The Other Son: Chapter Twenty-Three
Title: The Other Son
Author: revenant_scribe
Chapter Twenty-Three: IRREVERSIBLE
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Warnings: AU, wincest, semi-spoilers for 1.18 'Something Wicked'. Violence!
A/N: There is no new Winchester being added into the mix here. This is definitely not one of those fics. Please leave a review! It keeps my muse happy and makes my day!!
Summary: Sam knows there are a lot of things about his father that he will never understand, or agree with -- the first and foremost being why John Winchester is so unnerved by his son's visions. It's why Sam goes alone to Fitchburg when images of the town's 'welcome' sign flash through his head while he's driving and leave him reeling for hours after. He's only looking for a hunt, but what he finds is about to turn Sam's entire world upside-down, and threaten its very foundations.
chapter twenty-three | IRREVERSIBLE
“How are you doing, Kid?” Dean stood in the entrance of the kitchen, most of his weight supported by the doorframe. He felt weak and exhausted in a way that he had never felt before, like every step was a thousand miles, and his breath was heavy. He was certain he looked like hell, but he hadn’t stopped to look in a mirror, had been spurred by the notion of food and coffee. “Here,” Bobby said, and granted at least one of Dean’s wishes as he handed over a mug, steam rising and the strong aroma of caffeine already helping him feel more solid.
“I don’t take sugar in my coffee,” Dean said, with a bit of a wince as he sipped. “Or cream.”
“You do today,” Bobby said with a shrug. He turned back to the counter and a moment later turned back around with a large plate heaping with scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, which he set onto the table, one pointed look all the indication Dean had that the breakfast was intended for him.
“Thanks,” he said, and then concentrated on shuffling slowly to the chair. “I’m not hungry.” Which was a strange realization, considering his stomach had been growling since he’d won the battle with his eyes and finally managed to greet the day.
“Do the best you can.” Bobby patted his shoulder and then crossed into the adjoining room where the bulk of his library was.
Dean was a little relieved for the quiet, he concentrated on corralling eggs onto his fork, despairing slightly when his hand shook fiercely enough that most of his efforts tumbled back to the plate. “Dammit.”
A creak on the floorboards distracted him from his efforts and he turned to see Sam standing in the doorway, looking unsure whether to go or stay, guilt written on his face - guilt, concern and a hint of wariness. Dean felt a surge of anger and frustration but tucked it away but he set his fork aside, unwilling to let the taller man see how he was affected by the previous day’s events. “How are you feeling?” Sam asked.
“Fine.” Dean didn’t bother to meet the other’s eyes. The silence was laced with tension and without looking Dean could feel that Sam was watching him. Nervously, he reached for his mug, anything to ease the tension but it felt as if it were fashioned of led, and his hand shook and he ended-up putting it down before he even brought it to his lips, unwilling to let any weakness show.
“Dean…”
“What?”
“I just.” Sam settled into the seat at the other side of the table, ran his hands over his thighs and looked around the small kitchen before he rested his hands on the table and finally faced Dean. “Are you really okay?”
“Sam…”
“That ritual is ancient -- hasn’t been used in centuries. Even Bobby isn’t certain of the side-effects.”
“So you’re asking because of the ritual?”
“I’m asking about you. Because for twenty-four hours you were on the floor writhing, screaming and pretty much begging someone to shoot you or do just about anything to make it all stop. Because you barely have a voice at all right now and you’re shaking and ‘fine’ is the flimsiest, most ridiculous lie I’ve ever heard.” Dean cast his eyes to the corner of the room, to the ceiling, anywhere but across the table where Sam was watching him so earnestly. “I’m sorry you had to go through that ... I’m sorry that I put you through that.”
The kitchen felt claustrophobic, suddenly everything was too close to him and the air was too thick to inhale, Dean debated cleaning his place setting and leaving the room but wondered if his shaky legs could carry him fast enough. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, I think we have to.” Dean did move, then. Picked-up his plate and dumped his breakfast into the trash before setting the dish in the sink. Sam followed him right out the back door and into the salvage yard. “Come on, Dean. I apologized. I get that you’re pissed, that I should have talked to you before I reacted, but it’s a moot point now. I’m sorry, but there’s bigger things to worry about.”
“You’re sorry.” Dean stopped and turned and the fight just about left him. Sam was frightened and angry and guilty and everything in between, and Dean was just so tired that it felt he could just about flop right down where he stood and sleep for a year. “Well, that’s too little too late. Y’know, I thought we trusted each other.”
“And I thought we were always honest with each other. Looks like we were both wrong.”
A few steps away and Dean found his feet carrying him back to Sam and he wished he had managed more than a weak shove that barely shifted the other’s balance but he thought it got his point across. “You were telling me bullshit from the start, you son of a bitch! Don’t stand there and pretend that I betrayed some deep and abiding trust.”
“You invited a demon into you! What the hell did I ever withhold from you that would justify hiding that from me?”
“How about that this whole demon-weapon bullshit was bigger than you ever let me know? How about that it was demons that killed my dad, huh? Any of that ringing any bells?” Sam’s expression changed and it was clear there was a struggle going on in the other man, but Dean suddenly didn’t want to see it, didn’t want any part of it. They were both guilty, they both had their reasons, they had both betrayed each other - Dean didn’t care. He knew the motivation behind every decision he had made, and he stood by it, so talking it through was an exercise in futility. He wondered if Sam felt the same. “Sam, I love you, but you’ve been a real pain in my ass, y’know? Between the stuff you kept from me, and the mother-henning. For all that you complained about him, seems to me that you did just about everything you ever bitched about your dad doing to you. And maybe it’s a little bit okay for a dad to worry about his son like that, but there is no way in hell I am putting up with that shit from the guy I’m with.”
Sam was quiet, his brow wrinkled and his gaze lost behind shaggy brown hair. When he spoke it was a shift in the conversation that Dean was certainly not expecting. “Why did you do it?”
“Sam.”
“Tell me.”
“ No, Sam. The least you could have done was ask me three days ago.”
“I’m asking you now. Why did you summon a demon? What was the deal?”
Dean wished for a moment that he was strong enough to walk away, that he could throw up his hands and say ‘that’s it, we’re over’ and leave it at that. The knot inside him was so big and twisted - of the hurt and betrayal he felt - there didn’t seem like there were enough words in the world to express how deeply Sam had hurt him. He wasn’t that strong, though, and he found words rising-up to offer a paltry explanation for something that Sam would simply never understand, because he could never experience what Dean had since his father died.
“You have no idea what’s it like -- being ripped open and stuffed full of memories and thoughts and images -- so that I couldn’t tell what was me and what was everyone else anymore. Like there was nothing safe or quiet left in the world, and every dark and desperate thought was playing-out, every angry fantasy - and I couldn’t tell if it was real or not, except that no one else was reacting to it. Between that and the nightmares I just - ever since my dad, it’s been getting worse, and I couldn’t ever stop it. Whatever you said about it all being okay, you didn’t know that - you couldn’t. And there was going to be a day when you needed someone to back you up, and I couldn’t be there. I needed to make it stop, get it under control.”
“I have a friend, a psychic, she could have helped you.”
“No, Sam. Not the way I needed.”
“What did you need?”
“Some peace,” Dean said. “I needed to be alone in my head. I needed, for one moment, to have everything just be quiet and to know where I started and everything else began, and that when I went to sleep I would still know - and when I woke-up. I’ve talked to psychics before - I tried everything they could think of. This was beyond any of that and there was no way - no chance that I could keep going, still keep sane with all of that every minute of every day.” His voice cracked as he spoke and Sam stepped forward and pulled him against a broad chest, warm arms around his back and a steady heartbeat beneath his ear. “I’m tired, Sammy.”
“Lets go inside.” They didn’t talk as they walked back to the house and up to the bedrooms, barely parted from each other until they were sliding into bed, Sam following Dean right under the blankets. “So … he taught you how to block everything?” Dean nodded. “What else did he teach you?”
Dean was quiet for a moment, his head resting against the pillow and his eyes closed. “For once in my life,” he said, his voice quiet. “I am in control of my abilities … or I could have been. There were still other things he was going teach me, things he had to say.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“I thought I was keeping you safe. I always thought that I was doing what I needed in order to protect you.” Dean stayed silent and kept his eyes closed and, after a moment, Sam let out a slow breath and rested his head against Dean’s hair and let his eyes fall closed as well, held his lover close and let the world recede for just a little bit longer.
……………………………………
The forest was thick and branches low, and Sam had to keep his hands reaching out before him to push them aside before they could scratch at his face. Twigs bit against him but he kept his pace, calling for Dean and searching in the dark until the trees disappeared and he unceremoniously tripped into a clearing.
Moonlight made the trees glow, made the large willow before him with arching, gnarled, reaching branches seem surreal as it stood at the center of the clearing. Cautiously, Sam stepped toward it, turned a circle and saw nothing and no one. “Dean!” but there was no answer, and he almost didn’t expect there to be one any longer. An emptiness rose inside him as he approached the old tree, its leaves dark and whispering in the breeze, and he felt tears on his cheeks as he stretched out a hand. As his fingers touched bark the wind picked-up and all of the leaves turned brown and curled and blew away in a gust. The prickle on the back of his neck grew stronger and Sam turned quickly, scanned the surrounding trees for any sign of someone being present - two yellow eyes glowed in the darkness.
……………………………..…….
“’Nother beer,” Ash said, waggling his empty bottle and trying to look authoritative in that way he did when he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to.
Jo looked up from where she had been wiping down the counter. “Didn’t my mum cut you off about an hour ago?”
“Cut me off?” He looked like the very notion was entirely preposterous - as if Ellen had cut him off from breathing.
“Nice try, Ash.” She caught the eye of another patron, turned to fill-up a mug with what was on tap and Ash snatched the beer from the man beside him who was engaged in an intense conversation and didn’t even realize someone had stolen his drink.
Outside there was a thump like a tree falling and every single person at the Roadhouse froze, some reaching for guns or something to arm themselves, others simply waiting like an animal sniffing the air for any trace of a predator. “Hey,” Jo said, turning around slowly and sharing a look with Ash. “You smell that?”
………………………
The headlights of John’s pick-up reflected-off of Bobby’s sign as he turned into the yard, stacks of crumpled cars and stretches green grass that looked as if it couldn’t decide if it was growing-in or dying caught in the beams of light as he drove-up. It was familiar and comforting in a way that was entirely rare for him, and he set the thought aside to mull later.
Then the high beams caught the rubble, smoke still whisping lazily and a charred porch step marking the entrance of what used to be Bobby Singer’s home. A dead dog carcass lay splayed on the hood of an old beat-up pick-up and John couldn’t think much of anything - nothing he was seeing made sense. The first thing that went through his mind was that maybe he was dreaming - or having a nightmare.
He left the truck door open and staggered to the edge of the porch. There was rubble, the porch charred black and the back steps. Half a staircase rose, blackened, into nothing, and John could see the remains of the main room. For the longest moment all he could think about were Bobby’s books, all of those precious resources that were gone. Rather worry about books than about the people he knew had been inside. He couldn’t avoid the thought for long, though, because the impala was parked off to the side, beside the car Bobby had been using of late, and that was proof enough that they had been in the house.
“Sam?” John yelled, walking around the wreckage and trying to pick-up any human-shapes in the shadows cast by his truck lights. “Bobby?” His voice caught and he braced himself on the side of a crushed minivan when his legs felt as if they would give-out right under him. “Dean?”
There was a groan in the darkness, John cocked the gun he’d taken from the truck and turned in the direction he’d heard the sound. To the back of the house, off to the right where a path led off further into the property and on top of a stack of cars John could just make-out a boot hanging off the hood of the topmost vehicle. ”Hey.” Another groan was the answer to his call and John could almost swear he knew the sound. “Sammy?” He climbed to the top and sure enough there was Sam, in an ungainly sprawl - arms akimbo and legs splayed and blood running down his face and on his arms and shirtfront. “Come on, Sammy.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” John brushed his son’s hair form his face and smeared some of the blood, hoping he could make-out the source in the dark. Sam pushed himself up, sliding away from his dad’s helping hands, looking marginally confused at his surroundings. “Where are you hurt?”
Sitting up as he was, one hand to his temple, Sam looked both like the adult hunter that he was, and the lost little boy that John still always saw when he looked at his son. As usual, Sam wasn’t listening to him. “Dean … Dad, did you see Dean?”
“No.” Which was a hard truth to face. The relief at finding Sam was overshadowed with the grief and anxiety because he’d lost something just as he was realizing he’d found it again - and he’d lost Bobby along with it.
“They took them,” Sam muttered. “We have to go.”
“Hold on a minute, who took them?”
“The demons.”
………………………………………………
The Roadhouse was a pile of black, smoking cinder when John pulled into the lot. From the heat coming-off the wood and smell John estimated the place had been set alight not so very long ago - peak business hours. The loss of life was no doubt significant, John had no idea if Ellen and Jo and Ash had managed to escape, and yet somehow seeing the Roadhouse reduced to rubble was nowhere near as painful and troubling as pulling into Bobby’s lot some hours before.
The impala pulled-up alongside John’s pick-up and Sam stood, leaning against the driver’s side door and simply staring with shock on his face, the kind of intense and overwhelmed look that John hadn’t seen since the marines. For all the months they had spent on the road knowing that demons had some sort of plan for Dean, it had never been as desperate as the situation had become. Bobby and Dean - and now John knew, knew that whatever the plan, whatever the demons schemed and plotted, it had been brewing for some time. “We’ll find them, Sam.”
“I don’t care … I don’t care about whatever they’re planning. But we’re going to find Dean, and we’re gonna find Bobby, and kill whatever stands in our way.” The shock was gone and if John was reading his boy correctly, the look seemed a bit bloodthirsty. It wasn’t the time to explain anymore, it wasn’t appropriate to tell Sam what he had lost; the boy was already barely hanging on.
“Yeah, son; we will.”
………………………………………………..
John had difficulty reconciling the man on the other bed with his youngest son - he always did when he watched the boy sleep. The Sam that John knew was a sleeping dragon, coiled and ready to spring and never completely at peace. He kept one hand tucked beneath a pillow and John knew that hand was resting on the knife he kept there. He twitched at familiar noises and woke-up at unexpected sounds. But John could remember a time when Sam had slept in an ungainly sprawl, tiny limbs thrown across the bed in abandon, face lax and mouth open - dead to the world. That was a Sam that felt completely safe and protected, and there had been a real good reason for that feeling - one that had been lost.
His oldest boy - his Dean - had been the light sleeper, the one who heard sounds of threat before John had any clue, the one with the knife under the pillow and a will bent entirely on protecting his family and, most importantly, his little brother. It was like, after Dean was taken, his youngest boy was replaced - replaced with some hybrid of his two boys. It broke John’s heart to think of those days, of how withdrawn Sam had become, how he stared out of windows, always searching for something he would never find again. Slowly, that carefree and comfortable boy disappeared, and as much of a relief as it was to have Sam step-up and turn all his focus onto hunting, John had a vague and idle wish that everything could be different.
There was a moment, just a fleeting moment, when John had dared to hope that things could maybe be fixed, if he could patch the wrongs that had been done, and maybe catch a glimpse of how things could have been. He should have known better. Seated at the edge of his bed, head in his hands and fingers clenched in his hair, John felt a fool for having dared to hope. The family business - the family curse. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t make his mind stop turning-over thoughts of Dean and Bobby - gone, in the clutches of demons - of the Roadhouse burned, and Bobby’s home in ashes. He’s received phone calls from friends, from hunters - Caleb and Pastor Jim - all with bad news. Homes burned, hunters killed. It was all-out war between demons and hunters, and John had no idea where he was heading, just knew he had to get there before his friend and … and Dean were taken from him like so much else had been.
It was a fool thing, but John kept finding himself wondering ‘why’ and ‘why me, why us’, and actually wanting the answers - expecting them. Didn’t matter that he knew an explanation was about the last thing he could expect from the situation facing him. He tried to pretend that he was prepared for any result. That if he found the demons and was greeted with corpses he was prepared for that - and he was prepared for the chance that he never found any trace of either Bobby or Dean ever again. It was bullshit, but John knew it was the kind of thing he really should brace himself for, there was no way to know what the demons wanted, no way to know what to expect and so he should brace himself for any eventuality. He’d tried to tell that to Sam, to say that they would give it all they had but that he had to be prepared just in case - Sam had gotten up and left the diner and had yet to say a word to him since. Moments like that, John felt a strange kind of relief and pride - his boy was more like him than either one of them would ever admit.
……………………………………….
The water was ice-cold and Dean was shivering, dripping, stripped-down to his boxers and wishing that the hypothermia got to the point where he didn’t feel any part of his own body because at the moment he felt every part - and every part was stinging and burning with relentless cold.
He wriggled, twisted his wrists and fought to hold his breath - there was no escape. The knots held good around his wrists and ankles and kept him pinned to the water wheel. He stayed focused on himself, on his own body and didn’t let his gaze stray across the darkness of the water to the bodies because if he looked at them he’d start to panic and he couldn’t afford that.
Out of air, Dean looked-up toward the surface and hoped that the wheel would spin upward again and give him another gasp of oxygen, he was entirely at their mercy. Every part of him hurt, he still felt weak and exhausted and fragile from the exorcism that Sam had performed on him and with every passing moment Dean became increasingly certain that he was going to die - right there in the water. Maybe not in that moment, maybe they would take pity on him and raise him up for another breath, but that was just delaying the inevitable. He had nothing left; he was running on empty, spent and exhausted, frozen and … the bodies. He cursed Sam for stealing Astaroth away before his training could be completed, and in the same thought wished Sam would come and find him and hold him close and promise to make it all go away. Maybe it was just the hypothermia speaking, but Dean thought he would believe it - he always believed Sam when he said things like that.
Dean thought about what he would have wanted to say or do if he had more time. He wished that he could see Sophia, that they could talk and laugh as they ate ice-cream covered pie in their pajamas and watched daytime soaps on mute and made-up their own dialogue. He wished he could see Sam again, tell him that he forgave him for all the shit that had happened between them and then collapse into bed and feel that strong coiled body working over him, in him, wrapping him up safe and ripping him open and rebuilding him in that way that had always been so perfect. It seemed like forever since they had done that. Since he was wishing for things that would never happen, he wished for his dad and his mum, and then he wished that, however everything ended, he got to at least be with them again.
………………………………………………..
Sam couldn’t breathe. There was nothing but blackness and a cold so absolute that he was paralyzed. A heavy weight was pressing in on him and he couldn’t move - felt trapped and bound. Then all of a sudden the weight was gone and there was brightness - a small pool of water and a large water wheel in a barn; the exterior of the barn, red with a white roof - his vision kept pulling backwards, made him dizzy with the speed of the movement - a farmhouse, wooden and small, with a birdfeeder out front that looked exactly like the farmhouse; a private road, a sign: Deerpine, with an old wooden fence along one side. Faster and faster the images flashed passed until Sam was seeing the motel he and his father were occupying a room in, then the door to their room, and then himself lying down on the bed with his eyes closed.
With a gasp, Sam’s eyes blinked open wide and he sat up with a start and looked around. “Sam? You okay?” John was sitting on his bed in the clothes he’d worn earlier; clearly he hadn’t bothered to even attempt to sleep. He was looking at Sam with a startled look that Sam had never before seen on his dad’s face. “Sam?”
He was breathing fast and he knew why with a dreaded sort of certainty. He sat there gasping and trying to get his bearings and wanting to say something, anything, to get that shocked, worried, frightened look off of his father’s face but didn’t know how. He settled for the truth: “I know where they have Dean.”
<< END CHAPTER >>
[MASTER POST]
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Author: revenant_scribe
Chapter Twenty-Three: IRREVERSIBLE
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Warnings: AU, wincest, semi-spoilers for 1.18 'Something Wicked'. Violence!
A/N: There is no new Winchester being added into the mix here. This is definitely not one of those fics. Please leave a review! It keeps my muse happy and makes my day!!
Summary: Sam knows there are a lot of things about his father that he will never understand, or agree with -- the first and foremost being why John Winchester is so unnerved by his son's visions. It's why Sam goes alone to Fitchburg when images of the town's 'welcome' sign flash through his head while he's driving and leave him reeling for hours after. He's only looking for a hunt, but what he finds is about to turn Sam's entire world upside-down, and threaten its very foundations.
chapter twenty-three | IRREVERSIBLE
“How are you doing, Kid?” Dean stood in the entrance of the kitchen, most of his weight supported by the doorframe. He felt weak and exhausted in a way that he had never felt before, like every step was a thousand miles, and his breath was heavy. He was certain he looked like hell, but he hadn’t stopped to look in a mirror, had been spurred by the notion of food and coffee. “Here,” Bobby said, and granted at least one of Dean’s wishes as he handed over a mug, steam rising and the strong aroma of caffeine already helping him feel more solid.
“I don’t take sugar in my coffee,” Dean said, with a bit of a wince as he sipped. “Or cream.”
“You do today,” Bobby said with a shrug. He turned back to the counter and a moment later turned back around with a large plate heaping with scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, which he set onto the table, one pointed look all the indication Dean had that the breakfast was intended for him.
“Thanks,” he said, and then concentrated on shuffling slowly to the chair. “I’m not hungry.” Which was a strange realization, considering his stomach had been growling since he’d won the battle with his eyes and finally managed to greet the day.
“Do the best you can.” Bobby patted his shoulder and then crossed into the adjoining room where the bulk of his library was.
Dean was a little relieved for the quiet, he concentrated on corralling eggs onto his fork, despairing slightly when his hand shook fiercely enough that most of his efforts tumbled back to the plate. “Dammit.”
A creak on the floorboards distracted him from his efforts and he turned to see Sam standing in the doorway, looking unsure whether to go or stay, guilt written on his face - guilt, concern and a hint of wariness. Dean felt a surge of anger and frustration but tucked it away but he set his fork aside, unwilling to let the taller man see how he was affected by the previous day’s events. “How are you feeling?” Sam asked.
“Fine.” Dean didn’t bother to meet the other’s eyes. The silence was laced with tension and without looking Dean could feel that Sam was watching him. Nervously, he reached for his mug, anything to ease the tension but it felt as if it were fashioned of led, and his hand shook and he ended-up putting it down before he even brought it to his lips, unwilling to let any weakness show.
“Dean…”
“What?”
“I just.” Sam settled into the seat at the other side of the table, ran his hands over his thighs and looked around the small kitchen before he rested his hands on the table and finally faced Dean. “Are you really okay?”
“Sam…”
“That ritual is ancient -- hasn’t been used in centuries. Even Bobby isn’t certain of the side-effects.”
“So you’re asking because of the ritual?”
“I’m asking about you. Because for twenty-four hours you were on the floor writhing, screaming and pretty much begging someone to shoot you or do just about anything to make it all stop. Because you barely have a voice at all right now and you’re shaking and ‘fine’ is the flimsiest, most ridiculous lie I’ve ever heard.” Dean cast his eyes to the corner of the room, to the ceiling, anywhere but across the table where Sam was watching him so earnestly. “I’m sorry you had to go through that ... I’m sorry that I put you through that.”
The kitchen felt claustrophobic, suddenly everything was too close to him and the air was too thick to inhale, Dean debated cleaning his place setting and leaving the room but wondered if his shaky legs could carry him fast enough. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, I think we have to.” Dean did move, then. Picked-up his plate and dumped his breakfast into the trash before setting the dish in the sink. Sam followed him right out the back door and into the salvage yard. “Come on, Dean. I apologized. I get that you’re pissed, that I should have talked to you before I reacted, but it’s a moot point now. I’m sorry, but there’s bigger things to worry about.”
“You’re sorry.” Dean stopped and turned and the fight just about left him. Sam was frightened and angry and guilty and everything in between, and Dean was just so tired that it felt he could just about flop right down where he stood and sleep for a year. “Well, that’s too little too late. Y’know, I thought we trusted each other.”
“And I thought we were always honest with each other. Looks like we were both wrong.”
A few steps away and Dean found his feet carrying him back to Sam and he wished he had managed more than a weak shove that barely shifted the other’s balance but he thought it got his point across. “You were telling me bullshit from the start, you son of a bitch! Don’t stand there and pretend that I betrayed some deep and abiding trust.”
“You invited a demon into you! What the hell did I ever withhold from you that would justify hiding that from me?”
“How about that this whole demon-weapon bullshit was bigger than you ever let me know? How about that it was demons that killed my dad, huh? Any of that ringing any bells?” Sam’s expression changed and it was clear there was a struggle going on in the other man, but Dean suddenly didn’t want to see it, didn’t want any part of it. They were both guilty, they both had their reasons, they had both betrayed each other - Dean didn’t care. He knew the motivation behind every decision he had made, and he stood by it, so talking it through was an exercise in futility. He wondered if Sam felt the same. “Sam, I love you, but you’ve been a real pain in my ass, y’know? Between the stuff you kept from me, and the mother-henning. For all that you complained about him, seems to me that you did just about everything you ever bitched about your dad doing to you. And maybe it’s a little bit okay for a dad to worry about his son like that, but there is no way in hell I am putting up with that shit from the guy I’m with.”
Sam was quiet, his brow wrinkled and his gaze lost behind shaggy brown hair. When he spoke it was a shift in the conversation that Dean was certainly not expecting. “Why did you do it?”
“Sam.”
“Tell me.”
“ No, Sam. The least you could have done was ask me three days ago.”
“I’m asking you now. Why did you summon a demon? What was the deal?”
Dean wished for a moment that he was strong enough to walk away, that he could throw up his hands and say ‘that’s it, we’re over’ and leave it at that. The knot inside him was so big and twisted - of the hurt and betrayal he felt - there didn’t seem like there were enough words in the world to express how deeply Sam had hurt him. He wasn’t that strong, though, and he found words rising-up to offer a paltry explanation for something that Sam would simply never understand, because he could never experience what Dean had since his father died.
“You have no idea what’s it like -- being ripped open and stuffed full of memories and thoughts and images -- so that I couldn’t tell what was me and what was everyone else anymore. Like there was nothing safe or quiet left in the world, and every dark and desperate thought was playing-out, every angry fantasy - and I couldn’t tell if it was real or not, except that no one else was reacting to it. Between that and the nightmares I just - ever since my dad, it’s been getting worse, and I couldn’t ever stop it. Whatever you said about it all being okay, you didn’t know that - you couldn’t. And there was going to be a day when you needed someone to back you up, and I couldn’t be there. I needed to make it stop, get it under control.”
“I have a friend, a psychic, she could have helped you.”
“No, Sam. Not the way I needed.”
“What did you need?”
“Some peace,” Dean said. “I needed to be alone in my head. I needed, for one moment, to have everything just be quiet and to know where I started and everything else began, and that when I went to sleep I would still know - and when I woke-up. I’ve talked to psychics before - I tried everything they could think of. This was beyond any of that and there was no way - no chance that I could keep going, still keep sane with all of that every minute of every day.” His voice cracked as he spoke and Sam stepped forward and pulled him against a broad chest, warm arms around his back and a steady heartbeat beneath his ear. “I’m tired, Sammy.”
“Lets go inside.” They didn’t talk as they walked back to the house and up to the bedrooms, barely parted from each other until they were sliding into bed, Sam following Dean right under the blankets. “So … he taught you how to block everything?” Dean nodded. “What else did he teach you?”
Dean was quiet for a moment, his head resting against the pillow and his eyes closed. “For once in my life,” he said, his voice quiet. “I am in control of my abilities … or I could have been. There were still other things he was going teach me, things he had to say.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“I thought I was keeping you safe. I always thought that I was doing what I needed in order to protect you.” Dean stayed silent and kept his eyes closed and, after a moment, Sam let out a slow breath and rested his head against Dean’s hair and let his eyes fall closed as well, held his lover close and let the world recede for just a little bit longer.
……………………………………
The forest was thick and branches low, and Sam had to keep his hands reaching out before him to push them aside before they could scratch at his face. Twigs bit against him but he kept his pace, calling for Dean and searching in the dark until the trees disappeared and he unceremoniously tripped into a clearing.
Moonlight made the trees glow, made the large willow before him with arching, gnarled, reaching branches seem surreal as it stood at the center of the clearing. Cautiously, Sam stepped toward it, turned a circle and saw nothing and no one. “Dean!” but there was no answer, and he almost didn’t expect there to be one any longer. An emptiness rose inside him as he approached the old tree, its leaves dark and whispering in the breeze, and he felt tears on his cheeks as he stretched out a hand. As his fingers touched bark the wind picked-up and all of the leaves turned brown and curled and blew away in a gust. The prickle on the back of his neck grew stronger and Sam turned quickly, scanned the surrounding trees for any sign of someone being present - two yellow eyes glowed in the darkness.
……………………………..…….
“’Nother beer,” Ash said, waggling his empty bottle and trying to look authoritative in that way he did when he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to.
Jo looked up from where she had been wiping down the counter. “Didn’t my mum cut you off about an hour ago?”
“Cut me off?” He looked like the very notion was entirely preposterous - as if Ellen had cut him off from breathing.
“Nice try, Ash.” She caught the eye of another patron, turned to fill-up a mug with what was on tap and Ash snatched the beer from the man beside him who was engaged in an intense conversation and didn’t even realize someone had stolen his drink.
Outside there was a thump like a tree falling and every single person at the Roadhouse froze, some reaching for guns or something to arm themselves, others simply waiting like an animal sniffing the air for any trace of a predator. “Hey,” Jo said, turning around slowly and sharing a look with Ash. “You smell that?”
………………………
The headlights of John’s pick-up reflected-off of Bobby’s sign as he turned into the yard, stacks of crumpled cars and stretches green grass that looked as if it couldn’t decide if it was growing-in or dying caught in the beams of light as he drove-up. It was familiar and comforting in a way that was entirely rare for him, and he set the thought aside to mull later.
Then the high beams caught the rubble, smoke still whisping lazily and a charred porch step marking the entrance of what used to be Bobby Singer’s home. A dead dog carcass lay splayed on the hood of an old beat-up pick-up and John couldn’t think much of anything - nothing he was seeing made sense. The first thing that went through his mind was that maybe he was dreaming - or having a nightmare.
He left the truck door open and staggered to the edge of the porch. There was rubble, the porch charred black and the back steps. Half a staircase rose, blackened, into nothing, and John could see the remains of the main room. For the longest moment all he could think about were Bobby’s books, all of those precious resources that were gone. Rather worry about books than about the people he knew had been inside. He couldn’t avoid the thought for long, though, because the impala was parked off to the side, beside the car Bobby had been using of late, and that was proof enough that they had been in the house.
“Sam?” John yelled, walking around the wreckage and trying to pick-up any human-shapes in the shadows cast by his truck lights. “Bobby?” His voice caught and he braced himself on the side of a crushed minivan when his legs felt as if they would give-out right under him. “Dean?”
There was a groan in the darkness, John cocked the gun he’d taken from the truck and turned in the direction he’d heard the sound. To the back of the house, off to the right where a path led off further into the property and on top of a stack of cars John could just make-out a boot hanging off the hood of the topmost vehicle. ”Hey.” Another groan was the answer to his call and John could almost swear he knew the sound. “Sammy?” He climbed to the top and sure enough there was Sam, in an ungainly sprawl - arms akimbo and legs splayed and blood running down his face and on his arms and shirtfront. “Come on, Sammy.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” John brushed his son’s hair form his face and smeared some of the blood, hoping he could make-out the source in the dark. Sam pushed himself up, sliding away from his dad’s helping hands, looking marginally confused at his surroundings. “Where are you hurt?”
Sitting up as he was, one hand to his temple, Sam looked both like the adult hunter that he was, and the lost little boy that John still always saw when he looked at his son. As usual, Sam wasn’t listening to him. “Dean … Dad, did you see Dean?”
“No.” Which was a hard truth to face. The relief at finding Sam was overshadowed with the grief and anxiety because he’d lost something just as he was realizing he’d found it again - and he’d lost Bobby along with it.
“They took them,” Sam muttered. “We have to go.”
“Hold on a minute, who took them?”
“The demons.”
………………………………………………
The Roadhouse was a pile of black, smoking cinder when John pulled into the lot. From the heat coming-off the wood and smell John estimated the place had been set alight not so very long ago - peak business hours. The loss of life was no doubt significant, John had no idea if Ellen and Jo and Ash had managed to escape, and yet somehow seeing the Roadhouse reduced to rubble was nowhere near as painful and troubling as pulling into Bobby’s lot some hours before.
The impala pulled-up alongside John’s pick-up and Sam stood, leaning against the driver’s side door and simply staring with shock on his face, the kind of intense and overwhelmed look that John hadn’t seen since the marines. For all the months they had spent on the road knowing that demons had some sort of plan for Dean, it had never been as desperate as the situation had become. Bobby and Dean - and now John knew, knew that whatever the plan, whatever the demons schemed and plotted, it had been brewing for some time. “We’ll find them, Sam.”
“I don’t care … I don’t care about whatever they’re planning. But we’re going to find Dean, and we’re gonna find Bobby, and kill whatever stands in our way.” The shock was gone and if John was reading his boy correctly, the look seemed a bit bloodthirsty. It wasn’t the time to explain anymore, it wasn’t appropriate to tell Sam what he had lost; the boy was already barely hanging on.
“Yeah, son; we will.”
………………………………………………..
John had difficulty reconciling the man on the other bed with his youngest son - he always did when he watched the boy sleep. The Sam that John knew was a sleeping dragon, coiled and ready to spring and never completely at peace. He kept one hand tucked beneath a pillow and John knew that hand was resting on the knife he kept there. He twitched at familiar noises and woke-up at unexpected sounds. But John could remember a time when Sam had slept in an ungainly sprawl, tiny limbs thrown across the bed in abandon, face lax and mouth open - dead to the world. That was a Sam that felt completely safe and protected, and there had been a real good reason for that feeling - one that had been lost.
His oldest boy - his Dean - had been the light sleeper, the one who heard sounds of threat before John had any clue, the one with the knife under the pillow and a will bent entirely on protecting his family and, most importantly, his little brother. It was like, after Dean was taken, his youngest boy was replaced - replaced with some hybrid of his two boys. It broke John’s heart to think of those days, of how withdrawn Sam had become, how he stared out of windows, always searching for something he would never find again. Slowly, that carefree and comfortable boy disappeared, and as much of a relief as it was to have Sam step-up and turn all his focus onto hunting, John had a vague and idle wish that everything could be different.
There was a moment, just a fleeting moment, when John had dared to hope that things could maybe be fixed, if he could patch the wrongs that had been done, and maybe catch a glimpse of how things could have been. He should have known better. Seated at the edge of his bed, head in his hands and fingers clenched in his hair, John felt a fool for having dared to hope. The family business - the family curse. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t make his mind stop turning-over thoughts of Dean and Bobby - gone, in the clutches of demons - of the Roadhouse burned, and Bobby’s home in ashes. He’s received phone calls from friends, from hunters - Caleb and Pastor Jim - all with bad news. Homes burned, hunters killed. It was all-out war between demons and hunters, and John had no idea where he was heading, just knew he had to get there before his friend and … and Dean were taken from him like so much else had been.
It was a fool thing, but John kept finding himself wondering ‘why’ and ‘why me, why us’, and actually wanting the answers - expecting them. Didn’t matter that he knew an explanation was about the last thing he could expect from the situation facing him. He tried to pretend that he was prepared for any result. That if he found the demons and was greeted with corpses he was prepared for that - and he was prepared for the chance that he never found any trace of either Bobby or Dean ever again. It was bullshit, but John knew it was the kind of thing he really should brace himself for, there was no way to know what the demons wanted, no way to know what to expect and so he should brace himself for any eventuality. He’d tried to tell that to Sam, to say that they would give it all they had but that he had to be prepared just in case - Sam had gotten up and left the diner and had yet to say a word to him since. Moments like that, John felt a strange kind of relief and pride - his boy was more like him than either one of them would ever admit.
……………………………………….
The water was ice-cold and Dean was shivering, dripping, stripped-down to his boxers and wishing that the hypothermia got to the point where he didn’t feel any part of his own body because at the moment he felt every part - and every part was stinging and burning with relentless cold.
He wriggled, twisted his wrists and fought to hold his breath - there was no escape. The knots held good around his wrists and ankles and kept him pinned to the water wheel. He stayed focused on himself, on his own body and didn’t let his gaze stray across the darkness of the water to the bodies because if he looked at them he’d start to panic and he couldn’t afford that.
Out of air, Dean looked-up toward the surface and hoped that the wheel would spin upward again and give him another gasp of oxygen, he was entirely at their mercy. Every part of him hurt, he still felt weak and exhausted and fragile from the exorcism that Sam had performed on him and with every passing moment Dean became increasingly certain that he was going to die - right there in the water. Maybe not in that moment, maybe they would take pity on him and raise him up for another breath, but that was just delaying the inevitable. He had nothing left; he was running on empty, spent and exhausted, frozen and … the bodies. He cursed Sam for stealing Astaroth away before his training could be completed, and in the same thought wished Sam would come and find him and hold him close and promise to make it all go away. Maybe it was just the hypothermia speaking, but Dean thought he would believe it - he always believed Sam when he said things like that.
Dean thought about what he would have wanted to say or do if he had more time. He wished that he could see Sophia, that they could talk and laugh as they ate ice-cream covered pie in their pajamas and watched daytime soaps on mute and made-up their own dialogue. He wished he could see Sam again, tell him that he forgave him for all the shit that had happened between them and then collapse into bed and feel that strong coiled body working over him, in him, wrapping him up safe and ripping him open and rebuilding him in that way that had always been so perfect. It seemed like forever since they had done that. Since he was wishing for things that would never happen, he wished for his dad and his mum, and then he wished that, however everything ended, he got to at least be with them again.
………………………………………………..
Sam couldn’t breathe. There was nothing but blackness and a cold so absolute that he was paralyzed. A heavy weight was pressing in on him and he couldn’t move - felt trapped and bound. Then all of a sudden the weight was gone and there was brightness - a small pool of water and a large water wheel in a barn; the exterior of the barn, red with a white roof - his vision kept pulling backwards, made him dizzy with the speed of the movement - a farmhouse, wooden and small, with a birdfeeder out front that looked exactly like the farmhouse; a private road, a sign: Deerpine, with an old wooden fence along one side. Faster and faster the images flashed passed until Sam was seeing the motel he and his father were occupying a room in, then the door to their room, and then himself lying down on the bed with his eyes closed.
With a gasp, Sam’s eyes blinked open wide and he sat up with a start and looked around. “Sam? You okay?” John was sitting on his bed in the clothes he’d worn earlier; clearly he hadn’t bothered to even attempt to sleep. He was looking at Sam with a startled look that Sam had never before seen on his dad’s face. “Sam?”
He was breathing fast and he knew why with a dreaded sort of certainty. He sat there gasping and trying to get his bearings and wanting to say something, anything, to get that shocked, worried, frightened look off of his father’s face but didn’t know how. He settled for the truth: “I know where they have Dean.”
<< END CHAPTER >>
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