Dirty Deeds... | R | 3 of 3
Christmas, 2013
Sam puts all thought of family out of his mind and concentrates on hunting. Jobs start slowing down around Christmas, so Sam finally gives his team some downtime. He ends up going south and stops once he hits Miami; Sam rents a condo for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. He lies around, does maintenance on all of his weapons, and slides into civilian life every so often, buying outlandish presents for everyone at the agency and Fed-Exing them the same day.
Charles calls on New Year’s Eve and dryly thanks Sam for the stuffed Yoda, just as Peaches beeps through on the GPS and seems pretty intent on finding out what exactly she’s supposed to do with a year’s supply of Georgia peaches. A few of the others on his research team IM at various times, promising him new texts or fun hunts in return for what he’s sent them. By the time January rolls around, Sam made up to look years younger and dancing in a club, he’s feeling relaxed, ready for the upcoming year.
He drinks his weight in champagne once the ball drops on the big screens and dances until the place closes four hours later, brushing off invitations to after-parties and hotels. After that, Sam walks through a sleepy Little Havana and watches the sun rise over the Atlantic with a pan con timba in hand.
It’s calm, mostly peaceful, and Sam falls asleep quickly once he returns to his rental, which turns out to be a good thing: he has a vision while he’s sleeping.
Sam wakes up, sits up in bed and stares at the Monet print on the wall across from the bed, thinking. With a muttered curse, he gets out of bed and IMs his research group.
Heading to New Mexico. Skinwalker that’s been animal for too long.
He doesn’t expect anyone to respond but Peaches writes back just as Sam’s getting ready to shut everything down and head for the car.
How’d you hear about this one? We don’t have any intel on the hunt.
Sam bites his lower lip, says, Contact last night. Start digging. Literally. Something about an abandoned mine shaft. People go in, no one comes out.
She promises to get working on it.
--
Sam drives right up to the mine shaft he’d seen in his vision. He parks the car, notes the Impala sitting there, covered in dust, and sighs. There won’t be any way to save Dean from what Sam saw happen in the vision without letting his family see him, so Sam’ll just have to deal with it.
He pushes the earpiece in and adjusts for volume, asking, “Is that a good feed?”
“Perfectly me in every way,” Peaches responds back, tart and brisk, teasing but sliding into professional-mode the way she does when Sam’s about ready to pull out the weapons.
Sam grins, lets his own focus swim through and drops the pleasantries. He’s on a hunt, not to mention coming in late to the party. The fact that it’s his family doesn’t even register, not when he’s like this.
“Recon is a go,” Charles says, voice coming through over the ear-bud. “Satellites are picking up three heat sources, two about five down and nine o’clock, one eight down and moving up, two o’clock.”
“Heading for latter,” Sam replies, taking out one gun and making sure it’s loaded, turning on a flashlight in the other hand, stepping into the mine.
It’s cool and dark; the flashlight helps but Sam’s senses help more until the flashlight is merely a distraction. He turns it off and leaves it at the side of the tunnel he’s in, taking a moment for his eyes to adjust to the lack of brightness. Whatever he is, he can see perfectly well after a few seconds despite the pitch black, and the air flowing up to him is beginning to smell of the supernatural.
That’s a better sign than anything else, even Charles telling him that the skinwalker’s closing in on his position. Sam nods, crouches, aims at a turn-off in the tunnel, and waits.
It’s not three minutes later that Charles is saying, “Correction. Target has changed direction and is now heading for the other two heat sources.”
“Give me directions,” he orders. “I need to beat it there.”
Peaches starts rattling things off and Sam’s running through tunnels, eyesight picking up low ceilings and obstructions on the floor early enough for him to avoid them.
“You’re coming in due east of the humans,” Peaches tells him. “Target skinwalker approaching from the northeast at similar rate. You’ll have to be on top of the humans before you can see the ‘walker.”
Sam nods even though Peaches can’t see him and keeps running. Within three minutes, Sam’s emerging out of a narrow tunnel into a wide cavern; John and Dean are on the other side.
“Get down!” Sam calls out, and they both instinctively duck. Sam glances at them just long enough to see that they’re rolling in opposite directions and coming up with guns, then turns his attention to the northeast entrance, where the skinwalker’s just leaping into the cavern.
Sam lets off a shot then crouches, moving in a zig-zag pattern as the skinwalker roars and comes towards him, not his family. Sam shoots again, then again, and when the skinwalker falls down, he pulls out a machete and makes sure to cut the head off.
“Picking up no sign of heart or brain activity,” Peaches says. “Body temperature has dropped a degree. Target nullified. Get out of there, Sam.”
He’s just about to, to run in any number of directions, into smaller tunnels with Peaches directing him back to the surface, but right when he’s tensing to move, hands grip each shoulder, heavy. Sam reacts as he’s been trained to do and spins, knocking the hands off of his body and then flying into motion as he neutralises both people who touched him.
Only after they’re on the ground, nursing broken noses or fingers, does Sam look down and meet the eyes of his father and his brother.
“Guess you were right,” Dean says, dryly. John snorts, but doesn’t take his eyes off of Sam.
“Well, fuck,” Sam says. Peaches and Charles, on the other end of communication, are silent.
--
Sam leaves, Peaches murmuring directions straight into his ear; he sprints to the surface gets into his car, hightailing his way out of the small town, driving through the night until he’s in the middle of Texas and desperate for sleep.
The GPS directs him to an agency safehouse and Sam parks the car in a garage, nods briskly at the two agents gaping at him when he enters the house.
“Just need a few hours of sleep before I’m on my way,” Sam says, heading for a bedroom. “I won’t bother either of you.”
As he walks past them, he hears one agent say to another, “Who the hell is that? I’ve never even heard of Epsilon Division and his clearance rating is off the fucking charts.”
“Sam Winchester,” the other answers, just as quietly. Sam’s turned a corner but he pauses, waits to hear if they say anything else. He’s not disappointed; the agent goes on to say, “He’s a legend back at HQ. Rumour has it he did ten years specialising in suicidal NSA missions; came back successful from every single one. He has an entire department working for him now, tech ops and everything. You’ve heard of Peaches Montgomery?” Evidently the other man must nod or give some sign of assent, because the agent adds, “She runs his team, her and some legendary supervisor that’s only ever handled Winchester’s cases for the past decade.”
Sam grins, goes to the bedroom, and sleeps like the dead for seven hours.
--
He takes a quick shower, dresses in the same clothes as yesterday, and strolls into the kitchen right around dinnertime. The agents are sitting at the table, pizza boxes between them, and they both look up at Sam as he walks through the doorway and pulls a glass down from the right cabinet without hesitation.
“Can we get you anything, Mr. Winchester?” one agent asks. Sam recognises his voice -- he’s the one that knew everything.
“No, thanks,” Sam says. “I’m just on my way out.”
Sam throws back a glass of water, steals a piece of pizza, and is back on the road in five minutes, heading north.
August, 2010
Sam’s not sure who’s tailing him, a watcher from the agency or the organisation he’s trying to infiltrate, but he doesn’t like it, doesn’t trust it. He leaves the bank where his cover works, tells the girl at the front desk that he’s going out for coffee, needs a break, and flirts with her a little before he leaves the skyrise.
Sam walks in the direction of Starbucks and slips into an alley halfway down the street. Using his odd ability to turn unnoticeable, Sam waits for his tail to enter the alley, look around and pause in sudden confusion, then knocks the tail unconscious. He studies the man on the ground, searches for any clue as to allegiance, and, when he doesn’t find it, he uses the tail’s own gun to put him permanently out of commission.
February, 2014
John and Dean have stopped hunting. Rather, they’ve stopped hunting supernatural things and have started hunting Sam. They almost catch him twice in January and Sam knows he has that kid back at the Roadhouse to blame; he’s about ready to bust the door down and shave Ash’s mullet off just to spite him. Without knowing it, the Winchesters almost cross paths again in late February but Sam catches sight of the Impala. He salts and burns the corpse he’s after in triple-time, then leaves and tries to figure out where to go next.
For a week, Sam drives aimlessly, stopping at the Grand Canyon for a day, driving up to Yosemite the next day, eating at Fisherman’s Wharf in Seattle a couple days after.
Finally, Sam calls headquarters and waits for Charles to rebuke him.
Charles doesn’t. In fact, everyone seems quiet, even sympathetic. Sam hates it, so when he gets Peaches on the other end of a secure phone line, the first thing he says is, “I’m not made of glass, y’know.”
Peaches laughs, says, “Right then, Sam. Normally we’d be sending you to Maine, but if that kid did crack our pattern, I can disregard that mission completely. The hunt at the bottom of our list is in southern California, but I could just as easily have someone here throw a dart at a map and see what we have in that area.”
Sam nods absently, changes lanes on the highway, and turns U2 down a couple of notches. “I’ve been thinking,” he says.
“I’ll be sure to warn POTUS in case of total world destruction,” Peaches replies dryly, immediately.
Sam snorts, says, “Ha, ha, very funny. Seriously, though. Maybe a confrontation would be better. Just get it over and done with.”
She’s silent for a few minutes, long enough for the song to change and for Bono to start belting out the next in the Joshua Tree line-up. “If that’s what you’d like to do,” she finally says. “But, Sam, you’ve been keeping clear of them ever since you retired. You sure about that?”
Sam thinks back to Stanford, sitting in that coffee shop, thinks back to the mine in New Mexico, thinks back to Brad’s bar. “As sure as I’ll ever be. Are you tracking them?”
He can hear her typing and she comes back with, “FBI’s got their location in Nebraska at the moment but they appear to be on the move. We can direct them or wait until they settle.”
“I’ll start heading that way,” Sam says. “Let me know when they plant roots.”
“You got it, Sam,” Peaches responds, and Sam would never admit to being comforted by the sympathy and fear implicit in her tone.
March, 2014
Sam ends up spending some time driving around the Rockies, almost tempting fate on high, curvy roads covered in ice and snow. It’s beautiful country, though, and, for the first time in a long time, Sam wonders if maybe he should try laying off the hunting for a while, again, just take some time to see the country. Most of his life he’s been moving too fast to stop and smell the roses; he could call Charles and Peaches, ask for a month’s leave, and get it in a heartbeat.
He doesn’t, though.
Peaches calls when Sam’s crossing from Colorado into South Dakota and doesn’t bother with small talk. “We’ve got them checked into a motel just south of Ainsworth,” she says, and Sam checks his rearview before turning around. “If you are where your GPS says you are, it looks like you can make it within two hours.”
“Of course I’m where my GPS says I’m at,” Sam says, far too innocently. Peaches laughs and doesn’t remind Sam that he’s skipped off on it more than once. “They working a case or holed up for downtime?”
“I’ve got the team on it,” Peaches replies. “But I think it’s a case. We’ve been tracking the car and their credit cards; they stopped to pick up some ammo two days ago and we caught them on CCTV hiding out in the Sioux Falls library for a few hours yesterday.”
Sam nods, even though Peaches can’t see him, and drums his fingers on the steering wheel. He’s trying to decide what the best way to force this confrontation is, finally asks, “Which motel?”
--
Sam ends up pulling into the parking lot long after sunset, the witching hour around the corner and coming fast. The car idles silently as he sits there and looks at the only room which has a light on, the only room with an Impala parked out front, ready to go in case of quick getaway. The GPS comm unit is silent; Sam’s almost to the point of turning it on and telling Peaches to get him out of there and on to the next hunt.
He doesn’t, though. Sam sits there for half an hour, until the unit’s blinking at him, zero zero thirty, zero zero thirty, zero zero thirty one. As if that’s a talisman he’s been waiting for, Sam opens the door, unfolds his legs, and heads for the door.
The faint sound of television is audible through the wall -- either the windows are badly insulated or the door’s thin, cheap. Sam stands there, frozen, then knocks once, twice, three times.
The people inside of the room go silent but Sam can hear them moving, picking up weapons that are never too far away, moving with soft footsteps over carpet that’s been worn down for years.
Dean opens the door, John in the middle of the room with a gun pointed right at Sam’s face.
“Hi,” Sam says. “You busy?”
--
Dean stares for a moment, longer than it takes John to put the gun away and straighten up, eyes boring into Sam’s, running down over Sam’s face and deceptively casual stance. John’s eyes narrow though Sam doesn’t know why and doesn’t have time to ask, not when Dean’s grabbing his arm, pulling him inside and then wrapping both of his arms around Sam.
“You ever do something like that again,” Dean’s muttering. “Son of a bitch. We’ve been looking for you for years and you just fucking show up at the front door, what the hell is wrong with you?”
Sam leans back, Dean lets go, and while John’s pulling out a chair and sitting down, okay with waiting his turn to ask questions, Dean drags Sam to the bed, makes sure Sam’s not on his feet, then goes to lock the door, all without taking his eyes off of Sam.
“Where the hell have you been?” Dean finally asks, once the silence has stretched out into long minutes. “We have been looking for you for years, Sam, and then you show up in the Cape, then in fucking New Mexico, now here? What gives? What happened to Stanford?”
Sam can’t help the snort at that question, looking between his father and brother as if he honestly cannot believe they’re bringing that up.
“We were worried,” Dean goes on after a pause, seemingly confused at Sam’s reaction. “We had everyone we know trying to track you down and you just, you just disappeared. Why didn’t we even get a phone call?”
“Oh, like you needed one,” Sam replies, bitterness and wry, tired cynicism leaking out of his voice. Dean steps back; John’s eyes narrow. “You ever ask Dad what he got those medals for?” Sam asks.
Dean tilts his head as if he’s confused, isn’t following the change of subject, but John pales, stands up.
“No,” he says, low, pained. “No, Sam, tell me they didn’t. Tell me you didn’t go to work for them.”
“Not MCIA,” Sam says, entire body still apart from his mouth, his eyes. “A different agency, same type of work. And I didn’t just waltz off and go to work for them, Dad.” John flinches at the address, Sam curls his lips as he adds, “I didn’t have a choice.”
Dean’s looking back and forth between the two of them, and he takes one step forward, says, “I’m missing something here.”
Sam glares, the glare that cowed even the arms dealer for Jemaah Islamiyah, and feels somewhat gratified when Dean swallows in the face of it.
“What do you mean, you didn’t have a choice?” Dean asks. “And what type of. What’s MCIA?”
“Marine Intelligence,” John answers. “Military intelligence. I did some work for them when I was overseas, that’s how I got the medals. But how you knew about that,” John trails off, looking at Sam again.
Dean’s gaping now, slack-jawed with shock, and Sam’s not sure if it’s because he’s finally put together that Sam’s been doing intelligence work since Stanford or if it’s thanks to the revelation about John’s wartime experience. It’s not a flattering look, though it only gets worse when Sam says, “The nice agents who recruited me let me in on that secret. Said they’d been watching you, watching Dean. And they came for me, instead, while you two were hunting. Any idea why?”
John frowns, like he’s trying to remember that far back, and Sam laughs, stands up and stalks to the door, though he only leans on it, crossing his arms on his chest and looking between the two members of his family still living.
“Look, it was great to see you’re both surprised, yeah, whatever,” he drawls, “but you can drop the act now, okay? I got it then and I’ve learned to deal with it.”
“With what?” John asks, frown settling into puzzlement.
Dean’s still trying to pull himself together, but he, as well, says, “What act?”
“You think I didn’t know, even back then, before this all started?” Sam asks. “I left, so I was fair game for anyone who wanted to use me and the feds just got there first.” He ignores Dean, looks right at his father, and says, “You raised us the way you’d been taught and they wanted us. But Dean was with you and I’d left. It was either me or Dean and Dean was too busy being useful, so I could just go to hell, is that what you thought?”
John steps closer to Sam, coming up alongside Dean, reaching out and squeezing Dean’s shoulder. Sam didn’t think that much could hurt him anymore, but seeing that does.
“I never sold you out, Sam,” John says, soft, almost pleading. “I never. If I’d’ve known, I would’ve done something, I swear. We thought you’d just disappeared, gone to ground once you resigned your scholarship. We went all over the country looking, up into Canada as well, but neither of us ever guessed that.” He stops, pinches the bridge of his nose.
“You think we could do that?” Dean asks. He sounds hurt, more so even than when Sam was sixteen and Dean nearly sliced his own arm off going after a selkie. “You think I would do that? Just give you up to someone because you wanted more from your life than all of this? Sam. You’re my brother, man, come on.”
Sam looks between them and feels his stomach begin to plummet. He’s gotten good at reading people, had to in his line of work, to not would’ve ensured his death a thousand times over. Every skill he’s picked up, every gift he possesses, tells him that they aren’t lying. They really had no idea.
Sam straightens up a little. “Fine. So you didn’t give me up. It’s gonna take some time to get used to that. How ‘bout you tell me what hunt you’re on instead.” He brushes past both of them, sits on the chair John had been straddling before. This area of the room isn’t so easily defensible, but he’s watching both of them and his back’s to a corner; he can make it out if he has to.
John doesn’t sit down, stays standing near the window, but Dean sits on the edge of the bed, eyes still focused firmly on Sam, as if taking his eyes off of his brother might mean Sam will disappear again.
“It’s just a poltergeist,” Dean says, dismissive. “What did you mean by ‘agency?’ What have you been doing? And, dude, how the hell did you know about that skinwalker in New Mexico?”
Sam glances at his father, who’s watching just as intently. He’d prepared a cover story in the car, something about government tech work, getting shut in an office somewhere outside of Langley and not emerging from the basement, but his father’s good, probably knows the truth of it already. Sam hasn’t done much to hide his training in the past ten minutes.
“I was recruited by an agency that runs need-to-know operations,” Sam finally says, eyes on Dean but watching John in his peripheral vision. “Not many people outside of our group needed to know. I spent some time in training then ran supervised operations. After a year, I was given real assignments. I worked for them for twelve years, then got out.”
“Wait,” Dean says. “No, you can’t just say you’ve been working for them. What have you been doing? What kind of training? What kind of assignments and operations?”
Sam takes a deep breath, says, “The Alias, James Bond kind. Blowing shit up, stealing computer chips and weapons components, assassinating people.”
Dean’s already shaking his head, but John looks thoughtful. “You have not been killing people for the past decade,” Dean says, face pale.
“Twelve years,” Sam corrects. “Then I taught for a year. I’ve been hunting since you ran me out of my cover. Ash was right; that pattern he put together? That was me.”
“How did you,” Dean starts to ask, but Sam holds up a hand. Dean shuts up, but only barely, and not without sending a low-level glare in Sam’s direction.
Sam cracks his neck, settles back on to the chair a little more. “The FBI’s been keeping tabs on hunters for a long time. One of the people on my team does the same. It was pretty easy to centralise the Roadhouse’s location, and I put cameras and voice recorders in there almost immediately after I started hunting again. My old supervisor’s running my team now; I have people to do research, people for the technological end of things. Hell, anytime I want weapons, I just call them up and ask for a refill.”
“That’s how you found us here,” John says. Sam nods, and John asks, “And New Mexico?”
Sam shakes his head. “That was a little different. Call it kismet for now.”
John opens his mouth as if he’s going to argue, press for a better answer, but something in Sam’s eyes must warn him off of doing that. He presses his lips together and Dean speaks up before John can.
“I don’t believe it, Sam. You always hated hunting. And now you expect me to believe that you’ve been killing humans?”
“It’s not like I had a fucking choice,” Sam snarls. “It was either sign up or get all three of us thrown in jail for the rest of our goddamn lives, excuse me if I didn’t think you’d get a little tired of that. You know what?” he asks, flowing to his feet. John watches, eyes a bit narrower, and Sam bites off an internal curse; he’s being too graceful, too smooth in his movements. Twelve years of spying won’t be able to explain that away, not when it’s distinctly supernatural in origin. “I’m not putting up with this. We all did fine when we went our separate ways. You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone, okay?”
He stalks to the door, but John’s in his way. Sam bares his teeth but his father holds his ground. “William MacDiarmid?” John asks. “The MI-5 leaks? Shevchenko? The nuclear program in Iran? Pakistan’s military coup? Where was your base of operations, Sam?”
Sam looks at his father, just looks, and with Dean fidgeting behind him, Sam says, “My base of operations was agency headquarters. I worked wherever they needed me to work, if that’s what you’re asking. And I was responsible for all of those except the MI-5 leaks. I stole some paperwork from them; they had an internal mole that did the rest of the damage.”
“No, no, they said Shevchenko’s whore killed him,” Dean pipes up, still behind Sam, voice still holding threads of shock.
Sam doesn’t dignify Dean’s protest with a response, though he can’t help but feel strangely sorry for the kid he remembers in Lviv, cocky and streetsmart. Still looking at his father, he asks, “Since when do you two keep up with current events?”
Dean’s silent, but John says, “Since we saw you in the Cape. We went back, asked the owner of a bar about you, asked around a little. They said you were NATO, but something about that didn’t seem right. I did some digging.” He shrugs, and Sam wants to laugh.
“I think I’d like to know what exactly you’ve attributed to me,” he admits. “I wasn’t the only one pulling those kinds of jobs.”
The room’s quiet for a few minutes, nothing to hear but the faint sound of ice crackling outside. Sam doesn’t move, body given in to stillness, and John just watches him. Dean’s the one moving around, and, for the only time in his life that he can remember, Sam thinks that maybe he and his father understand each other. John knows at least a little of what Sam’s gone through and Dean has no idea. It’s the first time that they’ve connected at a level Dean will never be able to comprehend, the first thing Sam has in common with his father.
It’s a sobering thought after a day of driving.
“I’ll go and get another room,” Sam says. “Sleep here tonight. I’m tired. We can figure out what’s going on in the morning. Sound good?” and he doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s moving around his father, is out of the door and heading for the lobby.
He pays for the room right next door and heads for his car while Dean watches him out of his open room door. Sam hates the feeling of eyes watching him, but he ignores it, pushes sequence twelve on the GPS unit and asks, “You guys catch all of that?” He pulls a tiny straight pin out of his shirt collar and drops it in one of the cup holders with no regard for the camera on top.
“We did,” Peaches replies. There’s a pause before she asks, “Are you all right?”
“Perfectly you in every way,” Sam says. They both know it’s a lie but Peaches doesn’t call him on it. “I’ll keep my comm open and the laptop running tonight. Let me know if there’s anything on the radar or feeds I should take a look at in the morning, all right?”
She replies in the affirmative and wishes Sam a good night; he deigns to ignore the comment.
Dean’s still standing there as Sam pulls a duffel out of the trunk and walks across the parking lot.
“I’m next door,” Sam says, once he gets closer. “Have a good night.” Even knowing, now, that his family didn’t give him, didn’t sell him out, he still doesn’t wait for a response before he gets into his room and closes, then locks, the door. The impression he’s had for the past thirteen years might not be true, but it’s dug deep inside. It still hurts.
He sets the laptop up, keeps communication lines open, wards the room, then falls face-first on to the bed and sleeps.
--
He wakes up in the morning to the sound of IMs dinging, that and Peaches screaming across the comm.
“Wake up, Winchester!”
Sam rolls off of the bed and sits down at the desk, opens the channel on his end and says, “I’m up. What it is?” No one disturbs him while he’s sleeping, especially Peaches, unless it’s life-or-death important.
“Tom strung a pattern together,” Peaches says. The IM window shows files waiting to be transferred; Sam clicks to accept them all. “Sam, it’s the pattern, the demonic one we’ve been following for the past few months? There’s a new lead. You need to get your ass in gear.”
Sam’s wide awake now. The instant the files are received, he opens them, scanning Tom’s notes. “This could. This. I’ll be in the car in five minutes,” he promises. A breakthrough like this on a case they’ve been trying to crack for eleven weeks, he can’t afford to waste time.
“Negative, Sam. Charles has been on top of this. We’ve got a plane waiting for you at the Ainsworth regional airport; it’ll take you right where you need to be.” She waits for him to say something, and when Sam just nods, already pulling out plugs and closing down his laptop, she sighs, says, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll take care of your car.”
“Of course you will,” Sam says, voice oozing with sweetness. Peaches swears at him and signs off.
--
Sam walks outside and sees his father coming back from the lobby, probably the only one awake early enough to take advantage of the continental breakfast.
“I have to go,” Sam says, no preliminaries. John’s eyes darken, but Sam goes on before his father can interrupt. “My team’s cracked a pattern in a circle of demons we’ve been trying to get our hands on. There’s a lead outside of Chicago but I have to hurry.”
John nods, asks, “You need backup?” Sam raises an eyebrow, honestly surprised and too taken off-guard to hide it, at the thought that his father would actually consider backing Sam up. “Look, Sam,” John says. “Dean might not believe it, but I do. You’ve got a team, you’ve been hunting, you’re trained for this better than I ever was.”
Sam stands there, thinks for a second, mind racing furiously, and finally says, “If you wanna come, I won’t stop you. But I’m leaving in five minutes. There’s a plane waiting.”
John seems to take that as an invitation, based on how quickly he storms back into his room and has Dean moving, if not fully conscious. Sam watches as they pack things up, and when his watch beeps, Sam’s getting into his car even though his father and brother are still loading up the Impala.
“You coming or what?” Sam calls out.
John waves him on, and Sam pulls out of the parking lot. Thirty seconds later, the Impala’s catching up to him.
--
Even after thirteen years, Sam has this picture of his brother. Dean’s meant to be perfect, no weaknesses. Watching him on an airplane is at once the funniest thing he’s ever seen and the last vestiges of hero-worship crumbling into pieces.
November, 2009
Sam sips his champagne and tries not to roll his eyes at the conversation he’s involved in. He’s in Paris, insinuating himself into the company of a few high-class executives, playing at being one of them, and they’re so dense that it’s a miracle any of them are capable of holding a champagne flute in one hand and a plate of canapés in the other.
“Ah, gentlemen,” a voice from behind them says. Sam turns and looks, steps slightly to one side to allow another man, distinguished-looking, British accent, grey around the temples, to join them. “Getting the party started without me, I see,” he adds.
The group chuckles as the man greets each person in the circle before turning to Sam.
“Will Pederson,” Sam says, holding out his hand. His mind runs through the contents of his mission file: oil, ties to the Middle East, suspected Al-Qaeda links, gun-running and human trafficking, all in a respectable package, Cal Price, O.B.E.
“A pleasure to meet you, Will,” the man says. “Cal Price.”
The man standing to Sam’s right, in charge of a Silicon Valley internet start-up group that’s hit the big leagues, pipes up and says, “Will’s working out of South Africa, importing diamonds.”
Cal’s eyes light up as a small smile flirts around his lips. “Diamonds. Interesting. I look forward to hearing all about it.”
Sam smiles, lifts his glass in an unspoken toast, and watches his mark. It’s not a typical Thanksgiving, but, then again, the last few haven’t been. The next few won’t be, either.
March, 2014
They’ve had the girl caught inside of a Devil’s Trap for four hours now, and no amount of exorcism or Holy Water has her leaving the host and going back to hell. Dean’s tired, that much is obvious, and John’s got his game face on but it’s slipping. Sam slides out of the room, into the hallway, and pulls an earbud out from his back pocket. He puts it in, adjusts it, and Peaches talks before he can.
“They aren’t getting results,” she says. “I know you know that and I know you know how important this is, Sam.”
He sighs, says, “Yeah, I know. I’ll take care of it.”
Sam walks back into the room, and can’t help the annoyed exasperation he feels. They’re being too nice about this; nice won’t get them what they need. He bares his teeth in a soundless growl and stalks forward, taking the Holy Water from his father.
“You guys are wasting time,” he breathes, pushing past Dean and stepping into the Trap.
The host tilts her head, and vacant black eyes seem to sparkle. “Well, hello, Sammy-boy,” she murmurs, arching forward in her restraints, the very picture of inviting. “Come to join me in the Trap, have you? Not the smartest thing to do.”
She blinks, but nothing happens. Sam can feel the demon inside of her pushing at him, trying to work its telekinesis on him. It isn’t. Sam grins, slow and smooth, and says, “Now, now. Is that any way to treat a guest?”
He opens the bottle of Holy Water and, instead of throwing it on the host, he pours it over himself. It doesn’t steam, just runs down his skin in long threads of water, clinging to his hair, his eyelashes, the curve of his neck. It’s more of a show for John, who’s standing at the edge of the Trap with his eyes narrowed, watching, and Dean, who won’t stop telling Sam to get out of there.
With a muffled chant, Sam touches the edge of the Trap, and a rippling shockwave of power goes up and in. The host screams when it touches her, but Sam just stands there, arms crossed.
“We detected a power spike in your location,” Peaches says over the earbud, tone entirely professional. “Tracking outbound effects.”
“Little puppy has tricks,” the host breathes, her eyes fixed firmly on Sam. “That should make things interesting.”
One corner of Sam’s lips quirk, but he doesn’t react, merely says, “Tell me where the others are and I promise I’ll make this as painless as possible.” The host laughs; Sam shrugs and says, “I tried.” With one word, he activates a binding spell -- one designed to keep things inside of a certain area in, and things outside of it, out -- and links it to the Trap. It shimmers into place with an audible ring.
“Trackback results zero,” Peaches says. Sam can hear her typing away at something. “Six possibilities, nothing firm. Narrowing bandwidth search parameters, but we require more spikes for comparison.”
Sam nods, says, “All right.”
--
What happens next is more of a torture session than an interrogation session. Sam strips the host down to her underwear and bra, finds the binding rune branded into her lower back. He’s not stupid enough to cut it open, not after all of the exorcism rites that Dean and John have been using, so, instead, he carves another symbol inside of the brand. The host doesn’t scream, the demon just laughs, but Dean’s on the outside of the Trap yelling at him.
“There’s still a human in there, Sam! C’mon, you can’t do it like this.”
The first spell Sam had completed writhes every time Dean pounds against it, but it won’t break. John circles around the outside of the Trap, jaw clenching when he sees blood trailing down the back of the host’s body, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Now, do you know what symbol that was?” Sam asks, in as conversation a tone as he can manage. The demon spits at him, so Sam backhands the host, not holding anything back. Dean’s gone silent and John’s frozen.
The demon, who had been laughing, is now strangely silent. “You can’t be serious,” it says, evenly, with just a hint of shock in its voice. “There’s no way you could handle the.”
It stops, as if it’s just realised something, and Sam gives it a mocking nod. The host’s eyes widen, and Sam goes to work.
--
The initial symbol he’d carved was a basic one, meant to make the demon feel the host’s pain. The only thing is, only other demons can use it without ill effects. Sam doesn’t think about what that means as he uses every spell in his repertoire, every physical torture, to make the demon scream.
It doesn’t take long; most demons are too used to shovelling pain on to the host so they don’t bother learning how to cope with it. This demon is begging inside of half an hour for the torture to end. Dean’s watching, looks green, and John’s left the room as if he can’t bear to see what’s happening.
Only when the demon’s crying wordlessly does Sam kneel down between the host’s legs and caress the host’s cheek. “Hey,” he says, soft. The host blinks, and the demon looks at him, cringing. “All you need to do is tell me where the others are. That’s all I’m asking.”
The host nods, and the demon whispers, “Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you everything. I’ll swear allegiance to you and I’ll serve you and I’ll do anything you command, please stop, please.”
“Where are they?” Sam asks. “Tell me and I’ll accept your oath.”
As soon as he gets an answer, Peaches starts typing again. “We’re on it, Sam, but keep her until we confirm.”
Sam stands up, walks behind the host, starts stroking her hair and shoulders, murmuring soothingly to her. She starts to cry, head hanging, as Sam lays a calming spell on her, followed by another pain hex. The host screams, eyes wide open in pain.
“Comparing trackback to answer,” Peaches says. “Tom’s on it as well; he’s estimating confirm or deny in three minutes.” Sam waits, can hear something on Peaches’ end beep, and she says, “Tech ops confirm.” Sam stands there, looking down at the host, ignoring the way that Dean’s watching him from outside of the Trap. “Research confirms. Terminate contact.”
“No,” the demon whispers, struggling to look around at Sam. “No, please, I’ve told you, don’t.”
Sam doesn’t say a word. He snaps the host’s neck first, quick break of bone that echoes in the room, in case she isn’t already dead. When the demon starts screaming for him to stop, Sam cuts open the binding. The demon emerges in a cloud of black and disappears, sent back to hell.
He takes down the spells floating around the Trap, then the binding ward on the Trap, stepping outside of the Trap without looking to see whether or not it’s still viable. He can feel it buzzing, the edges of power it sends out, pulling at him.
“What was that?” Dean asks, voice no louder than a whisper. “Sam, how could you do that?”
“We needed to know what it knew,” Sam says, matter-of-factly. “Now we do. Anything else is inconsequential.”
Dean’s eyes are filled with horror and a dawning recognition. “We might have been able to save her, Sam. We.”
Sam shakes his head, still looking at his older brother. “There was no way. Even expelling the demon would’ve left her tainted.”
“Location triangulated,” Peaches murmurs. “Satellite coverage should be available in five hundred and thirty seconds.”
Sam nods, absently brushing past his brother to the hallway, gathering his gear. John emerges from a different room, stands there in the doorway and raises an eyebrow in question.
“My team has a location,” Sam says. “I’m prepared to do whatever I have to in order to find the rest of the demonic circle and remove them as a threat. Are you?”
Without waiting for an answer, Sam moves past John and exits the house, going out to his car.
--
Dean doesn’t come with them -- rather, he agrees to provide back-up but he refuses to be in the same room as Sam when they finally catch up to the demonic circle. Sam’s not really surprised by that, not after seeing the way Dean looked at him when he snapped the host’s neck inside of the Trap.
What surprises him is that John does. In order to get used to each other again, John gives Dean the keys to the Impala and rides shotgun with Sam. It’s strange having someone sitting in the passenger seat, something Sam’s never had in all of his years working, either as a hunter of the supernatural or a hunter of men.
Dean follows in the Impala, a constant, black presence in the rearview mirror and they all sleep in the same motel room, but there’s a divide between Sam and his family just as surely as a gap’s developing between John and his oldest son. Sam teaches John how to call Peaches, how to bring up the library, the layout of his weaponry in a quiet car while Dean drums on the steering wheel of a different car.
The intelligence provided to them is good and the Winchesters track the demons to a small house in the middle of Indiana farmland. Sam and his father go inside to the demons; Dean waits outside, guarding their exit. Sam sends the demons back to hell with John’s help and listens to his father’s footsteps as John goes out to tell Dean it’s over. When Sam’s alone with the hosts, all of them lying on the ground, dazed and shattered, he uses nine bullets and puts them out of their misery.
It’s better that way, no matter how Dean looks at him.
February, 2011
“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” Charles asks on one of the rare occasions Sam slips his cover and comes back to the agency for a few days’ rest. Sam frowns in question, sips his coffee, and ignores the way that the newest trainees are looking at him through walls of glass. “Your contract with us is up in a few months.”
Sam blinks, the only evidence of surprise, and looks down at his coffee.
“You’ve got time to think about it,” Charles says, once a few silent minutes have passed. “We expect you’ll finish up your current mission in time.”
There are so many options open to Sam if he retires. The Yakuza clan he’s connected to has repeatedly offered him a councillor’s position the moment he asks for it, and though he’s spent the past decade going after arms dealers, he has enough connections in that segment of society to make his own run at it. MI-5 wants to recruit him and NSA wouldn’t mind making him one of their own and planting him in a deep cover operation for a few years. Still, there’s the draw of civilian life as well, the thought of getting out and doing something everyday and obscenely normal.
“Draw up the paperwork,” Sam says. At Charles’ raised eyebrow, he says, “For re-enlisting. Just another two years.”
Charles smiles and Sam can’t muster up the energy to return it.
“You aren’t meant for civilian life,” Charles says. “You’re meant to be doing exactly what you’re doing, Sam. There’s a reason you’re our best agent.”
Sam nods once, doesn’t agree or disagree.
December, 2014
They’ve mostly gone their separate ways, the Winchester family. Sam’s not used to hunting with others and his work suffers as a result. He doesn’t tell Peaches that most of the problem comes from the way Dean watches him, as if Sam’s a liability, a good hunter but one who’s dangerously off-balance and might need to be neutralised for his own good, but she seems to know. If a tough job comes up, Sam calls his father and Dean comes along for the ride, but the tight-knit bond they used to have, brothers united against the world and a domineering father, irrevocably shattered the moment Sam killed a human in front of Dean.
A particularly nasty haunting has John and Dean meeting Sam during the summer up in Massachusetts, and Sam goes to them when John calls from Alabama in late September with a rash of unexplainable fae visitations.
They decide to spend Christmas together, the first in many, many years. Sam drives in on Christmas Eve but two days later he’s too restless to stay. He wishes things could be different, especially seeing the hurt in Dean’s eyes, the glint of buried emotion in John’s, but he’s been on his own for too long, has harboured a vicious, pained grudge against them for a dozen years; nine months isn’t enough to erase that, to erase the jealousy Sam feels for the time with them that he missed out on.
He leaves them with their presents, new laptops already programmed with contact information for him and Peaches both, and drives up to agency headquarters.
--
No one takes much notice of him as he walks in, most probably assuming that he’s an operative returned from a deep cover assignment, but then he starts passing those who’ve been with the agency longer. Murmurs fly hot on his heels as he passes through the first few divisions and, by the time he’s reached the rooms that his team occupies, Peaches is standing at the door, hands on her hips.
Sam grins, shrugs, says, “Merry Christmas?”
Peaches scoffs, the glare fading into a fond smile. “Welcome home, Sam,” she says.
At the greeting, Sam feels something inside of him loosen and relax.