Big Bang story: Winter, part 3
See master post for notes.
Winter, part one and part two
2008
Sam woke from a sound sleep, the first he'd had in weeks without a dream of chasing Dean down a long tunnel with the sensation of bones crunching beneath his feet. The cabin was silent, the fire dwindled much too far, but there was a chill in the air which had nothing to do with weather.
Silently, he slid from bed, pausing to slide his hand across Dean's arm as he moved. He pulled his clothes on quickly, shoes and socks, parka, and then stepped out into the storm. The wind battered at his ears, snow pelting him sideways.
He could feel her out there, a malevolent cat stalking the edges of a line in the dirt, a protection he had helped create.
For a moment, he was still, searching for her with that new, strange part of his mind that understood how to find her. She might as well have been glowing in the dark, for the stink of sulfur and corruption on her. He smiled and stepped off the porch.
The snow moved around him, and he was isolated in clear weather, enough to see her clearly. Enough to feel her fear. She hovered there at the edge of the circle, no coat, no need, pacing the trace of salt and iron in the earth, as if testing the boundary. Her full focus was on Sam, an intense stare, and beneath, a calculating smile.
"How did you find us?" Sam asked.
Ruby tsked. "What kind of a demon would I be if I wasn't resourceful enough to find a Winchester? There are ways, Sam. Many ways."
"Good point." He stood watching her, and finally she stopped, facing him, arms folded across her chest. "Of course, no one invited you, so. Why are you here?"
"You flipped the switch," she said, her black eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "You've turned on the power."
"That I did," he said.
Ruby exhaled, a long, slow hiss. "You should have waited for me," she said. "Should have asked me. Do you know how much I could teach you? How many things I know?"
"Yeah, well, it doesn't matter now." Sam shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged.
"You're finally ready," she breathed.
"What is it you think I'm ready for, again?"
"To stop Lilith. To lead the army you were born to lead."
"I'm not leading any army," he said, thinking back to his visions. "At least, no army you're a part of." He moved closer to the line. "Maybe you should tell me what this is all about, Ruby. Everything, this time -- no holding back."
With startling grace, she sank down to her knees before him and bowed her head, hiding the gloating smile on her face. "My king."
Sam laughed out loud. "Are you serious with that?"
She watched him, eyes still darker than the night around them. "Deadly serious. I swore my allegiance to you, Sam, and I meant it. I can feel the power in you now. It's stronger than most demons. Stronger than me."
"I know." He regarded her for a moment, listening to her silence in the face of his demand for truth, then said, "I don't need your help, Ruby. I don't trust you, because I don't know what your agenda is, but I guarantee, it isn't mine."
"Agenda?" She stood again, her posture wary. "I thought your agenda was saving Dean."
"Oh, it is. Just, not the way you thought."
"Sam. I can still help you. I can stand beside you, lead the way."
"I don't think I want to go where you'd lead me."
"Or maybe you're not strong enough to lead at all." She grinned, and it was more like a baring of teeth. "You know, you haven't really tried those powers out on anything besides a pile of wood. And we all know your brother is just a spineless, powerless human, don't we? Not like there's anything he can do to help you. Or stop me." Her eyes narrowed. "How do I know you're really ready?"
Sam's jaw tightened. Of course, she'd been spying on them. He should have expected it. When he shifted focus from her, tendrils of malevolence brushed against his mind, the signature of other demons, waiting out of human earshot. She wasn't alone.
The snow made a cocoon for him, soft and cool. He closed his eyes, tipped his head back and let the flakes fall gently against his face. Slow breaths, deep and even.
Inside, Dean slept, but he was dreaming. Sam could see fragments of it, bright lights, silver swords, and a language he couldn't understand. Around them, the woods were alive with predators large and small, things sleeping, things hunting. He could sense them all, every tiny beating heart, each of them unique. Each of them his for the taking.
Only one of them posed a threat.
It was a simple thing to cloak Ruby in this strange new power, and to realize the heart of her host was no longer beating, was colder than the snow around them. Without moving, he reached into the bone cage which held her and took hold of her essence, pulling it toward him. Eyes closed, he listened as she choked, as she rasped a strangled version of his name, and slowly, he began to pull her apart. Pain ricocheted around his brain, but he held his hand steady, imagining whatever demons were made of was inside his fist, and he squeezed until the last of it dissipated into the night air.
"Turn back," he whispered to the night, and the echo of it shivered through the forest, slid across the black form of each demon. They stopped, their fear and confusion a palpable bitterness Sam could taste in the frigid air, and then they began to retreat, dark streaks in a moonless sky.
He didn't realize he'd fallen into the snow until he tasted it on his lips - metallic wetness, blood and snow mixed together. He sat up, unable to see Ruby's body now that the snow was falling full and fast, but he knew she was gone. Eradicated.
"Now you know I'm ready," he said softly.
**
1992
The cabin was cold, so very cold, and there was so much snow Dad had sent them inside and finished burying the salt himself. Dean was quiet, not asking many questions, and he gave Sam all the dried apples before Sam could even ask. For some reason, that scared Sam, and he gave them back. "I'm full," he said, and Dean only nodded, putting one of the apples in his mouth while he cleared the table of plates and spoons, not a trace of their bean soup left.
They changed into pajamas without being told, and when their father came inside, covered in snow and face red from the cold, he nodded approvingly. He pulled his gloves off and stamped snow from his feet, and Sam watched him, thinking of how big John was, how he and Dean were never going to be that big, or as strong.
Dean poked Sam in the back, and Sam sighed. He clambered into the bed, Dean right behind him, and they huddled together in the middle of the bed, a small pool of warmth against the storm outside. Over Dean's head, Sam could see John puttering around the room, adding wood to the fire, checking the door and windows, inspecting the salt lines.
"Dean," Sam whispered. Sam put his cold nose against Dean's shoulder, and didn't move it when Dean tried to jostle him off.
"Quit it!" Dean said, swatting at him, but Sam didn't budge. Dean was warm. Safe.
"Dean," Sam said again, and this time, Dean burrowed around in the bed until he was facing Sam. He glanced up at Dad, then whispered,
"What, pain in my ass?"
"What's a fallback position?"
For a second, Dean's face went puzzled, and then he said, "Why?"
"Dad said," Sam started, and then shook his head. "I didn't understand."
"It means...a place to go when there's nowhere else. Like, a last resort." Dean yanked at the covers, pulling them up to his ears.
"Does it mean having your back?"
"Sort of. Yeah." Dean smiled just a little. "Wherever I am, that's your fallback position."
"And wherever I am is yours?"
"Sure, Sammy." Dean squeezed his head, shoving it into the pillow. "Now shut up and go to sleep, I'm tired." He rolled back over, and Sam immediately put his nose right back where it was, even as Dean wriggled and tried to move it. Eventually, he gave up. Sam closed his eyes, and as he was drifting off, he felt his father's hand on his head, and the covers pulled up to his neck, past Dean's bony shoulders, shielding them from the cold, together.
**
2008
Just after dawn, Sam put on a hoodie and went outside to dig a grave for Ruby's host. The ground was partially frozen, but soil and grass parted easily enough when Sam applied some of his surprising strength. It had been weeks since he'd had a hard workout, and he enjoyed the hard burn of physical labor, the trickle of sweat between his shoulder blades.
Dean emerged from the cabin just as Sam lowered Ruby's host into the ground. She seemed tiny against the darkened earth, anonymous and beautiful, her name forever lost along with her life. Sam could remember when she'd first burst into the room, stabbing Pride and saving him. It was the first time any demon had ever helped him; it was the first time any demon had ever called him Boy King. It seemed too convenient, now; the puzzle pieces fitting together in ways he couldn't see, before.
"Here." Dean handed him a cup of hot coffee, and Sam wrapped his ungloved hands around the plain white mug. Dean's expression was hard when he glanced down into the grave, seeing not the body, but what used to inhabit it. "Good riddance."
Sam nodded, staring down at her. Dean watched him with eyes so shuttered, Sam had no idea what he was thinking. But he knew what Dean was feeling - fear, and wonder, and most of all, a love so immense Sam didn't have any vocabulary for it. It didn't matter. What Dean was to him wasn't contained in words. If there was any language between them, it was what Sam had drawn on Dean's body through the night, with Ruby's invisible blood on his hands, and the way Dean's fingertips bruised Sam's skin in return, strong and possessive.
"It won't be enough to kill one of them," Dean said. "We don't know how many demons Lilith has, but you'll have to be able to kill hundreds. Thousands. To be ready."
"I'll need practice, then." Sam took a deep breath, and said, "We should head down the mountain. Find some demons. We need to hunt."
"Sam...you're sure about this?"
Sam took a deep breath. Dean would always ask him the essential question. It was as necessary to Sam as air. "I say we go down, do a little quick-and-dirty hunting, get supplied, and then...come back up," Sam said. "Dig in. Stay here, for a while."
A light snow was falling, coating Dean's hair and the shoulders of his jacket with a bare dusting of white. "I'm not sure there's time," he said.
Sam knew Dean could feel what was out there, invisible to those who had no reason to fear them; he had been sensing the hellhounds since sometime late the night before. They stalked the edges of the woods, impatient and scenting what they'd been dispatched to kill, and Sam knew where each of them was, could trace the vibration of each paw in the snow.
Sam stretched his mind out toward the forest and touched each of the hellhounds. One by one, like snuffing candles, he extinguished them, removed them from the earth so they couldn't come baying for Dean's blood. In his arms, Dean shuddered, Sam's power spilling over into him, against him. He kissed Dean again, deep, deeper, pushed out with his mind and snapped necks, pushed back against the flood of devils Lilith sent in Ruby's wake.
With each extermination, Sam felt his power growing.
When he was finished, only two hounds were left, and he touched what had once been their core nature. Even in hell, the hounds were meant to obey, and he gave them his command.
Come.
Eyes closed, he pushed gently at the air around them, heard Dean's gasp as the wind gave way to his will, and opened his eyes to see the snow falling everywhere, a thick soft curtain, except across the two of them. Now Dean's gaze was focused on Sam, a mixture of open admiration and a glimmer of fear.
He curled his hand behind Dean's neck and touched Dean's lips with his own and opened him, breathed warmth into him. "Let the bitch come," he murmured. "Let her try to take you."
"You are so that chick in X-Men," Dean said, grinning as Sam chuckled and pressed their mouths together for another kiss.
"I'm hotter," Sam said, earning a disbelieving snort from Dean.
Dean arched into him, hard and aching against Sam, his hand curved strong at the base of Sam's neck. They fused together, sharing warmth and breath, until finally Sam broke away to look into Dean's eyes.
"She can't have you," Sam said.
"Yeah, well. She can't have you, either. If I stay, you stay."
Sam ran his hand up through Dean's hair, wet with snow, and traced back down through the mass of freckles that had fascinated him when he was only a kid, and everything in the world was a source of wonder. "Yes," he said softly. "And if you go, I go."
Dean swallowed hard, but it was a contract between them, now, one that overwrote Dean's hardwiring on the subject of Sam. In it together, until the end. Sam was sure, now.
"C'mon, let's get packed." Dean turned back toward the cabin.
Sam picked up the shovel. "Once I'm finished, I'll be in."
Once the door closed behind him, Sam let the snow return to its random patterns, everything pristine and clean. The invisible lines his father drew around their refuge were as clear to him now as neon brands in the snow. The hellhounds skulked toward them, whining low in their throats, their massive bulk crouched down to the ground. They cowered there, and Sam let them grovel, bellies against the snow.
Sam crouched down in front of them. They reeked of a cringing, mindless fear, and he could tell they wanted to shuffle away. But they held their ground, and Sam held the moment, watching them.
"You belong to me, now," he said quietly. "You kill anything that comes to this place, except me, and my brother, Dean." At the mention of Dean's name, the hounds shuffled back, trembling under the force of conflicting orders. "You don't touch him."
They snuffled their understanding.
"And when the time comes," Sam said, looking off into the distance, "you will lead me back to the one who sent you."
Around them, the snow fell softly, and the world outside was lost in a sea of white.
end
Winter, part one and part two
2008
Sam woke from a sound sleep, the first he'd had in weeks without a dream of chasing Dean down a long tunnel with the sensation of bones crunching beneath his feet. The cabin was silent, the fire dwindled much too far, but there was a chill in the air which had nothing to do with weather.
Silently, he slid from bed, pausing to slide his hand across Dean's arm as he moved. He pulled his clothes on quickly, shoes and socks, parka, and then stepped out into the storm. The wind battered at his ears, snow pelting him sideways.
He could feel her out there, a malevolent cat stalking the edges of a line in the dirt, a protection he had helped create.
For a moment, he was still, searching for her with that new, strange part of his mind that understood how to find her. She might as well have been glowing in the dark, for the stink of sulfur and corruption on her. He smiled and stepped off the porch.
The snow moved around him, and he was isolated in clear weather, enough to see her clearly. Enough to feel her fear. She hovered there at the edge of the circle, no coat, no need, pacing the trace of salt and iron in the earth, as if testing the boundary. Her full focus was on Sam, an intense stare, and beneath, a calculating smile.
"How did you find us?" Sam asked.
Ruby tsked. "What kind of a demon would I be if I wasn't resourceful enough to find a Winchester? There are ways, Sam. Many ways."
"Good point." He stood watching her, and finally she stopped, facing him, arms folded across her chest. "Of course, no one invited you, so. Why are you here?"
"You flipped the switch," she said, her black eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "You've turned on the power."
"That I did," he said.
Ruby exhaled, a long, slow hiss. "You should have waited for me," she said. "Should have asked me. Do you know how much I could teach you? How many things I know?"
"Yeah, well, it doesn't matter now." Sam shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged.
"You're finally ready," she breathed.
"What is it you think I'm ready for, again?"
"To stop Lilith. To lead the army you were born to lead."
"I'm not leading any army," he said, thinking back to his visions. "At least, no army you're a part of." He moved closer to the line. "Maybe you should tell me what this is all about, Ruby. Everything, this time -- no holding back."
With startling grace, she sank down to her knees before him and bowed her head, hiding the gloating smile on her face. "My king."
Sam laughed out loud. "Are you serious with that?"
She watched him, eyes still darker than the night around them. "Deadly serious. I swore my allegiance to you, Sam, and I meant it. I can feel the power in you now. It's stronger than most demons. Stronger than me."
"I know." He regarded her for a moment, listening to her silence in the face of his demand for truth, then said, "I don't need your help, Ruby. I don't trust you, because I don't know what your agenda is, but I guarantee, it isn't mine."
"Agenda?" She stood again, her posture wary. "I thought your agenda was saving Dean."
"Oh, it is. Just, not the way you thought."
"Sam. I can still help you. I can stand beside you, lead the way."
"I don't think I want to go where you'd lead me."
"Or maybe you're not strong enough to lead at all." She grinned, and it was more like a baring of teeth. "You know, you haven't really tried those powers out on anything besides a pile of wood. And we all know your brother is just a spineless, powerless human, don't we? Not like there's anything he can do to help you. Or stop me." Her eyes narrowed. "How do I know you're really ready?"
Sam's jaw tightened. Of course, she'd been spying on them. He should have expected it. When he shifted focus from her, tendrils of malevolence brushed against his mind, the signature of other demons, waiting out of human earshot. She wasn't alone.
The snow made a cocoon for him, soft and cool. He closed his eyes, tipped his head back and let the flakes fall gently against his face. Slow breaths, deep and even.
Inside, Dean slept, but he was dreaming. Sam could see fragments of it, bright lights, silver swords, and a language he couldn't understand. Around them, the woods were alive with predators large and small, things sleeping, things hunting. He could sense them all, every tiny beating heart, each of them unique. Each of them his for the taking.
Only one of them posed a threat.
It was a simple thing to cloak Ruby in this strange new power, and to realize the heart of her host was no longer beating, was colder than the snow around them. Without moving, he reached into the bone cage which held her and took hold of her essence, pulling it toward him. Eyes closed, he listened as she choked, as she rasped a strangled version of his name, and slowly, he began to pull her apart. Pain ricocheted around his brain, but he held his hand steady, imagining whatever demons were made of was inside his fist, and he squeezed until the last of it dissipated into the night air.
"Turn back," he whispered to the night, and the echo of it shivered through the forest, slid across the black form of each demon. They stopped, their fear and confusion a palpable bitterness Sam could taste in the frigid air, and then they began to retreat, dark streaks in a moonless sky.
He didn't realize he'd fallen into the snow until he tasted it on his lips - metallic wetness, blood and snow mixed together. He sat up, unable to see Ruby's body now that the snow was falling full and fast, but he knew she was gone. Eradicated.
"Now you know I'm ready," he said softly.
**
1992
The cabin was cold, so very cold, and there was so much snow Dad had sent them inside and finished burying the salt himself. Dean was quiet, not asking many questions, and he gave Sam all the dried apples before Sam could even ask. For some reason, that scared Sam, and he gave them back. "I'm full," he said, and Dean only nodded, putting one of the apples in his mouth while he cleared the table of plates and spoons, not a trace of their bean soup left.
They changed into pajamas without being told, and when their father came inside, covered in snow and face red from the cold, he nodded approvingly. He pulled his gloves off and stamped snow from his feet, and Sam watched him, thinking of how big John was, how he and Dean were never going to be that big, or as strong.
Dean poked Sam in the back, and Sam sighed. He clambered into the bed, Dean right behind him, and they huddled together in the middle of the bed, a small pool of warmth against the storm outside. Over Dean's head, Sam could see John puttering around the room, adding wood to the fire, checking the door and windows, inspecting the salt lines.
"Dean," Sam whispered. Sam put his cold nose against Dean's shoulder, and didn't move it when Dean tried to jostle him off.
"Quit it!" Dean said, swatting at him, but Sam didn't budge. Dean was warm. Safe.
"Dean," Sam said again, and this time, Dean burrowed around in the bed until he was facing Sam. He glanced up at Dad, then whispered,
"What, pain in my ass?"
"What's a fallback position?"
For a second, Dean's face went puzzled, and then he said, "Why?"
"Dad said," Sam started, and then shook his head. "I didn't understand."
"It means...a place to go when there's nowhere else. Like, a last resort." Dean yanked at the covers, pulling them up to his ears.
"Does it mean having your back?"
"Sort of. Yeah." Dean smiled just a little. "Wherever I am, that's your fallback position."
"And wherever I am is yours?"
"Sure, Sammy." Dean squeezed his head, shoving it into the pillow. "Now shut up and go to sleep, I'm tired." He rolled back over, and Sam immediately put his nose right back where it was, even as Dean wriggled and tried to move it. Eventually, he gave up. Sam closed his eyes, and as he was drifting off, he felt his father's hand on his head, and the covers pulled up to his neck, past Dean's bony shoulders, shielding them from the cold, together.
**
2008
Just after dawn, Sam put on a hoodie and went outside to dig a grave for Ruby's host. The ground was partially frozen, but soil and grass parted easily enough when Sam applied some of his surprising strength. It had been weeks since he'd had a hard workout, and he enjoyed the hard burn of physical labor, the trickle of sweat between his shoulder blades.
Dean emerged from the cabin just as Sam lowered Ruby's host into the ground. She seemed tiny against the darkened earth, anonymous and beautiful, her name forever lost along with her life. Sam could remember when she'd first burst into the room, stabbing Pride and saving him. It was the first time any demon had ever helped him; it was the first time any demon had ever called him Boy King. It seemed too convenient, now; the puzzle pieces fitting together in ways he couldn't see, before.
"Here." Dean handed him a cup of hot coffee, and Sam wrapped his ungloved hands around the plain white mug. Dean's expression was hard when he glanced down into the grave, seeing not the body, but what used to inhabit it. "Good riddance."
Sam nodded, staring down at her. Dean watched him with eyes so shuttered, Sam had no idea what he was thinking. But he knew what Dean was feeling - fear, and wonder, and most of all, a love so immense Sam didn't have any vocabulary for it. It didn't matter. What Dean was to him wasn't contained in words. If there was any language between them, it was what Sam had drawn on Dean's body through the night, with Ruby's invisible blood on his hands, and the way Dean's fingertips bruised Sam's skin in return, strong and possessive.
"It won't be enough to kill one of them," Dean said. "We don't know how many demons Lilith has, but you'll have to be able to kill hundreds. Thousands. To be ready."
"I'll need practice, then." Sam took a deep breath, and said, "We should head down the mountain. Find some demons. We need to hunt."
"Sam...you're sure about this?"
Sam took a deep breath. Dean would always ask him the essential question. It was as necessary to Sam as air. "I say we go down, do a little quick-and-dirty hunting, get supplied, and then...come back up," Sam said. "Dig in. Stay here, for a while."
A light snow was falling, coating Dean's hair and the shoulders of his jacket with a bare dusting of white. "I'm not sure there's time," he said.
Sam knew Dean could feel what was out there, invisible to those who had no reason to fear them; he had been sensing the hellhounds since sometime late the night before. They stalked the edges of the woods, impatient and scenting what they'd been dispatched to kill, and Sam knew where each of them was, could trace the vibration of each paw in the snow.
Sam stretched his mind out toward the forest and touched each of the hellhounds. One by one, like snuffing candles, he extinguished them, removed them from the earth so they couldn't come baying for Dean's blood. In his arms, Dean shuddered, Sam's power spilling over into him, against him. He kissed Dean again, deep, deeper, pushed out with his mind and snapped necks, pushed back against the flood of devils Lilith sent in Ruby's wake.
With each extermination, Sam felt his power growing.
When he was finished, only two hounds were left, and he touched what had once been their core nature. Even in hell, the hounds were meant to obey, and he gave them his command.
Come.
Eyes closed, he pushed gently at the air around them, heard Dean's gasp as the wind gave way to his will, and opened his eyes to see the snow falling everywhere, a thick soft curtain, except across the two of them. Now Dean's gaze was focused on Sam, a mixture of open admiration and a glimmer of fear.
He curled his hand behind Dean's neck and touched Dean's lips with his own and opened him, breathed warmth into him. "Let the bitch come," he murmured. "Let her try to take you."
"You are so that chick in X-Men," Dean said, grinning as Sam chuckled and pressed their mouths together for another kiss.
"I'm hotter," Sam said, earning a disbelieving snort from Dean.
Dean arched into him, hard and aching against Sam, his hand curved strong at the base of Sam's neck. They fused together, sharing warmth and breath, until finally Sam broke away to look into Dean's eyes.
"She can't have you," Sam said.
"Yeah, well. She can't have you, either. If I stay, you stay."
Sam ran his hand up through Dean's hair, wet with snow, and traced back down through the mass of freckles that had fascinated him when he was only a kid, and everything in the world was a source of wonder. "Yes," he said softly. "And if you go, I go."
Dean swallowed hard, but it was a contract between them, now, one that overwrote Dean's hardwiring on the subject of Sam. In it together, until the end. Sam was sure, now.
"C'mon, let's get packed." Dean turned back toward the cabin.
Sam picked up the shovel. "Once I'm finished, I'll be in."
Once the door closed behind him, Sam let the snow return to its random patterns, everything pristine and clean. The invisible lines his father drew around their refuge were as clear to him now as neon brands in the snow. The hellhounds skulked toward them, whining low in their throats, their massive bulk crouched down to the ground. They cowered there, and Sam let them grovel, bellies against the snow.
Sam crouched down in front of them. They reeked of a cringing, mindless fear, and he could tell they wanted to shuffle away. But they held their ground, and Sam held the moment, watching them.
"You belong to me, now," he said quietly. "You kill anything that comes to this place, except me, and my brother, Dean." At the mention of Dean's name, the hounds shuffled back, trembling under the force of conflicting orders. "You don't touch him."
They snuffled their understanding.
"And when the time comes," Sam said, looking off into the distance, "you will lead me back to the one who sent you."
Around them, the snow fell softly, and the world outside was lost in a sea of white.
end