the cavern of lost dreams
TITLE: the cavern of lost dreams
AUTHOR: i_speak_tongue
CHARACHTERS: Sam and Dean
GENRE: Gen, Pre-series/dual timeline, h/c
RATING: PG-13
WARNINGS: Suicidal Ideation
WORDS: 5364 (!!!)
SPOILERS: 7.06, Slash Fiction
A/N: No, I did not write this in two days. I just got canon-lucky. Also, thanks to shangrilada. This fic was inspired by a passage from her fic, Master Plan. (Passage footnoted)
SUMMARY: It's about a dog. It's about two boys and something that they thought was lost forever. It's about admitting limitations. It's about finding hope.
the cavern of lost dreams
In ninth grade, in a small town outside Nashville, Sam made a model of the Endeavour space shuttle with this kid, Nathan. They worked on it at Nathan’s house because Sam pretty much kept anyone he was remotely friends with clear away from his weird family and the shitty motel or apartment they happened to be living in at the time. You know, as a basic rule. Besides, Nathan’s mom always had home-made muffins and lemonade for them, and Sam liked to play with their dog Wally, this huge Sheepdog who looked just like the one from Fraggle Rock that Sam thought was real for years.
Wally was well loved enough by everyone in the family, but he was a bitch to groom, or so said Nathan when Sam asked about the little knots in the dog’s fur near his tail. It seemed no one was able to keep up with the inherent untidiness of the poor guy. He got dirty pretty quickly, since the Sutter’s back yard stretched out into a muddy forest and Wally was given free reign of the place. One afternoon, while they worked on the fuselage at the kitchen table, the dog hovered by the back door, letting out little whining noises now and then. Even from the other side of the room, Sam could smell the animal, a nasty wet dog smell paired with whatever musk and shit he’d managed to roll around in outside. And every now and then the dog would try to inch his way closer to them, peering up at Nathan from under his long white coat. Nathan would catch him though, and scold him. “You stink, Wally! You stink!” he’d say, pointing back towards the mud room door, and Wally would bow his head and sulk away. Before Sam left, he made sure to give the dog a good scratch behind his ears, and prayed that someone would be washing him that night.
He’d asked Dad for a dog a million times, and he was old enough to know better than to ask again at this point, but deep down he knew he’d do a great job of taking care of one, better than the Sutter’s took care of Wally, better than Dad took care of him and Dean. If Sam had a dog he’d show everyone. Show them he’d be great at taking care of something.
Not long after that Dean got sick, and part of Sam wondered if somehow his wish had been perversely granted.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
As predictably as thunder follows lightning, Dean texts him every night around 11:30, as soon as he’s good and soused. Usually with some raunchy comment about whatever bartender he’s ogling or the lyrics to some juke box song. Always misspelled. Tonight it’s: time tkes a cigrette puts it in yr moth. fukin bowie fukin rules. This is Dean’s way of reaching out, Sam’s well aware. But the bitterness still clings to the back of his throat, the betrayal still coats his gut like a shot of sour milk. He keeps thinking about his brother’s promise of trust, hears it as he pictures him thrusting that silver blade into Amy’s body, and it makes him sick.
He tries to shake the image out of his head, and focus on the task at hand; picking the lock to the Antique shop he’s just driven 180 miles for. It’s good he has a gig. A week or so half-way across the country from Dean is really all he needs to help dull the sting. Hopefully, in a few more days, they can meet back up in Whitefish without Sam feeling like he wants to strangle Dean until his eyes pop out of his head like they’re freakin’ Itchy and Scratchy. Because that’s why he took off, really. Not because he hates his brother. But because he’s afraid of what he’ll say or do, afraid of sending Dean over the edge, where he’s already so precariously teetering. Or just saying something he can never take back. There’s already been far too many lashes dealt in his family that he knows will never fully heal.
The antique shop smells like silver and brass polish, musty Persian rugs and wax candles. Sam closes the door behind him quietly and feels in his pockets until he finds his Maglite. The place is a mess and Sam figures they must do most of their business online. There’s barely enough room for employees here, let alone customers.
He’s looking for a pearl necklace stolen off the body of a murdered Governess who’s been attacking unfaithful fathers in New Haven. Apparently, she’s attached to the damn thing. Sam’s at the point in his career-if that label even qualifies-where he could pretty much do a job like this in his sleep. But he’s not picky. He needs the distraction. And besides, something he can do in his sleep still happens to be something that would get most folks killed if they tried it. Not that he’s bragging. Some days he really does wonder how he’s still breathing. No, make that every day.
He pans through boxes of jewelry in little labeled ziplock bags for what feels like forever until he feels himself falling asleep. He checks the time on his phone, a little depressed when he realizes he’s been at it for almost an hour and he’s only a quarter of the way through the guy’s inventory. He pulls up Dean’s message again. It’s been over two hours since Dean texted him, but something nags at Sam to text him back as he re-reads it, and he’s not sure why. Anything, just contact. So he says, what song? and stares at the screen as it sends and then a minute longer, then gets back to business. It’s a lame thing to say to your brother who you haven’t spoken to in almost 6 days, but it’s easy. Baggage-free.
He sifts through the bags of jewelry hoping there won’t be many other blue pearl necklaces floating around with the one he needs. Most of them are white, and most everything else is gold. He finishes fishing through one of the bigger boxes and sets it aside, hauling another onto the antique coffee table he’s using as his workspace. When he opens the box and shines his flashlight down onto it’s contents, a piece right on top catches his eye. It’s not the pearls. He’s not sure what it is, if maybe he’s been staring at gold for too long and his eyes are playing tricks on him. It can’t be what he thinks it is. It just can’t.
He’s almost afraid to touch it, break the illusion, but he reaches for the bag and draws it closer.
“Holy shit,” he whispers. Because it’s real, the same leather cord that hung on his own neck for three terrible month curled up around it like it was never lost to begin with. The label reads: Year unknown. Possibly ancient Mesopotamian. Value ??? DO NOT SELL.
Sam slides it out of the bag and squeezes the amulet tight in his scarred palm.
“Dean.”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
If there was one thing Sam was willing to expose about his family, it was the car. None of the kids at school had any idea what his crap apartment over some mechanic’s garage looked like, and thank god they didn’t, but when they’d see Dean pick him up after school, it was just about the only time he felt a little surge of pride. And Dean always made a point to be there before the busses left so that they had a nice big audience. Like somehow he knew, even though Sam never said anything about it.
“Your brother late?” Nathan asked, grabbing a spot next to him on the front steps of the school. He squeezed a chubby arm into his schoolbag feeling around for a book.
Sam squinted hard to the very end of the street. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“My mom is like, always late. It’s so annoying. I mean, I’d be home faster if I just took the stupid bus, you know?”
Sam nodded politely as if he was actually interested in what Nathan was saying, but a weird feeling was coming over him; he felt restless and his stomach twitched and twisted. “Dean’s never late,” he said, scratching at his knee as his foot began to tap nervously at the cracked concrete.
“Never say never,” Nathan said, like it was the most brilliant freaking insight he’d ever uttered.
Another minute ticked by, and Sam felt his whole body grow restless, as if there was somewhere he desperately needed to be and his brain just hadn’t caught on yet. He’d waited for Dad more times than he could count, for much longer. Days. But this was different. Dean wasn’t on a hunt. Dean was five minutes away. Dean was supposed to be here. Now.
Nathan looked at him like he’d lost it completely when he pushed himself up and swung his schoolbag over his shoulders in a spastic blur.
“I… I gotta go,” Sam gasped, and started running.
By the time Sam reached the house, his knees were numb and uncertain and he tripped over the scrap metal piled at the back of the garage, and as he righted himself he suddenly felt incredibly childish and stupid for running home like this just because his brother was ten minutes late. He almost expected Dean to appear at the top of the stairs and ask what the hell all the noise was about, woken up from the afternoon nap that had resulted in his failure to show.
He didn’t. It would take a hell of a lot more to get him on his feet, because as Sam discovered quite abruptly when he opened the door, Dean was passed out on the floor, in the kind of deep sleep that only comes with being seriously unwell.
Sam crouched down next to his big brother. Dean had his jean jacket and boots on, and, Sam realized as he rolled Dean over onto his back, the keys to the Impala in his hand. They jangled to the floor as Dean’s arm moved and his fingers uncurled.
Sam clung to his shoulders and shook. “Wake up, Dean. Wake up.”
For his troubles, Sam got one green eye pried open and a gruff, “M’on th’floor?”
Sam smiled a little and patted Dean’s chest. “Real observant, Dean,” he said and hooked his hand under Dean’s elbow. “Geez, man. You sick or something’?”
As he helped Dean struggle to sit up, that much was blatantly obvious. He clung to Sam’s arm to keep steady and squeezed his eyes open and shut as if he was trying to adjust to the light after leaving a movie theater.
As soon as he was steady, he swatted Sam off of him and held his head in his hands, leaning on his knees. “Uhhhhhn. Guess so.”
“Since when?”
“I dunno. Since I fell on the fucking floor?”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sam’s already turning the ignition on the old Thunderbird when Bobby picks up on the other end, his billy goat voice grumbling about being a human Wikipedia.
“Bobby, I don’t… I just need to know where Dean is.”
“Well I don’t suppose you’re planning on throwin’ him a surprise party. So why don’t you ask him yourself?”
“I just tried his cell. He’s not picking up,” Sam tells him, peeling out of the dark parking lot, twisting the steering wheel quickly and precisely with one hand, the other holding his phone tight to his ear.
“Well maybe he’s asleep like the rest of North America. God knows he’s due for a damn Rip Van Winkle session or two.”
“Bobby, I’m serious. I just have a bad feeling that… I dunno. I just need to see him.”
Bobby lets out a low hum Sam hears even over the dull rumble of the car’s junkie muffler. “Well, shit.”
“What,” Sam asks, weaving along the inclines of Brown campus and through the empty streets of Providence, his grip on the steering wheel tighter now.
“He got word of a nest.”
“Vamps? How many?”
“He’s only spotted two or three, last I heard from him.”
“Crap. He go after them yet?”
“Kid can handle himself with a few fangs. Usually.”
“I guess. I mean, you believed him? About there only being a couple of ‘em?” Sam puts some weight on the gas pedal, guns it onto the interstate.
“One lie don’t make him a liar, Sam. But if he’s off his game, two vamps might be plenty.”
“Where is he?” He prays it’s somewhere he can reach in a matter of hours and not days.
“Philly.”
The sun’s been up for a little while by the time Sam pulls up to the old porno theater on Kensington, right behind the Impala. The neighborhood looks something like Brooklyn-with the elevated train line casting its long shadows onto dingy storefronts-and something like a Dateline exposé on failing small businesses in America. The Art Holiday Theater being one of them.
Sam heads towards the back alley with a crowbar under his jacket, autumn wind threatening to reveal it and prickling his cheeks. Somehow, he’s not too worried about the neighborhood watch. He pries open the emergency exit without much fuss and slips into the building, quickly engulfed in darkness. Waiting for his eyes to adjust, he picks up on the smell of blood in the air, kind of relieved that it’s the dominant odor as opposed to other bodily fluids. Relieved too, that it’s not conjuring visions from the cage.
There are clattering sounds up ahead and he follows them without hesitation, readying a nice sharp stake in his fist. As he nears, he can hear the cheap soundtrack to some porn flick, the over-the-top groans of a woman’s orgasm, and tries damn hard to ignore it.
Then he hears something else.
“Oy, this is the best bit!”
Crowley.
He’s sitting next to Dean front row center, the light from the screen flickering off Crowley’s grin and the trickle of blood running down Dean’s face. The theater only has about a dozen rows, half the chairs ripped out of the floor, the vinyl torn and stained with god knows what. A couple of mice scurry past Sam’s feet, and when he looks down he sees the pile of dust he’s stepped in, and another a few feet away.
Right. At least the vamps are taken care of.
“Get away from him,” Sam growls, even though he has no useful weapon to point in Crowley’s direction aside from a flask of holy water.
“Sam,” Dean croaks, squirming meekly. Crowley has an arm around his shoulder like he’s Dean’s old college roommate visiting for Superbowl Sunday. Dean looks less than impressed.
“Sammy boy, you’re just in time for Sandra’s pool table scene.”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sam didn’t have a clue what he was doing. But at least he was persistent about it. Dean was sick enough that he was easier to push around than normal. Sam just wished he was this pliant when they were deciding on pizza toppings. But he’d take it where he could get it. He coaxed him to swallow Tylenol and water, to blow his nose. Convinced him to keep a thermometer under his tongue for a whole two minutes and Sam felt pretty damn victorious about the whole thing.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Dean told him, one side of his face smashed firmly into a pile of snot dappled pillows.
Sam handed him a roll of toilet paper-since Kleenex was more of an urban myth than the Boogey Man in the Winchester family. “About what?”
Dean waved the TP around in Sam’s general direction. “’’Bout bossin’ me ‘round.”
“Dean. You have a fever of 103. I’m not bossing you around. I’m taking care of you.”
Dean wagged a dismissive hand at him, coughed into the comforter. “Was supposed to pick you up,” he said, and started in on the coughing again.
“I think you’ve got a pretty good excuse,” Sam said, watching Dean sag into the bed like hot gravy on mashed potatoes.
He closed his eyes, leading Sam to believe he might be asleep, until he started mumbling.
“Don’t… don’t want you to wait for me Sammy. Never. I shoulda been there.”
“You’re crazy.”
“ ’M not Dad. I’m always gonna be there, Sam. Always.”
“Get some sleep, man,” Sam told him, tucked the blankets good and tight around his shoulders and tried not to think about the three unanswered messages he’d left on Dad’s phone.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
“Your brother’s getting rather sloppy, Sam. I mean look at him. What a mess, am I right? If I hadn’t arrived when I did, he’d be an empty martini glass with a couple pointy pearl onion toothpicks dangling off his jugular,” Crowley says wiggling his fingers around his own neck for effect.
Sam inches closer, his eyes scanning Crowley for weapons. Not that he’d really need one to kill them.
“Did you hear me, Emu-boy? I saved his bloody life! Clearly not here to kill you, Clouseau.”
Dean grimaces and Sam opens his mouth to reply, but is interrupted by a massive scream of ecstasy from behind him. And that’s enough of that. “What the fuck,” he says, squints at the projection box and fires off a couple rounds. The room falls silent and the screen goes dark, the only sources of light left the neon glow from the projection box, and four red exit signs. Sam gets out his flashlight and shines it on Crowley like a cop trying to intimidate a bunch of obnoxious teenagers. It’s no surprise it’s not having the same effect on Crowley, who simply squints and smirks irritably, but it makes Sam feel a little better.
“Alright then. Guess he’s not a fan of the classics,” Crowley says to Dean, elbowing him in the gut like he’s palling around. Except Dean’s nostrils flare and he winces like it pretty much hurts like a bitch. Crowley is pleasantly oblivious. “Or maybe he’s just a prude,” he tacks on, clearly enjoying the sound of his own voice far too much.
“Mussolini wants to work with us again,” Dean squeezes through his clenched teeth, quiet enough that he’d have never been heard over the movie. “I told him I’d rather eat your sweaty socks for breakfast for the rest of my life.”
“Well,” Crowley huffs, standing and dusting off his wool suit like he’s been deeply insulted. “You keep the freakin’ lemming routine up, that won’t be much longer.”
Sam knows how lemmings roll. Understands the implication. When he looks at Dean, his brother’s eyes are downcast, his hands clawed tensely around his ribs as if it’s Crowley’s words that jab at him now. Sam feels the dread wash over him as he asks, “Lemming routine?”
Some part of him knew this was coming.
(continued...)
AUTHOR: i_speak_tongue
CHARACHTERS: Sam and Dean
GENRE: Gen, Pre-series/dual timeline, h/c
RATING: PG-13
WARNINGS: Suicidal Ideation
WORDS: 5364 (!!!)
SPOILERS: 7.06, Slash Fiction
A/N: No, I did not write this in two days. I just got canon-lucky. Also, thanks to shangrilada. This fic was inspired by a passage from her fic, Master Plan. (Passage footnoted)
SUMMARY: It's about a dog. It's about two boys and something that they thought was lost forever. It's about admitting limitations. It's about finding hope.
the cavern of lost dreams
In ninth grade, in a small town outside Nashville, Sam made a model of the Endeavour space shuttle with this kid, Nathan. They worked on it at Nathan’s house because Sam pretty much kept anyone he was remotely friends with clear away from his weird family and the shitty motel or apartment they happened to be living in at the time. You know, as a basic rule. Besides, Nathan’s mom always had home-made muffins and lemonade for them, and Sam liked to play with their dog Wally, this huge Sheepdog who looked just like the one from Fraggle Rock that Sam thought was real for years.
Wally was well loved enough by everyone in the family, but he was a bitch to groom, or so said Nathan when Sam asked about the little knots in the dog’s fur near his tail. It seemed no one was able to keep up with the inherent untidiness of the poor guy. He got dirty pretty quickly, since the Sutter’s back yard stretched out into a muddy forest and Wally was given free reign of the place. One afternoon, while they worked on the fuselage at the kitchen table, the dog hovered by the back door, letting out little whining noises now and then. Even from the other side of the room, Sam could smell the animal, a nasty wet dog smell paired with whatever musk and shit he’d managed to roll around in outside. And every now and then the dog would try to inch his way closer to them, peering up at Nathan from under his long white coat. Nathan would catch him though, and scold him. “You stink, Wally! You stink!” he’d say, pointing back towards the mud room door, and Wally would bow his head and sulk away. Before Sam left, he made sure to give the dog a good scratch behind his ears, and prayed that someone would be washing him that night.
He’d asked Dad for a dog a million times, and he was old enough to know better than to ask again at this point, but deep down he knew he’d do a great job of taking care of one, better than the Sutter’s took care of Wally, better than Dad took care of him and Dean. If Sam had a dog he’d show everyone. Show them he’d be great at taking care of something.
Not long after that Dean got sick, and part of Sam wondered if somehow his wish had been perversely granted.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
As predictably as thunder follows lightning, Dean texts him every night around 11:30, as soon as he’s good and soused. Usually with some raunchy comment about whatever bartender he’s ogling or the lyrics to some juke box song. Always misspelled. Tonight it’s: time tkes a cigrette puts it in yr moth. fukin bowie fukin rules. This is Dean’s way of reaching out, Sam’s well aware. But the bitterness still clings to the back of his throat, the betrayal still coats his gut like a shot of sour milk. He keeps thinking about his brother’s promise of trust, hears it as he pictures him thrusting that silver blade into Amy’s body, and it makes him sick.
He tries to shake the image out of his head, and focus on the task at hand; picking the lock to the Antique shop he’s just driven 180 miles for. It’s good he has a gig. A week or so half-way across the country from Dean is really all he needs to help dull the sting. Hopefully, in a few more days, they can meet back up in Whitefish without Sam feeling like he wants to strangle Dean until his eyes pop out of his head like they’re freakin’ Itchy and Scratchy. Because that’s why he took off, really. Not because he hates his brother. But because he’s afraid of what he’ll say or do, afraid of sending Dean over the edge, where he’s already so precariously teetering. Or just saying something he can never take back. There’s already been far too many lashes dealt in his family that he knows will never fully heal.
The antique shop smells like silver and brass polish, musty Persian rugs and wax candles. Sam closes the door behind him quietly and feels in his pockets until he finds his Maglite. The place is a mess and Sam figures they must do most of their business online. There’s barely enough room for employees here, let alone customers.
He’s looking for a pearl necklace stolen off the body of a murdered Governess who’s been attacking unfaithful fathers in New Haven. Apparently, she’s attached to the damn thing. Sam’s at the point in his career-if that label even qualifies-where he could pretty much do a job like this in his sleep. But he’s not picky. He needs the distraction. And besides, something he can do in his sleep still happens to be something that would get most folks killed if they tried it. Not that he’s bragging. Some days he really does wonder how he’s still breathing. No, make that every day.
He pans through boxes of jewelry in little labeled ziplock bags for what feels like forever until he feels himself falling asleep. He checks the time on his phone, a little depressed when he realizes he’s been at it for almost an hour and he’s only a quarter of the way through the guy’s inventory. He pulls up Dean’s message again. It’s been over two hours since Dean texted him, but something nags at Sam to text him back as he re-reads it, and he’s not sure why. Anything, just contact. So he says, what song? and stares at the screen as it sends and then a minute longer, then gets back to business. It’s a lame thing to say to your brother who you haven’t spoken to in almost 6 days, but it’s easy. Baggage-free.
He sifts through the bags of jewelry hoping there won’t be many other blue pearl necklaces floating around with the one he needs. Most of them are white, and most everything else is gold. He finishes fishing through one of the bigger boxes and sets it aside, hauling another onto the antique coffee table he’s using as his workspace. When he opens the box and shines his flashlight down onto it’s contents, a piece right on top catches his eye. It’s not the pearls. He’s not sure what it is, if maybe he’s been staring at gold for too long and his eyes are playing tricks on him. It can’t be what he thinks it is. It just can’t.
He’s almost afraid to touch it, break the illusion, but he reaches for the bag and draws it closer.
“Holy shit,” he whispers. Because it’s real, the same leather cord that hung on his own neck for three terrible month curled up around it like it was never lost to begin with. The label reads: Year unknown. Possibly ancient Mesopotamian. Value ??? DO NOT SELL.
Sam slides it out of the bag and squeezes the amulet tight in his scarred palm.
“Dean.”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
If there was one thing Sam was willing to expose about his family, it was the car. None of the kids at school had any idea what his crap apartment over some mechanic’s garage looked like, and thank god they didn’t, but when they’d see Dean pick him up after school, it was just about the only time he felt a little surge of pride. And Dean always made a point to be there before the busses left so that they had a nice big audience. Like somehow he knew, even though Sam never said anything about it.
“Your brother late?” Nathan asked, grabbing a spot next to him on the front steps of the school. He squeezed a chubby arm into his schoolbag feeling around for a book.
Sam squinted hard to the very end of the street. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“My mom is like, always late. It’s so annoying. I mean, I’d be home faster if I just took the stupid bus, you know?”
Sam nodded politely as if he was actually interested in what Nathan was saying, but a weird feeling was coming over him; he felt restless and his stomach twitched and twisted. “Dean’s never late,” he said, scratching at his knee as his foot began to tap nervously at the cracked concrete.
“Never say never,” Nathan said, like it was the most brilliant freaking insight he’d ever uttered.
Another minute ticked by, and Sam felt his whole body grow restless, as if there was somewhere he desperately needed to be and his brain just hadn’t caught on yet. He’d waited for Dad more times than he could count, for much longer. Days. But this was different. Dean wasn’t on a hunt. Dean was five minutes away. Dean was supposed to be here. Now.
Nathan looked at him like he’d lost it completely when he pushed himself up and swung his schoolbag over his shoulders in a spastic blur.
“I… I gotta go,” Sam gasped, and started running.
By the time Sam reached the house, his knees were numb and uncertain and he tripped over the scrap metal piled at the back of the garage, and as he righted himself he suddenly felt incredibly childish and stupid for running home like this just because his brother was ten minutes late. He almost expected Dean to appear at the top of the stairs and ask what the hell all the noise was about, woken up from the afternoon nap that had resulted in his failure to show.
He didn’t. It would take a hell of a lot more to get him on his feet, because as Sam discovered quite abruptly when he opened the door, Dean was passed out on the floor, in the kind of deep sleep that only comes with being seriously unwell.
Sam crouched down next to his big brother. Dean had his jean jacket and boots on, and, Sam realized as he rolled Dean over onto his back, the keys to the Impala in his hand. They jangled to the floor as Dean’s arm moved and his fingers uncurled.
Sam clung to his shoulders and shook. “Wake up, Dean. Wake up.”
For his troubles, Sam got one green eye pried open and a gruff, “M’on th’floor?”
Sam smiled a little and patted Dean’s chest. “Real observant, Dean,” he said and hooked his hand under Dean’s elbow. “Geez, man. You sick or something’?”
As he helped Dean struggle to sit up, that much was blatantly obvious. He clung to Sam’s arm to keep steady and squeezed his eyes open and shut as if he was trying to adjust to the light after leaving a movie theater.
As soon as he was steady, he swatted Sam off of him and held his head in his hands, leaning on his knees. “Uhhhhhn. Guess so.”
“Since when?”
“I dunno. Since I fell on the fucking floor?”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sam’s already turning the ignition on the old Thunderbird when Bobby picks up on the other end, his billy goat voice grumbling about being a human Wikipedia.
“Bobby, I don’t… I just need to know where Dean is.”
“Well I don’t suppose you’re planning on throwin’ him a surprise party. So why don’t you ask him yourself?”
“I just tried his cell. He’s not picking up,” Sam tells him, peeling out of the dark parking lot, twisting the steering wheel quickly and precisely with one hand, the other holding his phone tight to his ear.
“Well maybe he’s asleep like the rest of North America. God knows he’s due for a damn Rip Van Winkle session or two.”
“Bobby, I’m serious. I just have a bad feeling that… I dunno. I just need to see him.”
Bobby lets out a low hum Sam hears even over the dull rumble of the car’s junkie muffler. “Well, shit.”
“What,” Sam asks, weaving along the inclines of Brown campus and through the empty streets of Providence, his grip on the steering wheel tighter now.
“He got word of a nest.”
“Vamps? How many?”
“He’s only spotted two or three, last I heard from him.”
“Crap. He go after them yet?”
“Kid can handle himself with a few fangs. Usually.”
“I guess. I mean, you believed him? About there only being a couple of ‘em?” Sam puts some weight on the gas pedal, guns it onto the interstate.
“One lie don’t make him a liar, Sam. But if he’s off his game, two vamps might be plenty.”
“Where is he?” He prays it’s somewhere he can reach in a matter of hours and not days.
“Philly.”
The sun’s been up for a little while by the time Sam pulls up to the old porno theater on Kensington, right behind the Impala. The neighborhood looks something like Brooklyn-with the elevated train line casting its long shadows onto dingy storefronts-and something like a Dateline exposé on failing small businesses in America. The Art Holiday Theater being one of them.
Sam heads towards the back alley with a crowbar under his jacket, autumn wind threatening to reveal it and prickling his cheeks. Somehow, he’s not too worried about the neighborhood watch. He pries open the emergency exit without much fuss and slips into the building, quickly engulfed in darkness. Waiting for his eyes to adjust, he picks up on the smell of blood in the air, kind of relieved that it’s the dominant odor as opposed to other bodily fluids. Relieved too, that it’s not conjuring visions from the cage.
There are clattering sounds up ahead and he follows them without hesitation, readying a nice sharp stake in his fist. As he nears, he can hear the cheap soundtrack to some porn flick, the over-the-top groans of a woman’s orgasm, and tries damn hard to ignore it.
Then he hears something else.
“Oy, this is the best bit!”
Crowley.
He’s sitting next to Dean front row center, the light from the screen flickering off Crowley’s grin and the trickle of blood running down Dean’s face. The theater only has about a dozen rows, half the chairs ripped out of the floor, the vinyl torn and stained with god knows what. A couple of mice scurry past Sam’s feet, and when he looks down he sees the pile of dust he’s stepped in, and another a few feet away.
Right. At least the vamps are taken care of.
“Get away from him,” Sam growls, even though he has no useful weapon to point in Crowley’s direction aside from a flask of holy water.
“Sam,” Dean croaks, squirming meekly. Crowley has an arm around his shoulder like he’s Dean’s old college roommate visiting for Superbowl Sunday. Dean looks less than impressed.
“Sammy boy, you’re just in time for Sandra’s pool table scene.”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sam didn’t have a clue what he was doing. But at least he was persistent about it. Dean was sick enough that he was easier to push around than normal. Sam just wished he was this pliant when they were deciding on pizza toppings. But he’d take it where he could get it. He coaxed him to swallow Tylenol and water, to blow his nose. Convinced him to keep a thermometer under his tongue for a whole two minutes and Sam felt pretty damn victorious about the whole thing.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Dean told him, one side of his face smashed firmly into a pile of snot dappled pillows.
Sam handed him a roll of toilet paper-since Kleenex was more of an urban myth than the Boogey Man in the Winchester family. “About what?”
Dean waved the TP around in Sam’s general direction. “’’Bout bossin’ me ‘round.”
“Dean. You have a fever of 103. I’m not bossing you around. I’m taking care of you.”
Dean wagged a dismissive hand at him, coughed into the comforter. “Was supposed to pick you up,” he said, and started in on the coughing again.
“I think you’ve got a pretty good excuse,” Sam said, watching Dean sag into the bed like hot gravy on mashed potatoes.
He closed his eyes, leading Sam to believe he might be asleep, until he started mumbling.
“Don’t… don’t want you to wait for me Sammy. Never. I shoulda been there.”
“You’re crazy.”
“ ’M not Dad. I’m always gonna be there, Sam. Always.”
“Get some sleep, man,” Sam told him, tucked the blankets good and tight around his shoulders and tried not to think about the three unanswered messages he’d left on Dad’s phone.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
“Your brother’s getting rather sloppy, Sam. I mean look at him. What a mess, am I right? If I hadn’t arrived when I did, he’d be an empty martini glass with a couple pointy pearl onion toothpicks dangling off his jugular,” Crowley says wiggling his fingers around his own neck for effect.
Sam inches closer, his eyes scanning Crowley for weapons. Not that he’d really need one to kill them.
“Did you hear me, Emu-boy? I saved his bloody life! Clearly not here to kill you, Clouseau.”
Dean grimaces and Sam opens his mouth to reply, but is interrupted by a massive scream of ecstasy from behind him. And that’s enough of that. “What the fuck,” he says, squints at the projection box and fires off a couple rounds. The room falls silent and the screen goes dark, the only sources of light left the neon glow from the projection box, and four red exit signs. Sam gets out his flashlight and shines it on Crowley like a cop trying to intimidate a bunch of obnoxious teenagers. It’s no surprise it’s not having the same effect on Crowley, who simply squints and smirks irritably, but it makes Sam feel a little better.
“Alright then. Guess he’s not a fan of the classics,” Crowley says to Dean, elbowing him in the gut like he’s palling around. Except Dean’s nostrils flare and he winces like it pretty much hurts like a bitch. Crowley is pleasantly oblivious. “Or maybe he’s just a prude,” he tacks on, clearly enjoying the sound of his own voice far too much.
“Mussolini wants to work with us again,” Dean squeezes through his clenched teeth, quiet enough that he’d have never been heard over the movie. “I told him I’d rather eat your sweaty socks for breakfast for the rest of my life.”
“Well,” Crowley huffs, standing and dusting off his wool suit like he’s been deeply insulted. “You keep the freakin’ lemming routine up, that won’t be much longer.”
Sam knows how lemmings roll. Understands the implication. When he looks at Dean, his brother’s eyes are downcast, his hands clawed tensely around his ribs as if it’s Crowley’s words that jab at him now. Sam feels the dread wash over him as he asks, “Lemming routine?”
Some part of him knew this was coming.
(continued...)