The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep

Jun 16, 2009 10:30

8. The Nature of the Beast
It's the jars of teeth that really get to her every time she thinks about it, even though there are worse things scattered about the Bender house according to the FBI report: the human equivalent of elephant-foot trashcans, giraffe-leg lampstands, zebra-tail light pulls, gorilla-hand ashtrays.

No, it's the teeth, all eight hundred and twenty two of them. Hudak does the math: average of thirty two teeth per mouth, so eight hundred and twenty two divided by thirty two makes… twenty five point something people hunted to death out there. But what the heck would they keep the teeth for? What does that go to in their psyche, their make-up, their nature? It's… animalistic. Primeval.

Her alarm blares and she flails about on the nightstand to switch it off, debates whether to just turn over and go back to sleep, stretches, throws off the covers, pulls them back up. Throws them off again, switches on the lamp, because she made a promise.

A picture of her brother smiles at her from the nightstand, a perfect white-toothed smile. Hudak feels a wave of nausea rise, stumbles to the bathroom and leans over the sink, taking deep breaths, holding it down, her grip on the ceramic white-knuckled.

Not thinking of teeth or how they might have removed them.

Not thinking about Dean Winchester's megawatt smile.

Not thinking about her brother.



Missy nudges Lee's foot with hers to wake him and he yawns as he raises his head from off the top of his brother's, wipes away drool from the side of his cheek and scurfs it from off Gabe's hair. He wrinkles his nose in disgust.

"He smells real bad."

Gabe is out of it, and Lee carefully shimmies out from behind him, laying him back on the blanket. "Think we should clean him up some?" he inquires, as Missy pokes through the supplies. "We got soap now. And there's some clothes in those folks' bags we can use. His ain't fit for much."

Missy pulls the blanket aside, studies Gabe. His hair is clogged with mud and old, black blood that extends down one cheek, and splotches of blood spatter the rest of his face too. Lee's baggy sweater conceals the shredded sleeve of his shirt and the grubby bandage that holds his splint in place. His fingers and fingernails, peeking out from the cuffs of the too-long sweater, are thick with grime. The jeans take the prize, though, stained from mid-thigh down with dried-in blood and from mid-thigh up with urine and worse, as Missy knows full well from countless hunts where blubbering long-pigs lost all control as the dogs took them down. The bandage is about all that's holding the denim together, hastily applied over the fabric.

Missy nods decisively. "After we eat, Gabe takes a bath."



"Rise and shine!"

It's hollered right in his ear, and the little bitch cackles as Gabe about jumps out of his skin. He starts to yelp something and then remembers her hand and thinks better of it, glowers up at her instead.

"Sleep well?" she asks, sweetly.

Cautiously, inch by inch, Gabe levers himself up on his good arm. He tells himself that his leg maybe doesn't throb quite as much as it did and that as long as he favors his arm and doesn't jar his shoulder, the pain is just about bearable. And suddenly Lee is right there behind him, supporting him and easing him up against the tree.

The world spins for a few minutes, and Gabe finds it hard to catch his breath. He was overly optimistic, he thinks, as his leg, protesting at the movement, sends out scorching distress signals that sear every nerve ending with thrilling agony. He wheezes through it, good hand fisting the dirt, feels his chest tighten and clench with the onset of the inevitable coughing spasm. He breaks out in a cold sweat that's distinctly at odds with the heat he can feel radiating from his body, and Lee seems to senses his anxiety, rubs circles on Gabe's back as he leans forward trying to fill his lungs through the hacking wet coughs, Jesus, can't breathe, can't breathe, tears leaking out of his eyes, phlegm thick in his mouth, his panic skyrocketing.

Missy squats next to him, a hand on either side of his face, yells, "Look at me! Look at me! Quit it now! Now!"

As Gabe drowns in her glare it gets fractionally easier, a little more air reaches his screaming lungs with every hard-fought breath. Tough fuckin' love, he thinks. Always has been, all his life since Mom died.

Missy sends a satisfied smirk his way, stands and picks her way back to stir whatever she has cooking in the pot, while Lee helps Gabe lean back again.

"Fuckin' bitch," Gabe dares under his breath, and Lee's jaw drops in what looks like part-horror, part-awe, his eyes darting over to the girls where she squats on her haunches. Gabe senses his disapproval and shrugs. "Well, she is," he mutters between labored breaths.

And then she's marching over again, her grin huge, her mood the polar opposite of five minutes earlier, as she snuggles up close with the can of warm stew. "We need to get your strength up, Gabe," she announces, stirring the glop vigorously before offering him a steaming spoonful.

Gabe examines it, brownish chunks of some generic meat in sludge that must pass for sauce in whatever kitchen Missy learned her cooking skills, and he can't help the grimace that scrunches up his face.

"S'good," she says, encouragingly, but for some reason Gabe just doesn't want to eat it. Not because he isn't hungry - even thinking of the word has his stomach growling. Just… something maybe not right about it, something he can't remember just now.

Missy huffs, dumps the spoon back in the can and wedges it down between his thighs. "Ain't really got time to feed you anyhoo, Gabe," she says, her attention drifting off to the mess scattered about their campsite. "We need to get movin' once we get you cleaned up…"

She sits back down near the fire, starts eating her own food.

Lee's about done with his and he's licking his fingers enthusiastically. He catches Gabe's eye, nods. "S'good," he echoes Missy.

Gabe looks down into the can. He's hungry. He shovels a spoonful of the warm stew in, eats it mechanically, chewing it slowly, having to force it down. It's not bad. But it's not good either. He just doesn't understand why.

After a couple of mouthfuls, he sets the can down on the dirt and the dog looks up from where it's lying, ears pricked, eyes alert. Gabe pushes the can over towards its massive head and it clears out the leftovers in less than a minute. He considers the mutt as it licks its chops and yawns, shudders involuntarily at the flash of gleaming white fangs. And something occurs to him. "What's our dog's name?" he inquires.

Lee shrugs. "Don't really have one. Just… Dog, I guess."

Gabe frowns, because something about that doesn't make sense, some memory of the din of barking, of racing through woods black as night. "What was the other dog's name?" he presses. "The one that drowned?"

Missy's tone is sharp. "You 'member that? That other dog?"

She seems bothered by it and Gabe's hand rises unconsciously to rub his cheek, his eyes flicking back and forth from her to Lee, who shakes his head almost imperceptibly.

"Uh… I thought there were two dogs… they both called Dog?" Gabe says, more cautiously now. "Same name… don't make sense."

Missy's stare is fixed and cold.

"I dunno… " Gabe whispers. "Maybe I'm confused. I, uh. Hit my head."

The gleam of her sharp yellow teeth is a relief. "Yup, you sure did, Gabe. But the doctor gave us medicine for that, and to help your leg get better." She digs in her pocket, produces a couple of bottles of pills from her pocket, pours him some water.

Gabe takes the pills without complaint. He wants to get better.

He reclines against his tree, watches Lee and Missy start to collapse the tent, clear away belongings into the cart. A feeling of comforting lassitude starts creeping up his body. The pain is receding, muffled by the drugs. He's with his family and family is all, his dad used to say. He feels at ease.

The dog lies next to him, and Gabe runs his good hand up and down its back, lazily rubbing and scratching its short, dense fur. "Sam…" he slurs contentedly. "That's your name now. Sammy."



They packed more supplies, Hudak expecting it to be a couple of nights this time. They're deep into the woods now, as far north as they've ever been. Sam's realistic, knows that this will likely be their last pass, and he says as much.

"The fact he's hurt will slow them down," Hudak replies. "I can't see them having gotten as far as the lakes yet… but you're right. If we don't find any signs this time we'll drive up north, start working our way back, maybe cut them off instead of chase them all the time."

She seems more bullish than him today, and for the umpteenth time Sam loses himself in guilt-ridden examination of just why it is he doesn't hold out much hope of finding his brother. He knows damn well that if it were the other way round Dean wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, would tear down every obstacle in his path, would sacrifice whatever he had to, to get to him. He wonders if it's as simple as his force-of-nature brother compared to him: sensible, analytical, logical… adding the savage attack to the doctor's description of the leg injury and the blood in the truck bed, multiplying them by the number of days that have passed to come up with his conclusion. Dean, glass half full, would have taken the blood smeared all over the truck as a sign his brother's heart still beat, pumping that blood. But he, Sam, glass half empty… all he can see is his brother slowly weakening as he bleeds out.

"It's been almost a week," he starts.

"Yes it has," Hudak says, noncommittally.

"I called Stanford. Spoke to the Dean."

Hudak asks him the sixty four thousand dollar question. "Do you want to stop looking, Sam?"

Up close and personal like that, the question has Sam floundering even though he's been thinking about it. "No… I… don't know. I don't know what to do." Giving up. Letting go. Sam doesn't want to be ten years down the line and still hiking these woods. But he doesn't want to be ten years down the line wondering if he did the right thing either.

Hudak is startlingly astute when she interrupts his train of thought. "You feel guilty about stopping. You don't want to be thinking what if for the rest of your life."

"He wouldn't give up if it were me," Sam mutters. "Not ever. He'd never stop looking."

She clears her throat. "But he might be wasting his life, given the evidence. Would you want him doing that?"

Sam doesn't even have to consider it. "God, no." The thought of Dean living some kind of half-life, existing in a permanent state of mourning for a lost Sam, endlessly, hopelessly searching, is like a knife to the gut.

He looks over at Hudak, remembers what she said about how she never stopped looking, still hoped. He thinks now that he can see it in her weary face, her air of sadness, her solitary life, maybe even in her dedication to this search for his brother that defies all logic and sense. And Sam wonders for the first time who she's really searching for.

"What do you think Dean would want for you, Sam?" she says, her voice soft.

Sam knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt. He knows because of all those years when Dean as brother became impossibly intertwined with Dean as father, the one who raised Sam, guided him, taught him, protected him. Only ever wanted the best for him, and stood and watched him walk away from it all to follow his dream, even as it sent his own dream of family up in flames. He knows what Dean would want for him - and because of that, he knows what he's going to do.

He sets his jaw, makes his decision. "He'd want me to live for him."

Hudak looks at him for a long moment. "We'll grab a bite to eat and head back to town," she says.



They decide the best way to clean up Gabe is to just cart him down to the river and dunk him in it, so Lee gathers him up in his arms while Missy leads the way, armed with soap, an empty can, and piles of clothing. She feels cheerful because Gabe's in a good mood, smiling dreamily. Even his leg and arm don't seem to be hurting him quite as much.

"Seems like Gabe here's feelin' better," Lee says, as they lay him down at the water's edge and start maneuvering him out of his clothes, and Missy smirks.

"Those red pills sure are happy pills, Lee."

Her brother pulls a face. "Don't you forget Missy, some of them pills are mine. That's what Mikey said."

Missy starts unlacing Gabe's boots as Lee carefully extricates him from his shirt. "Lee, I think you're all better now," she says, thoughtfully. "I don't think you'll be needin' those pills, and Gabe's been real sick. I think Gabe needs happy time more 'n' you right now. So no more gripin' 'bout the pills."

"Well. Okay. But I'm not real pleased about it, Missy," Lee pouts. He rests back on his heels, and Missy watches his eyes range interestedly up and down their brother's torso. "This boy's a fine-lookin' piece of meat," he decides, and he pokes at Gabe's ribs with a finger before scratching at his own stomach. "How do you think he gets his belly to look all ridged like that?"

Missy ignores the question, unpeels the bandages from Gabe's leg and arm, decides she'll leave the splint on. She tugs off his socks, winces at the smell of unwashed feet, hauls down his tattered jeans. The cauterized wound is puckered, barely healed red tears and gouges, surrounded by puffy, melted skin and greenish-yellow bruises that meander up her brother's thigh and disappear under his shorts. Gabe yelps as she gives the area an experimental poke or three to see if the bleeding starts up again. The pain, along with the chill air on his bare skin, seems to wake him from his fog and he starts growing agitated.

"Wh-wh-whuh… what're you d-d-doin'? What's this?"

He brushes Missy's hand away, but she's already moving to lift his feet and tuck them under her arms. "Let's git her done, Lee."

Nodding, Lee hauls Gabe up by the shoulders despite his protests, and they carry him two or three feet into the river and lay him down. The cold bites savagely into Missy's calves, and she thinks it's no wonder Gabe cries out in shock. She puts it out of her mind, lathers up soap bubbles and starts scrubbing at his feet while he scuffs and kicks at her.

"Calm down, boy, we's just cleanin' you up some," Lee reassures in his ear, but Gabe fights like a trapped animal, keeps up a running, breathless no-no-no-no.

He's still too weak for his thrashing to have much chance against Lee's bulk, and Missy rubs away at his cold, pale skin, his hair too, before she takes a deep breath, looks Lee in the eye.

"I can get down there for you if you like?" he says quickly.

Missy stares hard at him for a minute, then purses her lips. "No. I'll do it."

She reaches around Gabe's submerged hips, pulls, tugs, throws the dripping wet shorts up onto the riverbank. She soaps up her hands, reaches down and under, rubs at parts she knows are dirty, parts her Pa would skin her alive for touching. She can feel her cheeks heat up to scorching hot, as Gabe's eyes widen. His struggle momentarily stops, then starts up again more frantically than before while he lets rip a stream of cusswords that make Missy's face flush even pinker.

"He's ready," she snaps, and she takes her place at Gabe's feet again as Lee drags him back out onto the river bank.

They lay him on a blanket, and Missy starts rubbing him off with the clothes before easing the clean shorts up over his hips, studiously averting her eyes. That all-important task taken care of, she and Lee work together to pull an assortment of clothing on their exhausted, shivering brother, as his teeth chatter uncontrollably and he rubs at soap-stung, tear-filled eyes. Missy finishes up by puling Lee's giant sweater over Gabe's head again.

"All done," Lee smiles. "This boy sure cleans up purty."



They don't talk much as they meander through the trees back in the direction they came, more or less, Nancy Reagan darting off deeper into the woods every few moments to chase down sounds and smells.

It's so peaceful that the noise of baying from just off to the right is a shock to Sam. In fact, it's the first time the hound has bayed since the first time they danced this dance, when it led them to the blood-soaked truck, and Sam doesn't want to get his hopes up and believe it could possibly be a sign, an omen.

They speed up, emerging from the trees into a small clearing. It's clear someone has camped there - Sam sees a circle of ashes and blackened embers dead center, a couple of opened cans lying just to the side of it.

Hudak gingerly touches the tip of her finger to the ashes. "Cold. Whoever was here is long gone."

"Do you think…?" Sam sees that she's looking over his shoulder, down at the ground, and he turns as she tracks past him, squats and peers at the soil. She points.

"Blood. Soaked into the soil there."

Sam brings a shaking hand up to his mouth.

"It might not mean anything," Hudak adds quickly. "It could be hunters."

From behind them, the hound whines and they both turn to look at the same time. It's sniffing and pawing at something over near a tree stump at the other side of the clearing, sticking its nose in the undergrowth and huffing mightily as it tugs on its discovery.

They stride over, and kneel, Hudak grasping whatever it is - rags? It's fabric of some kind, grayish, stained with brown, and there are more, larger pieces, darker. Hudak pokes through it with a stick, hooks one end of the pile up off the ground, murmurs, "What is that?"

And Sam suddenly knows, because he's seen precisely that combination of fabric more times than he's ever wanted to. "It's bandages," he says slowly. "And those are my brother's jeans."

The dog is off in the woods, crashing about in there, barking furiously, and Hudak gets up and makes her way into the trees as Sam stares at the bloodstained remnants.

And then it catches his eye, a glint of something in the vegetation, the miniscule split-second sparkle as sun bounces off something metal laying there in the dirt. Sam leans across the bloody clothing, reaches in with long fingers, grasps it, holds it up, finds himself stares into the impassive bronze face he knows so well, the broken cord trailing down.

Hudak staggers out from between the trees, her face white, her eyes staring wildly, brings her hand up to her mouth, falls to her knees, retches violently.

Sam stands up mechanically, moves to detour around her, and she leaps up, mid-heave, her hand flying out to spin him around.

"Leave it," she orders him, pausing to spit, wipe her mouth. "Leave it Sam, just leave it."

She's rooting out her cell, cursing as she holds it up to get a signal. "We need help out here," she goes on urgently. "I have to call this in. But please, just sit here with me now and don't go back there. Please trust me on this, Sam. Don't go back there."

And Sam gently but firmly looses her hand from his sleeve, keeps walking back to where the hound is snuffling about and barking its excitement, tugging at something half-buried in the loose earth, something part-clad in denim but too small to be a body, a body part, no boot, tatters of flesh, gleaming, bloody bone.

Sam doesn't understand at first.

And then suddenly he does, and it all turns black.



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the woods are lonely dark and deep, spn fic

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