Threnody (2 of 3)
Threnody
A Story in Nine Sections of Unequal Length
iv.
..geb..
Everything hurts when Sam comes to, but the longer he lies there, the more awake he gets, he realises that the worst of the pain’s not everywhere. His hands pound in time with his head and his chest throbs. Everything else aches, a generic, general ache he’s going to attribute to the sparring he and Dean did-yesterday? That gets him to open his eyes, try and figure out what he’s doing, where he is, what day it is. There are bandages around his hands, and, when he peels them back, he sees thin scratches over his palms, shallow markings in the shape of pentagrams.
Sam frowns and looks up, around, resisting for now the need to make sure Dean’s all right, to touch Dean and see for himself. Dean’s asleep, propped up against the wall with his head lolling at an uncomfortable-looking angle. Sam tries to study his brother without waking him up; from what he can see, Dean has a bruise on the side of his forehead and a long, clean cut on his left arm, looks exhausted even though he’s sleeping, and Sam sits in bed, silent, until Dean wakes up minutes or hours later.
Dean looks at him first, before anything else, and freezes when he sees Sam looking back. “You’re gonna be stiff,” Sam says, trying to gauge Dean’s mood, and he’s not surprised when Dean rolls his neck and shrugs, stands up and sits down on the edge of Sam’s bed, crossing the room in long, awkward strides. “What do you remember?” Dean says, and Sam frowns, opens his mouth and then shuts it again, quizzical look on his face. “You had a nightmare,” Dean explains, “and started vibing everywhere . D’you remember?” Sam shakes his head, then pauses, vague and blurry memories shoving to the front of his mind. Dark room, panicked Dean, Jeannie apologising, but it’s not solid, just snapshot freeze-frames of images, and he reaches out and touches the bruise on Dean’s temple.
“I did that?” Sam asks, and Dean breathes out from between his teeth and looks away. It’s answer enough for Sam, and so he pushes the blankets off, stands up and waits for the room to stop spinning before heading for the door. Dean catches up to him, grabs his shoulder, and asks, “Where’re you going?” but Sam shrugs him off and goes to find Jeannie, Dean right behind him.
--
“You’re serious?” she asks, not for the first time, and Sam nearly growls before he can calm himself. “I’ll do whatever I have to,” Sam says, again. “Anything and everything I need to, so that what happened last night never happens again.” Jeannie’s eyes flick to Dean, one step behind and to the right of Sam, and then nods, looking back at Sam. “All right. Tomorrow, we’ll,” she says, before Sam cuts her off. “Now. We start now,” and he knows he’s using that tone of voice most associated with preparation, with focus and ruthlessness, but when she swallows and nods, he can’t find it in himself to be sorry.
They all sit down at the kitchen table, though this time Dean’s solid and silent next to Sam, not across from him. “I think, Sam,” Jeannie says, “that the best thing would be to link your dreams with someone else,” and Sam doesn’t like that idea at all, but he could have killed Dean last night, so he nods and says, “Fine. Can you do that, around the visions, or do I have to find someone else?” Jeannie gives him this half-smile, says, “I can do it, but who are you going to share dreams with?” and before Sam can say anything, Dean says, “Me.” This is a bad idea for so many reasons that Sam opens his mouth to disagree, but Dean says, “No, Sam. I sleep in the same room as you. I was there, I’ve been there. I’m doing this.” Sam wants to say no, knows enough about his dreams to say that Dean shouldn’t have to see Adam the way Sam sees him, that he doesn’t want to freak Dean out or let Dean see how weak Sam really is, but Dean’s looking at him, bruise marring his face, so Sam swallows and nods, looks back at Jeannie.
“Dean’ll do it,” he says, not so sure or strong, but still insistent, and she tells them what to expect, what might happen, before filling two plastic cups with tea. Sam drinks his, grimacing at the bitter taste, the sludge of chicory and peppermint at the bottom, rosemary and cinnamon floating on top, and when he’s done, he drops the cup, letting it bounce on the floor. There’s a hole in his mind, tunnelling through his power and then deeper, and he feels naked and in a curious state of itchy awareness until Dean finishes his cup by saying, “That has be to some of the whoa-” Sam feels it then, like a key being fit into a lock, a snap as Dean connects to some deep, primal part of him. He can’t sense more than that, it’s a one-way connection straight into his subconscious, but he’s aware that Dean’s there, seeing him, feeling him.
“Holy shit,” Dean mutters, blinking and rubbing his eyes, and Jeannie laughs. “It’ll get better when his mind calms,” she says, and Sam doesn’t blame his brother for narrowing his eyes, because that laugh wasn’t altogether innocent, was much too amused. “Better, how?” Dean asks, cautious, scratching his head, and Sam thinks the action is more related to this new connection than nervousness, but when Jeannie says, “Oh, you’ll see,” Sam forgets it, winces. “Let me guess. Breathing,” he says, nose-scrunch of distaste, and Jeannie’s only answer is a smile.
--
Sam sits in the living room for hours, cross-legged and on the floor, eyes trained on the fireplace and the flames dancing inside of it. His eyes are burning by the time lunch rolls around, but he’s calmer, managed to heat up his self-disgust into something like resolve, his hunger and need swallowed into the heat radiating from his bones. He’s bringing his power back under control, taking it deeper inside of him with every breath, digging out new and better-protected channels for it to swim inside of. He stands up and stretches, scratching his stomach as his shirt rides up, then turns around and jumps when he sees Dean. His brother’s in the doorway, hovering, there’s really no other word for it, and wearing a look on his face that Sam can’t readily decipher. “What,” Sam says, defensive, and Dean blinks, shakes his head. “Nothing. Lunchtime. You hungry?” Sam frowns, but before he can think to challenge his brother’s answers, Dean’s turned away.
Lunch is a quiet affair, Sam and Dean fending for themselves and making do with lunchmeat, bread, and half a head of lettuce. Sam doesn’t feel like cooking and Dean seems more inclined to stare at him than eat, so they sit and somehow manage sandwiches for both and a small salad for Sam. The constant gaze makes Sam irritable, puts him on edge, and he finally says, “Have I got antennae or something? Horns?” One corner of Dean’s mouth quirks in the imitation of a half-smile, and he says, dismissively, “Maybe I just think you should get your hair cut. Ever consider that?” and Sam tilts his head, says, “What, getting a haircut? I do get it cut, Dean,” but his brother’s shaking his head. “Not a trim, a cut,” and this whole conversation is so not what Sam was expecting that he just laughs and says, “Maybe when I need a change, but I like it.” Dean opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but then he shakes his head and asks, “More breathing this afternoon?” Sam groans at the thought, looks out of the window and says, “Maybe the forms. Would you,” and Dean’s smile turns a little more genuine, a little less forced. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”
--
A howl behind him and he doesn’t need to look before he starts running. The ground beneath his feet is ice and when he pauses to look between the trees, to choose a path to run, the ice grows upwards, covering his toes and trying to swallow his feet. He moves and the ice crackles off, each piece turning into a cat, the nipping noise of their teeth encapsulating laughter. He runs and feels the cats and coyotes following, hunting him. “Hurt you,” the wind sighs, and it’s Adam, Adam in the direction he’s running, Adam everywhere he looks, Adam and the shade of a witch masquerading as a goddess. “Kill you,” the faces say; “Kill you,” the ice snaps; “Kill you,” the trees howl. He runs and screams and the darkness swallows him whole.
--
Sam opens his eyes and breathes, toes curling into warm blankets, layers and layers of them covering him, pressing down on him. It should be stifling, but it’s actually comforting, warm. It’s the first dream he remembers in full, but its unlocked memories of others and they’re rushing through his mind, and he thinks that maybe Jeannie was right, relying on the dream-catchers for so long was a bigger mistake than he’d thought. He sits up, scoots back so he can lean against the headboard, and he pulls the blankets up with him, fingers tangling in fringed quilts and soft mink. The curtains are open and the sky outside is dark but spotted with stars, waning moon lighting up the sky.
“Are they always like that?” he hears, and Sam looks into the corner of the room, where Dean’s straddling a chair, blanket around his shoulders. Sam thinks, more and more of the dreams coming back to him, and shakes his head slowly, plays with the top quilt’s fringe. He’s tired, off-balance, and always found it easier to talk about things in the middle of the night, like darkness is its own confessional, has its own redemptive grace, pulling secrets from him. “Worse, I think,” he says, and then adds, head aching, “I didn’t get eaten alive this time.” Sam doesn’t look at Dean, who simply makes a noise and shifts in the chair, letting a few minutes pass by before asking, “And Adam. He’s in all of them?”
It’s Sam’s turn to hum agreement and Dean clears his throat, says, “You never told me what happened that night,” in a wary tone of voice that tells Sam it’s all right to not say anything if he doesn’t want to. Sam considers it, considers it long enough that Dean stops looking at him. “I followed a vision to the building and he surprised me. Flung some kind of spell at me, left me tied to a pole. We had a chat, then he started carving, there’s not much to tell,” Sam says, mentally making an effort to leave his hands curled in the blankets, not move to rub his chest, reassure himself that he’s healed, not bleeding, alive, not dying. It’s obvious that Dean doesn’t believe him, not from the way he scoffs, not when he says, “What did he tell you, about him and me?”
Sam looks over at his brother, studied indifference and scientific curiosity in his brother’s posture, hurt and anger in Dean’s eyes. “He didn’t say anything. Just that once I was dead, he’d go back and fuck you. Or let you fuck him, he wasn’t specific.” Dean tenses, Sam can see it from across the room, and then he stands up, starts pacing. “Wish Autumn hadn’t killed him because I’d love to about now,” Dean mutters, so low that Sam wonders if he imagined it. “Dean, you don’t have,” Sam begins, but Dean interrupts, “No, Sam. It’s your turn to shut up and listen, all right?” and Sam just nods, hunches into the blankets, tries to hold on to the warmth before it slips away.
“Dad and I went down there about a year after you went to school, a couple weeks before Hallowe’en. He’d kept in touch with one of the elders and the guy called us up and said they had another unhcegila, could we come down and take a look. Adam was younger then, apprenticing with the shaman. His parents were dead, killed by a real unhcegila in the Dakotas and Adam’d been living with an aunt and uncle before they shipped him off to other relatives in San Xavier. He didn’t like it down there, in the desert. Missed the mountains,” Dean adds, and Sam can’t help but be fascinated by the way Dean’s walking, coiled and ready to spring, talking with emotion it’s obvious he wishes he didn’t have.
“When I met him, he was a whiny little bitch and I hated him, but he came on the hunt and nailed the sucker with a crossbow.” Dean pauses and Sam wonders if Dean’s thinking what he is, that the unhcegila might have been a person Adam had ritually converted. “The Tohono O’odham had a bonfire that night and the shaman let Adam lead the ceremony. He was,” Dean stops, and Sam says, “He was beautiful,” because he can imagine that face, that glossy black hair, lit by fire from within and without. Dean looks at him, considers, then nods. “A punk ass kid who could hunt and who looked like that, who had a, a presence,” Dean says, and Sam remembers that presence, how he hated it, hated Adam from the first moment and wonders if it’s any surprise that his instincts come out so skewed when Dean’s involved.
“We fucked that night, Sam. It’d been so long since I’d been with a guy and he knew all the right buttons to push, y’know? Dad and I stayed in San Xavier for a week once the unhcegila was dead and Adam and I, well,” Dean coughs, rubs his cheeks and Sam’s not stupid, he gets it. Went at it like rabbits, he’s guessing, and with that look Dean’s wearing, now sitting down, Sam doesn’t think he’s wrong. “I didn’t want you to see him like I see him,” Sam eventually says, quiet, picking at a rip in one of the blankets. He’s watching Dean without looking like it, so he sees the look Dean gives him, the incredulous stare of disbelief, and hears the same in his voice when Dean says, “Sam,” stopping to shake his head, like what Sam’s just said is unthinkable. “Sam, he tried to kill you. So he and I fucked, but dude, that doesn’t mean anything. You’re my brother. You’re the only family I have.”
Sam nods, looks down at the blankets, and Dean sighs. “Swear to God, you tell anyone about this, I’ll put Nair in your shampoo again,” and Sam looks up, confused. Dean gets up, walks over, and crawls under the pile of blankets and quilts, pulling Sam down and then curling around him. “Dean?” Sam asks, confused, but Dean only says, “Nair, Sammy. Now shut up and get some sleep.”
v.
..nut..
Sam doesn’t say anything to anyone, Dean kicks his ass when they spar, and, two weeks later, Sam is still waking up every night, two and three times a night, the dreams settling into his mind and clinging to him, even when he’s awake. He’s cold all the time, though neither Jeannie nor Dean think he feels any colder than normal, and every time he hears a howl or sees a cat, he loses control of his power, sets things rattling where they sit or stand or hang.
When he looks in the mirror, the bruises on his face have faded a little bit more but the circles under his eyes are growing deeper, darker, and the look in his eyes, it scares him. Dean’s not looking much better, still connected to Sam’s subconscious, waking up when Sam does, dreaming what Sam dreams. They try and work themselves into exhaustion, practice and run all morning, help Jeannie fix up the house all afternoon, go for night-time target practice, but Sam still has nightmares and neither of them can relax.
It takes three nightmares in four hours, three panicked gasps as Sam’s eyelids open and he reassures himself that he’s safe, that he’s here, in Wyoming, thunderstorm outside, before Sam swings his feet out of bed and faces Dean. “Please don’t make me talk,” Dean says, groggy, his eyes still closed and not moving. “I’ve run out of stories.” Sam nods, though Dean’s not looking, and gets up, carries a blanket with him, sits down two seconds later on the edge of Dean’s bed and thinks that if the situation was any different, he’d be laughing at how ridiculous Dean looks, eyelashes caked together, lips dry and cracked, a line from the pillow down one cheek.
“I won’t make you,” he says, then takes Dean’s hand in his, holds it, and waits for Dean’s muscles to relax, to lose that stiff feeling Dean gets every time Sam’s near him. “I’m sorry, I just,” he says, but doesn’t let go, and Dean exhales, scoots over in silent invitation. Sam lays down, wraps himself in the blanket, and falls asleep, feeling like he’s seven again. It’s the first solid six hours of sleep they get since this whole mess began.
--
Jeannie eyes them when they stumble down for a very late breakfast but doesn’t say anything, just gets out the milk while Dean gets coffee and Sam stares at the toaster. “You need bread,” Dean says, after he’s shoved a cup in Sam’s hands. “First you put the bread in the little slots and then you push the button down.” Sam’s eyes flick to the coffee then back to the toaster. “Knew that,” he mutters, and Dean says, “Well? Make the damn toast then, you idiot. I’m hungry. And stop staring at the coffee, you’re making it nervous.” Dean goes to sit down at the table and falls into the chair a little too heavily, and Jeannie looks between them, then at Sam, before she rolls her eyes and says, “Oh, honestly.”
Sam gets ushered to a chair, still looking at the mug as if he doesn’t quite trust the contents, and she bustles around fixing the toast and cutting up some melon. “You two better shape up,” she tells them, sliding the food on to the table and watching the delayed reaction that provokes. “Missouri’s coming to visit and she isn’t happy.” Dean looks up at her, and Sam watches as Jeannie nods, sour frown on her face, then Sam ducks his head and stares some more at the coffee, the rain hitting the kitchen window a nice, soothing backdrop.
--
Missouri is furious when she arrives and Sam, stripping the banisters on the stairs and sanding them for re-painting, can’t figure out why. Dean’s in the next room over and comes into the hallway when he hears the door slam, leaning back when she gets right in his face. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Dean Winchester, but,” she manages to say before Jeannie emerges from the hallway, getting Missouri’s attention. She turns to Jeannie and Sam almost flinches at the disgusted look on Missouri’s face as she points at Jeannie and says, “And you! Linking that boy up when you know good and well what he’s been thinking about. Letting them,” she stops, seeing that Dean’s moved to where Sam’s standing, hands gripping the banister, close in case Sam needs the physical contact or protection.
Her eyes darken and she glares at Dean. “Taking advantage of that boy when he’s all tore up. It doesn’t bear thinking about.” Sam has no idea what Missouri’s talking about, but Dean and Jeannie must because they’re just taking it from her, and he’s just about ready to ask if someone would please clue him in when his head splits open and the crack down the middle, agonising pain, pulls him into a vision.
--
Sam’s gone over a month without a vision, nearly the longest since his power broke, and the pain is excruciating, he’s almost forgotten how much it hurts. It doesn’t help that he’s fighting it as it’s taking him over, fighting the fall into flames he hasn’t seen in his dreams lately, one more thing that the nightmares have chased away, fighting the slide into the visions, fighting against the truth of what they’re showing him. The first glimpse of sand makes him start screaming and as much as he wants to close his eyes and wake up, he can’t, trapped.
A little girl, with braided-back pigtails and in jeans and sneakers, one of those bunny t-shirts with a snarky slogan. His vision zooms in on her face first, laughing and sticky with chocolate, then moves out. He watches her run up a dune, a wide, wind-covered plane of sand, then tumble back down towards her family, mother, father, two younger sisters, and she falls into a pile of sand and never comes out.
--
When Sam opens his eyes, he’s kneeling on the floor, Dean gripping one hand with Dean’s other on Sam’s back, rubbing slow circles. “It’s all right, Sammy,” Dean’s saying, and Sam nods when he’s swallowed his bile, looks up. Jeannie begins to say, “Sam, you know you only,” when Missouri cuts her off. “Sam, you come with me back to Lawrence. We’ll get this all straightened out, your dreams and your visions both.” His head’s pounding out the rhythm to every song ever written all at the same time, and the only thing keeping him steady is the death-grip he has on Dean’s hand and the physical closeness of his brother. “Missouri, what?” he asks, unable to say more, and her expression softens, looking at him. “Come with me, Sam, and we’ll get you back on track.”
Sam chances a look at Jeannie, who’s staring at Missouri in disbelief. “Missouri, you can’t be serious,” she says, sounding dazed, and Missouri ignores her, focused on Sam. “But, but Dean and Jeannie,” Sam says, and Missouri’s eyes harden in a way that Sam can’t ever remember seeing before. “It’d be better if you left now, Sam. The things I’ve seen,” and Sam says, “Visions? You’ve started having visions?” and Dean, next to him, tied to him and so close, tenses, the hand rubbing slow circles of comfort on Sam’s back missing a beat. Missouri shakes her head and Sam’s lost, confused, fighting the pull toward unconsciousness. “You need to leave, leave this house, leave them” Missouri says, clearly, too clearly, and now Dean’s just crouched there, not moving, not breathing.
“Dean?” he asks, and Missouri shakes her head, and Sam murmurs, “Christo,” despite the wards all over the house, because Missouri must be crazy or possessed to think that he’d ever leave Dean, not when it almost killed him to do it once before, not when Dean’s all he has left. Missouri says, “Sam, I’m not possessed,” and Sam stands up, Dean steadying him, before looking at her, really looking at her, and seeing care, concern, and revulsion in her eyes. He needs to sit down, lay down, sleep for a week, maybe a month, but it’s like she’s begging him with her eyes, so he says, “’m not leaving Dean, Missouri, and Jeannie’s been helping. It’s not their fault I’m a mess,” and tugs Dean up the steps, taking him away from that look Missouri’s wearing and giving Dean something else to focus on, because they both know very well that Sam shouldn’t be anywhere near stairs right now. Missouri calls out, “You get in touch if you need me, Sam, no matter what anyone else says, you hear?” and Sam gives her a thumbs-up over his shoulder.
Missouri and Jeannie start yelling at each other about something being unnatural, wrong, but when they get upstairs to their room, Dean helps Sam, shaking like a leaf in the face of an oncoming tornado, into bed and asks, “What was the vision about?” It’s a relief to say, already half zoned-out, “Something on the sand dunes. Not today, it wasn’t raining. Maybe tomorrow? There was a little girl, she fell and didn’t get back up. Dean, what was Missouri,” and Dean interrupts, says, “Sam, you need to rest. You’re making me dizzy and I need you in good shape if we’re going after something in the dunes. There was something in the paper last week about some other kid disappearing,” and Sam murmurs, “Sorry. You’re right. Stay?” There’s a pause, and then Dean says, “Yeah, ‘course.” As Sam falls asleep, he hears Dean pull the chair next to Sam’s bed, feels a dip in the mattress as Dean puts his feet up, and smiles a little when Dean starts humming Metallica.
--
Sam wakes up and looks around. He’s alone in the room and begins to panic, feels cold and lost, trapped under a pile of blankets, and he kicks them off, getting his feet tangled in the process, starting to panic until Dean opens the door, comes barrelling inside. “Sam, it’s all right, I’m here, just went downstairs for some aspirin.” He drops the capsules on the nightstand and sits next to Sam, knees bumping, one arm flung around Sam’s shoulders as Sam tries to calm himself down. “I’m sorry,” Sam says, “I’m sorry I’m such a spaz, this is pathetic, I know,” and Dean cuts him off, says, “At least you’re not vibing everything. That’s progress.” Sam snorts, and Dean sighs, “Sam, I’m only going to say this once, but you are not pathetic. You’re my brother and I’d do, will do, anything for you, even if it’s girly crap like holding hands, okay? Just, you know, if we can not do it in public, that would be better, because it’d really screw up my game.”
Sam laughs, one of the few, honest laughs he’s given the past month, and it makes Dean break out into this grin that’s so bright, Sam’s tempted to close his eyes against it. He feels better, though, somehow, enough to ask, “So, do you think it’s a sand demon? You said there’ve been others?” Dean moves away, but not so much that Sam could forget his brother’s there, and says, “Let’s do some research, geekboy. We’ve got less than twenty-four hours and piling you in books should make your headache so much better,” and Dean goes off on a tangent about how normal people’s headaches get worse when they’re up to their elbows in books, not better, which just goes to proves that Sam’s an alien or something, except if he is an alien, then he’s a pretty lame alien. Sam just smiles and follows Dean downstairs.
vi.
..osiris..
Sam looks around for Missouri, tries to see if he can sense her anywhere nearby, but he doesn’t, can’t, and Jeannie’s eyes look strained, defensive, so he doesn’t press the issue, goes with Dean into the living room. Jeannie pulls out the papers from last week and dumps them in front of Sam and Dean, both of them sprawled out on the living room floor. Sam has the laptop open and is already checking his favourite sites for any mentions of a sand demon and he raises an eyebrow at the pile. “I’ve been saving them,” Jeannie says, and Sam looks at Dean, who looks back, and they share a moment of perfect understanding. “How long has this been going on?” Sam asks, and Jeannie sits on the couch, tucks a few errant strands of hair behind her ear. “There was a girl last week, but before that, nothing. Not as long as I’ve lived here.” Dean asks, “Anything strange lately?” and Jeannie exhales, thinking. “There’s a black spot downtown, very vague. Some of the other psychics have noticed it on the dunes but I’ve never felt it. It might be related, but there’s no guarantee.” Sam shakes his head, says, “A black spot, Jeannie? A demon?”
“Demon,” Dean says, thoughtfully. “I bet no one’s out on the dunes right now,” and then he looks at Sam and says, “You up to a field trip or am I leaving you here to research?” Sam stands up, gives Dean a half-smile. “No way I’m letting you go by yourself.” The thought of going out on the dunes isn’t all that exciting, surrounded by all of that sand, but no one says anything when Sam loads up with Holy Water and crucifixes as well as a few weapons before leaving.
--
By the time the Impala coasts to a stop in the parking lot of the Killpecker Sand Dunes, twenty minutes later, Sam’s getting a little more nervous. The smile he gives Dean as they get out of the car into the drizzle is thin-lipped, tight, but he takes it as a sign of progress that nothing inside of the car is rattling or floating. Dean tosses him a flashlight and they take off, hiking across the dunes. At first, Dean leads, but then something pricks at Sam’s power and Sam pauses, looks toward the north. “You picking something up?” Dean asks. “Because, dude, I’ve never felt that come from your mind before, and if it’s not something related to this demon, can you stop?” Sam looks at Dean, who just says, “What? It itches.”
Sam snorts, then cracks his neck, eyes flitting around the dunes. With care, he lets down one layer of the barriers around his power and blinks as his eyes get used to seeing everything real, physical, overlaid with the silver-dust of his power. Jeannie and the other psychics are right, he can see a black spot over the dunes to the north, can feel it like a thrum in the back of his head. “It’s over there, whatever it is,” Sam says, gesturing his flashlight north, and Dean replies, “Well, all right. Guess we’re heading that way.”
Sam guides them and then they’re not two yards from the spot but all they can see is sand. “Not to make a big deal, Sam,” Dean says, and Sam cuts him off with an irritated huff, “I know. Its right here, I don’t,” and then his power-enhanced sight catches a glimmer of something in the wet sand. Sam crouches down, dumps a bottle of Holy Water on the exact spot, careful not to let any fall onto his own skin, making an impressed face when whatever’s half-buried in the sand starts hissing and smoking. Dean moves across from Sam, gun and flashlight trained on the spot as Sam reaches in and pulls out a knife, the blade as dull as the half-rusted handle. Sam runs his fingers over the handle, dislodging the clumps of sand sticking to it, and frowns. “The handles been runed,” he says, holding the knife in the flashlight’s beam and trying to study it more closely. “The blade, too.” Sam looks up at Dean who shrugs, says, “Summoning tool? Or an anchor? Think it’s safe to take back to Jeannie’s?”
It’s a good question and Sam’s not sure; it’s still glowing black in his vision but the Holy Water had some effect on it. Dean must pick up on Sam’s hesitation, either through the link or due to years of hunting together, because he pulls a spare bullet out of his back pocket, rock-salt, and hands it over. Sam rubs the salt all over the knife, murmuring the words of a binding ward, and then blinks, puts his power back deep inside his bones, because the glow is gone, the purpose of the runes and inscriptions either neutralised by the salt or kept tight by the ward.
As they leave the dunes, Dean looks over at Sam and says, “You did good, geekboy.” It’s a simple sentence and Dean looks away as soon as he’s said it, watching the slick roads, but Sam has to hold back a smile.
--
Jeannie’s got a room in the house prepped for spellwork, and Sam and Dean head there as soon as they get back, soaking the knife in Holy Water again before rubbing it in a salt-and-sage mixture. Sam’s hair is damp, sticking to his skin, and both his clothes and Dean’s are soggy, not quite drenched, definitely not dry, but they need to find out the blade’s origins before they can think about leaving it alone. That means taking turns, and Sam convinces Dean to go first, it isn’t easy but he manages somehow, and when Dean’s gone and Sam’s alone, Sam studies the runes carved in the knife, sketches what he can see and feel onto a piece of paper. He’s got one side down before Dean comes back, and Sam’s not surprised when Dean whistles, looking around Sam at the rough drawings.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s a summoning spell for a free-will demon, isn’t it?” Dean asks, and Sam nods, adds, “That’s not even the worst part. All of these other carvings? They’re in Hebrew.” Dean groans, moves across the room and leans against a waist-high counter, folds his arms across his chest. “I hate dealing with djinn. D’you remember that one we had, where was it, in Ohio? Kids think anything that comes out of a lamp’s some Robin Williams knock-off, and then boom, chemical fires and riots at the toy store.” Sam, studying, the rune he’s just sketched onto paper, shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s going to be that kind of djinn, Dean. The inscriptions aren’t the same.”
Dean frowns, asks, “Not the same?” and Sam’s expression says that he’s thinking for a few seconds before he shakes his head again. “I need to check some books and if this was what caused the girl to disappear, I’ll have another vision, maybe soon. The djinn’s still out there, we’ve only found its summoning tool.” With every word Sam says, Dean’s expression gets darker, until he’s practically glaring at the knife in Sam’s hand. “Go change,” Dean says, and Sam leaves when it’s clear that Dean isn’t going to say anything else.
--
On the way back to the room, the knife, and Dean, Sam detours through Jeannie’s library and grabs a copy of The Nights as well as an old edition of the Koran. Sam’s not surprised to find them without any trouble, most hunters or those associated with hunters have copies of every religion’s major texts, and Sam knows Jeannie has a fondness for stories, but he’s a little taken aback to see an old publication of Florville and Courval stacked on the same shelf. With a frown, Sam takes the two books he came in search of and grabs the laptop, heads down the hallway and into the warded room, where Dean’s finishing sketching out the runes. Sam looks over his brother’s shoulder and studies the runes before moving to the other side of the table and setting down the laptop to one side as he starts flipping through The Nights and eventually finds the “Story of the Envier and the Envied.”
“Here it is,” he says after a few minutes, and Dean looks up, listens as Sam reads, raising an eyebrow when Sam says, “And taking a knife on which were engraved Hebrew characters, drew therewith a circle in the midst of the hall and wrote there in names and talismans, and muttered words and charms. And then the djinn came and she shape-changed to kill it, I guess. But that’s definitely a summoning knife, the runes are all kabbalistic and it’s been used, since the Holy Water reacted to it, which means the djinn’s free and influencing someone.”
Dean sighs, leans down to put his elbows on the tabletop and says, “So we have to banish the djinn and exorcise the summoner.” Sam shudders, turns through The Nights after marking the page he’d just read from. “Do you remember how to cleanse the summoner?” he asks, not looking at Dean, who says, “Yeah, it’s,” before stopping, breathing, going on more slowly. “We’ll have to find a black cat with a white spot on its tail, pluck seven hairs,” and Sam nods, taking his own deep breath. “Well, Sam, you did fine with the sand dunes, you’ll do fine with the cat, once we find one. And hey, when this works, maybe we can head north for the winter, whaddya say?”
Sam looks at his brother, says, quite calmly, “I hate you.” Dean’s laugh follows him out of the room and down the hallway, in search of Jeannie. Still, once he’s out of Dean’s eyesight, Sam shakes his head and lets out a tiny smile. “North. Sure. Why the hell not?” he mutters, and detours towards the kitchen when he hears Jeannie singing.
Part Three