Corner of Your Eye (13/14)
Fandom: Supernatural/Stargate SG-1
Title: Corner of Your Eye
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Jack O'Neill, Dean Winchester
Category: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Crossover, Angst
Rating: T/PG-13
Spoilers: Pilot for SPN, up to Season 9 for SG-1
Summary: Jack O'Neill is not very good at being retired. Dean Winchester is not very good at staying out of trouble. And there's something lurking in these here woods….
Word Count: 3060
Disclaimer: As soon as I own them, you'll know. Oh yes, yes, the day is coming.
Author’s Note: Extra long for the win! I almost split this up into two chapters, but then I didn’t. Aren’t you glad?
Complete chapter list: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
The story is also available in one document on my website: Corner of Your Eye
13
There was still about an hour of sunlight left in the day when Dean turned the Impala off the paved road into what might generously be called a track, rough, rutted and overgrown with grass and weeds. No one had been down this way for a long time. Jack found himself gripping the dashboard as they bounced and jounced their way down the drive, Dean cursing a bit, apologizing to his “baby” for the wear on her shock absorbers.
The trees on either side were tall and broad, branches grown over the road to form a tunnel of dark green, blocking out the light. It was like being swallowed, passing down an esophagus of vegetation, old and strong and wild. It made Jack think of being a pioneer, back when all the trees were tall and the forest covered entire states, like one enormous organism spread over hundreds of miles. People disappeared in here and never came out.
Not Jack and Dean, though. They were fine. They knew what they were doing.
Eventually the road ahead lightened with daylight, and they drove out of the green tunnel into a largish cleared area. A ramshackle farmhouse stood near the track, listing drunkenly to the side. Other buildings were missing walls or roofs, and one was down to just a concrete foundation, a few rotted boards fallen over it like a game of pick-up-sticks played by a giant.
Dean picked a flat spot near the house and parked, looking around with a distinctly unimpressed expression. “Well, we’re here. You ready to do this thing?”
“It’s gonna be gross, isn’t it?”
“Digging up a chick buried a hundred fifty years ago and setting her bones on fire? Yeah, it’s gonna be gross. If all goes well, it will also be kinda boring. I do like the fire part, though.”
“Yeah, should have pegged you for a pyro, you little weirdo, you.” Jack sighed and opened his door. “Let’s get to it.”
They got the shovels and other supplies from the trunk, including a couple of shotguns loaded with salt, and Jack also saw Dean sticking other things in various pockets, a knife down his boot and another on his belt, a pistol against the small of his back. It never hurt to be prepared in this business, apparently. Jack felt a little naked with only his service weapon, a shotgun, extra shells, and a shovel.
But if things went bad on this one, it wouldn’t be Jack in danger. He was an only child, and kind of outside the victims’ age range. He was here to watch the kid’s back, and really, it wasn’t a bad position to be in. Pretty familiar all around-someone else doing the important stuff while he made sure they were all safe and made it home in one piece. Just one more mission.
Dean led the way toward the western edge of the property, glancing at the little hand-drawn map in his hand. Falling sun glinted off the dirt-crusted blade of the shovel over his shoulder, the shotgun slung over his back. The wooden shovel handle against Jack’s palm was worn, a bit concave from much use, smoothed by the press of hands over hours and hours of work. They had dug up a lot of graves with this shovel, Dean and his dad, and maybe his brother.
Jack wondered how many people the Winchesters had saved over the years, people who never knew they were even in danger before the threat was vanquished. Like how the world remained in ignorance of what horrors existed just outside the light of their tiny yellow sun, of how many battles had been fought and lives had been sacrificed to keep this planet safe. They weren’t so different, this little family of ghost-hunters and Jack’s team of eight long, hard years.
They found the grave plot tucked up against the edge of the trees. The Milner family had probably found the branches snaking out above the graves to be protective, maybe even comforting, but to Jack they only looked oppressive, the shadows they cast too long, too dark, taking away more of the light than he was willing to give. Susanna’s grave was the oldest, in the back corner. The simple headstone showed its age, worn, lichen growing in the grooves where the unsteady inscription had been carved.
Rest in Peace
Susanna Faith Milner
Beloved Daughter, Devoted Sister, Precious Friend
“Once it gets dark we should take turns digging and keeping an eye out,” Dean said, already matter-of-factly jamming his shovel into the hard-packed soil. “Even though her usual haunt is miles from here, sometimes spirits can tell when their grave is being disturbed. For now we should be able to dig together, though.”
It was hard, back-breaking work, and yeah, a little boring. Jack fell into the rhythm of it easily, enjoying the sweat of good, honest labor. Well, maybe not exactly honest. But certainly good.
The moon was close to full, and already up by the time the sun sank beyond the trees, the night clear and deep. Dean had brought flashlights in the army duffle set near the grave, but they hardly needed them. As the last shreds of light lingered in the sky, Dean waved a hand at Jack, told him to stand watch with the shotgun while he kept digging. Jack was a little amused at how easily the kid had taken to giving orders to a man twice his age, but didn’t protest. His knees had been starting to twinge a little.
It was second nature to walk a small perimeter, facing the darkness, shotgun held loose and ready in both hands. Jack felt his back straighten, military-proud, his mind slip back to a thousand other campsites on a thousand other worlds. He could smell the forest, strange in its familiarity-he was so used to the scents and sights of alien woods, alien trees, each different, each the same.
They traded off watching and digging twice, so it was Dean’s shovel that hit the pine box with a muffled thunk of half-rotten wood. Jack sidled a little closer to the grave, still keeping a watch on the surrounding trees, glancing occasionally down to see Dean scraping off the remaining dirt, tearing up the boards, revealing the corpse beneath. Yeah, it was pretty gross. No embalming back then out here in the wilderness, so nature had done its work. At least it was too old for there to be any smell.
Dean accepted Jack’s hand up to climb out of Susanna’s open grave. He fetched a canister of salt from the duffel and poured it liberally over the bones and broken wood, then dumped kerosene after it. Jack watched him with one eye, still keeping a wary look out for impending ghosty danger.
Just as Dean lit a match, a flare of light in the dark like a firefly come too early for warm weather, Jack saw something at the corner of his eye. He whirled, shotgun up and ready, just in time to see the dark mass coalesce, rushing at him over the moonlit grass like a speeding bus. Jack fired the shotgun, watched the salt disperse into the shape, which vanished. “Dean! We got company!”
Dean dropped the match into the grave and pivoted to put his back to Jack’s, grabbing the shotgun slung over his shoulder. Fire shuddered to life beside them, flaring out of the six-foot pit. “We just have to hold her off for a little bit! Once the bones burn she’ll be gone.”
Jack felt and heard the blast as Dean shot, the young man’s shoulder nudging back against his with the recoil, and then he saw the spirit coming from his side and it was his turn to shoot again. Again the ghost of Susanna Milner dispersed as the salt hit her, but she reformed almost immediately. Crap. Then back around to Dean’s side, another blast. Jack reached for the extra shells in his pockets.
Fire, reload, fire. Damn, shotguns were a pain. Jack wished fervently for a P-90 or an AK-47 that could work with salt bullets-didn’t exist on this world, but maybe the Asgard could whip something up for him. The fire in the grave raged and then died, darkness seeping back in, and still the spirit formed and rushed, again and again, each time more quickly than the last.
“Oh, shit,” Dean said. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, Jack, the bones are gone and she’s still here!”
“What can do that?” Jack asked, fingers expertly reloading the shotgun. “You didn’t mention this.”
“Sorry, I didn’t think… It’s rare, it’s…” Dean shot yet again. “She must have…must have something else left somewhere that’s important to her, left behind a, a beloved object from life, some part of her body somewhere else, but I checked the bones, they were all there….”
The young man’s voice was rising just a little, pushing toward hysteria. Jack stepped back a little to press his back to Dean’s, giving him contact. “A lock of hair? Would that do it?”
“Yeah, maybe, I dunno, I haven’t really seen this much.”
“She gave a lock of her hair to Abe, Dean. It was in the second memoir.”
“Oh, shit.”
This time, Jack could fully agree with that heartfelt sentiment.
“Yep. We’re in shit, all right.”
X
BLAM!
That was it, the last shell. Dean dropped his gun, now useless, and pulled the iron knife from his belt with a soft snick of metal against leather. They hadn’t done anything to the ghost of Susanna Milner except piss her off, and now she was coming straight for him.
She descended on him like an ice storm, all fury and stinging wind and cold that reached into his bones. There was a rush of sound as he fell past Jack, a whirl of moonlit green, and he slashed desperately with the knife. Susanna evaded the knife, grabbing his arm, and frost sped out along the limb and through his fingers, numbing them until he dropped the only weapon left to him.
Dean landed on his back in dew-wet grass between two graves, gasping and choking, white spots in his vision as he hit the back of his head yet again. “Jack! The knife!” He forced his head to the side, looking for the other man, and saw Jack pressed against a headstone, grimacing, struggling to move and unable to do so.
Well, they were thoroughly screwed now, weren’t they?
Terror, deep and cold, flooding him like a swift, angry tide. The insistent whisper started up again, invading his thoughts, creeping under his skin. Come, little one, come and rest, come to me, come home come home come home… He hadn’t heard the words so clearly that first time, only felt what they might mean, but now they were as clear and sharp as shards of ice, piercing his chest like so many tiny knives.
Come back, come back, please come back, you’ll be safe here, little one, come home come home come home.
Abe. She was calling for little Abe. And the terror…. It was hers. It was the fear of Susanna Milner, a hundred and fifty years gone, not for herself but for her missing brother. The loneliness, too, was hers. It was like being impaled.
But oh, God, oh God, now it was Dean’s fear, too, his loneliness, and suddenly all he could think about was Sam, Sam so far away in California, all alone with no one to watch his back, no one to protect him from the things that went bump in the night, no one to make sure the guns were loaded and the salt lines were unbroken. Who was there to take care of Abe? Who was there to take care of Sam? They were alone, they were alone and lost, and how were they going to find their way home without their big brother, their big sister to lead them there?
“No!”
Dean resisted, shoving back against the cold, digging his heels and fingers into the dirt, arching up against the smoky form that covered him, buried him, desperate and frightened and just looking for someone to share her burden. “No, no, Sam is all right, he’s all right! Nothing… We checked, we looked, we set wards…. Nothing’s gonna touch him, he’s okay!”
“Dean?”
Jack’s voice, so far away, miles away down a tunnel and echoing in the cold, but Jack’s voice, warm and deep, an anchor in the maelstrom of fear and loneliness. Dean grabbed on, dug his fingers in. “Jack! She…she’s scared! She’s scared for her brother!”
Abe, Abe, little Abe, my little Abraham, where are you, where have you gone? Come home, come home, I miss you, little brother, I am so frightened, Abe, come home.
Sam, Sam in that stupid college full of idiots who didn’t know a hex bag from a crucifix, Sam vulnerable and gone, gone gone. Too far away for Dean to touch, too far away for him to check on him at night when he woke from a dream and just needed to watch his brother breathe for a moment, too far away even for a phone call, even that was gone. Sam, Sam, alone and lost.
God, Sam, please come home. Please come home, little brother.
The terror twisted inside him, a fatal gut wound, mixed now with guilt. Susanna’s guilt, so old and ingrained. She would never be free of it.
I shouldn’t have let him go, I knew that the woods were dangerous. He said ‘just a few berries,’ and I said ‘all right, just a few,’ but he went he went and now he’s gone and I shouldn’t have said yes. I should have gone with him. They took him, they took him, they took my baby brother and it’s on my head.
Dean tried to brace himself against it, but it was too late. The guilt crashed into him, pressing him into the ground, and yes, this was his too.
Shouldn’t have let you go, Sam. Shouldn’t have let you go. Thought I was doing you a favor but I wasn’t. Sorry, so sorry. Something bad is gonna happen to you while you’re alone and it’ll be my fault for letting you go.
It was a plain certainty, knowledge, knowing, absolute and pure, that something bad was going to happen. But this wasn’t his. Dean had never felt sure that something was going to happen to Sam. This was Susanna, twisting inside him, burrowing under his skin, living in his heart and mind.
She was going to kill him. She wasn’t doing it on purpose, but this was going to kill him.
Dean gasped, dragging in frosty air. Tried to push back. Tried to get her out of him. But there was no strength. The cold and terror and guilt had leached it all away.
Jack’s voice again, swift and warm, a flurry of words that Dean couldn’t make out beyond the rushing inside him. Dean blinked sluggishly, tried to focus on the words. The cadence of Jack’s voice rose and fell, gentle, soothing, a bedtime story for frightened big sisters, big brothers.
Susanna’s attention wavered from Dean, flowing toward Jack. Hearing the words Dean couldn’t yet understand. The terror lessened, only slightly, but enough for Dean to breathe again. He choked on a lungful of air, wheezing in and out.
Jack’s voice, firm and determined. “The Dakotas treated Abe like one of their own. The stories about Indian captives being tortured, raped, mutilated-all false, Susanna, I swear to you. Just scary stories for pioneer kids. Abe grew up happy, on the plains, though he never forgot you. He kept that lock of hair you gave him, he must have, because how else would you be here? He learned to hunt, and he learned to ride a horse, and he learned to wear war paint and dance around the fire. Nothing bad happened to little Abe, Susanna. He grew up happy. He loved his new people. He loved them almost as much as he loved you. Nothing bad happened to him.”
Jack sounded so certain, so sincere. Dean believed him. He knew that Jack had read that book. Jack cared about what happened to little boys kidnapped from their families. Jack knew the stories.
Susanna felt the belief in Dean. Slowly, oh so slowly and painfully, the terror faded. And the loneliness. And the guilt. She believed in Jack.
The darkness lifted from Dean’s chest, and he pulled in air and rolled over on his side, curling up in a ball and shivering madly. Jack pattered on, a long running story about a little boy growing up wild and free with the Dakota Indians. Dean watched Susanna drift toward him, shapeless cloud of darkness and ice softly gathering into the form of a young girl, slim and white, staring raptly.
Jack kept talking, leaning against the headstone, no longer held there. He looked Susanna in the eyes and told her all about her baby brother. Susanna knelt beside him and leaned in close, a child at the door, listening to the grown-ups’ conversation.
Eventually, sadly, Jack reached the end of the story. He told Susanna about how her brother died, still wild and free, fighting for his people’s rights. He told her where the boy was buried. He told her that little Abe was waiting for her on the other side.
Susanna blinked sadly, and nodded. Then she leaned in and kissed Jack’s cheek, shyly, a young girl saying good-night to a father.
And she vanished. Just gone. Just like that. A breeze blew through where she had been, spring-warm, and Dean kept shivering. Susanna’s loneliness and fear had been lifted from him, but his own was still there, a black beast wakened from sleep, tearing through him unhindered.
“Dean.”
Jack’s hands lifted him, Jack’s arms tucked him in close, warm and solid and real. “Dean, it’s okay. It’s all right. You’re safe. She’s gone.”
“Sam,” Dean whispered, broken and lost. “I shouldn’t have let him go.”
He shivered for a long time. Jack knelt there for even longer, murmuring reassurances, another bedtime story to soothe a frightened big brother. He didn’t say a word about his knees. Not even once.
Gorgeous fanart by zalein
Part 14
Title: Corner of Your Eye
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Jack O'Neill, Dean Winchester
Category: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Crossover, Angst
Rating: T/PG-13
Spoilers: Pilot for SPN, up to Season 9 for SG-1
Summary: Jack O'Neill is not very good at being retired. Dean Winchester is not very good at staying out of trouble. And there's something lurking in these here woods….
Word Count: 3060
Disclaimer: As soon as I own them, you'll know. Oh yes, yes, the day is coming.
Author’s Note: Extra long for the win! I almost split this up into two chapters, but then I didn’t. Aren’t you glad?
Complete chapter list: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
The story is also available in one document on my website: Corner of Your Eye
13
There was still about an hour of sunlight left in the day when Dean turned the Impala off the paved road into what might generously be called a track, rough, rutted and overgrown with grass and weeds. No one had been down this way for a long time. Jack found himself gripping the dashboard as they bounced and jounced their way down the drive, Dean cursing a bit, apologizing to his “baby” for the wear on her shock absorbers.
The trees on either side were tall and broad, branches grown over the road to form a tunnel of dark green, blocking out the light. It was like being swallowed, passing down an esophagus of vegetation, old and strong and wild. It made Jack think of being a pioneer, back when all the trees were tall and the forest covered entire states, like one enormous organism spread over hundreds of miles. People disappeared in here and never came out.
Not Jack and Dean, though. They were fine. They knew what they were doing.
Eventually the road ahead lightened with daylight, and they drove out of the green tunnel into a largish cleared area. A ramshackle farmhouse stood near the track, listing drunkenly to the side. Other buildings were missing walls or roofs, and one was down to just a concrete foundation, a few rotted boards fallen over it like a game of pick-up-sticks played by a giant.
Dean picked a flat spot near the house and parked, looking around with a distinctly unimpressed expression. “Well, we’re here. You ready to do this thing?”
“It’s gonna be gross, isn’t it?”
“Digging up a chick buried a hundred fifty years ago and setting her bones on fire? Yeah, it’s gonna be gross. If all goes well, it will also be kinda boring. I do like the fire part, though.”
“Yeah, should have pegged you for a pyro, you little weirdo, you.” Jack sighed and opened his door. “Let’s get to it.”
They got the shovels and other supplies from the trunk, including a couple of shotguns loaded with salt, and Jack also saw Dean sticking other things in various pockets, a knife down his boot and another on his belt, a pistol against the small of his back. It never hurt to be prepared in this business, apparently. Jack felt a little naked with only his service weapon, a shotgun, extra shells, and a shovel.
But if things went bad on this one, it wouldn’t be Jack in danger. He was an only child, and kind of outside the victims’ age range. He was here to watch the kid’s back, and really, it wasn’t a bad position to be in. Pretty familiar all around-someone else doing the important stuff while he made sure they were all safe and made it home in one piece. Just one more mission.
Dean led the way toward the western edge of the property, glancing at the little hand-drawn map in his hand. Falling sun glinted off the dirt-crusted blade of the shovel over his shoulder, the shotgun slung over his back. The wooden shovel handle against Jack’s palm was worn, a bit concave from much use, smoothed by the press of hands over hours and hours of work. They had dug up a lot of graves with this shovel, Dean and his dad, and maybe his brother.
Jack wondered how many people the Winchesters had saved over the years, people who never knew they were even in danger before the threat was vanquished. Like how the world remained in ignorance of what horrors existed just outside the light of their tiny yellow sun, of how many battles had been fought and lives had been sacrificed to keep this planet safe. They weren’t so different, this little family of ghost-hunters and Jack’s team of eight long, hard years.
They found the grave plot tucked up against the edge of the trees. The Milner family had probably found the branches snaking out above the graves to be protective, maybe even comforting, but to Jack they only looked oppressive, the shadows they cast too long, too dark, taking away more of the light than he was willing to give. Susanna’s grave was the oldest, in the back corner. The simple headstone showed its age, worn, lichen growing in the grooves where the unsteady inscription had been carved.
Rest in Peace
Susanna Faith Milner
Beloved Daughter, Devoted Sister, Precious Friend
“Once it gets dark we should take turns digging and keeping an eye out,” Dean said, already matter-of-factly jamming his shovel into the hard-packed soil. “Even though her usual haunt is miles from here, sometimes spirits can tell when their grave is being disturbed. For now we should be able to dig together, though.”
It was hard, back-breaking work, and yeah, a little boring. Jack fell into the rhythm of it easily, enjoying the sweat of good, honest labor. Well, maybe not exactly honest. But certainly good.
The moon was close to full, and already up by the time the sun sank beyond the trees, the night clear and deep. Dean had brought flashlights in the army duffle set near the grave, but they hardly needed them. As the last shreds of light lingered in the sky, Dean waved a hand at Jack, told him to stand watch with the shotgun while he kept digging. Jack was a little amused at how easily the kid had taken to giving orders to a man twice his age, but didn’t protest. His knees had been starting to twinge a little.
It was second nature to walk a small perimeter, facing the darkness, shotgun held loose and ready in both hands. Jack felt his back straighten, military-proud, his mind slip back to a thousand other campsites on a thousand other worlds. He could smell the forest, strange in its familiarity-he was so used to the scents and sights of alien woods, alien trees, each different, each the same.
They traded off watching and digging twice, so it was Dean’s shovel that hit the pine box with a muffled thunk of half-rotten wood. Jack sidled a little closer to the grave, still keeping a watch on the surrounding trees, glancing occasionally down to see Dean scraping off the remaining dirt, tearing up the boards, revealing the corpse beneath. Yeah, it was pretty gross. No embalming back then out here in the wilderness, so nature had done its work. At least it was too old for there to be any smell.
Dean accepted Jack’s hand up to climb out of Susanna’s open grave. He fetched a canister of salt from the duffel and poured it liberally over the bones and broken wood, then dumped kerosene after it. Jack watched him with one eye, still keeping a wary look out for impending ghosty danger.
Just as Dean lit a match, a flare of light in the dark like a firefly come too early for warm weather, Jack saw something at the corner of his eye. He whirled, shotgun up and ready, just in time to see the dark mass coalesce, rushing at him over the moonlit grass like a speeding bus. Jack fired the shotgun, watched the salt disperse into the shape, which vanished. “Dean! We got company!”
Dean dropped the match into the grave and pivoted to put his back to Jack’s, grabbing the shotgun slung over his shoulder. Fire shuddered to life beside them, flaring out of the six-foot pit. “We just have to hold her off for a little bit! Once the bones burn she’ll be gone.”
Jack felt and heard the blast as Dean shot, the young man’s shoulder nudging back against his with the recoil, and then he saw the spirit coming from his side and it was his turn to shoot again. Again the ghost of Susanna Milner dispersed as the salt hit her, but she reformed almost immediately. Crap. Then back around to Dean’s side, another blast. Jack reached for the extra shells in his pockets.
Fire, reload, fire. Damn, shotguns were a pain. Jack wished fervently for a P-90 or an AK-47 that could work with salt bullets-didn’t exist on this world, but maybe the Asgard could whip something up for him. The fire in the grave raged and then died, darkness seeping back in, and still the spirit formed and rushed, again and again, each time more quickly than the last.
“Oh, shit,” Dean said. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, Jack, the bones are gone and she’s still here!”
“What can do that?” Jack asked, fingers expertly reloading the shotgun. “You didn’t mention this.”
“Sorry, I didn’t think… It’s rare, it’s…” Dean shot yet again. “She must have…must have something else left somewhere that’s important to her, left behind a, a beloved object from life, some part of her body somewhere else, but I checked the bones, they were all there….”
The young man’s voice was rising just a little, pushing toward hysteria. Jack stepped back a little to press his back to Dean’s, giving him contact. “A lock of hair? Would that do it?”
“Yeah, maybe, I dunno, I haven’t really seen this much.”
“She gave a lock of her hair to Abe, Dean. It was in the second memoir.”
“Oh, shit.”
This time, Jack could fully agree with that heartfelt sentiment.
“Yep. We’re in shit, all right.”
X
BLAM!
That was it, the last shell. Dean dropped his gun, now useless, and pulled the iron knife from his belt with a soft snick of metal against leather. They hadn’t done anything to the ghost of Susanna Milner except piss her off, and now she was coming straight for him.
She descended on him like an ice storm, all fury and stinging wind and cold that reached into his bones. There was a rush of sound as he fell past Jack, a whirl of moonlit green, and he slashed desperately with the knife. Susanna evaded the knife, grabbing his arm, and frost sped out along the limb and through his fingers, numbing them until he dropped the only weapon left to him.
Dean landed on his back in dew-wet grass between two graves, gasping and choking, white spots in his vision as he hit the back of his head yet again. “Jack! The knife!” He forced his head to the side, looking for the other man, and saw Jack pressed against a headstone, grimacing, struggling to move and unable to do so.
Well, they were thoroughly screwed now, weren’t they?
Terror, deep and cold, flooding him like a swift, angry tide. The insistent whisper started up again, invading his thoughts, creeping under his skin. Come, little one, come and rest, come to me, come home come home come home… He hadn’t heard the words so clearly that first time, only felt what they might mean, but now they were as clear and sharp as shards of ice, piercing his chest like so many tiny knives.
Come back, come back, please come back, you’ll be safe here, little one, come home come home come home.
Abe. She was calling for little Abe. And the terror…. It was hers. It was the fear of Susanna Milner, a hundred and fifty years gone, not for herself but for her missing brother. The loneliness, too, was hers. It was like being impaled.
But oh, God, oh God, now it was Dean’s fear, too, his loneliness, and suddenly all he could think about was Sam, Sam so far away in California, all alone with no one to watch his back, no one to protect him from the things that went bump in the night, no one to make sure the guns were loaded and the salt lines were unbroken. Who was there to take care of Abe? Who was there to take care of Sam? They were alone, they were alone and lost, and how were they going to find their way home without their big brother, their big sister to lead them there?
“No!”
Dean resisted, shoving back against the cold, digging his heels and fingers into the dirt, arching up against the smoky form that covered him, buried him, desperate and frightened and just looking for someone to share her burden. “No, no, Sam is all right, he’s all right! Nothing… We checked, we looked, we set wards…. Nothing’s gonna touch him, he’s okay!”
“Dean?”
Jack’s voice, so far away, miles away down a tunnel and echoing in the cold, but Jack’s voice, warm and deep, an anchor in the maelstrom of fear and loneliness. Dean grabbed on, dug his fingers in. “Jack! She…she’s scared! She’s scared for her brother!”
Abe, Abe, little Abe, my little Abraham, where are you, where have you gone? Come home, come home, I miss you, little brother, I am so frightened, Abe, come home.
Sam, Sam in that stupid college full of idiots who didn’t know a hex bag from a crucifix, Sam vulnerable and gone, gone gone. Too far away for Dean to touch, too far away for him to check on him at night when he woke from a dream and just needed to watch his brother breathe for a moment, too far away even for a phone call, even that was gone. Sam, Sam, alone and lost.
God, Sam, please come home. Please come home, little brother.
The terror twisted inside him, a fatal gut wound, mixed now with guilt. Susanna’s guilt, so old and ingrained. She would never be free of it.
I shouldn’t have let him go, I knew that the woods were dangerous. He said ‘just a few berries,’ and I said ‘all right, just a few,’ but he went he went and now he’s gone and I shouldn’t have said yes. I should have gone with him. They took him, they took him, they took my baby brother and it’s on my head.
Dean tried to brace himself against it, but it was too late. The guilt crashed into him, pressing him into the ground, and yes, this was his too.
Shouldn’t have let you go, Sam. Shouldn’t have let you go. Thought I was doing you a favor but I wasn’t. Sorry, so sorry. Something bad is gonna happen to you while you’re alone and it’ll be my fault for letting you go.
It was a plain certainty, knowledge, knowing, absolute and pure, that something bad was going to happen. But this wasn’t his. Dean had never felt sure that something was going to happen to Sam. This was Susanna, twisting inside him, burrowing under his skin, living in his heart and mind.
She was going to kill him. She wasn’t doing it on purpose, but this was going to kill him.
Dean gasped, dragging in frosty air. Tried to push back. Tried to get her out of him. But there was no strength. The cold and terror and guilt had leached it all away.
Jack’s voice again, swift and warm, a flurry of words that Dean couldn’t make out beyond the rushing inside him. Dean blinked sluggishly, tried to focus on the words. The cadence of Jack’s voice rose and fell, gentle, soothing, a bedtime story for frightened big sisters, big brothers.
Susanna’s attention wavered from Dean, flowing toward Jack. Hearing the words Dean couldn’t yet understand. The terror lessened, only slightly, but enough for Dean to breathe again. He choked on a lungful of air, wheezing in and out.
Jack’s voice, firm and determined. “The Dakotas treated Abe like one of their own. The stories about Indian captives being tortured, raped, mutilated-all false, Susanna, I swear to you. Just scary stories for pioneer kids. Abe grew up happy, on the plains, though he never forgot you. He kept that lock of hair you gave him, he must have, because how else would you be here? He learned to hunt, and he learned to ride a horse, and he learned to wear war paint and dance around the fire. Nothing bad happened to little Abe, Susanna. He grew up happy. He loved his new people. He loved them almost as much as he loved you. Nothing bad happened to him.”
Jack sounded so certain, so sincere. Dean believed him. He knew that Jack had read that book. Jack cared about what happened to little boys kidnapped from their families. Jack knew the stories.
Susanna felt the belief in Dean. Slowly, oh so slowly and painfully, the terror faded. And the loneliness. And the guilt. She believed in Jack.
The darkness lifted from Dean’s chest, and he pulled in air and rolled over on his side, curling up in a ball and shivering madly. Jack pattered on, a long running story about a little boy growing up wild and free with the Dakota Indians. Dean watched Susanna drift toward him, shapeless cloud of darkness and ice softly gathering into the form of a young girl, slim and white, staring raptly.
Jack kept talking, leaning against the headstone, no longer held there. He looked Susanna in the eyes and told her all about her baby brother. Susanna knelt beside him and leaned in close, a child at the door, listening to the grown-ups’ conversation.
Eventually, sadly, Jack reached the end of the story. He told Susanna about how her brother died, still wild and free, fighting for his people’s rights. He told her where the boy was buried. He told her that little Abe was waiting for her on the other side.
Susanna blinked sadly, and nodded. Then she leaned in and kissed Jack’s cheek, shyly, a young girl saying good-night to a father.
And she vanished. Just gone. Just like that. A breeze blew through where she had been, spring-warm, and Dean kept shivering. Susanna’s loneliness and fear had been lifted from him, but his own was still there, a black beast wakened from sleep, tearing through him unhindered.
“Dean.”
Jack’s hands lifted him, Jack’s arms tucked him in close, warm and solid and real. “Dean, it’s okay. It’s all right. You’re safe. She’s gone.”
“Sam,” Dean whispered, broken and lost. “I shouldn’t have let him go.”
He shivered for a long time. Jack knelt there for even longer, murmuring reassurances, another bedtime story to soothe a frightened big brother. He didn’t say a word about his knees. Not even once.
Gorgeous fanart by zalein
Part 14