl says, shifting her purse on her shoulder.
She’s about to leave, Sam thinks; she’s about to leave having heard only lies from me.
“I’ve heard about what happened to you,” he blurts. “To your family. I just want to say I’m sorry.”
He hasn’t had the chance to interact with many of the monsters' victims. Not that he wants to. But the one thing he’s always known he would say, if given the chance, is that he’s sorry.
Now, he wonders if he’s made a bad move. Cheryl looks almost stricken. He notices a loose strand of hair he hadn’t seen before, a smudge in her eyeliner, the way her fingers twist at the strap of her purse. He realizes belatedly how sincerely he’d spoken. His ears feel hot.
“Sorry,” he says, again. The word is starting to decay into a featureless glob of sound.
“No,” says Cheryl; “it’s okay.” She takes a breath, hugging herself. “Luke really wasn’t like that, you know. I mean, Luke bakes snickerdoodles for our daughter’s fundraisers. He sings Aerosmith off-key when we’re alone together.”
Sam nods. He doesn’t know what “like that” means. “I’ve heard he was a great guy.”
“A wonderful guy.”
Sam panics for a moment while she struggles to hold herself together. He feels shamefully relieved when she pushes her hair out of her face and straightens her posture.
“I… didn’t realize they’d share any details with minors.”
“My dad has his own standards for what’s appropriate to share, I guess. Actually,” he says hurriedly, trying to shift the conversation, “I’m more interested in folklore. Local legends and stories. That’s really what I’m writing about for school.”
Cheryl chuckles sadly as she steps around him. “Yeah. My daughter, too.” She takes a step away, but she stops, still facing him.
“Your daughter?” he prompts stupidly.
“She says she saw a dragon.”
------
Luke Martin had been torn to shreds. Something with claws, for sure. Big ones.
But Dad and Dean had also found sulfur at the scene.
“Do demons have claws?” Sam asks impatiently. He’s already peeved, because Dad hadn’t called Sam, Sam had called him, and two hours after they’d left the scene. If Dad’s going to shunt him away to research duty, the least he can do is be efficient about it.
“I don’t know. Dad says sometimes, probably.”
Oh, and Dean is on the other end, because Dad couldn’t be bothered to talk.
“Well, does he have any other ideas?”
“Nothing he’s sharing.”
Sam hasn’t mentioned his conversation with Cheryl. If Dad can withhold information, he can, too.
“Best part, though, Sam? Too gnarly for the newspaper. Ready for this? Dude’s head was found, quote, ‘affixed to the church architecture.’ Like, stuck up there kinda near the entrance. Some old lady spotted it first.”
Sam feels sick.
When Dad and Dean finally come to pick him up, the library has been closed for half an hour. In that time, he’s able to come up with some crap about looking up kitsunes and skinwalkers and even Japanese cat-monsters-he bullshits the names and isn’t questioned on it-to satisfy Dad’s questions. To Sam’s shock, his failure to identify a single decent lead is all but dismissed.
In the morning, Dean tunes into a local channel on the motel TV. The newscaster warns of a grisly story, and Sam starts at the photograph of a young man with thick dark hair and a crooked smile. A faithful volunteer with the local Catholic charities. Head found on the church building this morning. Body found ripped apart.
Described by friends and family as sweet, shy, and retiring. Last night, was reportedly seen holding a woman at knifepoint behind the convenience store.
------
When Dad leaves them both at the library, Sam goes for it.
"What do you think about gargoyles?"
Dean shrugs. "Are we talking the Manhattan Clan, or..."
"No, dude, like as a monster."
"Never heard of them."
"Me neither. But listen.”
It makes sense. Maybe. For years and years, this town had been virtually blemish-free. And it was practically the holiest church around. “And suddenly the members start acting weird? And afterward end up brutally murdered? That's weird."
"That's definitely weird, but it's not specifically... gargoyle weird. I thought gargoyles were those things that sit on top of creepy old buildings. Like, made of stone and shit."
“Not necessarily. I think they might be more like serpent-creatures, or dragons. Anyway, according to a lot of the lore, gargoyles are meant to be protectors against evil. It’s why they put gargoyle images on churches, to protect against evil spirits or serve as a warning. So maybe these two guys had turned evil, or turned demon, or whatever, and the gargoyle had to take them out.”
“Where the hell did you get this idea?”
Sam only pauses for half a second. “Census records. French Catholic immigrants.”
“Good god, you are the biggest geek.”
“Okay. Honestly?” Sam sets down his book and sits across from Dean. “I was looking up dragons because Cheryl said her daughter saw a dragon.”
“Cheryl Martin, Cheryl?”
“Yeah.”
“When did you talk to her?”
“When she came out of that church.”
“You think a five-year-old is a reliable witness?”
“Why not?”
“Okay, but why now? If this gargoyle dragon has been patrolling this place since who-knows-when, why has this never happened before? Where are these demons coming from? Why are they posse-ing up here?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t researching demons. But the gargoyle thing makes sense-right?”
Sam’s desperate for Dean to believe him. He holds his breath waiting for a reply.
Dean shoves his chair back on two legs and blows out a cheekful of air. “I guess it’s as good a guess as any.”
------
When Dad says he wants Sam out on the hunt, he immediately asks why. Dean shoots him a look, like Shut up and take the compliment. Because Dean would do that. Dean would, that’s how he’d take it. But Sam wants to know the catch. He hasn’t been the most compliant member of Dad’s team during this process.
“We need more manpower,” is what Dad says. “This monster could be a bad son of a bitch and we need all hands on deck. So you’re not going to have one of your teenage episodes during this hunt-because if you do, you die. You understand?”
There’s something in Dad that Sam doesn’t recognize, some undercurrent that’s not quite on-course.
“You understand me, Sam?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Grab your jacket and check the trunk.”
Sam doesn’t know what to prep or look for. He starts checking everything, starting with the demon basics and moving toward the heavy-hitting weapons. He tests the machete, forgetting he had sharpened it just last week. He’s sucking the blood off his thumb when Dean walks up.
“Need a band-aid?”
“Shut up.”
“Dad says it’s not a gargoyle.”
“What the hell is it, then?”
They don’t know.
------
Turns out, they’re not hunting so much as scouting. Need to get a closer look, Dad says. Draw the creature out. Sam will be the getaway car.
“I can’t drive,” Sam points out.
“Yes, you can,” Dean scoffs.
“Not legally.”
“Such a stickler for the rules, Sammy.”
Sam hates this job. Wait and watch while you ride alternating waves of boredom, resentment, and all-consuming anxiety. Sometimes you hear awful noises in the distance, and then sit through the following silence barely breathing. Sometimes you have to make the call on whether to call 911, on whether your brother or your dad is almost-dead enough for a hospital to be the best option. Sam had been in that position once, his bloody thumb hovering over the buttons while he pressed shaking fingers against his father’s pulse.
Sam had asked where Dad’s hunter friend was, the one from nearby who had pointed them toward this case. Dad had simply replied, “Unavailable.”
So here was Sam, sitting at the edge of the parking lot behind the church, trying not to look at its spires, to think of Dad or Dean’s head mounted on them, tendons dangling and blood oozing out from misshapen lips.
He shoves his palms against his eye sockets, takes a second to breathe. He hates this church. He hates this church.
A bright light flashes behind his eyelids. He looks up and sees Dad and Dean, little silhouettes, disappearing around the corner of the building. He pictures them in this brain: they’re the only thing keeping him from driving back to the motel at any given moment. His leg starts bouncing without his say-so, his lungs fold in on themselves.
Holy shit, he needs to leave.
He can’t leave. He can’t leave. Dad and Dean.
He has his fingers on the key in the ignition, almost turns it. Stops himself and shakes out his hand.
He realizes he’s crying. He hates himself.
A bolt of lightning shoots through the sky, illuminating the angles of the church in garish pale blue.
Something is moving in the shadows.
Sam sits up, brandishing his machete. It won’t do jack squat against whatever this is. It’s huge, sinewy and slinky. He waits for the lightning again. When it comes, he’s ready. Clear as day, he sees it, a long shape almost matching the length of the church. It’s scaly, with huge claws and a face out of a nightmare Sam hasn’t yet suffered.
The bottom drops out of Sam’s everything. He’s sinking through the floor of the Impala, under the pavement of the parking lot, where all the worst of the anxiety he’s exhaled has pooled and deepened and mutated.
Dad and Dean appear in the next flash, and the monster is staring straight at them.
Sam tries to scream. Can’t make a sound. Can’t see.
The next time the lightning comes, the monster is slithering toward the Impala.
Sam steps out onto the pavement.
------
He comes to in the Impala, slumped behind the driver’s seat. There’s a pain along his right side. He pulls his shirt aside to find a wide bandage, red with blood, covering him mid-ribcage to hip. He breathes through the burn of it. Decides not to sit up just yet. Thinks maybe if he doesn’t move, he won’t stir up the black stuff that’s inside him.
Dad and Dean are talking. Sam inhales and exhales the hum of their voices. Existence hurts. He squeezes against the window, goes rigid to keep from squirming.
Lightning flashes outside, and this time thunder rumbles. Sam feels it reverberate in him as a pronouncement of Wrong. It keeps thrumming louder.
“...damn idiot,” Dad is saying.
“...gank the motherfucker,” Dean is saying.
Sam boils over in a scream.
The world contracts, the suddenly tips, then jolts into clarity-rough hands holding him upright, Dad shouting loud and close: “Tell me what’s wrong! Sam!”
“Nothing,” says Sam automatically. Half of the word sticks to the glue at the back of his throat.
“Why did you scream like that?” Dad demands. “Answer me.”
The car is stopped, idling. Dad fills up the doorway. His grip on Sam’s arms is hot and tight. Dean hovers from a distance, somewhere in the right highway lane, staring. Sam feels flushed and stupid. He tries to wrench himself from Dad’s grasp. Dad only grips tighter.
“Answer me, Sam.”
Dean reaches inside the car and turns the key. The protective hum of the engine drops away. In the quiet Sam can hear Dean breathing, Dad breathing, his own breathing.
Sam feels naked and trapped. He wants to scream again.
“Fuck off,” he says instead. “I’m fine.”
“Sam.” Dad’s voice is like the thunder.
“I’m having a fucking ‘teenage episode,’ Dad!”
Sam glares hard, waits to take whatever’s going to be thrown back.
Dad stares. Sam is sharply aware of his chest expanding with each breath, the way it moves his arms in Dad’s grip. When Dad lets go, it’s deliberate: his fingers don’t relax. He stands up. “Get in the car, Dean.”
“Jesus,” Dean breathes.
Dad starts the engine. “Close the door, Sam.”
There are five minutes of silence while they drive. Then Dad, his voice low and hard: “You don’t ever scream like that, Sam. You don’t ever do that unless you’re dying. You understand me?”
His eyes bore into Sam from the rear-view mirror. “Yes, sir,” says Sam, to make it all stop. But Dad’s gaze targets him all the way back to the motel, and Sam can’t squeeze far enough into the door to escape it.
------
As soon as Sam opens the car door, his stomach heaves in a dramatic attempt to turn him inside out. His body is trying to expel his liver and doing a terrible job. Dad leans a little over the puddle of rain-streaked vomit to lay an awkward hand on Sam’s shoulder and ask if he’s okay. Sam takes a few breaths and decides he feels more shocked than anything else. He stands up and walks to their room. Makes it to a bed and sits upright, by some miracle doesn’t explode.
Dad announces he’s heading back out. Dread surges through Sam so intensely he almost retches with it. “Wait, Dad-where are you going?”
“You’ll be fine,” says Dad. “Dean’s here.”
“Not what I asked,” says Sam, over-loud, because Dad is already stepping toward the door. Sam’s entire being is in the wrong timeline, the wrong dimension, and he’s burning for it.
“Keep an eye on him,” Dad says to Dean, without a glance toward Sam. “Call me if anything comes up.”
“If what comes up? Dad!”
The door slams. The engine of the car turns over.
A pocket of rage bursts in Sam’s chest and washes through his body.
“Fuck you,” he spits.
“You good?” says Dean, who very much wants the answer to be Yes.
Sam says No. And Fuck.
He finds himself desperately agreeing to a card game. The cards go globular then blank in Sam’s vision, splitting apart and then uniting in watercolor clarity. He doubles forward onto the table, doggedly keeping up with his turns. They maintain a terrible facade for longer than Sam thinks he’s able to participate. He’s being squeezed in a vise. Drowned in a vacuum.
Finally he bolts for the door. Dean grabs him by the collar and holds him back. Sam tries to fight him. Gets his arms pinned.
“Sam. Hey. Where are you going?”
Sam gasps, “I don’t know.”
“Well, stop it, okay? Breathe.”
Sam’s heart beats in hard, inescapable thuds. He’s stuck in a fight-or-flight response and what he needs to get away from is himself. He’s not going to survive this.
He survives long enough to come to on his bed with his veins on fire. He has to make his breaths louder than the pain to be sure he exists apart from it.
He remembers Dean talking to Dad on the phone. And telling him that Dad had a cure.
Sam focuses on making it to the next thunderclap. Then the next.
He doesn’t hear Dad come in, just feels it like a drop in barometric pressure.
Things get worse after that before they get better. He imagines he’s in the motel bathtub, feeling trapped and seeing red, limbs streaking wet against the sides even though Dad never turns on the faucets. But Sam thinks he hallucinated that part: that’s when he heard Dad say I’m sorry.
------
Sam wakes with a jolt that doesn’t translate to his body. Dull plaid wallpaper, ceiling paint cracking and peeling in the northwest corner. He inhales deeply and the sheets smell faintly of smoke. He knows who and where he is, and that feels crucial and comforting.
“Rise and shine, bitch.”
That feels crucial and comforting, too.
Sam stretches. He expected the throb in his side; what surprises him is that his entire body is thoroughly sore. He counts down from ten to make himself sit up, starts back over at ten again after getting to zero and feeling how heavy his head is. When he heaves himself upright, it feels like all his dreams from the night before slide out of the back of his head. They leave behind a distinct blank space. He almost lays back down to see if his brain will resettle and fill back in.
“Where’s Dad?” he asks, mostly to put off the ordeal of sitting up. He feels light-headed and isn’t sure how much of the sensation is physical.
“On his way back. He said we could hit the road as soon as you were walking and talking again.”
“Did you call him while I was still asleep?”
“You were halfway awake. Anyway. I’m ready to skip town.”
Sam opens his eyes again to see Dean tossing his toothbrush into his bag. He’s wet from the shower, casually shirtless. Under his thin shirt, Sam’s arms feel like toothpicks.
“Hey,” Dean says. “Breakfast.” He indicates a slouching muffin and a bottle of Gatorade sitting on the off-kilter nightstand. “Dad said drink at least half of that.”
Sam rolls his eyes, unscrews the cap, and starts chugging without pausing to breathe. By the time he’s gotten through two-thirds of the bottle, he’s almost puked, but not quite.
Dean’s staring, sluggishly exasperated. “What the fuck, Sam.”
“Just trying to make Dad happy.” He sets the Gatorade down firmly to disguise the way his hands are trembling, and quickly swipes up the muffin and takes a bite before Dean can say anything. He feels weak and useless. He won’t admit it, but he’s grateful for the Gatorade.
Dean goes back to packing, eyes pinched and mouth slack.
“You look terrible,” says Sam, honestly.
“Yeah, well, it’s a family trait,” Dean mumbles.
“Dad gave you whiskey last night.” Sam remembers Dad’s voice, directed at Dean: Here, calm down. And several times: Sit down, Dean. Sit.
Dean gives Sam a face-Come on, Sam, like you’ve never had a drink-but Sam is just struck, hard, by how young and vulnerable he looks.
“Drink some water,” Sam says, and escapes to the bathroom.
He has to sit down for a minute before he can brush his teeth. He’s wearing different clothes than he was last night. Sweatpants and a Led Zeppelin shirt that used to be Dean’s. Even his underwear is different. He doesn’t remember changing. Dean hasn’t volunteered any commentary on this, so Sam carefully doesn’t ask. He doesn’t think Dean knows anything about it. That makes it worse.
“Couldn’t leave a towel for me, you jerk?” Sam shouts.
Dean’s brief response is unintelligible.
“What?”
The bathroom door flies open. “Shut up, okay? For fuck’s sake.” Dean winces away from the bathroom light.
“Towels?” Sam tries again, in a stage whisper.
“Weren’t any towels. Why do you think I’m dripping like a wet t-shirt contestant?”
Sam scans the bathroom again. “Why would-”
“I dunno, Sam.”
“Is he okay? Was he bleeding when he came in?”
“No, he was fine.”
The empty space in Sam’s mind yawns wider. He puts a hand against his skull like he can shove the thoughts back together.
“He was probably cleaning up after you peeing the bed again.”
“Ten years ago, Dean.”
“Seven.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Sam glances around the bathroom and in his bag, sure he’s missing something but not sure what he’s looking for.
“Are you gonna shower or what?”
There’s an edge to Dean’s voice. He’s pacing, bag already packed. Sam doesn’t think Dean knows how much pleading is in his face. That makes him feel sick, that Dean doesn’t know.
“Nah, I guess not,” Sam says, and starts throwing his stuff in his bag. His clothes from yesterday are nowhere to be found. Dean doesn’t ask what he’s looking for, doesn’t offer to help. Sam doesn’t ask him.
He does ask if Dad killed the thing.
“Yeah, that’s where he’s been.”
“So… I’m good now.” His side burns when he walks. Like a normal wound.
Dean’s looking at the floor. “Guess so.”
“Dean, what the hell happened to me?”
Dean itches his eye. “You’ll have to ask Dad.”
Dean doesn’t know any more than he does. Dean’s not hiding the answers, he’s hiding from them.
Sam clutches the Gatorade bottle.
“Jesus,” says Dean. “Let’s go.”
Dean squints against the sunlight. Sam shifts his backpack so it won’t touch his right side.
“How’s the kidney stone?”
It takes a moment for Sam to register what the man said. A genial-looking guy in his mid-forties who’s apparently just walked up to his motel room door from a red pick-up truck. He’s standing there with his key in the lock, a polite grimace on his face.
Sam’s brain is still skipping when Dean, with a languid smile, replies, “She’s great. How’s your wife?”
The man stares for a moment, affronted, before entering his room and firmly shutting the door.
Sam dashes to catch up with Dean. “What the hell was that?” he demands.
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
“No, I mean you.”
Dean shrugs.
“Jesus Christ,” Sam mutters.
Dean heads into the office, and Sam sits on a sticky bench, trying to catch his breath and sort out the pain.
“Alibi,” he says, when Dean comes back out of the office key-free.
“What?”
“Kidney stone guy.”
“Oh, right. Makes sense.”
“...Do teenagers even get kidney stones?”
“You did.”
“Right.”
There’s a short silence. Sam comments, “Nosy neighbors.”
“Loud kid with a kidney stone”
How loud?
“Where’re we meeting Dad?”
“Not here.”
They trudge down the street side by side. Dean wipes one hand down his face, then two.
“You okay?”
Dean shrugs backward-Dad’s leather resettles on his shoulders. “Peachy. You?”
Sam’s side burns and pulls with each step, his stomach tight and his face twisted against the pain. His breaths scrape against the roof of his mouth. His limbs tremble when he moves them and his legs threaten to fold. His vision wavers. His heart feels tired.
He’s standing and walking through sheer force of will. It’s how he knows he’s alive.
“I’m okay,” says Sam.
Dad’s waiting for them in an alley. Sam hears the engine start before they even round the corner. Dad starts driving as soon as the doors are closed, before Sam has a moment to reorient himself to a sense of stability. Dad doesn’t say a word, but he looks at them hard, and Sam feels pinned-like a bug in a collection-by his stare in the rearview mirror.
Gravel crunches under the wheels as they turn onto a highway at the edge of town. When the road is humming underneath them, Dad finally speaks.
“You take care of the key?”
Dean: “Yes, sir.”
“You run into anyone?”
“Kidney stone,” says Sam.
“He’s good,” says Dean.
“Did you get enough to eat, Sam?”
The question is like an unexpected shove, tipping Sam sideways so that he has to plant a hand on the seat to stay upright. Dean’s head turns ever so slightly to the left. Sam looks at the back of his neck and feels very alone in the back seat. Time passes in quickening heartbeats. He opens his mouth and takes a preparatory breath, then another.
Dad says, “We’ll make a stop.”
Sam’s face burns. He turns toward the window, dizzied by the passing trees.
Dean clears his throat. “You kill it?”
“I took care of it.”
“It’s dead?” says Sam.
“It’s dead.”
Sam wants to ask How. What he says is, “It was a gargoyle, wasn’t it?”
It’s four long seconds before Dad replies, “It was.”
Sam recalls the gargoyle, in picture-perfect cut-out, staring at Dean and Dad and their weapons. Then the gargoyle, coming after Sam with its hideous face.
Sam’s head is too light; it separates and hovers somewhere near the edge of the interstate. He hears his own voice muffled through the car window.
“Why did you kill it?”
“You know better than to ask that.”
“Why?”
“It’s a monster, Sam. It was killing people.”
“It was killing demons.”
“It went after you.”
Sam’s head reattaches, feels like a balloon threatening to pop as the silence in the car sharpens.
“So,” Sam says, “that was another fucking revenge mission?”
The Impala decelerates.
Dean moves: scratches his nose, looks to the window like he’s tracking something going by in the trees, flicks his eyes toward Sam when he turns his head far enough.
Then Dad presses the gas, and they speed back up until the shadows flicker across the windows at a familiar speed.
“The gargoyle was dangerous,” says Dad, hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. “It had to be taken care of before it could hurt anyone else.”
“Like it hurt me.”
“Yes.”
Sam looks doggedly at Dad. “What did it do to me?”
Dad says nothing.
“It was venom, right?”
Dad doesn’t move, doesn’t even adjust the steering wheel, as if the road itself bends to meet him. “Drink your Gatorade, Sam.”
Sam punches the door with his fist. “Why the hell-”
“Like a fucking platypus,” Dean says abruptly.
Sam stares. Dad stares. For a moment, Dean seems more bewildered than either of them, as if he’s just realized he spoke out loud. He sits up a little straighter.
“They’ve got the, uh, poison claw things. On their back feet. Ethan said he knew someone who got stung or stabbed or whatever? ...Anyway. I saw those on the dragon. Gargoyle. It had dew claws. Could be venomous. Makes sense.”
Dad nods. "Probably."
"Probably?" exclaims Sam weakly. "You healed me with a ‘probably’?!"
"I know someone who had the antidote. That’s all I needed."
“Who?”
“Someone in the area. You don’t know them.”
“Who?”
“I don’t want you to know them.”
The emptiness in Sam’s head suddenly becomes thick and heavy. He lets it fall against the window.
“Gatorade, Sam.”
He’s found the bottle and unscrewed the lid before he realizes he doesn’t know if it was Dad or Dean who spoke. But it’s Dean who’s turned toward him, is looking at him to make sure he drinks, doesn’t spill the stuff in his lap like an idiot.
There’s something very important he wants to ask before he falls asleep. He dives into his brain-mess to look for it, but then finds what he’s looking for in a patient package on his tongue.
“Why did you say ‘I’m sorry’?”
Dad glances at the rearview mirror. “What do you mean?”
“Bathtub.”
When he doesn’t hear an answer, he’s afraid he might have dozed through it. “Dad,” he prompts.
Dad sighs. “I’m sorry you have to live it, Sam. This life.”
Sam closes his eyes. He thinks, Not forever.
His heartbeats are even, now, and strong.