SPN Fic: With Eyes Wide Open, Bridge
Part One | Part Two | Interlude | Part Three | Part Four | Bridge | Part Five | Notes
Lucas went right to the driver’s side when they got to the car and Michael was too tired to do anything but mutter at him, “You better not get us a fucking speeding ticket.” He helped Sari slug her bag into the trunk, and pulled out his jacket to cover the worst of the bloodstains. Just an innocent evening of teenage fun, that was all they had been up to, nothing strange about it at all.
Sari was ghostly pale in the dim moonlight and there were dark bruises underneath her bloodshot eyes. She slammed the trunk down heavily and just stood there for a moment, looking small and fragile. “Sari-”Michael tentatively put his arm around her and she leaned in for a couple seconds before shrugging him off.
“I’m fine,” she said, and climbed into the back seat. He could see Lucas twisting his head around to see what was taking him so long and he took one last brief look around to make sure that they had made it out undetected. A police siren wailed in the distance and he took that as a sign.
“Drive slowly,” he told Lucas after he slammed the door on the passenger side. “I think the cops are coming.”
“I always do,” Lucas said with a glance backwards as he quickly reversed out of the parking lot and onto the street.
“Three speeding tickets in Ohio says you don’t.”
“You drive just as fast as I do,” Lucas said, throwing Michael a challenging look.
“Yeah, well, I don’t get caught,” Michael answered. “You always pick the worst places to speed…”
If it wasn’t a usual argument, it was close enough that in the rearview mirror he could see Sari sit back and relax as he and Lucas bickered back and forth amicably until they reached their motel.
The fwapping sound of the motel’s fan greeted them as they entered the dark room. Michael went over and grabbed their first aid kit, and then the TV remote, flicking to a basketball game. Lucas had grabbed Sari’s bag and had set it down on the ground beside her bed.
“You need help with that?” he asked Michael, nodding to Michael’s attempts to clean the cut on his collarbone.
“Naw, I think I got it,” Michael said. While it had bled a fair bit, it was a clean cut, and had clotted easily after the initial slice. The only thing he had to worry about was what had been on the blade before. Kat’s blood. But he doubted she had any blood-born diseases. Or, at least, he hoped so.
Lucas nodded and lay back on the bed, focusing his attention on the TV. “Who’s playing?”
“Columbus and Nashville, I think.”
Sari was still standing at the door, locking and unlocking the lock before finally leaving it and going to sit down on the bed. She crossed her arms and stared over at the two of them until Michael finally noticed.
“What?”
She bit her lip, looking at the floor. “If you guys aren’t going to say it, then I will; tonight, that was close.”
“Oh c’mon, it wasn’t that close-” Michael started, but the feeling that Sari had a point didn’t let him finish.
“It was.” Sari said, looking back up, stubborn. “We were in over our heads and if it weren’t for Lucas’s freaky X-men power, and Kat finishing the exorcism, we would’ve been toast.”
Lucas gave a brief shrug. “So, we’ll do better recon next time and make sure the old lady isn’t actually a Satanist in disguise. Oh, and I’d say next time we also try not to involve civilians,” he said, turning towards Michael.
“She held her end up,” Michael said evenly. “And as Sari pointed out, she kept going with the exorcism at the right time.”
“Yeah, but the point is, if we had made her to go when we did, she wouldn’t’ve gotten hurt.”
“Maybe, but then maybe the whole night would’ve gone differently,” Michael pointed out. “We can’t know. And I’d like to have seen you telling her she had to leave.”
“Maybe,” Lucas said reluctantly. “I still think it was shitty that we bailed on her at the end.”
“It’s what worked best,” Michael said. “She knew what she was offering.” He snapped his fingers. “And she wasn’t exactly a civilian- she told me that she had met Sam and Dean before. She was at some kind of haunted jail or something with her boyfriend, so it’s not like this is her first time with supernatural creepy things anyway.”
Sari let out a small snort. “There’s a difference between a few ghosts and having your landlady trying to sacrifice you to a demon for…” she trailed off. “We don’t even know why she was doing that ritual, do we?”
“Power, wealth, maybe she wanted to bring someone back from the dead? Her husband had died recently,” Michael said wearily. “Who knows? We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
But Sari wasn’t done yet. “But that demon, it knew things…” she started, with a troubled look on her face.
“Later,” Michael said shortly.
She turned to Lucas, who avoided her eyes guiltily. “What’s the score now?” he asked Michael, turning his attention to the game.
Michael felt Sari’s eyes, watching as he and Lucas pretended to have an absorbing interest in the TV.
“Fine,” she huffed finally. “Be all… boy-like and avoidy. I’m taking a shower. But you know we’ll have to deal with it eventually,” she added as a parting shot, before slamming the door to the bathroom.
Michael watched the flickering screen for a few more minutes before abandoning the pretense, and concentrated on fixing his bandage.
Lucas watched him wrestle with it for a few more seconds before swinging his legs down on the bed.
“Here, I’ll do it,” he said quietly, his hands already on the bandage.
Michael let his arms fall, and relaxed as Lucas started taping with quick, expert motions.
Up close the darkening bruises were ugly and spreading on Lucas’s neck and for an instant Michael flashed back to the moment when he had been helpless to do anything other than watch as the cords had tightened.
Lucas must have felt his gaze as he flicked his eyes up to catch Michael’s.
Michael drew a tentative finger across the base of Lucas’s throat, and Lucas sighed slowly. He caught Michael’s hand and held it for a moment, pressing it against his cheek.
“I thought-” Michael said, his voice cracking.
“Yeah, well I’m not,” Lucas said, as he straightened up, slipping his hand out of Michael’s and giving him an embarrassed smile. “I’m fine- we’re fine,” he corrected himself. “Sari might be pissed but she’ll survive.”
Michael looked over to the closed shower door. “She was right though.”
“Mmm,” Lucas admitted. “But she’ll be holding it over us for weeks, if you admit it,” he warned.
Michael grinned. “I know, which is why I waited.” The grin slipped from his face though, as he remembered the rest of the night.
“Demons lie,” Lucas said, correctly interpreting his sudden silence.
“Not always,” Michael answered, his chest feeling tight as he recalled the demon’s words. “Sometimes he even screams your name, asking why you didn’t protect him…”
There was a stubborn set to Lucas’s jaw. “No, but they do most of the time.”
Too late, Michael thought about the other demon’s taunts. “I mean-- it was obviously lying when it was talking to you-” he said hastily, realizing how hypocritical it sounded.
But Lucas had a closed look on his face. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Don’t be stupid, Lucas, as if Sam and Dean would have let us loose if they thought you were going to go all Darth Vader,” Michael said impatiently.
Lucas shrugged, his shoulders tight against his shirt as he crossed his arms.
“Whatever, we’ll deal with it in the morning,” Michael said, the exhaustion suddenly hitting him from the whole night. He stood up and went to the other side of the bed, stripping off his jeans before falling back against the pillow. Lucas stayed, statue still on the other side of the bed.
“Maybe we should go visit them again,” a voice said softly from the other side of the room. Sari stood in the bathroom room door, a small figure wrapped in one of the motel’s white towels.
Michael wondered how long she had been standing there.
“The Winchesters,” she clarified. “They might have answers.”
She ducked her head, as the silence stretched in the room. “Nevermind then,” she muttered.
“No, it’s a good idea. Maybe we should,” Lucas said quickly.
“Let’s talk about it later?” Michael said, with exasperation. “Say, in the morning?” He shut off the bedside light, leaving the TV and bathroom light to flicker in the now-dark room.
***
The loud ringing of a cellphone interrupted Michael’s dreams of Asher standing on the other side of a dark room, a ring of fire separating them.
It wasn’t his ringtone. “Sari!” he mumbled into his pillow. “Get your phone!”
When the ringing didn’t stop, he grudgingly opened his eyes and got out of the bed, hunting for the phone.
He spotted it lying on top of a pile of clothes on the floor. He picked it up. “Hello?” he answered, stifling a yawn.
“So. Job didn’t go as planned?” Bobby’s voice was no-nonsense, wanting immediate answers.
Michael sat back on the bed. “Um, not exactly,” he said cautiously. “It was a little more complicated than we planned. How did you know?” As he answered, he noticed that Sari and Lucas weren’t in the room.
He glanced at the clock on the bedside table. 11:30 AM. Hoping that Lucas and Sari were getting breakfast rather than wasting away in a police cell somewhere, he turned back to the conversation.
“I had an interesting call from a Kat Robertson from a hospital at 6 this morning,” Bobby said, his voice deepening to an almost-growl. “As well as looking at the town’s local newspaper this morning. Quite the sensational article they have there.”
Michael rubbed his eyes, looking around the room to see if the newspaper was there. “Um, yeah- there was a piece of information we may have missed. How is she - Kat - by the way?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “The police believe her story all right?”
“She’s staying overnight at the hospital again tonight, but she told me she she’ll be released tomorrow,” Bobby said gruffly. “And so far, the police believe her, but if there’s any evidence found that contradicts her story…”
“What else could we have done?” Michael asked. “It would’ve have been more suspicious with us there- and she offered.”
“She’s not a hunter, Michael, that’s the problem,” Bobby answered.
“She sure seemed to be trying to be one,” Michael muttered, tired of the accusations that Kat was an innocent they had dragged into the hunt. “She didn’t listen to what you said, about waiting for today to do the ritual. And it’s not as if she was unaware of this whole thing, she had the equipment. She’s come across supernatural creatures before. Hell, she’s even met up with the Winchesters.”
The line was silent for a moment. “She knows Sam and Dean?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah, sort of, same kind of deal like me, and Lucas and Sari,” Michael said. “That didn’t come up in your conversation?”
“Nope,” Bobby said. He sighed. “Look, just keep your heads down for the next few days, okay? It’ll help me sleep better at night. I’ll keep an eye on the situation, and handle any questions Kat has.”
“All right,” Michael answered. “We were planning on doing that anyway.”
The outside door opened and Lucas and Sari entered, bringing the tantalizing scent of fresh bagels into the room. Sari had a newspaper tucked under her arm. Unfolding it, she held it up so Michael could see the headline. HOMEMAKER REVEALED TO BE SATANIST it read.
Michael raised his eyebrows in reaction at her as Bobby added a few more tips.
“Call me if you have any problems,” Bobby said. “Oh, and next time- do your damn homework. It’ll save you from situations like this.” He hung up before Michael could say anything else.
“Huh,” he said, throwing the phone down beside him.
“Bobby?” Lucas asked, chewing on a bagel.
“Yep.”
“And?”
“He’s been talking to Kat. He says to keep our heads down, but he doesn’t think we’ve been noticed by the police.”
“So…self-imposed lock-down for a few days,” Lucas said. “That’s not too bad, considering the alternative.”
“So you say,” Sari said, with a long suffering sigh as she flopped down on her bed. She picked up one of her books and opened it, starting to read.
Michael read the article, letting out a small whistle, as he read the details about the supplies they had found in Mrs. Sandbury’s house.
“This-” he started, looking up, but then he stopped as he noticed something. “Are you- is that a turtleneck, Lucas?”
“Shut-up,” Lucas said, the tips of his ears turning pink. “It’s the only shirt I own that covers the bruises.”
Michael didn’t try to stifle the snicker. “I didn’t even know you had a turtleneck- the things you learn…” He smirked. “C’mon, you have to admit that’s pretty-”
He didn’t manage to finish the sentence before Lucas tackled him.
Sari let out another sigh. “Yep, gonna be a long few days.”
***
Part 5
Lucas went right to the driver’s side when they got to the car and Michael was too tired to do anything but mutter at him, “You better not get us a fucking speeding ticket.” He helped Sari slug her bag into the trunk, and pulled out his jacket to cover the worst of the bloodstains. Just an innocent evening of teenage fun, that was all they had been up to, nothing strange about it at all.
Sari was ghostly pale in the dim moonlight and there were dark bruises underneath her bloodshot eyes. She slammed the trunk down heavily and just stood there for a moment, looking small and fragile. “Sari-”Michael tentatively put his arm around her and she leaned in for a couple seconds before shrugging him off.
“I’m fine,” she said, and climbed into the back seat. He could see Lucas twisting his head around to see what was taking him so long and he took one last brief look around to make sure that they had made it out undetected. A police siren wailed in the distance and he took that as a sign.
“Drive slowly,” he told Lucas after he slammed the door on the passenger side. “I think the cops are coming.”
“I always do,” Lucas said with a glance backwards as he quickly reversed out of the parking lot and onto the street.
“Three speeding tickets in Ohio says you don’t.”
“You drive just as fast as I do,” Lucas said, throwing Michael a challenging look.
“Yeah, well, I don’t get caught,” Michael answered. “You always pick the worst places to speed…”
If it wasn’t a usual argument, it was close enough that in the rearview mirror he could see Sari sit back and relax as he and Lucas bickered back and forth amicably until they reached their motel.
The fwapping sound of the motel’s fan greeted them as they entered the dark room. Michael went over and grabbed their first aid kit, and then the TV remote, flicking to a basketball game. Lucas had grabbed Sari’s bag and had set it down on the ground beside her bed.
“You need help with that?” he asked Michael, nodding to Michael’s attempts to clean the cut on his collarbone.
“Naw, I think I got it,” Michael said. While it had bled a fair bit, it was a clean cut, and had clotted easily after the initial slice. The only thing he had to worry about was what had been on the blade before. Kat’s blood. But he doubted she had any blood-born diseases. Or, at least, he hoped so.
Lucas nodded and lay back on the bed, focusing his attention on the TV. “Who’s playing?”
“Columbus and Nashville, I think.”
Sari was still standing at the door, locking and unlocking the lock before finally leaving it and going to sit down on the bed. She crossed her arms and stared over at the two of them until Michael finally noticed.
“What?”
She bit her lip, looking at the floor. “If you guys aren’t going to say it, then I will; tonight, that was close.”
“Oh c’mon, it wasn’t that close-” Michael started, but the feeling that Sari had a point didn’t let him finish.
“It was.” Sari said, looking back up, stubborn. “We were in over our heads and if it weren’t for Lucas’s freaky X-men power, and Kat finishing the exorcism, we would’ve been toast.”
Lucas gave a brief shrug. “So, we’ll do better recon next time and make sure the old lady isn’t actually a Satanist in disguise. Oh, and I’d say next time we also try not to involve civilians,” he said, turning towards Michael.
“She held her end up,” Michael said evenly. “And as Sari pointed out, she kept going with the exorcism at the right time.”
“Yeah, but the point is, if we had made her to go when we did, she wouldn’t’ve gotten hurt.”
“Maybe, but then maybe the whole night would’ve gone differently,” Michael pointed out. “We can’t know. And I’d like to have seen you telling her she had to leave.”
“Maybe,” Lucas said reluctantly. “I still think it was shitty that we bailed on her at the end.”
“It’s what worked best,” Michael said. “She knew what she was offering.” He snapped his fingers. “And she wasn’t exactly a civilian- she told me that she had met Sam and Dean before. She was at some kind of haunted jail or something with her boyfriend, so it’s not like this is her first time with supernatural creepy things anyway.”
Sari let out a small snort. “There’s a difference between a few ghosts and having your landlady trying to sacrifice you to a demon for…” she trailed off. “We don’t even know why she was doing that ritual, do we?”
“Power, wealth, maybe she wanted to bring someone back from the dead? Her husband had died recently,” Michael said wearily. “Who knows? We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
But Sari wasn’t done yet. “But that demon, it knew things…” she started, with a troubled look on her face.
“Later,” Michael said shortly.
She turned to Lucas, who avoided her eyes guiltily. “What’s the score now?” he asked Michael, turning his attention to the game.
Michael felt Sari’s eyes, watching as he and Lucas pretended to have an absorbing interest in the TV.
“Fine,” she huffed finally. “Be all… boy-like and avoidy. I’m taking a shower. But you know we’ll have to deal with it eventually,” she added as a parting shot, before slamming the door to the bathroom.
Michael watched the flickering screen for a few more minutes before abandoning the pretense, and concentrated on fixing his bandage.
Lucas watched him wrestle with it for a few more seconds before swinging his legs down on the bed.
“Here, I’ll do it,” he said quietly, his hands already on the bandage.
Michael let his arms fall, and relaxed as Lucas started taping with quick, expert motions.
Up close the darkening bruises were ugly and spreading on Lucas’s neck and for an instant Michael flashed back to the moment when he had been helpless to do anything other than watch as the cords had tightened.
Lucas must have felt his gaze as he flicked his eyes up to catch Michael’s.
Michael drew a tentative finger across the base of Lucas’s throat, and Lucas sighed slowly. He caught Michael’s hand and held it for a moment, pressing it against his cheek.
“I thought-” Michael said, his voice cracking.
“Yeah, well I’m not,” Lucas said, as he straightened up, slipping his hand out of Michael’s and giving him an embarrassed smile. “I’m fine- we’re fine,” he corrected himself. “Sari might be pissed but she’ll survive.”
Michael looked over to the closed shower door. “She was right though.”
“Mmm,” Lucas admitted. “But she’ll be holding it over us for weeks, if you admit it,” he warned.
Michael grinned. “I know, which is why I waited.” The grin slipped from his face though, as he remembered the rest of the night.
“Demons lie,” Lucas said, correctly interpreting his sudden silence.
“Not always,” Michael answered, his chest feeling tight as he recalled the demon’s words. “Sometimes he even screams your name, asking why you didn’t protect him…”
There was a stubborn set to Lucas’s jaw. “No, but they do most of the time.”
Too late, Michael thought about the other demon’s taunts. “I mean-- it was obviously lying when it was talking to you-” he said hastily, realizing how hypocritical it sounded.
But Lucas had a closed look on his face. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Don’t be stupid, Lucas, as if Sam and Dean would have let us loose if they thought you were going to go all Darth Vader,” Michael said impatiently.
Lucas shrugged, his shoulders tight against his shirt as he crossed his arms.
“Whatever, we’ll deal with it in the morning,” Michael said, the exhaustion suddenly hitting him from the whole night. He stood up and went to the other side of the bed, stripping off his jeans before falling back against the pillow. Lucas stayed, statue still on the other side of the bed.
“Maybe we should go visit them again,” a voice said softly from the other side of the room. Sari stood in the bathroom room door, a small figure wrapped in one of the motel’s white towels.
Michael wondered how long she had been standing there.
“The Winchesters,” she clarified. “They might have answers.”
She ducked her head, as the silence stretched in the room. “Nevermind then,” she muttered.
“No, it’s a good idea. Maybe we should,” Lucas said quickly.
“Let’s talk about it later?” Michael said, with exasperation. “Say, in the morning?” He shut off the bedside light, leaving the TV and bathroom light to flicker in the now-dark room.
***
The loud ringing of a cellphone interrupted Michael’s dreams of Asher standing on the other side of a dark room, a ring of fire separating them.
It wasn’t his ringtone. “Sari!” he mumbled into his pillow. “Get your phone!”
When the ringing didn’t stop, he grudgingly opened his eyes and got out of the bed, hunting for the phone.
He spotted it lying on top of a pile of clothes on the floor. He picked it up. “Hello?” he answered, stifling a yawn.
“So. Job didn’t go as planned?” Bobby’s voice was no-nonsense, wanting immediate answers.
Michael sat back on the bed. “Um, not exactly,” he said cautiously. “It was a little more complicated than we planned. How did you know?” As he answered, he noticed that Sari and Lucas weren’t in the room.
He glanced at the clock on the bedside table. 11:30 AM. Hoping that Lucas and Sari were getting breakfast rather than wasting away in a police cell somewhere, he turned back to the conversation.
“I had an interesting call from a Kat Robertson from a hospital at 6 this morning,” Bobby said, his voice deepening to an almost-growl. “As well as looking at the town’s local newspaper this morning. Quite the sensational article they have there.”
Michael rubbed his eyes, looking around the room to see if the newspaper was there. “Um, yeah- there was a piece of information we may have missed. How is she - Kat - by the way?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “The police believe her story all right?”
“She’s staying overnight at the hospital again tonight, but she told me she she’ll be released tomorrow,” Bobby said gruffly. “And so far, the police believe her, but if there’s any evidence found that contradicts her story…”
“What else could we have done?” Michael asked. “It would’ve have been more suspicious with us there- and she offered.”
“She’s not a hunter, Michael, that’s the problem,” Bobby answered.
“She sure seemed to be trying to be one,” Michael muttered, tired of the accusations that Kat was an innocent they had dragged into the hunt. “She didn’t listen to what you said, about waiting for today to do the ritual. And it’s not as if she was unaware of this whole thing, she had the equipment. She’s come across supernatural creatures before. Hell, she’s even met up with the Winchesters.”
The line was silent for a moment. “She knows Sam and Dean?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah, sort of, same kind of deal like me, and Lucas and Sari,” Michael said. “That didn’t come up in your conversation?”
“Nope,” Bobby said. He sighed. “Look, just keep your heads down for the next few days, okay? It’ll help me sleep better at night. I’ll keep an eye on the situation, and handle any questions Kat has.”
“All right,” Michael answered. “We were planning on doing that anyway.”
The outside door opened and Lucas and Sari entered, bringing the tantalizing scent of fresh bagels into the room. Sari had a newspaper tucked under her arm. Unfolding it, she held it up so Michael could see the headline. HOMEMAKER REVEALED TO BE SATANIST it read.
Michael raised his eyebrows in reaction at her as Bobby added a few more tips.
“Call me if you have any problems,” Bobby said. “Oh, and next time- do your damn homework. It’ll save you from situations like this.” He hung up before Michael could say anything else.
“Huh,” he said, throwing the phone down beside him.
“Bobby?” Lucas asked, chewing on a bagel.
“Yep.”
“And?”
“He’s been talking to Kat. He says to keep our heads down, but he doesn’t think we’ve been noticed by the police.”
“So…self-imposed lock-down for a few days,” Lucas said. “That’s not too bad, considering the alternative.”
“So you say,” Sari said, with a long suffering sigh as she flopped down on her bed. She picked up one of her books and opened it, starting to read.
Michael read the article, letting out a small whistle, as he read the details about the supplies they had found in Mrs. Sandbury’s house.
“This-” he started, looking up, but then he stopped as he noticed something. “Are you- is that a turtleneck, Lucas?”
“Shut-up,” Lucas said, the tips of his ears turning pink. “It’s the only shirt I own that covers the bruises.”
Michael didn’t try to stifle the snicker. “I didn’t even know you had a turtleneck- the things you learn…” He smirked. “C’mon, you have to admit that’s pretty-”
He didn’t manage to finish the sentence before Lucas tackled him.
Sari let out another sigh. “Yep, gonna be a long few days.”
***
Part 5