Blue Skies From Rain Part 1 - Chapter 1
The coffee jigged into Sam’s system just as Dean pulled up in front of the warehouse and turned the wipers off. He took his sweet time, turning off the engine, as if not really wanting to cut the rumbling, metallic sound that Sam privately thought Dean heard as a song.
“I still think we should leave the bodies, someone will find them and-”
“I told you Sam, no evidence is good evidence. We’re getting rid of everything, because that fucker Henriksen is looking for something just like this to track us with.”
“But the families,” said Sam, carrying on, insisting on carrying on, as he got out of the Impala and carefully shut the door. It was an argument that was hours old, but he couldn’t let it go. “What about the families? If we destroy the evidence then they won’t ever find out what happened, they won’t ever have closure.”
Dean stepped out of the driver’s side and shut the door with some force, something Sam wouldn’t have been able to get away with. His brother looked at him over the top of the rain-spattered car. “And that’s my problem, how?”
“It’s your problem,” began Sam, then he realized he was talking to Dean’s leather-clad back as Dean walked towards the side door to the warehouse. Sam raced to catch up, like he felt like he’d been doing his whole life, sneakers smashing through the puddles, the light morning rain catching the sides of his face. He swung open the door as Dean let it fall closed. “It’s your problem because it’s the right thing to do. And easy enough-”
It was like talking to a wall. Dean was all for burning the bodies, burning all the evidence and leaving no trace. His argument had begun before breakfast, as had Sam’s counter-argument of leaving the bodies for someone to find so that they could be traced back to their families. As Sam trotted behind Dean through the damp dust of the warehouse, and turning through narrow corridors, he knew that within seconds of him laying out his next logical statement, Dean would play the big brother token. It was a given.
In the darkness, he didn’t realize that Dean had stopped, bumping into him, hands flailing, trying to catch purchase on Dean’s arms.
“Knock it off,” said Dean, snapping, brushing Sam away like an errant moth. “What is that.”
He was pointing to the floor where a dark blob curled across the wooden floor. Sam pulled out his mini-flashlight, turned the end, and aimed the light at the floor. For a long minute, they both stared, then Sam glanced around the room, using the flashlight to check everything out. Yes, there were the bodies from last night, still tied up, still screaming in rictus, looking like the leftovers from some spider’s supper.
“Sam, here,” said Dean. He poked Sam with an elbow and Sam obeyed. Flashed the light on the floor again.
Yes. It was the djinn, and from the darkish puddle around the upper part of his body, he had not died last night. Was still bleeding, perhaps. Sam did not feel sorry for the creature, it had caused enough harm to not deserve pity, but it did surprise him that the blow he thought he’d delivered, a sound, killing blow, hadn’t done the trick. He worked his tongue along the inside of his teeth, feeling his jaw muscles pull, and waited the span of heartbeats as he heard Dean draw in a breath.
It wasn’t fair, really, this conflict inside of him. On the one hand, the idea that Dean had chosen to come out of the djinn’s spell because That Sam and Dean had not gotten along, pulled on something heavy and sweet in Sam’s chest. Dean had come back from That Sam for him, this Sam.
On the other hand, whatever had happened to Dean there, and whether that was some confrontation with That Sam or That Mom, he didn’t know, but whatever happened to Dean had strung him so tightly, that there was no push to him. No give. No take. He just was. It would take at least a thousand miles of open road, many cups of terrible Stop-n-Sip coffee, and at least a hundred repeats of Zeppelin Four, Side Two (if they could find the cassette), to get Dean even remotely relaxed. Sam hated Zeppelin. But what was worse was that in about two seconds or less, Dean was going to call him out on his sloppy knife-work.
“Get something to poke him with,” said Dean, casting his eyes about.
“You poke him,” said Sam. “I stabbed him, it’s your job to poke him.” Not that that was a bright thing to say, it would remind Dean that much sooner how Sam had mucked up a simple stab job. Still, better to get it over with; Sam remembered that there was a Stop-n-Sip on the main highway out of Joliet.
Dean moved away, into the shadows, his boots stirring up the dust on the floor that smelled vaguely like chalk. Sam cast his flashlight around again, saw the boxes, the old typewriters, and rows of chalkboards, all lined up. That explained the smell; the boxes must be filled with chalk. No one used chalkboards anymore, all the schools had moved to white boards.
Just as Dean was coming back with a long ruler in his hand, Sam thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was on the floor, and it was moving. It was the djinn.
Sam stepped towards Dean, towards the djinn, and Dean, somehow not seeing where he was going, where his feet were in the darkness, stepped into the circle of the djinn’s body. Sam reached forward to pull him away, the djinn was moving, and reached up, with glassy eyes and both hands to grab their legs. Sam felt the current, like blue fire, zipping up his skin, burning through the air, crackling. His hair, static, eyes on Dean’s as the whole warehouse seemed to light up and explode. There was a deep boom, like the echo of a faraway crash of water in a hollow rock. There were Dean’s eyes, wide, and green, sparkling. Amazed.
And then there was blackness.
Chapter 2
Blue Skies From Rain Master Fic Post