There's a Hole In You and Me Part VII
Part VI
The sun is hanging low in the sky when they head out, each carrying a backpack and a shovel, Sam additionally carrying a sawed-off shotgun. Salt is heavier than you’d think and Dean doesn’t understand why they need so much but for once he’s keeping his mouth shut because Sam’s gone even quieter than usual. Dean feels it too - this tension, like a thousand rubber bands stretched almost to breaking.
The path they take circumvents the camp, but when they pass near the Big Barn, Dean can hear the chatter of dozens of campers and counselors over dinner. He wonders what Dave’s doing, if Rachel’s still putting up with him, who’s taken over his spot in Skunk cabin. He’s surprised to find that he doesn’t miss it - it’s weird, Dean loves camp, looks forward to it all year, but lately it’s been sort of... predictable. It’s the adventure he loves, and camp is feeling less and less like one.
Sam motions for him to stop about a half hour after they pass the camp and Dean follows him out to a boulder overlooking the lake.
“What are we doing?” Dean asks, quiet though no one’s around. Sam hands him a sandwich.
“Dinner. Won’t have time to eat later.” Sam waves the sandwich in Dean’s face. “C’mon.”
Dean takes the sandwich obediently, ignoring the expectant look Sam is giving him.
They eat in silence, Sam twitching every time Dean’s chewing makes any kind of noise, Dean trying hard to eat silently. Before they get back on the trail, Sam turns to Dean.
“Listen, so, I told you it might not be as simple as digging her up and setting her on fire, right?”
Dean nods.
“Sometimes, when we try to break their hold on this plane, the spirit shows up.” The way Sam says it is a little too casual, just enough to have Dean paying attention.
“What, it pops up and says boo?” Dean jokes, though he’s starting to feel a stirring of unexpected fear. He’s ready for this, he wants to do this, and yet...
“No, Dean. Can you grow up for five minutes and take this seriously? I told you this morning that this could be dangerous. This is what I was talking about - you have salt and I brought iron, and there’s iron shot for this,” he says, hefting the shotgun he’s been carrying. “It’s unlikely that she’ll show before we start the fire, but just in case, keep an eye out, okay?”
Sam gives him a look, like Dean’s a child that needs to be reminded five times to tie his shoelaces, and Dean nods obediently.
Sam stares at him for a long moment before they set out again.
***
Digging graves is never a good time. Sam remembers the first time he wanted to help on an actual hunt, not just on research, Mary had him dig up a corpse. It was a low-risk job with his mother watching over him and the ghost was weak anyway, but Sam remembers being thrilled at first. The body hadn’t been under for long though, and whether it was the faint smell of decomposition or just the knowledge that he was a foot away from a rotting corpse, Sam doesn’t know - he ended up retching all over the coffin.
Rose has been dead a good long while, though, so her grave smells like damp earth and nothing else. Sam and Dean are both covered in graveyard mud and Dean keeps slipping and falling to his knees in the dirt. He’s been grumbling since the beginning, about how wet the ground is, about the fact that they buried Rose under a tree with extremely strong roots that apparently grew over the coffin, about the fact that Sam’s been mostly keeping watch and not digging.
That last one’s sort of true, but for one thing, they need someone to keep watch and Sam thinks it should definitely be the guy who can use a gun, and for another, it’s Dean’s first (and probably only) hunt, so he should put in the physical labor. Seniority and all that.
Still, Sam’s in the pit clearing away the last of the dirt alongside Dean when Dean’s clumsiness and general lack of efficiency starts to grate on him. He never seemed like such a weakling before, but tonight he’s turned into a delicate, slow-moving klutz. Sam’s getting more than irritated, he’s getting truly angry. Enraged, really. If Dean wanted to be back at the cabin and warm in his bed, he could be. Sam doesn’t have the luxury of that choice, but Dean does. Instead, he’s out here, making Sam’s job harder.
Dean tosses a shovelful of dirt over the edge of the pit and misses, half of it landing back in the hole, half in Sam’s hair. It’s the last straw and Sam doesn’t even know why - it was an accident and Sam’s been far filthier in his life, but for some reason every speck of dirt on his body feels like it’s digging in, his skin crawling with disgust and resentment.
He throws a punch and Dean jerks back, caught by surprise. He spins to face Sam, face twisted in an helpless mask of bewilderment, before taking a step back that nearly sends him sprawling into the mud. Sam throws his shovel down and shoves Dean back but Dean gets one foot free and plants it in Sam’s stomach, sending him crashing into the dirt.
Dean scrambles out of the pit with Sam on his heels and wheels around to face him, fear written clear across his face. There’s a hot ball of anger in Sam’s gut and he could swear his blood’s on fire with the need to hurt, to finally take what should have always been his.
Dean drops to his knees, hacking and coughing deep enough that Sam feels a twinge of sympathetic pain in his lungs. Somehow, it only fuels the fury - always so sick, always so weak, how they ever have trusted her with everything when she’s -
There’s a little voice in the back of his mind yelling that something’s wrong but his entire body is screaming for blood and he’s lurching forward, arm swinging wildly at Dean, except it’s not Dean kneeling before him. Or it is, but it’s also a frail-looking woman in a plain white dress, dirty blonde hair hanging in front of her face, her hands clasped white-knuckled in her lap.
The sight should stop him short but it doesn’t and Sam’s fist sends Dean and the woman to the ground. There’s another twinge of wrong but it’s wiped away by a fresh wave of anger and Dean isn’t even getting up, so weak, always so fucking helpless.
Sam straddles Dean’s torso, his hands on shoulders that are somehow hard and broad and frail and bony, the face under him shifting from freckle-spattered cheekbones, full, red lips and a strong nose to near-translucent pale skin, deep hollowed cheeks and purple circles under colorless grey eyes.
There’s something shifting in him, too, affection and devotion mingling with anger and envy until he can’t tell which is which.
She doesn’t appear with a flash or a loud crack or even a scream. She’s just sort of... there, standing beside her grave and calmly looking on. She seems surprised when Sam looks up at her.
“This is the part where you kill me,” she says, a kind reminder as if he’d forgotten his line in the play they’re all putting on.
Somehow, the sight of a woman who’s been dead for over eighty years gives Sam something to hold onto. This is something he’s sure is real, this is something he knows.
“Is this what you do?” he asks, his voice raspy and low like it’s never been before. He realizes he’s speaking through clenched teeth, anger still surging strong through him. “Take people and make them live out your death?”
She nods without a hint of shame.
“You provide the anger and I provide the script. We play it out and all that energy - a crime of passion, blood killing blood - keeps me here. Keeps me going until...” She trails off, a confused look tinging her delicate features.
“Until you kill someone else? That’s the entire point of your existence now?” She doesn’t answer but Sam’s caught on something else she said.
“Blood killing blood?”
The body beneath him groans and shifts and Sam looks down. It’s Dean again and Sam heaves a sigh of relief before looking back up to Rose.
“Siblings. Nothing like the anger between siblings - so much jealousy, so much love. It’s the reason I’m dead,” she says simply.
“Actually,” Dean grunts, “you’d probably be dead anyway, you’re like a hundred years old.”
Sam laughs. Rose glares at him and he’s slammed by another hit of anger, the need to rip into Dean, to wrap his fingers around his throat and squeeze... Under him, Dean coughs sickly.
“Siblings,” Dean rasps out.
Sam stares at him. His fingers keep inching toward Dean’s neck but the words knock him out of it, brings him back to himself. It takes him a moment to find his voice.
“Us?” He directs the question at Rose, but he’s looking at Dean. Dean’s staring back at him, but not in disbelief. He looks... thoughtful. And suddenly Sam is thinking. A little brother who died when he was four... And Sam had a brother once, but he left with Dad...
“Is - Your dad’s not -”
“John Winchester,” Dean says. Sam waits for it to hit him - the shock, the realization - but there’s nothing. He’s just... numb.
Numb. No anger, no pesky urge to throttle his... brother.
So he rolls off Dean and runs to the edge of the pit, turning back in time to catch the backpack Dean tosses to him. He pours the entire package of salt in to the sound of familiar unearthly screams. Rose rushes at him but Dean’s there, holding the shotgun all wrong but firing iron through her anyway. It’s just enough to take her out for a moment and Dean takes advantage of it to pour gasoline over the coffin.
Rose reappears and the backpack flies out of Sam’s hands, landing twenty feet away from the grave. She smiles sweetly.
“Now go kill your brother like mine killed me,” she says and Sam can feel it coming back, barely a spark now but ready to roar into an all-consuming rage.
“Sam.”
Sam turns and Dean’s throwing him something else, something smaller than a backpack. He catches it out of reflex and opens his hand to find a matchbox. With a grin, Sam lights two at once and tosses them in before Rose can even open her mouth.
***
The screams are still ringing in Dean’s ears when he picks himself up. Strength is flowing back into his limbs, the cold ache disappearing from his chest and the haziness bleeding away from his vision.
“She gone?” he asks Sam, who’s gathering the equipment and stuffing it back in his backpack. He gives a short nod and doesn’t look back at Dean as he starts to head back to the trail.
Sam slows down after a few minutes and Dean is grateful - the weird ghost illness he just suffered through seems to have left behind a few aches and he’s crashing down from an adrenaline high like he’s never felt.
By the time they get back to the cabin, Dean’s nearly shaking with exhaustion and is starting to consider skipping a shower and going straight to bed.
He’s covered in grave dirt and he can’t stop shaking though, so he throws the pack down and heads straight to the shower. He’s surprised when Sam follows him but he doesn’t stop him. They don’t speak - don’t even make eye contact, crowded into the tiny stall. Sam lets Dean rub soap into his skin, lets his hands linger in places he’s not sure they should. He’s keeping his mind carefully blank, not daring to think and finding it strangely easy - exhaustion probably helps.
Sam stands closer than is necessary the whole time, and just as the water’s turning freezing cold and they’re both scrubbed clean, he leans in until they’re touching in more places than not and presses his forehead into Dean’s shoulder. It only lasts a couple of seconds but the touch is just enough to convince Dean that everything’s going to be okay.
***
Dean’s had time to think about it - he fell asleep immediately that night, but this morning he spent two hours lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling and going over and over it. And he’s okay with it. Sam’s his brother - the one he thought was dead. And he’s not dead; neither is Dean’s mom, which in itself is enough of a good thing to make up for all of the bad. Dean wonders where she is, when he can see her again - it hurts that she left, that she took Sam, but Dean figures it was necessary - something about hunting, about protecting Dean from it.
Sam’s outside when Dean finally gets up. He’s doing pushups in the wet grass, shirt off, skin already glistening with sweat and dew. Dean sits on the front steps of the cabin and watches him for a few minutes, Sam’s sharp intakes of breath on every upstroke and his slim, wiry body eliciting a nice thrum of arousal under Dean’s skin. He waits for Sam to sit up and notice him before speaking.
“We should probably talk about last night, huh?” Dean asks. Sam scowls at him.
“I didn’t know, okay.”
Dean stares. Sam rolls his eyes and starts to get up off the grass, reaching for his shirt.
“I didn’t know we were... related. I wouldn’t have -”
The reality of what Sam’s saying clicks and Dean recoils.
“I know! Why would you...”
Sam shrugs.
Dean shakes his head like a dog ridding itself of water and moves on.
“So we’re... brothers.” He lets out the breath he was holding. “It’s weird man, I was always trying to find your name, like it was on the tip of my tongue for what, fourteen years? And I couldn’t ask Dad, he gets weird and quiet if I ever mention you or mom. Sam. That’s it.”
“Yeah, I know my name, thanks,” Sam says irritably as he heads back toward the cabin.
“Hey! Aren’t you - Don’t you wanna... you know, talk? About this?” Dean asks, gesturing between them. Sam jerks his head: No. He grabs his towel and heads for the shower.
“Want some company?” Dean asks, quirking an eyebrow. Sam completely ignores him.
***
The next three days are torture for Sam. Avoiding Dean while living with him in a tiny cabin requires him to be inventive and cruel in ways he isn’t used to using against people. He shuts Dean down hard enough that Dean stops talking, stops asking him about Mary and instead sits on his bed not saying a word for hours at a time. The contrast with Dean’s usual talkative, ridiculously charming attitude makes something in Sam’s chest ache.
When Dave and Stan finally come to get them and they hike back down to the main camp, Sam watches Dean paste on a smile and joke around with his friends. He shoots one awkward, tense look back at Sam, and Sam gets it - Dean’s probably still worried Sam’s going to tell everyone a counselor fucked him. He’s not though. He has nothing left to gain by it.
He sneaks into the office and uses the phone to call Mary the next morning and she says
someone can be there in a day.
***
Being back at camp with Sam is a relief and fresh wave of discomfort. Over the past few days, Deans’ gotten used to Sam’s cold silence. He wants to keep trying, keep talking until Sam has no choice but to respond, but something’s stopping him. There’s something too close to panic behind Sam’s distance and it keeps Dean from pushing.
Dean’s in the arts and crafts room helping a kid unknot a friendship bracelet (after two weeks of lakewater and sun the knot is basically a lumpy, faded blue rock) when he overhears Brad talking to one of the girls.
“You hear that Campbell kid is leaving early? Guess he figured out camp’s not for him.”
The girl says something Dean can’t hear over his suddenly pounding heart and Brad laughs.
“Yeah, well if you hate everyone, this isn’t the place for you.”
Dean reaches for the scissors and snips the bracelet off before clapping the kid on the shoulder and taking off. He barely arrives in time - Sam’s already sitting on the bench at the end of the driveway and Dean can hear a car winding between the trees toward them.
“Hey.”
Sam doesn’t look up.
“Is you- mom coming to pick you up? Can I see her?” It’s not the first thing he meant to say but he can’t stop thinking about it, wondering if she looks like the fuzzy picture in his head, like the creased photo Dad keeps in his wallet.
Sam shakes his head and Dean’s heart sinks a little.
“Can I have a phone number or something?” Dean asks and Sam snorts.
“We don’t have a phone. We don’t even live anywhere.”
“How will I reach you?” Dean asks, getting a little desperate. Sam finally looks up at him as the car - a beat up Camaro - crunches to a stop next to them.
“You won’t. You were never supposed to know we were alive.” Dean opens his mouth but Sam cuts him off. “Trust me, it’s for the best. You don’t know what’s out there. You don’t know what we are. Be grateful for that.”
He gets in the car and the minute it’s gone, Dean hates himself for not fighting, for not grabbing Sam and wrapping his arms around him and not ever ever letting him leave.
Part VIII