FIC: Lake Effect (1/2) - Complete
Title: Lake Effect
Author: kimonkey7
Rating: PG-13 for strong language
Pairings: none, teen!Dean, tween!Sam (gen)
Disclaimer: not mine, damn it.
Word Count: 14,866 total (parts one and two)
Summary: Pre-series. Perception of our own maturity is sometimes as murky as lake water.
A/N: The first 1400 words of this were flist-lock posted as a one-shot gift!fic for cuppa_char ’s birthday back in February. She’d requested a little fanon to explain why, in one of my stories, I make Dean uncomfortable with bodies of water. Almost everyone commented, “This isn’t finished…” It is now. Huge thanks to hiyacynth , quellefromage , and everybetty on this one.
Part One:
He’d told Sammy to fuck off and Sammy’d ‘o’ed his lips and sucked in a breath and told Dean he was telling Dad.
Dean had told him to get lost or read a goddamned book or something, and leave him alone. His little brother’s jaw had dropped like a stone.
“Aw! Now I’m really tellin’ Dad!”
“Go ahead, you little pussy!” he’d yelled, and whipped a Frisbee at Sam’s giant head.
They’d stomped off in opposite directions, Sam locking himself in the bathroom, and Dean pushing through the front screen door of the small cabin they’d been calling home for over a month.
Stupid stinking Mancelona. No girls, no kids, no video games. Not even a pool table in the main club house over by the realty offices. Stupid developing lake community. Dean stomped through the evergreens and birch toward the trail that lead to Pencil Lake.
He was fourteen and a half, and, yeah, he knew it was baby to say fourteen and a half instead of just fourteen, but Dad was treating him like a baby; not letting him go on a single hunt even though he had been training hard and was practically a sharp shot with the .22 AND the Glock. Instead, Dad kept taking off and leaving Sam with him. And that was a pain in the ass, and Dean was sick of it.
The green, spiny swirls of cedar and pine slapped against his bare chest and back as he pushed low branches out of his way. Loose sticks and pine cones popped up to nip at his legs where his cut-offs didn’t reach, his tennis-shoed feet bouncing across the loamy forest floor like he was traversing nature’s trampoline.
‘Not yet, Dean. You’re not ready…’ But what did his stupid dad know? Dean was ready to hunt, and too old to be a babysitter. And Sammy oughta learn to take care of himself, the little tattletale. Yeah, Dean was probably going to get it for saying fuck, probably get it for throwing the Frisbee, even if he couldn’t help hit anything when Sam’s head was the size of a freaking PLANET.
Dean trudged back out into the sunshine where sandy beach met the edge of the woods. The lake was deserted. It was ALWAYS deserted. Christ, there was never anybody around wherever Dad landed them nowadays. Dean wasn’t sure if they were hunting or hiding, but he hated the isolation either way.
He didn’t bother taking off his sneakers; they were good protection against the sharp rocks that lay at the silty bottom of the lake. The green water was pee-warm at the shore, but Dean dove under the surface a few feet in and pushed his way down to the cooler, murkier levels. He’d been taking out a lot of aggression by swimming the past couple of weeks. His arms were growing lean and tan, muscles becoming more ropey. It was a good five minute plow-through to the raft that was anchored in the middle of the rectangular lake. He counted off the strokes as he chopped through the water, tennis shoes slapping thunderous kicks off the wake he left with his frame. It wasn’t that he wanted to be alone, he just didn’t want to be with Sam.
The wood of the raft was worn and smooth, full of heat from a morning’s worth of Northern Michigan summer sunshine. Dean hauled himself onto the float, slapping belly-first like a seal, a garland of phytoplankton ringing his ankle. He rolled over onto his back, centering himself on the bobbing, pontooned float.
Stupid Sam. It just wasn’t fair. Dean was always taking care of him. When he was Sam’s age, he was taking care of himself. Man, his dad really pissed him off. Dean brooded and stewed under the sun until his face and fringe of short-shorn bangs were dry. He flipped over onto his stomach again.
Sam can fuck himself. And so can Dad. The last part was said with a little hunch of his shoulders. He scooted himself to the edge of the raft and peered down into the murky lake, fingertips swirling through the water. I know how to hunt. I’m not a baby. I’m--The flash of something pale and quick stopped the thought cold in his head. What the hell…?
He leaned forward, face a few inches from the lake’s surface, arms over the edge of the float, fingertips just dipping into the water. He jolted when he saw it again. If it was a fish, it was the biggest damn fish he’d ever seen.
The hand punched through the haziness, wrapping around his wrist before he could suck in a breath. His chest and belly slid roughly over the warped edge of the wooden raft, water stinging the bloody scrapes as he was pulled deeper and deeper.
*******************************************************************
Sam was on the sofa, twiggy legs bent Indian-style. There was a plate of peanut butter sandwiches on the cushion next to him, their dad’s journal open on his lap. “It’s dark.”
Dean was still sopping, lips blue, hair damp, arms across his chest and hands tucked into his pits.
“‘S-ssat Dad’s journal?”
“You’re supposed to be back by dark. Dad says these woods aren’t safe. And you’re dripping all over the floor.”
Dean wasn’t sure how he’d gotten away, only that he’d lost one of his sneakers and all his muscles hurt. Beads of water crawled across gooseflesh. His chest felt like he’d been hugged by a bear. “Y-y-yer not sposta be messin’ with ‘at.”
“Dad lets me, so I can practice my Latin.” Sam looked closer at his brother. “Where were you for so long?”
Dean wasn’t sure how to answer, wasn’t positive himself. He shrugged his shoulders and dropped his hands, grabbing a faded beach towel off the back of one of the kitchen chairs. He stopped and stared when Sam broke out into laughter. “What?”
Sam covered his peanut butter-smeared mouth with one hand and pointed at Dean with the other. His giggles couldn’t be stifled.
“What, Sam?”
“What did-What did you do? Fall asleep in the sun, feelin’ your boobs?”
Dean’s face pinched in confusion. He looked down at his chest and pulled in a sour, scratchy breath. The pale shadow of two hands lay there; one across each pectoral quadrant: like he’d been hugged from behind.
Dean’s face flushed in fear and embarrassment as Sam tipped sideways on the couch, legs kicking out in rhythm with his snorts.
“Shut up, Sam,” said Dean, bringing the towel to his torso like a coy Victorian. “Just shut up!”
Dean stormed toward the bathroom, lone tennis shoe sloshing and squishing across the wood floor. He laid a good punch on the back of Sam’s thigh as he passed the couch. It wasn’t funny. Not funny at all.
“I’m telling, Dean! Damn it!” yelled Sam from the living room.
Yellow light filled the bathroom when Dean pulled the chain switch. He slowly slid the towel down, watching the reveal in the mirror. Holy shit… It was definitely hands. Hands and arms. A tiny zamboni ran up his spine, then around his wrist. Pulled under. I was pulled under water by--
Sam’s skinny fists pounded on the wooden door, startling Dean.
“Hey! What are you doing? Are you okay?”
“Lemme alone, Sam! Jesus!” I was pulled under and… Dean’s hand went absently to his mouth. He pushed out a breath, heat meeting his cold, water-logged fingers. I couldn’t breathe…
“Dean, what’s wrong?”
He jumped at Sam’s call through the door, panic needling sporadically all over his body.
“Dean?”
Sam hopped back when Dean threw open the door.
“God! Can’t you leave me alone for five seconds?” His voice cracked at the end, throat aching. He pushed past his brother and stalked into the small room they shared.
Sam followed, his face all concern and curiosity. “Did something happen?”
Near-frozen fingers worked at the button on his cut-offs. “What’re you, tryin’ to see me naked? Get outta here, Sammy!”
“Dean-“
“Get out!” he yelled.
Sam’s face stayed hugged against the door frame for a second, lower lip poking out a bit.
“Go!”
Sam pushed off from the frame, wounded and angry. He awkwardly stuck his middle finger in the air before stalking back into the living room.
Dean’s fingers ran lightly across the red-topped, raised pink scrapes on his belly. Pulled me under and-- He shook his head, frigid drops of water falling from the ends of his hair. Nope. No. Didn’t happen. He toed off his remaining soggy sneaker, yanked down his shorts, and toweled himself dry. Slipped on the sweats that were balled on the floor by his bed. His shoulders protested when he tried to push his arms into a t-shirt, so he went without.
The fingers of one hand worried over his chest, and then stilled.
Dad was gonna kill him for losing one of his shoes.
*******************************************************************
The thunk-thunk-thunk on the cabin door woke him.
He was curled on the couch under a quilt, hiding from the cold morning air. The sun was just barely up, and he knew it had to be Minnie. If Dean didn’t let her in, she’d let herself in. He rubbed his eyes and forced his protesting muscles to walk him to the door.
Minnie ran the general store in town. It was the one place you could go to get pretty much everything you needed, without having to go into Alba or Gaylord, and the hitting the giant Meijer’s Thrifty Acres there.
The thing about running the local general store, coupled with being an old lady who didn’t really like anyone - as far as Dean could tell - was that you kept pretty early hours. Early up, early to bed, better to miss as many human interactions as possible.
John Winchester had met Minnie through the hunter’s underground system. He’d got her name from a friend of a friend. She wasn’t a hunter herself, but her father and brother had both died working the family business. Minnie’d been the one who set John up with jobs and the cabin rental. She’d also promised to deliver groceries to the boys if John was going to be out of town longer than a night or two. Dean suspected Dad had also asked her to check in on him and Sammy, but since Minnie seemed to hate babysitting even more than Dean, she rarely made appearances. Just the groceries every few days, and messages passed on from their dad calling in to the general store.
Minnie looked worse in the morning than she did almost any other time, in Dean’s opinion. When she delivered their stuff this early, she still had curlers in her hair. Dean hated the sight of her soft, pink scalp peeking between the rows of snowy hair. The black, pokey curlers and bright pink pins looked like alien fluke worms, sucking the life out of her. He didn’t know who she thought she was getting dolled up for; he didn’t think even old guys would be interested.
And there was always a Pall Mall dangling from her coral lips. She inhaled and exhaled without ever touching it, grey coils like ghost dragons rising from her nostrils as she went about her business. The long ash, that seemed to defy gravity as it bobbed in her frown, was pretty much the only thing Dean liked about her.
He could smell the smoke before he opened the door.
“Morning,” Minnie bristled. “I was just about to leave it on the porch. You sleepin’ in, yah?”
Dean shivered beneath the quilt wrapped round his shoulders. “Morning,” he croaked.
“Your dad called late last night. Says he’s gotta head to Petoskey. Gonna be another day.” She shoved a cardboard box at Dean.
The weight of it surprised him; she was pretty strong for an old lady. As he jostled to keep the box in his arms, settling it against his pelvis, the quilt slipped to the planked floor.
He nearly puked in his mouth when Minnie’s eyes dropped right to his chest and her eyes grew round and wide for a second. Holy shit, crazy perv lady’s checking me out!
And then her eyes squinched almost shut and her gaze shifted to his face. “What’d you do to yourself, eh?”
The weird handprint sunburn. Damn it. He looked down, breaking her glare while the blush built in his cheeks. The white shadows that had haunted his skin last night had become violet and green, yellowing along the edges; bruises Dean suddenly realized hurt like a son of a bitch.
“Somebody do that to you?”
Dean stammered and stuttered, slid two steps back. “Fell. I fell, I-“
“Where’s Sam? He okay, yah?” Minnie took a step closer to the door and leaned forward.
“We’re fine. He’s asleep. It’s really early, Minnie.”
Her eyes darted back from over his shoulder to his face, down to his chest again, and then up; milky blue on his green. “Your dad know about that?”
“It…it happened yesterday. I’m fine.”
Minnie twitched her nose, pulled back, and sucked in a lungful of tar, nicotine, and tobacco. When she exhaled, tiny angels of ash flew from the tip of the cigarette and swirled like snowflakes between them. “You send Sam to the store if you need anything, eh?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“There’s Spaghetti-Os in there,” she said, turning toward her beat-up Duster. “And ham that needs to get put up in the ice box.”
“Thanks, Minnie.”
The breeze of her wake floated a ‘hmph’ to him that could have been goodbye or fuck you, he didn’t care. He just wanted her gone so he could get a look at his chest.
He dropped the box of groceries on the kitchen table and was in the bathroom in seconds. The yellow bulb made his tanned skin sallow, made the bruises look worse than they had in the dim living room.
What happened? Not just how had those pale shapes become bruises over night, but what had actually HAPPENED in the water? He ran his hands over his mottled pectorals, down around his sides, and wished he could remember. But it was all blurry and murky - just like the lake. Dean knew only that he’d been scared when he’d found himself, half-shod, on shore.
His shoe.
He’d have to go back. He had no choice. Dad would skin him for losing a shoe. Especially the way freaking Sammy was growing so quickly these days. They couldn’t afford to be spending money on shoes left and right. Left OR right. Damn it. Not to mention the hell he was going to catch for leaving Sam alone hours on end. And his brother’d probably taken great pains to detail all of it for their dad. Little fucker probably made a pie-graph.
He scuffed his way back out to the kitchen, a shiver seizing him halfway there. Dean’s body quaked a second longer than made him comfortable. As soon as it stilled, he scooped the quilt up from the floor by the door, and wrapped it back around his shoulders.
He put away the ham, some eggs and butter, and something in butcher paper that Dean purely hoped wasn’t liver. The dry goods he stocked in the cabinets by the sink, and the canned stuff went on the shelf over the stove. Every stretch of his arms and shoulders whispered pain to him. It angered him that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t backpedal his brain into that lake. Couldn’t put his thumb down on what-
A choking cough wracked his chest and he steadied himself with a hip against the kitchen counter. He could almost taste the fishy water on the back of his tongue and there was a flash - like a kind of soft, green explosion - of arms around him, tightly holding him under the cloudiness of Pencil Lake. What happened?
His hands unwrapped from around his belly, and he decided he didn’t need to know, didn’t need to remember. He needed to find his shoe, though, and he should do it before Sam woke up and wanted to tag along. The last thing he needed was Sam asking a bunch of questions he couldn’t answer.
*******************************************************************
The lake was quiet, placid, sun casting far-flung diamonds off its surface. There was absolutely nothing menacing in its welcoming beauty, but Dean stuttered in his step at the border of woods and beach. His hand dropped to his side where he’d clipped the sheathed silver knife to the belt loop of the cut-offs he’d changed into.
‘Stay with me…’
There it was again, like a cool compress pressing against his forehead from INSIDE his skull; I couldn’t breathe and he said - IT said, ‘Stay with me…’
He shook his head, as if to unsettle a fly from his nose, and found himself at the water’s edge. Foam lapped at his toes in the cheap, dime store flip-flops Dad had bought them all to wear in the community showers at the club house.
The Winchester men were cursed with a pedal athlete’s-foot magnet. And Dad liked nothin’ better that to bitch about the cost of Tinactin for three. It was ‘Wear the sandals in the shower, Dean, or you’ll be wearing an extra twenty pounds on your next training hike.’ It made it worse that his dad called them SANDALS.
If he didn’t find his shoe, Dean was positive his dad would make him walk around town in girly, red and white flip-flops. And he wasn’t going to do that. No fucking way.
When he looked down, the water had risen to mid-thigh, darkening his shorts as the denim drank in the moisture. A glance back over his shoulder showed him ten feet he didn’t recall walking. His thumb popped the snap on the cover strap over the knife and his fingers curled around the handle.
‘Stay with me.’
But this time the voice wasn’t in his head. Not a sullied memory. And this time it wasn’t a request. It was like a John Winchester order, and, oh, my God - he needed to obey.
The cold circling his ankle tore down the gauzy curtain of bluff and for just a second, he got a flash of what was happening, what was REALLY happening. And he tried with a jerk to stop it, to pull away. His left foot slid back and landed sideways on a sharp rock, slicing his instep like a blade through butter. Blood swirled out like a red cyclone.
Dean’s arms flew up from his sides as his feet were violently yanked out from underneath him, and he was pulled beneath the surface, out beyond the drop, like a penny cast in a well.
*******************************************************************
The worst part for Sam was, it made him think Dean thought Sam was dumb. And he wasn’t, he knew that for sure. He was just…a different kind of smart than Dad and Dean.
Last night, when Dean had come out of the bedroom, he’d kicked Sam off the couch and onto the lumpy dog-smell chair that made Sam sneeze. Dean hadn’t said anything more than ‘Gimme the remote,’ and ‘Stop looking at me, you little douche,’ all of it with the threat of a punch or an Indian burn behind it. And if Dean had been willing to risk Dad’s wrath for an attack, Sam knew better than to push it.
Eventually, Dean had settled on a snowy version of one of the Freddy Kruger movies, and Sam had slunk off to the bedroom. His brother knew he hated those films. Dean knew he had a thing with bad dreams.
Sam had fallen asleep before he’d ever heard Dean come into the bedroom, and seeing the bunched up quilt and both the side cushions on the floor, he figured Dean must have slept in the living room. So where was he now?
Dean’d been swimming yesterday, had been wet when he’d come home. And had that weird sunburn on his chest. Sam shivered unconsciously, though he’d laughed and teased Dean about it last night. He thought now maybe those white handprints belonged to a girl or something, and that made his face squinch and his belly flutter at the same time.
There were fresh eggs in the fridge and a new box of Cheerios, so Sam knew Dean had got an early start. Maybe he was meeting some girl at the lake this morning. To kiss, or something. Yuck. Sam poured a big bowl of cereal and found some early morning cartoon violence.
The more Sam thought about it, though, the more he figured if something WASN’T wrong, Dean would be TELLING him about any girl he was seeing. Describing how they kissed and touched each other. Like animals. Sam couldn’t imagine anybody touching him long enough to leave behind sunburned shapes. The whole idea of all that close contact made him uncomfortable.
The side of the bowl went to Sam’s mouth and he slurped down the left-over pool of milk. He wiped his forearm across his mouth and brought his bowl to the sink. It only took a minute to find and put on his shoes, and another to slam through the screen door, into the woods that fed to the lake.
*******************************************************************
A quarter of the way through the dense evergreens, Sam started singing one of his current favorites; a subversion of ‘Frere Jacques’ Sam called ‘Brother Dean’:
Dean’s a shit head,
Dean’s a shit head,
And a pain,
And a pain.
What’s his stupid problem?
What’s his stupid problem?
He’s got no brain,
Got no brain.
Then a verse all in fart-y, raspberry noises, while he whacked passing trees with a stray stick he’d picked up. He didn’t like being in the woods alone, even if it was daytime. Their dad had said the woods weren’t safe, and Sam figured Dad knew what he was talking about.
He was coming to the third verse, where he sang about Dean being stupid, ugly, and mean, when the trees finally thinned and opened onto the yellow sand of Pencil Lake. All the bad thoughts and anger drained immediately from his body, replaced by cold fear.
Dean was on the narrow shore, between the green water and the snake grass at the sand’s edge. He was curled in on himself, knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around tight. He was shaking and wet and blue all over, except for his left foot, that shown red like a traffic light, screaming ‘No!’ in Sam’s head. Save for the shaking, his brother looked like he could be dead. Sam propelled himself forward and down at Dean’s side.
He was scared to touch him, scared to speak, terrified seeing his big brother look so small. Sam scanned the water and surrounding woods, trying to spy whom had left Dean here like this. He worked to figure out WHY or maybe…WHAT. And that sent a shiver up his spine.
Sam caught the shimmer of the thin, silver blade half buried in the sand near Dean. It was one of their dad’s knives, one he used for hunting. Its presence scared him all the more. He reached out tentatively and laid his hand on Dean’s shoulder. His brother jerked once, but didn’t lift his chin from its tuck against his chest. “Dean?”
“Lemme ‘lone, Sam.”
“Dean, what happened?”
There was no reply, just the continued shaking and shuddering.
“Are you okay?”
“Get outta here, Sammy!” Dean yelled, and then broke into a spasm of wet coughs.
Sam watched as brownish lake water sputtered from Dean’s lips, watched as Dean unfurled carefully and rolled to his stomach, arms coming up to cocoon and support his head on the sand.
It happened slowly enough that Sam saw the now-bruised handprints on Dean’s chest, and then his eyes saucered at the new, ghostly shapes on his back. He sucked in a breath equal to the one Dean had just expelled. “Gosh, Dean!”
Dean coughed roughly a few more times, rising up on his arms, back curving and shoulders pulling.
“What happened? What happened to your foot? Were you swimming? What happened?” He was frightened, worried; Dean’s breathing was labored and the white marks on his back looked sinister in the sun. Sam looked down at his brother’s foot again and could see a jagged cut, black and menacing, along the arch of his foot.
With a groan, Dean flopped onto his back, and Sam’s lips pulled away from his teeth. Dean was pale, nearly blue, especially around his mouth. His eyes were pinched shut, but Sam could see the lids were red and irritated. Sand stuck to the wet part of Dean’s face where he’d coughed up swallows of lake.
Sam’s voice was quiet and high, “How’d you get hurt?”
“Huh?” Dean asked, throwing an arm across his eyes.
“Your foot’s cut.”
“What?” he asked blearily, and then sat up. He spit a gob of snot and saliva to his left.
Sam ran his fingers across the surface of the beach, breaking up the little coins of mud formed by water drops from Dean’s hair. “Your foot. It’s bleeding.”
Dean fingered the fresh cut and winced as brown-sugar grains dropped into the red canyon.
“Dad says you’re not sposta swim without shoes on. There’s sharp rocks that can-“
“I didn’t!” yelled Dean, and a cloud of shrikes clicked and squawked from the cedars to their right.
Sam tipped back from his knees, away from Dean.
“I wore shoes, Sam! I had on-“ Dean searched the shoreline and water. “I had-FUCK! That’s two pairs of shoes!” Dean pounded both fists on the ground and grit jumped as if grenades had fallen.
The birds resettled and the r-r-rip of grasshoppers returned, rumbling like the breath in Dean’s chest. Sam pulled a dark stick from the sand by his thigh. “What happened to you, Dean?”
Dean didn’t turn, just kept staring out at the lake, fingers padding absently across the hilt of the knife by his side. He showed Sam nothing but the horrible, white, phantom hands across his back and shoulders. “I don’t know.
*******************************************************************
He was pissed and sore and fire-brand hot by the time he skip-hopped his way back to the cabin. He hadn’t asked Sam to keep his distance, but Sam had; trailing behind quietly and stopping whenever Dean had stopped.
Once they were inside, Sam had silently retrieved the first aid kit from under the kitchen sink and brought it to him in the bathroom.Set it on the side of the tub next to him and shuffled back to settle on the toilet.
Dean ran cold water through the tap and inched his cut foot under the faucet, hissing and grimacing as the force of the flow bounced against, over, into, and around the flaps of flayed skin. Blood swirled and circled the drain.
‘Stay with me.’
Couldn’t breathe. Cold, and I couldn’t breathe.
‘Stay with me.’
Tried to see him. See it…and it put its arms…
‘Stay with me.’
My breath, sucking my breath…
Stay with Sammy.
‘Stay with me.’
“…Stay with me today?”
He pressed his cut foot against the cool porcelain; opened the wound, made it sing with pain through his toes and heel. Pay attention, you asshole! “What’d you say?”
“I said, are you gonna stay with me today? Or leave me alone, like yesterday.”
What Dean really wanted to do was nod until his head fell off; hell, YES, he was staying in the cabin the rest of the day. He was going to plant his ass on the couch and not MOVE; keep a real good eye on his BOOTS - that’s what he was going to do. Last freakin’ pair of shoes LEFT. That, and try to forget how it had felt when that thing held him under the surface of the lake and wrapped its arms around his chest. Squeezed the breath from his lungs.
Instead of nodding, though, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Jeeze, Sam. If you’re gonna be such a pussy; fine. I’ll stay here with you all day.”
“’Kay,” said Sam.
“Go get me some paper towels.”
“What for?”
“Because I’m not doin’ laundry, and I’m not lettin’ Dad find a bloody towel when he comes back.”
Sam was completely still for a second, and Dean knew his brother was weighing the merits of the remark.
He knew Sam was worried about him, worried about Dean being hurt or sick or upset, of something bad happening while their dad was away. They’d talked around the subject before; once, when Sam had come down with chicken pox, and the time Dean had badly burned his hand.
But he also knew Sam understood how their dad would flip out if Dean got hurt doing something stupid, something avoidable. And Dean knew what had happened was…he’s wasn’t…he hadn’t HAD to go back to the lake.
He was NEVER going back to that fucking lake.
“Sam. Paper towel.”
“’Kay,” Sam said finally, and tore off for the kitchen again.
Half a roll of Bounty later, Dean had his foot cleaned up and taken care of; butterflied and wrapped in gauze and taped up like a race horse. He hobbled out to the couch to find a pb&j and a Coke on the coffee table, and Sam perched in the dog chair. The TV was on, and the remote was next to Dean’s plate. “What’s this?”
Sam shrugged an ‘I dunno’ and took a huge bite from his own sandwich. When Dean mumbled a thanks, Sam just shrugged again, tongue lapping at his jelly-smeared chin.
The channels flickered by, Dean’s thumb on the remote, feet propped on a couple of pillows, quilt balled behind his head. He stopped on ‘Jerry Springer’, but moved past after a minute or two. Man, there are some screwed up families out there.
They watched an hour of cartoons and a game show, back-to-backs of ‘I Love Lucy’ that Sam giggled and snorted through. But when all five of the channels the aerial brought in turned to soaps and news, Dean scootched down from the arm of the couch and closed his eyes.
Just below the surface of awake, he found himself below the surface of the lake.
Panic. Oh, God, can’t-What? What’s happening?
Both times, it had grabbed him; snatched him under the water. Tugged him into the silt and murk, down where it was colder. Arms wrapped around his chest, holding tight, sinking through - straight into his lungs and stealing his--
Breathe! Can’t breathe! No, nononononono!
And then the cooing had come; gentle entreating. Wanting, NEEDING him to--
‘Stay with me.’
On the couch, he took in a lungful of air, shoulders heaving, chest expanding, belly sinking. As much as his desperate lungs could hold.
‘Can taste your blood. Stay with me.’
But he didn’t want to stay, didn’t want to die. And that’s what would happen if he couldn’t get away. He fought and kicked and - oh, God, no! No! You can’t have me! - pushed the hands away, clawed and pushed-
“Dean!”
And then he was coughing. Curling and hacking and spilling dirty water from his lungs.
No, please, I don’t want--
“Dean!”
He opened his eyes, expecting the cloudy, desperate green of the lake, and found the afternoon sunlight of the cabin’s living room. Couch under his back. Little brother at his side.
Sam’s hands, those are Sam’s hands…
He coughed roughly once more, spit out the fetid taste of the lake, wiped his hand across his mouth. “Sammy?”
His brother’s eyes were huge, frightened. Fingers pinched and pushed at the quilt that had fallen away. “You were dreaming. And then you stopped breathing…”
Dean looked at Sam, surprised, and pulled oxygen into his sore, tired lungs.
“You stopped breathing, Dean, and then you were coughing up water.” Sam almost cried when he said the last; cried because it was all too much to comprehend, and he was scared.
So was Dean.
*******************************************************************
Sam got that you needed to understand what you were trying to kill. You had to figure it out, like a good book or certain kinds of math problems. Sam knew for all of Dean’s fighting skills, for all his excellent marksmanship, he ought to know WHAT he was trying to kill before he tried to kill it. But Dean didn’t listen. “Whatta you think it is?”
Dean had disassembled the shotgun, bore-brushed both barrels, lightly oiled the action. “Doesn’t matter.”
But it did. Sam knew it did. “Is it a bad thing?”
“Course it’s bad, Sam. What’re you, retarded?”
His chin dropped to his arms where they were folded atop the kitchen table. He’d watched his brother fit the pieces of the shotgun back together like a familiar jig-saw puzzle, load in two rock salt shells. “No. I’m not retarded. I was just thinking, if it’s a bad thing, maybe we should wait ‘til Dad gets back.”
“I know how to hunt, Sam.”
“Then why doesn’t Dad-“
“I’ll show Dad.” Dean laid the aught eight on the table and began toweling away every slippery excess of gun oil.
Sam rubbed his chin back and forth across his forearms, buffeted by the waves of anxiety rolling off Dean. He watched the determined, brusque movement of his brother’s hands in what was normally a sea of gentle caresses. “So, we’re just gonna shoot it?”
The rag stopped mid-stroke, and Sam’s eyes jumped to Dean’s face. He saw fear there, and then anger mixed its way in.
“You’re not coming.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Oh, yes, I am.”
“No. You’re not. You’re not coming, Sam. You’re too little.”
“I’m not that little.”
“You’re too young! You’re staying here, Sammy. When Dad’s gone, I’m in charge. You’re not coming. That’s final.”
Sam’s forehead took up residence on his porched arms, and he brought his chin down against his chest. He breathed in and out through his mouth several times, building up the moisture and heat in the box canyon of his bent limbs. When he spoke, the words echoed against the table and around his ears. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen, Sam, ‘cept for me killin’ that evil son of a bitch in the water.”
His head popped up, cheeks pink and sweaty. “You don’t even know what it is!”
“It doesn’t matter. Dead is dead.”
“Dad would know.”
“Well, Dad’s not goddamned here, is he!” Dean yelled, snatching the shotgun off the table.
“But you said Minnie said he’ll be back tomorrow.”
Dean’s jaw tensed and a lone tear pushed over his lower lid. “I can’t wait ‘til then.”
He didn’t understand why Dean couldn’t wait. Sam knew it was dangerous; that’s why Dean didn’t want him to go, why Dean had bruises on his chest and back, why he was holding the shotgun like a life raft in the middle of the ocean. But if it was so dangerous, Sam didn’t want DEAN to go. Because, what if something happened? What if something terrible happened?
Sam had seen their dad come home bloodied and bruised. Had seen Dean stitch him up, and ice him down, and then stay up all night to wake him every hour - so he wouldn’t go into a coma or something. Sam didn’t want to do that for Dean. Didn’t want Dean to NEED him to do that. His face got hot and his throat ached suddenly. “I don’t want you to go, Dean. Please, don’t go.”
Dean squeezed the gun like he was wringing out a towel; knuckles white as they twisted round the barrels and stock, alternately. “Don’t get all baby on me, Sam. I gotta do this, and I gotta do it before Dad gets back, ‘cause if he hasta kill it for me, I know I’m gonna catch hell.”
Sam’s lower lip stitched up and down. “Don’t say that, Dean.”
The hand on the stock released, and Sam watched his brother wipe some wetness from his eyes.
“Listen to me, Sammy,” Dean said, and dropped to one knee in front of him. “That thing’s trying to get me. I don’t want it to get you. So I’m gonna get it. And we’re gonna be okay. And then Dad’ll be home, and he’ll see. Okay?”
Sam couldn’t look at his brother. It wasn’t fair. “I’ll hate you if you go.”
Dean’s body grew incredibly still. “No, you won’t. You can’t ever hate me, Sam. We’re brothers. And we’re Winchesters, and that means we’re all we have.”
And Sam hated that Dean was right, but he was. And it meant he couldn’t show how mad he was, couldn’t show how scared he was; Winchesters didn’t do that. Even if those were the only emotions raging inside you. He sniffed deep and pulled his forearm across his eyes. “How do you know rock salt’s gonna work?”
A little of the fear drained away from Dean’s face, a smile brewed at one corner of his mouth. “’Cause it’s in a lake.”
“What’s in a lake?”
Dean’s eyes rolled like marbles in a jar. “The thing, you dill hole!”
“So?”
“So,” said Dean, rising, “So, just like saltwater fish can’t live in fresh water, fresh water fish can’t stand salt.”
“It’s a fish?”
The exasperated groan filled the small cabin. “No! It’s not a fish! It’s a-It doesn’t matter what it is. I’m killing it with rock salt.”
Sam thought about it for a second and figured the fish idea actually made some sense. Of course, the only fish they’d ever had was a goldfish named Moto-Cross Skeletor, who’d lived a whole week in a motel ice bucket on nothing but crushed saltines from the coffee shop.
Sam looked on silently as Dean shoved more shells into his backpack, slipped on his boots and laced them tightly. “If you don’t come back in an hour, I’m going down there.”
Dean knelt before him again, resting the shotgun on the floor. He circled Sam’s wrist in his fingers. “Listen to me, Sam. If I’m not back in one hour, I want you to run to the store. I want you to tell Minnie somethin’s happened, and for her to get ahold of Dad somehow. And I want you to stay with her, you understand me?”
“Don’t say that, Dean.”
His brother forced his green eyes into his soul. “You understand me, Sam?”
“Yes, sir!” Sam said, and yanked his arm away from Dean. He spun on his heels and ran straight into their tiny bedroom, flinging himself across the bed. He buried his face in the thin pillow so Dean wouldn’t hear him cry.
Go to Part Two...
Author: kimonkey7
Rating: PG-13 for strong language
Pairings: none, teen!Dean, tween!Sam (gen)
Disclaimer: not mine, damn it.
Word Count: 14,866 total (parts one and two)
Summary: Pre-series. Perception of our own maturity is sometimes as murky as lake water.
A/N: The first 1400 words of this were flist-lock posted as a one-shot gift!fic for cuppa_char ’s birthday back in February. She’d requested a little fanon to explain why, in one of my stories, I make Dean uncomfortable with bodies of water. Almost everyone commented, “This isn’t finished…” It is now. Huge thanks to hiyacynth , quellefromage , and everybetty on this one.
Part One:
He’d told Sammy to fuck off and Sammy’d ‘o’ed his lips and sucked in a breath and told Dean he was telling Dad.
Dean had told him to get lost or read a goddamned book or something, and leave him alone. His little brother’s jaw had dropped like a stone.
“Aw! Now I’m really tellin’ Dad!”
“Go ahead, you little pussy!” he’d yelled, and whipped a Frisbee at Sam’s giant head.
They’d stomped off in opposite directions, Sam locking himself in the bathroom, and Dean pushing through the front screen door of the small cabin they’d been calling home for over a month.
Stupid stinking Mancelona. No girls, no kids, no video games. Not even a pool table in the main club house over by the realty offices. Stupid developing lake community. Dean stomped through the evergreens and birch toward the trail that lead to Pencil Lake.
He was fourteen and a half, and, yeah, he knew it was baby to say fourteen and a half instead of just fourteen, but Dad was treating him like a baby; not letting him go on a single hunt even though he had been training hard and was practically a sharp shot with the .22 AND the Glock. Instead, Dad kept taking off and leaving Sam with him. And that was a pain in the ass, and Dean was sick of it.
The green, spiny swirls of cedar and pine slapped against his bare chest and back as he pushed low branches out of his way. Loose sticks and pine cones popped up to nip at his legs where his cut-offs didn’t reach, his tennis-shoed feet bouncing across the loamy forest floor like he was traversing nature’s trampoline.
‘Not yet, Dean. You’re not ready…’ But what did his stupid dad know? Dean was ready to hunt, and too old to be a babysitter. And Sammy oughta learn to take care of himself, the little tattletale. Yeah, Dean was probably going to get it for saying fuck, probably get it for throwing the Frisbee, even if he couldn’t help hit anything when Sam’s head was the size of a freaking PLANET.
Dean trudged back out into the sunshine where sandy beach met the edge of the woods. The lake was deserted. It was ALWAYS deserted. Christ, there was never anybody around wherever Dad landed them nowadays. Dean wasn’t sure if they were hunting or hiding, but he hated the isolation either way.
He didn’t bother taking off his sneakers; they were good protection against the sharp rocks that lay at the silty bottom of the lake. The green water was pee-warm at the shore, but Dean dove under the surface a few feet in and pushed his way down to the cooler, murkier levels. He’d been taking out a lot of aggression by swimming the past couple of weeks. His arms were growing lean and tan, muscles becoming more ropey. It was a good five minute plow-through to the raft that was anchored in the middle of the rectangular lake. He counted off the strokes as he chopped through the water, tennis shoes slapping thunderous kicks off the wake he left with his frame. It wasn’t that he wanted to be alone, he just didn’t want to be with Sam.
The wood of the raft was worn and smooth, full of heat from a morning’s worth of Northern Michigan summer sunshine. Dean hauled himself onto the float, slapping belly-first like a seal, a garland of phytoplankton ringing his ankle. He rolled over onto his back, centering himself on the bobbing, pontooned float.
Stupid Sam. It just wasn’t fair. Dean was always taking care of him. When he was Sam’s age, he was taking care of himself. Man, his dad really pissed him off. Dean brooded and stewed under the sun until his face and fringe of short-shorn bangs were dry. He flipped over onto his stomach again.
Sam can fuck himself. And so can Dad. The last part was said with a little hunch of his shoulders. He scooted himself to the edge of the raft and peered down into the murky lake, fingertips swirling through the water. I know how to hunt. I’m not a baby. I’m--The flash of something pale and quick stopped the thought cold in his head. What the hell…?
He leaned forward, face a few inches from the lake’s surface, arms over the edge of the float, fingertips just dipping into the water. He jolted when he saw it again. If it was a fish, it was the biggest damn fish he’d ever seen.
The hand punched through the haziness, wrapping around his wrist before he could suck in a breath. His chest and belly slid roughly over the warped edge of the wooden raft, water stinging the bloody scrapes as he was pulled deeper and deeper.
*******************************************************************
Sam was on the sofa, twiggy legs bent Indian-style. There was a plate of peanut butter sandwiches on the cushion next to him, their dad’s journal open on his lap. “It’s dark.”
Dean was still sopping, lips blue, hair damp, arms across his chest and hands tucked into his pits.
“‘S-ssat Dad’s journal?”
“You’re supposed to be back by dark. Dad says these woods aren’t safe. And you’re dripping all over the floor.”
Dean wasn’t sure how he’d gotten away, only that he’d lost one of his sneakers and all his muscles hurt. Beads of water crawled across gooseflesh. His chest felt like he’d been hugged by a bear. “Y-y-yer not sposta be messin’ with ‘at.”
“Dad lets me, so I can practice my Latin.” Sam looked closer at his brother. “Where were you for so long?”
Dean wasn’t sure how to answer, wasn’t positive himself. He shrugged his shoulders and dropped his hands, grabbing a faded beach towel off the back of one of the kitchen chairs. He stopped and stared when Sam broke out into laughter. “What?”
Sam covered his peanut butter-smeared mouth with one hand and pointed at Dean with the other. His giggles couldn’t be stifled.
“What, Sam?”
“What did-What did you do? Fall asleep in the sun, feelin’ your boobs?”
Dean’s face pinched in confusion. He looked down at his chest and pulled in a sour, scratchy breath. The pale shadow of two hands lay there; one across each pectoral quadrant: like he’d been hugged from behind.
Dean’s face flushed in fear and embarrassment as Sam tipped sideways on the couch, legs kicking out in rhythm with his snorts.
“Shut up, Sam,” said Dean, bringing the towel to his torso like a coy Victorian. “Just shut up!”
Dean stormed toward the bathroom, lone tennis shoe sloshing and squishing across the wood floor. He laid a good punch on the back of Sam’s thigh as he passed the couch. It wasn’t funny. Not funny at all.
“I’m telling, Dean! Damn it!” yelled Sam from the living room.
Yellow light filled the bathroom when Dean pulled the chain switch. He slowly slid the towel down, watching the reveal in the mirror. Holy shit… It was definitely hands. Hands and arms. A tiny zamboni ran up his spine, then around his wrist. Pulled under. I was pulled under water by--
Sam’s skinny fists pounded on the wooden door, startling Dean.
“Hey! What are you doing? Are you okay?”
“Lemme alone, Sam! Jesus!” I was pulled under and… Dean’s hand went absently to his mouth. He pushed out a breath, heat meeting his cold, water-logged fingers. I couldn’t breathe…
“Dean, what’s wrong?”
He jumped at Sam’s call through the door, panic needling sporadically all over his body.
“Dean?”
Sam hopped back when Dean threw open the door.
“God! Can’t you leave me alone for five seconds?” His voice cracked at the end, throat aching. He pushed past his brother and stalked into the small room they shared.
Sam followed, his face all concern and curiosity. “Did something happen?”
Near-frozen fingers worked at the button on his cut-offs. “What’re you, tryin’ to see me naked? Get outta here, Sammy!”
“Dean-“
“Get out!” he yelled.
Sam’s face stayed hugged against the door frame for a second, lower lip poking out a bit.
“Go!”
Sam pushed off from the frame, wounded and angry. He awkwardly stuck his middle finger in the air before stalking back into the living room.
Dean’s fingers ran lightly across the red-topped, raised pink scrapes on his belly. Pulled me under and-- He shook his head, frigid drops of water falling from the ends of his hair. Nope. No. Didn’t happen. He toed off his remaining soggy sneaker, yanked down his shorts, and toweled himself dry. Slipped on the sweats that were balled on the floor by his bed. His shoulders protested when he tried to push his arms into a t-shirt, so he went without.
The fingers of one hand worried over his chest, and then stilled.
Dad was gonna kill him for losing one of his shoes.
*******************************************************************
The thunk-thunk-thunk on the cabin door woke him.
He was curled on the couch under a quilt, hiding from the cold morning air. The sun was just barely up, and he knew it had to be Minnie. If Dean didn’t let her in, she’d let herself in. He rubbed his eyes and forced his protesting muscles to walk him to the door.
Minnie ran the general store in town. It was the one place you could go to get pretty much everything you needed, without having to go into Alba or Gaylord, and the hitting the giant Meijer’s Thrifty Acres there.
The thing about running the local general store, coupled with being an old lady who didn’t really like anyone - as far as Dean could tell - was that you kept pretty early hours. Early up, early to bed, better to miss as many human interactions as possible.
John Winchester had met Minnie through the hunter’s underground system. He’d got her name from a friend of a friend. She wasn’t a hunter herself, but her father and brother had both died working the family business. Minnie’d been the one who set John up with jobs and the cabin rental. She’d also promised to deliver groceries to the boys if John was going to be out of town longer than a night or two. Dean suspected Dad had also asked her to check in on him and Sammy, but since Minnie seemed to hate babysitting even more than Dean, she rarely made appearances. Just the groceries every few days, and messages passed on from their dad calling in to the general store.
Minnie looked worse in the morning than she did almost any other time, in Dean’s opinion. When she delivered their stuff this early, she still had curlers in her hair. Dean hated the sight of her soft, pink scalp peeking between the rows of snowy hair. The black, pokey curlers and bright pink pins looked like alien fluke worms, sucking the life out of her. He didn’t know who she thought she was getting dolled up for; he didn’t think even old guys would be interested.
And there was always a Pall Mall dangling from her coral lips. She inhaled and exhaled without ever touching it, grey coils like ghost dragons rising from her nostrils as she went about her business. The long ash, that seemed to defy gravity as it bobbed in her frown, was pretty much the only thing Dean liked about her.
He could smell the smoke before he opened the door.
“Morning,” Minnie bristled. “I was just about to leave it on the porch. You sleepin’ in, yah?”
Dean shivered beneath the quilt wrapped round his shoulders. “Morning,” he croaked.
“Your dad called late last night. Says he’s gotta head to Petoskey. Gonna be another day.” She shoved a cardboard box at Dean.
The weight of it surprised him; she was pretty strong for an old lady. As he jostled to keep the box in his arms, settling it against his pelvis, the quilt slipped to the planked floor.
He nearly puked in his mouth when Minnie’s eyes dropped right to his chest and her eyes grew round and wide for a second. Holy shit, crazy perv lady’s checking me out!
And then her eyes squinched almost shut and her gaze shifted to his face. “What’d you do to yourself, eh?”
The weird handprint sunburn. Damn it. He looked down, breaking her glare while the blush built in his cheeks. The white shadows that had haunted his skin last night had become violet and green, yellowing along the edges; bruises Dean suddenly realized hurt like a son of a bitch.
“Somebody do that to you?”
Dean stammered and stuttered, slid two steps back. “Fell. I fell, I-“
“Where’s Sam? He okay, yah?” Minnie took a step closer to the door and leaned forward.
“We’re fine. He’s asleep. It’s really early, Minnie.”
Her eyes darted back from over his shoulder to his face, down to his chest again, and then up; milky blue on his green. “Your dad know about that?”
“It…it happened yesterday. I’m fine.”
Minnie twitched her nose, pulled back, and sucked in a lungful of tar, nicotine, and tobacco. When she exhaled, tiny angels of ash flew from the tip of the cigarette and swirled like snowflakes between them. “You send Sam to the store if you need anything, eh?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“There’s Spaghetti-Os in there,” she said, turning toward her beat-up Duster. “And ham that needs to get put up in the ice box.”
“Thanks, Minnie.”
The breeze of her wake floated a ‘hmph’ to him that could have been goodbye or fuck you, he didn’t care. He just wanted her gone so he could get a look at his chest.
He dropped the box of groceries on the kitchen table and was in the bathroom in seconds. The yellow bulb made his tanned skin sallow, made the bruises look worse than they had in the dim living room.
What happened? Not just how had those pale shapes become bruises over night, but what had actually HAPPENED in the water? He ran his hands over his mottled pectorals, down around his sides, and wished he could remember. But it was all blurry and murky - just like the lake. Dean knew only that he’d been scared when he’d found himself, half-shod, on shore.
His shoe.
He’d have to go back. He had no choice. Dad would skin him for losing a shoe. Especially the way freaking Sammy was growing so quickly these days. They couldn’t afford to be spending money on shoes left and right. Left OR right. Damn it. Not to mention the hell he was going to catch for leaving Sam alone hours on end. And his brother’d probably taken great pains to detail all of it for their dad. Little fucker probably made a pie-graph.
He scuffed his way back out to the kitchen, a shiver seizing him halfway there. Dean’s body quaked a second longer than made him comfortable. As soon as it stilled, he scooped the quilt up from the floor by the door, and wrapped it back around his shoulders.
He put away the ham, some eggs and butter, and something in butcher paper that Dean purely hoped wasn’t liver. The dry goods he stocked in the cabinets by the sink, and the canned stuff went on the shelf over the stove. Every stretch of his arms and shoulders whispered pain to him. It angered him that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t backpedal his brain into that lake. Couldn’t put his thumb down on what-
A choking cough wracked his chest and he steadied himself with a hip against the kitchen counter. He could almost taste the fishy water on the back of his tongue and there was a flash - like a kind of soft, green explosion - of arms around him, tightly holding him under the cloudiness of Pencil Lake. What happened?
His hands unwrapped from around his belly, and he decided he didn’t need to know, didn’t need to remember. He needed to find his shoe, though, and he should do it before Sam woke up and wanted to tag along. The last thing he needed was Sam asking a bunch of questions he couldn’t answer.
*******************************************************************
The lake was quiet, placid, sun casting far-flung diamonds off its surface. There was absolutely nothing menacing in its welcoming beauty, but Dean stuttered in his step at the border of woods and beach. His hand dropped to his side where he’d clipped the sheathed silver knife to the belt loop of the cut-offs he’d changed into.
‘Stay with me…’
There it was again, like a cool compress pressing against his forehead from INSIDE his skull; I couldn’t breathe and he said - IT said, ‘Stay with me…’
He shook his head, as if to unsettle a fly from his nose, and found himself at the water’s edge. Foam lapped at his toes in the cheap, dime store flip-flops Dad had bought them all to wear in the community showers at the club house.
The Winchester men were cursed with a pedal athlete’s-foot magnet. And Dad liked nothin’ better that to bitch about the cost of Tinactin for three. It was ‘Wear the sandals in the shower, Dean, or you’ll be wearing an extra twenty pounds on your next training hike.’ It made it worse that his dad called them SANDALS.
If he didn’t find his shoe, Dean was positive his dad would make him walk around town in girly, red and white flip-flops. And he wasn’t going to do that. No fucking way.
When he looked down, the water had risen to mid-thigh, darkening his shorts as the denim drank in the moisture. A glance back over his shoulder showed him ten feet he didn’t recall walking. His thumb popped the snap on the cover strap over the knife and his fingers curled around the handle.
‘Stay with me.’
But this time the voice wasn’t in his head. Not a sullied memory. And this time it wasn’t a request. It was like a John Winchester order, and, oh, my God - he needed to obey.
The cold circling his ankle tore down the gauzy curtain of bluff and for just a second, he got a flash of what was happening, what was REALLY happening. And he tried with a jerk to stop it, to pull away. His left foot slid back and landed sideways on a sharp rock, slicing his instep like a blade through butter. Blood swirled out like a red cyclone.
Dean’s arms flew up from his sides as his feet were violently yanked out from underneath him, and he was pulled beneath the surface, out beyond the drop, like a penny cast in a well.
*******************************************************************
The worst part for Sam was, it made him think Dean thought Sam was dumb. And he wasn’t, he knew that for sure. He was just…a different kind of smart than Dad and Dean.
Last night, when Dean had come out of the bedroom, he’d kicked Sam off the couch and onto the lumpy dog-smell chair that made Sam sneeze. Dean hadn’t said anything more than ‘Gimme the remote,’ and ‘Stop looking at me, you little douche,’ all of it with the threat of a punch or an Indian burn behind it. And if Dean had been willing to risk Dad’s wrath for an attack, Sam knew better than to push it.
Eventually, Dean had settled on a snowy version of one of the Freddy Kruger movies, and Sam had slunk off to the bedroom. His brother knew he hated those films. Dean knew he had a thing with bad dreams.
Sam had fallen asleep before he’d ever heard Dean come into the bedroom, and seeing the bunched up quilt and both the side cushions on the floor, he figured Dean must have slept in the living room. So where was he now?
Dean’d been swimming yesterday, had been wet when he’d come home. And had that weird sunburn on his chest. Sam shivered unconsciously, though he’d laughed and teased Dean about it last night. He thought now maybe those white handprints belonged to a girl or something, and that made his face squinch and his belly flutter at the same time.
There were fresh eggs in the fridge and a new box of Cheerios, so Sam knew Dean had got an early start. Maybe he was meeting some girl at the lake this morning. To kiss, or something. Yuck. Sam poured a big bowl of cereal and found some early morning cartoon violence.
The more Sam thought about it, though, the more he figured if something WASN’T wrong, Dean would be TELLING him about any girl he was seeing. Describing how they kissed and touched each other. Like animals. Sam couldn’t imagine anybody touching him long enough to leave behind sunburned shapes. The whole idea of all that close contact made him uncomfortable.
The side of the bowl went to Sam’s mouth and he slurped down the left-over pool of milk. He wiped his forearm across his mouth and brought his bowl to the sink. It only took a minute to find and put on his shoes, and another to slam through the screen door, into the woods that fed to the lake.
*******************************************************************
A quarter of the way through the dense evergreens, Sam started singing one of his current favorites; a subversion of ‘Frere Jacques’ Sam called ‘Brother Dean’:
Dean’s a shit head,
Dean’s a shit head,
And a pain,
And a pain.
What’s his stupid problem?
What’s his stupid problem?
He’s got no brain,
Got no brain.
Then a verse all in fart-y, raspberry noises, while he whacked passing trees with a stray stick he’d picked up. He didn’t like being in the woods alone, even if it was daytime. Their dad had said the woods weren’t safe, and Sam figured Dad knew what he was talking about.
He was coming to the third verse, where he sang about Dean being stupid, ugly, and mean, when the trees finally thinned and opened onto the yellow sand of Pencil Lake. All the bad thoughts and anger drained immediately from his body, replaced by cold fear.
Dean was on the narrow shore, between the green water and the snake grass at the sand’s edge. He was curled in on himself, knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around tight. He was shaking and wet and blue all over, except for his left foot, that shown red like a traffic light, screaming ‘No!’ in Sam’s head. Save for the shaking, his brother looked like he could be dead. Sam propelled himself forward and down at Dean’s side.
He was scared to touch him, scared to speak, terrified seeing his big brother look so small. Sam scanned the water and surrounding woods, trying to spy whom had left Dean here like this. He worked to figure out WHY or maybe…WHAT. And that sent a shiver up his spine.
Sam caught the shimmer of the thin, silver blade half buried in the sand near Dean. It was one of their dad’s knives, one he used for hunting. Its presence scared him all the more. He reached out tentatively and laid his hand on Dean’s shoulder. His brother jerked once, but didn’t lift his chin from its tuck against his chest. “Dean?”
“Lemme ‘lone, Sam.”
“Dean, what happened?”
There was no reply, just the continued shaking and shuddering.
“Are you okay?”
“Get outta here, Sammy!” Dean yelled, and then broke into a spasm of wet coughs.
Sam watched as brownish lake water sputtered from Dean’s lips, watched as Dean unfurled carefully and rolled to his stomach, arms coming up to cocoon and support his head on the sand.
It happened slowly enough that Sam saw the now-bruised handprints on Dean’s chest, and then his eyes saucered at the new, ghostly shapes on his back. He sucked in a breath equal to the one Dean had just expelled. “Gosh, Dean!”
Dean coughed roughly a few more times, rising up on his arms, back curving and shoulders pulling.
“What happened? What happened to your foot? Were you swimming? What happened?” He was frightened, worried; Dean’s breathing was labored and the white marks on his back looked sinister in the sun. Sam looked down at his brother’s foot again and could see a jagged cut, black and menacing, along the arch of his foot.
With a groan, Dean flopped onto his back, and Sam’s lips pulled away from his teeth. Dean was pale, nearly blue, especially around his mouth. His eyes were pinched shut, but Sam could see the lids were red and irritated. Sand stuck to the wet part of Dean’s face where he’d coughed up swallows of lake.
Sam’s voice was quiet and high, “How’d you get hurt?”
“Huh?” Dean asked, throwing an arm across his eyes.
“Your foot’s cut.”
“What?” he asked blearily, and then sat up. He spit a gob of snot and saliva to his left.
Sam ran his fingers across the surface of the beach, breaking up the little coins of mud formed by water drops from Dean’s hair. “Your foot. It’s bleeding.”
Dean fingered the fresh cut and winced as brown-sugar grains dropped into the red canyon.
“Dad says you’re not sposta swim without shoes on. There’s sharp rocks that can-“
“I didn’t!” yelled Dean, and a cloud of shrikes clicked and squawked from the cedars to their right.
Sam tipped back from his knees, away from Dean.
“I wore shoes, Sam! I had on-“ Dean searched the shoreline and water. “I had-FUCK! That’s two pairs of shoes!” Dean pounded both fists on the ground and grit jumped as if grenades had fallen.
The birds resettled and the r-r-rip of grasshoppers returned, rumbling like the breath in Dean’s chest. Sam pulled a dark stick from the sand by his thigh. “What happened to you, Dean?”
Dean didn’t turn, just kept staring out at the lake, fingers padding absently across the hilt of the knife by his side. He showed Sam nothing but the horrible, white, phantom hands across his back and shoulders. “I don’t know.
*******************************************************************
He was pissed and sore and fire-brand hot by the time he skip-hopped his way back to the cabin. He hadn’t asked Sam to keep his distance, but Sam had; trailing behind quietly and stopping whenever Dean had stopped.
Once they were inside, Sam had silently retrieved the first aid kit from under the kitchen sink and brought it to him in the bathroom.Set it on the side of the tub next to him and shuffled back to settle on the toilet.
Dean ran cold water through the tap and inched his cut foot under the faucet, hissing and grimacing as the force of the flow bounced against, over, into, and around the flaps of flayed skin. Blood swirled and circled the drain.
‘Stay with me.’
Couldn’t breathe. Cold, and I couldn’t breathe.
‘Stay with me.’
Tried to see him. See it…and it put its arms…
‘Stay with me.’
My breath, sucking my breath…
Stay with Sammy.
‘Stay with me.’
“…Stay with me today?”
He pressed his cut foot against the cool porcelain; opened the wound, made it sing with pain through his toes and heel. Pay attention, you asshole! “What’d you say?”
“I said, are you gonna stay with me today? Or leave me alone, like yesterday.”
What Dean really wanted to do was nod until his head fell off; hell, YES, he was staying in the cabin the rest of the day. He was going to plant his ass on the couch and not MOVE; keep a real good eye on his BOOTS - that’s what he was going to do. Last freakin’ pair of shoes LEFT. That, and try to forget how it had felt when that thing held him under the surface of the lake and wrapped its arms around his chest. Squeezed the breath from his lungs.
Instead of nodding, though, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Jeeze, Sam. If you’re gonna be such a pussy; fine. I’ll stay here with you all day.”
“’Kay,” said Sam.
“Go get me some paper towels.”
“What for?”
“Because I’m not doin’ laundry, and I’m not lettin’ Dad find a bloody towel when he comes back.”
Sam was completely still for a second, and Dean knew his brother was weighing the merits of the remark.
He knew Sam was worried about him, worried about Dean being hurt or sick or upset, of something bad happening while their dad was away. They’d talked around the subject before; once, when Sam had come down with chicken pox, and the time Dean had badly burned his hand.
But he also knew Sam understood how their dad would flip out if Dean got hurt doing something stupid, something avoidable. And Dean knew what had happened was…he’s wasn’t…he hadn’t HAD to go back to the lake.
He was NEVER going back to that fucking lake.
“Sam. Paper towel.”
“’Kay,” Sam said finally, and tore off for the kitchen again.
Half a roll of Bounty later, Dean had his foot cleaned up and taken care of; butterflied and wrapped in gauze and taped up like a race horse. He hobbled out to the couch to find a pb&j and a Coke on the coffee table, and Sam perched in the dog chair. The TV was on, and the remote was next to Dean’s plate. “What’s this?”
Sam shrugged an ‘I dunno’ and took a huge bite from his own sandwich. When Dean mumbled a thanks, Sam just shrugged again, tongue lapping at his jelly-smeared chin.
The channels flickered by, Dean’s thumb on the remote, feet propped on a couple of pillows, quilt balled behind his head. He stopped on ‘Jerry Springer’, but moved past after a minute or two. Man, there are some screwed up families out there.
They watched an hour of cartoons and a game show, back-to-backs of ‘I Love Lucy’ that Sam giggled and snorted through. But when all five of the channels the aerial brought in turned to soaps and news, Dean scootched down from the arm of the couch and closed his eyes.
Just below the surface of awake, he found himself below the surface of the lake.
Panic. Oh, God, can’t-What? What’s happening?
Both times, it had grabbed him; snatched him under the water. Tugged him into the silt and murk, down where it was colder. Arms wrapped around his chest, holding tight, sinking through - straight into his lungs and stealing his--
Breathe! Can’t breathe! No, nononononono!
And then the cooing had come; gentle entreating. Wanting, NEEDING him to--
‘Stay with me.’
On the couch, he took in a lungful of air, shoulders heaving, chest expanding, belly sinking. As much as his desperate lungs could hold.
‘Can taste your blood. Stay with me.’
But he didn’t want to stay, didn’t want to die. And that’s what would happen if he couldn’t get away. He fought and kicked and - oh, God, no! No! You can’t have me! - pushed the hands away, clawed and pushed-
“Dean!”
And then he was coughing. Curling and hacking and spilling dirty water from his lungs.
No, please, I don’t want--
“Dean!”
He opened his eyes, expecting the cloudy, desperate green of the lake, and found the afternoon sunlight of the cabin’s living room. Couch under his back. Little brother at his side.
Sam’s hands, those are Sam’s hands…
He coughed roughly once more, spit out the fetid taste of the lake, wiped his hand across his mouth. “Sammy?”
His brother’s eyes were huge, frightened. Fingers pinched and pushed at the quilt that had fallen away. “You were dreaming. And then you stopped breathing…”
Dean looked at Sam, surprised, and pulled oxygen into his sore, tired lungs.
“You stopped breathing, Dean, and then you were coughing up water.” Sam almost cried when he said the last; cried because it was all too much to comprehend, and he was scared.
So was Dean.
*******************************************************************
Sam got that you needed to understand what you were trying to kill. You had to figure it out, like a good book or certain kinds of math problems. Sam knew for all of Dean’s fighting skills, for all his excellent marksmanship, he ought to know WHAT he was trying to kill before he tried to kill it. But Dean didn’t listen. “Whatta you think it is?”
Dean had disassembled the shotgun, bore-brushed both barrels, lightly oiled the action. “Doesn’t matter.”
But it did. Sam knew it did. “Is it a bad thing?”
“Course it’s bad, Sam. What’re you, retarded?”
His chin dropped to his arms where they were folded atop the kitchen table. He’d watched his brother fit the pieces of the shotgun back together like a familiar jig-saw puzzle, load in two rock salt shells. “No. I’m not retarded. I was just thinking, if it’s a bad thing, maybe we should wait ‘til Dad gets back.”
“I know how to hunt, Sam.”
“Then why doesn’t Dad-“
“I’ll show Dad.” Dean laid the aught eight on the table and began toweling away every slippery excess of gun oil.
Sam rubbed his chin back and forth across his forearms, buffeted by the waves of anxiety rolling off Dean. He watched the determined, brusque movement of his brother’s hands in what was normally a sea of gentle caresses. “So, we’re just gonna shoot it?”
The rag stopped mid-stroke, and Sam’s eyes jumped to Dean’s face. He saw fear there, and then anger mixed its way in.
“You’re not coming.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Oh, yes, I am.”
“No. You’re not. You’re not coming, Sam. You’re too little.”
“I’m not that little.”
“You’re too young! You’re staying here, Sammy. When Dad’s gone, I’m in charge. You’re not coming. That’s final.”
Sam’s forehead took up residence on his porched arms, and he brought his chin down against his chest. He breathed in and out through his mouth several times, building up the moisture and heat in the box canyon of his bent limbs. When he spoke, the words echoed against the table and around his ears. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen, Sam, ‘cept for me killin’ that evil son of a bitch in the water.”
His head popped up, cheeks pink and sweaty. “You don’t even know what it is!”
“It doesn’t matter. Dead is dead.”
“Dad would know.”
“Well, Dad’s not goddamned here, is he!” Dean yelled, snatching the shotgun off the table.
“But you said Minnie said he’ll be back tomorrow.”
Dean’s jaw tensed and a lone tear pushed over his lower lid. “I can’t wait ‘til then.”
He didn’t understand why Dean couldn’t wait. Sam knew it was dangerous; that’s why Dean didn’t want him to go, why Dean had bruises on his chest and back, why he was holding the shotgun like a life raft in the middle of the ocean. But if it was so dangerous, Sam didn’t want DEAN to go. Because, what if something happened? What if something terrible happened?
Sam had seen their dad come home bloodied and bruised. Had seen Dean stitch him up, and ice him down, and then stay up all night to wake him every hour - so he wouldn’t go into a coma or something. Sam didn’t want to do that for Dean. Didn’t want Dean to NEED him to do that. His face got hot and his throat ached suddenly. “I don’t want you to go, Dean. Please, don’t go.”
Dean squeezed the gun like he was wringing out a towel; knuckles white as they twisted round the barrels and stock, alternately. “Don’t get all baby on me, Sam. I gotta do this, and I gotta do it before Dad gets back, ‘cause if he hasta kill it for me, I know I’m gonna catch hell.”
Sam’s lower lip stitched up and down. “Don’t say that, Dean.”
The hand on the stock released, and Sam watched his brother wipe some wetness from his eyes.
“Listen to me, Sammy,” Dean said, and dropped to one knee in front of him. “That thing’s trying to get me. I don’t want it to get you. So I’m gonna get it. And we’re gonna be okay. And then Dad’ll be home, and he’ll see. Okay?”
Sam couldn’t look at his brother. It wasn’t fair. “I’ll hate you if you go.”
Dean’s body grew incredibly still. “No, you won’t. You can’t ever hate me, Sam. We’re brothers. And we’re Winchesters, and that means we’re all we have.”
And Sam hated that Dean was right, but he was. And it meant he couldn’t show how mad he was, couldn’t show how scared he was; Winchesters didn’t do that. Even if those were the only emotions raging inside you. He sniffed deep and pulled his forearm across his eyes. “How do you know rock salt’s gonna work?”
A little of the fear drained away from Dean’s face, a smile brewed at one corner of his mouth. “’Cause it’s in a lake.”
“What’s in a lake?”
Dean’s eyes rolled like marbles in a jar. “The thing, you dill hole!”
“So?”
“So,” said Dean, rising, “So, just like saltwater fish can’t live in fresh water, fresh water fish can’t stand salt.”
“It’s a fish?”
The exasperated groan filled the small cabin. “No! It’s not a fish! It’s a-It doesn’t matter what it is. I’m killing it with rock salt.”
Sam thought about it for a second and figured the fish idea actually made some sense. Of course, the only fish they’d ever had was a goldfish named Moto-Cross Skeletor, who’d lived a whole week in a motel ice bucket on nothing but crushed saltines from the coffee shop.
Sam looked on silently as Dean shoved more shells into his backpack, slipped on his boots and laced them tightly. “If you don’t come back in an hour, I’m going down there.”
Dean knelt before him again, resting the shotgun on the floor. He circled Sam’s wrist in his fingers. “Listen to me, Sam. If I’m not back in one hour, I want you to run to the store. I want you to tell Minnie somethin’s happened, and for her to get ahold of Dad somehow. And I want you to stay with her, you understand me?”
“Don’t say that, Dean.”
His brother forced his green eyes into his soul. “You understand me, Sam?”
“Yes, sir!” Sam said, and yanked his arm away from Dean. He spun on his heels and ran straight into their tiny bedroom, flinging himself across the bed. He buried his face in the thin pillow so Dean wouldn’t hear him cry.
Go to Part Two...