Fic: Every Snowflake is a Drop of Water 4/?
Every Snowflake is a Drop of Water 4/?
Summary: SF AU continues with cliches and slight attempts at seriousness. Sam meets Claire...or does he?
Parte the first
Parte the second
Parte the third
Sam kept his eyes closed and his breathing even. He lay as still as he could, despite the litany clawing at his brain of “Jess, save Jess find Jess get Jess Jess Jess.” He was painfully aware of the sensations around him: the odors of cheap detergent, mold, and human bodily odors, all squeezed uncomfortably into a too-small space. A strange space. He wasn’t home anymore, Sam knew that much. His home smelled of spices, sweet tea and cloves, and Jess’s favorite perfume. This place, wherever it was, had none of those homey qualities.
What it did have, was voices. Angry voices.
“Why the hell did you bring us back here, you idiot?”
“This place is very effectively shielded, Dean. They’re no more likely to track us here than if I’d taken us to the other side of the platform.”
Dean. The man who wouldn’t be mugged. The man who’d kicked the everloving crap out of one Gordon, last name unknown, kidnapper and would-be Sam-napper. His voice, when he responded to the nearly-growled statement Sam barely understood, was rough and edged with tension.
“For how long? They know we’re here, the whole deal’s just gotten sweeter now they know we know about Sam here-”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Oh no, you’re not pinning this one on me, Cas, you know damn well that I-”
Cas. The one with the voice like a boulder being crushed under a whole bunch of other boulders, the one, Sam guessed, who’d performed the terrifying little miracle, or whatever it was, back there and yanked them all out of the combat zone…
Combat zone. Living room. Whatever.
“Dean, try to settle down, okay? This room’s too small for you to have one of your tantrums.”
That was a new voice. Young and female, flecked with annoyance and something like concern.
“I don’t have tantrums!”
“Well, if you keep raising your voice you’re going to wake up sleeping beauty over there.”
“Who, him? He’s not asleep.” Dean’s voice changed in pitch, and a sudden kick rocked whatever Sam was lying on. “You’re not asleep, are ya, Sam? C’mon, open them baby blues. The world’s waiting to say hello.”
Sam winced internally, but there was no point in continuing to disseminate. Yet he felt himself resisting the command as if instinctually, and was surprised at the reluctance with which he finally managed to pry his own eyes open.
The room swam into view, just as the crushing-boulder voice of Cas observed, “Sam doesn’t have blue eyes, Dean-”
“Figure of speech, Cas,” Dean remarked offhandedly, and Sam’s eyes wandered over the faces of his new kidnappers. Cas stood near the far wall, awkwardly posed as if unsure of the best possible reaction to Dean’s declaration of Sam’s consciousness. He was, as Sam had seen, on the slim side, dark-haired and unsmiling. His gaze was…weirdly intense, eyes larger than they had any business being in a scruffy-looking, square-jawed face. He appeared to be somewhere in his mid-thirties, and needed a shave.
Sam’s gaze lingered for a moment on a little blonde girl, about thirteen or so, perched on the edge of a desk cluttered with a terrifying array of computer parts and God knew what else. Her head was wrapped in a bright scarf and she cocked her head and regarded him with suddenly familiar blue eyes. Sam’s gaze flicked back and forth between Cas and the girl. Definitely related, or at least connected in some way.
He let his eyes wander around the room and confirm some of his suspicions about where they were now. The space was definitely small, old, badly wallpapered and yes, smelled faintly of mold. Old black cobwebs hung in at least one corner and spots of fungus dotted the walls near the ceiling. There were probably spiders, and cockroaches. Even in space, there were always spiders and cockroaches.
Sam finally pushed himself upright and let his gaze fall on the other man in the room. He’d seen Dean before, of course, but he took a moment now to catalogue the new bruises on his face and the hard set of his jaw and eyes, which had most definitely not been part of the package when he’d stood on Sam’s front porch some indeterminate amount of time ago and stammered about an ambulance. His mouth was pressed into a hard line and his whole body radiated tension. Sam felt his own jaw try to clench in sympathy, and forced himself to relax. Tried to pull his gaze away, let his eyes travel around the room a little more, maybe gather some further information…but to Sam’s surprise that didn’t seem to be happening. His eyes pulled as if of their own accord back in the direction of the other man. Dean caught the gesture and his own eyes narrowed, ever so slightly, and his nostrils flared. Sam tried not to wince.
He’s angry, Sam realized, and blinked rapidly at himself and the answer to a question he hadn’t even asked. He’s furious with…himself. He blinked rapidly and looked away, at the wall with its godawful wallpaper. He knew. He knew that Dean was upset, could see it in the set of his shoulders, in the way he held himself. It was so obvious, it might as well have been written in twenty-foot high neon letters.
“Uh,” Sam said.
“It speaks!” That from the girl, voice clipped and intelligent. Sam winced and pushed himself fully into a sitting position.
“How did you know I was awake?” he asked Dean. The older man regarded him for a moment, expression unreadable.
“That’s not important right now,” he said finally, quietly, far more quietly than Sam had heard him speak until now. He took a breath, and visibly forced himself to relax. He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the door. “Listen, I’m just gonna, um, take a walk, get some fresh air-”
“You can’t wander around randomly!” the girl snapped, and Dean scowled.
“Claire…” Cas murmured, but Dean shook his head sharply, at himself or the girl, Sam couldn’t tell. Claire would not be deterred.
“Dean, don’t you dare go out there-or just, don’t go alone, okay? Take Cas, or at least Jimmy.”
Jimmy? Was there a fourth member of their little troupe? How could they possible all fit in this tiny space?
“I need to-” Dean began, but Cas left his post by the wall and waved a hand.
“Jimmy can go. I’ll stay here. For Sam’s own good. Just-stay out of sight, okay? Both of you.”
Dean gave a sharp nod and Cas turned, smiling at Claire…and there was a moment. Something. A crackle in the air, a slight flickering of the lights. On the desk, Claire straightened, slid to perch lightly on floor. Cas nodded once, briefly, and Sam shivered. He didn’t know what had just happened. What he’d just seen. But Cas looked…different, now. Somehow. Carried himself differently.
Put his hands in his pockets.
“Let’s go,” he said to Dean, and even his voice was changed. Lighter, less gravelly. Sam edged his feet toward the floor, but froze when Dean flicked a sharp glance in his direction. Looking back at Claire, he addressed her with hard, serious eyes.
“Watch him,” he intoned, and Claire nodded without speaking, as if a girl under five feet tall could offer a real challenge to someone of Sam’s stature. She stood still as the two men left the room.
Same expected, after they were gone, that the tension would ease, the atmosphere become less charged. It did, in a way, as the girl seemed little interested in scrutinizing Sam’s every move and in fact had moved toward the window and was peering out, before twitching the curtain back in place and shaking her head with a little sigh.
Sam swallowed. A host of questions were clamoring for his attention-How did I get here? Who are you people? Why did they leave a little girl alone with a full-grown man as if I’d be no kind of threat at all?-along with the bone-deep fire of terror for Jess, for what might be happening to her right now. Yet when he opened and shut his mouth no sound emerged, aside from a quiet clicking of his teeth encountering each other. Claire turned from her position by the window.
“Sam,” she said, flatly.
All the hair on the back of Sam’s neck stood up.
“Who are you?” he whispered. The girl cocked her head, face startlingly impassive, and regarded him for a long, uncomfortable moment.
“It’s better I don’t tell you anything at this stage,” she said, finally, still in that flat voice. It seemed…deeper, somehow. Almost familiar. As if…as if he’d heard it before. Heard it…recently.
Jesus.
“Wh-what are you?” he breathed, and didn’t know whether to be relieved or not when no answer beyond an enigmatic smile was forthcoming.
“Are you hungry?” Claire-the girl, the…whatever-asked solicitously, heading for a collection of bags piled in one corner of the room, and Sam realized that he’d seen a few of the bags before.
“I’ve called the police,” he’d said. “Go away.”
And Dean had stood there on the porch with these bags in his hands. He’d been…shopping. Shopping! Buying-apples, apparently, he realized when Claire, or whoever she was, pulled a shining red globe from the recesses of one, and lobbed it at Sam. He fumbled it, managed to juggle the fruit around awkwardly and tried to ignore the expression of vague amusement on the girl’s face at his consternation.
He scooted forward on the bed-one of two in the room, he realized, along with a beaten-down armchair-and planted his feet firmly on the floor.
“I have to find Jess,” he declared, maintaining his grip on the apple. Claire regarded him coolly.
“Of course you do,” she said calmly.
“I mean, I have to find her. Now. I have to go-right now. I have to-”
“Sam,” the girl said, and he shut up. Didn’t mean to, but his mouth snapped closed without any input from his brain. He stared at her.
“You’re going to find her,” she said. “Jess. You’ll find her. She’s going to be okay.”
He started to get up. “I don’t have time for-”
“Sam.” And this time her voice arrested him physically, so that he was only halfway to a standing position, hunched over awkwardly.
Claire said, “I can’t let you leave this room. It isn’t safe.”
“Safe?” His voice rose in pitch and almost without thinking he rose to his full height, a height which he knew to be intimidating to fully-grown men. “Safe? You people-you-you kidnapped me! All of you! Oh my God, I’ve been kidnapped by a teenybopper, Jesus H. Christ!”
“Sam. Sit. Down. Now.” A thirteen-year-old girl’s voice should not rumble. But Claire’s did. Sam half-expected the walls to shake. His knees buckled. He sat.
“Jess will be fine. Mostly fine. Gordon and the other hunter-they have no interest in her. She’s a civilian, and their jurisdiction has nothing to do with people like her.”
“Mostly fine? That’s supposed to make me feel better?” he paused. “And what’s a hunter, anyway?”
The girl blew air through her nose in something like a sigh, then shakes her head. For a moment something flickered across her features, briefly softening the too-old expression on her young face. Something like…sadness? Regret?
On whose behalf?
“I think I should wait to tell you these things, Sam.” She gave a smile that could only be described as ‘rueful,’ and added, “In fact, I don’t think I should be the one to explain these things at all. I think I should leave that to Dean.”
Sam stared at her. Looked helplessly around at the little room, the broken-down chair and the bed where he’d been lying, the cluttered desk and single window, the cobwebs and mold and dust and the strange little girl who, he was starting to suspect, was not a little girl at all.
He looked down at the apple in his hand. When he bit into it, the juice ran down his chin. Sam shut his eyes.
____________________
tbc Part five
____________________
Summary: SF AU continues with cliches and slight attempts at seriousness. Sam meets Claire...or does he?
Parte the first
Parte the second
Parte the third
Sam kept his eyes closed and his breathing even. He lay as still as he could, despite the litany clawing at his brain of “Jess, save Jess find Jess get Jess Jess Jess.” He was painfully aware of the sensations around him: the odors of cheap detergent, mold, and human bodily odors, all squeezed uncomfortably into a too-small space. A strange space. He wasn’t home anymore, Sam knew that much. His home smelled of spices, sweet tea and cloves, and Jess’s favorite perfume. This place, wherever it was, had none of those homey qualities.
What it did have, was voices. Angry voices.
“Why the hell did you bring us back here, you idiot?”
“This place is very effectively shielded, Dean. They’re no more likely to track us here than if I’d taken us to the other side of the platform.”
Dean. The man who wouldn’t be mugged. The man who’d kicked the everloving crap out of one Gordon, last name unknown, kidnapper and would-be Sam-napper. His voice, when he responded to the nearly-growled statement Sam barely understood, was rough and edged with tension.
“For how long? They know we’re here, the whole deal’s just gotten sweeter now they know we know about Sam here-”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Oh no, you’re not pinning this one on me, Cas, you know damn well that I-”
Cas. The one with the voice like a boulder being crushed under a whole bunch of other boulders, the one, Sam guessed, who’d performed the terrifying little miracle, or whatever it was, back there and yanked them all out of the combat zone…
Combat zone. Living room. Whatever.
“Dean, try to settle down, okay? This room’s too small for you to have one of your tantrums.”
That was a new voice. Young and female, flecked with annoyance and something like concern.
“I don’t have tantrums!”
“Well, if you keep raising your voice you’re going to wake up sleeping beauty over there.”
“Who, him? He’s not asleep.” Dean’s voice changed in pitch, and a sudden kick rocked whatever Sam was lying on. “You’re not asleep, are ya, Sam? C’mon, open them baby blues. The world’s waiting to say hello.”
Sam winced internally, but there was no point in continuing to disseminate. Yet he felt himself resisting the command as if instinctually, and was surprised at the reluctance with which he finally managed to pry his own eyes open.
The room swam into view, just as the crushing-boulder voice of Cas observed, “Sam doesn’t have blue eyes, Dean-”
“Figure of speech, Cas,” Dean remarked offhandedly, and Sam’s eyes wandered over the faces of his new kidnappers. Cas stood near the far wall, awkwardly posed as if unsure of the best possible reaction to Dean’s declaration of Sam’s consciousness. He was, as Sam had seen, on the slim side, dark-haired and unsmiling. His gaze was…weirdly intense, eyes larger than they had any business being in a scruffy-looking, square-jawed face. He appeared to be somewhere in his mid-thirties, and needed a shave.
Sam’s gaze lingered for a moment on a little blonde girl, about thirteen or so, perched on the edge of a desk cluttered with a terrifying array of computer parts and God knew what else. Her head was wrapped in a bright scarf and she cocked her head and regarded him with suddenly familiar blue eyes. Sam’s gaze flicked back and forth between Cas and the girl. Definitely related, or at least connected in some way.
He let his eyes wander around the room and confirm some of his suspicions about where they were now. The space was definitely small, old, badly wallpapered and yes, smelled faintly of mold. Old black cobwebs hung in at least one corner and spots of fungus dotted the walls near the ceiling. There were probably spiders, and cockroaches. Even in space, there were always spiders and cockroaches.
Sam finally pushed himself upright and let his gaze fall on the other man in the room. He’d seen Dean before, of course, but he took a moment now to catalogue the new bruises on his face and the hard set of his jaw and eyes, which had most definitely not been part of the package when he’d stood on Sam’s front porch some indeterminate amount of time ago and stammered about an ambulance. His mouth was pressed into a hard line and his whole body radiated tension. Sam felt his own jaw try to clench in sympathy, and forced himself to relax. Tried to pull his gaze away, let his eyes travel around the room a little more, maybe gather some further information…but to Sam’s surprise that didn’t seem to be happening. His eyes pulled as if of their own accord back in the direction of the other man. Dean caught the gesture and his own eyes narrowed, ever so slightly, and his nostrils flared. Sam tried not to wince.
He’s angry, Sam realized, and blinked rapidly at himself and the answer to a question he hadn’t even asked. He’s furious with…himself. He blinked rapidly and looked away, at the wall with its godawful wallpaper. He knew. He knew that Dean was upset, could see it in the set of his shoulders, in the way he held himself. It was so obvious, it might as well have been written in twenty-foot high neon letters.
“Uh,” Sam said.
“It speaks!” That from the girl, voice clipped and intelligent. Sam winced and pushed himself fully into a sitting position.
“How did you know I was awake?” he asked Dean. The older man regarded him for a moment, expression unreadable.
“That’s not important right now,” he said finally, quietly, far more quietly than Sam had heard him speak until now. He took a breath, and visibly forced himself to relax. He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the door. “Listen, I’m just gonna, um, take a walk, get some fresh air-”
“You can’t wander around randomly!” the girl snapped, and Dean scowled.
“Claire…” Cas murmured, but Dean shook his head sharply, at himself or the girl, Sam couldn’t tell. Claire would not be deterred.
“Dean, don’t you dare go out there-or just, don’t go alone, okay? Take Cas, or at least Jimmy.”
Jimmy? Was there a fourth member of their little troupe? How could they possible all fit in this tiny space?
“I need to-” Dean began, but Cas left his post by the wall and waved a hand.
“Jimmy can go. I’ll stay here. For Sam’s own good. Just-stay out of sight, okay? Both of you.”
Dean gave a sharp nod and Cas turned, smiling at Claire…and there was a moment. Something. A crackle in the air, a slight flickering of the lights. On the desk, Claire straightened, slid to perch lightly on floor. Cas nodded once, briefly, and Sam shivered. He didn’t know what had just happened. What he’d just seen. But Cas looked…different, now. Somehow. Carried himself differently.
Put his hands in his pockets.
“Let’s go,” he said to Dean, and even his voice was changed. Lighter, less gravelly. Sam edged his feet toward the floor, but froze when Dean flicked a sharp glance in his direction. Looking back at Claire, he addressed her with hard, serious eyes.
“Watch him,” he intoned, and Claire nodded without speaking, as if a girl under five feet tall could offer a real challenge to someone of Sam’s stature. She stood still as the two men left the room.
Same expected, after they were gone, that the tension would ease, the atmosphere become less charged. It did, in a way, as the girl seemed little interested in scrutinizing Sam’s every move and in fact had moved toward the window and was peering out, before twitching the curtain back in place and shaking her head with a little sigh.
Sam swallowed. A host of questions were clamoring for his attention-How did I get here? Who are you people? Why did they leave a little girl alone with a full-grown man as if I’d be no kind of threat at all?-along with the bone-deep fire of terror for Jess, for what might be happening to her right now. Yet when he opened and shut his mouth no sound emerged, aside from a quiet clicking of his teeth encountering each other. Claire turned from her position by the window.
“Sam,” she said, flatly.
All the hair on the back of Sam’s neck stood up.
“Who are you?” he whispered. The girl cocked her head, face startlingly impassive, and regarded him for a long, uncomfortable moment.
“It’s better I don’t tell you anything at this stage,” she said, finally, still in that flat voice. It seemed…deeper, somehow. Almost familiar. As if…as if he’d heard it before. Heard it…recently.
Jesus.
“Wh-what are you?” he breathed, and didn’t know whether to be relieved or not when no answer beyond an enigmatic smile was forthcoming.
“Are you hungry?” Claire-the girl, the…whatever-asked solicitously, heading for a collection of bags piled in one corner of the room, and Sam realized that he’d seen a few of the bags before.
“I’ve called the police,” he’d said. “Go away.”
And Dean had stood there on the porch with these bags in his hands. He’d been…shopping. Shopping! Buying-apples, apparently, he realized when Claire, or whoever she was, pulled a shining red globe from the recesses of one, and lobbed it at Sam. He fumbled it, managed to juggle the fruit around awkwardly and tried to ignore the expression of vague amusement on the girl’s face at his consternation.
He scooted forward on the bed-one of two in the room, he realized, along with a beaten-down armchair-and planted his feet firmly on the floor.
“I have to find Jess,” he declared, maintaining his grip on the apple. Claire regarded him coolly.
“Of course you do,” she said calmly.
“I mean, I have to find her. Now. I have to go-right now. I have to-”
“Sam,” the girl said, and he shut up. Didn’t mean to, but his mouth snapped closed without any input from his brain. He stared at her.
“You’re going to find her,” she said. “Jess. You’ll find her. She’s going to be okay.”
He started to get up. “I don’t have time for-”
“Sam.” And this time her voice arrested him physically, so that he was only halfway to a standing position, hunched over awkwardly.
Claire said, “I can’t let you leave this room. It isn’t safe.”
“Safe?” His voice rose in pitch and almost without thinking he rose to his full height, a height which he knew to be intimidating to fully-grown men. “Safe? You people-you-you kidnapped me! All of you! Oh my God, I’ve been kidnapped by a teenybopper, Jesus H. Christ!”
“Sam. Sit. Down. Now.” A thirteen-year-old girl’s voice should not rumble. But Claire’s did. Sam half-expected the walls to shake. His knees buckled. He sat.
“Jess will be fine. Mostly fine. Gordon and the other hunter-they have no interest in her. She’s a civilian, and their jurisdiction has nothing to do with people like her.”
“Mostly fine? That’s supposed to make me feel better?” he paused. “And what’s a hunter, anyway?”
The girl blew air through her nose in something like a sigh, then shakes her head. For a moment something flickered across her features, briefly softening the too-old expression on her young face. Something like…sadness? Regret?
On whose behalf?
“I think I should wait to tell you these things, Sam.” She gave a smile that could only be described as ‘rueful,’ and added, “In fact, I don’t think I should be the one to explain these things at all. I think I should leave that to Dean.”
Sam stared at her. Looked helplessly around at the little room, the broken-down chair and the bed where he’d been lying, the cluttered desk and single window, the cobwebs and mold and dust and the strange little girl who, he was starting to suspect, was not a little girl at all.
He looked down at the apple in his hand. When he bit into it, the juice ran down his chin. Sam shut his eyes.
____________________
tbc Part five
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