The Other Son: Chapter Ten
Title: The Other Son
Author: revenant_scribe
Chapter Ten: HUNTED
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 ten | HUNTED
Sam had heard somewhere that patience was considered a virtue. If it was, then it was a virtue that Sam didn’t have, because though his watch and the clock in the impala both announced the time as being well-passed two in the morning, Sam had no intention of heading over to 2400 Court and getting a room. He pulled into the driveway - careful not to block what he assumed was Paul’s blue Volvo, and killed the engine. He hadn’t been to the second floor of Dean’s house, and he’d never seen Dean’s bedroom, but there was a fairly large willow tree whose branches reached conveniently close to the windows, and Sam had always been quite good at climbing things.
Dean’s bedroom was the second window he peaked-through, and Sam had to balance precariously on the branch as he used both hands to work the knife and prop himself as he unlatched the man’s window. Maybe he should have seen it coming, but Sam had scant interactions with normal people, and all the movies he’d ever seen never once even hinted at the possibility of being greeted not by a warm embrace or a dozen kisses - but with the barrel of a shiny new Glock. “Holy shit, don’t shoot!”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, you perv?” Dean hissed.
“I was coming to see you!” Sam hissed right back; both of them making an effort to keep their voices low so as not to wake Paul.
“It’s almost three in the morning! Are you crazy?”
“Maybe a little! I wanted to talk to you!”
“Uh, the phone?” Dean said. Sam raised his eyebrows because with the way they had left things, he doubted Dean really would have answered, or if he had answered, if he would have actually listened and believed anything that Sam had to say. Dean shrugged, acknowledging the point.
“And I needed to tell you that when I said ‘bye’ I didn’t mean ‘bye.”
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s way too early for this, Man.”
“But I have to say this…”
“Well, just get in the bed, and you can explain it all in the morning.”
“No! I’m sorry, you can’t just turn me away and … wait, get in the bed? As in - your bed?”
Dean looked pointedly around, then quirked an eyebrow. “Well, if you want to climb into my father’s bed then, dude, I gotta tell you, we’d have some talking to do.” Sam was already kicking-off his shoes and un-zipping his jeans. “Wow, easy there, Tiger.”
“I have been freaking out that you were mad, or thought I was mad, or that we were over, or something!”
“I was mad. And so were you,” Dean pointed out. “But ‘over’ didn’t really figure into it, did it?”
“Not so much, no,” Sam agreed. “Look, we need to -“
“No, we really don’t need to talk,” Dean said. “I need to sleep. Now, either get in the bed, or don’t, but quit babbling, you freak.” Dean buried himself under the blankets, and Sam watched the entire process with fond relief and then promptly folded the entire length of his body completely around Dean.
“I missed you,” Sam whispered against Dean’s neck.
“Shut up.” Sam grinned and buried his nose in Dean’s hair, breathing in deeply. It probably shouldn’t have been that easy, and maybe it wasn’t, but he’d been driving with barely any breaks for more days than he could count at that point, so Sam closed his eyes and went to sleep
……………………………………………….
Sam woke-up in Dean’s bed, lying sprawled on his back, his ankles and feet hanging-off either side, and blankets tangled around his body. He was also completely alone in the room. He’d been running on adrenaline and a stubborn decision that he needed to get to Dean ‘right now’. The road trip from Texas up to Wisconsin had been as direct as Sam could make it; he stopped as little as possible. Exhaustion had maybe been part of his decision to break-into Dean’s house in the middle of the night, but he didn’t feel a trace of that exhaustion at that moment. Instead, his entire body was relaxed and he felt rested, and though there’s a bad taste in his mouth that he thought might be a sign that maybe he was a little dehydrated, and there were fat grains of sleep gluing his eyelids into a permanent squint, Sam had never felt as relaxed as right that moment.
Except that he was alone.
It took effort, but Sam rolled out of bed, unwinding the blankets and sheets from his body leaving them in a pile on the bed. His priority was to find Dean, and with that in mind threw on his old clothes on - his bag was still in the trunk of the impala and he would have to go outside to get it. He wondered if maybe Dean left for work, or just left - if what happened last night was just Dean trying to get him to shut up so he could sleep. Of course, as soon as the thought passed through Sam’s head he dismissed it - Dean didn’t do the whole casual touch thing, for understandable reasons. But he invited Sam into bed - trusted Sam to get is own spiking emotions under control so they could both get to sleep. Sam’s not used to things being so simple - he was used to having to pull teeth from his dad and the people he knows and loves to get them to talk, because talking has been the only way to really figure-out what his dad, or even Ellen, were thinking. Dean dismissed conversation just as quickly as John, but more often than not, it was because he honest to god already knew what Sam was trying or wanting to say and got it.
Sam was already crossing the room to the door when it registered in his head that the level of sunlight in the room was making everything glow. He hadn’t actually looked at Dean’s bedroom until that moment, but it was not what he would have immediately thought it would be. For one thing, the walls are painted pure, sunshine yellow, and the door and closet and around the windows were all accented white. The furniture was all a dark oak and there was a blue rug on the floor, and the bedding that Sam had left in a tangled heap on the bed was blue as well, except for a quilt - handmade and slightly oversized for the bed. The desk and chair on one of the room were cluttered with books and papers, but the rest of the room was surprisingly neat. There were picture on the wall - photos of Dean with his dad, and with Rosemary and of course several of Dean and Sophia. In one photograph, Dean was much younger -- around sixteen or so -- standing with an older woman with long brown hair that had been tied-back with a red bandana knotted to keep it from her face. They were covered in grease but they were grinning triumphantly, leaning against an old Land Rover with it’s hood-up and between them, they were holding a book: ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Auto Repair’ like a trophy. The woman could only be Dean’s mother and the picture made Sam ache a little for Dean’s loss.
It was the grumbling of his tummy and also a rather pressing need to relieve his bladder that interrupted Sam’s explorations and had him stumbling out of Dean’s bedroom, hair a mess, teeth unbrushed and looking incredibly rumpled. Sam decided his timing was about as good as Rosemary’s, because Sam opened the door and barely managed three steps and there was Paul on his way out of the bathroom, fully dressed looking fresh and properly pressed. “Uh.”
“Good morning, Sam,” Paul greeted. “Or should I say, good afternoon!” He smiled widely, though his eyes were shining with barely concealed amusement. “Help yourself to whatever is in the kitchen. Dean’s usually out-back at this hour.”
“Thanks,” Sam managed - although it was almost a croak. Paul nodded and made his way downstairs while Sam stumbled into the bathroom and slammed and locked it. “Awkward,” he muttered
By the time Sam had gone to the car and back (with Paul smiling at him from his seat in the side-room that Sam would have said the man picked purposely to sit and read in just to antagonize him, except that he didn’t know Dean’s father well enough to think that) and brushed his teeth and changed, he had a long list of possibilities running through his head. Why had Dean left? Where had Dean gone? Why hadn’t Dean woken whim? And so Sam by-passed the kitchen to door at the back of the house that took him out onto a stone patio surrounded by over-grown plants and greenery and bright colours that all looked freshly watered.
There was a surprising amount of vegetation for such a small space. Whoever had designed the garden had taken everything into account - there was a nice place to sit and barbecue and eat, but also there was a path that led between two large, flowering lilac bushes to a part that was completed shielded from the house and from the patio. “Dean?” Sam called, looking around and wondering where the other man had got to.
“About damn time you woke-up, you lazy ass,” Dean greeted, his voice drifted through the leaves and flowers. Sam followed it down the short path between the lilacs to where Dean was sitting in a little gazebo that had large baskets of little white flowers that Sam couldn’t immediately identify.
Dean seemed so at home in that space, although Sam would have never thought it. His bare feet were propped-up on the small green table in the centre of the gazebo, his torn, faded jeans exposing his ankles and his black top complimenting his sleek muscled frame. There was a book splayed-open across his stomach and he was looking at Sam with a sort of steady, lazy gaze that had Sam oddly thinking: ‘This is it. This is what I’ve been looking for.’ “Did you do all this?” he found himself asking, and was immediately answered by a snort.
“Naw, Man. Flowers?” Dean wrinkled his nose. “My mom did it. She was an English teacher and a bit of horticulturalist in her spare time.”
There was something in Dean’s tone and the way those hazel eyes slid sideways away from Sam’s gaze that made Sam pause. “She did this for you?”
Dean shrugged. “The backyard was a mess, something had to …” he stopped and dropped his gaze to the wooden floor of the gazebo. Sam had yet to climb the steps, still looking upward at Dean and thus, was still able to see the sad look that flashed across Dean’s features. “When it got really bad for me - in the town - she started building all this. Called it my sanctuary.” Dean shrugged it off, his expression morphing to casual humour. “I was all for it, less lawn to mow, y’know?”
“She sounds really wonderful,” Sam said. “What was her name?”
“Magdalena,” Dean said. Sam finally climbed the steps, settling down onto one of the armchairs and noticing the dirt under Dean’s fingernails, fresh earth on his fingertips. They were quiet, but the moment wasn’t awkward. Sam felt the worry he’d been living with for so long slip away as he sat there, listening to the birds and breathing in the smells of the flowers. He tried to picture Dean - young and vulnerable, still adjusting to his gift - working with his mother to prune a tree, or plant flowers. He would have liked to have known that Dean - still fresh and open, before the fear and suspicion of the townspeople forced him to build barriers.
“I notice there’s nothing pink,” Sam said, and watched with a pleased grin as Dean threw his head back with a surprised laugh. Sam’s stomach grumbled and caused Dean’s eyebrow to lift. “I’m hungry,” Sam said, echoing the statement his tummy had made, and Dean shook his head.
“Dude, you’re completely dependent,” he said, closing his book and leading the way back to the house. “Not to mention crazy.” Sam followed Dean into the kitchen and watched as he started grabbing things from the fridge. “Dad! I’m making lunch!” he called.
“Don’t worry about me, Dean. I’ll make something later,” Paul retorted. Sam was more than a little relieved to hear that Paul wouldn’t be joining them, he was still recovering from stumbling out of Dean’s room clearly rumpled and having appeared seemingly from thin air.
“You’re the colour of a tomato, what’s wrong with you?” Dean asked. “Cheese sandwiches okay?”
“Nothing’s wrong. And cheese sandwiches are fine.”
Dean set out the bread slices and kept glancing at Sam in between buttering the pieces. “Are you scared of my dad?”
“What? No!”
“You totally are. Dude, you have a trunk full of weapons all of which you handle like it’s second nature. I bet you’re dad’s a friggin’ warrior!”
“He’s a marine, actually … well, used to be.”
“See? My dad’s a friggin’ professor! I have more to be afraid of than you,” Dean said. Sam rolled his eyes but came to stand beside the other man, helping to place cheese onto the bread slices. “You gonna tell me why you felt compelled to climb through my window at three in the morning?”
“Two fifty-six, actually,” Sam corrected idly as he finished one sandwich and turned to place it into the pan Dean had been heating. Dean shrugged. “I have a friend - she’s psychic, too - and she said, really offhanded, that my stubbornness could make a problem where there wasn’t one. And I thought that, I’d been sitting around thinking that I was maybe a little pissed, and maybe a little hurt, but that I knew I’d be back for you - but I never actually said it to you. I started thinking that part of it was, I just sorta assumed you’d know.” Dean’s eyes dropped and slid away, and Sam let out a breath. “And then I thought --- that’s kind of a dumbass thing to think.” Dean looked back up, one eyebrow raised. “You get that a lot, huh?”
“Like, I’m psychic so I should know? Yeah, it’s a favourite among some of the guys - ‘If you’re psychic how come you didn’t see this coming?’” Sam nodded and sighed. He could understand that Dean valued the family he had, but the town wasn’t a good place for him, and it was more than a little frustrating to know the kinds of things they said and did to Dean, and not be able to change the situation. Not be able to take Dean away, or yell at them and shut them up. Dean flipped one of the sandwiches in the pan, completely focussed on his task when he said, “It wasn’t an easy decision, okay?”
Sam nodded, the last of his hurt easing. “If it helps, I think maybe it was the right one.” Dean glanced up at him, and then quickly away, not saying anything when Sam grabbed the plates from the cupboard and brought them over, holding it ready so Dean could flip the ready sandwiches onto first one, and then the other. “It’s not a big thing - for me to swing by here whenever I get the chance. I don’t mind it.”
Dean set the plates onto the table and nodded his head, then turned to Sam. “Should we hug now?” Sam rolled his eyes and couldn’t check his laugh. And then he dragged Dean against him and kissed him - long and slow.
“Don’t mind me,” Paul said as he moseyed into the kitchen. “Just grabbing an apple.” Sam jerked back and was certain he was turning nine kinds of red, but Dean was only shaking his head and snickering as Paul held-up the apple he had retrieved from the fridge, winked at Sam and headed-out again.
“Shut up,” Sam snarked. “It’s not funny.” Dean’s snicker turned into a full-out laugh, and Sam could only slide into his chair and sulked as he ate his lunch.
……………………………….
Sam spent the day with Dean, walking into town to get ice cream and making-out leisurely in the gazebo when Paul took the Volvo and headed out to visit a friend. Dean was working at the bar that night, and Sam sprawled lazily on his bed, removing Dean’s work-clothes as the man tried to put them on, until Dean was snarking about being late. Sam didn’t really care. He’d missed the other man and had always thought the dress pants (which showed-off Dean’s ass so nicely) and the white button-down that Dean always rolled the sleeves-up on was incredibly hot. He had just pressed Dean back into the bed and was helping himself to the other man’s nipples when there was a brief knock and then the door swung-open.
“Hey hot-stuff! … Oh! Holy hell!” Sophia gasped.
“Hey, Soph,” Dean greeted, completely casually, even if he was looking at her upside-down, with his shirt barely hanging off his shoulders, and still pinned beneath Sam. Sam jerked and sat-back, stopping any movement Dean might have made to sit-up or move as he settled himself onto Dean’s legs.
“Hey! Don’t stop on my account,” Sophia said, settling onto the papasan that Dean had in the corner of his room.
“What are you doing here?” Sam asked.
“I drive his ass to work! What are you doing here?”
Sam had a sort of smart-aleck remark that he almost wanted to spit-out, but Dean had a look on his face, like he knew what Sam was thinking and that it would likely be smarter not to say it. “I was in the neighbourhood?”
“Hey, Soph. Could you maybe wait downstairs? I’ll be there in a sec,” Dean said.
“Why?”
“Uh,” Dean said, his eyes slipping meaningfully to where Sam was still sitting.
“Oh. Sure thing, Hon.” She blew a kiss at them, and then winked, and shut the door behind her.
“Downstairs, Sophia!” Dean called after a moment.
“Ah! You’re no fun!” her voice came through the door. They listened to her footsteps grow further away.
“Next time I say this isn’t a good idea? Listen to me,” Dean advised.
“Sure,” Sam said. “Next time, we can just do this at my place.”
“You don’t have a place.”
“Well, maybe I should get one,” Sam muttered, glancing worriedly at the door.
“Okay,” Dean said. “You do that. But right now, finish what you started.”
“Dean, she’s just downstairs!” Sam hissed.
“She already knows what we’re doing,” Dean purred, pressing his hips upward. “Come on, Sammy.” It was his tone - his soft honeyed voice dripping with sex that had Sam completely succumbing, slipping down Dean’s body.
……………………………………..
Sam stayed for four days in Fitchburg, but he knew that he had to get to South Dakota because there was something building and Sam couldn’t afford to wait until the demons got what they were searching for. He had spent the entirety of his stay with Dean, at Dean’s house, and mostly, in Dean’s bed. Leaving Dean was still the hardest thing he had ever had to do, but it was easier now that there was a solid understanding between them that as soon as he could, Sam would be back, and that Dean would be waiting. Still, Sam kept glancing in the impala’s rear-view, watching that little blue house get smaller and smaller, until it had disappeared completely.
……………………………………
Bobby was standing in the doorway when Sam pulled in, his hands on his hips and a scolding sort of smirk on his face - like he wasn’t certain if he should be amused or pissed. “I don’t want to know,” was the first thing the man said.
“Know what?” Sam asked.
“The reason for that dumbass grin on your face,” Bobby said. “Must be somethin’ else, though, to risk gettin’ your ass-kicked by your daddy.”
“I called him just like always,” Sam defended.
“Bet you didn’t tell him where you were.” Sam shrugged. “Well, you coulda told me. I had to cover for your ass when the man asked to speak to you.” Bobby wasn’t waiting for thanks, though, because he was already crossing into the main room and snatching-up a piece of paper.
“Thanks,” Sam said anyway, because he really did appreciate it.
“Thanks, nuthin’,” Bobby said. “Got three hits.” He handed over a paper and shook his head. “Bad ones. Completely demolished everything, even the buildings. Everyone was killed.”
“Everyone?”
“I checked them out myself. No witness left. They went with the house.”
“So we don’t know what they’re after … or if they already have what they’re after,” Sam muttered. “This is a mess.”
“You’re telling me. There was nothing left at any of the sites. Not even splinters left of the house. Each one was burned right down into ash. It would have been impossible to be certain they were all connected if it weren’t for this,” Bobby held-out another sheet of paper, this one folded into quarters.
Sam opened it to find a photograph that had been enlarged. It was hard to see, at first, because the image was black and white, and the detail was quite small, but still, once he saw it the thing was clear as day: what looked like the letter ‘F’ slanted towards the right, with a long line running across the peak of the tilted letter. There was a circle around where those three lines met. Sam frowned. “I think I’ve seen this somewhere.”
“I looked it up, couldn’t find a reference,” Bobby said. “You’ve seen it?”
“I dunno. It just - it looks familiar.”
………………………………………..
There were false alarms and more houses that burned, or sometimes not houses at all but people who spontaneously burned with seemingly no reason at all - except that when the ashes were cleared there was always that symbol. Sam focussed on the demons, driving across states and back again, running-off information from Bobby and also from his dad. He tried not to let himself get distracted, but at night, when he was alone in his motel room, it was hard not to think about Dean. And even if Sam was happy that the man was safe and with his family, he couldn’t help wishing that Dean could be there with him. It had been over a month since he had last been to Fitchburg.
………………………………………
Two months of motels and dead-ends and Sam was heading back to South Dakota, more than ready for a bit of a break, for some time to recoup and maybe figure out what was happening. There were about six deaths in total, but demonic possessions were popping-up like crazy, and there had to be a connection - it had to be tied into the demons looking for whatever their weapon was.
His phone was ringing as he crossed the state line, and when he checked the ID it was Bobby. “Hey.”
“ Two more fires, one person killed,” Bobby said
“One person?” Sam asked. “What about the other?”
“Still alive, thank god. It just happened this morning, your dad is on the way.
“Well, this is good, we have a witness!”
“Sam,” Bobby said, in a tone that quelled his excitement. “That witness is Missouri Moseley.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know she was a friend of yours and John’s until I managed to get in touch with Ellen at the Roadhouse and asked her to pass-on what was happening. I would have called you, but like I said, it was just this morning, and by that point I’d spoken with you - knew you were already close-by.”
“It’s okay,” Sam said, still kind of shell-shocked. “Is she hurt? What happened?”
“She’s fine, as far as I know. But you’d probably have to talk to her yourself.”
“Thanks, Bobby. I’m just gonna … I’m just gonna head right over there.”
“Sure thing, Sam. Take care.”
……………………………………..
Missouri’s house was completely intact, but her lawn was burned entirely from the sidewalk up to her front steps. “Protection charms,” she said when she opened her front door for him. “Damned good thing, too!”
“Are you hurt?”
“I was inside, which was a good thing,” she said. “It destroyed my entire front yard.” She shuddered as she walked further into the house. “Your dad’s through here.”
John was seated at the table holding a cup of tea and not drinking it, he nodded at Sam when he came through the door. “Have you been here long?”
“Just a few minutes,” John said. “Came as soon as I heard.”
“No reason to fuss,” Missouri said, dropping a teacup into Sam’s awaiting hands. “I’m alright. No one was hurt. I put the charms-up to ward the house long ago. Although, now that I think on it, I might consider a few extra things just to be safe.”
“Probably best,” John acknowledged.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know what it was … but it was evil,” she said. She shook her head and looked somewhat dazedly around the kitchen where they were sitting. “I was here by myself, thank the lord, or who knows what would have happened. And I felt this - this darkness, it just came over everything. And then, there was screaming in my head - horrible sounds, like there was more than one voice calling at a time.”
“What were they saying? The voices?” John asked, and she glared at him a little for interrupting her.
“I couldn’t make sense out of most of it. Not the words. They were looking, though. For a psychic.”
“A psychic? What do you mean?” Sam leaned forward as he asked.
“They didn’t want me, but they had someone already in mind. They weren’t sure where to find them - what they were really looking for. It was almost desperate, asking me over and over.”
“What?” Sam prompted when she trailed off.
“If I knew the psychic.”
“You mean Sam?” John asked. “Was it asking about Sam?”
“No,” Missouri said, shook her head. “Someone else. Someone that you knew, had crossed paths with. It seemed to be the only thing they were certain of.”
“Well, that narrows it down,” John said, more relaxed suddenly. “How many psychics do we know, anyway?” John didn’t know any, not anyone other than Missouri. He looked over at Sam, intending to ease the atmosphere, no doubt, because this meant the demons were mistaken, but Sam’s look completely silenced him.
“I - just two,” Sam said, realization coming over his slowly. “Oh God,” he said, getting-up so quickly that his chair toppled over, he was reaching for his cell-phone, blindly staggering into the other room, barely hearing his father calling for him as he headed towards the car.
<< END CHAPTER >>
[MASTER POST]
Nutrisystem Promotion Code
Author: revenant_scribe
Chapter Ten: HUNTED
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 ten | HUNTED
Sam had heard somewhere that patience was considered a virtue. If it was, then it was a virtue that Sam didn’t have, because though his watch and the clock in the impala both announced the time as being well-passed two in the morning, Sam had no intention of heading over to 2400 Court and getting a room. He pulled into the driveway - careful not to block what he assumed was Paul’s blue Volvo, and killed the engine. He hadn’t been to the second floor of Dean’s house, and he’d never seen Dean’s bedroom, but there was a fairly large willow tree whose branches reached conveniently close to the windows, and Sam had always been quite good at climbing things.
Dean’s bedroom was the second window he peaked-through, and Sam had to balance precariously on the branch as he used both hands to work the knife and prop himself as he unlatched the man’s window. Maybe he should have seen it coming, but Sam had scant interactions with normal people, and all the movies he’d ever seen never once even hinted at the possibility of being greeted not by a warm embrace or a dozen kisses - but with the barrel of a shiny new Glock. “Holy shit, don’t shoot!”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, you perv?” Dean hissed.
“I was coming to see you!” Sam hissed right back; both of them making an effort to keep their voices low so as not to wake Paul.
“It’s almost three in the morning! Are you crazy?”
“Maybe a little! I wanted to talk to you!”
“Uh, the phone?” Dean said. Sam raised his eyebrows because with the way they had left things, he doubted Dean really would have answered, or if he had answered, if he would have actually listened and believed anything that Sam had to say. Dean shrugged, acknowledging the point.
“And I needed to tell you that when I said ‘bye’ I didn’t mean ‘bye.”
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s way too early for this, Man.”
“But I have to say this…”
“Well, just get in the bed, and you can explain it all in the morning.”
“No! I’m sorry, you can’t just turn me away and … wait, get in the bed? As in - your bed?”
Dean looked pointedly around, then quirked an eyebrow. “Well, if you want to climb into my father’s bed then, dude, I gotta tell you, we’d have some talking to do.” Sam was already kicking-off his shoes and un-zipping his jeans. “Wow, easy there, Tiger.”
“I have been freaking out that you were mad, or thought I was mad, or that we were over, or something!”
“I was mad. And so were you,” Dean pointed out. “But ‘over’ didn’t really figure into it, did it?”
“Not so much, no,” Sam agreed. “Look, we need to -“
“No, we really don’t need to talk,” Dean said. “I need to sleep. Now, either get in the bed, or don’t, but quit babbling, you freak.” Dean buried himself under the blankets, and Sam watched the entire process with fond relief and then promptly folded the entire length of his body completely around Dean.
“I missed you,” Sam whispered against Dean’s neck.
“Shut up.” Sam grinned and buried his nose in Dean’s hair, breathing in deeply. It probably shouldn’t have been that easy, and maybe it wasn’t, but he’d been driving with barely any breaks for more days than he could count at that point, so Sam closed his eyes and went to sleep
……………………………………………….
Sam woke-up in Dean’s bed, lying sprawled on his back, his ankles and feet hanging-off either side, and blankets tangled around his body. He was also completely alone in the room. He’d been running on adrenaline and a stubborn decision that he needed to get to Dean ‘right now’. The road trip from Texas up to Wisconsin had been as direct as Sam could make it; he stopped as little as possible. Exhaustion had maybe been part of his decision to break-into Dean’s house in the middle of the night, but he didn’t feel a trace of that exhaustion at that moment. Instead, his entire body was relaxed and he felt rested, and though there’s a bad taste in his mouth that he thought might be a sign that maybe he was a little dehydrated, and there were fat grains of sleep gluing his eyelids into a permanent squint, Sam had never felt as relaxed as right that moment.
Except that he was alone.
It took effort, but Sam rolled out of bed, unwinding the blankets and sheets from his body leaving them in a pile on the bed. His priority was to find Dean, and with that in mind threw on his old clothes on - his bag was still in the trunk of the impala and he would have to go outside to get it. He wondered if maybe Dean left for work, or just left - if what happened last night was just Dean trying to get him to shut up so he could sleep. Of course, as soon as the thought passed through Sam’s head he dismissed it - Dean didn’t do the whole casual touch thing, for understandable reasons. But he invited Sam into bed - trusted Sam to get is own spiking emotions under control so they could both get to sleep. Sam’s not used to things being so simple - he was used to having to pull teeth from his dad and the people he knows and loves to get them to talk, because talking has been the only way to really figure-out what his dad, or even Ellen, were thinking. Dean dismissed conversation just as quickly as John, but more often than not, it was because he honest to god already knew what Sam was trying or wanting to say and got it.
Sam was already crossing the room to the door when it registered in his head that the level of sunlight in the room was making everything glow. He hadn’t actually looked at Dean’s bedroom until that moment, but it was not what he would have immediately thought it would be. For one thing, the walls are painted pure, sunshine yellow, and the door and closet and around the windows were all accented white. The furniture was all a dark oak and there was a blue rug on the floor, and the bedding that Sam had left in a tangled heap on the bed was blue as well, except for a quilt - handmade and slightly oversized for the bed. The desk and chair on one of the room were cluttered with books and papers, but the rest of the room was surprisingly neat. There were picture on the wall - photos of Dean with his dad, and with Rosemary and of course several of Dean and Sophia. In one photograph, Dean was much younger -- around sixteen or so -- standing with an older woman with long brown hair that had been tied-back with a red bandana knotted to keep it from her face. They were covered in grease but they were grinning triumphantly, leaning against an old Land Rover with it’s hood-up and between them, they were holding a book: ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Auto Repair’ like a trophy. The woman could only be Dean’s mother and the picture made Sam ache a little for Dean’s loss.
It was the grumbling of his tummy and also a rather pressing need to relieve his bladder that interrupted Sam’s explorations and had him stumbling out of Dean’s bedroom, hair a mess, teeth unbrushed and looking incredibly rumpled. Sam decided his timing was about as good as Rosemary’s, because Sam opened the door and barely managed three steps and there was Paul on his way out of the bathroom, fully dressed looking fresh and properly pressed. “Uh.”
“Good morning, Sam,” Paul greeted. “Or should I say, good afternoon!” He smiled widely, though his eyes were shining with barely concealed amusement. “Help yourself to whatever is in the kitchen. Dean’s usually out-back at this hour.”
“Thanks,” Sam managed - although it was almost a croak. Paul nodded and made his way downstairs while Sam stumbled into the bathroom and slammed and locked it. “Awkward,” he muttered
By the time Sam had gone to the car and back (with Paul smiling at him from his seat in the side-room that Sam would have said the man picked purposely to sit and read in just to antagonize him, except that he didn’t know Dean’s father well enough to think that) and brushed his teeth and changed, he had a long list of possibilities running through his head. Why had Dean left? Where had Dean gone? Why hadn’t Dean woken whim? And so Sam by-passed the kitchen to door at the back of the house that took him out onto a stone patio surrounded by over-grown plants and greenery and bright colours that all looked freshly watered.
There was a surprising amount of vegetation for such a small space. Whoever had designed the garden had taken everything into account - there was a nice place to sit and barbecue and eat, but also there was a path that led between two large, flowering lilac bushes to a part that was completed shielded from the house and from the patio. “Dean?” Sam called, looking around and wondering where the other man had got to.
“About damn time you woke-up, you lazy ass,” Dean greeted, his voice drifted through the leaves and flowers. Sam followed it down the short path between the lilacs to where Dean was sitting in a little gazebo that had large baskets of little white flowers that Sam couldn’t immediately identify.
Dean seemed so at home in that space, although Sam would have never thought it. His bare feet were propped-up on the small green table in the centre of the gazebo, his torn, faded jeans exposing his ankles and his black top complimenting his sleek muscled frame. There was a book splayed-open across his stomach and he was looking at Sam with a sort of steady, lazy gaze that had Sam oddly thinking: ‘This is it. This is what I’ve been looking for.’ “Did you do all this?” he found himself asking, and was immediately answered by a snort.
“Naw, Man. Flowers?” Dean wrinkled his nose. “My mom did it. She was an English teacher and a bit of horticulturalist in her spare time.”
There was something in Dean’s tone and the way those hazel eyes slid sideways away from Sam’s gaze that made Sam pause. “She did this for you?”
Dean shrugged. “The backyard was a mess, something had to …” he stopped and dropped his gaze to the wooden floor of the gazebo. Sam had yet to climb the steps, still looking upward at Dean and thus, was still able to see the sad look that flashed across Dean’s features. “When it got really bad for me - in the town - she started building all this. Called it my sanctuary.” Dean shrugged it off, his expression morphing to casual humour. “I was all for it, less lawn to mow, y’know?”
“She sounds really wonderful,” Sam said. “What was her name?”
“Magdalena,” Dean said. Sam finally climbed the steps, settling down onto one of the armchairs and noticing the dirt under Dean’s fingernails, fresh earth on his fingertips. They were quiet, but the moment wasn’t awkward. Sam felt the worry he’d been living with for so long slip away as he sat there, listening to the birds and breathing in the smells of the flowers. He tried to picture Dean - young and vulnerable, still adjusting to his gift - working with his mother to prune a tree, or plant flowers. He would have liked to have known that Dean - still fresh and open, before the fear and suspicion of the townspeople forced him to build barriers.
“I notice there’s nothing pink,” Sam said, and watched with a pleased grin as Dean threw his head back with a surprised laugh. Sam’s stomach grumbled and caused Dean’s eyebrow to lift. “I’m hungry,” Sam said, echoing the statement his tummy had made, and Dean shook his head.
“Dude, you’re completely dependent,” he said, closing his book and leading the way back to the house. “Not to mention crazy.” Sam followed Dean into the kitchen and watched as he started grabbing things from the fridge. “Dad! I’m making lunch!” he called.
“Don’t worry about me, Dean. I’ll make something later,” Paul retorted. Sam was more than a little relieved to hear that Paul wouldn’t be joining them, he was still recovering from stumbling out of Dean’s room clearly rumpled and having appeared seemingly from thin air.
“You’re the colour of a tomato, what’s wrong with you?” Dean asked. “Cheese sandwiches okay?”
“Nothing’s wrong. And cheese sandwiches are fine.”
Dean set out the bread slices and kept glancing at Sam in between buttering the pieces. “Are you scared of my dad?”
“What? No!”
“You totally are. Dude, you have a trunk full of weapons all of which you handle like it’s second nature. I bet you’re dad’s a friggin’ warrior!”
“He’s a marine, actually … well, used to be.”
“See? My dad’s a friggin’ professor! I have more to be afraid of than you,” Dean said. Sam rolled his eyes but came to stand beside the other man, helping to place cheese onto the bread slices. “You gonna tell me why you felt compelled to climb through my window at three in the morning?”
“Two fifty-six, actually,” Sam corrected idly as he finished one sandwich and turned to place it into the pan Dean had been heating. Dean shrugged. “I have a friend - she’s psychic, too - and she said, really offhanded, that my stubbornness could make a problem where there wasn’t one. And I thought that, I’d been sitting around thinking that I was maybe a little pissed, and maybe a little hurt, but that I knew I’d be back for you - but I never actually said it to you. I started thinking that part of it was, I just sorta assumed you’d know.” Dean’s eyes dropped and slid away, and Sam let out a breath. “And then I thought --- that’s kind of a dumbass thing to think.” Dean looked back up, one eyebrow raised. “You get that a lot, huh?”
“Like, I’m psychic so I should know? Yeah, it’s a favourite among some of the guys - ‘If you’re psychic how come you didn’t see this coming?’” Sam nodded and sighed. He could understand that Dean valued the family he had, but the town wasn’t a good place for him, and it was more than a little frustrating to know the kinds of things they said and did to Dean, and not be able to change the situation. Not be able to take Dean away, or yell at them and shut them up. Dean flipped one of the sandwiches in the pan, completely focussed on his task when he said, “It wasn’t an easy decision, okay?”
Sam nodded, the last of his hurt easing. “If it helps, I think maybe it was the right one.” Dean glanced up at him, and then quickly away, not saying anything when Sam grabbed the plates from the cupboard and brought them over, holding it ready so Dean could flip the ready sandwiches onto first one, and then the other. “It’s not a big thing - for me to swing by here whenever I get the chance. I don’t mind it.”
Dean set the plates onto the table and nodded his head, then turned to Sam. “Should we hug now?” Sam rolled his eyes and couldn’t check his laugh. And then he dragged Dean against him and kissed him - long and slow.
“Don’t mind me,” Paul said as he moseyed into the kitchen. “Just grabbing an apple.” Sam jerked back and was certain he was turning nine kinds of red, but Dean was only shaking his head and snickering as Paul held-up the apple he had retrieved from the fridge, winked at Sam and headed-out again.
“Shut up,” Sam snarked. “It’s not funny.” Dean’s snicker turned into a full-out laugh, and Sam could only slide into his chair and sulked as he ate his lunch.
……………………………….
Sam spent the day with Dean, walking into town to get ice cream and making-out leisurely in the gazebo when Paul took the Volvo and headed out to visit a friend. Dean was working at the bar that night, and Sam sprawled lazily on his bed, removing Dean’s work-clothes as the man tried to put them on, until Dean was snarking about being late. Sam didn’t really care. He’d missed the other man and had always thought the dress pants (which showed-off Dean’s ass so nicely) and the white button-down that Dean always rolled the sleeves-up on was incredibly hot. He had just pressed Dean back into the bed and was helping himself to the other man’s nipples when there was a brief knock and then the door swung-open.
“Hey hot-stuff! … Oh! Holy hell!” Sophia gasped.
“Hey, Soph,” Dean greeted, completely casually, even if he was looking at her upside-down, with his shirt barely hanging off his shoulders, and still pinned beneath Sam. Sam jerked and sat-back, stopping any movement Dean might have made to sit-up or move as he settled himself onto Dean’s legs.
“Hey! Don’t stop on my account,” Sophia said, settling onto the papasan that Dean had in the corner of his room.
“What are you doing here?” Sam asked.
“I drive his ass to work! What are you doing here?”
Sam had a sort of smart-aleck remark that he almost wanted to spit-out, but Dean had a look on his face, like he knew what Sam was thinking and that it would likely be smarter not to say it. “I was in the neighbourhood?”
“Hey, Soph. Could you maybe wait downstairs? I’ll be there in a sec,” Dean said.
“Why?”
“Uh,” Dean said, his eyes slipping meaningfully to where Sam was still sitting.
“Oh. Sure thing, Hon.” She blew a kiss at them, and then winked, and shut the door behind her.
“Downstairs, Sophia!” Dean called after a moment.
“Ah! You’re no fun!” her voice came through the door. They listened to her footsteps grow further away.
“Next time I say this isn’t a good idea? Listen to me,” Dean advised.
“Sure,” Sam said. “Next time, we can just do this at my place.”
“You don’t have a place.”
“Well, maybe I should get one,” Sam muttered, glancing worriedly at the door.
“Okay,” Dean said. “You do that. But right now, finish what you started.”
“Dean, she’s just downstairs!” Sam hissed.
“She already knows what we’re doing,” Dean purred, pressing his hips upward. “Come on, Sammy.” It was his tone - his soft honeyed voice dripping with sex that had Sam completely succumbing, slipping down Dean’s body.
……………………………………..
Sam stayed for four days in Fitchburg, but he knew that he had to get to South Dakota because there was something building and Sam couldn’t afford to wait until the demons got what they were searching for. He had spent the entirety of his stay with Dean, at Dean’s house, and mostly, in Dean’s bed. Leaving Dean was still the hardest thing he had ever had to do, but it was easier now that there was a solid understanding between them that as soon as he could, Sam would be back, and that Dean would be waiting. Still, Sam kept glancing in the impala’s rear-view, watching that little blue house get smaller and smaller, until it had disappeared completely.
……………………………………
Bobby was standing in the doorway when Sam pulled in, his hands on his hips and a scolding sort of smirk on his face - like he wasn’t certain if he should be amused or pissed. “I don’t want to know,” was the first thing the man said.
“Know what?” Sam asked.
“The reason for that dumbass grin on your face,” Bobby said. “Must be somethin’ else, though, to risk gettin’ your ass-kicked by your daddy.”
“I called him just like always,” Sam defended.
“Bet you didn’t tell him where you were.” Sam shrugged. “Well, you coulda told me. I had to cover for your ass when the man asked to speak to you.” Bobby wasn’t waiting for thanks, though, because he was already crossing into the main room and snatching-up a piece of paper.
“Thanks,” Sam said anyway, because he really did appreciate it.
“Thanks, nuthin’,” Bobby said. “Got three hits.” He handed over a paper and shook his head. “Bad ones. Completely demolished everything, even the buildings. Everyone was killed.”
“Everyone?”
“I checked them out myself. No witness left. They went with the house.”
“So we don’t know what they’re after … or if they already have what they’re after,” Sam muttered. “This is a mess.”
“You’re telling me. There was nothing left at any of the sites. Not even splinters left of the house. Each one was burned right down into ash. It would have been impossible to be certain they were all connected if it weren’t for this,” Bobby held-out another sheet of paper, this one folded into quarters.
Sam opened it to find a photograph that had been enlarged. It was hard to see, at first, because the image was black and white, and the detail was quite small, but still, once he saw it the thing was clear as day: what looked like the letter ‘F’ slanted towards the right, with a long line running across the peak of the tilted letter. There was a circle around where those three lines met. Sam frowned. “I think I’ve seen this somewhere.”
“I looked it up, couldn’t find a reference,” Bobby said. “You’ve seen it?”
“I dunno. It just - it looks familiar.”
………………………………………..
There were false alarms and more houses that burned, or sometimes not houses at all but people who spontaneously burned with seemingly no reason at all - except that when the ashes were cleared there was always that symbol. Sam focussed on the demons, driving across states and back again, running-off information from Bobby and also from his dad. He tried not to let himself get distracted, but at night, when he was alone in his motel room, it was hard not to think about Dean. And even if Sam was happy that the man was safe and with his family, he couldn’t help wishing that Dean could be there with him. It had been over a month since he had last been to Fitchburg.
………………………………………
Two months of motels and dead-ends and Sam was heading back to South Dakota, more than ready for a bit of a break, for some time to recoup and maybe figure out what was happening. There were about six deaths in total, but demonic possessions were popping-up like crazy, and there had to be a connection - it had to be tied into the demons looking for whatever their weapon was.
His phone was ringing as he crossed the state line, and when he checked the ID it was Bobby. “Hey.”
“ Two more fires, one person killed,” Bobby said
“One person?” Sam asked. “What about the other?”
“Still alive, thank god. It just happened this morning, your dad is on the way.
“Well, this is good, we have a witness!”
“Sam,” Bobby said, in a tone that quelled his excitement. “That witness is Missouri Moseley.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know she was a friend of yours and John’s until I managed to get in touch with Ellen at the Roadhouse and asked her to pass-on what was happening. I would have called you, but like I said, it was just this morning, and by that point I’d spoken with you - knew you were already close-by.”
“It’s okay,” Sam said, still kind of shell-shocked. “Is she hurt? What happened?”
“She’s fine, as far as I know. But you’d probably have to talk to her yourself.”
“Thanks, Bobby. I’m just gonna … I’m just gonna head right over there.”
“Sure thing, Sam. Take care.”
……………………………………..
Missouri’s house was completely intact, but her lawn was burned entirely from the sidewalk up to her front steps. “Protection charms,” she said when she opened her front door for him. “Damned good thing, too!”
“Are you hurt?”
“I was inside, which was a good thing,” she said. “It destroyed my entire front yard.” She shuddered as she walked further into the house. “Your dad’s through here.”
John was seated at the table holding a cup of tea and not drinking it, he nodded at Sam when he came through the door. “Have you been here long?”
“Just a few minutes,” John said. “Came as soon as I heard.”
“No reason to fuss,” Missouri said, dropping a teacup into Sam’s awaiting hands. “I’m alright. No one was hurt. I put the charms-up to ward the house long ago. Although, now that I think on it, I might consider a few extra things just to be safe.”
“Probably best,” John acknowledged.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know what it was … but it was evil,” she said. She shook her head and looked somewhat dazedly around the kitchen where they were sitting. “I was here by myself, thank the lord, or who knows what would have happened. And I felt this - this darkness, it just came over everything. And then, there was screaming in my head - horrible sounds, like there was more than one voice calling at a time.”
“What were they saying? The voices?” John asked, and she glared at him a little for interrupting her.
“I couldn’t make sense out of most of it. Not the words. They were looking, though. For a psychic.”
“A psychic? What do you mean?” Sam leaned forward as he asked.
“They didn’t want me, but they had someone already in mind. They weren’t sure where to find them - what they were really looking for. It was almost desperate, asking me over and over.”
“What?” Sam prompted when she trailed off.
“If I knew the psychic.”
“You mean Sam?” John asked. “Was it asking about Sam?”
“No,” Missouri said, shook her head. “Someone else. Someone that you knew, had crossed paths with. It seemed to be the only thing they were certain of.”
“Well, that narrows it down,” John said, more relaxed suddenly. “How many psychics do we know, anyway?” John didn’t know any, not anyone other than Missouri. He looked over at Sam, intending to ease the atmosphere, no doubt, because this meant the demons were mistaken, but Sam’s look completely silenced him.
“I - just two,” Sam said, realization coming over his slowly. “Oh God,” he said, getting-up so quickly that his chair toppled over, he was reaching for his cell-phone, blindly staggering into the other room, barely hearing his father calling for him as he headed towards the car.
<< END CHAPTER >>
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