FIC: Fine Wonderful Things
It is finally finished! I hope it's not too late for people to be interested in reading some pre-S3 Wincest. <333!
Title: Fine Wonderful Things
Author: balefully
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Words: 14,436
Summary: Sam doesn't want to deal with what happened in Cold Oak, but he can't ignore it anymore when he and Dean investigate a murderous spirit in New Mexico.
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean are sadly not mine.
A/N: This fic actually started about, um. A year ago? Almost exactly. My computer exploded and apparently no one in London could fix it, so I started writing a Grand Canyon fic on printer paper. It stagnated, the rest of the season aired, and I salvaged it to turn into a post-AHBL hiatus fic. Except, of course, I procrastinated like crazy. So here it is, the eve of the new season, and this story is only just now done. It's a different style than I usually write in, and I'm not sure how well it worked out, but it was certainly fun. Thanks to joosetta and lazy_daze for offering suggestions, humouring me, and cheerleading.
It's all for you, stellabelle. :x! Who also did a brilliant last-second beta. All mistakes and remaining poo-ness are my own. More notes at the end, because I'm a wordy bitch.
Part 1 | Part 2
Fine Wonderful Things
And how his audit stands, who knows, save Heaven?
- Hamlet, William Shakespeare
The deep red of the rock walls stretching out for miles matched the inside of Sam's eyelids, burned in until everything else took on a similar tint. Even Dean's hair, backlit by the desert sun, began to look a little reddish.
He wasn't sure how long they'd been on the road, making their way from the last of a long line of exorcisms to a new job that had 'angry spirit' written all over it. Sam tried to figure out what time it was without checking his watch, just for kicks, but he couldn't get a good enough read on the position of the sun before his eyes squinted shut, dry and gritty and undoubtedly as red as the mesas.
Everything was intense, over-sharp these days. On their last job, Sam couldn't help but focus on the smell of the demonic zombies and the soft peels of rotten flesh flapping open against their ribs, the heft of his own shotgun worn smooth in his hand, and the beads of blood welling up from the slice across Dean's jaw. Dean angled worried looks at Sam afterwards and asked if he was okay, but it wasn't necessary, he wasn't checking out. Sam just wanted to remember it, remember everything.
He glanced down at the dashboard clock with a sigh. "Twelve-thirty, man, and you've been driving all night and all morning. We gotta find a place to crash soon, or you're gonna pass out and send us off a cliff."
Dean smiled tightly, something uneasy in his eyes; he couldn't stop blinking. The dryness must have been getting to him pretty badly, too. "Right, because I've never driven for twelve hours straight, before," he shot back with a laugh. It sounded forced. "We still got a couple hundred to go before the next Econo-Lodge, Sammy, so just sit tight and go back to sleep."
"Too hot," Sam said, muffled as he stripped off his hoodie. Sweat darkened the neck of his t-shirt; he could feel it pressing damply along his spine.
"Well then turn up the A/C, genius," Dean sighed, flipping the switch to 'high'. Sam didn't say anything as Dean rolled up his window, though he knew Dean liked the wind against his face better than the stale air from the vents. "I swear, sometimes I think you don't have the common sense to fill. Uh." Dean fell silent and rubbed the sheen of sweat off his forehead. "Something really small. "
"Thimble," Sam offered, trying to get comfortable. Even with the air-conditioning blowing cold on his neck, he could feel the heat pressing in on them, constricting, like a tangled blanket. It was all he could do to ward off twinges of claustrophobia, despite the vast expanses of open sky and empty desert everywhere he looked. Closing his eyes and staring at the bright red darkness, Dean still tense beside him, Sam figured it wasn't just the heat.
Cold Oak was a month behind them, but he could feel the pull of the crossroads and the smooth skin of his back like it had all been a vision; like it was something yet to come.
*
As the sun bled out on the horizon, staining the sky as red as the desert, even Dean decided it was time to turn in. They pulled up at the next motel they came across, some no-name dump with just seven rooms and a scorpion loitering in a dark corner of the front office. "Two doubles," Sam said, sliding their newest Discover card across the counter. He could see Dean out in the parking lot, shutting off the air and rolling down the driver's side window, eyes fixed somewhere in the distance.
The deadbeat behind the counter raised an eyebrow and pointed to the yellowing, hand-lettered sign on the cash register proclaiming "CASH AND CHECK'S ONLY." Sam grimaced and pulled out several twenties. They were on their last stash of poker winnings, and the prospects for Dean to rake in some revenue in a town of two-hundred weren't looking good.
"Sixty," the guy said, running his fingers through his greying beard. He wore a chipped badge, the product of an ancient label-maker and superglue: his name was Earl.
Sam slowly counted off three bills, lips pressed in a tight line. He stared balefully at the errant apostrophe on the cash-or-check sign rather than at Earl's lack of teeth.
"Fifty for a king," Earl said, the corner of his mouth quirking at Sam's reluctance to part with the cash.
"Sixty's fine," Sam mumbled, left hand twitching impatiently. Earl slid him the key with a nod, then turned back to a little black-and-white TV behind the counter. Jerry Springer was holding forth about the drug-addicted children of married cousins, and Sam's shoulders tightened.
Back out in the heat of the parking lot, he jerked his head at room number six, unlocking it and claiming the bed on the left while Dean parked in front of the door and hauled their duffels in. The room smelled like stale smoke and carpet cleaner, and the bedspread was slick and cold and polyester. The mattress was comfortable, though, and there weren't cigarette burns on anything, which was almost unprecedented. Sam ignored the peeling paint on the stucco walls, and the fist-sized hole in the side of the non-functional television.
"So we could get to Clayton by late tomorrow night," Dean said, flinging himself onto the bed nearer the bathroom.
"We 'could'?" Sam toed his shoes off awkwardly while lying down, jeans slipping against the comforter.
"Well, you know. We'll be passing right by the Grand Canyon." Dean was aiming for off-hand, and missed by a mile.
"Seriously?" Sam rolled over, smiling. "You actually wanna stop there? I thought that was just a ploy you were using to keep me from turning evil or whatever."
Dean glared for a second, then shrugged, noncommittal. "It's on the way."
Sam laughed, resting his chin in the crook of his elbow, flicking on the light over the nightstand. There was a Bible on Dean's side, held open underneath the clock-radio. Dean eyed it warily. "Sure, man. If it's on the way."
"Good," Dean said, and Sam's smile faded.
Dean had less than a year to live. It would probably be his last chance.
Sam was still staring at the ceiling come three in the morning, thinking about Dean limned with red and running out of time, gaze fixed on something in the distance.
*
Sam downed two cups of coffee in quick succession as soon as he blinked out of his restless doze around seven. He felt wired immediately, circadian rhythms completely twisted, and he was dying for a shower. He heard the water rushing quietly, the pipes shrieking; Sam closed his eyes and counted how many breaths he took before his brother was finished in the bathroom.
His skin itched, down under the surface, prickling with things he didn't understand or want to think about. It made him twitchy and sensitive when he was awake, eyes wide and seeing more in each second than he ever had. When he was asleep it kept him drawn tight, still restless.
Dean managed to drip all over Sam's clean clothes where they were folded on the bed when he finally emerged, but Sam was too spaced-out to bother complaining. He couldn't do much of anything at all, besides fixate weirdly on the way the droplets of water across Dean's shoulders blended in with the freckles.
"Earth to Sam?" Dean said, waving a pruny hand in front of Sam's face. Sam was standing half-in and half-out of the bathroom, fingers clenched on the doorknob, cheek pressed against peeling laminate wood.
"Sorry, I just. Couldn't sleep. All messed up this morning," he managed, shaking his bangs out of his eyes.
Dean nodded, eyebrows drawing together, lips pursing. Sam could hear the water droplets as they fell from Dean's chin and hit his pale chest with a soft pat. "Sure, yeah. Just. Get some shut-eye in the car today, okay?" He sounded concerned; Sam tried not to laugh.
*
Later, about twenty minutes west, Dean was humming "Season of the Witch" to himself as he pumped gas. It was a two-pump station, the only stop for the next eighty miles at least.
Sam listened for a moment, picked out which verse was coming next, before climbing over the front seat to stretch out in the back. His knees were jammed against the door behind the driver's seat, but he could see empty turquoise sky through the window slanting above his head; it was clear and deep and just for a second, the sky was the ocean, they were somewhere tropical, and the world was upside-down.
It was only about a three-hour drive from the Jacob Lake Inn in Jacob Lake, Arizona to the Grand Canyon. They pulled out of the gas station, Sam feeling the dull ache in his knees and left hip, ever-present and easily irritated. Dean popped in his Pink Floyd tape as soon as they turned off onto their exit to Route 89; fifty-eight miles of dry brush and circling vultures passed in endless loops to all nine parts of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond."
Sam would've counted clouds as they passed, but the blue was empty, stretching all the way to the plateaus on the edge of the sky. He focused instead on the itchy feeling of his scalp, just above the back of his neck, where it was flaky and sticky from dried sweat and dead skin.
He drifted in and out of sleep, and couldn’t remember whether he'd dreamt the cave dwellings built into the striped stone lining the highway, or if he'd actually seen them: real history solid and present just outside the window of the Impala.
They had been people's homes, once. Where they conducted their everyday business, had families, fought, loved. Those people were all long dead and gone, now, the carved rock the only remnant of their lives.
Sam eyed the leather upholstery of the car, the cigar box of fake IDs; thought of the guns and stakes and bags of salt in the trunk: the only things that would be left.
Dean parked outside the visitor center at Grand Canyon National Park at eleven AM, reaching over the front seat to run a hand up and down the top of Sam's thigh. "Hey, Sammy," he said, quiet but firm. "Time to wake up."
Sam shivered out of his thoughts, back into the Arizona heat.
*
"I can't believe you conned me into riding a fucking donkey."
"Hey, dude, you were the one who didn't sleep last night and probably couldn't have made the hike yourself without dying of exhaustion. Or heatstroke. Or dehydration, or whatever. You're such a pussy," Dean said, genuinely as relaxed as it was possible for Dean to be these days. The intense heat in the Grand Canyon was agreeing with him; Sam figured it had to be at least a hundred and twenty degrees, and that Dean was a freak of nature.
"Hey, dude," Sam mimicked in Dean's cocky tone, "just wait 'til we get down to Tijuana, and we'll see who cons whom into doing what with donkeys. Jesus." He grumbled and shifted on his burro, trying not to drag his feet and shins along the rocks on the trail. "Seriously? These things are made for, like, midgets."
Dean snorted; Sam could hear the desert clogging his nostrils and suddenly had the urge to sneeze. "Mine's fine, so shut up and deal."
"Like I said, midgets," Sam mumbled. "Plus, we're gonna smell like god-knows-what for the rest of our natural lives, and-" He realized too late that that wasn't really saying much. Let alone the fact that whatever Dean's life was at that point, "natural" probably didn't cover it.
"You're totally harshing my mellow," Dean called back evenly from his donkey. "It's just one little donkey ride, and it's freakin' awesome, and if you don't pipe down and start appreciating nature or whatever, I'm gonna gag you like that time in Yellowstone with Dad when you were ten."
Sam rode in sullen silence to the bottom of the canyon, eyes fixed on the back of Dean's neck. He took perverse pleasure in knowing it would be burnt to a crisp, brick-red and painful by the time they got back to the car.
They left the burros at the foot of the path, climbing over rocky outcroppings on the banks of the Colorado River side-by-side. Sam stood on a flat-topped boulder, staring up at the mile-high vistas and striated cliff-faces as Dean stopped next to him. They bumped shoulders and sat on the rock, almost too hot to touch from the relentless sun, and breathed in tandem. Dean let his eyes drift shut, face tilted towards the faint breeze blowing down from the rim, but Sam could still see his pulse beating strong and fast in the curve of his neck.
Thick dust mixed with the smell of cool water hung heavy in the air between them, above them, muffling the words neither of them spoke. Dean stood abruptly, and Sam started, not knowing how long they'd been sitting, or how long he had been pressed against Dean's side, shoulder to ankle. He scrambled to his feet, following Dean back to the path.
"Let's stop and get a drink after we check in somewhere," Sam finally said once they'd ridden back up and ditched the donkeys. Dean was still quiet, watching Sam across the roof of the Impala, somber, and Sam couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"You read my mind, Sammy," Dean said after a moment, pressing the palm of his hand to the nape of his neck with a hiss. "Motherfucker."
Sam smirked.
*
Dean apparently liked to think that Sam was a lightweight, telling anyone who would listen that it only took two beers to have him dancing on the table like he belonged in Coyote Ugly 2: The Gay Bar.
"I think you're just trying to save face, Dean," Sam said, frowning into his beer. A moment earlier, Dean had whispered conspiratorially to the bartender that, if she knew what was good for everyone involved, she would cut Sam off right then and there.
Sam was pretty sure he could drink Dean under the table any day of the week. "Just because I don't like to get hammered on a regular basis doesn't make me intolerant. If you really want me to prove it to you and match you shot-for-shot, I'm gonna have to drive your car back to the motel with you passed out in the backseat at the end of the night."
By two in the morning, Dean was slumped over the bar, nauseated, while Sam turned ten shot glasses upside down, one over each of his fingers and thumbs. He waved them absently at Dean, who just groaned and tucked his head into his forearm. "Don't you fall asleep on me now," Sam said, accompanied by the clinking of his fingers. He bent to lick at the bitter trickle of tequila dripping down his wrist from the not-quite-empty glass on his right thumb. "You still got three shots to go before we're even, man."
A batch of sepia postcards was taped over the bar. A saloon girl with a blank face, skirt hiked to brush her knobby knees; a black man in a boater, hands folded across his slim waist; a steam engine pulling into an empty station. And a gallows, black cloth over the weirdly lolling head of a tall man, his feet dangling below the platform, noose taut. "Looks like the rope was too stiff," Sam muttered. Dean wasn't paying attention. "Beheaded him 'stead of hanging him to death."
The bartender cleared away the glasses in front of Sam, including his only half-finished beer.
*
They'd had to pay considerably more at the Kachina Lodge on the South Rim than back in Jacob's Creek, but their card was accepted and there was a working television in the room.
Sam drove back there, slowly navigating his way home from the bar. Dean slumped comically in the passenger seat, occasionally mumbling into the window where his lips left smears in the fog of his breath. Sam worried that he might pass out, or choke on his own vomit, or swallow his tongue.
He refused to think about it, though, focusing instead on the scant street signs and bright pools of the headlights on dry pavement.
"Hey, Dean," he said, pulling up to their room on the ground floor. "You still alive?" Sam placed a hand on the side of Dean's face, thumb curling under his chin. "I tried to tell you," he murmured, leaning close, "you idiot."
Dean's skin was clammy; his breath smelled like something the vultures would reject. Sam got out and walked around to open the passenger door, hefting Dean into a fireman's carry with minimal pitching and stumbling.
Sam had to jimmy their door with both hands to get the lock unstuck, the ancient tumblers rusted and difficult even with the correct key. He tucked his head into the small of Dean's back, peering sideways at the lock as he fumbled, digging his chin into Dean's spine to keep him from slipping off Sam's shoulder. It was precarious and awkward, but tequila, he found, mitigated even the most stressful of situations: Sam had no complaints.
Once he'd laid Dean in the recovery position on top of the paisley comforter, he wasn't sure what to do next. He couldn't sleep; he had Dean to look after.
Sam could feel his pulse in his fingertips, could see the blinking red of the vacancy sign leaking through under the heavy motel curtain. He didn't know where the remote for the TV was, but there was a Book Of Mormon on top of the Gideon Bible in the drawer of the nightstand, the only trace of a hopeful missionary on his way south.
Joseph Smith's vision of peace was interrupted by Dean turning over, face buried in the rough cotton pillow, breath harsh and labored until Sam righted him. Sam stretched out on Dean's bed after that, one hand heavy on Dean's shoulder to keep him in the right position, and reached over his brother to plunge them into darkness with the other.
The flickering green of the digital clock bled into a glow reflected in Dean's pale skin, and Sam was still drunk. He wasn’t sure how he'd managed to stay awake, but Dean's periodic drooling and groaning were reward enough.
*
Sam awoke to the sounds of Dean retching, bent double on his knees in front of the toilet. He was pale and sweaty and shaking, just visible from where Sam was curled on the far edge of Dean's bed. Sam fought not to gag and heave in sympathy.
Instead, he rolled out of bed and turned up the air-conditioning, the collar of his white cotton undershirt sticking to his neck, even the skin between his fingers damp.
"I should make some smart-ass remarks about dirty ashtrays and greasy sandwiches," Sam mumbled, padding into the bathroom and sitting on the counter next to the sink. His feet still touched the floor, tiles cold and slick.
"So why don't you?" Dean managed, muffled. His head was in the toilet bowl.
"Because I'm the best brother in the world," Sam said, still hoarse. He had a splitting headache and his tongue kept sticking to the dry roof of his mouth.
"The fact that it's your goddamn fault my stomach's turning inside out would beg to differ," Dean grumbled, resting the side of his face on the rim of the toilet. He glared at Sam's bare toes and tried to hold back a belch.
Sam frowned. "Actually, I wasn't the one who-" he started.
"Don't even," Dean interrupted, turning back to the toilet bowl just in time.
Sam sighed, stripping down as Dean threw up again. He climbed into the shower and checked for little shampoo and conditioner bottles stuffed in ornately folded washcloths. There were two of each: one wasn't enough for Sam, but Dean didn't need a whole bottle to himself, so it would work out.
Sometimes he liked to use the extra conditioner to jerk off with, but Dean was puking not two feet away, and Sam didn't think it would be very appropriate at the moment. He could hear the echoes of Dean's strained Don't even in his head, and left enough conditioner in the second bottle for his brother.
*
Sam finally seized control of the radio about three hours into the ten-hour drive to Clayton. Dean had fallen asleep, occasionally moaning in discomfort, still sweaty and pale even after a shower and a cup of coffee. He'd thrown up the coffee.
Considering the circumstances, Sam had figured it would be best if he did the driving. Though Dean grudgingly agreed, he also seemed to think the driver/music-shotgun/cakehole rule didn't apply unless Sam was the one doing the shutting up. All the puking Dean had done required a lot of energy, though, and he was down for the count after two-hundred miles.
The rest of I-40 rolled by under the tires in a haze of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day, Sam squinting in the dry air whipping through the open windows. Dean started snoring once they reached 125 North to Santa Fe, and Sam put on Fiona Apple in retribution.
New Mexico was cerulean and pink, cactus and tumbleweed and ranches just like postcards. They passed an Indian reservation, and Sam remembered the old man who only wanted the truth-who said Dean was a liar-and the feel of a smooth skull in his hands, fingernails black with soft dirt. Dean woke up then, eyes sliding sideways to Sam's furrowed brow without even commenting on the music.
*
Once they reached Clayton, Sam headed directly to the Tourist Information Center on First Street. "They have free WiFi," he said to Dean. "I'll do some checking around while you ask about the grave and the museum and stuff."
The young woman behind the high desk was just Dean's type, maybe a little younger than usual. She was brunette and had smooth olive skin, long shapely legs curled around the rungs of her stool. The freckles sprinkled over her knees made Sam think of Dean, back before he decided he didn't do shorts.
"Hi, Lourdes," Dean said, eyeing her badge, and her breasts, too. Sam swallowed his sigh and didn't roll his eyes, instead making his way to the vinyl couch in the corner, next to the rack of brochures and magazines detailing sites and resorts in the area.
He leafed through some guidebooks while he waited for his computer to boot up and get connected.
The young, friendly, hardworking community of Clayton boasts a surprising array of recreational attractions for its size-a community swimming pool, tennis courts, softball diamonds, rodeo and fair grounds, gun club and city parks. Nine-hole Clayton Golf Club offers discounted green fees for out-of-town visitors. Great lake and river fishing and superb antelope hunting as well as deer, quail, duck, dove, turkey, pheasant, bear and elk hunting are all available throughout Union County.
Considering they were looking for a homicidal ghost, the AAA blurbs and discounted green fees probably wouldn't be too helpful.
*
"Lourdes thinks the kids in the forest with the dead guy were Boy Scouts," Dean said, flopping onto the couch next to Sam. It squeaked and the cushions threatened to slide off. "Went into the woods to camp or whatever, with their leader."
Sam looked up from his research, scribbling about train robbers and Indian massacres and disease. "And?" There was an impish glint in Dean's eyes, probably Lourdes's doing, and Sam suddenly felt old.
"And the leader guy bit the dust. Two of the kids are saying they saw something. A man on a horse, wearing all black, shouting and firing a gun. He disappeared after nailing the leader and trampling him with the horse." Dean lowered his voice when Lourdes looked over and waved, bright-eyed and fresh-faced. He shot her the broad smile he used on belligerent witnesses.
Sam smiled, too. "So, you get names?"
Dean's brow creased, and he slung an arm over the back of the couch, behind Sam's neck, grazing against his hair. "Yeah, but it won't do any good. They're not here-out of town until everything gets settled, parents freakin' out, that kind of thing. The scout leader was pretty well-liked, ran a business here in town with his wife, no kids of their own, so he cared about the Scouts like they were his, that sort of thing. It's a big deal. Lourdes is just here for the summer, though, doesn't know much about these people."
"That's all we got?" Sam hoped if he ignored all mentions of Lourdes, Dean would stop making them.
"I think we can probably do some tracking if we hack the police database or whatever," Dean said, remarkably unconcerned. "Plus, now we know where they were and we can go check it out ourselves. The police already have some weird antique gun casings in evidence that the kids said weren't there when they got to the camp site, but were left after the murder." Dean sighed, rubbing at his mouth. "You find anything?"
"Yeah, actually," Sam said, adding what Dean had reported to his notes. "There's this story about a train robber, Blackjack Ketchum. I was gonna dismiss it out of hand, except that what you said the kids saw, that guy in black? I mean. Riding and shooting, and antique bullet casings? Sounds just like a train robber to me."
"What's he doing in the woods? Shouldn't he be, I don't know," Dean said with a snort, "robbing trains?"
"No idea," Sam said with a shrug. "But it doesn't really matter. The guy's buried in Clayton Cemetery, which backs right up to a forest. Which pretty obviously must be the same place the Scouts were camping."
"Awesome, so it's just a salt-and-burn," Dean said, enthusiasm leaking everywhere. "We haven't had a piece-of-cake gig like this in way too long."
*
They found a decent motel, their most expensive one in a while. There were even mints on the pillows, and a room service menu. Sam didn't think he'd ever been in a place where you could both park outside the door to the room and order a steak at three PM, but he wasn't complaining.
Dean devoured two cheeseburgers with extra onions while Sam picked at his fajitas, eating more to feel the spices numbing his tongue and lips than because he was actually hungry. He tried playing the game where he timed Dean to see how long it would take him to realize there was a glob of ketchup by the corner of his mouth, but after an entire hour, he was so irritated he broke his own rules and threw a wad of napkins at Dean's head.
"What the hell, man?" Dean said, irate, chucking a fork back at Sam.
Sam caught it, the handle still warm from Dean's palm, and slipped it in his mouth to chew on the tines. "Your face," he said against the metal.
"Your face," Dean grunted, ignoring the pile of napkins. Sam stopped his watch and threw himself onto Dean's bed, grabbed his brother's face and swept his thumb up across the corner of his lips.
"No, your face," Sam said. He tried to catch his breath, and held up his thumb, covered in ketchup one hour and eight minutes old.
Dean blinked and swallowed audibly, looking spooked for a moment before he finally grinned.
*
Clayton Cemetery lay just across the street from a large golf course, where the grass was rich and green and velvety despite the heat. Dean huffed in disdain and pulled a face, shaking his head as Sam parked in front of the wrought-iron gates.
Stars hung heavy across the night sky, Milky Way thicker than Sam had ever seen it. There was no moon, but they had one good flashlight and a functional kerosene lantern. The last time they'd used the lantern, they were living in Iowa and Sam had just turned twelve. Dad wanted Sam to learn how to track at night; Dean canceled two dates to make sure he could be there to watch Sam's back.
"I don't think I knew we had kerosene," Sam said, pulling his shovel out of the trunk and hitching it over his shoulder. They'd gone through three sets of shovels in the past year, and only recently had he managed to convince Dean that if they spent more money on higher quality shovels, they wouldn't have to keep replacing the splintered ones; Dean never mentioned that he personally would never again have to worry about replacing shovels. That saved Sam having to mention that, consequently, he wouldn't either.
"It's kinda old," Dean sighed. "Probably still good, though."
"Sorry I busted the other flashlight," Sam said with a small smile. He watched with trepidation as Dean lit the lantern, hoping kerosene didn't have an expiration date.
"If you pass out from fermented kerosene fumes or whatever," Dean said with a crooked smirk, handing it over, "we'll call it even. How 'bout that?" His eyes looked tired.
Sam rubbed at his ribs, where he'd fallen on the flashlight and smashed it three exorcisms ago. The bruises around his throat, shaped like a little boy's fingers, had only just faded. "Sounds fair." He took the lantern, glad to be standing up-wind.
They didn't have to cover much ground or squint at too many grave markers in the flickering light before they found him. Blackjack Ketchum was buried in the left section of the cemetery, grave just like all the others except for the odd bunch of roses propped against the stone, half-withered but still smelling of sweet and earth.
"Who would be leaving this guy flowers?" Dean hissed, swinging his shovel into the dirt with a dull thud.
"Family," Sam said, blunt and immediate.
Dean pressed his lips together, and his nostrils flared. "Right," he said, digging with more force than necessary. Sam matched his rhythm with Dean's, the corded muscles of his brother's arms and chest pulling taught and slack, sheen of sweat building up in the mingled yellow-white glow of the flashlight and lantern, both trained on the grave.
The hours it took to dig graves had started slipping by faster and faster with every one Sam dug. At first, when he was barely able to hold the shovel, it frightened him. Digging graves was something most little boys didn't do, especially when they were graves that already had people in them.
He had nightmares every night for a month after he'd unearthed and torched his first corpse. It had been old, nothing but bones and hair, but he kept thinking he saw her, the woman whose skeleton it was, lying there, dying in front of him, throat slit by a jealous husband.
Most mornings that month, he woke up in Dean's bed, sharing his pillow, Dean's hair in his mouth and elbow in his stomach.
*
A little over six feet down, and a hollow thump rang out when Sam took a last stabbing plunge into the dirt. "Got him," he said, digging around the box enough to open it up.
A moment later, another hollow thump followed the first. "What the-" Dean mumbled, feeling his way along the edge of whatever he'd hit. "I think there's another coffin down here," he said finally, eyebrow raised. "That's a new one."
Sam blinked, nonplussed. "Well. Which one's Blackjack? How are we supposed to tell?"
"Did he ever have, like, a wife or something?" Dean asked, trying to pry the lid off the second box. Sam peered at the bones in the first one, looking for something that would identify which corpse was which.
"Don't know," Sam muttered, using the end of the shovel to prod at the contents of the coffin. "This one's definitely a guy."
"How the hell do you know?" Dean asked, pausing in the middle of his rummaging.
"The angle of the pelvis. In men it's about forty-five degrees; women, it's close to ninety," Sam said, trying to climb over the awkward position of the boxes and dirt piles. He needed a better look at the second skeleton. "Huh," he said.
"What?"
"That one's a guy, too."
"Great, thanks, that's so helpful." Dean rolled his eyes. "I guess we'll just have to torch 'em both, to be safe," he said, a little perkier.
"Yeah," Sam said, trailing off. He knelt down between the coffins; the head of one of the skeletons wasn't attached anymore, its grimace bared upwards, the rim of the grave casting a sharp shadow across the cranium, loam caked between its teeth. Dean was oddly silent, eyes fixed on Sam, and Sam shuddered.
Dean blinked at bit his lip, turning after an awkward moment to try and haul himself out onto the ground. Sam grabbed his thigh and pushed upwards, one hand on the small of Dean's back.
He pulled his hands back, smelling of Dean's sweat, dirt and kerosene and iron and decay. He gagged, just once, quietly, and then reached up to grab Dean's offered wrists, hefting himself out of the grave.
Dean kept his eyes down, first on the can of gas and then on the flames as they licked across the two bodies, inches from each other under feet of soil.
Sam inhaled, the burning stench of gasoline searing his nose, cleansing. The fire threw Dean into sharp relief, his profile stark against the red. Sam crouched down, handle of the shovel clamped between his hands as he watched the two sets of bones turning to dust.
*
Dawn was still lingering under the hills when Sam and Dean returned to their room, nothing but dirt and the stench of kerosene to wash off in the shower. Sam missed the slick blood and guts and bone-deep exhaustion, sore throat and double-vision that were the staples of their jobs ever since Cold Oak. His head was full, scratchy with thoughts he didn't want, thoughts that weren't bled out of him by zombies or hellhounds until all that was left was the empty buzz of oblivion.
He let Dean have the bathroom first, lying down on the floor to keep the dirt off his bed, scrubbing his hands over his face and through his sweaty hair, calluses rough against his skin.
It didn't matter who the other body was, didn't matter why a dead train robber was hanging around a forest instead of the ramshackle old train station rebuilt as a museum. But Sam couldn't stop thinking about it, didn't want to stop thinking about it: the cold iron of the railroad tracks, the tendency of spirits to lose corporeality the farther they strayed from their remains. A specific person they might be targeting. A specific person.
Sam took out his laptop just as he heard the shower turn on, Dean's low humming a balm for the sharp edges in his own head.
Twenty minutes later, Dean was in a clean pair of boxers, about to climb into the bed on the other side of the room from where Sam sat with his research, knees up to his chest, the hot underside of his computer against his arm.
"Brothers," Sam said.
"What?" Dean muttered, tossing on his squeaky mattress. "Shower's free, by the way."
"They were brothers," Sam said again. "Blackjack and that other body in the grave."
"Oh yeah?" Dean turned off the light over his bed; Sam could hear him as he settled in and closed his eyes, the last shift of his strong shoulders bare under the comforter.
"Yeah." He shut the laptop with a soft snick, then padded to the bathroom, stripping off as he went. "His brother's name was Sam." Turning to close the door, he met Dean's eyes, half-lidded as they watched him in the low light. He stood silently, focusing on the paisley bedspread rising and falling with Dean's shallow breaths instead of the unreadable expression on Dean's face, frozen like he'd been caught.
The bathroom tiles were warm under Sam's feet, damp with condensation from Dean's shower. Dean was lying on his side, clutching the edge of the pillow with white knuckles.
The mirror had unfogged by the time Sam finally looked away, closing the door.
He turned on the shower as hot as it would go, desperate to burn out the itchy feeling lurking under his skin. Dean's gaze still rested heavy on his shoulders, it seemed, and he couldn't wash it away. Each individual droplet of water fell against him, distinct and in slow-motion like he'd been drugged. He started to wash his hair, let his fingertips dig hard into his scalp, shampoo running into his eyes and mouth as he heaved breaths under the spray. The wall tiles stretched on forever, closing in on him, and every muscle in his body went taught.
Sam had felt like this before, once, when he was eighteen years old and had just stormed out of the house, knowing he would never go back. That Dean wouldn't ever speak to him again. He stood in the shadow of the bus station awning in the red of late evening, fingers clenched tight in his own skin, sucking down air like he was drowning, chest too tight.
He pressed his eyes shut hard, now, digging in the heels of his hands until bright spirals of color burst in the blackness. The water tasted metallic in his mouth; the cloying scent of the shampoo overpowered everything.
It didn't make sense. Sam didn't know what was going on, what this was, what he was supposed to do about it. He sat on the floor of the tub, the water still scalding as it cascaded over the top of his head and shoulders, and leaned his forehead on his arms, face shielded from the water.
The spines beneath his skin receded under the onslaught of the shower; Sam had room to think, for real, for the first time in a long time. He sighed, deep and long.
*
Sam jolted awake to Dean above him, calling his name, voice high and broken. "Sammy? Sammy, Jesus Christ-"
Sam groaned and squinted up, Dean haloed by the flickering fluorescent light in the ceiling. "What?" he asked, hoarse. He was freezing, and naked, curled on the floor of the bathtub. The water was turned off but still dripping, cool and sluggish. Dean must have done that.
"I thought-" Dean started, trying to fit his shoulder under Sam's arm to help get him up.
"I was tired, is all," Sam croaked, shaking Dean off and grabbing the nearest towel to wrap around himself. Self-conscious and humiliated, he was still naked and freezing, and still half dead to the world. Goosebumps pebbled the flesh all over his arms and chest, and his teeth chattered obnoxiously when all he wanted was to be stoic and silent.
Dean wouldn't let go, pressing his warm hands all over Sam's arms and chest and back, even his neck, fingertips brushing the this skin under his jaw. His voice was weirdly soft as he asked, "Hey, you okay? You're goddamn freezing, and if you were so wiped out that you-"
"I'm fine," Sam said again, forcefully, pulling away from Dean's touches and his rough fingers and the look in his eyes. He found a pair of sweatpants and a clean long-sleeved t-shirt and tugged them on, not bothering with underwear. It would've taken too long, what with the violent shivering and shaking he couldn't seem to control.
Sam took his computer with him as he climbed into his bed, clenching his jaw tight to keep the chattering to a minimum.
"It's five AM," Dean said, worn and slumped against the doorjamb.
"This is important," Sam sighed, scrolling through the biography he'd found.
"No, it isn't."
"It is to me."
"What did you find?" Dean said, pushing off the wall and settling by the headboard of Sam's bed. His shoulders curled in, back towards Sam, but he was listening.
"Blackjack was hanged for murder and robbery. They screwed up, though, and he was accidentally decapitated. His brother, Sam, was in jail at the time, suffering from gangrene," Sam said, scrolling through the biography he'd found, computer screen over-bright.
"Sounds like the feel-good movie of the year," Dean said, scooting back to sit against the headboard with a tired smile.
"Sam died two days after he heard his brother had been hanged. He apparently asked to be buried with him at some point, in his will or something, but the county said no. He had to be buried in the prison graveyard." Sam shut the laptop. "I guess it worked out in the end, though."
"If you call gangrene and decapitation and homicidal robbers 'working out', then yeah, I guess it did." Dean's eyes slid shut, and Sam worked himself deeper under the covers, unable to stay warm.
"You should go to bed, too," Sam said, flicking off his light.
"I am in bed," Dean mumbled, and pulled Sam's covers over the both of them.
"You're in my bed," Sam said. He could feel Dean's warmth seeping into his skin, his bones, making him heavy and slow with sleep.
"Yeah," Dean yawned, just as Sam drifted into peaceful black.
*
Part Two
Title: Fine Wonderful Things
Author: balefully
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Words: 14,436
Summary: Sam doesn't want to deal with what happened in Cold Oak, but he can't ignore it anymore when he and Dean investigate a murderous spirit in New Mexico.
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean are sadly not mine.
A/N: This fic actually started about, um. A year ago? Almost exactly. My computer exploded and apparently no one in London could fix it, so I started writing a Grand Canyon fic on printer paper. It stagnated, the rest of the season aired, and I salvaged it to turn into a post-AHBL hiatus fic. Except, of course, I procrastinated like crazy. So here it is, the eve of the new season, and this story is only just now done. It's a different style than I usually write in, and I'm not sure how well it worked out, but it was certainly fun. Thanks to joosetta and lazy_daze for offering suggestions, humouring me, and cheerleading.
It's all for you, stellabelle. :x! Who also did a brilliant last-second beta. All mistakes and remaining poo-ness are my own. More notes at the end, because I'm a wordy bitch.
Part 1 | Part 2
Fine Wonderful Things
And how his audit stands, who knows, save Heaven?
- Hamlet, William Shakespeare
The deep red of the rock walls stretching out for miles matched the inside of Sam's eyelids, burned in until everything else took on a similar tint. Even Dean's hair, backlit by the desert sun, began to look a little reddish.
He wasn't sure how long they'd been on the road, making their way from the last of a long line of exorcisms to a new job that had 'angry spirit' written all over it. Sam tried to figure out what time it was without checking his watch, just for kicks, but he couldn't get a good enough read on the position of the sun before his eyes squinted shut, dry and gritty and undoubtedly as red as the mesas.
Everything was intense, over-sharp these days. On their last job, Sam couldn't help but focus on the smell of the demonic zombies and the soft peels of rotten flesh flapping open against their ribs, the heft of his own shotgun worn smooth in his hand, and the beads of blood welling up from the slice across Dean's jaw. Dean angled worried looks at Sam afterwards and asked if he was okay, but it wasn't necessary, he wasn't checking out. Sam just wanted to remember it, remember everything.
He glanced down at the dashboard clock with a sigh. "Twelve-thirty, man, and you've been driving all night and all morning. We gotta find a place to crash soon, or you're gonna pass out and send us off a cliff."
Dean smiled tightly, something uneasy in his eyes; he couldn't stop blinking. The dryness must have been getting to him pretty badly, too. "Right, because I've never driven for twelve hours straight, before," he shot back with a laugh. It sounded forced. "We still got a couple hundred to go before the next Econo-Lodge, Sammy, so just sit tight and go back to sleep."
"Too hot," Sam said, muffled as he stripped off his hoodie. Sweat darkened the neck of his t-shirt; he could feel it pressing damply along his spine.
"Well then turn up the A/C, genius," Dean sighed, flipping the switch to 'high'. Sam didn't say anything as Dean rolled up his window, though he knew Dean liked the wind against his face better than the stale air from the vents. "I swear, sometimes I think you don't have the common sense to fill. Uh." Dean fell silent and rubbed the sheen of sweat off his forehead. "Something really small. "
"Thimble," Sam offered, trying to get comfortable. Even with the air-conditioning blowing cold on his neck, he could feel the heat pressing in on them, constricting, like a tangled blanket. It was all he could do to ward off twinges of claustrophobia, despite the vast expanses of open sky and empty desert everywhere he looked. Closing his eyes and staring at the bright red darkness, Dean still tense beside him, Sam figured it wasn't just the heat.
Cold Oak was a month behind them, but he could feel the pull of the crossroads and the smooth skin of his back like it had all been a vision; like it was something yet to come.
*
As the sun bled out on the horizon, staining the sky as red as the desert, even Dean decided it was time to turn in. They pulled up at the next motel they came across, some no-name dump with just seven rooms and a scorpion loitering in a dark corner of the front office. "Two doubles," Sam said, sliding their newest Discover card across the counter. He could see Dean out in the parking lot, shutting off the air and rolling down the driver's side window, eyes fixed somewhere in the distance.
The deadbeat behind the counter raised an eyebrow and pointed to the yellowing, hand-lettered sign on the cash register proclaiming "CASH AND CHECK'S ONLY." Sam grimaced and pulled out several twenties. They were on their last stash of poker winnings, and the prospects for Dean to rake in some revenue in a town of two-hundred weren't looking good.
"Sixty," the guy said, running his fingers through his greying beard. He wore a chipped badge, the product of an ancient label-maker and superglue: his name was Earl.
Sam slowly counted off three bills, lips pressed in a tight line. He stared balefully at the errant apostrophe on the cash-or-check sign rather than at Earl's lack of teeth.
"Fifty for a king," Earl said, the corner of his mouth quirking at Sam's reluctance to part with the cash.
"Sixty's fine," Sam mumbled, left hand twitching impatiently. Earl slid him the key with a nod, then turned back to a little black-and-white TV behind the counter. Jerry Springer was holding forth about the drug-addicted children of married cousins, and Sam's shoulders tightened.
Back out in the heat of the parking lot, he jerked his head at room number six, unlocking it and claiming the bed on the left while Dean parked in front of the door and hauled their duffels in. The room smelled like stale smoke and carpet cleaner, and the bedspread was slick and cold and polyester. The mattress was comfortable, though, and there weren't cigarette burns on anything, which was almost unprecedented. Sam ignored the peeling paint on the stucco walls, and the fist-sized hole in the side of the non-functional television.
"So we could get to Clayton by late tomorrow night," Dean said, flinging himself onto the bed nearer the bathroom.
"We 'could'?" Sam toed his shoes off awkwardly while lying down, jeans slipping against the comforter.
"Well, you know. We'll be passing right by the Grand Canyon." Dean was aiming for off-hand, and missed by a mile.
"Seriously?" Sam rolled over, smiling. "You actually wanna stop there? I thought that was just a ploy you were using to keep me from turning evil or whatever."
Dean glared for a second, then shrugged, noncommittal. "It's on the way."
Sam laughed, resting his chin in the crook of his elbow, flicking on the light over the nightstand. There was a Bible on Dean's side, held open underneath the clock-radio. Dean eyed it warily. "Sure, man. If it's on the way."
"Good," Dean said, and Sam's smile faded.
Dean had less than a year to live. It would probably be his last chance.
Sam was still staring at the ceiling come three in the morning, thinking about Dean limned with red and running out of time, gaze fixed on something in the distance.
*
Sam downed two cups of coffee in quick succession as soon as he blinked out of his restless doze around seven. He felt wired immediately, circadian rhythms completely twisted, and he was dying for a shower. He heard the water rushing quietly, the pipes shrieking; Sam closed his eyes and counted how many breaths he took before his brother was finished in the bathroom.
His skin itched, down under the surface, prickling with things he didn't understand or want to think about. It made him twitchy and sensitive when he was awake, eyes wide and seeing more in each second than he ever had. When he was asleep it kept him drawn tight, still restless.
Dean managed to drip all over Sam's clean clothes where they were folded on the bed when he finally emerged, but Sam was too spaced-out to bother complaining. He couldn't do much of anything at all, besides fixate weirdly on the way the droplets of water across Dean's shoulders blended in with the freckles.
"Earth to Sam?" Dean said, waving a pruny hand in front of Sam's face. Sam was standing half-in and half-out of the bathroom, fingers clenched on the doorknob, cheek pressed against peeling laminate wood.
"Sorry, I just. Couldn't sleep. All messed up this morning," he managed, shaking his bangs out of his eyes.
Dean nodded, eyebrows drawing together, lips pursing. Sam could hear the water droplets as they fell from Dean's chin and hit his pale chest with a soft pat. "Sure, yeah. Just. Get some shut-eye in the car today, okay?" He sounded concerned; Sam tried not to laugh.
*
Later, about twenty minutes west, Dean was humming "Season of the Witch" to himself as he pumped gas. It was a two-pump station, the only stop for the next eighty miles at least.
Sam listened for a moment, picked out which verse was coming next, before climbing over the front seat to stretch out in the back. His knees were jammed against the door behind the driver's seat, but he could see empty turquoise sky through the window slanting above his head; it was clear and deep and just for a second, the sky was the ocean, they were somewhere tropical, and the world was upside-down.
It was only about a three-hour drive from the Jacob Lake Inn in Jacob Lake, Arizona to the Grand Canyon. They pulled out of the gas station, Sam feeling the dull ache in his knees and left hip, ever-present and easily irritated. Dean popped in his Pink Floyd tape as soon as they turned off onto their exit to Route 89; fifty-eight miles of dry brush and circling vultures passed in endless loops to all nine parts of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond."
Sam would've counted clouds as they passed, but the blue was empty, stretching all the way to the plateaus on the edge of the sky. He focused instead on the itchy feeling of his scalp, just above the back of his neck, where it was flaky and sticky from dried sweat and dead skin.
He drifted in and out of sleep, and couldn’t remember whether he'd dreamt the cave dwellings built into the striped stone lining the highway, or if he'd actually seen them: real history solid and present just outside the window of the Impala.
They had been people's homes, once. Where they conducted their everyday business, had families, fought, loved. Those people were all long dead and gone, now, the carved rock the only remnant of their lives.
Sam eyed the leather upholstery of the car, the cigar box of fake IDs; thought of the guns and stakes and bags of salt in the trunk: the only things that would be left.
Dean parked outside the visitor center at Grand Canyon National Park at eleven AM, reaching over the front seat to run a hand up and down the top of Sam's thigh. "Hey, Sammy," he said, quiet but firm. "Time to wake up."
Sam shivered out of his thoughts, back into the Arizona heat.
*
"I can't believe you conned me into riding a fucking donkey."
"Hey, dude, you were the one who didn't sleep last night and probably couldn't have made the hike yourself without dying of exhaustion. Or heatstroke. Or dehydration, or whatever. You're such a pussy," Dean said, genuinely as relaxed as it was possible for Dean to be these days. The intense heat in the Grand Canyon was agreeing with him; Sam figured it had to be at least a hundred and twenty degrees, and that Dean was a freak of nature.
"Hey, dude," Sam mimicked in Dean's cocky tone, "just wait 'til we get down to Tijuana, and we'll see who cons whom into doing what with donkeys. Jesus." He grumbled and shifted on his burro, trying not to drag his feet and shins along the rocks on the trail. "Seriously? These things are made for, like, midgets."
Dean snorted; Sam could hear the desert clogging his nostrils and suddenly had the urge to sneeze. "Mine's fine, so shut up and deal."
"Like I said, midgets," Sam mumbled. "Plus, we're gonna smell like god-knows-what for the rest of our natural lives, and-" He realized too late that that wasn't really saying much. Let alone the fact that whatever Dean's life was at that point, "natural" probably didn't cover it.
"You're totally harshing my mellow," Dean called back evenly from his donkey. "It's just one little donkey ride, and it's freakin' awesome, and if you don't pipe down and start appreciating nature or whatever, I'm gonna gag you like that time in Yellowstone with Dad when you were ten."
Sam rode in sullen silence to the bottom of the canyon, eyes fixed on the back of Dean's neck. He took perverse pleasure in knowing it would be burnt to a crisp, brick-red and painful by the time they got back to the car.
They left the burros at the foot of the path, climbing over rocky outcroppings on the banks of the Colorado River side-by-side. Sam stood on a flat-topped boulder, staring up at the mile-high vistas and striated cliff-faces as Dean stopped next to him. They bumped shoulders and sat on the rock, almost too hot to touch from the relentless sun, and breathed in tandem. Dean let his eyes drift shut, face tilted towards the faint breeze blowing down from the rim, but Sam could still see his pulse beating strong and fast in the curve of his neck.
Thick dust mixed with the smell of cool water hung heavy in the air between them, above them, muffling the words neither of them spoke. Dean stood abruptly, and Sam started, not knowing how long they'd been sitting, or how long he had been pressed against Dean's side, shoulder to ankle. He scrambled to his feet, following Dean back to the path.
"Let's stop and get a drink after we check in somewhere," Sam finally said once they'd ridden back up and ditched the donkeys. Dean was still quiet, watching Sam across the roof of the Impala, somber, and Sam couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"You read my mind, Sammy," Dean said after a moment, pressing the palm of his hand to the nape of his neck with a hiss. "Motherfucker."
Sam smirked.
*
Dean apparently liked to think that Sam was a lightweight, telling anyone who would listen that it only took two beers to have him dancing on the table like he belonged in Coyote Ugly 2: The Gay Bar.
"I think you're just trying to save face, Dean," Sam said, frowning into his beer. A moment earlier, Dean had whispered conspiratorially to the bartender that, if she knew what was good for everyone involved, she would cut Sam off right then and there.
Sam was pretty sure he could drink Dean under the table any day of the week. "Just because I don't like to get hammered on a regular basis doesn't make me intolerant. If you really want me to prove it to you and match you shot-for-shot, I'm gonna have to drive your car back to the motel with you passed out in the backseat at the end of the night."
By two in the morning, Dean was slumped over the bar, nauseated, while Sam turned ten shot glasses upside down, one over each of his fingers and thumbs. He waved them absently at Dean, who just groaned and tucked his head into his forearm. "Don't you fall asleep on me now," Sam said, accompanied by the clinking of his fingers. He bent to lick at the bitter trickle of tequila dripping down his wrist from the not-quite-empty glass on his right thumb. "You still got three shots to go before we're even, man."
A batch of sepia postcards was taped over the bar. A saloon girl with a blank face, skirt hiked to brush her knobby knees; a black man in a boater, hands folded across his slim waist; a steam engine pulling into an empty station. And a gallows, black cloth over the weirdly lolling head of a tall man, his feet dangling below the platform, noose taut. "Looks like the rope was too stiff," Sam muttered. Dean wasn't paying attention. "Beheaded him 'stead of hanging him to death."
The bartender cleared away the glasses in front of Sam, including his only half-finished beer.
*
They'd had to pay considerably more at the Kachina Lodge on the South Rim than back in Jacob's Creek, but their card was accepted and there was a working television in the room.
Sam drove back there, slowly navigating his way home from the bar. Dean slumped comically in the passenger seat, occasionally mumbling into the window where his lips left smears in the fog of his breath. Sam worried that he might pass out, or choke on his own vomit, or swallow his tongue.
He refused to think about it, though, focusing instead on the scant street signs and bright pools of the headlights on dry pavement.
"Hey, Dean," he said, pulling up to their room on the ground floor. "You still alive?" Sam placed a hand on the side of Dean's face, thumb curling under his chin. "I tried to tell you," he murmured, leaning close, "you idiot."
Dean's skin was clammy; his breath smelled like something the vultures would reject. Sam got out and walked around to open the passenger door, hefting Dean into a fireman's carry with minimal pitching and stumbling.
Sam had to jimmy their door with both hands to get the lock unstuck, the ancient tumblers rusted and difficult even with the correct key. He tucked his head into the small of Dean's back, peering sideways at the lock as he fumbled, digging his chin into Dean's spine to keep him from slipping off Sam's shoulder. It was precarious and awkward, but tequila, he found, mitigated even the most stressful of situations: Sam had no complaints.
Once he'd laid Dean in the recovery position on top of the paisley comforter, he wasn't sure what to do next. He couldn't sleep; he had Dean to look after.
Sam could feel his pulse in his fingertips, could see the blinking red of the vacancy sign leaking through under the heavy motel curtain. He didn't know where the remote for the TV was, but there was a Book Of Mormon on top of the Gideon Bible in the drawer of the nightstand, the only trace of a hopeful missionary on his way south.
Joseph Smith's vision of peace was interrupted by Dean turning over, face buried in the rough cotton pillow, breath harsh and labored until Sam righted him. Sam stretched out on Dean's bed after that, one hand heavy on Dean's shoulder to keep him in the right position, and reached over his brother to plunge them into darkness with the other.
The flickering green of the digital clock bled into a glow reflected in Dean's pale skin, and Sam was still drunk. He wasn’t sure how he'd managed to stay awake, but Dean's periodic drooling and groaning were reward enough.
*
Sam awoke to the sounds of Dean retching, bent double on his knees in front of the toilet. He was pale and sweaty and shaking, just visible from where Sam was curled on the far edge of Dean's bed. Sam fought not to gag and heave in sympathy.
Instead, he rolled out of bed and turned up the air-conditioning, the collar of his white cotton undershirt sticking to his neck, even the skin between his fingers damp.
"I should make some smart-ass remarks about dirty ashtrays and greasy sandwiches," Sam mumbled, padding into the bathroom and sitting on the counter next to the sink. His feet still touched the floor, tiles cold and slick.
"So why don't you?" Dean managed, muffled. His head was in the toilet bowl.
"Because I'm the best brother in the world," Sam said, still hoarse. He had a splitting headache and his tongue kept sticking to the dry roof of his mouth.
"The fact that it's your goddamn fault my stomach's turning inside out would beg to differ," Dean grumbled, resting the side of his face on the rim of the toilet. He glared at Sam's bare toes and tried to hold back a belch.
Sam frowned. "Actually, I wasn't the one who-" he started.
"Don't even," Dean interrupted, turning back to the toilet bowl just in time.
Sam sighed, stripping down as Dean threw up again. He climbed into the shower and checked for little shampoo and conditioner bottles stuffed in ornately folded washcloths. There were two of each: one wasn't enough for Sam, but Dean didn't need a whole bottle to himself, so it would work out.
Sometimes he liked to use the extra conditioner to jerk off with, but Dean was puking not two feet away, and Sam didn't think it would be very appropriate at the moment. He could hear the echoes of Dean's strained Don't even in his head, and left enough conditioner in the second bottle for his brother.
*
Sam finally seized control of the radio about three hours into the ten-hour drive to Clayton. Dean had fallen asleep, occasionally moaning in discomfort, still sweaty and pale even after a shower and a cup of coffee. He'd thrown up the coffee.
Considering the circumstances, Sam had figured it would be best if he did the driving. Though Dean grudgingly agreed, he also seemed to think the driver/music-shotgun/cakehole rule didn't apply unless Sam was the one doing the shutting up. All the puking Dean had done required a lot of energy, though, and he was down for the count after two-hundred miles.
The rest of I-40 rolled by under the tires in a haze of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day, Sam squinting in the dry air whipping through the open windows. Dean started snoring once they reached 125 North to Santa Fe, and Sam put on Fiona Apple in retribution.
New Mexico was cerulean and pink, cactus and tumbleweed and ranches just like postcards. They passed an Indian reservation, and Sam remembered the old man who only wanted the truth-who said Dean was a liar-and the feel of a smooth skull in his hands, fingernails black with soft dirt. Dean woke up then, eyes sliding sideways to Sam's furrowed brow without even commenting on the music.
*
Once they reached Clayton, Sam headed directly to the Tourist Information Center on First Street. "They have free WiFi," he said to Dean. "I'll do some checking around while you ask about the grave and the museum and stuff."
The young woman behind the high desk was just Dean's type, maybe a little younger than usual. She was brunette and had smooth olive skin, long shapely legs curled around the rungs of her stool. The freckles sprinkled over her knees made Sam think of Dean, back before he decided he didn't do shorts.
"Hi, Lourdes," Dean said, eyeing her badge, and her breasts, too. Sam swallowed his sigh and didn't roll his eyes, instead making his way to the vinyl couch in the corner, next to the rack of brochures and magazines detailing sites and resorts in the area.
He leafed through some guidebooks while he waited for his computer to boot up and get connected.
The young, friendly, hardworking community of Clayton boasts a surprising array of recreational attractions for its size-a community swimming pool, tennis courts, softball diamonds, rodeo and fair grounds, gun club and city parks. Nine-hole Clayton Golf Club offers discounted green fees for out-of-town visitors. Great lake and river fishing and superb antelope hunting as well as deer, quail, duck, dove, turkey, pheasant, bear and elk hunting are all available throughout Union County.
Considering they were looking for a homicidal ghost, the AAA blurbs and discounted green fees probably wouldn't be too helpful.
*
"Lourdes thinks the kids in the forest with the dead guy were Boy Scouts," Dean said, flopping onto the couch next to Sam. It squeaked and the cushions threatened to slide off. "Went into the woods to camp or whatever, with their leader."
Sam looked up from his research, scribbling about train robbers and Indian massacres and disease. "And?" There was an impish glint in Dean's eyes, probably Lourdes's doing, and Sam suddenly felt old.
"And the leader guy bit the dust. Two of the kids are saying they saw something. A man on a horse, wearing all black, shouting and firing a gun. He disappeared after nailing the leader and trampling him with the horse." Dean lowered his voice when Lourdes looked over and waved, bright-eyed and fresh-faced. He shot her the broad smile he used on belligerent witnesses.
Sam smiled, too. "So, you get names?"
Dean's brow creased, and he slung an arm over the back of the couch, behind Sam's neck, grazing against his hair. "Yeah, but it won't do any good. They're not here-out of town until everything gets settled, parents freakin' out, that kind of thing. The scout leader was pretty well-liked, ran a business here in town with his wife, no kids of their own, so he cared about the Scouts like they were his, that sort of thing. It's a big deal. Lourdes is just here for the summer, though, doesn't know much about these people."
"That's all we got?" Sam hoped if he ignored all mentions of Lourdes, Dean would stop making them.
"I think we can probably do some tracking if we hack the police database or whatever," Dean said, remarkably unconcerned. "Plus, now we know where they were and we can go check it out ourselves. The police already have some weird antique gun casings in evidence that the kids said weren't there when they got to the camp site, but were left after the murder." Dean sighed, rubbing at his mouth. "You find anything?"
"Yeah, actually," Sam said, adding what Dean had reported to his notes. "There's this story about a train robber, Blackjack Ketchum. I was gonna dismiss it out of hand, except that what you said the kids saw, that guy in black? I mean. Riding and shooting, and antique bullet casings? Sounds just like a train robber to me."
"What's he doing in the woods? Shouldn't he be, I don't know," Dean said with a snort, "robbing trains?"
"No idea," Sam said with a shrug. "But it doesn't really matter. The guy's buried in Clayton Cemetery, which backs right up to a forest. Which pretty obviously must be the same place the Scouts were camping."
"Awesome, so it's just a salt-and-burn," Dean said, enthusiasm leaking everywhere. "We haven't had a piece-of-cake gig like this in way too long."
*
They found a decent motel, their most expensive one in a while. There were even mints on the pillows, and a room service menu. Sam didn't think he'd ever been in a place where you could both park outside the door to the room and order a steak at three PM, but he wasn't complaining.
Dean devoured two cheeseburgers with extra onions while Sam picked at his fajitas, eating more to feel the spices numbing his tongue and lips than because he was actually hungry. He tried playing the game where he timed Dean to see how long it would take him to realize there was a glob of ketchup by the corner of his mouth, but after an entire hour, he was so irritated he broke his own rules and threw a wad of napkins at Dean's head.
"What the hell, man?" Dean said, irate, chucking a fork back at Sam.
Sam caught it, the handle still warm from Dean's palm, and slipped it in his mouth to chew on the tines. "Your face," he said against the metal.
"Your face," Dean grunted, ignoring the pile of napkins. Sam stopped his watch and threw himself onto Dean's bed, grabbed his brother's face and swept his thumb up across the corner of his lips.
"No, your face," Sam said. He tried to catch his breath, and held up his thumb, covered in ketchup one hour and eight minutes old.
Dean blinked and swallowed audibly, looking spooked for a moment before he finally grinned.
*
Clayton Cemetery lay just across the street from a large golf course, where the grass was rich and green and velvety despite the heat. Dean huffed in disdain and pulled a face, shaking his head as Sam parked in front of the wrought-iron gates.
Stars hung heavy across the night sky, Milky Way thicker than Sam had ever seen it. There was no moon, but they had one good flashlight and a functional kerosene lantern. The last time they'd used the lantern, they were living in Iowa and Sam had just turned twelve. Dad wanted Sam to learn how to track at night; Dean canceled two dates to make sure he could be there to watch Sam's back.
"I don't think I knew we had kerosene," Sam said, pulling his shovel out of the trunk and hitching it over his shoulder. They'd gone through three sets of shovels in the past year, and only recently had he managed to convince Dean that if they spent more money on higher quality shovels, they wouldn't have to keep replacing the splintered ones; Dean never mentioned that he personally would never again have to worry about replacing shovels. That saved Sam having to mention that, consequently, he wouldn't either.
"It's kinda old," Dean sighed. "Probably still good, though."
"Sorry I busted the other flashlight," Sam said with a small smile. He watched with trepidation as Dean lit the lantern, hoping kerosene didn't have an expiration date.
"If you pass out from fermented kerosene fumes or whatever," Dean said with a crooked smirk, handing it over, "we'll call it even. How 'bout that?" His eyes looked tired.
Sam rubbed at his ribs, where he'd fallen on the flashlight and smashed it three exorcisms ago. The bruises around his throat, shaped like a little boy's fingers, had only just faded. "Sounds fair." He took the lantern, glad to be standing up-wind.
They didn't have to cover much ground or squint at too many grave markers in the flickering light before they found him. Blackjack Ketchum was buried in the left section of the cemetery, grave just like all the others except for the odd bunch of roses propped against the stone, half-withered but still smelling of sweet and earth.
"Who would be leaving this guy flowers?" Dean hissed, swinging his shovel into the dirt with a dull thud.
"Family," Sam said, blunt and immediate.
Dean pressed his lips together, and his nostrils flared. "Right," he said, digging with more force than necessary. Sam matched his rhythm with Dean's, the corded muscles of his brother's arms and chest pulling taught and slack, sheen of sweat building up in the mingled yellow-white glow of the flashlight and lantern, both trained on the grave.
The hours it took to dig graves had started slipping by faster and faster with every one Sam dug. At first, when he was barely able to hold the shovel, it frightened him. Digging graves was something most little boys didn't do, especially when they were graves that already had people in them.
He had nightmares every night for a month after he'd unearthed and torched his first corpse. It had been old, nothing but bones and hair, but he kept thinking he saw her, the woman whose skeleton it was, lying there, dying in front of him, throat slit by a jealous husband.
Most mornings that month, he woke up in Dean's bed, sharing his pillow, Dean's hair in his mouth and elbow in his stomach.
*
A little over six feet down, and a hollow thump rang out when Sam took a last stabbing plunge into the dirt. "Got him," he said, digging around the box enough to open it up.
A moment later, another hollow thump followed the first. "What the-" Dean mumbled, feeling his way along the edge of whatever he'd hit. "I think there's another coffin down here," he said finally, eyebrow raised. "That's a new one."
Sam blinked, nonplussed. "Well. Which one's Blackjack? How are we supposed to tell?"
"Did he ever have, like, a wife or something?" Dean asked, trying to pry the lid off the second box. Sam peered at the bones in the first one, looking for something that would identify which corpse was which.
"Don't know," Sam muttered, using the end of the shovel to prod at the contents of the coffin. "This one's definitely a guy."
"How the hell do you know?" Dean asked, pausing in the middle of his rummaging.
"The angle of the pelvis. In men it's about forty-five degrees; women, it's close to ninety," Sam said, trying to climb over the awkward position of the boxes and dirt piles. He needed a better look at the second skeleton. "Huh," he said.
"What?"
"That one's a guy, too."
"Great, thanks, that's so helpful." Dean rolled his eyes. "I guess we'll just have to torch 'em both, to be safe," he said, a little perkier.
"Yeah," Sam said, trailing off. He knelt down between the coffins; the head of one of the skeletons wasn't attached anymore, its grimace bared upwards, the rim of the grave casting a sharp shadow across the cranium, loam caked between its teeth. Dean was oddly silent, eyes fixed on Sam, and Sam shuddered.
Dean blinked at bit his lip, turning after an awkward moment to try and haul himself out onto the ground. Sam grabbed his thigh and pushed upwards, one hand on the small of Dean's back.
He pulled his hands back, smelling of Dean's sweat, dirt and kerosene and iron and decay. He gagged, just once, quietly, and then reached up to grab Dean's offered wrists, hefting himself out of the grave.
Dean kept his eyes down, first on the can of gas and then on the flames as they licked across the two bodies, inches from each other under feet of soil.
Sam inhaled, the burning stench of gasoline searing his nose, cleansing. The fire threw Dean into sharp relief, his profile stark against the red. Sam crouched down, handle of the shovel clamped between his hands as he watched the two sets of bones turning to dust.
*
Dawn was still lingering under the hills when Sam and Dean returned to their room, nothing but dirt and the stench of kerosene to wash off in the shower. Sam missed the slick blood and guts and bone-deep exhaustion, sore throat and double-vision that were the staples of their jobs ever since Cold Oak. His head was full, scratchy with thoughts he didn't want, thoughts that weren't bled out of him by zombies or hellhounds until all that was left was the empty buzz of oblivion.
He let Dean have the bathroom first, lying down on the floor to keep the dirt off his bed, scrubbing his hands over his face and through his sweaty hair, calluses rough against his skin.
It didn't matter who the other body was, didn't matter why a dead train robber was hanging around a forest instead of the ramshackle old train station rebuilt as a museum. But Sam couldn't stop thinking about it, didn't want to stop thinking about it: the cold iron of the railroad tracks, the tendency of spirits to lose corporeality the farther they strayed from their remains. A specific person they might be targeting. A specific person.
Sam took out his laptop just as he heard the shower turn on, Dean's low humming a balm for the sharp edges in his own head.
Twenty minutes later, Dean was in a clean pair of boxers, about to climb into the bed on the other side of the room from where Sam sat with his research, knees up to his chest, the hot underside of his computer against his arm.
"Brothers," Sam said.
"What?" Dean muttered, tossing on his squeaky mattress. "Shower's free, by the way."
"They were brothers," Sam said again. "Blackjack and that other body in the grave."
"Oh yeah?" Dean turned off the light over his bed; Sam could hear him as he settled in and closed his eyes, the last shift of his strong shoulders bare under the comforter.
"Yeah." He shut the laptop with a soft snick, then padded to the bathroom, stripping off as he went. "His brother's name was Sam." Turning to close the door, he met Dean's eyes, half-lidded as they watched him in the low light. He stood silently, focusing on the paisley bedspread rising and falling with Dean's shallow breaths instead of the unreadable expression on Dean's face, frozen like he'd been caught.
The bathroom tiles were warm under Sam's feet, damp with condensation from Dean's shower. Dean was lying on his side, clutching the edge of the pillow with white knuckles.
The mirror had unfogged by the time Sam finally looked away, closing the door.
He turned on the shower as hot as it would go, desperate to burn out the itchy feeling lurking under his skin. Dean's gaze still rested heavy on his shoulders, it seemed, and he couldn't wash it away. Each individual droplet of water fell against him, distinct and in slow-motion like he'd been drugged. He started to wash his hair, let his fingertips dig hard into his scalp, shampoo running into his eyes and mouth as he heaved breaths under the spray. The wall tiles stretched on forever, closing in on him, and every muscle in his body went taught.
Sam had felt like this before, once, when he was eighteen years old and had just stormed out of the house, knowing he would never go back. That Dean wouldn't ever speak to him again. He stood in the shadow of the bus station awning in the red of late evening, fingers clenched tight in his own skin, sucking down air like he was drowning, chest too tight.
He pressed his eyes shut hard, now, digging in the heels of his hands until bright spirals of color burst in the blackness. The water tasted metallic in his mouth; the cloying scent of the shampoo overpowered everything.
It didn't make sense. Sam didn't know what was going on, what this was, what he was supposed to do about it. He sat on the floor of the tub, the water still scalding as it cascaded over the top of his head and shoulders, and leaned his forehead on his arms, face shielded from the water.
The spines beneath his skin receded under the onslaught of the shower; Sam had room to think, for real, for the first time in a long time. He sighed, deep and long.
*
Sam jolted awake to Dean above him, calling his name, voice high and broken. "Sammy? Sammy, Jesus Christ-"
Sam groaned and squinted up, Dean haloed by the flickering fluorescent light in the ceiling. "What?" he asked, hoarse. He was freezing, and naked, curled on the floor of the bathtub. The water was turned off but still dripping, cool and sluggish. Dean must have done that.
"I thought-" Dean started, trying to fit his shoulder under Sam's arm to help get him up.
"I was tired, is all," Sam croaked, shaking Dean off and grabbing the nearest towel to wrap around himself. Self-conscious and humiliated, he was still naked and freezing, and still half dead to the world. Goosebumps pebbled the flesh all over his arms and chest, and his teeth chattered obnoxiously when all he wanted was to be stoic and silent.
Dean wouldn't let go, pressing his warm hands all over Sam's arms and chest and back, even his neck, fingertips brushing the this skin under his jaw. His voice was weirdly soft as he asked, "Hey, you okay? You're goddamn freezing, and if you were so wiped out that you-"
"I'm fine," Sam said again, forcefully, pulling away from Dean's touches and his rough fingers and the look in his eyes. He found a pair of sweatpants and a clean long-sleeved t-shirt and tugged them on, not bothering with underwear. It would've taken too long, what with the violent shivering and shaking he couldn't seem to control.
Sam took his computer with him as he climbed into his bed, clenching his jaw tight to keep the chattering to a minimum.
"It's five AM," Dean said, worn and slumped against the doorjamb.
"This is important," Sam sighed, scrolling through the biography he'd found.
"No, it isn't."
"It is to me."
"What did you find?" Dean said, pushing off the wall and settling by the headboard of Sam's bed. His shoulders curled in, back towards Sam, but he was listening.
"Blackjack was hanged for murder and robbery. They screwed up, though, and he was accidentally decapitated. His brother, Sam, was in jail at the time, suffering from gangrene," Sam said, scrolling through the biography he'd found, computer screen over-bright.
"Sounds like the feel-good movie of the year," Dean said, scooting back to sit against the headboard with a tired smile.
"Sam died two days after he heard his brother had been hanged. He apparently asked to be buried with him at some point, in his will or something, but the county said no. He had to be buried in the prison graveyard." Sam shut the laptop. "I guess it worked out in the end, though."
"If you call gangrene and decapitation and homicidal robbers 'working out', then yeah, I guess it did." Dean's eyes slid shut, and Sam worked himself deeper under the covers, unable to stay warm.
"You should go to bed, too," Sam said, flicking off his light.
"I am in bed," Dean mumbled, and pulled Sam's covers over the both of them.
"You're in my bed," Sam said. He could feel Dean's warmth seeping into his skin, his bones, making him heavy and slow with sleep.
"Yeah," Dean yawned, just as Sam drifted into peaceful black.
*
Part Two