Fic: House of Cards: State of Grace 1/6
A/N: This is the first story in the House of Cards series. The series as a whole is set in season 4 - and I really, really wish I'd seen the whole season before I started writing it! As events in canon unfolded this became steadily more AU and I've ended up playing a little fast and loose with some of the details. Not too much of that in this story though.
Skips between events in 2008 and 1996.
Spoilers for anything aired until 4x08.
Beta'd - way back when - by Janger and RoweenaC. .
Don't own 'em, it's just wishful thinking.
:: :: ::
A broad incision sits across the evening,
The victim to our father's lost war
The restless children sit and mourn the graves
Of those they've never seen before
~~HoC~~
Mustang, Nevada
October 25th, 2008
Something was wrong.
Something was... missing.
The loss nagged steadily at him, crept into already fitful dreams and turned them cold and bitter. He dragged himself awake, crawling up from the dark, twisting shadows that tried to catch him and drown him in their emptiness, finally cracking his eyelids open the barest slit. Staring blearily out through the thin gap, caged by his lashes, he saw the keys of his laptop, felt them digging into his cheek as he listened, stretched out his senses and heard nothing, felt nothing.
His heart thumped hard, once, painfully strong against his ribs as his breath lodged in his throat and turned sour. He sat up, peeling his face from the keyboard which slid away across the table, sending papers slithering over the edge to drift around his legs as he stared around the room, feeling the emptiness drain the life from him.
"Dean?"
The whisper startled him, sent a pulse of adrenaline surging through his blood before he recognised his own, stunned voice. But the sound broke something in him, and he pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly at the sudden change in altitude. He scrabbled at his jacket, hanging on the back of the chair, swearing as his phone caught in the lining as he tore it free. Threads tumbled loose as he flipped the top open, thumbed the message button with shaking fingers and watched the screen light up, one missed call.
He almost sighed with relief, couldn't quite manage it as he scrolled
through menus, saw his brother's name on the listing and called the answer phone.
‘You have no new messages.'
His throat clicked dryly as he swallowed hard, hope draining away as fast as it had bloomed.
"Dean?"
Louder this time, breaking at the end as he gasped for air, suddenly breathless in the silence as he stared at the empty bed between himself and the door, sheets neatly, tightly folded, military style.
No.
"Sure you don't wanna come, Sammy? Night out would do you some good. Might find a geek chick at the bar, work out some of that tension..."
He flinched away from the echo in his head, remembering the raised eyebrows and grin that flashed in his direction as he sat at the table, attention fixed to the laptop before him.
"No, Dean. Go, get drunk, get... whatever."
"Well okay, grandma. Don't wait up!"
"Dean!"
But the bed was still empty, the dawn light creeping through the thin gap in the curtains, gilding the hollow motel room with a beautiful lie.
His brother was gone.
~~HoC~~
Litchfield, Maine
August 2nd, 1996
He watched them in the mirror for as long as he could, eyes flickering between the empty road in front, and his sons standing in the motel window behind, until the Impala rumbled her way around a corner, and the two small figures were lost from view.
John sighed shakily.
Every time he left, he thought it would be easier. Every time it was harder. He swiped a hand roughly across his mouth; his wedding ring catching at his lips as it always did, sending the same old flash of hurt through him, deep inside.
He saw the town drift past, softening in the late summer sun that pounded the streets, dead leaves stirring fitfully in the breeze of his passing. He felt disconnected from it, the everyday world of sunlight and laughter, of parents walking their kids to the bus stop in time for school, taking them home again in the evening and tucking them into bed at night.
Sometimes, he missed the days when his boys were young enough, innocent enough to let him tuck them into bed with a ruffle of their hair for a goodnight.
He licked suddenly dry lips at the memory, swallowing hard as he remembered Mary ruffling his hair the same way, murmuring I'll still love you when you're bald and shaking a few stray strands from her fingers.
His reflection wept silently back at him and he flinched away from it, knocking the mirror askew with one fist, so hard it nearly broke away from the windshield.
He sighed again, forcefully this time, a harsh rush of air between tight lips as he dragged calm down around himself again. Reaching forward, he glared at the world outside as he stabbed at the radio, starting a little at the sudden blast of music from the speakers.
"Dammit, Dean!" he muttered, hurriedly twisting the volume until the screech died to a level that didn't punch straight through his eardrums and reverberate from one side of his skull to the other. But he didn't pull the tape out, left it playing, imagining he could hear his eldest son's restless fingers tapping at the door sill or the steering wheel.
The hunter glanced in the rearview mirror one last time as he swung left onto Middle Road, the Maine Turnpike a glittering ribbon at the end of the street. He couldn't see the motel anymore.
The signs swept past, carrying him further away from his boys and he turned his mind to focus on the hunt a little more with each one.
Pine Tree Road
A trail of missing young men and women, going back years, decades. No common link between them, except that they were all taken so swiftly, so silently, no-one noticed they were gone for hours, sometimes days.
Now leaving, Litchfield Plains, Maine
And in each town, reports of cemeteries desecrated, graves disturbed and headstones shattered.
Small Road
Not much, but it was enough. It had taken months, tracking back and forth across the country, putting together a map of the disappearances, talking to family and friends and priests, but he'd finally found it the link.
Reports of a biker gang sweeping through around the time of the disappearance, vanishing into the wild, empty spaces between the small towns, finally reappearing years later, never hitting the same place twice.
Until the night they did.
One mistake, one temptation too strong, and the elderly priest who saw a young man he recognised, unchanged, unaged in the fifty-eight years since he'd first seen him, standing in between the smashed headstones, graveyard dirt black on his hands and cold, blue lips.
Revenants.
It was more than enough for the man driven, obsessed with finding and killing the shadows that lurked in the night.
So he'd left his children behind, forcing himself to ignore the sullen obedience of his eldest and the fearful arguments of the youngest, biting his lip as he told the seventeen-year old, "Look out for Sammy."
He snapped on the blinkers, his heart thudding in time to the clicking as he swung onto the on-ramp and up to the turnpike, flooring the gas and feeling the engine snarl beneath him.
And he left them again.
~~HoC~~
Litchfield
August 18th, 1996
He swung through the door, letting it slam behind him, almost catching his heels as he shuffled in, arms full of bags and boxes.
"Sam!" he hollered, feeling the bottom of one box start to give way as he hurried across the room to the kitchenette tucked into one corner. An indistinct yell came back at him from the other side of the closed bedroom door and he rolled his eyes, huffing out a quick, irritated sigh.
Then his boots came down onto something that cracked loudly and he stumbled, catching sight of the smashed bowl under his feet, the box finally giving way and spilling bags down his legs, half the packets splitting as they hit the musty carpet.
"Oh, Crap!" he snarled.
In a perfectly choreographed chain reaction, his feet tangled up in the packets and he staggered again, legs hitting the couch at an angle and he went flying, the shopping crashing to the floor around him as he landed awkwardly on the cushions. The sound of shattering glass and the scent of the sauces inside pouring out onto the brown and green pattern of the floor was the final straw.
"SAM!" Dean roared, fury and weariness roughening his voice until he sounded more like their father than himself. He heard a door click and a few hesitant footsteps, then a snigger, hastily muffled that made his blood boil. He surged up from the wreckage of the groceries and rounded on his brother.
"Where the hell were you, Sam? And why is there a damn bowl in the middle of the freakin' floor!"
The younger teen shrugged nonchalantly, but didn't meet his brother's eyes.
"Got hungry."
"You got hungry? And just how the hell does that explain the bowl in the middle of the floor, Sam? Huh?"
"I forgot. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry."
Now Sam looked at him, as his voice turned to ice. The thirteen-year olds eyes were defiant in a way Dean rarely saw directed at himself now, ever since the Christmas five years ago when the younger boy had tossed their Dad's journal at him and said in a voice brimming with cock-sure certainty, ‘I know why you keep a gun under your pillow'. That confidence hadn't lasted long, just until the point that Dean had confirmed what his brother had really wanted him to deny.
These days, it was replaced with an odd blend of worry and rebelliousness.
Sam shrugged again.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. It's just some groceries, Dude."
Dean opened his mouth, shut it again with a snap and stared at his brother.
Does he really not get it?
He honestly couldn't remember a time when he'd been so angry with Sam, so furious that it burned straight through the echo of a warm, soft bundle thrust into his arms, drowned out ‘Look out for Sammy' and made his fingers itch and curl into a fist. He struggled to hold it at his side, trembling, knowing at least half of the anger wasn't directed at his brother at all, but still barely able to contain it.
Abruptly he turned, stamped back out of the room again and left his shocked brother standing in the mess of groceries with a surly look on his face as he slammed the door behind him.
Not knowing or caring where he was going, Dean walked, anger lengthening his stride, his boots pounding against the sidewalk. The air was hot, stifling and sweat soon darkened his t-shirt, dripped down his back but he kept walking, turning down unfamiliar roads until he'd left the houses far behind.
He turned off the road, kicking his way into the scrub below the trees. Grabbing a low branch for balance as he swung past it, he suddenly realised he was trembling, shaking, breath coming in short, harsh pants, his hair plastered to his head and dripping salt into his eyes.
"Great. Give yourself freakin' heatstroke while you're at it, Winchester. Smart move, dumb ass!," he muttered, feeling the trees tilt around him. Breathing deeply he leant against the trunk and slid down it trembling, feeling the bark scratch at his skin and not caring. Sitting in last years dead leaves, shaking, he tipped his head back against the tree, closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, fighting down the yell of anger and fear that bubbled up in his throat.
Nine days. He's nine days late. He's never been nine days late.
He shuddered once, shoulders pulling up defensively, breaths hitching deep within his chest as he finally let himself think the thoughts that had been locked away for days.
What if he isn't coming back?
He didn't need to count the bills and change stuffed into his pocket to know they were fast running out of options. The money John had left in the old coffee jar in the cupboard was gone, his own personal stash all-but wiped out to buy the groceries that had been meant to last them a week and were now decorating the floor of the motel room.
Dean opened his eyes, stared up at the sky, barely visible through the leaves of the beech tree he leant against.
"What do I do, Dad?" he whispered, not hearing the catch in his voice as he listened to the soft, deep murmur inside his head.
You do what I trained you to do, son. You find a way.
He sucked in a breath with a gasp, let it out again in a trembling sigh and rolled his head forward, resting it on his arms as he tucked his knees beneath them. Staring down past his boots to the russet carpet beyond, he mused that the dead, year old leaves looked nicer than the out-dated carpet in the motel room.
Then he started to plan.
By the time he was done, dusk had enveloped the woods, shrouding the trees in shadows that shifted and changed with the slight breeze. Pushing himself wearily to his feet he grabbed at the tree as the world tilted dizzily beneath him.
"Dammit..." he ground out, vision blurring as he hung desperately onto the rough bark, head down, fighting to breathe through the nausea and pounding headache, black spots dancing across the fog behind his eyes.
His knees buckled, starting to fold beneath him and he staggered forwards into hands that suddenly wrapped around his shoulders. He almost lashed out, barely stopped the blow as he breathed in the scent of family and home. Instead, he leant into his brother, listening to the teen curse like a sailor as Sam eased him back to the ground.
"Oughta wash your mouth out, Sammy."
"Oughta wash your skull out, Dean," the teen retorted. "What the hell were you thinking? Here."
The bottle that pressed gently against his lips was at odds with the angry, biting tone and he cracked open one eye as he let the warm water sluice down his throat, finally realising how desperately thirsty he was.
"Whoa, take it easy. Not too much."
Dean nodded, tipped his head back against the tree again and watched his brother from the corner of his eye. Sam stared back at him, biting his lip, brows drawing together into a frown too old for his years.
Good job, Winchester. Yell at the kid then freak him out by
disappearing and letting him find you practically passing out like a damn girl.
He reached out, grabbed at the bottle, pleased when his fingers closed firmly around it on the first attempt. Sam let him take it, but watched intently as he spun the cap off and took another long, slow swig, then poured a handful of water and splashed it over his face and back of his neck. The younger boy's face twitched into a reluctant smile as Dean sighed in heartfelt relief.
"Better?"
"Yeah."
"You wanna head back to the motel now?"
"Yeah."
"You gonna say anything other than ‘yeah', Dean?"
"Nah."
Sam rolled his eyes and huffed as he helped Dean up, steadying him as he
swayed, frowning, feeling the skin on his face tighten.
"You got a nice burn going on, Dean. Look like a lobster."
"Shut it, runt."
They started walking, Sam kicking the leaves around them in a whirl of energy that just exhausted Dean further. He smiled a little at the grin on his brother's face as Sam peered at him again and spoke with convincing consideration.
"Or maybe a baboon's ass."
"Sammy..."
"Yeah, just like a baboon's ass."
"Sam!"
Sam grinned at him and he laughed a little, catching sight of the road ahead between the trees. They walked in silence for a while, Dean's pace slow, Sam happy to match it. But it wasn't just the lingering dizziness and weariness of the dehydration that slowed his stride. He didn't want to go back to the motel, didn't want to see the empty space in the parking lot outside their room, as if until he set eyes on that void, aching like the gap where a tooth used to be, sore and hollow, none of it was real.
"Is Dad coming back?"
The question literally took his breath away, like a low blow to the stomach, left him stranded between steps, one foot hovering in midair as he stared at his brother. Sam walked on a few paces, stopped, and turned back to him, face utterly serious and ancient.
"Sam..."
"I know he's late, Dean. Really late. Is he - is he coming back?"
The hesitation turned something over in Dean's stomach. It was young, scared, lost, jarringly at odds with the age suddenly creasing the younger boys face into something bitter. He didn't need to read minds to know the question wasn't the one his brother had started to ask.
"Yeah, Sammy. He's coming back. I promise."
His voice was rough, almost unrecognisable as he reached out and grabbed hold of Sam's shoulder.
"He's just held up somewhere, that's all. He is coming back."
Sam nodded, eyes too bright and Dean pulled him into his chest, wrapping his arm around the boys shoulders and burying his lips in the long hair.
"I promise."
His brother finally stopped shaking, nodding his head against Dean's chest, ruffling his tear-dampened t-shirt.
"But we gotta make some changes, Sammy. Okay?"
"Whatta'ya mean?"
The question was muffled, punctuated with a loud sniff and Dean grimaced in disgust but didn't loosen his arm.
"We can't stay in the motel any more. I'll find a place we can..."
He trailed off.
A place we can squat. He's thirteen years old and I'm making him camp out in empty houses. Jesus, Dad.
"'S okay, Dean. Didn't like that motel anyway."
"No?"
He could barely force the words out through the lump in his throat as Sam shook his head and gave a rough laugh.
"No. Carpet sucked. Even before you redecorated."
Dean laughed back, a low chuckle that built slowly, rumbling up from his chest until he had to let go of his brother to hold on to his sides. Sam grinned at him, eyes shining again, but with mirth now as he started to join the hilarity.
And just like that, it was okay again for a while.
1 2 3 4 5 6
Skips between events in 2008 and 1996.
Spoilers for anything aired until 4x08.
Beta'd - way back when - by Janger and RoweenaC. .
Don't own 'em, it's just wishful thinking.
:: :: ::
A broad incision sits across the evening,
The victim to our father's lost war
The restless children sit and mourn the graves
Of those they've never seen before
~~HoC~~
Mustang, Nevada
October 25th, 2008
Something was wrong.
Something was... missing.
The loss nagged steadily at him, crept into already fitful dreams and turned them cold and bitter. He dragged himself awake, crawling up from the dark, twisting shadows that tried to catch him and drown him in their emptiness, finally cracking his eyelids open the barest slit. Staring blearily out through the thin gap, caged by his lashes, he saw the keys of his laptop, felt them digging into his cheek as he listened, stretched out his senses and heard nothing, felt nothing.
His heart thumped hard, once, painfully strong against his ribs as his breath lodged in his throat and turned sour. He sat up, peeling his face from the keyboard which slid away across the table, sending papers slithering over the edge to drift around his legs as he stared around the room, feeling the emptiness drain the life from him.
"Dean?"
The whisper startled him, sent a pulse of adrenaline surging through his blood before he recognised his own, stunned voice. But the sound broke something in him, and he pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly at the sudden change in altitude. He scrabbled at his jacket, hanging on the back of the chair, swearing as his phone caught in the lining as he tore it free. Threads tumbled loose as he flipped the top open, thumbed the message button with shaking fingers and watched the screen light up, one missed call.
He almost sighed with relief, couldn't quite manage it as he scrolled
through menus, saw his brother's name on the listing and called the answer phone.
‘You have no new messages.'
His throat clicked dryly as he swallowed hard, hope draining away as fast as it had bloomed.
"Dean?"
Louder this time, breaking at the end as he gasped for air, suddenly breathless in the silence as he stared at the empty bed between himself and the door, sheets neatly, tightly folded, military style.
No.
"Sure you don't wanna come, Sammy? Night out would do you some good. Might find a geek chick at the bar, work out some of that tension..."
He flinched away from the echo in his head, remembering the raised eyebrows and grin that flashed in his direction as he sat at the table, attention fixed to the laptop before him.
"No, Dean. Go, get drunk, get... whatever."
"Well okay, grandma. Don't wait up!"
"Dean!"
But the bed was still empty, the dawn light creeping through the thin gap in the curtains, gilding the hollow motel room with a beautiful lie.
His brother was gone.
~~HoC~~
Litchfield, Maine
August 2nd, 1996
He watched them in the mirror for as long as he could, eyes flickering between the empty road in front, and his sons standing in the motel window behind, until the Impala rumbled her way around a corner, and the two small figures were lost from view.
John sighed shakily.
Every time he left, he thought it would be easier. Every time it was harder. He swiped a hand roughly across his mouth; his wedding ring catching at his lips as it always did, sending the same old flash of hurt through him, deep inside.
He saw the town drift past, softening in the late summer sun that pounded the streets, dead leaves stirring fitfully in the breeze of his passing. He felt disconnected from it, the everyday world of sunlight and laughter, of parents walking their kids to the bus stop in time for school, taking them home again in the evening and tucking them into bed at night.
Sometimes, he missed the days when his boys were young enough, innocent enough to let him tuck them into bed with a ruffle of their hair for a goodnight.
He licked suddenly dry lips at the memory, swallowing hard as he remembered Mary ruffling his hair the same way, murmuring I'll still love you when you're bald and shaking a few stray strands from her fingers.
His reflection wept silently back at him and he flinched away from it, knocking the mirror askew with one fist, so hard it nearly broke away from the windshield.
He sighed again, forcefully this time, a harsh rush of air between tight lips as he dragged calm down around himself again. Reaching forward, he glared at the world outside as he stabbed at the radio, starting a little at the sudden blast of music from the speakers.
"Dammit, Dean!" he muttered, hurriedly twisting the volume until the screech died to a level that didn't punch straight through his eardrums and reverberate from one side of his skull to the other. But he didn't pull the tape out, left it playing, imagining he could hear his eldest son's restless fingers tapping at the door sill or the steering wheel.
The hunter glanced in the rearview mirror one last time as he swung left onto Middle Road, the Maine Turnpike a glittering ribbon at the end of the street. He couldn't see the motel anymore.
The signs swept past, carrying him further away from his boys and he turned his mind to focus on the hunt a little more with each one.
Pine Tree Road
A trail of missing young men and women, going back years, decades. No common link between them, except that they were all taken so swiftly, so silently, no-one noticed they were gone for hours, sometimes days.
Now leaving, Litchfield Plains, Maine
And in each town, reports of cemeteries desecrated, graves disturbed and headstones shattered.
Small Road
Not much, but it was enough. It had taken months, tracking back and forth across the country, putting together a map of the disappearances, talking to family and friends and priests, but he'd finally found it the link.
Reports of a biker gang sweeping through around the time of the disappearance, vanishing into the wild, empty spaces between the small towns, finally reappearing years later, never hitting the same place twice.
Until the night they did.
One mistake, one temptation too strong, and the elderly priest who saw a young man he recognised, unchanged, unaged in the fifty-eight years since he'd first seen him, standing in between the smashed headstones, graveyard dirt black on his hands and cold, blue lips.
Revenants.
It was more than enough for the man driven, obsessed with finding and killing the shadows that lurked in the night.
So he'd left his children behind, forcing himself to ignore the sullen obedience of his eldest and the fearful arguments of the youngest, biting his lip as he told the seventeen-year old, "Look out for Sammy."
He snapped on the blinkers, his heart thudding in time to the clicking as he swung onto the on-ramp and up to the turnpike, flooring the gas and feeling the engine snarl beneath him.
And he left them again.
~~HoC~~
Litchfield
August 18th, 1996
He swung through the door, letting it slam behind him, almost catching his heels as he shuffled in, arms full of bags and boxes.
"Sam!" he hollered, feeling the bottom of one box start to give way as he hurried across the room to the kitchenette tucked into one corner. An indistinct yell came back at him from the other side of the closed bedroom door and he rolled his eyes, huffing out a quick, irritated sigh.
Then his boots came down onto something that cracked loudly and he stumbled, catching sight of the smashed bowl under his feet, the box finally giving way and spilling bags down his legs, half the packets splitting as they hit the musty carpet.
"Oh, Crap!" he snarled.
In a perfectly choreographed chain reaction, his feet tangled up in the packets and he staggered again, legs hitting the couch at an angle and he went flying, the shopping crashing to the floor around him as he landed awkwardly on the cushions. The sound of shattering glass and the scent of the sauces inside pouring out onto the brown and green pattern of the floor was the final straw.
"SAM!" Dean roared, fury and weariness roughening his voice until he sounded more like their father than himself. He heard a door click and a few hesitant footsteps, then a snigger, hastily muffled that made his blood boil. He surged up from the wreckage of the groceries and rounded on his brother.
"Where the hell were you, Sam? And why is there a damn bowl in the middle of the freakin' floor!"
The younger teen shrugged nonchalantly, but didn't meet his brother's eyes.
"Got hungry."
"You got hungry? And just how the hell does that explain the bowl in the middle of the floor, Sam? Huh?"
"I forgot. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry."
Now Sam looked at him, as his voice turned to ice. The thirteen-year olds eyes were defiant in a way Dean rarely saw directed at himself now, ever since the Christmas five years ago when the younger boy had tossed their Dad's journal at him and said in a voice brimming with cock-sure certainty, ‘I know why you keep a gun under your pillow'. That confidence hadn't lasted long, just until the point that Dean had confirmed what his brother had really wanted him to deny.
These days, it was replaced with an odd blend of worry and rebelliousness.
Sam shrugged again.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. It's just some groceries, Dude."
Dean opened his mouth, shut it again with a snap and stared at his brother.
Does he really not get it?
He honestly couldn't remember a time when he'd been so angry with Sam, so furious that it burned straight through the echo of a warm, soft bundle thrust into his arms, drowned out ‘Look out for Sammy' and made his fingers itch and curl into a fist. He struggled to hold it at his side, trembling, knowing at least half of the anger wasn't directed at his brother at all, but still barely able to contain it.
Abruptly he turned, stamped back out of the room again and left his shocked brother standing in the mess of groceries with a surly look on his face as he slammed the door behind him.
Not knowing or caring where he was going, Dean walked, anger lengthening his stride, his boots pounding against the sidewalk. The air was hot, stifling and sweat soon darkened his t-shirt, dripped down his back but he kept walking, turning down unfamiliar roads until he'd left the houses far behind.
He turned off the road, kicking his way into the scrub below the trees. Grabbing a low branch for balance as he swung past it, he suddenly realised he was trembling, shaking, breath coming in short, harsh pants, his hair plastered to his head and dripping salt into his eyes.
"Great. Give yourself freakin' heatstroke while you're at it, Winchester. Smart move, dumb ass!," he muttered, feeling the trees tilt around him. Breathing deeply he leant against the trunk and slid down it trembling, feeling the bark scratch at his skin and not caring. Sitting in last years dead leaves, shaking, he tipped his head back against the tree, closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, fighting down the yell of anger and fear that bubbled up in his throat.
Nine days. He's nine days late. He's never been nine days late.
He shuddered once, shoulders pulling up defensively, breaths hitching deep within his chest as he finally let himself think the thoughts that had been locked away for days.
What if he isn't coming back?
He didn't need to count the bills and change stuffed into his pocket to know they were fast running out of options. The money John had left in the old coffee jar in the cupboard was gone, his own personal stash all-but wiped out to buy the groceries that had been meant to last them a week and were now decorating the floor of the motel room.
Dean opened his eyes, stared up at the sky, barely visible through the leaves of the beech tree he leant against.
"What do I do, Dad?" he whispered, not hearing the catch in his voice as he listened to the soft, deep murmur inside his head.
You do what I trained you to do, son. You find a way.
He sucked in a breath with a gasp, let it out again in a trembling sigh and rolled his head forward, resting it on his arms as he tucked his knees beneath them. Staring down past his boots to the russet carpet beyond, he mused that the dead, year old leaves looked nicer than the out-dated carpet in the motel room.
Then he started to plan.
By the time he was done, dusk had enveloped the woods, shrouding the trees in shadows that shifted and changed with the slight breeze. Pushing himself wearily to his feet he grabbed at the tree as the world tilted dizzily beneath him.
"Dammit..." he ground out, vision blurring as he hung desperately onto the rough bark, head down, fighting to breathe through the nausea and pounding headache, black spots dancing across the fog behind his eyes.
His knees buckled, starting to fold beneath him and he staggered forwards into hands that suddenly wrapped around his shoulders. He almost lashed out, barely stopped the blow as he breathed in the scent of family and home. Instead, he leant into his brother, listening to the teen curse like a sailor as Sam eased him back to the ground.
"Oughta wash your mouth out, Sammy."
"Oughta wash your skull out, Dean," the teen retorted. "What the hell were you thinking? Here."
The bottle that pressed gently against his lips was at odds with the angry, biting tone and he cracked open one eye as he let the warm water sluice down his throat, finally realising how desperately thirsty he was.
"Whoa, take it easy. Not too much."
Dean nodded, tipped his head back against the tree again and watched his brother from the corner of his eye. Sam stared back at him, biting his lip, brows drawing together into a frown too old for his years.
Good job, Winchester. Yell at the kid then freak him out by
disappearing and letting him find you practically passing out like a damn girl.
He reached out, grabbed at the bottle, pleased when his fingers closed firmly around it on the first attempt. Sam let him take it, but watched intently as he spun the cap off and took another long, slow swig, then poured a handful of water and splashed it over his face and back of his neck. The younger boy's face twitched into a reluctant smile as Dean sighed in heartfelt relief.
"Better?"
"Yeah."
"You wanna head back to the motel now?"
"Yeah."
"You gonna say anything other than ‘yeah', Dean?"
"Nah."
Sam rolled his eyes and huffed as he helped Dean up, steadying him as he
swayed, frowning, feeling the skin on his face tighten.
"You got a nice burn going on, Dean. Look like a lobster."
"Shut it, runt."
They started walking, Sam kicking the leaves around them in a whirl of energy that just exhausted Dean further. He smiled a little at the grin on his brother's face as Sam peered at him again and spoke with convincing consideration.
"Or maybe a baboon's ass."
"Sammy..."
"Yeah, just like a baboon's ass."
"Sam!"
Sam grinned at him and he laughed a little, catching sight of the road ahead between the trees. They walked in silence for a while, Dean's pace slow, Sam happy to match it. But it wasn't just the lingering dizziness and weariness of the dehydration that slowed his stride. He didn't want to go back to the motel, didn't want to see the empty space in the parking lot outside their room, as if until he set eyes on that void, aching like the gap where a tooth used to be, sore and hollow, none of it was real.
"Is Dad coming back?"
The question literally took his breath away, like a low blow to the stomach, left him stranded between steps, one foot hovering in midair as he stared at his brother. Sam walked on a few paces, stopped, and turned back to him, face utterly serious and ancient.
"Sam..."
"I know he's late, Dean. Really late. Is he - is he coming back?"
The hesitation turned something over in Dean's stomach. It was young, scared, lost, jarringly at odds with the age suddenly creasing the younger boys face into something bitter. He didn't need to read minds to know the question wasn't the one his brother had started to ask.
"Yeah, Sammy. He's coming back. I promise."
His voice was rough, almost unrecognisable as he reached out and grabbed hold of Sam's shoulder.
"He's just held up somewhere, that's all. He is coming back."
Sam nodded, eyes too bright and Dean pulled him into his chest, wrapping his arm around the boys shoulders and burying his lips in the long hair.
"I promise."
His brother finally stopped shaking, nodding his head against Dean's chest, ruffling his tear-dampened t-shirt.
"But we gotta make some changes, Sammy. Okay?"
"Whatta'ya mean?"
The question was muffled, punctuated with a loud sniff and Dean grimaced in disgust but didn't loosen his arm.
"We can't stay in the motel any more. I'll find a place we can..."
He trailed off.
A place we can squat. He's thirteen years old and I'm making him camp out in empty houses. Jesus, Dad.
"'S okay, Dean. Didn't like that motel anyway."
"No?"
He could barely force the words out through the lump in his throat as Sam shook his head and gave a rough laugh.
"No. Carpet sucked. Even before you redecorated."
Dean laughed back, a low chuckle that built slowly, rumbling up from his chest until he had to let go of his brother to hold on to his sides. Sam grinned at him, eyes shining again, but with mirth now as he started to join the hilarity.
And just like that, it was okay again for a while.
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