Bridges Alight (Gen, PG-13)
Title: Bridges Alight
Rating: PG-13
Category: AU gen oneshot
Word Count: 8463
Characters: Sam and Dean, with asst. canon and non-canon characters.
Spoilers: None
Summary: Fifteen years ago, a man stepped out of flames on the bridge.
Warnings: None
Author’s Notes: Written for the wonderful legoline’s birthday. I asked her for a few prompts, and out of those, I picked three of them to throw together. As such, this includes her prompts of the following: “Some hurt!Dean…Baby animals!fanfiction with Dean and baby animals” and then, the final bit that makes or breaks the whole story where she said, “...A scenario or possibly an AU that has Dean and Sam fighting in the Civil War...or maybe just wearing the uniforms or living on a cotton plantation…” And out of all that? Voila. Fic.
Mountains of gratitude to equinox_blue and tru_faith_lost for serving as betas for this one by answering questions and endless emails and helping out in nearly every way possible by fact-checking and word-checking and triple-checking it all. Thank you both so very much.
Any remaining mistakes are mine alone and are not the reflection of anyone else. Cross-posted around.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
- - - - -
Southern United States
Early 1840’s
Prologue
The river ran through the town, splitting the land into neatly divided north and south halves before it twisted and turned its way out to the Mississippi and joined the water traveling to the ocean.
Most of the older residents had their share of ghost stories about the river, claiming they knew a friend of a friend who had drown in it or a lovesick teenager who had taken off in their handcrafted raft never to be seen again. Not that any of these stories discouraged the area children. The river was still the prime place for swimming and fishing, sailboat races and kissing your sweetheart on the banks.
The Winchester boys were no different from the rest of the town’s kids-save for Sam, the younger, who was at the age when girls were “icky,” and the idea of calling anyone his sweetheart, let alone kissing her, made his stomach turn. But he enjoyed everything else that the river had to offer, so Sam and Dean packed up their fishing gear and went down to the bridge not far from their parents’ plantation.
They caught five fish in the first hour or so they were there and then sat for a while longer. Dean was in good spirits; it was a perfect summer day and he was proud of the size of fish they had caught. Sam, on the other hand, was feeling the onset of a headache, and he laid down his fishing pole to rub at his temples in an attempt to ease away the pain.
“You all right?” Dean asked, concerned.
“Yeah, jus’ this headache. Wish it’d go away,” Sam said. He closed his eyes and sighed, focusing on his breathing. Headaches weren’t uncommon for him, but their familiarity didn’t make them any easier to suffer through.
Feeling the pain ebb away slightly, Sam stretched, twisting his head to stretch out his neck muscles as he opened his eyes toward the other side of the river.
On the end of the bridge, flames burned, bright and brilliant above the wooden planks, and a shadowed figured appeared in the midst of them, as if stepping out of the fire.
Sam inhaled sharply and scrambled away from that end of the bridge, moving closer to Dean.
“Sammy?” Dean looked up, concerned. “What’s goin’ on?”
Before Sam could reply, a horse galloped over the hill. Bobby, one of their father’s lifelong friends and neighbors, leapt from the horse.
“Boys!” he yelled. “Drop that! There’s an accident back home! Your parents are hurt! Now! Move!”
Without any questions, Sam and Dean jumped to their feet, leaving behind their fishing tackle. Bobby helped them onto the horse.
“Go! Quick!” he said to Dean, shoving the reins at him. With Sam holding onto his waist, Dean snapped the reins and spurred the horse forward. As the horse raced across the field, Bobby grew smaller behind them and the smoke in front of them rose higher above the trees.
- - - - -
Fifteen Years Later
He plodded down the winding staircase, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand and trying to wake up for the day. The house was silent, left empty as everyone was already gone for the day. He sighed and wondered if it was possible to have overslept his way right through the afternoon. It seemed he had, felt like he was the only one left on the entire plantation. It had been a long night, and he needed the sleep, but this seemed ridiculous.
Passing through the foyer with its glittering chandelier overhead, he moved into the empty kitchen where he glanced out the window on the chance he could see anyone. As he had suspected, though, the fields were empty and the lane was abandoned. Even the dogs that usually ran between the barns were gone. Maybe there was someone outside he hadn’t seen…
He pushed open the side door and went outside, deciding that it was a warm enough day to go walking with bare feet. Besides, he had left his shoes in his room after returning home last night and was feeling too lazy to trek back upstairs to retrieve them.
The grass was still wet with dew as he stepped off the side porch and crossed the lawn. His toes slip-slid through the grass, the water wetting the bottoms of his trousers. Rising high into the sky, the sun was already vibrantly bright and warm. It sure was going to be one hot day, he thought.
He reached the pump that sat on the hill overlooking the fields and decided to fill the tin cup hanging from the handle. The pump groaned and creaked obstinately before spurting out a gush of water that sloshed over onto the front of his pants.
He scowled. Good grief. He was going to be soaking from head to toe in ten more minutes if he kept at this rate.
But, taking a long drink of the water was worth the wet pants to be able to stand there on the hill over the sprawling cotton fields. Hopefully, though, no one would come riding up and see him standing there in his patched trousers and untucked nightshirt with bare feet to top it all off.
Sam chuckled quietly at what the neighbor ladies would have to say about that. “Crazy Winchesters” would likely roll first off their tongues-it tended to from time to time anyway.
Not that they were cruel ladies by any sort. The entire town had always been more than welcoming to Sam and Dean in the light of their parents’ death a little more than fifteen years ago. There had been food by the trough-fulls following the fire that destroyed two of the houses and one of the fields. Pies and jellies, warm chicken and fresh vegetables. The town gave everything they had to the brothers until Bobby started turning people away with words of, “They just need to be alone now. Give ‘em some time.”
Bobby, who had gone from next-door neighbor to replacement father and plantation owner overnight. For those first several years, Bobby had stayed in the house with the boys, helping them as naturally as any parent would. As time passed and Dean and Sam grew, Bobby did less and less himself and gave the boys more and more responsibility and freedom of their own. Now, Bobby didn’t do much on the plantation but offer the occasionally needed guidance and visit for overly long meals that still were never quite long enough.
He helps out in other ways, a quiet part of Sam’s brain mused, before Sam shook his head, dismissing that thought. Not now.
Finishing off the last of the water, he leaned against the pump, inwardly pleased of how magnificent the plantation looked right now in the late morning sun. The fields of green cotton plants were endless, and neat little buildings lined the perimeter of the fields, until the hill crested up to the massive main home. It was the house that his grandfather built for his bride-to-be. It boasted a long driveway with a circular drive in front of the house where carriages and horses used to gather when John and Mary threw their lavish parties. The white house was large enough for at least a hundred or so guests with its wraparound porch, tall support columns and high outdoor balcony on the second floor.
As Sam stood, lost in his own thoughts, he didn’t notice Dean coming up from the fields until he was practically standing on Sam’s toes.
“Good to see yer finally up,” Dean commented, reaching for the cup from Sam’s hand and filling it with water for himself.
“I didn’t realize it was so late.” Sam paused and eyed his brother. “Why? How long have you been up?”
Dean shrugged, drinking. The water dribbled down his neck and onto his shirt. “Since daybreak while your lazy butt was still snorin' away upstairs.”
“Shut up,” Sam grumbled. He scratched the back of his head, deciding to change the subject, otherwise Dean was never going to let him hear the end of this one. “Sure is quiet. Thought I was the only one here.”
“They’re all at church, I think. Or in town. It’s Sunday, anyway. Most of ‘em are off, doin’ their own thing.”
Sam nodded as Dean pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped off his face. “Maybe we should go to church more,” Sam said.
“Why’s that?”
“Dunno. Just thought, I don’t know, maybe it’d do us some good.”
Dean snickered lightly, slapped Sam on the shoulder. “Why? You got worries of going to Hell or something?”
Sam flinched, didn’t mean to, but fortunately, Dean didn’t notice. “Mom always went, ‘member?”
Now, Dean sighed. “Yeah, I remember.”
They stood together in silence for a long while until Dean decided that they should go inside to get breakfast, and Sam followed him back up to the house, wet pants and all.
- - - - -
Breakfast was small being that neither of them was really that hungry and it was late enough in the day that lunch would be coming soon enough.
They talked about plans for the harvest and what Pierce was going to do in office. It was easy conversation, comfortable and familiar, and Sam was grateful for it. It became tiring after a while to continue to lie and hide so much.
“I was goin’ to head into town later today,” Sam said. “Anything you need?”
“Don’t think so. Why? What’re you getting?”
Sam shrugged. “Just stuff for ‘round the house. Thought I’d go and talk to people, let them know we’re still alive.”
Dean snorted dismissively. “They could come and see us for a change.”
“You know what Bobby said though about keepin’ a good face and all.”
“Yeah, I know.” Dean rolled his eyes. He knew, but he didn’t care sometimes.
“I’m going to get dressed then,” Sam said, pushing his chair away from the table.
“Yeah, don’t want to go into town and have all the ladies seein’ yer wet pants there, Sammy.” Dean winked as Sam stood up.
Sam glowered at Dean and was going to say something smart-assed back to him, but he decided against it, went upstairs to get changed while Dean laughed in victory at the kitchen table.
- - - - -
Once Sam had left-properly dressed, of course-and the house was quiet once again, Dean wandered through the rooms, checking to make sure things were cleaned and everything was in its right order. Not that there really was much to clean. Sam and Dean were the only two that stayed in the massive main house, save for Margaret, who slept in the one of the downstairs bedrooms when her husband was out of town. That hadn’t happened for a while. Lately, she had been coming during the day and leaving at night. So, other than the two of them and occasionally Margaret, no one stayed in the house. Three small people in one large space suited Margaret just fine as it gave her that much less work to do.
Some of the rooms were more decorated than others, such as their parents’ room that neither Sam nor Dean had ever had the heart to clean out. There were memories there they simply couldn’t put away, even though Bobby had advised them to move on with their lives. Dean had considered doing it a handful of times, packing up the clothes and the ornate jewelry, putting it away for the possible day when Sam or he ever got married. But, Sam outright refused to allow the room to be touched. He acted strangely in his anger over the idea that Mom and Dad’s room become as empty a shell as the rest of their home.
Not wanting to upset Sam, Dean agreed to let the room remain as it was. Only Margaret went inside, dusting the tops of the drawers, airing out the wardrobes filled with beautiful clothes, and fluffing the pillows every other day or so. Dean preferred to avoid that room altogether. He missed his parents fiercely, and in opening the door with the room as it stood fifteen years ago, he reopened the scab on that pain.
He went upstairs to Sam’s room next. It was at the end of the hall, one of the rooms that exited onto the large balcony overlooking the front drive and the willows beside it.
Dean usually didn’t go into Sam’s room. Didn’t see much need as Sam was grown and all now. Maybe when he’d been younger, sure, but Sam was old enough that Dean didn’t typically go poking around in his room. Brother privacy and respect and all that.
But for some reason that day, Dean decided just to glance into Sam’s room, considering that Sam had uncharacteristically slept in past sunrise. Sam was always the one to be up at dark, getting things ready for the day and bouncing around the house as if someone had lit a fire under his butt.
Dean pushed open the door and was slightly surprised to see how clean the room was. A part of him had been expecting things to be strewn across the bed, blankets on the floor, hell, maybe even a bottle of beer from the brewery in town to explain Sam’s muddled behavior.
But there wasn’t anything except for the pair of trousers Sam had worn yesterday, crumpled in the corner by the wardrobe. Dean smiled, satisfied that something in Sam’s room wasn’t perfectly placed.
He crossed the room, floorboards creaking with his steps, and picked up the pants. He frowned as he felt something dried on the fabric. Mud? It hadn’t rained at all yesterday for there to have been mud. What was-?
The pants rolled open, and Dean held them up to get a better look at them in the sunlight coming through the large windows. The legs were ripped and splattered with the dried crust Dean had felt and now recognized as blood.
- - - - -
A few hours later, Sam returned home with a bag slung over his shoulders. He sighed and unloaded the items, mostly specialty foods they didn’t have readily available on the plantation. As he was finishing up, Dean came into the kitchen.
“I was goin’ in the rooms today,” he said, “and I peeked in yers.”
Sam nodded, his back to Dean. All right, fine. Dean had been in his room. Not like he kept anything important in there anyway.
“And I found these,” Dean finished. There was the sound of fabric moving, like laundry snapping in the wind on the clothesline, and Sam turned around.
His pants from last night, bloodied and fabric snagged, hung from Dean’s hand.
Sam swallowed and cursed inwardly. His mind spun, trying to grab the most believable lie.
“Two questions, I got fer ya then,” Dean said, stepping farther into the kitchen and tossing the pants on the table. “First, are you okay? And, second, what in blazes were you doin’ last night?”
He couldn’t tell Dean, Sam knew that. Dean wouldn’t understand, and dear God, it just-No.
“Yeah, ‘m fine,” Sam replied, fighting to keep his voice steady. How could he have forgotten to take care of those pants? He’d been tired, sure, but forgetting something like this… “Last night, there was an opossum out back. I couldn’t sleep anyway, so I was up and saw it creepin’ around. I didn’t want to wake you, so I tried to take care of it m’self, but shit, it was dark, and I only grazed ‘im with the rifle. It came after me, angry as the devil, and ripped my pants up, and geez…” Sam gave a forced sigh of exasperation. “I can’t believe you didn’t wake up when the gun went off! I thought I was goin’ to have everybody up and yellin’ at me.”
Dean looked down at the pants and then back up to Sam. “Guess I’m jus’ a heavier sleeper than I thought.” He laughed lightly. “But you’re okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘cept for a few claw marks on my legs, but hell, that’s nothin’ new.”
“Well, good. I hope you killed that varmint.”
Sam grinned, relaxing as Dean fell, hook, line, and sinker. “Oh, yeah, killed ‘im good.”
Dean smiled, patted Sam on the shoulder as he passed by on his way outside. “Good job, kid, looks like we’ll get ya broken in eventually.”
- - - - -
Late that night, when the dusk of twilight had fallen down into the ink of night, and after Dean was snoring soundly in his room downstairs, Sam left the plantation. He saddled his horse and lit a lantern to guide his way, then he rode out alone.
The house was on the outskirts of town, beyond the cramped stores and gossiping women, even away from the other plantations and their crops. Riding up, Sam was satisfied to see that everything seemed to be quiet in the little building nestled at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He tied his horse to one of the trees that guarded the house by the end of the walkway. He pressed his lips tightly together as he approached the door, hoping that tonight would be a better-shorter-night than the last.
This never got any easier. No matter how many times he had done it.
Not that murder ever could be easy, he thought morosely.
He opened the door, raising his lantern to illuminate the area. The rooms were empty. Dust and cobwebs littering the corners, and the glass was broken out of some of the windows. Blood was splattered messily on the floor and sparsely on the weathered walls. There were bullets embedded in the wood and scars where a knife had cut too deep here and there.
Mentally, secretly, Sam called it the Dark House. A proper noun like the Declaration of Independence or the Liberty Bell. He came here in the dark, he left at dark, dark things happened here and dark things stayed here. The name fit.
He went to one of the side rooms where the walls were adorned with assorted weapons and equipment like so many treasured family photographs. Guns dangled on hooks next to knives of varying length and edge. Thick books with cracked binding and bottles of holy water rested on crudely made shelves. After picking up one of the guns, Sam passed to what had been the master bedroom. In the middle of the room, a figure sat in a rickety chair, its head bent towards the ground. The floorboards creaked as Sam approached, and the man-what seemed to be a man-lifted his head.
His face was a twisted mess of flesh burned away from the bone, and maggots twisted their way up the side of his cheek into the empty socket of an eye. The good eye, the one that followed Sam along the perimeter of the Devil’s Trap, was black and unblinking.
“Have a good night?” Sam sneered. He set his lantern down on the floor, dousing the room into shadows, the ghosts of dead light dancing on walls.
The man breathed, a wheeze that rattled his chest. “Let me go. I have a wife and kids.”
“You think you do. Somehow, I bet your wife wouldn’t be so lovin’ if she knew she was sleeping next to a goddamn demon.”
“She doesn’t know. She can’t see. Not like you,” the demon spat, scared and angry. “What difference does it make?”
“Difference is, you’re from Hell, and I can see yer real face. Even if nobody else can, I don’t want to be seein’ you walkin’ down my street anymore.”
“I’ll move.”
“No.”
“Look, I’ll do anything you want. Just-just don’t. Please.”
“I don’t see many of you that beg,” Sam said, bringing out his gun.
The rotted lips attempted a smile in the dim lighting, but the flesh pulled apart-attempt failed. “See? ‘m different that way. Let me live. I’ll show you, I’ll leave, stay underground. I promise you, I’ll be good.”
Sam shook his head. “That’s not a chance ‘m willing to take.” He placed the blessed gun to the demon’s forehead. “Any last words?”
“Yes,” said the demon, and Sam pulled the trigger.
- - - - -
He disposed of the body by dumping it in the river that ran behind the house. By the time it reached the town’s area, the fish would have eaten most of it and the river torn apart the rest. A person would have to look closely to understand that what they were seeing had once resembled a human.
It wasn’t as though Sam enjoyed the killing, but he wasn’t about to let these monsters walk around town, pretending that they were something they were not.
He had been seeing things that other people couldn’t since shortly before his parents’ death. Since that man stepped out of the fire on the bridge. He saw demons’ true faces, ghosts, monsters that only existed in books; the list was unending. He captured them if he could and brought them back to the Dark House to eliminate them. If he couldn’t capture them, then he’d kill them where they were. But that was messier and harder to keep secret in a town so small. So, he’d learned how to sneak up on a man with demon’s eyes and press a rag soaked in chloroform over his nose before he was noticed. He confided only in Bobby, who helped Sam gather his supplies. It was Sam’s choice to leave Dean out of this part of his life.
“What should I tell Dean if you die?” Bobby asked once. It was a year or so ago when Sam took off after a chupacabra, telling Dean he was going to another town to visit a friend. Chupacabra were vicious, especially out of their home territory. There’d be wounds to heal, and one night away wouldn’t be enough.
Sam frowned and looked down from his horse to Bobby, whose face was shadowed in the night. “Tell him not to blame himself. Tell him that I’m sorry…Tell him…that I love him,” Sam’d said. All the vile words Sam had in his arsenal, had wielded and been targeted by, and it was the only time since his parents’ deaths he could remember saying that word.
Sam didn’t want to bring Dean into this mess. He couldn’t. Couldn’t imagine where he’d start the conversation and how little Dean would believe him in the end anyway. No, Dean had enough to worry about. He didn’t need to think his little brother was crazy on top of it all.
So, Sam stayed silent and kept the Dark House and what happened there to himself. As he mounted his horse, he thought, And that’s the way it should be.
- - - - -
On his way back home, Sam passed by the bridge closest to their plantation. Seated on his horse, he looked across the bridge, to the end that emptied into darkness.
“Hello?” he called out.
No one answered. He waited for a long moment, watching and listening. His horse nickered and tossed its head, impatient, and he felt his muscles relax. He flicked the reins and took off back home.
Everything was silent at the bridge. Everything would be safe for another night.
- - - - -
Light was beginning to creep onto the edges of the sky by the time Sam put away his horse and made his way inside the house. His bones ached, and his head spun with exhaustion. He wondered how much longer he could keep this up.
He couldn’t roll over and let evil fester, but he wouldn’t argue the chance for a month of peace and quiet. Evil never did sleep, he thought to himself. Stupid evil.
Slowly, he plodded up the stairs to his bedroom. He paused though, forced himself to wait a bit longer for rest, long enough to open the door to his parents’ bedroom.
From the lacey canopy bed, his mom looked up from where she was sitting on the edge of the mattress, brushing her long, golden hair. She smiled. “Good night, Sam.”
“Good night, Mom.”
He closed the door and plodded down the hallway to his bedroom, where he fell face first onto his bed, not bothering to change out of his clothes.
- - - - -
They really needed to get rid of some of these cats, Dean decided as he fished out another kitten from behind a mound of loose hay in the loft. The kitten squeaked in surprise at being picked up, its tiny claws reaching to grab hold of something besides the air. Dean cupped the tiny gray and white tiger in his hands and walked across the loft to give the baby back to its mother. Four other kittens squirmed against the mother’s stomach, mewling quietly as they fought to feed.
Dean sat down, still holding the baby as it purred softly in the palm of his hand. He couldn’t help but smile when the wobbly kitten tried to stand up. Okay, so maybe they could keep these cats, but no more after this…
“Dean?”
Sam.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?”
“Up here,” Dean called, putting the kitten back with its mother so he could lean over the edge of the loft. Sam was standing far below on the ground, hands on hips. He was wearing his good jacket, complete with tie, over his vest and shirt. Something was up because Sam didn’t get dressed up for just the hell of it.
“Bobby’s here. Stopped by fer lunch. You want to come down? Margaret’s got the best china and everything pulled out like Bobby’s a damn king.” Sam laughed, knowing Dean understood that he loved both Bobby and Margaret and thought nothing ill of either of them.
“Yeah, I’ll be down in a bit. I was just checkin’ on how much hay we got.”
“Second cut won’t be ready for another few weeks,” Sam reminded him, taking off his hat and scratching his head. “You think we might need to buy s’more? Didn’t think we were goin’ through it that fast.”
“Nah. We’ll be plenty fine.”
“Well,” Sam replied, “then no need to go playing ‘round up there. I’m starvin’, so get your ass down here already.” He laughed and turned to walk out of the barn. “I’ll be inside, okay?”
“Yup. I’m a-comin’. Geesh. Don’t be so damn bossy.”
Sam laughed again, and it was good to hear. Sam had been looking so tired these past few months. Dean moved towards the ladder to climb down.
- - - - -
“If you kill me, I promise you’ll be sorry.”
It was a few days after Bobby had visited, and now in the Dark House, Sam rolled his eyes and raised his gun. “That’s what they all say.”
The demon looked up at him, cocked its head in a slow, drugged move. Its face was bloated like a corpse’s left too long in the sun, the skin gray and green, blotted black in areas. There were no lips on its mouth, and when it smiled, its toothless gums dripped a brown slime down the front of its shirt.
Sam placed the gun against the demon’s forehead. “Any last words?” he asked.
“No,” the demon croaked, and Sam pulled the trigger.
He discarded the body, closed and locked up the Dark House. He mounted his horse, checked that all was quiet on the bridge and put his horse away in the stable. He said good-night to his parents, and he went to bed.
- - - - -
He continued his hunting as he had for the last fifteen years. There was too much evil out there for him to stop now. He killed his share of monsters, murdered his share of demons, and he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop when he could see.
Then, some time later on what had been an average night up to that point, he saw a man stepping out of flames at the end of the bridge, and Sam turned his horse, galloping at a breakneck speed back to the plantation.
There was fire on the bridge.
There was fire on the bridge, and disaster was coming.
- - - - -
Something was wrong with Sam, Dean observed over the next few days. Sam fidgeted nervously whenever he sat still for too long. He chewed his fingernails until they bled, and he kept glancing out the window every time he was inside. If he was outside, he looked to the hills, the mountains standing high in the distance, and his eyes darted up and down their rocky sides. He paced down the hallway outside Dean’s door, rarely sleeping except during the day when he dozed off only to wake a minute later, still troubled about something unspoken.
Dean asked him what was wrong many a time, and each and every time, Sam brushed him off with grunts of, ‘Nothin’,” or “’m fine.”
“You’re such a goddamn liar,” Dean grumbled into his dinner.
Sam looked up. “What’d you say?”
“You heard me.” They met eyes across the table, each angry at the other, until Sam pushed out his chair and stormed over to the window. He stood in front of it for a long moment with his jaw steeled and arms crossed.
Dean watched him, not saying anything, letting his food go cold in front of him.
“Be careful, Dean,” Sam said finally.
“What?”
“Be careful,” Sam repeated.
“What in blazes in that s’posed to mean?” Dean asked, rising.
Sam turned to face Dean, and his eyes were sad. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead, he shook his head and hurried out of the room, his mouth a tight line.
Dean froze, turned to run after him, but instead, he collapsed in his chair, holding his face in his hands until Margaret came to check on him some time later.
- - - - -
The accident happened two days later, six days after the man on the bridge. Sam was walking the perimeter of the field and trying to keep his hands from shaking. Something was coming. Something bad was coming. The man didn’t show if something good was coming. Shit. He cursed inwardly before shouting, “Goddammit!” aloud, catching the attention of some of the workers.
He turned away quickly, walking fast. Could he stop it? Could he prevent it? No. He was powerless. He could only hold on and hope for the best.
He heard a scream and lifted his head.
Dean.
He broke out into a frantic run, sprinting towards the barn madly. His hat flew off, landed somewhere in the grass, but he kept running.
“Dean!” he yelled, heart rising higher and higher in his throat. Please, God, please, not Dean, please, please, please. “Dean!” he shouted again, as if saying his brother’s name would keep him from harm.
Sam sped into the barn, breathless and dizzy, and he scanned the area frantically.
“Dean!”
He ran around the corner and froze.
Dean lay crumpled on the dirt floor, blood on his face and his arm twisted at an unnatural angle behind his head. His lips were parted, revealing slick red smeared across his teeth.
Sam threw himself forward. “Dean,” he whispered. “Please, don’t…” Dean’s chest rose lightly; he was still breathing, still alive.
“Help!” Sam screamed, turning his head to the doorway. “Someone, please help me! Help me!”
He looked down at his brother so broken now, and Sam fought back the burn of tears. Someone help him.
- - - - -
The doctor said that Dean was hurt. Very badly hurt, his voice lowered as if Dean would wake up and protest the doctor’s diagnosis.
“Keep ‘im comfortable for the night,” the doctor advised. “I’ll be back in the mornin’ to check on him.” He tipped his hat to Bobby, who wished him a good night while Sam stood silent in Dean’s doorway, biting his fingernails.
Bobby came up beside Sam and slapped his hand away from his mouth. “Quit that, would ya? Jesus…”
Sam mumbled an apology, kept his eyes fixed on Dean, who was breathing faintly.
“This is all my fault,” Sam said after a beat.
“How d’ya go figurin’ that?”
“Because I killed all those demons. I should’ve known it was goin’ come back and bite me in the ass.”
“Bullshit,” Bobby shot back. “It was an accident. He fell. Got careless.”
“No.” Sam shook his head. “Not Dean. Not Dean…”
“Sam, you’re bein’ irrational.”
“Am I?” Sam’s eyes were watery when he turned to look down at Bobby. He swallowed hard, forcing down the lump in his throat.
Bobby squeezed his shoulder, a reassuring pressure. “You should go to bed, son. Sleep will do you some good. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”
“I’m goin’ stay with him.”
Bobby sighed. Sam knew Bobby wasn’t going try to convince him otherwise. He knew how John and Mary’s stubbornness ran strong through Sam. So, he pulled his hand away and patted Sam on the back. “I’ll be in the room down the hall if’n you need somethin’.”
Sam forced a nod as Bobby turned and walked away. Sam went over to the side of Dean’s bed and sat down in one of the chairs.
“I’m sorry,” he said, words hissing through the curled fist against his lips. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I…” Sam exhaled raggedly as his voice wavered. “I should’ve told you instead of lyin’ to you for all these years. Maybe, maybe…maybe this wouldn’t have happened.” He bit his lip, hard enough to hurt. “I’m sorry, Dean, I’m so sorry…But I’ll fix this. I promise, I’ll fix this.”
- - - - -
It was unusual to see the Dark House empty. It’d been years since he hadn’t had someone-something-waiting for him from the night before. Walking through its bloodstained rooms alone was even more eerie than when there was a demon in the living room.
Sam.
He whipped around, lifting his head from the book of spells he’d been reading on how to save Dean, gun already drawn and chest heaving.
“Who’s there?” he called into the darkness.
Come to the bridge, Sam, and then we’ll talk.
“Who are you?” He pressed his back against the wall as the voice rasped through the house.
Bridge, Sam. Not going to talk to you here. Don’t you listen?
“Give me a reason.”
Your brother. Dean’s life.
Sam ran for the door and his horse. He ran for the bridge and his brother.
- - - - -
There were no flames, but there was a man. He was dressed all in black-black hat and a black walking stick-and a silver pocket watch with the chain crossed over the front of his vest, disappeared into his front pocket. Smoke curled from the cigar between his fingers, and he smiled a closed, tight-lipped smile beneath his finely trimmed black goatee as Sam stepped onto the bridge.
It was the first time he had been on the bridge since he was a kid and Bobby had come to tell him his parents were dead.
“Now, now, don’t look so scared, Sam,” the man said. His voice was smooth, accented like those Northern folk from Illinois Sam had met a few years back. “Sorry I didn’t bring a golden fiddle for you. Maybe that would’ve been more appropriate.”
Sam frowned, confused.
“Ah, never mind, we’re not in Georgia anyway, are we? Hm?”
“Who are you?” Sam narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t see anything abnormal about the man, but he could sense something prickling in the air.
The man scoffed, tossing his cigar down and grinding it beneath his toe. His shoes shone in the light of Sam’s lantern. “Why, I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out already.”
“You’re not a demon. You don’t have the face of one.”
“Don’t need one. I’m too good for that. If it’s any comfort, though, you’re the only one that can see me. Not anybody else who doesn’t have your special little power.”
Sam swallowed. “You can’t be who I think you are…that’s just…”
“Say it, Sam. Spit it out.”
“The devil?” The words caught, tripped on their way out.
The man smiled. “Smart boy.”
“What do you want?”
“I heard about Dean. Terrible pity, getting himself hurt like that.”
“I think a demon had something to do with it.”
“I know.”
“I think you had something to do with it.”
“I know.” The man’s smile widened.
“I think you did it 'cause you were mad at me for killing all of your demons and you were ready to make good on all those threats almost ev'ry demon gave me before I blew its head off.”
The man smiled darkly. “I know,” he repeated, quieter this time.
“Then, what do you want?” Sam was breathless. “You got what you wanted by hurtin’ Dean. What can you possibly want now?”
This time, when the man smiled, he showed all his teeth. He swung his walking stick playfully.
“I want to make a deal,” he said.
- - - - -
The deal was simple enough. Sam’s soul to save Dean, to keep him from death. A shake of the hands, and it would be over just like that. Nothing messy, nothing elaborate, and Dean would be up and walking by tomorrow morning.
No catch, the man had said. Your soul. Dean’s perfect health. Simple as that.
Sam thought for a long moment while the devil lit another cigar and puffed away into the night. He sat on the edge of the bridge, swinging his legs in the water and making no ripples.
Finally, Sam said, “No.”
The devil stood quickly, startled. “No?”
“No.”
“Your brother may never recover. Really, he probably won’t recover.”
“But he may. He could.”
“He fell from the loft. He’ll be dead by the end of the week.”
“No. I’ll make sure of it.”
“You’ll be sorry if you don’t take this deal. I’ll make you sorry.”
Sam shook his head. “You won’t kill him. You’re not a reaper. You can’t take life.”
The devil pursed his lips. “Are you really that selfish that you’d let Dean die? You keep all these secrets from him, lie to him, and now, just let him die?” The devil shook his head. “You know, if your places were switched, and you were dying, Dean would sell his soul to save you. He’d make a deal without thinking, quick as a flash,” he said, snapping his fingers, “and that’d be that. But you?”
“Know the truth,” Sam finished. He didn’t bother explaining how many demons he’d talked to in their final moments, once people who had made devil’s deals only to be plunged into Hell, regretting every moment once they realized they had bargained for more than the devil had told them. There never was an honest deal when it came to the devil. And, Sam reminded himself with guilt rising high in his throat, Dean was sick.
He wasn’t dead.
“If you don’t take this deal now, you’ll regret it.” He lifted his walking stick and pointed it towards Sam. “I’ll make sure of that, you selfish bastard.”
“Is that a threat?”
The devil smiled crookedly. “Now, I don’t make threats. That’s a promise.” He paused, staring evenly at Sam. “So, are you going to save your brother or just let him die? If you don’t make the deal, you might have just as well have pushed him off the loft yourself.”
“No deal. Keep it for another fool.” Sam turned and walked away.
From the other end of the bridge, the devil called, “Nothing will be the same after this. Sam, I promise that!”
- - - - -
At home, Mom, her translucent blue dress pooled around her, was sitting in the chair next to Dean’s bed, and Dad was in the doorway.
“You did the right thing,” Dad said, his smile sad.
“God, I hope so.”
“No. If you’d made the deal, Dean would’ve made ‘nother to save you, and it never would’ve ended, see?”
Sam bit his lip. “I feel like the worst person alive.”
Dad shook his head. “Go to him. He’s been dreamin’. He can’t say it yet, but he wants you beside him. He’s all alone right now.”
Exhaling heavily, Sam crossed the room. Mom rose from the chair and kissed him on the cheek, a warm breeze against his skin and nothing more. “You’ll be okay, honey. You both will be.”
She moved past him, and he could hear her whispering to Dad. When Sam looked up again, they were both gone.
Sam sank down in the chair beside Dean’s bed. “I’m sorry,” he said. He couldn’t stop apologizing, as if enough words would change things. “You’re going to get better and uh-” He rested a hand over Dean’s. “It’s goin’ to be all right. It’s-it’s gotta be all right.” He wrapped both of his hands around Dean’s limp fist, and Sam squeezed them tight. “Please, Dean, please…it’s gotta be all right.”
Dean breathed lightly, and a tear fell down Sam’s cheek.
- - - - -
Days passed slowly, terribly, in that torturous fashion time has when breath is being held on the chance of salvation. Bobby stayed at the plantation, watching out for the boys-the both of them-even though he joked, keeping a good face, and said he needed a vacation away from his place.
Sam rarely left Dean’s side. He took Dean’s care into his own hands. Using a narrow glass tube given to him by the doctor, Sam offered Dean a thin broth Margaret prepared. Dean’s throat bobbed slowly but obediently as his body accepted what Sam gave to him. With a cool towel, Sam wiped away the sheen of perspiration on Dean’s forehead and cheeks, and he changed the blankets when they began to reek of sickness.
Sam told Bobby to take care of the plantation. Make the decisions about things, Sam had said with a wave of his hand. Do whatever you feel is necessary. Please, Bobby, I don’t want to think about it.
And Bobby did.
A week passed, and Dean was still breathing. Sam wanted to go to the bridge then shove his finger in the devil’s chest and say, Look, look, it’s been a week, and he’s still alive. But, Sam didn’t. It was still too early for happiness.
“What if he never wakes up?” Sam asked the doctor one afternoon. He chewed on the corner of his thumb; he couldn’t stop. “When are we goin’ to know that he’s okay?”
The doctor sighed, lifted his black bag off the floor and said, “We won’t. There’s no way of tellin’. It’s all in Dean’s hands now. I’ve done all I can. He’s not changin’, which, I s’pose is good and bad.”
“So, what? We just wait now?”
The doctor nodded. “We just wait.”
- - - - -
Ten days after the accident, ten days of anxious waiting, Dean stirred, shifted. His hand tensed in Sam’s hold.
In a long, suspended moment, his eyes fluttered beneath their lids before opening blearily. They scanned the room, taking in their surroundings and then landing on Sam.
“Sammy?” Dean whispered. His voice was fragile and weary.
Sam said, “Yes,” and he began to cry.
- - - - -
Dean regained his strength and coordination, slowly, but surely. He was wobbly for a few weeks after waking, and both Bobby and Sam worked with him patiently.
Sam asked Dean if he could remember what happened before the accident.
“What do you mean?” Dean asked, taking a bite of chicken. His fork shook slightly as he lifted it to his mouth.
“Was there anybody up there with you? Like, did you see something that spooked you?”
Dean frowned. “What kind of question is that?”
“I’m asking.”
“No…No, I remember going up to the loft, climbing and thinkin’…thinkin’ that yeah, we’d be set for ‘while with the hay and then…Then I woke up, and I was in bed. Everythin’ ‘tween that is black.”
“Oh,” Sam said, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He had been hoping Dean would remember something and that a demon had pushed him. Not that Sam was ruling out the possibility now. It just made it harder to prove when Dean couldn’t remember one way or the other.
“Why’s that?” Dean asked.
Sam shook his head and took a long drink of wine from his glass. “Just curious.”
He hadn’t been off the plantation to find any demons to take back to the Dark House in weeks. He hoped all was well.
- - - - -
One morning as they walked outdoors, Dean pushed Sam aside and said, “No, I want to do this by myself.” He walked slowly, without any help from Sam, from a cane, or from a fence post, out to the hill that overlooked the cotton fields.
The sun was rising in the distance, and Dean stood in front of it, triumphant on his own two feet.
Behind him, Sam smiled, and Dad said, “That’s m’boy.”
- - - - -
Dean was back to normal-or as normal as Dean could be anyhow-when Sam decided that, yes, they were all better off for him not making the deal with the devil. The only ailment plaguing Dean was an occasional headache, which the doctor said was likely a side effect from the accident. Overall, though, Dean was better. There was nothing at the bridge, and Sam was able to return to the Dark House, mostly guilt-free.
Inwardly, Sam finally started to forgive himself for not shaking the devil’s hand to seal a deal.
He returned one night from a demon killing and poked his head into his parents’ room as he always did. Instead of seeing Mom and Dad as he had expected, the room was empty, its curtains blowing gently in the early morning breeze.
Sam frowned, confused and slightly pained not to see them, but he decided not to think too much of it. Who knew what ghosts did in their free time? Maybe they had somewhere else to be.
Exhausted, Sam moved down the hallway to his room where he closed his eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep. He awoke in the morning, well rested but dizzy, as if he'd had too much to drink the night before. He shrugged off the sensation and went downstairs to join Dean for breakfast.
- - - - -
Feeling better than he had in a long time, Dean asked if Sam wanted to go for a ride that evening.
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” Sam asked, appearing worried.
Dean tried not to smile. Sam was worse than a mother hen, tending to him, fussing over him all the time. Although, Dean admitted to himself, he would have been as bad in his doting-if not worse-if Sam had the same type of accident and had been the one lying in bed for far too many days in a row. He couldn’t imagine-didn’t want to-how hard it must have been for Sam to sit by his bedside, day after day, waiting and hoping but never knowing.
“I’m ready. I can’t sit ‘round here for the rest of my life. Need to go for a ride. What do you say we go down to that old bridge we used to go fishin’ at when we were kids? Get some fresh air off this place? Hm?” He didn’t tell Sam that he was hoping the activity would help to alleviate the headaches that still formed now and then.
Sam visibly stiffened, upset, but he said, “Yeah, that’ll be fine, I guess.” He took a long drink of water and lowered his eyes.
Later, outside the borders of the plantation, Dean was excited to be riding again, having almost forgotten the sense of freedom he got from wind passing over him. He laughed as he raced past Sam over the empty meadows that edged the river.
The sun was setting, stealing the day’s light as it sank beneath the trees. They had to be heading back soon, Dean knew, before it got dark and they were stranded out here in the night.
Sam was ahead of him, not by much, but enough, as they passed by the bridge on their way back home. As Dean rode by, something caught his eye, and he slowed his horse to turn around.
Noticing Dean, Sam pulled his horse back as well. “Dean?” he called over his shoulder.
Carefully, Dean approached the bridge. His horse tossed its head and snorted, upset and troubled.
Coming to the end of the bridge, Dean dismounted and walked onto the end of the wooden planks. On the opposite side, across the water, flames shot high into the sky. They crackled but never touched the wood as they danced in brilliant oranges and yellows with a flicker of purple and red. He could feel their heat from where he stood.
“Dean!” Sam hollered, riding up. “Dean!” He leapt from his horse hastily, running to Dean’s side and shouting. “What is it? What do you see?”
Confused, Dean glanced over to Sam. “Sam?” he whispered. It seemed as if Sam couldn’t see the flames. As if he was unable to hear their snapping or feel their immense heat.
Dean didn’t know if what he was seeing was reality. He felt his mind spinning and the headache pounding fiercely.
“Dean,” Sam said again, resting his hand on Dean's shoulder, and his voice, his simple being there calmed Dean. He knew that he tell Sam. Because Sam would understand. Because Sam would help him. Because they could get through this madness--as they had gotten through life after their parents--together. “What is it?” Sam repeated.
Before replying, Dean’s attention was averted as a man stepped out of the flames. He was dressed in all black with a silver pocket watch, and he walked to the middle of the bridge, his walking stick tapping hollowly on the boards.
“Hello, Dean,” the man said. His gaze shifted and settled on Sam, who was seeing only Dean through worried eyes. The man smiled. “Tell Sam that I always keep my promises.”
End
Greatest Hits by Tracy Chapman
Also: This fic was inspired by a real paranormal story. When legoline sent me her prompt list and made the comment, “I realise this is very hard to write” after mentioning the Southern AU, I knew that’s the one I was going to write. So, I did some Google searching for Southern folklore and came across the story of Hell’s Gate in Oxford, Alabama. After reading that, everything else for the story seemed to fall into place, and here we are. Happy birthday, sweetie. I hope it’s wonderful.
Rating: PG-13
Category: AU gen oneshot
Word Count: 8463
Characters: Sam and Dean, with asst. canon and non-canon characters.
Spoilers: None
Summary: Fifteen years ago, a man stepped out of flames on the bridge.
Warnings: None
Author’s Notes: Written for the wonderful legoline’s birthday. I asked her for a few prompts, and out of those, I picked three of them to throw together. As such, this includes her prompts of the following: “Some hurt!Dean…Baby animals!fanfiction with Dean and baby animals” and then, the final bit that makes or breaks the whole story where she said, “...A scenario or possibly an AU that has Dean and Sam fighting in the Civil War...or maybe just wearing the uniforms or living on a cotton plantation…” And out of all that? Voila. Fic.
Mountains of gratitude to equinox_blue and tru_faith_lost for serving as betas for this one by answering questions and endless emails and helping out in nearly every way possible by fact-checking and word-checking and triple-checking it all. Thank you both so very much.
Any remaining mistakes are mine alone and are not the reflection of anyone else. Cross-posted around.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
- - - - -
Southern United States
Early 1840’s
Prologue
The river ran through the town, splitting the land into neatly divided north and south halves before it twisted and turned its way out to the Mississippi and joined the water traveling to the ocean.
Most of the older residents had their share of ghost stories about the river, claiming they knew a friend of a friend who had drown in it or a lovesick teenager who had taken off in their handcrafted raft never to be seen again. Not that any of these stories discouraged the area children. The river was still the prime place for swimming and fishing, sailboat races and kissing your sweetheart on the banks.
The Winchester boys were no different from the rest of the town’s kids-save for Sam, the younger, who was at the age when girls were “icky,” and the idea of calling anyone his sweetheart, let alone kissing her, made his stomach turn. But he enjoyed everything else that the river had to offer, so Sam and Dean packed up their fishing gear and went down to the bridge not far from their parents’ plantation.
They caught five fish in the first hour or so they were there and then sat for a while longer. Dean was in good spirits; it was a perfect summer day and he was proud of the size of fish they had caught. Sam, on the other hand, was feeling the onset of a headache, and he laid down his fishing pole to rub at his temples in an attempt to ease away the pain.
“You all right?” Dean asked, concerned.
“Yeah, jus’ this headache. Wish it’d go away,” Sam said. He closed his eyes and sighed, focusing on his breathing. Headaches weren’t uncommon for him, but their familiarity didn’t make them any easier to suffer through.
Feeling the pain ebb away slightly, Sam stretched, twisting his head to stretch out his neck muscles as he opened his eyes toward the other side of the river.
On the end of the bridge, flames burned, bright and brilliant above the wooden planks, and a shadowed figured appeared in the midst of them, as if stepping out of the fire.
Sam inhaled sharply and scrambled away from that end of the bridge, moving closer to Dean.
“Sammy?” Dean looked up, concerned. “What’s goin’ on?”
Before Sam could reply, a horse galloped over the hill. Bobby, one of their father’s lifelong friends and neighbors, leapt from the horse.
“Boys!” he yelled. “Drop that! There’s an accident back home! Your parents are hurt! Now! Move!”
Without any questions, Sam and Dean jumped to their feet, leaving behind their fishing tackle. Bobby helped them onto the horse.
“Go! Quick!” he said to Dean, shoving the reins at him. With Sam holding onto his waist, Dean snapped the reins and spurred the horse forward. As the horse raced across the field, Bobby grew smaller behind them and the smoke in front of them rose higher above the trees.
- - - - -
Fifteen Years Later
He plodded down the winding staircase, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand and trying to wake up for the day. The house was silent, left empty as everyone was already gone for the day. He sighed and wondered if it was possible to have overslept his way right through the afternoon. It seemed he had, felt like he was the only one left on the entire plantation. It had been a long night, and he needed the sleep, but this seemed ridiculous.
Passing through the foyer with its glittering chandelier overhead, he moved into the empty kitchen where he glanced out the window on the chance he could see anyone. As he had suspected, though, the fields were empty and the lane was abandoned. Even the dogs that usually ran between the barns were gone. Maybe there was someone outside he hadn’t seen…
He pushed open the side door and went outside, deciding that it was a warm enough day to go walking with bare feet. Besides, he had left his shoes in his room after returning home last night and was feeling too lazy to trek back upstairs to retrieve them.
The grass was still wet with dew as he stepped off the side porch and crossed the lawn. His toes slip-slid through the grass, the water wetting the bottoms of his trousers. Rising high into the sky, the sun was already vibrantly bright and warm. It sure was going to be one hot day, he thought.
He reached the pump that sat on the hill overlooking the fields and decided to fill the tin cup hanging from the handle. The pump groaned and creaked obstinately before spurting out a gush of water that sloshed over onto the front of his pants.
He scowled. Good grief. He was going to be soaking from head to toe in ten more minutes if he kept at this rate.
But, taking a long drink of the water was worth the wet pants to be able to stand there on the hill over the sprawling cotton fields. Hopefully, though, no one would come riding up and see him standing there in his patched trousers and untucked nightshirt with bare feet to top it all off.
Sam chuckled quietly at what the neighbor ladies would have to say about that. “Crazy Winchesters” would likely roll first off their tongues-it tended to from time to time anyway.
Not that they were cruel ladies by any sort. The entire town had always been more than welcoming to Sam and Dean in the light of their parents’ death a little more than fifteen years ago. There had been food by the trough-fulls following the fire that destroyed two of the houses and one of the fields. Pies and jellies, warm chicken and fresh vegetables. The town gave everything they had to the brothers until Bobby started turning people away with words of, “They just need to be alone now. Give ‘em some time.”
Bobby, who had gone from next-door neighbor to replacement father and plantation owner overnight. For those first several years, Bobby had stayed in the house with the boys, helping them as naturally as any parent would. As time passed and Dean and Sam grew, Bobby did less and less himself and gave the boys more and more responsibility and freedom of their own. Now, Bobby didn’t do much on the plantation but offer the occasionally needed guidance and visit for overly long meals that still were never quite long enough.
He helps out in other ways, a quiet part of Sam’s brain mused, before Sam shook his head, dismissing that thought. Not now.
Finishing off the last of the water, he leaned against the pump, inwardly pleased of how magnificent the plantation looked right now in the late morning sun. The fields of green cotton plants were endless, and neat little buildings lined the perimeter of the fields, until the hill crested up to the massive main home. It was the house that his grandfather built for his bride-to-be. It boasted a long driveway with a circular drive in front of the house where carriages and horses used to gather when John and Mary threw their lavish parties. The white house was large enough for at least a hundred or so guests with its wraparound porch, tall support columns and high outdoor balcony on the second floor.
As Sam stood, lost in his own thoughts, he didn’t notice Dean coming up from the fields until he was practically standing on Sam’s toes.
“Good to see yer finally up,” Dean commented, reaching for the cup from Sam’s hand and filling it with water for himself.
“I didn’t realize it was so late.” Sam paused and eyed his brother. “Why? How long have you been up?”
Dean shrugged, drinking. The water dribbled down his neck and onto his shirt. “Since daybreak while your lazy butt was still snorin' away upstairs.”
“Shut up,” Sam grumbled. He scratched the back of his head, deciding to change the subject, otherwise Dean was never going to let him hear the end of this one. “Sure is quiet. Thought I was the only one here.”
“They’re all at church, I think. Or in town. It’s Sunday, anyway. Most of ‘em are off, doin’ their own thing.”
Sam nodded as Dean pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped off his face. “Maybe we should go to church more,” Sam said.
“Why’s that?”
“Dunno. Just thought, I don’t know, maybe it’d do us some good.”
Dean snickered lightly, slapped Sam on the shoulder. “Why? You got worries of going to Hell or something?”
Sam flinched, didn’t mean to, but fortunately, Dean didn’t notice. “Mom always went, ‘member?”
Now, Dean sighed. “Yeah, I remember.”
They stood together in silence for a long while until Dean decided that they should go inside to get breakfast, and Sam followed him back up to the house, wet pants and all.
- - - - -
Breakfast was small being that neither of them was really that hungry and it was late enough in the day that lunch would be coming soon enough.
They talked about plans for the harvest and what Pierce was going to do in office. It was easy conversation, comfortable and familiar, and Sam was grateful for it. It became tiring after a while to continue to lie and hide so much.
“I was goin’ to head into town later today,” Sam said. “Anything you need?”
“Don’t think so. Why? What’re you getting?”
Sam shrugged. “Just stuff for ‘round the house. Thought I’d go and talk to people, let them know we’re still alive.”
Dean snorted dismissively. “They could come and see us for a change.”
“You know what Bobby said though about keepin’ a good face and all.”
“Yeah, I know.” Dean rolled his eyes. He knew, but he didn’t care sometimes.
“I’m going to get dressed then,” Sam said, pushing his chair away from the table.
“Yeah, don’t want to go into town and have all the ladies seein’ yer wet pants there, Sammy.” Dean winked as Sam stood up.
Sam glowered at Dean and was going to say something smart-assed back to him, but he decided against it, went upstairs to get changed while Dean laughed in victory at the kitchen table.
- - - - -
Once Sam had left-properly dressed, of course-and the house was quiet once again, Dean wandered through the rooms, checking to make sure things were cleaned and everything was in its right order. Not that there really was much to clean. Sam and Dean were the only two that stayed in the massive main house, save for Margaret, who slept in the one of the downstairs bedrooms when her husband was out of town. That hadn’t happened for a while. Lately, she had been coming during the day and leaving at night. So, other than the two of them and occasionally Margaret, no one stayed in the house. Three small people in one large space suited Margaret just fine as it gave her that much less work to do.
Some of the rooms were more decorated than others, such as their parents’ room that neither Sam nor Dean had ever had the heart to clean out. There were memories there they simply couldn’t put away, even though Bobby had advised them to move on with their lives. Dean had considered doing it a handful of times, packing up the clothes and the ornate jewelry, putting it away for the possible day when Sam or he ever got married. But, Sam outright refused to allow the room to be touched. He acted strangely in his anger over the idea that Mom and Dad’s room become as empty a shell as the rest of their home.
Not wanting to upset Sam, Dean agreed to let the room remain as it was. Only Margaret went inside, dusting the tops of the drawers, airing out the wardrobes filled with beautiful clothes, and fluffing the pillows every other day or so. Dean preferred to avoid that room altogether. He missed his parents fiercely, and in opening the door with the room as it stood fifteen years ago, he reopened the scab on that pain.
He went upstairs to Sam’s room next. It was at the end of the hall, one of the rooms that exited onto the large balcony overlooking the front drive and the willows beside it.
Dean usually didn’t go into Sam’s room. Didn’t see much need as Sam was grown and all now. Maybe when he’d been younger, sure, but Sam was old enough that Dean didn’t typically go poking around in his room. Brother privacy and respect and all that.
But for some reason that day, Dean decided just to glance into Sam’s room, considering that Sam had uncharacteristically slept in past sunrise. Sam was always the one to be up at dark, getting things ready for the day and bouncing around the house as if someone had lit a fire under his butt.
Dean pushed open the door and was slightly surprised to see how clean the room was. A part of him had been expecting things to be strewn across the bed, blankets on the floor, hell, maybe even a bottle of beer from the brewery in town to explain Sam’s muddled behavior.
But there wasn’t anything except for the pair of trousers Sam had worn yesterday, crumpled in the corner by the wardrobe. Dean smiled, satisfied that something in Sam’s room wasn’t perfectly placed.
He crossed the room, floorboards creaking with his steps, and picked up the pants. He frowned as he felt something dried on the fabric. Mud? It hadn’t rained at all yesterday for there to have been mud. What was-?
The pants rolled open, and Dean held them up to get a better look at them in the sunlight coming through the large windows. The legs were ripped and splattered with the dried crust Dean had felt and now recognized as blood.
- - - - -
A few hours later, Sam returned home with a bag slung over his shoulders. He sighed and unloaded the items, mostly specialty foods they didn’t have readily available on the plantation. As he was finishing up, Dean came into the kitchen.
“I was goin’ in the rooms today,” he said, “and I peeked in yers.”
Sam nodded, his back to Dean. All right, fine. Dean had been in his room. Not like he kept anything important in there anyway.
“And I found these,” Dean finished. There was the sound of fabric moving, like laundry snapping in the wind on the clothesline, and Sam turned around.
His pants from last night, bloodied and fabric snagged, hung from Dean’s hand.
Sam swallowed and cursed inwardly. His mind spun, trying to grab the most believable lie.
“Two questions, I got fer ya then,” Dean said, stepping farther into the kitchen and tossing the pants on the table. “First, are you okay? And, second, what in blazes were you doin’ last night?”
He couldn’t tell Dean, Sam knew that. Dean wouldn’t understand, and dear God, it just-No.
“Yeah, ‘m fine,” Sam replied, fighting to keep his voice steady. How could he have forgotten to take care of those pants? He’d been tired, sure, but forgetting something like this… “Last night, there was an opossum out back. I couldn’t sleep anyway, so I was up and saw it creepin’ around. I didn’t want to wake you, so I tried to take care of it m’self, but shit, it was dark, and I only grazed ‘im with the rifle. It came after me, angry as the devil, and ripped my pants up, and geez…” Sam gave a forced sigh of exasperation. “I can’t believe you didn’t wake up when the gun went off! I thought I was goin’ to have everybody up and yellin’ at me.”
Dean looked down at the pants and then back up to Sam. “Guess I’m jus’ a heavier sleeper than I thought.” He laughed lightly. “But you’re okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘cept for a few claw marks on my legs, but hell, that’s nothin’ new.”
“Well, good. I hope you killed that varmint.”
Sam grinned, relaxing as Dean fell, hook, line, and sinker. “Oh, yeah, killed ‘im good.”
Dean smiled, patted Sam on the shoulder as he passed by on his way outside. “Good job, kid, looks like we’ll get ya broken in eventually.”
- - - - -
Late that night, when the dusk of twilight had fallen down into the ink of night, and after Dean was snoring soundly in his room downstairs, Sam left the plantation. He saddled his horse and lit a lantern to guide his way, then he rode out alone.
The house was on the outskirts of town, beyond the cramped stores and gossiping women, even away from the other plantations and their crops. Riding up, Sam was satisfied to see that everything seemed to be quiet in the little building nestled at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He tied his horse to one of the trees that guarded the house by the end of the walkway. He pressed his lips tightly together as he approached the door, hoping that tonight would be a better-shorter-night than the last.
This never got any easier. No matter how many times he had done it.
Not that murder ever could be easy, he thought morosely.
He opened the door, raising his lantern to illuminate the area. The rooms were empty. Dust and cobwebs littering the corners, and the glass was broken out of some of the windows. Blood was splattered messily on the floor and sparsely on the weathered walls. There were bullets embedded in the wood and scars where a knife had cut too deep here and there.
Mentally, secretly, Sam called it the Dark House. A proper noun like the Declaration of Independence or the Liberty Bell. He came here in the dark, he left at dark, dark things happened here and dark things stayed here. The name fit.
He went to one of the side rooms where the walls were adorned with assorted weapons and equipment like so many treasured family photographs. Guns dangled on hooks next to knives of varying length and edge. Thick books with cracked binding and bottles of holy water rested on crudely made shelves. After picking up one of the guns, Sam passed to what had been the master bedroom. In the middle of the room, a figure sat in a rickety chair, its head bent towards the ground. The floorboards creaked as Sam approached, and the man-what seemed to be a man-lifted his head.
His face was a twisted mess of flesh burned away from the bone, and maggots twisted their way up the side of his cheek into the empty socket of an eye. The good eye, the one that followed Sam along the perimeter of the Devil’s Trap, was black and unblinking.
“Have a good night?” Sam sneered. He set his lantern down on the floor, dousing the room into shadows, the ghosts of dead light dancing on walls.
The man breathed, a wheeze that rattled his chest. “Let me go. I have a wife and kids.”
“You think you do. Somehow, I bet your wife wouldn’t be so lovin’ if she knew she was sleeping next to a goddamn demon.”
“She doesn’t know. She can’t see. Not like you,” the demon spat, scared and angry. “What difference does it make?”
“Difference is, you’re from Hell, and I can see yer real face. Even if nobody else can, I don’t want to be seein’ you walkin’ down my street anymore.”
“I’ll move.”
“No.”
“Look, I’ll do anything you want. Just-just don’t. Please.”
“I don’t see many of you that beg,” Sam said, bringing out his gun.
The rotted lips attempted a smile in the dim lighting, but the flesh pulled apart-attempt failed. “See? ‘m different that way. Let me live. I’ll show you, I’ll leave, stay underground. I promise you, I’ll be good.”
Sam shook his head. “That’s not a chance ‘m willing to take.” He placed the blessed gun to the demon’s forehead. “Any last words?”
“Yes,” said the demon, and Sam pulled the trigger.
- - - - -
He disposed of the body by dumping it in the river that ran behind the house. By the time it reached the town’s area, the fish would have eaten most of it and the river torn apart the rest. A person would have to look closely to understand that what they were seeing had once resembled a human.
It wasn’t as though Sam enjoyed the killing, but he wasn’t about to let these monsters walk around town, pretending that they were something they were not.
He had been seeing things that other people couldn’t since shortly before his parents’ death. Since that man stepped out of the fire on the bridge. He saw demons’ true faces, ghosts, monsters that only existed in books; the list was unending. He captured them if he could and brought them back to the Dark House to eliminate them. If he couldn’t capture them, then he’d kill them where they were. But that was messier and harder to keep secret in a town so small. So, he’d learned how to sneak up on a man with demon’s eyes and press a rag soaked in chloroform over his nose before he was noticed. He confided only in Bobby, who helped Sam gather his supplies. It was Sam’s choice to leave Dean out of this part of his life.
“What should I tell Dean if you die?” Bobby asked once. It was a year or so ago when Sam took off after a chupacabra, telling Dean he was going to another town to visit a friend. Chupacabra were vicious, especially out of their home territory. There’d be wounds to heal, and one night away wouldn’t be enough.
Sam frowned and looked down from his horse to Bobby, whose face was shadowed in the night. “Tell him not to blame himself. Tell him that I’m sorry…Tell him…that I love him,” Sam’d said. All the vile words Sam had in his arsenal, had wielded and been targeted by, and it was the only time since his parents’ deaths he could remember saying that word.
Sam didn’t want to bring Dean into this mess. He couldn’t. Couldn’t imagine where he’d start the conversation and how little Dean would believe him in the end anyway. No, Dean had enough to worry about. He didn’t need to think his little brother was crazy on top of it all.
So, Sam stayed silent and kept the Dark House and what happened there to himself. As he mounted his horse, he thought, And that’s the way it should be.
- - - - -
On his way back home, Sam passed by the bridge closest to their plantation. Seated on his horse, he looked across the bridge, to the end that emptied into darkness.
“Hello?” he called out.
No one answered. He waited for a long moment, watching and listening. His horse nickered and tossed its head, impatient, and he felt his muscles relax. He flicked the reins and took off back home.
Everything was silent at the bridge. Everything would be safe for another night.
- - - - -
Light was beginning to creep onto the edges of the sky by the time Sam put away his horse and made his way inside the house. His bones ached, and his head spun with exhaustion. He wondered how much longer he could keep this up.
He couldn’t roll over and let evil fester, but he wouldn’t argue the chance for a month of peace and quiet. Evil never did sleep, he thought to himself. Stupid evil.
Slowly, he plodded up the stairs to his bedroom. He paused though, forced himself to wait a bit longer for rest, long enough to open the door to his parents’ bedroom.
From the lacey canopy bed, his mom looked up from where she was sitting on the edge of the mattress, brushing her long, golden hair. She smiled. “Good night, Sam.”
“Good night, Mom.”
He closed the door and plodded down the hallway to his bedroom, where he fell face first onto his bed, not bothering to change out of his clothes.
- - - - -
They really needed to get rid of some of these cats, Dean decided as he fished out another kitten from behind a mound of loose hay in the loft. The kitten squeaked in surprise at being picked up, its tiny claws reaching to grab hold of something besides the air. Dean cupped the tiny gray and white tiger in his hands and walked across the loft to give the baby back to its mother. Four other kittens squirmed against the mother’s stomach, mewling quietly as they fought to feed.
Dean sat down, still holding the baby as it purred softly in the palm of his hand. He couldn’t help but smile when the wobbly kitten tried to stand up. Okay, so maybe they could keep these cats, but no more after this…
“Dean?”
Sam.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?”
“Up here,” Dean called, putting the kitten back with its mother so he could lean over the edge of the loft. Sam was standing far below on the ground, hands on hips. He was wearing his good jacket, complete with tie, over his vest and shirt. Something was up because Sam didn’t get dressed up for just the hell of it.
“Bobby’s here. Stopped by fer lunch. You want to come down? Margaret’s got the best china and everything pulled out like Bobby’s a damn king.” Sam laughed, knowing Dean understood that he loved both Bobby and Margaret and thought nothing ill of either of them.
“Yeah, I’ll be down in a bit. I was just checkin’ on how much hay we got.”
“Second cut won’t be ready for another few weeks,” Sam reminded him, taking off his hat and scratching his head. “You think we might need to buy s’more? Didn’t think we were goin’ through it that fast.”
“Nah. We’ll be plenty fine.”
“Well,” Sam replied, “then no need to go playing ‘round up there. I’m starvin’, so get your ass down here already.” He laughed and turned to walk out of the barn. “I’ll be inside, okay?”
“Yup. I’m a-comin’. Geesh. Don’t be so damn bossy.”
Sam laughed again, and it was good to hear. Sam had been looking so tired these past few months. Dean moved towards the ladder to climb down.
- - - - -
“If you kill me, I promise you’ll be sorry.”
It was a few days after Bobby had visited, and now in the Dark House, Sam rolled his eyes and raised his gun. “That’s what they all say.”
The demon looked up at him, cocked its head in a slow, drugged move. Its face was bloated like a corpse’s left too long in the sun, the skin gray and green, blotted black in areas. There were no lips on its mouth, and when it smiled, its toothless gums dripped a brown slime down the front of its shirt.
Sam placed the gun against the demon’s forehead. “Any last words?” he asked.
“No,” the demon croaked, and Sam pulled the trigger.
He discarded the body, closed and locked up the Dark House. He mounted his horse, checked that all was quiet on the bridge and put his horse away in the stable. He said good-night to his parents, and he went to bed.
- - - - -
He continued his hunting as he had for the last fifteen years. There was too much evil out there for him to stop now. He killed his share of monsters, murdered his share of demons, and he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop when he could see.
Then, some time later on what had been an average night up to that point, he saw a man stepping out of flames at the end of the bridge, and Sam turned his horse, galloping at a breakneck speed back to the plantation.
There was fire on the bridge.
There was fire on the bridge, and disaster was coming.
- - - - -
Something was wrong with Sam, Dean observed over the next few days. Sam fidgeted nervously whenever he sat still for too long. He chewed his fingernails until they bled, and he kept glancing out the window every time he was inside. If he was outside, he looked to the hills, the mountains standing high in the distance, and his eyes darted up and down their rocky sides. He paced down the hallway outside Dean’s door, rarely sleeping except during the day when he dozed off only to wake a minute later, still troubled about something unspoken.
Dean asked him what was wrong many a time, and each and every time, Sam brushed him off with grunts of, ‘Nothin’,” or “’m fine.”
“You’re such a goddamn liar,” Dean grumbled into his dinner.
Sam looked up. “What’d you say?”
“You heard me.” They met eyes across the table, each angry at the other, until Sam pushed out his chair and stormed over to the window. He stood in front of it for a long moment with his jaw steeled and arms crossed.
Dean watched him, not saying anything, letting his food go cold in front of him.
“Be careful, Dean,” Sam said finally.
“What?”
“Be careful,” Sam repeated.
“What in blazes in that s’posed to mean?” Dean asked, rising.
Sam turned to face Dean, and his eyes were sad. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead, he shook his head and hurried out of the room, his mouth a tight line.
Dean froze, turned to run after him, but instead, he collapsed in his chair, holding his face in his hands until Margaret came to check on him some time later.
- - - - -
The accident happened two days later, six days after the man on the bridge. Sam was walking the perimeter of the field and trying to keep his hands from shaking. Something was coming. Something bad was coming. The man didn’t show if something good was coming. Shit. He cursed inwardly before shouting, “Goddammit!” aloud, catching the attention of some of the workers.
He turned away quickly, walking fast. Could he stop it? Could he prevent it? No. He was powerless. He could only hold on and hope for the best.
He heard a scream and lifted his head.
Dean.
He broke out into a frantic run, sprinting towards the barn madly. His hat flew off, landed somewhere in the grass, but he kept running.
“Dean!” he yelled, heart rising higher and higher in his throat. Please, God, please, not Dean, please, please, please. “Dean!” he shouted again, as if saying his brother’s name would keep him from harm.
Sam sped into the barn, breathless and dizzy, and he scanned the area frantically.
“Dean!”
He ran around the corner and froze.
Dean lay crumpled on the dirt floor, blood on his face and his arm twisted at an unnatural angle behind his head. His lips were parted, revealing slick red smeared across his teeth.
Sam threw himself forward. “Dean,” he whispered. “Please, don’t…” Dean’s chest rose lightly; he was still breathing, still alive.
“Help!” Sam screamed, turning his head to the doorway. “Someone, please help me! Help me!”
He looked down at his brother so broken now, and Sam fought back the burn of tears. Someone help him.
- - - - -
The doctor said that Dean was hurt. Very badly hurt, his voice lowered as if Dean would wake up and protest the doctor’s diagnosis.
“Keep ‘im comfortable for the night,” the doctor advised. “I’ll be back in the mornin’ to check on him.” He tipped his hat to Bobby, who wished him a good night while Sam stood silent in Dean’s doorway, biting his fingernails.
Bobby came up beside Sam and slapped his hand away from his mouth. “Quit that, would ya? Jesus…”
Sam mumbled an apology, kept his eyes fixed on Dean, who was breathing faintly.
“This is all my fault,” Sam said after a beat.
“How d’ya go figurin’ that?”
“Because I killed all those demons. I should’ve known it was goin’ come back and bite me in the ass.”
“Bullshit,” Bobby shot back. “It was an accident. He fell. Got careless.”
“No.” Sam shook his head. “Not Dean. Not Dean…”
“Sam, you’re bein’ irrational.”
“Am I?” Sam’s eyes were watery when he turned to look down at Bobby. He swallowed hard, forcing down the lump in his throat.
Bobby squeezed his shoulder, a reassuring pressure. “You should go to bed, son. Sleep will do you some good. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”
“I’m goin’ stay with him.”
Bobby sighed. Sam knew Bobby wasn’t going try to convince him otherwise. He knew how John and Mary’s stubbornness ran strong through Sam. So, he pulled his hand away and patted Sam on the back. “I’ll be in the room down the hall if’n you need somethin’.”
Sam forced a nod as Bobby turned and walked away. Sam went over to the side of Dean’s bed and sat down in one of the chairs.
“I’m sorry,” he said, words hissing through the curled fist against his lips. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I…” Sam exhaled raggedly as his voice wavered. “I should’ve told you instead of lyin’ to you for all these years. Maybe, maybe…maybe this wouldn’t have happened.” He bit his lip, hard enough to hurt. “I’m sorry, Dean, I’m so sorry…But I’ll fix this. I promise, I’ll fix this.”
- - - - -
It was unusual to see the Dark House empty. It’d been years since he hadn’t had someone-something-waiting for him from the night before. Walking through its bloodstained rooms alone was even more eerie than when there was a demon in the living room.
Sam.
He whipped around, lifting his head from the book of spells he’d been reading on how to save Dean, gun already drawn and chest heaving.
“Who’s there?” he called into the darkness.
Come to the bridge, Sam, and then we’ll talk.
“Who are you?” He pressed his back against the wall as the voice rasped through the house.
Bridge, Sam. Not going to talk to you here. Don’t you listen?
“Give me a reason.”
Your brother. Dean’s life.
Sam ran for the door and his horse. He ran for the bridge and his brother.
- - - - -
There were no flames, but there was a man. He was dressed all in black-black hat and a black walking stick-and a silver pocket watch with the chain crossed over the front of his vest, disappeared into his front pocket. Smoke curled from the cigar between his fingers, and he smiled a closed, tight-lipped smile beneath his finely trimmed black goatee as Sam stepped onto the bridge.
It was the first time he had been on the bridge since he was a kid and Bobby had come to tell him his parents were dead.
“Now, now, don’t look so scared, Sam,” the man said. His voice was smooth, accented like those Northern folk from Illinois Sam had met a few years back. “Sorry I didn’t bring a golden fiddle for you. Maybe that would’ve been more appropriate.”
Sam frowned, confused.
“Ah, never mind, we’re not in Georgia anyway, are we? Hm?”
“Who are you?” Sam narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t see anything abnormal about the man, but he could sense something prickling in the air.
The man scoffed, tossing his cigar down and grinding it beneath his toe. His shoes shone in the light of Sam’s lantern. “Why, I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out already.”
“You’re not a demon. You don’t have the face of one.”
“Don’t need one. I’m too good for that. If it’s any comfort, though, you’re the only one that can see me. Not anybody else who doesn’t have your special little power.”
Sam swallowed. “You can’t be who I think you are…that’s just…”
“Say it, Sam. Spit it out.”
“The devil?” The words caught, tripped on their way out.
The man smiled. “Smart boy.”
“What do you want?”
“I heard about Dean. Terrible pity, getting himself hurt like that.”
“I think a demon had something to do with it.”
“I know.”
“I think you had something to do with it.”
“I know.” The man’s smile widened.
“I think you did it 'cause you were mad at me for killing all of your demons and you were ready to make good on all those threats almost ev'ry demon gave me before I blew its head off.”
The man smiled darkly. “I know,” he repeated, quieter this time.
“Then, what do you want?” Sam was breathless. “You got what you wanted by hurtin’ Dean. What can you possibly want now?”
This time, when the man smiled, he showed all his teeth. He swung his walking stick playfully.
“I want to make a deal,” he said.
- - - - -
The deal was simple enough. Sam’s soul to save Dean, to keep him from death. A shake of the hands, and it would be over just like that. Nothing messy, nothing elaborate, and Dean would be up and walking by tomorrow morning.
No catch, the man had said. Your soul. Dean’s perfect health. Simple as that.
Sam thought for a long moment while the devil lit another cigar and puffed away into the night. He sat on the edge of the bridge, swinging his legs in the water and making no ripples.
Finally, Sam said, “No.”
The devil stood quickly, startled. “No?”
“No.”
“Your brother may never recover. Really, he probably won’t recover.”
“But he may. He could.”
“He fell from the loft. He’ll be dead by the end of the week.”
“No. I’ll make sure of it.”
“You’ll be sorry if you don’t take this deal. I’ll make you sorry.”
Sam shook his head. “You won’t kill him. You’re not a reaper. You can’t take life.”
The devil pursed his lips. “Are you really that selfish that you’d let Dean die? You keep all these secrets from him, lie to him, and now, just let him die?” The devil shook his head. “You know, if your places were switched, and you were dying, Dean would sell his soul to save you. He’d make a deal without thinking, quick as a flash,” he said, snapping his fingers, “and that’d be that. But you?”
“Know the truth,” Sam finished. He didn’t bother explaining how many demons he’d talked to in their final moments, once people who had made devil’s deals only to be plunged into Hell, regretting every moment once they realized they had bargained for more than the devil had told them. There never was an honest deal when it came to the devil. And, Sam reminded himself with guilt rising high in his throat, Dean was sick.
He wasn’t dead.
“If you don’t take this deal now, you’ll regret it.” He lifted his walking stick and pointed it towards Sam. “I’ll make sure of that, you selfish bastard.”
“Is that a threat?”
The devil smiled crookedly. “Now, I don’t make threats. That’s a promise.” He paused, staring evenly at Sam. “So, are you going to save your brother or just let him die? If you don’t make the deal, you might have just as well have pushed him off the loft yourself.”
“No deal. Keep it for another fool.” Sam turned and walked away.
From the other end of the bridge, the devil called, “Nothing will be the same after this. Sam, I promise that!”
- - - - -
At home, Mom, her translucent blue dress pooled around her, was sitting in the chair next to Dean’s bed, and Dad was in the doorway.
“You did the right thing,” Dad said, his smile sad.
“God, I hope so.”
“No. If you’d made the deal, Dean would’ve made ‘nother to save you, and it never would’ve ended, see?”
Sam bit his lip. “I feel like the worst person alive.”
Dad shook his head. “Go to him. He’s been dreamin’. He can’t say it yet, but he wants you beside him. He’s all alone right now.”
Exhaling heavily, Sam crossed the room. Mom rose from the chair and kissed him on the cheek, a warm breeze against his skin and nothing more. “You’ll be okay, honey. You both will be.”
She moved past him, and he could hear her whispering to Dad. When Sam looked up again, they were both gone.
Sam sank down in the chair beside Dean’s bed. “I’m sorry,” he said. He couldn’t stop apologizing, as if enough words would change things. “You’re going to get better and uh-” He rested a hand over Dean’s. “It’s goin’ to be all right. It’s-it’s gotta be all right.” He wrapped both of his hands around Dean’s limp fist, and Sam squeezed them tight. “Please, Dean, please…it’s gotta be all right.”
Dean breathed lightly, and a tear fell down Sam’s cheek.
- - - - -
Days passed slowly, terribly, in that torturous fashion time has when breath is being held on the chance of salvation. Bobby stayed at the plantation, watching out for the boys-the both of them-even though he joked, keeping a good face, and said he needed a vacation away from his place.
Sam rarely left Dean’s side. He took Dean’s care into his own hands. Using a narrow glass tube given to him by the doctor, Sam offered Dean a thin broth Margaret prepared. Dean’s throat bobbed slowly but obediently as his body accepted what Sam gave to him. With a cool towel, Sam wiped away the sheen of perspiration on Dean’s forehead and cheeks, and he changed the blankets when they began to reek of sickness.
Sam told Bobby to take care of the plantation. Make the decisions about things, Sam had said with a wave of his hand. Do whatever you feel is necessary. Please, Bobby, I don’t want to think about it.
And Bobby did.
A week passed, and Dean was still breathing. Sam wanted to go to the bridge then shove his finger in the devil’s chest and say, Look, look, it’s been a week, and he’s still alive. But, Sam didn’t. It was still too early for happiness.
“What if he never wakes up?” Sam asked the doctor one afternoon. He chewed on the corner of his thumb; he couldn’t stop. “When are we goin’ to know that he’s okay?”
The doctor sighed, lifted his black bag off the floor and said, “We won’t. There’s no way of tellin’. It’s all in Dean’s hands now. I’ve done all I can. He’s not changin’, which, I s’pose is good and bad.”
“So, what? We just wait now?”
The doctor nodded. “We just wait.”
- - - - -
Ten days after the accident, ten days of anxious waiting, Dean stirred, shifted. His hand tensed in Sam’s hold.
In a long, suspended moment, his eyes fluttered beneath their lids before opening blearily. They scanned the room, taking in their surroundings and then landing on Sam.
“Sammy?” Dean whispered. His voice was fragile and weary.
Sam said, “Yes,” and he began to cry.
- - - - -
Dean regained his strength and coordination, slowly, but surely. He was wobbly for a few weeks after waking, and both Bobby and Sam worked with him patiently.
Sam asked Dean if he could remember what happened before the accident.
“What do you mean?” Dean asked, taking a bite of chicken. His fork shook slightly as he lifted it to his mouth.
“Was there anybody up there with you? Like, did you see something that spooked you?”
Dean frowned. “What kind of question is that?”
“I’m asking.”
“No…No, I remember going up to the loft, climbing and thinkin’…thinkin’ that yeah, we’d be set for ‘while with the hay and then…Then I woke up, and I was in bed. Everythin’ ‘tween that is black.”
“Oh,” Sam said, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He had been hoping Dean would remember something and that a demon had pushed him. Not that Sam was ruling out the possibility now. It just made it harder to prove when Dean couldn’t remember one way or the other.
“Why’s that?” Dean asked.
Sam shook his head and took a long drink of wine from his glass. “Just curious.”
He hadn’t been off the plantation to find any demons to take back to the Dark House in weeks. He hoped all was well.
- - - - -
One morning as they walked outdoors, Dean pushed Sam aside and said, “No, I want to do this by myself.” He walked slowly, without any help from Sam, from a cane, or from a fence post, out to the hill that overlooked the cotton fields.
The sun was rising in the distance, and Dean stood in front of it, triumphant on his own two feet.
Behind him, Sam smiled, and Dad said, “That’s m’boy.”
- - - - -
Dean was back to normal-or as normal as Dean could be anyhow-when Sam decided that, yes, they were all better off for him not making the deal with the devil. The only ailment plaguing Dean was an occasional headache, which the doctor said was likely a side effect from the accident. Overall, though, Dean was better. There was nothing at the bridge, and Sam was able to return to the Dark House, mostly guilt-free.
Inwardly, Sam finally started to forgive himself for not shaking the devil’s hand to seal a deal.
He returned one night from a demon killing and poked his head into his parents’ room as he always did. Instead of seeing Mom and Dad as he had expected, the room was empty, its curtains blowing gently in the early morning breeze.
Sam frowned, confused and slightly pained not to see them, but he decided not to think too much of it. Who knew what ghosts did in their free time? Maybe they had somewhere else to be.
Exhausted, Sam moved down the hallway to his room where he closed his eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep. He awoke in the morning, well rested but dizzy, as if he'd had too much to drink the night before. He shrugged off the sensation and went downstairs to join Dean for breakfast.
- - - - -
Feeling better than he had in a long time, Dean asked if Sam wanted to go for a ride that evening.
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” Sam asked, appearing worried.
Dean tried not to smile. Sam was worse than a mother hen, tending to him, fussing over him all the time. Although, Dean admitted to himself, he would have been as bad in his doting-if not worse-if Sam had the same type of accident and had been the one lying in bed for far too many days in a row. He couldn’t imagine-didn’t want to-how hard it must have been for Sam to sit by his bedside, day after day, waiting and hoping but never knowing.
“I’m ready. I can’t sit ‘round here for the rest of my life. Need to go for a ride. What do you say we go down to that old bridge we used to go fishin’ at when we were kids? Get some fresh air off this place? Hm?” He didn’t tell Sam that he was hoping the activity would help to alleviate the headaches that still formed now and then.
Sam visibly stiffened, upset, but he said, “Yeah, that’ll be fine, I guess.” He took a long drink of water and lowered his eyes.
Later, outside the borders of the plantation, Dean was excited to be riding again, having almost forgotten the sense of freedom he got from wind passing over him. He laughed as he raced past Sam over the empty meadows that edged the river.
The sun was setting, stealing the day’s light as it sank beneath the trees. They had to be heading back soon, Dean knew, before it got dark and they were stranded out here in the night.
Sam was ahead of him, not by much, but enough, as they passed by the bridge on their way back home. As Dean rode by, something caught his eye, and he slowed his horse to turn around.
Noticing Dean, Sam pulled his horse back as well. “Dean?” he called over his shoulder.
Carefully, Dean approached the bridge. His horse tossed its head and snorted, upset and troubled.
Coming to the end of the bridge, Dean dismounted and walked onto the end of the wooden planks. On the opposite side, across the water, flames shot high into the sky. They crackled but never touched the wood as they danced in brilliant oranges and yellows with a flicker of purple and red. He could feel their heat from where he stood.
“Dean!” Sam hollered, riding up. “Dean!” He leapt from his horse hastily, running to Dean’s side and shouting. “What is it? What do you see?”
Confused, Dean glanced over to Sam. “Sam?” he whispered. It seemed as if Sam couldn’t see the flames. As if he was unable to hear their snapping or feel their immense heat.
Dean didn’t know if what he was seeing was reality. He felt his mind spinning and the headache pounding fiercely.
“Dean,” Sam said again, resting his hand on Dean's shoulder, and his voice, his simple being there calmed Dean. He knew that he tell Sam. Because Sam would understand. Because Sam would help him. Because they could get through this madness--as they had gotten through life after their parents--together. “What is it?” Sam repeated.
Before replying, Dean’s attention was averted as a man stepped out of the flames. He was dressed in all black with a silver pocket watch, and he walked to the middle of the bridge, his walking stick tapping hollowly on the boards.
“Hello, Dean,” the man said. His gaze shifted and settled on Sam, who was seeing only Dean through worried eyes. The man smiled. “Tell Sam that I always keep my promises.”
End
Greatest Hits by Tracy Chapman
Also: This fic was inspired by a real paranormal story. When legoline sent me her prompt list and made the comment, “I realise this is very hard to write” after mentioning the Southern AU, I knew that’s the one I was going to write. So, I did some Google searching for Southern folklore and came across the story of Hell’s Gate in Oxford, Alabama. After reading that, everything else for the story seemed to fall into place, and here we are. Happy birthday, sweetie. I hope it’s wonderful.