And Death's Dark Shadows Put To Flight
Title: And Death's Dark Shadows Put To Flight
Summary: Fusion ‘verse. Sam goes missing shortly before Christmas, and Dean manages not to freak out completely.
Characters: Dean, Sam, OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers up to 5.22. Swearing and very mild angst.
Wordcount: 3,656
Neurotic Author's Note #1: For those of you who aren’t familiar with the ‘verse, allow me to direct you to the Master Post, because otherwise this story won’t make much sense to you.
Neurotic Author's Note #2: This is not the fic in which Sam 'n' Dean get their dog, but the dog is present! I may write the timestamp in which they obtain the dog at some later date.
Neurotic Author's Note #3: It's nearly Christmas, so I wrote a nearly-Christmas story for the boys. No beta, no nothing, but it's nice to finally be back in a place where I'm liking what I write again.
Dean comes awake with a start, heart thudding with the vertigo-inducing feeling of free falling that always seems to follow his nightmares. Already the nightmare itself is fading. They've been getting better, increasingly so since Sam's return, and he has no idea who or what to thank for that, but he's not going to question it. He grabs the arms of his La-Z-Boy and pushes himself further up in the chair, twisting his neck until it cracks satisfyingly, vertebrae snapping back into place. The television is still on, one of those Christmas specials that are ubiquitous this time of year, and it takes a moment of blinking stupidly at the digital display on the DVD player before he figures out that it's well past seven o'clock in the evening. He has no idea what time he nodded off, but it's been a few hours, at least.
“Shit,” he rubs a hand over his face, scraping against the stubble he didn't bother to shave off this morning. It's his day off, he sees no reason to do anything that he doesn't absolutely have to. It's going to be a bitch to get to sleep at a decent hour tonight, though. He honestly doesn't remember how he and Sam managed when they were hunting, even before both of them were plagued with nightmares and insomnia. Nowadays he's barely functional if he doesn't get a proper night's sleep. He wonders if that means he's getting soft, or if it's just a sign of how terrifically fucked-up he used to be.
Perry stirs at his feet with a low whine, and he reaches down to fondle her ears. “Hey sweetheart. I bet you need to go for a walk, don't you?”
The dog sits up, tongue lolling, brown eyes watching him with fixed adoration, and he grins in spite of himself. It's only been a couple of months, but it feels like she's been part of the family forever. Even Dad would have liked her, he thinks, even if John Winchester was never inclined toward pets, not even when Mom was still alive. Perry -short for Periwinkle- is a dog among dogs. And he's not just saying that because he's biased.
“You want to go with me, or you want Sam to take you for a run? Work off some of that extra energy? Hey, Sammy?” he calls out. There's no response. “Sam?”
Shit. He flips the footrest down, eases himself to his feet, testing his weight on his bad leg to make sure it hasn't fallen asleep and won't make him faceplant into the coffee table, which would be undignified and really fucking inconvenient. Instantly Perry is on her feet too, taking up her customary position on his bad side, just in case. She's not even wearing her harness, he notes, and he's not sure how he feels about that. What does it say about him, that it makes him feel guilty that his own service dog wants to help him even during her time off? He shakes his head. Ridiculous.
“Sam?” Still nothing. He pats Perry's head. “Okay, mutt. I guess we have our work cut out for us. Perry, get Sam!”
Tail wagging, Perry gives an enthusiastic wriggle and trots off up the stairs. 'Get Sam' has proved to be one of the more useful commands Dean came up with on his own, once the initial training was over and he'd brought Perry home. It's multi-purpose, he figures. It means that if he falls, he doesn't have to worry about waiting possibly for hours until Sam finds him to come help him up. It also means that if Sam's having a bad day, that Perry can lead Dean to him without Dean having to wander up and down the stairs and all through the house, which is a slow, highly impractical course of action. He makes his way around the ground floor, checking in the spots Sam tends to wedge himself when things get overwhelming, but there's no sign of his brother, and a quick check shows that Sam's coat is missing from its hook near the front door.
“Sam!”
There's no use yelling -he knows better than anyone that if Sam is locked up inside hs head again he won't even hear Dean yelling, let alone reply- but he does it anyway. It's second-nature to yell for Sam when he's out of sight, he's been doing it for so long that he doesn't know how to break himself of the habit. Perry comes tumbling back down the stairs, tail still wagging, but she whines and sits at his feet rather than trying to lead him up the stairs. Her tail thumps once on the floor, almost apologetically.
“No Sam, huh?” he asks, and gets another whine. “That's okay. Good girl,” he pats her head, hating the fact that she's picking up on his stress and is obviously upset too. She's a pretty little thing, for a mutt with no discernible lineage. Even now after a couple of months he still marvels at the mask of brown and white framing her eyes -by all rights it should make her ugly, not beautiful, but there you go. Dean has always liked his women unconventional, so why should his dog be an exception to the rule?
“Okay, Perry. Let's go find Sam.”
No panicking. It's been months, this happens all the time, right? All they have to do is find Sam, bring him home. Easy-peasy. He shrugs into his winter coat, grabs the quad cane from the rack by the door rather than the regular walking stick he used all summer and fall. It's been snowing for a while, now, and that shit is slippery, and he doesn't want to risk a fall while Sam is AWOL. He slips Perry's harness over her head, bends over to clip all the buckles securely, and immediately she's all business, holding herself very still and waiting for instructions. Her tail gives the briefest of twitches, as though she realizes that wagging is undignified while she's on the job. He grins, pulls his hat over his head, pats down his pockets.
“Shit. Perry, keys!”
The dog trots away into the living room, delicately picks up his house keys from the coffee table in her teeth. He invested in a pretty big keychain for them for that express purpose, and he hasn't regretted it for a single moment. Dropping his keys used to be a huge fucking ordeal, and now it's just a question of a simple command to get them back. He gives her more praise -it's all about the positive reinforcement, he's been told this again and again, and the irony isn't lost on him- pockets the keys, and clips the leash to her harness. He doesn't bother locking the door behind him, figuring he'll only be gone a little while, but he doesn't like to leave his keys behind, just in case he somehow manages to lock himself out.
It's snowing outside. Fat, wet flakes are drifting steadily from the low-hanging December sky, and the light from the street lamps casts a friendly glow over the darkened streets. He leaves a trail of footprints in the fresh snow, the ones on the right connected by shallow lines where he can't quite lift his leg entirely free of the snow's surface, and his cane punches neat holes in the white drifts. Perry walks sedately by his side in the 'heel' position, the leash slack between them. Perfectly trained, he thinks, not without some pride.
The streets are all but deserted even though it's still relatively early by his standards. It's a school night, though, and the town isn't exactly a rowdy one. All of the neighbours have put up Christmas lights, and more than a few of the houses have decorations on their roofs or lawns or both. After the Hallowe'en debacle he didn't dare try putting up any himself, but a couple of his neighbours have offered to help -none too subtly implying that he and Sam should really get their acts together and do something about the fact that their house is bare during the most wonderful time of the year. The thought brings a small smile to his lips, and he shakes his head. Maybe he'll ask Mike Larson for a hand: the guy has a truck and a ladder, and maybe if Sam's having a good day at some point they might be able to pull something together.
Just thinking of Sam makes his stomach clench unpleasantly. Dean checks his cell phone, but there aren't any missed calls, which means no one has found Sam wandering yet. That's both good and bad. Good, in that Sam probably isn't in trouble, bad, in that he really has no idea where his brother is and has no way of finding out on short notice. There aren't any other tracks in the snow, which means Sam left before the snowfall. The bakery and the bookstore are both closed, so he's left with his instincts and some educated guesses about where Sam might have headed.
“Too bad you can't get his scent and just track him that way,” he says to Perry, who huffs, apparently in agreement. “I don't think that's your main strength, though.” He's not sure why he's taken to talking to his dog like she's a person, but it feels right, and no one has so much as raised an eyebrow, so he figures it's okay enough. “You got any idea where he went?”
He doesn't get an answer, but then he wasn't expecting one. The day his dog starts talking to him is the day he checks himself -and probably Sam- into the nearest mental facility. After he' checked to make sure the dog isn't a subspecies of skinwalker, naturally. By the time he gets downtown his leg is protesting the cold. He's lucky that he doesn't have much pain these days, but major surgery is major surgery, and the way he walks puts unnecessary pressure on his hip, or so several doctors have told him. He's been given exercises to do, PT until he's cross-eyed, and shown a better technique, but his way is faster, and so he mostly ignores the experts and does his own thing, even when Sam bitches at him. Dean picks up the pace, the need to find Sam still thrumming urgently in his whole body. He's better now at not panicking when Sam is gone, but it doesn't make this all that much easier to bear.
“Hey, Dean!”
He stops in his tracks, squints through the flurries of snow, gusting in the wind, and catches sight of Gus, the owner of the gas station, cruising by slowly in his old truck. Dean tucks his cane under his other arm, raises his hand in a brief wave, then grabs the cane again in order to continue on his way, but Gus pulls up alongside him, window rolled all the way down.
“Need a lift?” his breath fogs in the cool night air. Gus has a face only a mother could love, Margery from the bakery is fond of saying, all jaw and very little forehead, with squinty eyes and a couple of missing teeth, but he's a good guy all the same. Give you the shirt off his back, Margery will often say in the same breath.
Dean eyes the truck askance. It's too high off the ground for him to get in and out comfortably, and besides, he doesn't know where he's going. He shakes his head. “Thanks anyway. You haven't seen Sam, have you?”
Gus shakes his head, eyes narrowing further, so that it almost looks like they're disappearing into his head. “Not lately, but there ain't too many places open right now he could go. Tell you what, I'll check the streets, you check inside buildings, how's that? If we don't turn up anything in half an hour, I'll call up some folks, get 'em to help.”
Dean's instinct is to refuse -Winchesters don't involve other people in their problems. Stay under the radar, don't draw attention, that's the rule. Except that's not how their lives work anymore, hasn't been that way for nearly a year, and Gus is sincere. In fact, Dean is pretty sure that it would take less than three phone calls to get a good dozen people out of their warm, safe houses, just to help him find his brother and pull him out of the snow. In from the cold. He nods.
“That'd be great, thanks,” he schools his face into a smile, tight with worry. “He never really goes far.”
“Yeah, I know. I got my cell. You need my number?”
“No, I got it, thanks.” He doesn't bother asking if Gus has his number, it's a foregone conclusion. Besides, it's also written on the laminated card that's always hanging from a lanyard around Sam's neck. “You sure about this, Gus? I'm sure you've got other things to do.”
“Nah, it's not a problem. I dropped off Maudie at the church earlier -they're having a rehearsal for the Christmas concert tonight- so I was just going to head home and put on the game, maybe microwave some popcorn, until she's finished. Nothing that can't wait.”
The truck engine grumbles as Gus heads off down the street, putting aside whatever laid back TV-watching plans he had for the evening, and Dean feels an unaccustomed warmth spread through him -even after all this time, it still surprises him when people do nice things for him without being asked. He trudges onward, ignoring the dull ache in his leg, and thinks he should have put Perry's coat on her -and yes, he has a fucking coat for his dog, because she gets cold in the winter, damn it, and no one had better say a damned word about it- because she's shivering already.
He picks up the pace for a few blocks, hoping to get both their hearts pumping a little faster in order to warm them up, finds himself at the bottom of the steps to the church. He stares up at the large wooden doors, at the light spilling through the cracks all around them. It must cost a fortune to heat a place with such poor insulation. Perry shifts beside him, paws crunching in the snow, looks up expectantly to see whether or not he's going to attempt the stairs. There's no reason to, of course. It's not like he and Sam are church-goers by any stretch of the imagination. From inside he can hear the sound of voices raised in song -the church choir, heavily reinforced with extra singers for the upcoming Christmas concert.
And man at war with man hears not
The love song which they bring.
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!
From out here, the sound is indistinct, but the tune is a familiar one, enveloping him in a memory of taking refuge in a church with Dad and Sammy one night when there was a little too much month left at the end of the money. Huddling together in one of the back pews and listening to a choir much like this one while Sammy slept in Dad's arms, thumb firmly in his mouth, and Dean leaned against Dad's side, confident that it was only a matter of time before Dad fixed everything.
“Fuck it,” he says softly, to no one in particular.
He takes a firm hold of Perry's leash with one hand, and begins the slow, laborious process of hauling his lame self up the stairs, one step at a time. Some kind soul has already been out with a shovel and some salt, so it's not nearly as harrowing as it could be. By the time he's reached the top -and seriously, whose idea was it to build these things so far off the ground?- he's broken out in a cold sweat, and has to stop to catch his breath. The voices are clearer now, singing a lively rendition of Joy to the World, and he carefully shoves one of the doors open, leaning against it with his shoulder. He pauses in the vestibule to brush the snow from his head and his jacket, blinks in the soft light from the candles, and steps forward into the unexpected warmth of the church, looking around. He stops where he is, then, and bites his lip, feeling something in his chest come loose in a warm rush. He ducks back into the vestibule, and flips open his cell phone, speaking as quietly as he can manage.
“Gus? Hey, it's Dean. Yeah, I found him. No, we're good. Thanks, man. For everything. I mean it. Yeah, you too.”
He flips the phone shut, shuffles forward, Perry's nails clicking loudly against the cold floor, until he reaches the rearmost pew. He places a hand on the smooth back of the wooden bench, and isn't surprised when Sam doesn't turn his head toward him. At least he's been inside this whole time -his dry clothes and hair attest to that- and not freezing on some street somewhere. Perry sits neatly on her haunches when he drops the leash and moves around the pew to come sit beside his brother. Sam's staring up at the church rafters, gaze a little blank, but his hands are mercifully still, folded in his lap. Dean bumps their shoulders together, just a nudge to let Sam know he's there.
“Hey, Sammy,” he says softly. “You didn't leave a note,” he jokes.
Sam blinks a bit, but doesn't look at him. “It's quiet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I fell,” Sam replies, and Dean flinches. On some of his worst days, Sam relives falling, over and over. He wakes screaming from nightmares he can't describe, and unlike Dean's, his aren't getting any better. Dean looks at him, trying to gauge if he should try touching Sam at all or keep his hands to himself, and Sam keeps going, his voice barely above a whisper, as though he doesn't want to disrupt the music. “I fell, and then I was walking, and I came here, and it's not so loud.”
Dean risks putting a hand on Sam's shoulder, and Sam leans into his touch, just a little, which is definitely a good sign. Up near the altar, there's a bit of shuffling and rustling of papers, and out of the corner of his eye he sees three girls barely on the cusp of puberty step forward, binders in hand, dressed almost identically in jeans and bulky woolen sweaters. They throw each other nervous glances and smiles, giggle self-consciously as they arrange themselves in front of an imaginary audience.
“You okay, Sammy?”
Sam nods, and the corners of his mouth lift in a small smile, as though at a private joke. “Listen,” he says, rather than answering, just as the girls raise their voices in song, a cappella this time, Maudie having apparently temporarily relinquished her role as accompanist on the church's ancient pipe organ.
O come, o come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel...
It's not a carol he's accustomed to hearing. His own experience of Christmas music -scattered nights spent in church pews aside- is what plays on the radio at any given time, and Muzak piped into elevators and shopping malls. This, though, this is different. The girls' voices are high and pure, and he feels Sam shiver beside him as the harmony washes through the church. The melody soars up to reach the rafters of the church and drifts back down like the snow falling outside -and he will deny to his last dying breath ever letting such a thought so much as cross his mind. It's nice, though, and quiet. Sam is right. Dean lets his eyes close for just a moment, aware only of the music and the warmth of his brother pressed up against him.
Make safe the way that leads on high
And close the path to misery...
“That's what it is, you know,” Sam says, following a train of thought Dean can only guess at. He slides down in his seat, leaning more heavily against Dean. “It was you. It was all wrong, but I followed the path backward, and it worked.”
“Yeah, okay, Sammy.” He doesn't know what to say, but he feels like he should say something. Anything.
“Took a long time. Forever. But you were here. Always here,” Sam twists a little, smiles up at him.
Dean reaches over and ruffles Sam's hair. “'Course I'll always be here, moron. And don't you forget it..” Unexpectedly his throat tightens, and his eyes burn. He hesitates, clears his throat. “You want to head back, maybe? There's lasagne.” Sam loves lasagne. It's a pretty decent bribe, if he says so himself, but Sam shakes his head.
“Can we stay? Just for a while?”
Dean sighs. Like he's ever been able to deny Sam anything he's asked for -with one notable exception. He shifts his weight until he's settled more comfortably on the bench, and wraps an arm around Sam's shoulders, dragging his brother as close as he can manage without actually breaking the laws of physics. Perry shuffles closer, wedging herself halfway under the pew with a contented sigh, and Dean thinks she might not be far off in her assessment. He allows himself the luxury of basking in the moment, his brother at his side and his dog at his feet, and simply enjoys the quiet.
~END~
Oh, and everyone? Meet Perry:
Summary: Fusion ‘verse. Sam goes missing shortly before Christmas, and Dean manages not to freak out completely.
Characters: Dean, Sam, OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers up to 5.22. Swearing and very mild angst.
Wordcount: 3,656
Neurotic Author's Note #1: For those of you who aren’t familiar with the ‘verse, allow me to direct you to the Master Post, because otherwise this story won’t make much sense to you.
Neurotic Author's Note #2: This is not the fic in which Sam 'n' Dean get their dog, but the dog is present! I may write the timestamp in which they obtain the dog at some later date.
Neurotic Author's Note #3: It's nearly Christmas, so I wrote a nearly-Christmas story for the boys. No beta, no nothing, but it's nice to finally be back in a place where I'm liking what I write again.
Dean comes awake with a start, heart thudding with the vertigo-inducing feeling of free falling that always seems to follow his nightmares. Already the nightmare itself is fading. They've been getting better, increasingly so since Sam's return, and he has no idea who or what to thank for that, but he's not going to question it. He grabs the arms of his La-Z-Boy and pushes himself further up in the chair, twisting his neck until it cracks satisfyingly, vertebrae snapping back into place. The television is still on, one of those Christmas specials that are ubiquitous this time of year, and it takes a moment of blinking stupidly at the digital display on the DVD player before he figures out that it's well past seven o'clock in the evening. He has no idea what time he nodded off, but it's been a few hours, at least.
“Shit,” he rubs a hand over his face, scraping against the stubble he didn't bother to shave off this morning. It's his day off, he sees no reason to do anything that he doesn't absolutely have to. It's going to be a bitch to get to sleep at a decent hour tonight, though. He honestly doesn't remember how he and Sam managed when they were hunting, even before both of them were plagued with nightmares and insomnia. Nowadays he's barely functional if he doesn't get a proper night's sleep. He wonders if that means he's getting soft, or if it's just a sign of how terrifically fucked-up he used to be.
Perry stirs at his feet with a low whine, and he reaches down to fondle her ears. “Hey sweetheart. I bet you need to go for a walk, don't you?”
The dog sits up, tongue lolling, brown eyes watching him with fixed adoration, and he grins in spite of himself. It's only been a couple of months, but it feels like she's been part of the family forever. Even Dad would have liked her, he thinks, even if John Winchester was never inclined toward pets, not even when Mom was still alive. Perry -short for Periwinkle- is a dog among dogs. And he's not just saying that because he's biased.
“You want to go with me, or you want Sam to take you for a run? Work off some of that extra energy? Hey, Sammy?” he calls out. There's no response. “Sam?”
Shit. He flips the footrest down, eases himself to his feet, testing his weight on his bad leg to make sure it hasn't fallen asleep and won't make him faceplant into the coffee table, which would be undignified and really fucking inconvenient. Instantly Perry is on her feet too, taking up her customary position on his bad side, just in case. She's not even wearing her harness, he notes, and he's not sure how he feels about that. What does it say about him, that it makes him feel guilty that his own service dog wants to help him even during her time off? He shakes his head. Ridiculous.
“Sam?” Still nothing. He pats Perry's head. “Okay, mutt. I guess we have our work cut out for us. Perry, get Sam!”
Tail wagging, Perry gives an enthusiastic wriggle and trots off up the stairs. 'Get Sam' has proved to be one of the more useful commands Dean came up with on his own, once the initial training was over and he'd brought Perry home. It's multi-purpose, he figures. It means that if he falls, he doesn't have to worry about waiting possibly for hours until Sam finds him to come help him up. It also means that if Sam's having a bad day, that Perry can lead Dean to him without Dean having to wander up and down the stairs and all through the house, which is a slow, highly impractical course of action. He makes his way around the ground floor, checking in the spots Sam tends to wedge himself when things get overwhelming, but there's no sign of his brother, and a quick check shows that Sam's coat is missing from its hook near the front door.
“Sam!”
There's no use yelling -he knows better than anyone that if Sam is locked up inside hs head again he won't even hear Dean yelling, let alone reply- but he does it anyway. It's second-nature to yell for Sam when he's out of sight, he's been doing it for so long that he doesn't know how to break himself of the habit. Perry comes tumbling back down the stairs, tail still wagging, but she whines and sits at his feet rather than trying to lead him up the stairs. Her tail thumps once on the floor, almost apologetically.
“No Sam, huh?” he asks, and gets another whine. “That's okay. Good girl,” he pats her head, hating the fact that she's picking up on his stress and is obviously upset too. She's a pretty little thing, for a mutt with no discernible lineage. Even now after a couple of months he still marvels at the mask of brown and white framing her eyes -by all rights it should make her ugly, not beautiful, but there you go. Dean has always liked his women unconventional, so why should his dog be an exception to the rule?
“Okay, Perry. Let's go find Sam.”
No panicking. It's been months, this happens all the time, right? All they have to do is find Sam, bring him home. Easy-peasy. He shrugs into his winter coat, grabs the quad cane from the rack by the door rather than the regular walking stick he used all summer and fall. It's been snowing for a while, now, and that shit is slippery, and he doesn't want to risk a fall while Sam is AWOL. He slips Perry's harness over her head, bends over to clip all the buckles securely, and immediately she's all business, holding herself very still and waiting for instructions. Her tail gives the briefest of twitches, as though she realizes that wagging is undignified while she's on the job. He grins, pulls his hat over his head, pats down his pockets.
“Shit. Perry, keys!”
The dog trots away into the living room, delicately picks up his house keys from the coffee table in her teeth. He invested in a pretty big keychain for them for that express purpose, and he hasn't regretted it for a single moment. Dropping his keys used to be a huge fucking ordeal, and now it's just a question of a simple command to get them back. He gives her more praise -it's all about the positive reinforcement, he's been told this again and again, and the irony isn't lost on him- pockets the keys, and clips the leash to her harness. He doesn't bother locking the door behind him, figuring he'll only be gone a little while, but he doesn't like to leave his keys behind, just in case he somehow manages to lock himself out.
It's snowing outside. Fat, wet flakes are drifting steadily from the low-hanging December sky, and the light from the street lamps casts a friendly glow over the darkened streets. He leaves a trail of footprints in the fresh snow, the ones on the right connected by shallow lines where he can't quite lift his leg entirely free of the snow's surface, and his cane punches neat holes in the white drifts. Perry walks sedately by his side in the 'heel' position, the leash slack between them. Perfectly trained, he thinks, not without some pride.
The streets are all but deserted even though it's still relatively early by his standards. It's a school night, though, and the town isn't exactly a rowdy one. All of the neighbours have put up Christmas lights, and more than a few of the houses have decorations on their roofs or lawns or both. After the Hallowe'en debacle he didn't dare try putting up any himself, but a couple of his neighbours have offered to help -none too subtly implying that he and Sam should really get their acts together and do something about the fact that their house is bare during the most wonderful time of the year. The thought brings a small smile to his lips, and he shakes his head. Maybe he'll ask Mike Larson for a hand: the guy has a truck and a ladder, and maybe if Sam's having a good day at some point they might be able to pull something together.
Just thinking of Sam makes his stomach clench unpleasantly. Dean checks his cell phone, but there aren't any missed calls, which means no one has found Sam wandering yet. That's both good and bad. Good, in that Sam probably isn't in trouble, bad, in that he really has no idea where his brother is and has no way of finding out on short notice. There aren't any other tracks in the snow, which means Sam left before the snowfall. The bakery and the bookstore are both closed, so he's left with his instincts and some educated guesses about where Sam might have headed.
“Too bad you can't get his scent and just track him that way,” he says to Perry, who huffs, apparently in agreement. “I don't think that's your main strength, though.” He's not sure why he's taken to talking to his dog like she's a person, but it feels right, and no one has so much as raised an eyebrow, so he figures it's okay enough. “You got any idea where he went?”
He doesn't get an answer, but then he wasn't expecting one. The day his dog starts talking to him is the day he checks himself -and probably Sam- into the nearest mental facility. After he' checked to make sure the dog isn't a subspecies of skinwalker, naturally. By the time he gets downtown his leg is protesting the cold. He's lucky that he doesn't have much pain these days, but major surgery is major surgery, and the way he walks puts unnecessary pressure on his hip, or so several doctors have told him. He's been given exercises to do, PT until he's cross-eyed, and shown a better technique, but his way is faster, and so he mostly ignores the experts and does his own thing, even when Sam bitches at him. Dean picks up the pace, the need to find Sam still thrumming urgently in his whole body. He's better now at not panicking when Sam is gone, but it doesn't make this all that much easier to bear.
“Hey, Dean!”
He stops in his tracks, squints through the flurries of snow, gusting in the wind, and catches sight of Gus, the owner of the gas station, cruising by slowly in his old truck. Dean tucks his cane under his other arm, raises his hand in a brief wave, then grabs the cane again in order to continue on his way, but Gus pulls up alongside him, window rolled all the way down.
“Need a lift?” his breath fogs in the cool night air. Gus has a face only a mother could love, Margery from the bakery is fond of saying, all jaw and very little forehead, with squinty eyes and a couple of missing teeth, but he's a good guy all the same. Give you the shirt off his back, Margery will often say in the same breath.
Dean eyes the truck askance. It's too high off the ground for him to get in and out comfortably, and besides, he doesn't know where he's going. He shakes his head. “Thanks anyway. You haven't seen Sam, have you?”
Gus shakes his head, eyes narrowing further, so that it almost looks like they're disappearing into his head. “Not lately, but there ain't too many places open right now he could go. Tell you what, I'll check the streets, you check inside buildings, how's that? If we don't turn up anything in half an hour, I'll call up some folks, get 'em to help.”
Dean's instinct is to refuse -Winchesters don't involve other people in their problems. Stay under the radar, don't draw attention, that's the rule. Except that's not how their lives work anymore, hasn't been that way for nearly a year, and Gus is sincere. In fact, Dean is pretty sure that it would take less than three phone calls to get a good dozen people out of their warm, safe houses, just to help him find his brother and pull him out of the snow. In from the cold. He nods.
“That'd be great, thanks,” he schools his face into a smile, tight with worry. “He never really goes far.”
“Yeah, I know. I got my cell. You need my number?”
“No, I got it, thanks.” He doesn't bother asking if Gus has his number, it's a foregone conclusion. Besides, it's also written on the laminated card that's always hanging from a lanyard around Sam's neck. “You sure about this, Gus? I'm sure you've got other things to do.”
“Nah, it's not a problem. I dropped off Maudie at the church earlier -they're having a rehearsal for the Christmas concert tonight- so I was just going to head home and put on the game, maybe microwave some popcorn, until she's finished. Nothing that can't wait.”
The truck engine grumbles as Gus heads off down the street, putting aside whatever laid back TV-watching plans he had for the evening, and Dean feels an unaccustomed warmth spread through him -even after all this time, it still surprises him when people do nice things for him without being asked. He trudges onward, ignoring the dull ache in his leg, and thinks he should have put Perry's coat on her -and yes, he has a fucking coat for his dog, because she gets cold in the winter, damn it, and no one had better say a damned word about it- because she's shivering already.
He picks up the pace for a few blocks, hoping to get both their hearts pumping a little faster in order to warm them up, finds himself at the bottom of the steps to the church. He stares up at the large wooden doors, at the light spilling through the cracks all around them. It must cost a fortune to heat a place with such poor insulation. Perry shifts beside him, paws crunching in the snow, looks up expectantly to see whether or not he's going to attempt the stairs. There's no reason to, of course. It's not like he and Sam are church-goers by any stretch of the imagination. From inside he can hear the sound of voices raised in song -the church choir, heavily reinforced with extra singers for the upcoming Christmas concert.
And man at war with man hears not
The love song which they bring.
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!
From out here, the sound is indistinct, but the tune is a familiar one, enveloping him in a memory of taking refuge in a church with Dad and Sammy one night when there was a little too much month left at the end of the money. Huddling together in one of the back pews and listening to a choir much like this one while Sammy slept in Dad's arms, thumb firmly in his mouth, and Dean leaned against Dad's side, confident that it was only a matter of time before Dad fixed everything.
“Fuck it,” he says softly, to no one in particular.
He takes a firm hold of Perry's leash with one hand, and begins the slow, laborious process of hauling his lame self up the stairs, one step at a time. Some kind soul has already been out with a shovel and some salt, so it's not nearly as harrowing as it could be. By the time he's reached the top -and seriously, whose idea was it to build these things so far off the ground?- he's broken out in a cold sweat, and has to stop to catch his breath. The voices are clearer now, singing a lively rendition of Joy to the World, and he carefully shoves one of the doors open, leaning against it with his shoulder. He pauses in the vestibule to brush the snow from his head and his jacket, blinks in the soft light from the candles, and steps forward into the unexpected warmth of the church, looking around. He stops where he is, then, and bites his lip, feeling something in his chest come loose in a warm rush. He ducks back into the vestibule, and flips open his cell phone, speaking as quietly as he can manage.
“Gus? Hey, it's Dean. Yeah, I found him. No, we're good. Thanks, man. For everything. I mean it. Yeah, you too.”
He flips the phone shut, shuffles forward, Perry's nails clicking loudly against the cold floor, until he reaches the rearmost pew. He places a hand on the smooth back of the wooden bench, and isn't surprised when Sam doesn't turn his head toward him. At least he's been inside this whole time -his dry clothes and hair attest to that- and not freezing on some street somewhere. Perry sits neatly on her haunches when he drops the leash and moves around the pew to come sit beside his brother. Sam's staring up at the church rafters, gaze a little blank, but his hands are mercifully still, folded in his lap. Dean bumps their shoulders together, just a nudge to let Sam know he's there.
“Hey, Sammy,” he says softly. “You didn't leave a note,” he jokes.
Sam blinks a bit, but doesn't look at him. “It's quiet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I fell,” Sam replies, and Dean flinches. On some of his worst days, Sam relives falling, over and over. He wakes screaming from nightmares he can't describe, and unlike Dean's, his aren't getting any better. Dean looks at him, trying to gauge if he should try touching Sam at all or keep his hands to himself, and Sam keeps going, his voice barely above a whisper, as though he doesn't want to disrupt the music. “I fell, and then I was walking, and I came here, and it's not so loud.”
Dean risks putting a hand on Sam's shoulder, and Sam leans into his touch, just a little, which is definitely a good sign. Up near the altar, there's a bit of shuffling and rustling of papers, and out of the corner of his eye he sees three girls barely on the cusp of puberty step forward, binders in hand, dressed almost identically in jeans and bulky woolen sweaters. They throw each other nervous glances and smiles, giggle self-consciously as they arrange themselves in front of an imaginary audience.
“You okay, Sammy?”
Sam nods, and the corners of his mouth lift in a small smile, as though at a private joke. “Listen,” he says, rather than answering, just as the girls raise their voices in song, a cappella this time, Maudie having apparently temporarily relinquished her role as accompanist on the church's ancient pipe organ.
O come, o come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel...
It's not a carol he's accustomed to hearing. His own experience of Christmas music -scattered nights spent in church pews aside- is what plays on the radio at any given time, and Muzak piped into elevators and shopping malls. This, though, this is different. The girls' voices are high and pure, and he feels Sam shiver beside him as the harmony washes through the church. The melody soars up to reach the rafters of the church and drifts back down like the snow falling outside -and he will deny to his last dying breath ever letting such a thought so much as cross his mind. It's nice, though, and quiet. Sam is right. Dean lets his eyes close for just a moment, aware only of the music and the warmth of his brother pressed up against him.
Make safe the way that leads on high
And close the path to misery...
“That's what it is, you know,” Sam says, following a train of thought Dean can only guess at. He slides down in his seat, leaning more heavily against Dean. “It was you. It was all wrong, but I followed the path backward, and it worked.”
“Yeah, okay, Sammy.” He doesn't know what to say, but he feels like he should say something. Anything.
“Took a long time. Forever. But you were here. Always here,” Sam twists a little, smiles up at him.
Dean reaches over and ruffles Sam's hair. “'Course I'll always be here, moron. And don't you forget it..” Unexpectedly his throat tightens, and his eyes burn. He hesitates, clears his throat. “You want to head back, maybe? There's lasagne.” Sam loves lasagne. It's a pretty decent bribe, if he says so himself, but Sam shakes his head.
“Can we stay? Just for a while?”
Dean sighs. Like he's ever been able to deny Sam anything he's asked for -with one notable exception. He shifts his weight until he's settled more comfortably on the bench, and wraps an arm around Sam's shoulders, dragging his brother as close as he can manage without actually breaking the laws of physics. Perry shuffles closer, wedging herself halfway under the pew with a contented sigh, and Dean thinks she might not be far off in her assessment. He allows himself the luxury of basking in the moment, his brother at his side and his dog at his feet, and simply enjoys the quiet.
~END~
Oh, and everyone? Meet Perry: