"A Heartbeat At My Feet"
Title: A Heartbeat At My Feet - 1/2
Rating/Warning: PG (language)
Wordcount: 3,347
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Gen
Summary: An event in their childhood leaves Sam and Dean Winchester separated without knowing the true reason why - that reuniting could kill them both.
Notes: Fusion with His Dark Materials - do not have to be familiar with the books to read. Some liberties have been taken.
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Part One | Part Two
Sam felt the dull tug that meant Sasha was at the very limits of comfort and sighed, sitting back and rubbing a hand over his eyes. Farnes, Bobby’s hound dæmon entered the room, shortly followed by the man himself. Bobby was stomping his feet, trying to dislodge the accumulated mud and obviously not mindful of the fact that Sam had just cleaned the hardwood floors.
If Sam didn’t know any better, he’d say Bobby was doing it on purpose just to annoy him.
“What’s Sasha doing out by the junkers?” Bobby asked, shrugging off his coat and tossing it at the ancient coat rack by the door. It missed and hit the floor with a dull thump. Something rolled free, probably having been in one of the pockets. Farnes clacked across the floor and retrieved it, handing it to Bobby.
“How am I supposed to know?” Sam asked, ducking his head back to the pages in front of him. He could feel Bobby’s eyes on him and he wanted to tell him to quit staring. It was starting to become a thing that he was eighteen years old and his dæmon hadn’t settled on a form yet. People were beginning to talk. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be aware of it but some hunters had been asking questions which Bobby always brushed off with a stern word.
“You done your letter?” Bobby asked finally, thankfully steering away from the uncomfortable subject for the time being.
“Not yet,” Sam said, twirling his pen with his fingers.
Every Wednesday he wrote a letter to an older brother he hadn’t seen since they were both small. His brother was on the road with their father, who was practically absent, maybe managing a visit every six months or so. Bobby had explained time and again that something had happened to them both when they were children that meant it was dangerous to be close to each other. Sam trusted Bobby and so tried to take his word at face value, but he knew as he was getting older, it would be harder for Bobby to keep the truth from him.
For one thing, he had an acceptance letter from Stanford University burning a hole in his pocket. He’d meant to tell Bobby he was leaving but he wasn’t sure quite how yet.
Plus, there was the added problem of his dæmon. People would automatically think there was something wrong with him.
He didn’t want that.
All he wanted was to be normal.
~~~
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Dean breathed, digging frantically through his pockets. He had his shotgun clasped under one arm and was determined to find just one more salt shell. He was forever digging out extras when he was doing his wash so there just had to be one more.
“Dean! For chrissakes!” Dean heard his father call from the other side of the clearing. The spirit had managed to separate them and the fog was so thick that Dean had quickly lost his father and his bearings. He wasn’t even sure if he was close to the right grave anymore. Something cold and oily brushed the back of his neck and Dean whipped around, raising the shotgun like a club even though it would be pretty useless as a weapon.
“Dad? Where are you?” Dean called, realising that his voice and probably his father’s would more than likely bounce and echo, making it virtually impossible to pin-point where it was coming from. He felt a nudge at the back of his knee and looked down at Kiridem, his ears flattened and nostrils flared.
“I think that way,” he said, his nose pointed off to the left.
“Can you see?” Dean asked, tucking his shotgun back under his arm to resume his search through his pockets. He’d never realised just how many he had and how damn inconvenient they could be in a crisis.
Kiri shivered and went from being a wolf to a large cat. He bounded a little way ahead. “Stay close!” Dean snapped and he slinked back.
“I can see Beresh circling,” he said, his father’s Falcon dæmon.
Dean nodded and plunged through the overgrowth. The cemetery looked like it hadn’t employed a decent gardener in years. Dean and John had been forced to pull shrubbery and vines away from about a dozen grave stones before they’d found the one marked Frederick Dempsey who was their current target. Frederick had been tossing children from play equipment at the local park, a feat that hadn’t gotten much media attention until a little boy had been paralysed going head first off a jungle gym.
Dean almost went head first himself into the grave they had just dug up if it hadn’t been for Kiri running in front of his feet with a hiss. Dean pulled up short, his boots right on the edge and let out a shaky laugh. If he’d gone ass over tit he never would have heard the end of it.
The lighter fluid and canister of salt were right where they’d been left, sitting atop the headstone. Dean grabbed for the salt and broke open the top, pouring it in and the lighter fluid straight after. About twenty yards to the left Dean heard a shotgun blast and grinned in the darkness. “Keep it busy,” he breathed, digging his lighter out of his front jeans pocket and bringing a salt shell out with it. “Typical,” Dean grunted, finding some dry brush to set alight and tossed into the grave.
There was silence for all of five minutes before Dean could hear his father making his way back to the opened grave, the light from the fire making it easier to navigate. “I don’t remember teaching you to run in the opposite direction to me when we can’t see two inches in front of our faces,” John snapped as soon as he broke free of the shadows. He had twigs in his hair and a nasty gash on his forehead that he wiped at absently with his free hand.
“Get tossed, did ya?” Dean asked, watching his father’s scowl deepen.
“Ran right into a goddamn low branch,” he huffed and Dean put a hand over his mouth to stop laughing.
“Well, we’re salted and burned. I could go for some nachos right about now.” Beresh landed lightly on John’s shoulder as Dean spoke, glaring at Dean about as effectively as his father. Dean put a hand down and wasn’t surprised to find Kiri back in the wolf form. He’d been reverting back to a large, black wolf more and more often and he was hoping he was finally going to settle. People were going to start thinking he was slow or something.
~~~
Dear Dean,
I got into college. I’m not quite sure how to tell Bobby yet. You know how he worries…
Sam groaned and leaned back in his chair, balling up the piece of paper he’d been working on. He found with time it was getting harder and harder to write to Dean, especially since his brother never wrote back. Bobby had told him not to take it to heart and Sam wondered if maybe he should just stop. It had been important to him at eight years of age that his brother know he was still thinking of him but there was only so long a guy could be ignored without taking it personally.
Sasha was currently a field mouse, using the table as a kind of obstacle course. Dodge the water glass here, traverse Bobby’s books there, then circle Sam’s hand whenever it came to rest three times and repeat. Every now and again Sam would grab for Sasha and watch the little rodent dodge, just to make it interesting. When she was tired, Sasha would crawl up onto Sam’s shoulder or into the hood of his sweatshirt.
“Can you try finding Tann’s Dark Dictionary for me while I’m out?” Bobby asked, passing through the living room. As he went, Sasha made an almighty leap and landed on Farnes’ head, raising his little paws in victory when she’d managed it. Sam wasn’t quite sure why his dæmon was so goofy sometimes but it always made him smile.
“Where’s the last place you saw it?” Sam asked and ducked Bobby’s half-hearted attempt to swat him on the back of the head.
“It’s down here somewhere.”
Sam looked around the living room that was piled with stacks upon stacks of books. There were more in the kitchen and every available surface. He turned a sceptical look back to Bobby. “Ever thought of getting a computer in here and maybe cataloguing everything?” Sam asked.
“Do I look like I got time to be a librarian?” Bobby asked with a grunt of dismissal. “But feel free to get started on that if you’re so interested.” Bobby paused in the doorway. “Without… moving anything of course,” he added and Sam rolled his eyes and threw his hands heavenward.
“God forbid!” he said with an exaggerated flail. “I can’t mess with this kind of carefully constructed chaos.”
“I know where everything is,” Bobby said.
“Except the Tann book?” Sam asked with a smirk.
“Yes, except the Tann book, smartass,” Bobby grumbled on his way out the door.
Three hours later of fruitless searching and Sam watched Sasha edge toward the attic stairs when he’d checked all the bedrooms and the spare rooms with about as much success as the lower floor. The large brown hare had one ear cocked and one flopped against her face. “Maybe up here?” she asked, edging up another step.
“You know we can’t go up there,” Sam said, waving a hand in dismissal. “It’s where Bobby keeps his curse boxes and the more dangerous stuff. He’d skin us both alive.”
Sasha darted up the stairs and Sam watched her go with his mouth open. “Oh c’mon,” he groaned, hesitating before thumping after his dæmon.
He often wondered if other people had this kind of trouble.
~~~
“Three stitches,” Dean said, stepping back to admire his handiwork. His father’s head wound had been bleeding sluggishly all the way back to the motel but it had stopped after only an hour and he was showing no signs of concussion.
Just embarrassment.
Which was always fun for Dean because John got surly when he was embarrassed and Dean ended up cleaning every weapon they’d ever owned or getting uproariously drunk with John. It could go either way.
“Think you can handle the werewolf in Patience?” John asked, standing up to have a look at his face in the black spotted mirror in the dingy bathroom. He cut some gauze off for himself as he waited for Dean to answer.
Dean hated werewolves, mostly because of their dæmons. The fact that even after they’d been turned into a monster, they had a dæmon was bad enough, it just didn’t seem right. To be able to actually see someone’s soul twisted so far out of true was not an experience Dean relished. The only thing worse was seeing someone possessed. A person functioning without a dæmon by their side sent a shiver through Dean.
There was no coming back from it.
“I guess so,” Dean said, watching his father tape down the gauze over his eye. Usually he loved being let off the leash, able to do a hunt on his own. He was twenty-two years old and sometimes he felt like John still saw him as fourteen, bawling at him to get that stock tucked into your shoulder properly or you’ll be bruised for a week! Every now and again though, Dean knew John went somewhere that he wouldn’t talk about.
He hated them having secrets.
“You know, the werewolf has only killed livestock. It could probably wait and I could come help with whatever-”
“No, Dean.”
His father never explained, just always said a flat no. Dean was supposed to fall into line and not argue but they’d had a rough night and he was tired of being skirted around like a kid. There was something his dad wasn’t telling him and enough was enough. Kiri crawled into Dean’s lap, back to being a cat with black fur and white paws. He nudged Dean’s chin with his nose when Dean clenched his fists in his fur.
“I want to know what’s going on,” Dean said, hoping that he sounded patient and more importantly adult. He wanted his dad to talk to him like he did to other hunters and considering he risked his life just like they did, he thought he deserved it.
“We’ve talked about this,” John sighed, still in the bathroom and only half his face visible in the mirror, back still to Dean.
“No, Dad, we haven’t,” Dean insisted, trying to leave all emotion out of his voice. He didn’t want to yell. He wanted his father to understand that he was old enough to handle whatever it was his dad was hiding. He knew he should have been able to take his dad’s word as law but he’d been having trouble with that lately. Mostly because he’d started getting the feeling that maybe the random disappearances had something to do with him and Kiri.
“I don’t know what you want me to say exactly,” John huffed, still not turning around. He slung a towel over his shoulder and picked up a razor from the side of the basin. “There’s just some stuff I need to take care of and it doesn’t concern you.”
“Like hell,” Dean snapped, his patience fraying. Kiri hopped off his knee and started pacing like he always did when Dean was agitated.
“Dean,” Kiri tried to interject gently and he waved a hand at him, asking for his silence. Beresh was perched on the chair nearest the bathroom and she started clenching and unclenching her claws, a sign that his father was getting upset as well.
“You go see Bobby who I haven’t done more than talk on the phone to since I was twelve and I want to know just what exactly it’s all about. Is it…” Dean looked down at Kiri who stared back at him impassively. “Is it about us?” he asked, swallowing hard.
“What kind of foolishness are you on about?” John demanded, turning in the bathroom doorway, his face soaped and ready for a shave. He wiped the soap off with irritated swipes.
“I know we’re kinda odd,” Dean said, putting a hand out and rubbing over Kiri’s head briefly in a silent apology. “He hasn’t settled on a form yet and he can range pretty far out before I feel it.”
“So?” John said, cursing when the shirt he tugged over his head caught the gauze he’d just put on. He smoothed it back into place and pulled a long-sleeved flannel on, buttoning it with a weird kind of concentration that meant he didn’t have to meet Dean’s gaze.
“So, I get sick and he’s fine. Or he gets sick when I’m fine. Even I know that’s strange.”
“Winchesters just aren’t normal. It’s kind of our calling,” John tried and Dean rubbed his hands over the back of his head for a second, closing his arms over his face and then dropping them.
“Is it something to do with Sammy dying?” Dean asked and John froze, his hands on the last button. “It’s all kinda foggy but it felt wrong to touch Kiri for the first couple of months after that. Maybe something…happened?”
“We’re not talking about this anymore,” John said, his voice a dangerous level growl that Dean had come to recognise as him reaching a point of fury when he surpassed the need to yell. He crossed to the space between their two beds and yanked his duffle out from underneath his, checking it briefly to make sure he had everything and then turning to the door. “Just tell me if you can handle that werewolf or I’ll do it on my way back and you can stay here.”
“I can handle it,” Dean said, wanting to scream but knowing it wouldn’t do any good. When his father had slammed out the door, Dean went to his own duffle and dumped it out. Along with his clothes, an unloaded hand gun and his favourite knife in a sheath, his father’s journal that he’d been told never to touch on pain of death and was usually on his father anyway, safely tucked into the large pocket inside his leather jacket, thumped onto the bed spread.
John had taught him how to pick a pocket of even large items without the target knowing.
Dean hesitated for only a second, unwrapping the leather cord that held his father’s journal closed before he lost his nerve. Kiri as a baby diamond python, wrapped around his wrist in silent support or wordless accusation, Dean wasn’t sure which.
Thankfully he didn’t elaborate.
~~~
Sam figured that since he had already pole-vaulted across Bobby’s biggest rule, he might as well look around. Sasha darted in and out of boxes and chests until Sam snagged her and tucked her against his chest. “If you get us vaporised or turned into a large, green scaly monster with slime I’m going to be pissed,” Sam snarled and Sasha tucked her head into Sam’s shoulder.
He skirted the pile of ornate looking chests with script etched on their sides and lids and a circle of red on the floorboards underneath, guessing that those were the curse boxes. There was a rack of old clothes, thick jackets and flannels that didn’t look much different than from what Bobby wore day to day which made Sam grin. A bookcase with sagging shelves was pushed up against the far end, blocking out the front-facing window Sam knew was there from looking at the house from the outside. He tried there first, careful not to touch anything and holding Sasha away when she poked an interested nose in the book case’s direction.
“It’s probably in his truck,” Sam grumbled. There was a thump from downstairs and Sam groaned and then ducked into an alcove between the bookshelf and a teetering pile of archive boxes. Sasha leaped from his arms just as he moved and Sam managed to flail and knocked the top box off the pile. The lid flipped off and envelopes scattered across the floor.
“Sam?” Bobby called from downstairs and Sam grimaced, lowering to his haunches to scoop the envelopes back in the box before Bobby came up the stairs and found him. He was in trouble with a capital ‘T’ already but he could minimise the length of time he was grounded for by making it seem like he hadn’t actually touched anything. He could still perhaps see daylight this century if Bobby thought he was only looking at the book case.
Sam wasn’t even really paying attention to what he was scooping back into the box until Sasha picked up one of the envelopes between her paws and shoved it under Sam’s nose. “That’s your handwriting,” Sasha pointed out, her whiskers twitching in agitation.
“What? Let me see that,” Sam said, taking the envelope and holding it up to the dim light by the single bulb. He squinted and could make out a carefully printed name and address.
Dean Winchester.
“No,” Sam breathed, putting his hands out and fanning the envelopes he’d just scraped into a rough stack. Again and again, Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester. All the letters he’d written. Sam looked up at the other archive boxes and with a sinking heart stood and pushed the stack over. Hundreds of letters spilled across the floor and Sam faintly heard Bobby thumping up the stairs, his steps getting quicker when he must have realised where the ruckus was coming from.
“What the hell are you doing up here?” Bobby demanded, red faced and panting.
Sam scooped up a pile of letters and threw them at Bobby’s feet. Not one had been stamped or ever sent.
Not one.
“What the hell is this?”
Part Two
---His Dark Materials Cheat Sheet---
A dæmon is a manifestation of the soul of a conscious person in the Philip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials. In those universes with physical dæmons, they exist external to the human in the form of animals representative of the person's personality, although children's dæmons may change form at whim. The bond between dæmon and human is intimate, and dæmons must remain within a small distance of their human (with the exception of witches); contact between a person and another person's dæmon is taboo, although dæmons may touch each other
Dæmons can touch each other freely. However, "the worst breach of etiquette imaginable" is for a person to touch another person's dæmon (even in battle, most soldiers would never touch an enemy's dæmon), though exceptions can be made (for example, between lovers). If one does touch someone else's dæmon, it causes great weakness for the person whose dæmon is being touched.
A person's dæmon is usually of the opposite sex to its human. However, in some cases it may be the same sex as the person; according to Pullman the author it might indicate some sort of gift or quality, such as second sight.
Rating/Warning: PG (language)
Wordcount: 3,347
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Gen
Summary: An event in their childhood leaves Sam and Dean Winchester separated without knowing the true reason why - that reuniting could kill them both.
Notes: Fusion with His Dark Materials - do not have to be familiar with the books to read. Some liberties have been taken.
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Part One | Part Two
Sam felt the dull tug that meant Sasha was at the very limits of comfort and sighed, sitting back and rubbing a hand over his eyes. Farnes, Bobby’s hound dæmon entered the room, shortly followed by the man himself. Bobby was stomping his feet, trying to dislodge the accumulated mud and obviously not mindful of the fact that Sam had just cleaned the hardwood floors.
If Sam didn’t know any better, he’d say Bobby was doing it on purpose just to annoy him.
“What’s Sasha doing out by the junkers?” Bobby asked, shrugging off his coat and tossing it at the ancient coat rack by the door. It missed and hit the floor with a dull thump. Something rolled free, probably having been in one of the pockets. Farnes clacked across the floor and retrieved it, handing it to Bobby.
“How am I supposed to know?” Sam asked, ducking his head back to the pages in front of him. He could feel Bobby’s eyes on him and he wanted to tell him to quit staring. It was starting to become a thing that he was eighteen years old and his dæmon hadn’t settled on a form yet. People were beginning to talk. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be aware of it but some hunters had been asking questions which Bobby always brushed off with a stern word.
“You done your letter?” Bobby asked finally, thankfully steering away from the uncomfortable subject for the time being.
“Not yet,” Sam said, twirling his pen with his fingers.
Every Wednesday he wrote a letter to an older brother he hadn’t seen since they were both small. His brother was on the road with their father, who was practically absent, maybe managing a visit every six months or so. Bobby had explained time and again that something had happened to them both when they were children that meant it was dangerous to be close to each other. Sam trusted Bobby and so tried to take his word at face value, but he knew as he was getting older, it would be harder for Bobby to keep the truth from him.
For one thing, he had an acceptance letter from Stanford University burning a hole in his pocket. He’d meant to tell Bobby he was leaving but he wasn’t sure quite how yet.
Plus, there was the added problem of his dæmon. People would automatically think there was something wrong with him.
He didn’t want that.
All he wanted was to be normal.
~~~
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Dean breathed, digging frantically through his pockets. He had his shotgun clasped under one arm and was determined to find just one more salt shell. He was forever digging out extras when he was doing his wash so there just had to be one more.
“Dean! For chrissakes!” Dean heard his father call from the other side of the clearing. The spirit had managed to separate them and the fog was so thick that Dean had quickly lost his father and his bearings. He wasn’t even sure if he was close to the right grave anymore. Something cold and oily brushed the back of his neck and Dean whipped around, raising the shotgun like a club even though it would be pretty useless as a weapon.
“Dad? Where are you?” Dean called, realising that his voice and probably his father’s would more than likely bounce and echo, making it virtually impossible to pin-point where it was coming from. He felt a nudge at the back of his knee and looked down at Kiridem, his ears flattened and nostrils flared.
“I think that way,” he said, his nose pointed off to the left.
“Can you see?” Dean asked, tucking his shotgun back under his arm to resume his search through his pockets. He’d never realised just how many he had and how damn inconvenient they could be in a crisis.
Kiri shivered and went from being a wolf to a large cat. He bounded a little way ahead. “Stay close!” Dean snapped and he slinked back.
“I can see Beresh circling,” he said, his father’s Falcon dæmon.
Dean nodded and plunged through the overgrowth. The cemetery looked like it hadn’t employed a decent gardener in years. Dean and John had been forced to pull shrubbery and vines away from about a dozen grave stones before they’d found the one marked Frederick Dempsey who was their current target. Frederick had been tossing children from play equipment at the local park, a feat that hadn’t gotten much media attention until a little boy had been paralysed going head first off a jungle gym.
Dean almost went head first himself into the grave they had just dug up if it hadn’t been for Kiri running in front of his feet with a hiss. Dean pulled up short, his boots right on the edge and let out a shaky laugh. If he’d gone ass over tit he never would have heard the end of it.
The lighter fluid and canister of salt were right where they’d been left, sitting atop the headstone. Dean grabbed for the salt and broke open the top, pouring it in and the lighter fluid straight after. About twenty yards to the left Dean heard a shotgun blast and grinned in the darkness. “Keep it busy,” he breathed, digging his lighter out of his front jeans pocket and bringing a salt shell out with it. “Typical,” Dean grunted, finding some dry brush to set alight and tossed into the grave.
There was silence for all of five minutes before Dean could hear his father making his way back to the opened grave, the light from the fire making it easier to navigate. “I don’t remember teaching you to run in the opposite direction to me when we can’t see two inches in front of our faces,” John snapped as soon as he broke free of the shadows. He had twigs in his hair and a nasty gash on his forehead that he wiped at absently with his free hand.
“Get tossed, did ya?” Dean asked, watching his father’s scowl deepen.
“Ran right into a goddamn low branch,” he huffed and Dean put a hand over his mouth to stop laughing.
“Well, we’re salted and burned. I could go for some nachos right about now.” Beresh landed lightly on John’s shoulder as Dean spoke, glaring at Dean about as effectively as his father. Dean put a hand down and wasn’t surprised to find Kiri back in the wolf form. He’d been reverting back to a large, black wolf more and more often and he was hoping he was finally going to settle. People were going to start thinking he was slow or something.
~~~
Dear Dean,
I got into college. I’m not quite sure how to tell Bobby yet. You know how he worries…
Sam groaned and leaned back in his chair, balling up the piece of paper he’d been working on. He found with time it was getting harder and harder to write to Dean, especially since his brother never wrote back. Bobby had told him not to take it to heart and Sam wondered if maybe he should just stop. It had been important to him at eight years of age that his brother know he was still thinking of him but there was only so long a guy could be ignored without taking it personally.
Sasha was currently a field mouse, using the table as a kind of obstacle course. Dodge the water glass here, traverse Bobby’s books there, then circle Sam’s hand whenever it came to rest three times and repeat. Every now and again Sam would grab for Sasha and watch the little rodent dodge, just to make it interesting. When she was tired, Sasha would crawl up onto Sam’s shoulder or into the hood of his sweatshirt.
“Can you try finding Tann’s Dark Dictionary for me while I’m out?” Bobby asked, passing through the living room. As he went, Sasha made an almighty leap and landed on Farnes’ head, raising his little paws in victory when she’d managed it. Sam wasn’t quite sure why his dæmon was so goofy sometimes but it always made him smile.
“Where’s the last place you saw it?” Sam asked and ducked Bobby’s half-hearted attempt to swat him on the back of the head.
“It’s down here somewhere.”
Sam looked around the living room that was piled with stacks upon stacks of books. There were more in the kitchen and every available surface. He turned a sceptical look back to Bobby. “Ever thought of getting a computer in here and maybe cataloguing everything?” Sam asked.
“Do I look like I got time to be a librarian?” Bobby asked with a grunt of dismissal. “But feel free to get started on that if you’re so interested.” Bobby paused in the doorway. “Without… moving anything of course,” he added and Sam rolled his eyes and threw his hands heavenward.
“God forbid!” he said with an exaggerated flail. “I can’t mess with this kind of carefully constructed chaos.”
“I know where everything is,” Bobby said.
“Except the Tann book?” Sam asked with a smirk.
“Yes, except the Tann book, smartass,” Bobby grumbled on his way out the door.
Three hours later of fruitless searching and Sam watched Sasha edge toward the attic stairs when he’d checked all the bedrooms and the spare rooms with about as much success as the lower floor. The large brown hare had one ear cocked and one flopped against her face. “Maybe up here?” she asked, edging up another step.
“You know we can’t go up there,” Sam said, waving a hand in dismissal. “It’s where Bobby keeps his curse boxes and the more dangerous stuff. He’d skin us both alive.”
Sasha darted up the stairs and Sam watched her go with his mouth open. “Oh c’mon,” he groaned, hesitating before thumping after his dæmon.
He often wondered if other people had this kind of trouble.
~~~
“Three stitches,” Dean said, stepping back to admire his handiwork. His father’s head wound had been bleeding sluggishly all the way back to the motel but it had stopped after only an hour and he was showing no signs of concussion.
Just embarrassment.
Which was always fun for Dean because John got surly when he was embarrassed and Dean ended up cleaning every weapon they’d ever owned or getting uproariously drunk with John. It could go either way.
“Think you can handle the werewolf in Patience?” John asked, standing up to have a look at his face in the black spotted mirror in the dingy bathroom. He cut some gauze off for himself as he waited for Dean to answer.
Dean hated werewolves, mostly because of their dæmons. The fact that even after they’d been turned into a monster, they had a dæmon was bad enough, it just didn’t seem right. To be able to actually see someone’s soul twisted so far out of true was not an experience Dean relished. The only thing worse was seeing someone possessed. A person functioning without a dæmon by their side sent a shiver through Dean.
There was no coming back from it.
“I guess so,” Dean said, watching his father tape down the gauze over his eye. Usually he loved being let off the leash, able to do a hunt on his own. He was twenty-two years old and sometimes he felt like John still saw him as fourteen, bawling at him to get that stock tucked into your shoulder properly or you’ll be bruised for a week! Every now and again though, Dean knew John went somewhere that he wouldn’t talk about.
He hated them having secrets.
“You know, the werewolf has only killed livestock. It could probably wait and I could come help with whatever-”
“No, Dean.”
His father never explained, just always said a flat no. Dean was supposed to fall into line and not argue but they’d had a rough night and he was tired of being skirted around like a kid. There was something his dad wasn’t telling him and enough was enough. Kiri crawled into Dean’s lap, back to being a cat with black fur and white paws. He nudged Dean’s chin with his nose when Dean clenched his fists in his fur.
“I want to know what’s going on,” Dean said, hoping that he sounded patient and more importantly adult. He wanted his dad to talk to him like he did to other hunters and considering he risked his life just like they did, he thought he deserved it.
“We’ve talked about this,” John sighed, still in the bathroom and only half his face visible in the mirror, back still to Dean.
“No, Dad, we haven’t,” Dean insisted, trying to leave all emotion out of his voice. He didn’t want to yell. He wanted his father to understand that he was old enough to handle whatever it was his dad was hiding. He knew he should have been able to take his dad’s word as law but he’d been having trouble with that lately. Mostly because he’d started getting the feeling that maybe the random disappearances had something to do with him and Kiri.
“I don’t know what you want me to say exactly,” John huffed, still not turning around. He slung a towel over his shoulder and picked up a razor from the side of the basin. “There’s just some stuff I need to take care of and it doesn’t concern you.”
“Like hell,” Dean snapped, his patience fraying. Kiri hopped off his knee and started pacing like he always did when Dean was agitated.
“Dean,” Kiri tried to interject gently and he waved a hand at him, asking for his silence. Beresh was perched on the chair nearest the bathroom and she started clenching and unclenching her claws, a sign that his father was getting upset as well.
“You go see Bobby who I haven’t done more than talk on the phone to since I was twelve and I want to know just what exactly it’s all about. Is it…” Dean looked down at Kiri who stared back at him impassively. “Is it about us?” he asked, swallowing hard.
“What kind of foolishness are you on about?” John demanded, turning in the bathroom doorway, his face soaped and ready for a shave. He wiped the soap off with irritated swipes.
“I know we’re kinda odd,” Dean said, putting a hand out and rubbing over Kiri’s head briefly in a silent apology. “He hasn’t settled on a form yet and he can range pretty far out before I feel it.”
“So?” John said, cursing when the shirt he tugged over his head caught the gauze he’d just put on. He smoothed it back into place and pulled a long-sleeved flannel on, buttoning it with a weird kind of concentration that meant he didn’t have to meet Dean’s gaze.
“So, I get sick and he’s fine. Or he gets sick when I’m fine. Even I know that’s strange.”
“Winchesters just aren’t normal. It’s kind of our calling,” John tried and Dean rubbed his hands over the back of his head for a second, closing his arms over his face and then dropping them.
“Is it something to do with Sammy dying?” Dean asked and John froze, his hands on the last button. “It’s all kinda foggy but it felt wrong to touch Kiri for the first couple of months after that. Maybe something…happened?”
“We’re not talking about this anymore,” John said, his voice a dangerous level growl that Dean had come to recognise as him reaching a point of fury when he surpassed the need to yell. He crossed to the space between their two beds and yanked his duffle out from underneath his, checking it briefly to make sure he had everything and then turning to the door. “Just tell me if you can handle that werewolf or I’ll do it on my way back and you can stay here.”
“I can handle it,” Dean said, wanting to scream but knowing it wouldn’t do any good. When his father had slammed out the door, Dean went to his own duffle and dumped it out. Along with his clothes, an unloaded hand gun and his favourite knife in a sheath, his father’s journal that he’d been told never to touch on pain of death and was usually on his father anyway, safely tucked into the large pocket inside his leather jacket, thumped onto the bed spread.
John had taught him how to pick a pocket of even large items without the target knowing.
Dean hesitated for only a second, unwrapping the leather cord that held his father’s journal closed before he lost his nerve. Kiri as a baby diamond python, wrapped around his wrist in silent support or wordless accusation, Dean wasn’t sure which.
Thankfully he didn’t elaborate.
~~~
Sam figured that since he had already pole-vaulted across Bobby’s biggest rule, he might as well look around. Sasha darted in and out of boxes and chests until Sam snagged her and tucked her against his chest. “If you get us vaporised or turned into a large, green scaly monster with slime I’m going to be pissed,” Sam snarled and Sasha tucked her head into Sam’s shoulder.
He skirted the pile of ornate looking chests with script etched on their sides and lids and a circle of red on the floorboards underneath, guessing that those were the curse boxes. There was a rack of old clothes, thick jackets and flannels that didn’t look much different than from what Bobby wore day to day which made Sam grin. A bookcase with sagging shelves was pushed up against the far end, blocking out the front-facing window Sam knew was there from looking at the house from the outside. He tried there first, careful not to touch anything and holding Sasha away when she poked an interested nose in the book case’s direction.
“It’s probably in his truck,” Sam grumbled. There was a thump from downstairs and Sam groaned and then ducked into an alcove between the bookshelf and a teetering pile of archive boxes. Sasha leaped from his arms just as he moved and Sam managed to flail and knocked the top box off the pile. The lid flipped off and envelopes scattered across the floor.
“Sam?” Bobby called from downstairs and Sam grimaced, lowering to his haunches to scoop the envelopes back in the box before Bobby came up the stairs and found him. He was in trouble with a capital ‘T’ already but he could minimise the length of time he was grounded for by making it seem like he hadn’t actually touched anything. He could still perhaps see daylight this century if Bobby thought he was only looking at the book case.
Sam wasn’t even really paying attention to what he was scooping back into the box until Sasha picked up one of the envelopes between her paws and shoved it under Sam’s nose. “That’s your handwriting,” Sasha pointed out, her whiskers twitching in agitation.
“What? Let me see that,” Sam said, taking the envelope and holding it up to the dim light by the single bulb. He squinted and could make out a carefully printed name and address.
Dean Winchester.
“No,” Sam breathed, putting his hands out and fanning the envelopes he’d just scraped into a rough stack. Again and again, Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester. All the letters he’d written. Sam looked up at the other archive boxes and with a sinking heart stood and pushed the stack over. Hundreds of letters spilled across the floor and Sam faintly heard Bobby thumping up the stairs, his steps getting quicker when he must have realised where the ruckus was coming from.
“What the hell are you doing up here?” Bobby demanded, red faced and panting.
Sam scooped up a pile of letters and threw them at Bobby’s feet. Not one had been stamped or ever sent.
Not one.
“What the hell is this?”
Part Two
---His Dark Materials Cheat Sheet---
A dæmon is a manifestation of the soul of a conscious person in the Philip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials. In those universes with physical dæmons, they exist external to the human in the form of animals representative of the person's personality, although children's dæmons may change form at whim. The bond between dæmon and human is intimate, and dæmons must remain within a small distance of their human (with the exception of witches); contact between a person and another person's dæmon is taboo, although dæmons may touch each other
Dæmons can touch each other freely. However, "the worst breach of etiquette imaginable" is for a person to touch another person's dæmon (even in battle, most soldiers would never touch an enemy's dæmon), though exceptions can be made (for example, between lovers). If one does touch someone else's dæmon, it causes great weakness for the person whose dæmon is being touched.
A person's dæmon is usually of the opposite sex to its human. However, in some cases it may be the same sex as the person; according to Pullman the author it might indicate some sort of gift or quality, such as second sight.