FIC: The Lee 8/10 Part I
Title: The Lee 8/10 Part I
Author: pdragon76
Rating: R (sailor mouths, sex, violence)
Genre: Het
Characters: Sam, Dean, OFC
Spoilers: Set late Season Two, after WIAWSNB. AU for timeline and some minor canon-jiggery.
Disclaimer: It’s Kripke’s world, we’re all just living in it. *snaps fingers, points*
Summary: Wherever you go, there you are.
A/N: This fic was commissioned for Sweet Charity by the very lovely janglyjewels , who wanted “something angsty that involves Sam and his powers”. Hope this scratches the itch, my dear. Chapters will post as completed. Apologies in advance to any native West Virginians. Beta’d by the feisty, astute
july_july_july and the ever insightful, truly delightful riverbella . Isolated pockets harangued by the hawk-eyed kimonkey7 . These guys demand that I earn it - and own it - to the best of my debatable ability, every step of the way. Any remaining niggles, wtf’s and humdingers are mine, all mine. Sorry about the delay on this one, folks. Two-part post, due to length.
Previous chapter links: Ch1 Ch2 Ch3 Ch4 Ch5 Ch6 Ch7
Escape is never the safest path.
~ ‘Dissident’, Pearl Jam
Dean was coming up on his knees, still sucking back like a surfacing seal when Sam reached him. There was nothing remotely calm or collected about the way he slammed Dean against the wall, frantic hands searching for the wet of a fresh wound. Dean struggled, disoriented, and then his eyes widened in panic and his own hands flew to his chest.
“It’s okay.” Sam yanked down the neck of his brother’s shirt, exposed a smooth V of undamaged flesh as proof. “You’re alright.”
Dean went limp with relief, devoted himself to the desperate business of his redeployed lungs.
In the shadows of the basement, the security guard was rising to his feet with a chortle. “Now, that’s a little more like it.” He clapped the dust from his hands and his pants, started across the room.
Sam rose too, with a sudden confidence. “I wouldn’t come any closer.”
“Well, hell.” The Yellow-Eyed Demon made a mockery of looking abashed, stopped and held up both palms. “Look who’s finally playing at the big boys’ games.”
“Kee-,” Dean wheezed, and Sam turned at the warning, caught Spencer on his hands and knees beating a path to the shotgun on the floor.
Sam lunged for the weapon first, scooped it up by the barrel, and jacked the stock hard into Keehan’s face. When that failed to put him out of action, Sam did it again a lot harder. Spencer fell slackly to the floor.
The guard chuckled. “You show him, killer.”
Dean was levering up, one shoulder to the wall and still bent around a hacking cough. Sam moved to provide cover, the shotgun useless but at the ready in his hands. He passed the dropped .44 on the way, gave it a shunt back toward his brother with his heel.
“Dean, gun.”
“Got it,” Dean spluttered behind him.
The Yellow-Eyed Demon rubbed his hands together. “Well kids, I’d love to stick around and shoot the shit. Fuck knows we’ve got enough to talk about. But I’m on a bit of a schedule, and…” his amused gaze fell to the unconscious hunter, “…realistically? Even you guys’ll have trouble screwin’ this up from here.”
Sam’s fingers opened and closed around the cool weapon in his hands, attention hopping between the demon and Keehan. He waited. Behind him, he could hear Dean’s labored breathing - the clicks and snaps of the .44 being secured.
The guard made pistols of both hands, clucked his tongue. “Do me a favor and watch your six, kid. You’re about to get popular.” He jutted his chin towards Dean. “Now, do I need to draw you a diagram, Dean? Or can you take it from here?”
“You can draw yourself suckin’ cock in Hell,” Dean panted. “‘Cause that’s where I’m gonna put you.”
The demon gave him a slow, smug curl of the lip. “I’ll be sure to say hi to your Daddy, then.”
Dean snapped the gun up and fired - one solitary, sharp report - but the guard was already gone.
For a moment there was nothing but their harsh breaths, the buzz of the swinging basement globe as it rocked the room with an arc of dirty yellow light.
Sam felt something at his lip, brought a hand from the shotgun to his face and tasted blood at the same time he saw it on his fingers.
His brother saw it, too. A calloused hand was suddenly rough at the back of Sam’s neck, thumb snug behind his ear angling his face for inspection. Dean’s face was stormy.
Sam wiped hurriedly at his nose with trembling fingers, pushed at Dean’s chest to send away his scrutiny. “I’m fine. I’m good.”
A crinkled, ancient diner napkin was liberated from the depths of Dean’s pocket and pressed into Sam’s unsteady hands. Under any other circumstances he would have handed it right back in disgust, but he held it beneath his nose, stemmed the flow.
His brother gave him a bolstering clap to the shoulder, moved to Keehan. When he got to the motionless hunter, he booted Spencer in the ribs so hard it made Sam jump.
“Get up, you sonuvabitch.”
The hunter half-rolled, groaned, and Dean let him have it again just as hard.
“I said, ‘up’, you sack of shit.”
Keehan curled on the floor, started to get a clumsy knee under him, and Dean lost patience, dragged him the rest of the way to his feet by a handful of his greasy hair. He threw him against the nearest wall, and Spencer only just got his arm up in time to save himself a busted nose.
“You see that, Dean? You see what just happened here?” Keehan’s voice was low, sure of himself.
“Shut up.” Dean kicked at his ankle and Spencer wisely widened his stance before he had to be asked again. He flattened his palms against the wall and docilely submitted to the pat down.
Sam watched while Dean stripped a backup piece and relieved Keehan of three blades, sent them off on a shearing slide across the basement floor.
“You see what your brother did?”
Dean gave the back of Spencer’s skull a shove, cracked his cheek off the wall with enough force that he sagged, and Sam moved instinctively to intervene.
“Dean-”
“Go to the car.” It was as plain an order as Dean had ever given him, and Sam stuttered to a stop. There was a drawn out silence, in which Sam tried to convince himself he didn’t know the answer to his next question.
“What are you doing?”
Spencer rustled up a cough, sent a bloody projectile from his lips that clung wetly down the wall. “Whattaya think he’s doin’, you retard?”
Dean didn’t turn around. His fingers bunched in the back of Keehan’s shirt, and he bowed his head.
“Sam, get the fuck outta here.”
“No.”
“I will cuff this sonuvabitch, drop you, and drag you out of here if I have to. So help me God.”
“Dean, what are you gonna do?”
“Nothin’. I’m gonna give him a choice.”
Sam’s feet wouldn’t move him. Then Dean turned his head, and Sam caught the stony, shadowed set of his profiled face beneath the stilled basement light.
He collected Keehan’s gun and the blades from the floor. Took the stairs two at a time, because not setting foot on that first step felt like the only way he was getting up them.
The first gunshot stopped him in the doorway to the alley, boomeranged him back toward the basement on blind, dumb instinct. The second discharge froze him again, close on the heels of the first. He waited, staring at the black mouth of the stairwell until the third report cracked the air like a door slamming shut. Sam had worked with his brother long enough to know.
Two in the chest. Head shot.
He abandoned the building, knuckles running rough along the brick the entire way down the alley.
*****************************************************************
Morning snuck rude and relentless beneath the bedroom curtains. Sam watched it arrive, lying quiet and blinking in the dawn half-light. The feeling in his left arm was long lost, and if he didn’t do something about that soon, he was probably facing amputation. But when he moved, she was going to wake up, and the day would begin, and by tomorrow the state of West Virginia would just be one more place they’d got stopped a while. An arm seemed small price to pay for a couple more stolen minutes.
He let himself doze.
It was Dean that wrested them both from sleep some time later. Sam ignored the sounds of his brother seeking egress from his bed until the soft creaks of springs and boards graduated to audible cussing, and Beth stirred against his side.
“Does he need help?”
“You have no idea.”
Beth’s nose crinkled beneath her sleep-swelled eyes. “Don’t be clever. I’m not awake enough for clever.”
“Sorry.”
“He sounds like he needs help.”
Sam let the ceiling have a sigh, then tossed Dean’s name across the hall on a shout.
“What?” Dean barked back, like he didn’t have time for interruptions.
“Y’alright?”
Sam waited for an answer that didn’t come. Beth’s thigh dragged across his own, and he got a face full of her bare breasts as she shifted up and leaned to reach the alarm clock. He closed his eyes, lost a short argument with his dick about the propriety of any response.
“Jesus, get your…” he tugged on the back of Beth’s hair, “…naked…off me.”
“What day is it?” she asked, face pressed to the analog face of the clock.
“Tuesday. Christ, you’re killing me here. Off.” Sam took the clock from her and returned it to the bedside, forcibly relocated her to the other side of the sheets.
Beth screwed a fist into one eye like an indignant sloth.
“Dean!” Sam hollered again. “You need a hand?”
There was another long silence, in which Dean was no doubt grappling with the hard facts of his situation.
“You comin’ or what?” he snapped eventually.
Sam really, really didn’t want to get out of bed, but when he curled towards Beth for refuge, she slapped a hand against his face.
“Coffee doesn’t make itself.”
From the doorway, it wasn’t immediately obvious whether Dean wanted to be in or out of his bed. It was entirely possible he was just trying to scale the bedside table.
“Are you tryna fall out or get back in?”
At least he’d managed to get some pants on.
“Fuck you.”
“In or out?” Sam moved to help, and Dean made a frustrated, multidirectional gesture that was of no assistance whatsoever.
“Up, asshole.”
“You sure? ‘Cause it doesn’t look like that’s working for you. You take your pills?”
“Where d’you think I’m goin’, you fuckknuckle?”
Oh. The painkillers were in the bathroom, and yeah, that was Sam’s bad because he should have noticed while he was showering last night. When he brought them back through, Dean was bent in clenched-teeth, blasphemous pray over the altar of the nightstand.
“Touch me and I break your fingers.”
Sam put the pills on the stand, held up both hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Maybe you should lie down.”
“Fuck that. I lay down, I gotta get up again.”
“Fine. Stay there, then.”
Sam left him clinging to the bedside table and went to make coffee. He took a piss and passed his toothbrush over his teeth while he waited for the caffeine to brew. By the time he’d poured three steaming cups of joe, Beth had made it out of bed and into her clothes, which was as big a crime as Sam could think of on the spot.
“I was bringing it.” He lifted a cup in his defense.
“I couldn’t wait,” she grumbled, hair askew and heels dragging.
He handed over a mug. “You’re really not a morning person, are you?”
“Shut up.” She deposited the cup on the counter beside Sam’s hip and came up on her tip-toes to kiss him. He bent to meet her, tasted the toothpaste detour on her tongue. When his neck began to protest their poor geometry, Sam turned them both and lifted her to the counter’s edge. He let his fingertips play on the smooth span of skin where her t-shirt didn’t quite meet her jeans, gave her lips his full and unhurried attention.
“I really wish you didn’t have to leave,” she said, when Sam broke the kiss to move his coffee mug before they spilled it.
“Me, too.” He knew they should stop. It was all just torture from here on in, but Sam couldn’t get his mouth to be done with her.
Dean was more than happy to put a stop to proceedings, though. “Oh, get a room,” he bitched bitterly as he stalked in on his crutches.
Sam vacated the comfortable niche between Beth’s thighs, and she leaned to retrieve her mug from further along the counter.
“There’s coffee,” she said amicably, holding hers aloft, but Dean made no show he’d heard.
He sent Wendy La Butte’s journal spinning onto the table with a flick of his good wrist. “So you want the good news or the bad news?”
Sam froze mid-swallow, then downed his coffee with an exaggerated gulp. “I don’t think you’ve ever actually asked me that, and then had some good news.”
“Fair call. You want the bad news or the not-so-great news?”
Sam gave him a long-suffering smile.
Dean abandoned the crutches and slid gingerly into a chair. He waited, eyes closed and mouth a hard straight line, while his body’s clear protestations receded. He really did look like hell. “So, for starters, I’d just like to verify there is abso-fucking-lutely no position I can stay asleep in for longer than twenty minutes. And that’s not crazy-making at all.”
“That sucks.” Sam winced sympathetically. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Yeah,” Dean’s eyebrows shot up and his smile was heavy on the sarcasm. “Well, you sure sounded it. Anyway, so last night while we were all not sleeping, I emailed Ash the stuff we’ve got on your diner. And the bad news is it didn’t look any more specific after I typed it up and put in a bunch of bullet point thingies.”
“You got up?” Sam asked guiltily. “I didn’t hear.”
Dean balked in feigned surprise. “Gee, I wonder why.”
Sam’s ears burned, eyes on his mug. “He get back to you?”
Dean let him have a long, cruel silence, then he started dramatically and tugged at his earlobe. “Oh, I’m sorry, are you talking to me? I thought you were talking to your coffee there.”
It was an effort to look up. Dean’s poker-face was poorly concealing his delight at Sam’s discomfort.
“Will you stop, please?”
“Not even for money,” Dean shot back like a ricochet, but he stopped all the same. “He called, yeah. Dialed my cell right after, laughed his ass off, then hung up. Other than that, nothin’ yet.”
Sam checked his disappointment. “Oh.”
Dean rapped his knuckles on Wendy La Butte’s journal. “And the not-so-great news: Marie Pierres is dead.”
“I think we already knew that, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think Henry’s doin’ what we think he’s doin’.”
Sam frowned. “What do you mean?”
Dean flipped the journal open, thumbed through the pages. “Well, I got month after month of fuckin’ apple bullshit here and then a coupla very interesting entries about Henry’s technique that are…frankly kinda worth takin’ notes.” He waggled the diary, squinted at Sam. “We see a lotta these girly journals, Sam. I need to be payin’ more attention to these things.”
Beth made a disgusted noise, and Sam cleared his throat.
“Dean.”
“What? I’m just sayin’. Horse’s mouth. You can’t go past it.” He flashed his tongue across the flat of his thumb, turned the pages until he found the one he was after. “So blah, blah, blah, disgruntled housewife, apples, trees, apples, then on June twelfth: three word entry.” He spun the diary around so Sam could see, read it aloud. “‘She’s been calling.’”
Sam squinted, doubtful. “That could be anyone.”
Dean let out a dry laugh. “Oh, there’s more. This Wendy chick goes from saplings to psycho in about two-point-five seconds.”
He turned a few more pages, and Sam leaned to slap his hand on an ink-dark centerfold, held it open. “Holy shit.”
“Uh, yeah,” Dean agreed brightly, motioning to the angry scrawl. “Note how the pen’s gone through the page once or twice here.”
Beth slipped off the counter top. “Oh my God, I didn’t flip that far.”
Dean let off a sharp bark of a laugh. “Oh, don’t worry - I think Wendy flipped far enough for everyone. I think we’ve got our killer.”
Sam crossed his arms, chewed his lip. “Okay, so what are we saying here? Henry has an affair with Marie Pierres, fathers Jacqueline, but then Wendy finds out so he breaks it off and takes his family to Beckley?”
“Looks like.”
“Does he know about Jacqueline? Does he know she’s his?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think it matters. We know he was around after she was born. He knew she existed, but…maybe that’s why Marie came to see him. Come clean and tell him she was his daughter.”
“And Wendy finds out.”
“About the phone calls at least. Yeah.”
“And she thinks the affair’s still going.”
“Maybe it is. Either way, Henry arranges to meet Marie on the old railway track, where they won’t get disturbed. Wendy follows. Things get ugly, gun gets pulled…” Dean cocked an imaginary pistol at Sam, but then swung the muzzle toward Beth and yanked the trigger. “Bang. Goodnight, Marie. They panic, bury the body, go home, and never breathe a word. Jesus. Cops around here must be the special brand of stupid.”
Sam rubbed at his mouth absently, nodded. “Henry’s protecting his wife’s memory. The body on the trail. The diaries at the house. He’s covering for her.”
“Just like he did right up until the car accident. And after that, what’s the point? He lays down a chunk of money in his will for Jacqueline and then blows his head off. Till death do us fuckin’ part.”
“Isn’t that a bit of a leap?” Beth looked from Dean to Sam and back again, one eyebrow arching. “She has a vent in her diary, ergo murderer?”
“Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…we usually find those things are ducks. Right, Sammy?”
It was true. In a job where the factors and variables were so infuriatingly unpredictable, the most logical and obvious explanation was still often the correct one.
“Well, he was having an affair,” Sam conceded.
“Right,” Beth said sardonically. “And it’s not like any woman could possibly keep it together after her husband was unfaithful. That would indicate some self-worth outside her relationship, which is ridiculous.”
“No,” Sam corrected hurriedly. “I just meant I don’t think anyone was wearing their Sunday best here.”
Dean looked amused. He pointed at Beth, swiveled his face to Sam. “She’s playin’ the gender card. Remember Jo with her gender card?”
Sam scrubbed a hand down his face in lieu of answering.
“I miss Jo and her gender card,” Dean was telling Beth. He pointed to the side of his head. “Made my eye twitch.”
“I’m not playing any card,” Beth said, defensive. “You’re making a huge assumption based on someone’s private journal. She never intended anyone to read that.”
“No shit.” Dean turned a few more pages, read another entry aloud. “‘I’ve been practicing with the pistol. Henry thinks it’s for the coyotes.’” He drilled Beth with a telling stare. “Oh wait, she’s probably talkin’ about the apples. Wily fuckers.”
Beth looked exasperated, and Dean pressed on.
“Do you have any idea what the statistics are on fucked up, psychotic bullshit between the dead sexes?”
“No.” Beth folded her arms.
“Well, neither do I. You know why? ‘Cause I don’t give a rat’s ass. Crazy’s crazy. We salt it, we burn it, and next week Casper’ll be packin’ tackle, or not, or whatever. I don’t keep track. You wanna have a discussion about Wendy La Butte lettin’ her side down with the Reverse Fatal Attraction, you can write your local paper when the story breaks. But we’ll be on our way out of Dodge with the kerosene and matches. I’ll be the guy eatin’ a doughnut and not givin’ a shit.”
Beth looked to Sam. He reddened at Dean’s tactlessness, but he did have to agree.
“Dean’s right. Women…men. It’s a pretty even split on the crazy.”
“People do dumb things for love. Period.” Dean slapped the diary shut. “Don’t even get me started on poetry.”
“People do dumb things for all kinds of reasons. Not just love,” Beth corrected, and Dean tilted his temple in consensus.
“No argument here.” He perked up suddenly like a bloodhound, listened. “Is that my cell?”
Sam heard it ringing in the bedroom.
“Sonuva…” Dean made an awkward move to rise, and Sam saved him the trouble.
“I’ll get it.”
The call had gone to voicemail by the time he brought it back.
“Guess who?” Dean said while he listened to the playback, and in non-answer to Sam’s questioning face. He pressed the option to return the call, blew out a long breath. “Well, this should be fun.”
Sam caught on, grimaced. “Damn. She was sort of okay when I talked to her last night.” He thought back to the brusqueness with which he’d spilled the situation and then bailed. “I did keep it kinda short, though.”
Dean silenced him with his raised plaster cast when she answered. “Ellen.”
Sam fetched his coffee, kept an eye and ear on Dean’s conversation. He rested his hip on the edge of the bench beside Beth. She seemed deep in thought, fingers rising absently to wind in the hair at the nape of his neck, sending warm tingles down his spine.
“Yeah, no. I’m fine,” Dean was saying. He listened, lips pursed for a moment and then, “No…Yes…No…No…No, like being licked by puppies.” He rolled his eyes at Sam, shook his head at the ceiling. “Yeah, I know. We lied. We suck out loud. Ash around?” He scratched the side of his cast on the table, like it might have had an itch. “Well, what’s he sayin’?”
Sam could hear the faint peaks and troughs of Ellen’s voice from where he stood. Dean listened, the crease of his brow growing deeper, until he gave up and held the phone away from his ear.
“I am far too heavily medicated for this conversation. Sam?”
Sam came off the counter, lunged to catch the phone when Dean blindly threw it, and managed to spill only a little of his brew. He dropped the mug to the table and wiped the hot mess from his fingers on his pants - shot Dean a reproachful look as he brought the cell to his ear.
“Hey Ellen. It’s Sam. Back up a sec, you just broke Dean.”
Ellen segued. “I am so angry at you boys right now, I can’t think straight.”
“I know. We’re really sorry. Thank you for last night.”
“Don’t thank me, Sam,” she warned. “Don’t thank me like you’re not some sneaky jackass.”
“Okay.” He stayed quiet while she gave him the run down on Ash’s search. He could see where Dean had a problem. It seemed like a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo to get to how he hadn’t found anything. “So, basically, nothing?”
“The problem is we’ve got too many somethings. You want specific, you’re gonna have to give him more to go on.”
“Crap. Okay.” Sam nodded. “So, I know we’re not your favorite people this minute, but we do owe you an explanation, and Dean could use some place to heal up for a while. I gotta finish a job here today, but we were kinda hoping we could head to you after that. Regroup. See if Ash can dig up anything else.”
There was a long silence on Ellen’s end of the phone, and Sam could hear the crack of a pool break in the background.
“Ellen, please. He’s busted up pretty good. I could use a hand keeping him off his feet.”
“Oh, fuck you, Sam Winchester,” she sighed, hot on the heels of his play, but the insult lacked any real heat.
“Than-”
“Don’t. Thank. Me.”
“All right. I won’t. I’ll explain everything when we get there. I promise.”
“Damn straight, you will.”
He was about to sign off when she remembered something. “Oh. I nearly forgot. You can tell your brother Spence’s surfaced.”
Sam felt his skin crawl and his mouth go dry. “What?”
“Spencer. He turned up here last night. ‘Bout an hour after your friend called.”
The blood drained from his face. Dean frowned at him in sudden apprehension.
“Was it-? Is he-?” Sam was suddenly very aware of Beth’s eyes on him. He turned abruptly and moved out of kitchen toward the front porch where he could speak freely. “Are you sure?”
“What do you mean, am I sure?”
“Is he still there?” Sam pushed out onto the porch, hot surge of blood through the veins gunning around a block of ice in his gut.
“No. He was just passing through. Asked after you boys, had a beer and a steak, played a couple of games of pool. Then he left.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I didn’t know where you were. And that last I heard, you were in Vermont.”
“Wait. You didn’t say anything?”
“Let’s just say I went ahead and assumed you pair of yellow-bellies bald-faced lied to me for a goddamn reason.”
“Okay, good. Ellen, listen to me. If he comes back, you can’t let him in. You hear me?”
“Sam, this is my place of business. My doors don’t close just because you boys’ve got yourselves in the stink with some hunter.”
“Ellen, listen! Do not let Spencer Keehan back in your bar. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
She did. Her tone changed. “Sam, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know exactly. But you need to take a look at your security. Arm up, get some salt down. We’ll come to you.”
When he stepped back inside the cabin, Dean was already picking a careful path across the living room in pursuit.
“Spencer Keehan turned up at the Roadhouse last night.” It spilled out of Sam in a tumbled rush, ran together like one overly long word, and Dean blanched like he’d been punched.
“What?”
“Ellen said Keehan was there.”
It caught Dean completely off guard. He gave Sam a series of baffled blinks, and then slowly the appalling possibilities began to reshape his expression.
“When?” he demanded.
“Last night.”
“Sam, what time?”
“I dunno. After Beth called. An hour. I think she said an hour.”
His gaze went soft while he did the math. “What time is it?”
Sam checked his watch. “It’s nearly half past ten.” His hand was shaking. Sam clenched it, released, but the tremor remained. “Jesus Christ,” he said wildly, the implications beginning to settle.
“Sam, stay calm.”
“Stay calm? Jesus Christ.”
“Hey! Don’t freak out. We need to think, here.”
Sam knotted his fingers in the hair on either side of his temples, took a couple of deep steadying breaths. Think. Think. He couldn’t force his mind past the kitchen and Beth and you stupid fuck. You stupid, stupid fuck. They’re all dead. She’s dead. And he’d known. There was no way she could have, but he had, and he’d chosen this for her. “Oh my God, Dean.”
“Okay, we need salt lines. Full internal sweep. Right now.”
When Sam didn’t move, Dean upped the volume.
“Sam! Snap to.”
The tone got him turned toward the kitchen, where he found Beth leaning in the doorway. There wasn’t anything he could do about the expression on his face, but in a few seconds, it wasn’t going to matter. He was about to have absolutely nothing to hide.
“Isn’t that good?” Beth gave him a befuddled frown. “That’s the guy you were looking for, right? You thought something had happened to him.”
Her expression was hesitant and unsure and so utterly without prescience that Sam was rendered unable to answer.
“Something did.” Dean said. “I killed him.”
Ch 8 Part II
Author: pdragon76
Rating: R (sailor mouths, sex, violence)
Genre: Het
Characters: Sam, Dean, OFC
Spoilers: Set late Season Two, after WIAWSNB. AU for timeline and some minor canon-jiggery.
Disclaimer: It’s Kripke’s world, we’re all just living in it. *snaps fingers, points*
Summary: Wherever you go, there you are.
A/N: This fic was commissioned for Sweet Charity by the very lovely janglyjewels , who wanted “something angsty that involves Sam and his powers”. Hope this scratches the itch, my dear. Chapters will post as completed. Apologies in advance to any native West Virginians. Beta’d by the feisty, astute
july_july_july and the ever insightful, truly delightful riverbella . Isolated pockets harangued by the hawk-eyed kimonkey7 . These guys demand that I earn it - and own it - to the best of my debatable ability, every step of the way. Any remaining niggles, wtf’s and humdingers are mine, all mine. Sorry about the delay on this one, folks. Two-part post, due to length.
Previous chapter links: Ch1 Ch2 Ch3 Ch4 Ch5 Ch6 Ch7
Escape is never the safest path.
~ ‘Dissident’, Pearl Jam
Dean was coming up on his knees, still sucking back like a surfacing seal when Sam reached him. There was nothing remotely calm or collected about the way he slammed Dean against the wall, frantic hands searching for the wet of a fresh wound. Dean struggled, disoriented, and then his eyes widened in panic and his own hands flew to his chest.
“It’s okay.” Sam yanked down the neck of his brother’s shirt, exposed a smooth V of undamaged flesh as proof. “You’re alright.”
Dean went limp with relief, devoted himself to the desperate business of his redeployed lungs.
In the shadows of the basement, the security guard was rising to his feet with a chortle. “Now, that’s a little more like it.” He clapped the dust from his hands and his pants, started across the room.
Sam rose too, with a sudden confidence. “I wouldn’t come any closer.”
“Well, hell.” The Yellow-Eyed Demon made a mockery of looking abashed, stopped and held up both palms. “Look who’s finally playing at the big boys’ games.”
“Kee-,” Dean wheezed, and Sam turned at the warning, caught Spencer on his hands and knees beating a path to the shotgun on the floor.
Sam lunged for the weapon first, scooped it up by the barrel, and jacked the stock hard into Keehan’s face. When that failed to put him out of action, Sam did it again a lot harder. Spencer fell slackly to the floor.
The guard chuckled. “You show him, killer.”
Dean was levering up, one shoulder to the wall and still bent around a hacking cough. Sam moved to provide cover, the shotgun useless but at the ready in his hands. He passed the dropped .44 on the way, gave it a shunt back toward his brother with his heel.
“Dean, gun.”
“Got it,” Dean spluttered behind him.
The Yellow-Eyed Demon rubbed his hands together. “Well kids, I’d love to stick around and shoot the shit. Fuck knows we’ve got enough to talk about. But I’m on a bit of a schedule, and…” his amused gaze fell to the unconscious hunter, “…realistically? Even you guys’ll have trouble screwin’ this up from here.”
Sam’s fingers opened and closed around the cool weapon in his hands, attention hopping between the demon and Keehan. He waited. Behind him, he could hear Dean’s labored breathing - the clicks and snaps of the .44 being secured.
The guard made pistols of both hands, clucked his tongue. “Do me a favor and watch your six, kid. You’re about to get popular.” He jutted his chin towards Dean. “Now, do I need to draw you a diagram, Dean? Or can you take it from here?”
“You can draw yourself suckin’ cock in Hell,” Dean panted. “‘Cause that’s where I’m gonna put you.”
The demon gave him a slow, smug curl of the lip. “I’ll be sure to say hi to your Daddy, then.”
Dean snapped the gun up and fired - one solitary, sharp report - but the guard was already gone.
For a moment there was nothing but their harsh breaths, the buzz of the swinging basement globe as it rocked the room with an arc of dirty yellow light.
Sam felt something at his lip, brought a hand from the shotgun to his face and tasted blood at the same time he saw it on his fingers.
His brother saw it, too. A calloused hand was suddenly rough at the back of Sam’s neck, thumb snug behind his ear angling his face for inspection. Dean’s face was stormy.
Sam wiped hurriedly at his nose with trembling fingers, pushed at Dean’s chest to send away his scrutiny. “I’m fine. I’m good.”
A crinkled, ancient diner napkin was liberated from the depths of Dean’s pocket and pressed into Sam’s unsteady hands. Under any other circumstances he would have handed it right back in disgust, but he held it beneath his nose, stemmed the flow.
His brother gave him a bolstering clap to the shoulder, moved to Keehan. When he got to the motionless hunter, he booted Spencer in the ribs so hard it made Sam jump.
“Get up, you sonuvabitch.”
The hunter half-rolled, groaned, and Dean let him have it again just as hard.
“I said, ‘up’, you sack of shit.”
Keehan curled on the floor, started to get a clumsy knee under him, and Dean lost patience, dragged him the rest of the way to his feet by a handful of his greasy hair. He threw him against the nearest wall, and Spencer only just got his arm up in time to save himself a busted nose.
“You see that, Dean? You see what just happened here?” Keehan’s voice was low, sure of himself.
“Shut up.” Dean kicked at his ankle and Spencer wisely widened his stance before he had to be asked again. He flattened his palms against the wall and docilely submitted to the pat down.
Sam watched while Dean stripped a backup piece and relieved Keehan of three blades, sent them off on a shearing slide across the basement floor.
“You see what your brother did?”
Dean gave the back of Spencer’s skull a shove, cracked his cheek off the wall with enough force that he sagged, and Sam moved instinctively to intervene.
“Dean-”
“Go to the car.” It was as plain an order as Dean had ever given him, and Sam stuttered to a stop. There was a drawn out silence, in which Sam tried to convince himself he didn’t know the answer to his next question.
“What are you doing?”
Spencer rustled up a cough, sent a bloody projectile from his lips that clung wetly down the wall. “Whattaya think he’s doin’, you retard?”
Dean didn’t turn around. His fingers bunched in the back of Keehan’s shirt, and he bowed his head.
“Sam, get the fuck outta here.”
“No.”
“I will cuff this sonuvabitch, drop you, and drag you out of here if I have to. So help me God.”
“Dean, what are you gonna do?”
“Nothin’. I’m gonna give him a choice.”
Sam’s feet wouldn’t move him. Then Dean turned his head, and Sam caught the stony, shadowed set of his profiled face beneath the stilled basement light.
He collected Keehan’s gun and the blades from the floor. Took the stairs two at a time, because not setting foot on that first step felt like the only way he was getting up them.
The first gunshot stopped him in the doorway to the alley, boomeranged him back toward the basement on blind, dumb instinct. The second discharge froze him again, close on the heels of the first. He waited, staring at the black mouth of the stairwell until the third report cracked the air like a door slamming shut. Sam had worked with his brother long enough to know.
Two in the chest. Head shot.
He abandoned the building, knuckles running rough along the brick the entire way down the alley.
*****************************************************************
Morning snuck rude and relentless beneath the bedroom curtains. Sam watched it arrive, lying quiet and blinking in the dawn half-light. The feeling in his left arm was long lost, and if he didn’t do something about that soon, he was probably facing amputation. But when he moved, she was going to wake up, and the day would begin, and by tomorrow the state of West Virginia would just be one more place they’d got stopped a while. An arm seemed small price to pay for a couple more stolen minutes.
He let himself doze.
It was Dean that wrested them both from sleep some time later. Sam ignored the sounds of his brother seeking egress from his bed until the soft creaks of springs and boards graduated to audible cussing, and Beth stirred against his side.
“Does he need help?”
“You have no idea.”
Beth’s nose crinkled beneath her sleep-swelled eyes. “Don’t be clever. I’m not awake enough for clever.”
“Sorry.”
“He sounds like he needs help.”
Sam let the ceiling have a sigh, then tossed Dean’s name across the hall on a shout.
“What?” Dean barked back, like he didn’t have time for interruptions.
“Y’alright?”
Sam waited for an answer that didn’t come. Beth’s thigh dragged across his own, and he got a face full of her bare breasts as she shifted up and leaned to reach the alarm clock. He closed his eyes, lost a short argument with his dick about the propriety of any response.
“Jesus, get your…” he tugged on the back of Beth’s hair, “…naked…off me.”
“What day is it?” she asked, face pressed to the analog face of the clock.
“Tuesday. Christ, you’re killing me here. Off.” Sam took the clock from her and returned it to the bedside, forcibly relocated her to the other side of the sheets.
Beth screwed a fist into one eye like an indignant sloth.
“Dean!” Sam hollered again. “You need a hand?”
There was another long silence, in which Dean was no doubt grappling with the hard facts of his situation.
“You comin’ or what?” he snapped eventually.
Sam really, really didn’t want to get out of bed, but when he curled towards Beth for refuge, she slapped a hand against his face.
“Coffee doesn’t make itself.”
From the doorway, it wasn’t immediately obvious whether Dean wanted to be in or out of his bed. It was entirely possible he was just trying to scale the bedside table.
“Are you tryna fall out or get back in?”
At least he’d managed to get some pants on.
“Fuck you.”
“In or out?” Sam moved to help, and Dean made a frustrated, multidirectional gesture that was of no assistance whatsoever.
“Up, asshole.”
“You sure? ‘Cause it doesn’t look like that’s working for you. You take your pills?”
“Where d’you think I’m goin’, you fuckknuckle?”
Oh. The painkillers were in the bathroom, and yeah, that was Sam’s bad because he should have noticed while he was showering last night. When he brought them back through, Dean was bent in clenched-teeth, blasphemous pray over the altar of the nightstand.
“Touch me and I break your fingers.”
Sam put the pills on the stand, held up both hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Maybe you should lie down.”
“Fuck that. I lay down, I gotta get up again.”
“Fine. Stay there, then.”
Sam left him clinging to the bedside table and went to make coffee. He took a piss and passed his toothbrush over his teeth while he waited for the caffeine to brew. By the time he’d poured three steaming cups of joe, Beth had made it out of bed and into her clothes, which was as big a crime as Sam could think of on the spot.
“I was bringing it.” He lifted a cup in his defense.
“I couldn’t wait,” she grumbled, hair askew and heels dragging.
He handed over a mug. “You’re really not a morning person, are you?”
“Shut up.” She deposited the cup on the counter beside Sam’s hip and came up on her tip-toes to kiss him. He bent to meet her, tasted the toothpaste detour on her tongue. When his neck began to protest their poor geometry, Sam turned them both and lifted her to the counter’s edge. He let his fingertips play on the smooth span of skin where her t-shirt didn’t quite meet her jeans, gave her lips his full and unhurried attention.
“I really wish you didn’t have to leave,” she said, when Sam broke the kiss to move his coffee mug before they spilled it.
“Me, too.” He knew they should stop. It was all just torture from here on in, but Sam couldn’t get his mouth to be done with her.
Dean was more than happy to put a stop to proceedings, though. “Oh, get a room,” he bitched bitterly as he stalked in on his crutches.
Sam vacated the comfortable niche between Beth’s thighs, and she leaned to retrieve her mug from further along the counter.
“There’s coffee,” she said amicably, holding hers aloft, but Dean made no show he’d heard.
He sent Wendy La Butte’s journal spinning onto the table with a flick of his good wrist. “So you want the good news or the bad news?”
Sam froze mid-swallow, then downed his coffee with an exaggerated gulp. “I don’t think you’ve ever actually asked me that, and then had some good news.”
“Fair call. You want the bad news or the not-so-great news?”
Sam gave him a long-suffering smile.
Dean abandoned the crutches and slid gingerly into a chair. He waited, eyes closed and mouth a hard straight line, while his body’s clear protestations receded. He really did look like hell. “So, for starters, I’d just like to verify there is abso-fucking-lutely no position I can stay asleep in for longer than twenty minutes. And that’s not crazy-making at all.”
“That sucks.” Sam winced sympathetically. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Yeah,” Dean’s eyebrows shot up and his smile was heavy on the sarcasm. “Well, you sure sounded it. Anyway, so last night while we were all not sleeping, I emailed Ash the stuff we’ve got on your diner. And the bad news is it didn’t look any more specific after I typed it up and put in a bunch of bullet point thingies.”
“You got up?” Sam asked guiltily. “I didn’t hear.”
Dean balked in feigned surprise. “Gee, I wonder why.”
Sam’s ears burned, eyes on his mug. “He get back to you?”
Dean let him have a long, cruel silence, then he started dramatically and tugged at his earlobe. “Oh, I’m sorry, are you talking to me? I thought you were talking to your coffee there.”
It was an effort to look up. Dean’s poker-face was poorly concealing his delight at Sam’s discomfort.
“Will you stop, please?”
“Not even for money,” Dean shot back like a ricochet, but he stopped all the same. “He called, yeah. Dialed my cell right after, laughed his ass off, then hung up. Other than that, nothin’ yet.”
Sam checked his disappointment. “Oh.”
Dean rapped his knuckles on Wendy La Butte’s journal. “And the not-so-great news: Marie Pierres is dead.”
“I think we already knew that, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think Henry’s doin’ what we think he’s doin’.”
Sam frowned. “What do you mean?”
Dean flipped the journal open, thumbed through the pages. “Well, I got month after month of fuckin’ apple bullshit here and then a coupla very interesting entries about Henry’s technique that are…frankly kinda worth takin’ notes.” He waggled the diary, squinted at Sam. “We see a lotta these girly journals, Sam. I need to be payin’ more attention to these things.”
Beth made a disgusted noise, and Sam cleared his throat.
“Dean.”
“What? I’m just sayin’. Horse’s mouth. You can’t go past it.” He flashed his tongue across the flat of his thumb, turned the pages until he found the one he was after. “So blah, blah, blah, disgruntled housewife, apples, trees, apples, then on June twelfth: three word entry.” He spun the diary around so Sam could see, read it aloud. “‘She’s been calling.’”
Sam squinted, doubtful. “That could be anyone.”
Dean let out a dry laugh. “Oh, there’s more. This Wendy chick goes from saplings to psycho in about two-point-five seconds.”
He turned a few more pages, and Sam leaned to slap his hand on an ink-dark centerfold, held it open. “Holy shit.”
“Uh, yeah,” Dean agreed brightly, motioning to the angry scrawl. “Note how the pen’s gone through the page once or twice here.”
Beth slipped off the counter top. “Oh my God, I didn’t flip that far.”
Dean let off a sharp bark of a laugh. “Oh, don’t worry - I think Wendy flipped far enough for everyone. I think we’ve got our killer.”
Sam crossed his arms, chewed his lip. “Okay, so what are we saying here? Henry has an affair with Marie Pierres, fathers Jacqueline, but then Wendy finds out so he breaks it off and takes his family to Beckley?”
“Looks like.”
“Does he know about Jacqueline? Does he know she’s his?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think it matters. We know he was around after she was born. He knew she existed, but…maybe that’s why Marie came to see him. Come clean and tell him she was his daughter.”
“And Wendy finds out.”
“About the phone calls at least. Yeah.”
“And she thinks the affair’s still going.”
“Maybe it is. Either way, Henry arranges to meet Marie on the old railway track, where they won’t get disturbed. Wendy follows. Things get ugly, gun gets pulled…” Dean cocked an imaginary pistol at Sam, but then swung the muzzle toward Beth and yanked the trigger. “Bang. Goodnight, Marie. They panic, bury the body, go home, and never breathe a word. Jesus. Cops around here must be the special brand of stupid.”
Sam rubbed at his mouth absently, nodded. “Henry’s protecting his wife’s memory. The body on the trail. The diaries at the house. He’s covering for her.”
“Just like he did right up until the car accident. And after that, what’s the point? He lays down a chunk of money in his will for Jacqueline and then blows his head off. Till death do us fuckin’ part.”
“Isn’t that a bit of a leap?” Beth looked from Dean to Sam and back again, one eyebrow arching. “She has a vent in her diary, ergo murderer?”
“Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…we usually find those things are ducks. Right, Sammy?”
It was true. In a job where the factors and variables were so infuriatingly unpredictable, the most logical and obvious explanation was still often the correct one.
“Well, he was having an affair,” Sam conceded.
“Right,” Beth said sardonically. “And it’s not like any woman could possibly keep it together after her husband was unfaithful. That would indicate some self-worth outside her relationship, which is ridiculous.”
“No,” Sam corrected hurriedly. “I just meant I don’t think anyone was wearing their Sunday best here.”
Dean looked amused. He pointed at Beth, swiveled his face to Sam. “She’s playin’ the gender card. Remember Jo with her gender card?”
Sam scrubbed a hand down his face in lieu of answering.
“I miss Jo and her gender card,” Dean was telling Beth. He pointed to the side of his head. “Made my eye twitch.”
“I’m not playing any card,” Beth said, defensive. “You’re making a huge assumption based on someone’s private journal. She never intended anyone to read that.”
“No shit.” Dean turned a few more pages, read another entry aloud. “‘I’ve been practicing with the pistol. Henry thinks it’s for the coyotes.’” He drilled Beth with a telling stare. “Oh wait, she’s probably talkin’ about the apples. Wily fuckers.”
Beth looked exasperated, and Dean pressed on.
“Do you have any idea what the statistics are on fucked up, psychotic bullshit between the dead sexes?”
“No.” Beth folded her arms.
“Well, neither do I. You know why? ‘Cause I don’t give a rat’s ass. Crazy’s crazy. We salt it, we burn it, and next week Casper’ll be packin’ tackle, or not, or whatever. I don’t keep track. You wanna have a discussion about Wendy La Butte lettin’ her side down with the Reverse Fatal Attraction, you can write your local paper when the story breaks. But we’ll be on our way out of Dodge with the kerosene and matches. I’ll be the guy eatin’ a doughnut and not givin’ a shit.”
Beth looked to Sam. He reddened at Dean’s tactlessness, but he did have to agree.
“Dean’s right. Women…men. It’s a pretty even split on the crazy.”
“People do dumb things for love. Period.” Dean slapped the diary shut. “Don’t even get me started on poetry.”
“People do dumb things for all kinds of reasons. Not just love,” Beth corrected, and Dean tilted his temple in consensus.
“No argument here.” He perked up suddenly like a bloodhound, listened. “Is that my cell?”
Sam heard it ringing in the bedroom.
“Sonuva…” Dean made an awkward move to rise, and Sam saved him the trouble.
“I’ll get it.”
The call had gone to voicemail by the time he brought it back.
“Guess who?” Dean said while he listened to the playback, and in non-answer to Sam’s questioning face. He pressed the option to return the call, blew out a long breath. “Well, this should be fun.”
Sam caught on, grimaced. “Damn. She was sort of okay when I talked to her last night.” He thought back to the brusqueness with which he’d spilled the situation and then bailed. “I did keep it kinda short, though.”
Dean silenced him with his raised plaster cast when she answered. “Ellen.”
Sam fetched his coffee, kept an eye and ear on Dean’s conversation. He rested his hip on the edge of the bench beside Beth. She seemed deep in thought, fingers rising absently to wind in the hair at the nape of his neck, sending warm tingles down his spine.
“Yeah, no. I’m fine,” Dean was saying. He listened, lips pursed for a moment and then, “No…Yes…No…No…No, like being licked by puppies.” He rolled his eyes at Sam, shook his head at the ceiling. “Yeah, I know. We lied. We suck out loud. Ash around?” He scratched the side of his cast on the table, like it might have had an itch. “Well, what’s he sayin’?”
Sam could hear the faint peaks and troughs of Ellen’s voice from where he stood. Dean listened, the crease of his brow growing deeper, until he gave up and held the phone away from his ear.
“I am far too heavily medicated for this conversation. Sam?”
Sam came off the counter, lunged to catch the phone when Dean blindly threw it, and managed to spill only a little of his brew. He dropped the mug to the table and wiped the hot mess from his fingers on his pants - shot Dean a reproachful look as he brought the cell to his ear.
“Hey Ellen. It’s Sam. Back up a sec, you just broke Dean.”
Ellen segued. “I am so angry at you boys right now, I can’t think straight.”
“I know. We’re really sorry. Thank you for last night.”
“Don’t thank me, Sam,” she warned. “Don’t thank me like you’re not some sneaky jackass.”
“Okay.” He stayed quiet while she gave him the run down on Ash’s search. He could see where Dean had a problem. It seemed like a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo to get to how he hadn’t found anything. “So, basically, nothing?”
“The problem is we’ve got too many somethings. You want specific, you’re gonna have to give him more to go on.”
“Crap. Okay.” Sam nodded. “So, I know we’re not your favorite people this minute, but we do owe you an explanation, and Dean could use some place to heal up for a while. I gotta finish a job here today, but we were kinda hoping we could head to you after that. Regroup. See if Ash can dig up anything else.”
There was a long silence on Ellen’s end of the phone, and Sam could hear the crack of a pool break in the background.
“Ellen, please. He’s busted up pretty good. I could use a hand keeping him off his feet.”
“Oh, fuck you, Sam Winchester,” she sighed, hot on the heels of his play, but the insult lacked any real heat.
“Than-”
“Don’t. Thank. Me.”
“All right. I won’t. I’ll explain everything when we get there. I promise.”
“Damn straight, you will.”
He was about to sign off when she remembered something. “Oh. I nearly forgot. You can tell your brother Spence’s surfaced.”
Sam felt his skin crawl and his mouth go dry. “What?”
“Spencer. He turned up here last night. ‘Bout an hour after your friend called.”
The blood drained from his face. Dean frowned at him in sudden apprehension.
“Was it-? Is he-?” Sam was suddenly very aware of Beth’s eyes on him. He turned abruptly and moved out of kitchen toward the front porch where he could speak freely. “Are you sure?”
“What do you mean, am I sure?”
“Is he still there?” Sam pushed out onto the porch, hot surge of blood through the veins gunning around a block of ice in his gut.
“No. He was just passing through. Asked after you boys, had a beer and a steak, played a couple of games of pool. Then he left.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I didn’t know where you were. And that last I heard, you were in Vermont.”
“Wait. You didn’t say anything?”
“Let’s just say I went ahead and assumed you pair of yellow-bellies bald-faced lied to me for a goddamn reason.”
“Okay, good. Ellen, listen to me. If he comes back, you can’t let him in. You hear me?”
“Sam, this is my place of business. My doors don’t close just because you boys’ve got yourselves in the stink with some hunter.”
“Ellen, listen! Do not let Spencer Keehan back in your bar. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
She did. Her tone changed. “Sam, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know exactly. But you need to take a look at your security. Arm up, get some salt down. We’ll come to you.”
When he stepped back inside the cabin, Dean was already picking a careful path across the living room in pursuit.
“Spencer Keehan turned up at the Roadhouse last night.” It spilled out of Sam in a tumbled rush, ran together like one overly long word, and Dean blanched like he’d been punched.
“What?”
“Ellen said Keehan was there.”
It caught Dean completely off guard. He gave Sam a series of baffled blinks, and then slowly the appalling possibilities began to reshape his expression.
“When?” he demanded.
“Last night.”
“Sam, what time?”
“I dunno. After Beth called. An hour. I think she said an hour.”
His gaze went soft while he did the math. “What time is it?”
Sam checked his watch. “It’s nearly half past ten.” His hand was shaking. Sam clenched it, released, but the tremor remained. “Jesus Christ,” he said wildly, the implications beginning to settle.
“Sam, stay calm.”
“Stay calm? Jesus Christ.”
“Hey! Don’t freak out. We need to think, here.”
Sam knotted his fingers in the hair on either side of his temples, took a couple of deep steadying breaths. Think. Think. He couldn’t force his mind past the kitchen and Beth and you stupid fuck. You stupid, stupid fuck. They’re all dead. She’s dead. And he’d known. There was no way she could have, but he had, and he’d chosen this for her. “Oh my God, Dean.”
“Okay, we need salt lines. Full internal sweep. Right now.”
When Sam didn’t move, Dean upped the volume.
“Sam! Snap to.”
The tone got him turned toward the kitchen, where he found Beth leaning in the doorway. There wasn’t anything he could do about the expression on his face, but in a few seconds, it wasn’t going to matter. He was about to have absolutely nothing to hide.
“Isn’t that good?” Beth gave him a befuddled frown. “That’s the guy you were looking for, right? You thought something had happened to him.”
Her expression was hesitant and unsure and so utterly without prescience that Sam was rendered unable to answer.
“Something did.” Dean said. “I killed him.”
Ch 8 Part II