Fic: The hunger of abandoned places
The hunger of abandoned places, Sam/Dean, 4k, Sam and Dean have been down this road before.
Written for the spn_reversebang for this lovely art prompt by colls. I absolutely love it.
A/N: Thank you to oddishly for betaing this. She is very helpful. For example, "if you can find a way to not say this, that would be good."
There is no one riding shotgun tonight.
Dean's fifty miles past caring, though. Never mind how his right hand's balled into a fist on his thigh with a dirty rag staunching the blood, or how he's got a Knight of Hell on his ass. Never mind that he hasn't talked to Sam in a week.
Now his sole preoccupation is watching the needle on the gas gauge as it wobbles just under Empty. He should've filled up three hours ago at that last town at the edge of nothing, but the desolation took him by surprise. Civilization's dwindled out to small towns that closed at dusk. Dean's running on fumes, but what can you do? Life is shit these days and it ain't getting any better.
By some grace, after he's resolved himself to spending the night by the side of the road once the car stops, a gas station pricks up like a firefly in the far distance.
The light grows larger at a snail's pace, no matter how hard Dean glares at it through the dash. His eyes flick to the needle as it gives another mighty dip.
"Son of a-" Dean bangs the wheel with his good hand. He mutters to himself, leaning forward like it might help propel the car forward, "Make it, make it."
He does reach it after all. The engine quiets as he pulls into the lot and he manages to navigate the car up to a pump before she stops dead.
John pulls in to park at a pump. It's stuffy in the car, ten-thirty PM and there's crop dust in his eyes from driving eight hours straight on through, past one state line and nearing on another.
Sam gave up fighting the confinement of the seat belt near Topeka, and has been flipping a flashlight on and off and on again in the hours since, the picture of nine-year-old disdain.
"For the last time, Sammy, stop that."
The flashlight clicks off.
John opens his door. "This is the only stop for a few hours. You want anything from the minimart? A soda? How about some M&Ms?"
Sam says, "Yeah. Peanut." and clicks the flashlight on again.
"Son, you're going to waste the battery and then we won't have that light when we need it."
Sam frowns out the window, and John leans to look into the back seat where Dean's lain awkwardly out with a sleeping bag pulled up past his eyebrows.
"Dean?" John shakes the shape of Dean's shoulder, which moves and then stills. "Road rations," John says again.
This gets Dean up. He half sits, eyes closed, and lists off, "Beef jerky, Slim Jim, Funyons, and a Mountain Dew," by long-habit as the sleeping bag slides into the footwell.
John grins. "You hungry or something?"
"Please and thank you. Sir," Dean says by way of reply, and then curls up and falls asleep again.
John shakes his head and leaves his boys for the time being.
The door jangles when John steps into the store, and he feels sets of eyes tracking him as he goes to grab lighter fluid. The cashier with the tabloid spread out on the counter, and a customer, picking out six packs.
When he passes the slurpee machine he catches his bruised reflection in the corner mirror. He's got the Haven't Slept in Days crazy around the eyes and two-day stubble going on.
"Forty bucks on number three," he says when he drops the basket on the counter, tone conversational but a little pointed to keep the cashier's eyes from straying to the ID for too long.
The man rings up each item, glancing up at the stitched up slash over John's eyebrow.
John looks at him. "Something you feel like saying?"
The man shrugs, passes the last items on, and returns the card.
John pumps gas in the harsh light of the station. When he looks into the car, he sees Sam climbing onto his knees to flash the flashlight down at Dean. Dean's arm shoots up to smack Sam out of the way.
Sam's yelp is a muffled, "I didn't do anything!"
"Stop staring at me then," Dean yells back.
When the pump clicks, John squeezes out the last drops of fuel, then looks back in the window to see Sam pulling at the sleeping bag until Dean sits up for a counterattack.
John fights a yawn and slides into the driver's seat, and the fight goes silent. "Ready to head out?"
"Yep," Dean says.
Sam straps himself in again, and they're off.
They're just kids, John thinks as he drives. One of these days, when things are good and settled, he's going to plant them down somewhere decent, stop driving. Give Dean and Sammy a home and a yard and some state allegiance. Hell, his boys are from Kansas. Missouri warned him these boys don't know where they come from, and if you don't know where you come from, how can you possibly know where you're going?
Soon, Sam is dozing, and Dean is stiff as a board in the back, the sleeping bag pulled over his face again. John grips the wheel thinking how he'll find that stable spot again, take that plunge into safety, a civilian life. They'll slow down. That's not just a plan, it's a promise. Monsters don't live forever.
But for now, there are omens on the black horizon and there are miles to go before the motel. The lights of the gas station dwindle out behind them until they're gone, and the cold sky is wide as anything, blanketed in stars.
John sips his coffee and turns up the music just a little, doesn't want to wake the boys. He, on the other hand, can sleep when he's dead.
Sam feels weird and long, folded up as he is in the back seat and squinting at his book. The sun is so bright today it's glaring off the page, but he's going to finish it if it kills him. Forget how they had to leave in the middle of the semester. It's not like there's anything better to do in the back seat, anyway, on yet another family road trip across the country. All he can do is mourn his 10th grade education and read A Tale of Two Cities.
His hair is hot with sweat, and when the windows blast open, he rubs his bangs out of his eyes for what must be the fiftieth time. His wrist is sore.
Up front, Dean sticks his hand out into the world and confirms, "Yep, it's a scorcher."
Their dad's reply is just discernible over the sound of the engine's rumble, something about how, "Come January in these parts, you'd have to dig your car out. Middle of nowhere, too. A lot of dead-end roads. Breeding ground for ghosts."
This is something Sam's never heard before. He half-sits to ask, "Wait, what? The kind of road changes how many ghosts there are? And ghosts don't breed…do they?"
Dean reaches back to grab at him as their dad wheezes laughter. "He's kidding, dude," Dean says. "Dead-ends, ghosts...get it?"
"Oh, ha ha." He smacks Dean's hand away and lies back down. Dean keeps grabbing his hair like that, all the time, tugging it. And if Sam tried to call him out on it, Dean would look at him like he was crazy, a whiny bitch.
A truck slams by in the next lane, the window goes up. Sam just catches a glimpse of it, a quick flash of reflection in the side mirror, Dean's smile, his tongue swiping over his lips against the dry heat.
Then Dean sits back, and Sam's semi-blinded by the reflection of the sun. He hides his face behind the book again with a sick feeling.
It's just a feeling, hard to pin down. There's nothing quite concrete. He keeps expecting something bad to happen but nothing happens. It leaves Sam on edge and angry.
They're quiet for a while, the low sound of music and the car skimming down the highway, the steady vibration of movement. Another glimpse in the mirror of Dean's tongue, teeth on his lip. Sam rubs at his own mouth with a jacket sleeve.
"I gotta pee," Dean tells the car twenty minutes later, conversationally. "There's a place to stop up there-"
Dad nods and says, "I could do for a pit stop myself."
Dean calls back, "Sam, you want anything?"
Sam looks down at his book. His fingers are damp on the page and there's that feeling again, like a tiny pebble dropped in a well of bad things.
"Hey, Sam? Sam?"
Sam throws his book down. "What?"
Dean frowns, real hurt. "Jesus, I was just asking."
"I'm on the last page!" Of the chapter, but- "You ruin everything." Sam feels downright vicious with conviction.
"What the hell? What crawled into your panties and died?"
"Boys," their dad says.
The edge of warning's enough for Dean to back off. He raises an eyebrow at Sam, though, like he's unimpressed, like Sam's five. Sam sneers at the back of the seat.
"That's better," their dad says as they're pulling in.
"Thank god," Sam mutters. He gets out of the car immediately and stalks silently to the bathroom next to Dean, who goes first.
While he's waiting, Sam looks around despondently. They could have been to this gas station once before or a hundred times and he wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
When Sam comes out, Dean's lurking around in the shadow of the building, kicking rocks.
Dean looks up, and says, like it's some great effort. "So…"
Sam raises an eyebrow.
"You ok?"
Sam touches his wrist. It's swollen.
"It's just a sprain," he says. "Everything's fine." Sam moves to step past, wants to pass out in the back seat until they get wherever they're going, but Dean puts a hand against the wall, blocking him from leaving.
"Dude," Sam says, glaring. It's too hot for this.
Dean glares back. "I wasn't talking about that." He looks like he's ready for a fight if Sam's into it. "You've been a total dick this whole ride. Don't pretend you haven't. You've been a jerk to dad, and a jerk to me."
"Oh, right," Sam says, one-hundred percent sarcasm.
"Seriously?" Dean asks. "You gonna be a little bitch or are you going to tell me what the hell you're so mad about."
Sam wants to say, you try doing anything when you're stuck in close proximity with a brother who you can't stop thinking about.
Instead he twists up his mouth and starts to say something nasty.
His shoulders hit the planking. Dean's arm presses across his chest not his windpipe, but Sam can't breathe anyway.
"You have something to say? Huh?" Dean's jackass smile feels like a threat to Sam's health and safety. All instincts tell him to grab out and do something dangerous, but Sam has to keep his feet on the ground. He has to.
Dean leans in closer, baring his teeth real close to Sam's face. Not threatening at all, just being stupid. Annoying.
"Get off me," Sam says, going weak.
"Well?" Dean asks, like this whole exchange has been a joke. It probably seems like a joke, like maybe a brief scuffle next to this creaking bathroom door would help Sam blow off steam. Feet kicking through the spilled recycling and bottles scattering every which way, maybe that would get it out of Sam's system. Dean seems to think the answer to everything these days is physical contact. He's been knocking Sam needlessly in sparring, shoving him down into the dirt and holding him there for that second too long. He doesn't even know he's doing it, and meanwhile it's ruining Sam's life.
Some of that must show in Sam's eyes when he looks up, because Dean's half-grin rapidly slides off his face. Sam wants to put his mouth just there, feel the smile leaving, giving way to something else. They're pressed up against the wall. Sam thinks about how he could do it. He could push close and just ruin everything even more than Dean's doing by accident.
"Sammy?" Dean asks when Sam's just stared at him for a minute.
"Your face," Sam manages.
Dean's eyes widen suddenly, like he knows what's coming, but Sam just pretends to laugh and ducks his head, knocking past Dean easily with his shoulder. Dean falls back like he was going to let Sam do what he wanted all along.
Sam finds his way back to the car with his fists clenched, blaming anything, blaming Dean. Because who shoves his brother up against a wall like that?
Eventually he hears Dean slide into the front seat next to Dad to take up his eternal rummaging through the cassette tapes. It's like nothing happened, like it was just a brief stop at a gas station bathroom, brothers wandering there and back again.
Sam sinks down in the back seat to the first grinding strains of Zeppelin and his own mortification. He wishes he'd gone to the bathroom to jerk off.
He's saved from making conversation when Dean cranks the window down, sudden and violent. He sinks down in the seat and the hot air dries him out.
This next one's ten years later. This is the one where Dean is about to die.
It's a sure thing, a simple count down, and the backlash is invisible except for in small things: Sam stepping aside and Dean lighting graves carelessly, dodging ghosts, death just grazing him by.
Dean would be pumping gas right now if Sam would just hand him the card. Instead, Sam, being who he is, keeps his eyes on the vic report in his lap, reaching blindly to the glove compartment.
Dean leans in the window, watching with exasperation. "Come on," he says. "We gotta get there by dusk. Vampire bats, literally. Chop chop."
Sam gives him a look, and now with the painstakingly slow movements of the well and truly annoyed, pops open the glovebox and snags the first card he finds.
Dean frowns. "Nah, dude, that one's maxed. Give me the green one."
"Could've said so," Sam grumbles, but it's mostly to himself so Dean waits, at ease with one arm on the roof. He looks out to the flat field that snaps out straight to the blue horizon line, a yellow so pure he'll see afterimages for ten minutes.
They spent all last night in near pitch dark with the ghost of Mrs. Moreau in her family mansion, playing hide and seek between rooms. She was a sad old spirit, but half-crazy with the years, quick and unpredictable, taking them by surprise one too many times. Dean hasn't been skeeved out like that for a good few months. He keeps spacing and imagining he's still in there, a wasting figure flashing semi-corporeal when he least expects it.
Their fingers brush when Sam hands the card over, but maybe Dean imagines it, just wishful thinking.
Sam gets out to stretch and be generally useless, apparently. "This place is in the real middle of nowhere," he observes, stretching up on his toes until his fingers near hit the sky. Dean watches.
Sam gives him a sideways look. He clears his throat. "I'm going to the bathroom."
After a moment of looking at each other, Dean gestures to the gas station, which sits squat and sunbleached. "So go take a leak."
"Goodbye," Sam says.
The world ripples at the corners as Dean watches his brother head off around the side of the building. The sun's warm on his shoulders, the drive here nice, uneventful.
Without another thought, he strides after Sam.
The bathroom door reads Customer's Only, one person at a time. Dean jiggles the handle.
Locked.
He considers waiting, but picks it instead.
Sam is washing his hands. He asks, sounding exasperated, "Did you really just break into a bathroom?"
Dean ignores this. "So, I gotta know." He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "Out there, did you -"
He catches his reflection in the sheet of tin that passes for a mirror in these parts, and hesitates.
"Dean?" Sam prompts.
"Look," Dean says, with the air of one starting a conversation over. "You did real good today."
"Last night?" Sam asks.
Dean rolls his eyes. "Oh, you know what I mean. You gonna let me finish or what?"
Sam smirks and leans his shoulder blades back against the plaster wall. He waves a hand. "Ok, go on. ‘I did real good yesterday.'"
Dean rubs a hand over his face. "Yeah. You did. I was screwed, I mean really screwed, and you just ninja'd out of nowhere, flinging salt like a crazy person and torching the thingy-"
"The corsage."
"-the corsage thing, yeah. Mrs. Moreau didn't know what hit her. So what I wanted to say is-"
Dean pauses, eyes taking in all of Sam. He knows suddenly that Sam's going to be alright when he's gone. Kid can take care of himself.
Sam's eyebrows climb his face. "Well? You can't just stop in the middle of complimenting someone. I'm a total badass, and-?"
Dean gives Sam a look like he's an idiot but he's his brother, so. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks for saving my life. Or whatever."
"That was a wild night," Sam agrees. Because it totally was. Dean doesn't usually fall down staircases. And they hadn't even thought burning the corsage would work, that was all fifty guesses and a lucky strike. Sam snickers. "Let's never do that again, ok? Get beaten up by an old lady?"
Dean rubs a hand over his mouth, covering a laugh. "She was like, really scary though."
Sam shrugs, a sheepish smile on his face. I'm going to die for him, Dean thinks. The thought is familiar, comfortable. He feels proud.
"So we going to hang out in the bathroom, or…" Sam says.
"Yeah, one more thing though."
Dean steps up to Sam and twines his fingers into his hair. He holds Sam where he wants him, as he kisses his mouth, not really caring when the back of Sam's head hits the tile. Sam doesn't seem to care either. He kisses back just as hard, biting.
"Um," he says, eyes wild when Dean pulls back. He's breathing hard. "I uh. Better go fill up the car."
After which he pivots robotically and shows himself out of the bathroom, leaving Dean under two hard neons and a third that's out.
"Ok, then," Dean says to the void Sam left behind, and doesn't go to remind him he's already filled it.
There are Pepsi bottles on a broken box when Dean steps outside the door, and a skin mag soaking in a puddle. A stray box of Capri Suns sits on its side.
"Fuck," Dean says as the realization sinks in. He pats his hands dry on his jacket front, and leaves.
On a weeknight, bad country twanging out of the speakers, Rex the cashier checks that his rifle's loaded under the counter. You never know about the types that find their way into the store. There's all sorts - wanderers, wayfarers, families in RVs - this pretty boy now, searching the aisles with his hand gripped around a bloody rag.
The guy stomps up to the counter with an armful of supplies shoved forward for check-out.
Rex spares a glance and then sets to it: beef jerky, slim Jim, Funyons, all piled on top of the super-sized pack of butterfly bandages, antibiotic ointment and gauze. A Mountain Dew rolls just out of reach and the guy catches it before it drops off the counter.
"Almost ran out of gas," he says as Rex checks the ID against the credit card to verify that they both read "Jim Morrison."
Rex looks him up and down and asks, "I seen you before?"
The guy grins, but tugs at his jacket collar with his good hand, a nervous hitch of his shoulders like he wants to pull his jacket up and cover his face.
"Doubt it," he says and squeezes his fist tighter around the rag.
Rex accepts a card, swipes it, then hands it over. "You boys in trouble or something?"
"Huh?"
"The both of you."
"It's just me tonight, driving the lonesome road," he says, the corner of his mouth quirking.
Rex raises an eyebrow and looks to the black car outside, at the tall guy idling near it. "He's not with you?"
This Jim kid looks out there too. And when he does, his mouth forms an O, like he's surprised, like he's seen a ghost.
And when he turns back, he looks relieved, a whole new life in him. He grabs M&Ms, the dollar-twenty size, and tosses them on the counter. "Oh, him," he says. "Yeah, no trouble here. Just buying my kid brother some candy."
Rex looks skeptically out the window to the man hulking like a fighter by the car, then back to survey the dried blood at the guy's temple and on the rag around his hand. He could be home with his kids right now, or sharpening his knife collection, but instead he has to deal with this.
He says, "It's Wednesday night, son. Decent folk are having dinner or catching a movie. You'd do best to be on your way."
"Sure, sure."
The guy heads to go, but then he hesitates in the doorway like he's deciding between saying something and not.
"You see a lady yay high," he says finally, gesturing. "Red hair, black eyes, real scary- You lock those doors. She's uh...an escaped convict."
The cashier nods like that's a reasonable warning, something he hears every day.
Outside, Dean rips the peanut M&Ms open with his teeth as he walks back to the car and pours a couple in his mouth. When he gets to his side, he tosses the bag to Sam, Sam who's managed to find him in the middle of the entire country, his brother with his hands that fly out of his pocket to grab it mid-air.
"You're sure she didn't follow us?" Sam asks, in lieu of a ‘hello' or any explanation.
Dean shrugs. "Eh, even if she did, I- we - have a hundred miles on her. She doesn't know where we're going. You ready to head out?"
Sam shrugs. "Nothing keeping us here."
Sam and Dean gas her up and in the blink of an eye, they're on their way.
Sam's missed law school interview was one week ago. It's like a world away. While Dean goes to pay, Sam leans against the side of the car in the sun, reading over a file on some ex-military-guy possessed by a spirit. He's not sure if this holds the answers he's looking for.
A pump over, two women are drinking sodas while their car fills up. And way past them, there's a kid dicking around with his skateboard while his dad tells him to get back in the car, we're leaving. Sam lets it roll over him. Nothing matters any more like it used to. Now he's got a mission, a revenge path.
"Hey Sammy, catch," says Dean.
Sam catches the bag. It's warm out. There's an arsenal in the trunk and the sun is glinting off Dean's gelled hair. Sam smiles, and Dean rolls his eyes.
"Ready?" Dean asks.
"We're gonna get him," Sam says, feeling certain.
Dean nods. "Yeah we are. Let's go."
"I swear to god."
"I'm not arguing," Dean says.
Sam makes to get in the car, then stops.
"Hang on," he mutters. "Isn't this where-" He squints around at the gas station, trying to grasp at what is either vague memory or deja vu.
Dean sticks his head out the window, eyebrows climbing his forehead. "Seriously, dude, now is not the time. Some guy in the bathroom just offered me crack. Let's get the hell out of here."
Sam looks around again, then shrugs and gets in the passenger side. They've crossed the middle of the country so many times he can't be sure.