God Save the Martyrs
Title: God Save the Martyrs (1/2)
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean, Sam, OFC, Ruby, Becky (Rebecca), Zack
Summary: Dean would go to hell and back for Sam - only problem is, he can't get back. Saviors come in strange forms, and promise him his brother back; but there's always a price.
Notes: Anyway, uh, my timeline is based on this, and is written after I watched A Very Supernatural Christmas. Also, I really like my title; after a while, I forgot what it's meaning was and I probably deviated from it a lot in the the story, but I just kept it because I just liked it. It rocks and it makes me happy, and that's all that matters.
This seriously ate my brain and wouldn't go away. If I never see this again, it will be way too soon.
Word Count: ~15,600
Disclaimer: Don't own Supernatural, just writing crap that comes to mind and probably butchering these characters badly. Rock on, babes.
Oh, and I don't even own the way I formatted my story; I stole it from someone else. I'm sorry person-whose-username-I've-forgotten, but I thought it was cool.
* * * * *
February 2008
The wreckage is truly incredible with bodies of hunters and monsters alike strewn haphazardly about the large room. Furniture is overturned and partially lit candles from the ceremony litter the ground too, adding waxy bits of white and more red to complete the scene.
In the middle of the room a middle aged Chinese man stares down at the cold, dead body of a young girl dressed carefully in layers of beautiful intricately decorated silk that is now ripped into tatters. Her head sits on the floor about three feet away, her eyes closed peacefully. In the place where her neck should connect with her body is large iron battleaxe head in a pool of her drying blood.
"Chin."
The man turns slightly towards the voice. "My daughter is dead," he says flatly. The Chinese words echo strangely in the warehouse.
The owner of the voice, a younger man probably not older than 30 looks surprised. "Was that not the point?" His point is bluntly made in English, unpurposefully cruel for all that it makes the other man flinch and turn away. He has the decency to look slightly repentant.
"Yes," Chin agrees dully, switching back to English for the other man's benefit. Some of the American born family members have trouble with the native language. He reaches out a hand to touch the axe, but lets his hand fall before it reaches and says, "The ancestors will be pleased."
The younger man waits, but he says no more, just stares at the opposite wall. "I am sorry," he says quietly, earnestly. "I know it's not fair-"
"My daughter was only sixteen," Chin interrupts bitterly. "She had her whole life ahead of her. You know nothing of fairness little boy."
The younger man respectfully falls silent for a moment before he cautiously reveals the reason for intruding upon Chin's grief: "They sent me to tell you that they need to start the clean up."
Chin is silent as he turns to look at his companion coolly. The suddenly impassive and probing gaze on the older man's face sends shivers up and down the messenger's spine before his eyes fall back down upon his dead daughter. The younger man wonders what he is looking for in the dead, battered and torn body of his teenage daughter. Solace? Closure? - Then Chin nods curtly, and strides out of the room.
Outside he hears the sound of retching and low murmurs of "You'll be okay, Dean. It's okay-"
The vicious sound of someone spitting roughly cuts off the reassurances. "No, it's not going to be fucking okay, Sam," the now familiar voice snarls in disgust. "That girl - s-she -" he chokes on his words.
"Shh..."
"I murdered her, Sam! You can't - you can't just shush away something like that!"
Chin just keeps walking. Bile rises in the back of his throat and the weight of his pity joins the knot of grief in his stomach.
* * *
June 2008
When the hellhounds come for Dean, Sam's not ready. He's read entire libraries of lore to gather knowledge that doesn't help at all, called scores of people who are just as, if not more, useless and just babble nonsense about "accepting fate" and "moving on."
Fuck no. Sam is not just going to 'move on,' Dean is his brother and he's... he's just Dean. Sam can't comprehend a world without Dean, doesn't want to know or think about existing without the big brother who's just always been there without question.
But Dean, the insensitive, selfish asshole, sees the fucking hellhounds, glances at the calendar and just says, "Oh." Fucking 'Oh.' Like it's not going to be end of Sam's world as he knows it, like it's just another day, another get-me-a-cup-of-coffee-bitch-haha-just-kidding-my-little-bro-Sammy-not-Sam.
"Dean," Sam says and the next thing he knows all the air in his lungs displaces itself somewhere else and he's left breathless as Dean pulls him into a hug. It's an awkward, tight, desperate, but genuine hug. The shock factor alone makes Sam wonder if it's not him in hell after all, some demon fucking with his mind.
"Goodbye, Sammy," Dean whispers. "I'm sorry." And suddenly Sam's sitting alone in some motel in middle-of-nowhere, Nevada, shell shocked and feeling empty.
Sam searches everywhere, but there's nothing left behind; no body, no signs of struggle, no nothing.
The entirety of the next week he spends on his laptop in that same shitty motel room, calling Bobby, calling contacts that he's already called up five or six times before, calling Bobby again and getting pissy, and forgetting to feed himself. Then Monday hits. Sam wakes up from a restless sleep and mumbles, "Dean, you fucking stink, take a shower," before he remembers and realizes it's himself that smells so rancid.
Sam has to drag himself out of bed and stagger to the bathroom where he dry heaves into the toilet bowl and takes a shower for the first time in days.
By the next morning he's packed and driving hard down the highway to Las Vegas.
He needs a distraction.
* * *
January 2008
Sam really hates Michigan. It's cold enough to freeze every single one of his fingers and toes off. It's like the weather is making a spirited effort to do it, at least. And there's not even any snow.
God, what a time for the heater to break. Sam makes a mental note to go buy a couple winter coats, the cold is ridiculous.
"Sam," Dean grunts from the passenger seat.
He glances over, but a second later Sam's eyes are firmly on the road again. "Mm."
"It's fucking cold."
Sam snorts. "I had no idea."
Dean mumbles something incoherent under his breath that sounds humorously like, "Fuckin' hate Michigan."
Sam wants to laugh. He doesn't because when he opens his mouth to, he sees the cloud of his breath in the air. It's sort of depressing and Sam closes his mouth again and pretends he doesn't see the wisps of fog coming from his and Dean's nostrils.
"It's a JCC," Dean says suddenly, sounding horrified.
"Buh?" Sam asks intelligently. He wonders if his fingers have finally gotten frostbite. He can't really feel them anymore. He adds gloves to his mental shopping list too.
"It's a fucking JCC," Dean says impatiently and spits out an explanation like it's a dirty word: "Suburbs."
Sam squints against the sun, which is shining down into his eyes too obnoxiously for it to be so fucking cold. "Oh, hell," he says. All he wants to do is find a motel that looks relatively inexpensive, not deal with Dean's weird suburbaphobia. What the hell is wrong with this place anyway, with all the Hiltons and shit?
"More proof that this place is fucking evil, that's what," Dean grumbles and Sam blinks.
"I said that out loud?" he asks blankly.
Dean looks horrified again. "The fuck?!" he yelps. "I knew it. This place is fucking evil! Get your hands off my baby, you- you thing!"
Sam gapes at him for a second and that's all the time Dean needs to lunge over and try to take the wheel. "Dean!" he shouts as the car swerves, "Dean! What the fuck?!" Sam grapples for the emergency brake - where the fuck is it? - grabs hold of it, swears violently as his hand slides off of it and then pulls it just as Dean swings the wheel to the right just enough so they end up on the shoulder.
"What the hell, Dean?" Sam demands as soon as he gets his breath back. Panic flutters in his chest and his heart is lodged in his throat. They were lucky - just a few inches more to the right and they would've just fallen into a fairly deep ditch.
Dean just breathes heavily through his nose and the look on his face gives Sam chills that have nothing to do with the temperature. His brother's eyes are calculating, apprehensive. Then he shrugs and gives Sam a shit-eating grin.
"I hate you," Sam mutters and reaches across Dean to open the passenger side door. Dean looks at him curiously and then they are both promptly hit with a wave of ice cold air.
"Fuck, it's even colder out there!" Dean groans, huddling in on himself.
"Yeah," Sam says sympathetically and shoves Dean out the door.
"Agh!" Dean shouts and Sam smirks when he hears the dull thump of his brother's body on the ground. "Bitch," Dean mumbles at Sam as he hauls himself back into the car, shivering.
"I love you too," Sam tells him, grinning, and Dean only scowls at him. Guilt pricks at his consciousness and he asks, "You okay?"
Dean grunts in affirmation. "I fucking hate Michigan," he grumbles.
* * *
July 2008
Sam is drunk. Or high. Or... uh... fuck if he knows. All he knows is that the casino... bouncer? Yeah, whatever, he'll go with that... the casino bouncer threw him out of the casino for 'disorderly behavior' and he'd tried to argue, because he is Sam and 'disorderly' is defined by Dean. Even though his idiot brother went off and sold his soul and left his little brother hanging, high and dry.
He stumbles over his feet and unceremoniously falls on his face. He giggles hysterically, even though his face freaking hurts.
"You okay?"
Sam squints up, and frowns. "You're glowing," he tells the girl and hey, she looks familiar. He wracks his memory for the names of the limited number of young Chinese girls he knows who might be standing next to him in Las Vegas and shining with a sort of holy iridescent light - and only comes up with one.
She also looks amused. "Really."
"I'm hallucinating," he decides and awkwardly shuffles to his feet.
"If you say so," she says agreeably.
"'cause you're dead," Sam explains apologetically and frowns at himself for feeling sorry for the way he talks to a hallucination.
She snorts. "Yeah, and the dead never comes back to bite the living in the ass," she says wryly.
* * *
January 2008
Less than a week later, a snow storm hits in the middle of the hunt and makes it a bitch to track what Dean suspects is a Black Dog that's been plaguing the small, suburban city. Their new Costco-purchased snow gear is rendered useless as snow melts through the material. Dean thinks his lips are probably blue (Sam's are practically purple) and he's almost relieved that the trail has turned stone cold. He's pretty sure that there's not even circulation left in his fingers to shoot if they did come upon the werewolf. As it is, it's an effort just to make himself take another step.
"F-fuck!" Dean says, shivering. What an unglamorous way to die; death by cold. In fucking Michigan. He spares a mournful thought for the Impala, sitting -shit, he forgets where- and thinks that he's going to haunt the next owner if the lucky fucker doesn't treat her the way she deserves.
"S-s-s-subdivi-vi-vi-sion," Sam mumbles, his teeth chattering so violently that Dean can barely understand him.
"Ngh?" Dean questions, somehow unable to convey his lack of understanding in words. He squints at his brother, barely able to see Sam through the thick snow and mumbles annoyed curses under his breath as snowflakes catch on his eyelashes.
Sam turns onto a random residential street. It looks like apartments or condos, judging from the way each of the huge buildings have about eight billion different entrances. Dean follows and uncomfortably notices the paleness of his little brother's skin. "S-sammy," he starts to say and has a fucking panic attack as some dog starts barking like crazy and from out of nowhere a blur of fur nearly knocks Sam off his feet. Dean is fumbling for his gun when he realizes, oh, fuck, it's just a dog.
"I'm sorry!" someone is shouting, voice high-pitched with panic and... femaleness. Dean looks to his left and sees someone waving frantically, a leash attached to an empty collar dangling from the other hand. "I'm sorry! Jack, you bad dog - oh, shit-" And now both arms are waving after the girl slips as she climbs over the curb. She falls backwards ungracefully and knocks her head painfully against the ground. Dean winces sympathetically at the loud crack he hears.
The little dog (looks like a Sheltie, Dean thinks) stops barking at Sam and pads calmly over to the girl and steps on her chest with its two front paws. She groans and shoves it away irritably, muttering, "Annoying dog." It nudges her face apologetically and she frowns down at it.
"Y-y-you okay?" Sam asks, all concerned and chivalrous, which sounds vaguely funny as he stutters. Except not really.
"Yeah," she mumbles, rubbing the back of her head and wincing. She pulls off a glove to probe the back of her head and decides, "Probably no permanent damage."
"Y-y-you s-s-sure?" Sam presses.
Now she looks up, surprised. Her gaze flickers between the two of them, bewildered. "Uh, yeah," she says and tucks 'Jack' under one arm and struggles to get up. Dean grabs one arm and helps her up, earning himself another perplexed look. She pulls her arm back quickly. "Um. Thanks."
"N-no problem," Dean says and is annoyed when despite his attempts he still stutters a bit as his teeth clatter. He can see she's definitely got Oriental ancestry now that he's a little bit closer. He wonders which one. He can never tell just by looking at someone, but he figures it's probably rude to ask.
"Okay," she says dubiously and backs away warily, "Um, bye." She turns away.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam's shivering intensifies and oh God he's too pale. The temperature seems to drop another few degrees and Dean blurts out, "Wait."
The girl stiffens in surprise. Dean exhales sharply and fumbles for something to say.
"Please," he says finally, desperately. "Help us."
Slowly, she turns around.
* * *
July 2008
Sam opens his eyes.
And then closes them again, because this can not be happening. He counts slowly to ten and cracks his eyes open again.
"Hi," she says, sounding amused.
He groans and covers his face with his hands. Sam had really hoped that she had just been the result of the ten some shots of whiskey he'd had and was now regretting as the hangover treated him to a throbbing headache.
Wait a second.
Sam pulls his hands away from his eyes and lifts his head up slightly to get a clear look at her. "Why do you have wings?"
* * *
January 2008
The girl lets them into her home with the barest hint of reluctance and fusses at Dean when she realizes that he's about to go up the carpeted stairs with his boots still on. Dean grumbles a bit, but strips off his boots and the girl advises them to take off his socks too since they're probably wet - "Well," she sighs, looking resigned, "Actually, you might as well pull off all your top layers, I'm guessing they're all soaked. Just hang them on the railing there to let them dry. I'll go get some blankets."
She goes upstairs to what Sam assumes is the living area, leaving Dean and Sam to strip off their outmost layers. Sam guesses that it's only her and her mother, who probably won't be too happy about her allowing two strange men into their home when he sees that all the shoes are distinctly female. He wonders where her father is.
The sweater he had been wearing underneath his parka is damp, but Sam decides to leave it on. He might take it off later. Sam sits down on one of the lower steps to untie his shoes and pull off his socks. He's nearly done when Dean kicks him in the shin, impatiently grumbling, "Hurry up."
"Shut up," Sam mutters and stuffs both his socks in his left shoe.
Chinese characters emblazoned in gold sweep across red banners that hang brightly on the beige colored walls are the first things Sam sees when he climbs up to the living room. "Just sit down on the couch," the girl says from somewhere to his right, startling him. He nearly smacks Dean in the face.
"Dude," Dean protests. "Watch the face."
Sam sits down on the couch and can't help glancing around. A couple of SAT and ACT study books sit, closed, on the kitchen table while open textbooks are strewn across the table in front of the couch Sam and Dean sit on. There are random papers spread out among them and a pencil sits on the book closest to Sam. Physics, he notes. Their Christmas decorations are still up, but they blend oddly well with the red and gold banners, the Yuanbao ingots and the chrysanthemums. Sam remembers that the Chinese New Year is coming up in a couple of weeks.
"Here," the girl says, popping out of nowhere and dumping a load of blankets on top of them, "Bundle up. I'm boiling some water and I've got some instant hot chocolate packets." She heads to the open kitchen where the self-boiling kettle is steaming.
"Sam," Dean says, looking a little freaked out, "This whole place is like... infected with beige." And it is, Sam realizes. The walls are beige, the carpet's beige, the couch is an off-white color that might as well be beige-
"Just don't think about it too much," Sam advises him as a metal spoon clinks against sides of the porcelin cup as the girl stirs the hot chocolate in.
"It's done," she announces a moment later and walks over with both mugs in one hand, the other hand gripping a carton of milk. It seems strangely domestic and... American for this girl to be living in this entirely beige condo, handing them hot chocolate and warm blankets. Sam hisses in pain as the hot liquid burns his tongue and she promptly pours some cold milk in when he sets the mug down. A good hostess, Sam thinks.
"This isn't too bad," Dean says thoughtfully. "It's sugar free though, isn't it?"
"Yeah," she says. "How can you tell? I don't know the difference."
Dean smirks.
Sam rolls his eyes. "He thinks himself a real connoisseur of hot chocolate," he says wryly before Dean can say anything, and his brother makes a face at him. "I'm Sam," he says and nods at Dean. "This is my brother. Dean."
She nods in greeting. "I'm Lee," she says and smiles.
* * *
July 2008
"I'd never been to Las Vegas before," Lee muses. She frowns. "Well, my mom used to say she took me once when I was a kid, but who can appreciate the wonders of anything at five years old, let alone Las Vegas?" She's pacing back and forth within Sam's motel room and once in a while she stops by the window to peer out.
"That doesn't answer my question," Sam points out. "And why are you here? You're supposed to move on."
She stops moving and is silent for a moment, not meeting Sam's eyes. "I died to save my family," she says quietly, "But your brother was never supposed to have been involved. I'm sorry for that."
Sam flinches in reminder. "That..." he trails off.
Lee snorts. "Yeah, it's not okay," she says. "I saw what it did to him after." She sighs. "In return I offered him one miracle; one wish that I would do anything within my power to grant."
"...Spirits can't do that," Sam says with a frown.
She shrugs. "I died as a virgin sacrifice to protect my family from evil. I'm a... blessed being. I guess. Or a blessed post-being, maybe? I don't really know how it works - I'm definitely not completely corporeal and I'm pretty sure I'm some kind of a spirit." To illustrate, she sticks her hand through the wall and waves it around a bit.
"Is that why you have wings?"
"No," she says, rolling her eyes. "You're the reason they're there."
Sam stares. "What?"
"You want them there so they're there," she says as if it should be perfectly obvious. "I can't actually control my outwardly appearance. You see what you want to see. I can only really appear and talk at you until you listen." Lee grins. "Dean tried to make me look like Jimmy Page, but it didn't work - I'm guessing you can't change my... essence, or whatever."
"Why would I want you to have wings?" Sam asks.
She shrugs. "To make it more normal or easier to believe?" Lee suggests, "I don't know. I can't read your mind either."
Sam doesn't really want to think about it. He's pretty sure it has something to do with holy saviors that just come out of the woodwork whenever the hero needs them, just in time to save the day; a false hope that comes from days sitting in a comic store just down the street that one summer when he was twelve or so. Dad and Dean dropped him off there while they tracked down a voodoo witch who was using poppets to torture a man.
Ironically enough, she ended up being the quiet daughter of the comic store owner. She was punishing him for having raped her - turned out the bastard was a serial rapist. Sam remembers asking what would happen to that girl, to that man. Dad had clenched his jaw so tightly Sam thought it might break and Dean had gone unnaturally quiet.
'Sometimes, Sammy,' Dean had said later, 'Sometimes justice isn't always fair - you know why?'
'Why?'
'Because justice was created by humans - and humans are flawed, little bro.'
'But Dean, aren't we human?'
'Yeah. But don't worry, Sammy. I'll always look out for you. I promise.'
He never did find out what had happened, but something in Dean's voice had always kept him from asking. Nothing had ever really squelched his belief in the possibility of someone that would sweep in to save the day though. Even after he realized there were no such things as superheroes, that Dad and Dean wouldn't always be there to save the day and make everything right, after all he'd seen, learned... He guesses he'd always hoped, he guessed, that there would be someone who would save him. Them.
Like an angel. Sam snorts to himself. Man, what would Dean say if he knew what he was thinking about?
"What-" Sam's voice catches for a second and then he plows on, "What did he wish for?"
Lee cocks her head. "You can't guess?" she asks curiously. Sam looks down at his hands and it feels like his heart has lodged itself in his throat. "Dean wanted the world for you," she says, her tone gentling and turning wistful, "He wanted you to live the life that you wanted, to have anything -everything- that you could ever want. So he wanted me to give you his wish."
Startled Sam looks back up at her. "What?" His mind is working furiously.
Lee gives him a wry smile. "You heard me."
"Any wish?" he presses.
"Yeah," she says, raising an eyebrow. "I guess, but I can only do so much-"
"I want my brother back," Sam interrupts her. "I want Dean back."
Lee falls silent, her mouth gaping open a bit.
"Can you do it?"
"I don't-"
"Can you do it?"
"I don't know," she snaps irritably. "I'm not a miracle worker, I'm a spirit." She pauses and adds, "Or something!"
Sam frowns and crosses his arms. "I don't want anything else," he says. "So I guess you can just go now."
Lee takes a deep breath. "I didn't say I wouldn't do it," she mutters. "Just... I might not be able to do it." She exhales sharply in frustration. "I'll try," she tells him. "I'll try, but if it doesn't work, you can have another wish."
"What's the point in getting a wish if I can't have what I really want?" Sam demands.
"I said within my power," Lee points out. "I don't have any control over life or death. I can only try to influence what happens."
"I just want my brother back," Sam says stubbornly.
"Yeah, I heard," she grumbles.
* * *
January 2008
It's a little bit awkward, considering the fact that the girl is basically a stranger and Dean really has no idea how to speak to a girl without flirting. "Hey, I'm sixteen," Lee had said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Be careful where you try to cast your charm." Dean is still reeling. While he wasn't really hitting on her (credit card scams are nothing, but he's not going to mess around with statutory - 'sides, waaaaay too young for him, dude, and he likes blondes better), he's never really had anyone turn down his flirting so firmly.
Anyway now she and Sam are discussing physics, which is interesting enough if, you know, you're a complete nerd. Dean just sits there and listens as terms like 'universal gravitational constant' and 'Carnot's principle' fly right over his head.
The phone rings once, breaking the easy flow of conversation and Lee reaches out one hand to grab the phone - click - "Hello?" Lee's voice is cool and professional and her entire demeanor changes to reflect it. It's a little creepy, but this is the third phone call that's come in about two hours and every time, the girl answers the exact same way.
Usually they're telemarketers and Lee smiles politely despite the fact they can't see her and promptly hangs up the phone. This time though, Dean is surprised when a genuine grin breaks out across her face, breaking the cool facade. It's silly and full of unrepentantly childish happiness. "Mom!" Dean only hears a buzz of worried chattering from the where he's sitting and Lee sighs exasperatedly, but fondly says, "I'm fine, Mom. School let out early today 'cause of the storm and - huh? They went camping in the middle of January?"
She gives the two of them an unimpressed look that seems to say, 'Man, there are bigger idiots than you out there.' Sam winces sheepishly.
Her mother is still talking. "Alright," Lee says finally, "Be careful. Bye! Love you too." She grimaces as she hangs up and mutters to herself, "Ow."
It piques Dean's interest. "What happened?"
She waves a hand. "Nothing important, just some guys got severe frostbite. I think I'm going to do the laundry now."
Dean blinks. "Uh," he says dubiously, "Sentence A is related to Sentence B how?"
"It all relates in my head," Lee says sheepishly and Dean guesses that she does this kind of thing a lot from the way she blushes, but doesn't look too surprised that he brought it up. She gets up and disappears into a room and comes out with a laundry basket full of clothing. "I'll just be down in the basement," she tells them, "Do you care if I wash your clothes separate from ours or not?"
Dean's first thought is, 'Huh?' before he realizes that she means she's intending to wash their clothes for them. He opens his mouth to protest or maybe warn her that she needs to use warm water first and then switch to cold, he hasn't decided yet, but Sam jumps in before he can say anything.
"Oh no, you don't have to do that."
She shakes her head. "No, it's okay. I have to do it today anyway."
Sam gets up from the couch. "Let me help then."
"You don't have to-" she starts to say, but is cut off when Sam plucks the basket out of her hands. She blinks bemusedly at her empty hands and then has to tilt her head back to look up at Sam's face. Dean grins. It's a bit of a sore spot with him that his little brother is taller than him, but it's strangely funny to see him standing next to the small Chinese girl. She's only about five foot four inches at the most. She's slim in a healthy way, though her wrists are tiny and she makes Sam look like a goddamn giant.
"Where to?" Sam asks patiently.
"Um," she says, "basement." Sam nods and he takes the stairs back downstairs, Lee trailing behind him. Even with Sam one or two steps lower than her on the stairs, he's still taller than her and Dean snickers at the rather flat look that Lee gives the back of Sam's head. His brother gives him a funny look.
Dean waves them off cheerfully. "Have fun!"
Sam rolls his eyes at him and keeps on walking.
"Turn on the TV if you get bored," Lee says to him as Sam disappears down the steps, "Remote's probably under one of the seat cushions." Dean nods and she follows Sam down the stairs.
Jack whines and paws at Dean's leg, looking at him with big woeful brown eyes.
Dean stares back. "What d'you want?" The dog barks once and runs down the stairs. Dean blinks. "Dumb dog," he mutters.
* * *
July 2008
"Wake up, loverboy."
Sam's eyes fly open and he nearly falls out of bed in his effort to scramble away. "Ruby," he gasps. He glances around; Lee's nowhere in sight.
She smirks at him. "You didn't miss me?" Ruby taunts. "Don't hurt my feelings, Sammy boy."
"Sam," he corrects automatically and then frowns. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Ruby smiles. It's incredibly frightening. "I told you I would help you save your brother, didn't I?"
Sam turns away from her and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Maybe his palms come off a little wetter than they should, but he ignores it. "Yeah, well, you're too late now."
"Oh, I already knew that," Ruby says dismissively and her smile spreads at his disbelieving look. "Word travels fast among demons." Sam's phone rings, interrupting Sam before he can say anything and her eyes gleam. "Aren't you going to get that?" she asks.
He gives her a wary look, before he picks up the phone and flips it open. "Hello?" Sam mutters into the phone, watching Ruby uncomfortably. She's still smirking at him, as if she knows something he doesn't.
/Sam?/
He blinks. "Becky? I haven't heard from you in a while."
/Yeah./ Becky laughs nervously.
Sam frowns. "Are you alright?"
/Um, yeah. I'm good./ She laughs nervously again. /Can you do something for me?/
"Sure," Sam says, "What is it?"
/Just... just, um, say now for me./
He blinks. "Now? Why-"
"Sorry, kid," Ruby says and something connects hard with the back of his head and he blacks out.
* * *
January 2008
Dean wakes, inhaling sharply. Cold sweat soaks the clothes he went to sleep in and the blankets Lee let him borrow for the night. Sam mumbles questioningly from the top bunk of the bed.
"M'okay," Dean grunts. "Go back to bed, Sammy, I'm just gonna get a drink." Sam mumbles again in a response that is either sleeptalking or agreement.
The lights in the kitchen are already on when Dean climbs down the stairs from the loft. Lee's sitting at the table, sipping something steaming from a mug. Her eyebrows shoot up when she sees him and chokes on her drink in surprise. "Yo," she says when she recovers and quickly pulls her feet off the table. "I hope I didn't wake you up."
"Oh, you didn't," Dean says quickly, "Just, uh, nightmare got me up." -Sam dead again, the crossroads bitch smiling cruelly- "Thanks for letting us stay the night," he adds quickly, just for something to say so he won't think back to the dream.
She shrugs. "It was that or kick you guys out to freeze to death," Lee points out. "And I'm not so heartless as to leave anyone to that fate if I can help it. Want some hot water? I just boiled some. I didn't really want to drink anything cold in this weather."
"Yeah, thanks," Dean agrees and she gets up to get him a mug. He hovers at the door of the kitchen, unsurely. She notices and smiles at him.
"Go ahead, sit down at the table," Lee says, too cheerful for it to be - he checks the clock in the room - one o'clock in the morning. "I'll just be a moment."
He sits down at the table. The seats are squishy and comfortable. "Um," Dean says. "So, I mean, not to be ungrateful, but why did you let us come in anyway? You looked kind of freaked when you met us." Lee doesn't say anything at first, just offers him a warm mug full of water instead of answering and he accepts it. "Thank you."
"No problem," she says and sits across from him and chews thoughtfully on a cracker. Dean takes a drink; the sip is warm and soothing on the way down. "I think it was the way you asked," she says thoughtfully, enough time later for Dean to have almost forgotten what his question was. "Like there was nothing else more important." She smiles. "I thought you guys were lovers or something at first."
Dean chokes. "Guh," he coughs.
She chuckles. "I already asked Sam about it; I was afraid of having to do the laundry again," Lee tells him. "I know you guys are brothers." She pats him on the back. Dean grimaces and she laughs again. "Which is kind of a relief," she says, like an afterthought, "since I don't know if my mom will be okay with this, and if you were having gay sex under our roof too, I don't know what she'd do."
He wipes his mouth. "She's, uh, conservative?"
Lee snorts into her cup. "You could say that," she mutters and takes a drink. "I don't think she likes anyone, really. Not gay people, blacks, whites, other Asians; sometimes I think even me. Oh, don't get me wrong," she says quickly, "I know she loves me. She takes good care of me, but..." she trails off, eyes downcast.
Dean looks down into his mug and at the ripples in the clear liquid. "Sometimes it seems like you just don't live up to their expectations," he muses.
She huffs in amusement. "Yeah."
They sit quietly for a few minutes. It's strangely companionable.
"The weather's supposed to get worse," Lee says after a while. "My mom can't get home yet. The roads are blocked. You can - and you're going to have to - stay for another couple of days or so." Dean opens his mouth. He doesn't really know what he's about to say, but Lee cuts him off. "It's no problem," she tells him.
"Oh," Dean says, "Thanks."
Lee nods. "I've got a little sibling too, you know. A sister," she says and giggles softly when Dean automatically glances around. "Half-sister," she corrects herself. "Doesn't live with me, but with my dad and my stepmom. She's two years old," she says fondly. "She's adorable. She's going to grow up to be beautiful."
There's a softly reverent, yet wistful tone in her voice that makes Dean's brow furrow. "She's my sister," Lee repeats, as if she can't quite believe it herself and smiles. It looks painful. "I think she might already be smarter than I am."
"I can tell you love her a lot," Dean says carefully.
She grins wryly. "Yeah," she says and her previously melancholy air is broken. "I guess I do. It's pretty silly since I've only seen her a few times."
"Ah," Dean says and fights a grin. "Is all the lore about stepmothers true?"
Lee shrugs. "You mean, is my stepmother a crazy, backstabbing, hypocritical bitch who hates me?" she asks and huffs under her breath and wrinkles her nose. "Well, yeah."
Dean laughs.
She laughs too and then winces. "Well, I guess she's not that bad," Lee says fairly, looking reluctant to say so, "And maybe I left a bad first impression, but she's the adult, isn't she? She's the one supposed to be mature about this, isn't she?" Lee sighs. "Oh well."
"Yeah," Dean chortles, "Oh well." He finishes the rest of the water in the mug and sets it on the table. He sits for a few moments, a sense of courtesy he hadn't known he'd possessed advising him to, before he stands up. "I'm, uh," he says awkwardly, "I'm gonna go back to bed."
Lee stands up too and smiles at him. "Yeah, okay, I was just about to go too. Don't worry, I'll clean up the cups."
Dean nods in thanks. "G'night," he mumbles and turns around to head back upstairs.
"Uh, hey." Dean turns around again and Lee's standing at the sink, holding a mug in each hand. She gives him an awkward half smile. "Take good care of your brother, okay?"
He blinks at her. "Um, okay," Dean says. "I always have. Always will for as long as I can." Even if in about five months he was about to get dragged to hell.
She nods. "Yeah," Lee mumbles. "Yeah, that's good. Good night."
Dean blinks again, and shrugs to himself. "See you tomorrow." He goes back upstairs and gets into bed.
"You okay?" Sam mumbles into his pillow, or at least Dean thinks he does.
"Yeah, Sam, I'm okay," Dean says quietly. Something prompts him to ask, "You?"
"Ngh," Sam mumbles and Dean takes that as a yes.
He slides into sleep easily and for the first time in months he has no dreams.
* * *
July 2008
"Sam. Sam!" A soft hand taps the side of his face insistently and he groans. "I think he's waking up!"
The voice is startlingly familiar. "Becky?" he rasps out, dragging his eyes open with difficulty. His mouth feels full of cotton and the back of his head throbs steadily.
She smiles down at him, relieved. "Oh, good, you're awake," Becky says and adjusts his tie. Sam blinks down at himself. He's wearing a suit. "We weren't sure if you'd wake up in time."
"In time for what?" Sam asks and sits up abruptly - he nearly bangs his head on the top of the car. He's sitting in the back seat of a car he doesn't recognize.
Ruby turns around to smirk at him from the passenger seat. "Sorry, tiger, I didn't mean to hit you so hard."
"Ruby," he says blankly and then turns to Becky, wide-eyed. "What the hell is going on? And who changed me?"
Becky looks kind of like a kicked puppy. "I- I-"
"This is how you treat your friends?" Ruby sounds disappointed in him, but she's smiling mockingly at him when he looks back at her. "Who needs enemies if they have you?"
Sam grinds his teeth together. Becky hovers over him worriedly, glancing at Ruby disaprovingly.
"Play nice, you two." On the other side of Becky, Lee leans forward to wave at Sam. "Hi." She doesn't have her wings anymore.
"You're behind this," he hisses at her furiously.
"I have a plan," Lee informs him, cheerfully. She looks far too pleased with herself.
Sam grimaces at her. "What does this plan involve?"
The car stops and Zack peers over his shoulder from the driver's seat. "We're here."
"Zack?" Sam gapes.
"Alright, thanks," Lee says cheerfully and Zack nods.
"By the way, it was me who changed your clothes," he tells Sam. Zack gives him a grin and it's somehow reassuring.
"Thanks," Sam says, but Zack shakes his head.
"Nah, man, I should be thanking you," he says.
The car door opens and Ruby yanks him out with a strength her body doesn't seem to have; demonic side-effect, he supposes. "This is very touching and all, but Sam's got an appointment to get to," she says. Becky scrambles out of the car after him.
"What appointment?" he demands.
Lee steps out too, and grins. "Look around, Sam," she says happily. "And say hello to Stanford. Again."
"Well," Ruby puts in, "You'll have to impress the admissions flunkie before they'll let you back in. Now come on." She tugs at his arm; Sam resists and Ruby sighs irritably. She gives Lee a meaningful look.
Lee sighs too, only it sounds resigned. "Sam," Lee says tiredly, "Just... this one thing. Please? For Dean." There are layers to that last thing she says that Sam doesn't want to think about, but the statement hits home and he purses his lips and allows Ruby to drag him into the building.
"Welcome back, Sam," Becky whispers to him happily and clutches his hand.
"Hm," he says.
* * *
January 2008
The storm rages for four days; the longest, most severe storm that's hit this area of Michigan in a long time. There's plenty of food in the pantry to sustain them, but on the third day the power goes out, cutting off the heater too. Their solution is to hole up in Lee's room, because it's the smallest, possibly smaller than Sam's first dorm room at Stanford and Dean figures that the smaller the area, the warmer it'll be since there will be "less cold air to deal with."
Sam's not impressed by this logic and he makes sure to tell his brother what he thinks of this whenever he can. Lee just thinks it's funny and reasons there's no harm in it, as long as none of them decide to rummage through her underwear drawer or something.
They'd had to unfold her futon bed to accommodate all of them and they are all huddled together for warmth underneath the stack of every blanket they could find in the condo. Beside the bed is the piano bench with all the food Dean could fit laid carefully on top.
Lee snickers. "Wow, my mom would kill me." She's in the middle of the two of them, because Sam had said that she had the least mass and would lose body heat faster. It makes sense, but it's kind of hard for Dean to believe when she feels so warm. He makes Sammy take the inside of the bed, closest to the wall and farthest from the window though and Sam gives him a look of I-know-what-you're-doing-here, but he goes with no complaints. Right behind Sam's head, Jack is curled up, watching them mournfully.
"Why, 'cause you're in bed with two dashing and handsome older men?" Dean grins shamelessly. Sam snorts from her other side and she laughs.
"Well, yeah," she says, shrugging, "I mean, she even freaks out when I just talk to a guy. She says I'm not supposed to date until I'm twenty."
Dean barks a laugh, but Lee raises an eyebrow at him and he blinks. "You're not kidding," he says disbelievingly and she shrugs again.
"That's kind of... excessive," Sam comments, his eyebrows going up.
"Just kind of," Lee agrees, amused. "But she's my mom. She knows best, I guess. I don't want to deal with all the dramatics of a high school romance anyway."
"Isn't that kind of lonely?" Sam asks quietly. Dean glances at him.
One side of her mouth quirks up in a wry half smile. "Yeah, sometimes," Lee says thoughtfully. "But it's not really fair of me to date someone short term just because I'm lonely, is it?"
Sam cocks his head. "You're pretty mature for a teenager," he observes, "And it just sounds like you want someone to love, not to flirt with."
Lee laughs. "I'm that obvious, huh?" she asks and shrugs again. "I don't know about love. I think I just want someone to be there for me. Like a life-long friend or something. You guys are pretty lucky."
Dean's brow furrows. "Why do you say that?"
"You've got each other, don't you?" she asks, smiling wistfully. "And you're close, too. I just have a rocky relationship with my mom, who works all the time, a dad who I don't talk to because I don't like my stepmom and a baby half sister who thinks I'm her aunt."
Lee stares up at the ceiling and Dean feels weighed down by her sorrow.
"I wonder if anyone will remember me after I'm gone," she says quietly, sadly. "Or if I affected anyone's life for the better. I just want them all to be happy, but it's hard sometimes when it seems like all they want to do is wallow in their self pity, in their pain, and they don't care that I'm drowning trying to pull them out."
Sam meets Dean's eyes over her head and holds his gaze. "You can't heal all their wounds," Sam says and Dean knows that he's not just talking to Lee. "Some things you need to just leave be."
Lee turns her head to look at him and Sam breaks his stare down with Dean, much to his relief. "Are you serious?" she asks Sam curiously. "You don't just leave the people you love like that when you could try to do something."
"Even at the expense of yourself?" Sam responds incredulously. "It's not worth it."
"It's always worth it," she disagrees.
Sam shakes his head. "What if that's just the way the world needs to be?" he asks, almost sounding angry. "Why can't you just leave it well enough alone?"
"Sam," Dean says quietly. Lee looks back at him and for one terrifying second he thinks he sees something in her eyes that he's been seeing in his own since the day he made the deal with the crossroads demon. Kindred spirits, he thinks, but then she's turning back to Sam and he thinks he imagined it.
"How could I?" she whispers sadly, unknowingly echoing Dean's thoughts. "How would I live with myself?"
Sam says nothing, but Dean sees his jaw working furiously.
"Anyone want to play poker?" Dean asks, the tension in the room too much for him to bear.
Sam stares at him disbelievingly.
"Okay," Lee says.
She is really, really bad at poker and since they're gambling truths by the end of the game, Dean knows a lot more about her than he did before. For example, she likes fish a lot, even raw fish, and she's okay with red meat, but she prefers seafood and bird meat.
"I think she's evil," Dean whispers conspiratorially to Sam, who laughs and smacks him upside the head. Lee, who's between them and obviously hears every word he says, just shakes her head and grins.
They switch to cutthroat after a while, which she calls three person euchre, and she wins every game. By the time they get bored and they start discussing random topics until they all drift off to sleep, Dean has mostly forgotten what he thought he'd seen.
Mostly.
* * *
October 2008
It feels weird to be back in school, but it surprises Sam how easy it is for him to get back into the swing of things. Suddenly he's not worrying about the next job or demons, he's worrying about papers and grades - it's disconcerting. He's feels like his priorities have gotten messed up somewhere, and Sam's getting steadily more and more frustrated. He wants his brother back, he shouldn't be here, doing nothing, and what if the people around him get hurt, isn't that why he left?
These thoughts swirl in his mind for months, and he finds himself getting angry more and more often. He unfairly lashes out at Becky and Zack, when they're just worrying about him; he lashes out (fairly, he thinks in this case) at Ruby; he doesn't lash out at Lee, but not for lack of trying. At tthe beginning of the August, she'd disappeared and he hasn't seen her since.
He's at the library when he sees the Chinese spirit again. She finds him at a table studying. Sam looks up and nearly has a heart attack when he sees her sitting across from him.
"Where have you been?" he hisses at her.
She blinks at him. "I'm so feeling the love," Lee says sarcastically. He doesn't answer, just glares at her, and she sighs. "Whatever."
Sam drops his pen and leans forward. He couldn't care less about the shit he's reading about anyway. "Can you do it? Can you save him?"
She's quiet for a second, searching his eyes for something. Sam waits impatiently and finally Lee nods slowly, and it's like all the tension in his shoulders just melts away. "Yes," she says uneasily, "but there are risks, consequences-"
"I don't care," Sam says, "I just - he's my brother. I can't leave him there. He doesn't deserve it." Not like I do, he doesn't say and for a moment, Lee just looks at him, and her eyes are wise and thoughtful. He wonders if she knows what he's thinking.
But she doesn't say anything so he doesn't either.
* * *
February 2008
They leave the house a few days after the storm ends and the sun is shining brightly again. Lee sends them packing after she gets a phone call from her mom saying that the roads are clear so she's coming home. "Sorry," she apologizes, and shoves packets of air activated hand warmers into their hands as they hurriedly pull on their now dry snow gear.
Dean insists on finding the Impala before they do anything, and they do; she's buried under about three feet of snow in a lot in front of a Starbucks, but when Dean turns the key, he whoops as she purrs like it's a perfect day. "Oh, baby," Dean murmurs, stroking the wheel, "I knew I could count on you. I swear I'll never leave you like this again."
Sam makes a disgusted sound. "Dean, ew," he complains and his brother flips him off.
The moment they finish off the Black Dog, Dean guns for Ohio. "I don't want to see snow for the rest of my life," he swears without thinking and Sam doesn't speak to him for two days. They don't make it far out of Michigan, only out halfway through Illinois when they meet up with another hunter who's heading to Michigan.
"You must be out of your fucking mind," Dean says to him, and the other man grins.
"No way, man," the hunter drawls, smiling with teeth stained yellow from smoking. "There's honest work to be had there."
It piques their interest and the three of them sit down for a beer and it turns out the hunter's name is Eric. Apparently back in Michigan there's a family promising to pay hunters ten thousand dollars just to show up and offer their services and a hefty reward for any 'services rendered.' It sounds sketchy, but it's the kind of sketchy that makes Dean scowl and resignedly ask where exactly this family is supposedly located.
Sam calls Ellen and the information's legit. The offer had been put out long enough ago that it'd leaked to the Roadhouse too. "Why didn't you tell us about it before?" he asks curiously.
"Well," Ellen says wryly, "I think we might have been a little busy." Sam hangs up.
So they go back to Michigan, Eric in tow. They show up at the house which is located right in the middle of a labyrinth disguised as a subdivision and knock on the door.
No one answers. Dean patiently waits fifteen minutes and then promptly picks the lock.
"Dean!" Sam scolds, but isn't really surprised when Dean just flashes him a grin, then jauntily opens the door and steps through the entrance. Eric follows immediately and after a brief hesitation, Sam follows.
As they proceed deeper within the house, Sam regrets having gone in as he hears the echoes of a fight and it feels too personal to him. It's uncomfortably like he's walking in on something he shouldn't be seeing or hearing. But Dean presses on, looking curious, so Sam continues to follow him.
A woman is spitting out angry, cruel words. "How could you be so selfish?" she snarls. "I've given you everything I have, my time, my energy, my money - and this is how you repay me? Making all of it a waste? I hate you, I should have left you to your father, let him drag you to Taiwan. You're so ungrateful! I hate you!"
Broken, wracking sobs fill the cool silence that falls then and Sam hears whimpers and one long, shuddering breath. "I'm sorry, Mommy," a girl hiccups, "I'm sorry."
"You can't do anything right," the woman continues on cruelly, and Sam flinches in sympathy, "Can't get good grades, can't do well on your ACT - your PSAT was pathetic!" A sharp intake of breath and the woman chuckles coldly. "You didn't think I would find it? You can't hide anything from me, I'm your mother. You're so stupid - maybe it's just as well that that you die!"
"No, Mommy, you don't mean that-" the girl immediately protests, her voice high pitched with hysteria, but she's cut off by a man.
"Su Mei!" he says sternly.
Eric locates the door through which all the shouting is coming from, and waves Sam and Dean over. Sam catches Dean's gaze, and his brother cocks his head towards the door so Sam goes over to Eric, a sick feeling pooling in the bottom of his stomach. Dean is right behind him.
Laughter, low and distinctly feminine. "See?" another woman says darkly, "Even her mother doesn't want her. I don't know why you're so attached to her, Chin, she's a selfish little brat and you know it. She should die, not our daughter."
'Die?' Sam mouths at Dean questioningly. He shrugs.
"Fuck you, bitch," the daughter spits. Sam is nudged in the side and he looks over to see Dean quirk an eyebrow upwards; a silent way of saying, 'Man, check this out, some families are more fucked up than ours.'
"Liang!" the man snaps. "Watch your mouth."
"Why?" she asks angrily. "She's a bitch. She badmouths everyone behind their backs; even you, Dad! It's disgusting and cowardly, and she hates me because one summer when I was fourteen I was anorexic and wouldn't eat her fucking cooking! I'm not the only immature one here. At least I have the excuse of being a teenager - she's at least twenty years older than me!" Sam sees Dean's eyebrows draw together, like he recognizes the girl's voice or something.
"Oh, I'll tell you what I think of you now, you stupid, selfish little girl," the stepmother begins to say, but she stops when the sound of skin slapping skin cuts through the air. Sam guesses she's been slapped.
"Don't you talk to my daughter like that," the mother warns her.
The man laughs bitterly. "This is coming from you?" he asks disbelievingly.
"This is different," she says coolly, "because she is my daughter. Not hers. Your precious little new daughter can suffer whatever abuse your new wife decides to inflict upon her. She will not touch Liang."
Sam nearly jumps out of his skin when a weathered hand lays itself on his arm and tugs. An old Chinese woman looks at him sorrowfully and says something he doesn't understand. "Excuse me?" he asks.
A young man standing behind her bows and says in the carefully enunciated English of a foreigner, "She apologizes for you hearing this and expresses her regret that you must be here to, um," his brow furrows in thought, then his face lights up with success. "That you must be here to witness our family 'air our dirty laundry,'" he finishes triumphantly, grinning brightly. He is immediately cowed by the vicious look the old woman gives him.
The old woman pushes past Sam and swings the door open. Everyone inside the room turns as one to look at her, but the daughter's eyes flicker to Sam and Dean, who stand behind her, and they all gape at each other.
Dean jabs Sam painfully in the side with a finger. "That's Lee!" he hisses.
Sam resists the urge to knock him over the head. "I noticed!" he hisses back.
The old woman is jabbering angrily in Chinese at the previously bickering family members and gesturing wildly at Eric, Sam and Dean, who are still standing unsurely at the entrance of the room. She stops to take a breath and then both Lee's father and one of the women start talking at her at the same time. She's the only one of the two that is wearing a ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, so Sam guesses she's the stepmother.
Sam doesn't know what they're saying. He took a course in Chinese history as an elective and it was interesting, but he'd never had the interest to study the language. Suddenly Lee snorts in the middle of their simultaneous rants, interrupting them. The stepmother looks annoyed.
"This is stupid," she mutters and then raises her voice to make sure everyone is listening. "Dad, I hate to say it, but Violet has a point," Lee says clearly, but with a slight grimace, "I'm sixteen and Cathy's two. I've lived more of a life than she has. It should be me. Not her."
"But-" he begins to protest, but she raises a hand to silence him.
"I chose this," she says seriously, vehemently, "I know what I agreed to, I've accepted the consequences, and I believe the rewards will be worth the cost. You won't change my mind."
"Liang," her mother says and Sam's breath catches in his throat; there's so much emotion packed into that one word and it's heartbreaking. He tries to surreptitiously glance at Dean, but Dean makes him meet his gaze steadily and Sam has to look away.
Eric coughs. "Excuse me," he says. "But what the fuck is going on?"
* * *
next
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean, Sam, OFC, Ruby, Becky (Rebecca), Zack
Summary: Dean would go to hell and back for Sam - only problem is, he can't get back. Saviors come in strange forms, and promise him his brother back; but there's always a price.
Notes: Anyway, uh, my timeline is based on this, and is written after I watched A Very Supernatural Christmas. Also, I really like my title; after a while, I forgot what it's meaning was and I probably deviated from it a lot in the the story, but I just kept it because I just liked it. It rocks and it makes me happy, and that's all that matters.
This seriously ate my brain and wouldn't go away. If I never see this again, it will be way too soon.
Word Count: ~15,600
Disclaimer: Don't own Supernatural, just writing crap that comes to mind and probably butchering these characters badly. Rock on, babes.
Oh, and I don't even own the way I formatted my story; I stole it from someone else. I'm sorry person-whose-username-I've-forgotten, but I thought it was cool.
* * * * *
February 2008
The wreckage is truly incredible with bodies of hunters and monsters alike strewn haphazardly about the large room. Furniture is overturned and partially lit candles from the ceremony litter the ground too, adding waxy bits of white and more red to complete the scene.
In the middle of the room a middle aged Chinese man stares down at the cold, dead body of a young girl dressed carefully in layers of beautiful intricately decorated silk that is now ripped into tatters. Her head sits on the floor about three feet away, her eyes closed peacefully. In the place where her neck should connect with her body is large iron battleaxe head in a pool of her drying blood.
"Chin."
The man turns slightly towards the voice. "My daughter is dead," he says flatly. The Chinese words echo strangely in the warehouse.
The owner of the voice, a younger man probably not older than 30 looks surprised. "Was that not the point?" His point is bluntly made in English, unpurposefully cruel for all that it makes the other man flinch and turn away. He has the decency to look slightly repentant.
"Yes," Chin agrees dully, switching back to English for the other man's benefit. Some of the American born family members have trouble with the native language. He reaches out a hand to touch the axe, but lets his hand fall before it reaches and says, "The ancestors will be pleased."
The younger man waits, but he says no more, just stares at the opposite wall. "I am sorry," he says quietly, earnestly. "I know it's not fair-"
"My daughter was only sixteen," Chin interrupts bitterly. "She had her whole life ahead of her. You know nothing of fairness little boy."
The younger man respectfully falls silent for a moment before he cautiously reveals the reason for intruding upon Chin's grief: "They sent me to tell you that they need to start the clean up."
Chin is silent as he turns to look at his companion coolly. The suddenly impassive and probing gaze on the older man's face sends shivers up and down the messenger's spine before his eyes fall back down upon his dead daughter. The younger man wonders what he is looking for in the dead, battered and torn body of his teenage daughter. Solace? Closure? - Then Chin nods curtly, and strides out of the room.
Outside he hears the sound of retching and low murmurs of "You'll be okay, Dean. It's okay-"
The vicious sound of someone spitting roughly cuts off the reassurances. "No, it's not going to be fucking okay, Sam," the now familiar voice snarls in disgust. "That girl - s-she -" he chokes on his words.
"Shh..."
"I murdered her, Sam! You can't - you can't just shush away something like that!"
Chin just keeps walking. Bile rises in the back of his throat and the weight of his pity joins the knot of grief in his stomach.
* * *
June 2008
When the hellhounds come for Dean, Sam's not ready. He's read entire libraries of lore to gather knowledge that doesn't help at all, called scores of people who are just as, if not more, useless and just babble nonsense about "accepting fate" and "moving on."
Fuck no. Sam is not just going to 'move on,' Dean is his brother and he's... he's just Dean. Sam can't comprehend a world without Dean, doesn't want to know or think about existing without the big brother who's just always been there without question.
But Dean, the insensitive, selfish asshole, sees the fucking hellhounds, glances at the calendar and just says, "Oh." Fucking 'Oh.' Like it's not going to be end of Sam's world as he knows it, like it's just another day, another get-me-a-cup-of-coffee-bitch-haha-just-kidding-my-little-bro-Sammy-not-Sam.
"Dean," Sam says and the next thing he knows all the air in his lungs displaces itself somewhere else and he's left breathless as Dean pulls him into a hug. It's an awkward, tight, desperate, but genuine hug. The shock factor alone makes Sam wonder if it's not him in hell after all, some demon fucking with his mind.
"Goodbye, Sammy," Dean whispers. "I'm sorry." And suddenly Sam's sitting alone in some motel in middle-of-nowhere, Nevada, shell shocked and feeling empty.
Sam searches everywhere, but there's nothing left behind; no body, no signs of struggle, no nothing.
The entirety of the next week he spends on his laptop in that same shitty motel room, calling Bobby, calling contacts that he's already called up five or six times before, calling Bobby again and getting pissy, and forgetting to feed himself. Then Monday hits. Sam wakes up from a restless sleep and mumbles, "Dean, you fucking stink, take a shower," before he remembers and realizes it's himself that smells so rancid.
Sam has to drag himself out of bed and stagger to the bathroom where he dry heaves into the toilet bowl and takes a shower for the first time in days.
By the next morning he's packed and driving hard down the highway to Las Vegas.
He needs a distraction.
* * *
January 2008
Sam really hates Michigan. It's cold enough to freeze every single one of his fingers and toes off. It's like the weather is making a spirited effort to do it, at least. And there's not even any snow.
God, what a time for the heater to break. Sam makes a mental note to go buy a couple winter coats, the cold is ridiculous.
"Sam," Dean grunts from the passenger seat.
He glances over, but a second later Sam's eyes are firmly on the road again. "Mm."
"It's fucking cold."
Sam snorts. "I had no idea."
Dean mumbles something incoherent under his breath that sounds humorously like, "Fuckin' hate Michigan."
Sam wants to laugh. He doesn't because when he opens his mouth to, he sees the cloud of his breath in the air. It's sort of depressing and Sam closes his mouth again and pretends he doesn't see the wisps of fog coming from his and Dean's nostrils.
"It's a JCC," Dean says suddenly, sounding horrified.
"Buh?" Sam asks intelligently. He wonders if his fingers have finally gotten frostbite. He can't really feel them anymore. He adds gloves to his mental shopping list too.
"It's a fucking JCC," Dean says impatiently and spits out an explanation like it's a dirty word: "Suburbs."
Sam squints against the sun, which is shining down into his eyes too obnoxiously for it to be so fucking cold. "Oh, hell," he says. All he wants to do is find a motel that looks relatively inexpensive, not deal with Dean's weird suburbaphobia. What the hell is wrong with this place anyway, with all the Hiltons and shit?
"More proof that this place is fucking evil, that's what," Dean grumbles and Sam blinks.
"I said that out loud?" he asks blankly.
Dean looks horrified again. "The fuck?!" he yelps. "I knew it. This place is fucking evil! Get your hands off my baby, you- you thing!"
Sam gapes at him for a second and that's all the time Dean needs to lunge over and try to take the wheel. "Dean!" he shouts as the car swerves, "Dean! What the fuck?!" Sam grapples for the emergency brake - where the fuck is it? - grabs hold of it, swears violently as his hand slides off of it and then pulls it just as Dean swings the wheel to the right just enough so they end up on the shoulder.
"What the hell, Dean?" Sam demands as soon as he gets his breath back. Panic flutters in his chest and his heart is lodged in his throat. They were lucky - just a few inches more to the right and they would've just fallen into a fairly deep ditch.
Dean just breathes heavily through his nose and the look on his face gives Sam chills that have nothing to do with the temperature. His brother's eyes are calculating, apprehensive. Then he shrugs and gives Sam a shit-eating grin.
"I hate you," Sam mutters and reaches across Dean to open the passenger side door. Dean looks at him curiously and then they are both promptly hit with a wave of ice cold air.
"Fuck, it's even colder out there!" Dean groans, huddling in on himself.
"Yeah," Sam says sympathetically and shoves Dean out the door.
"Agh!" Dean shouts and Sam smirks when he hears the dull thump of his brother's body on the ground. "Bitch," Dean mumbles at Sam as he hauls himself back into the car, shivering.
"I love you too," Sam tells him, grinning, and Dean only scowls at him. Guilt pricks at his consciousness and he asks, "You okay?"
Dean grunts in affirmation. "I fucking hate Michigan," he grumbles.
* * *
July 2008
Sam is drunk. Or high. Or... uh... fuck if he knows. All he knows is that the casino... bouncer? Yeah, whatever, he'll go with that... the casino bouncer threw him out of the casino for 'disorderly behavior' and he'd tried to argue, because he is Sam and 'disorderly' is defined by Dean. Even though his idiot brother went off and sold his soul and left his little brother hanging, high and dry.
He stumbles over his feet and unceremoniously falls on his face. He giggles hysterically, even though his face freaking hurts.
"You okay?"
Sam squints up, and frowns. "You're glowing," he tells the girl and hey, she looks familiar. He wracks his memory for the names of the limited number of young Chinese girls he knows who might be standing next to him in Las Vegas and shining with a sort of holy iridescent light - and only comes up with one.
She also looks amused. "Really."
"I'm hallucinating," he decides and awkwardly shuffles to his feet.
"If you say so," she says agreeably.
"'cause you're dead," Sam explains apologetically and frowns at himself for feeling sorry for the way he talks to a hallucination.
She snorts. "Yeah, and the dead never comes back to bite the living in the ass," she says wryly.
* * *
January 2008
Less than a week later, a snow storm hits in the middle of the hunt and makes it a bitch to track what Dean suspects is a Black Dog that's been plaguing the small, suburban city. Their new Costco-purchased snow gear is rendered useless as snow melts through the material. Dean thinks his lips are probably blue (Sam's are practically purple) and he's almost relieved that the trail has turned stone cold. He's pretty sure that there's not even circulation left in his fingers to shoot if they did come upon the werewolf. As it is, it's an effort just to make himself take another step.
"F-fuck!" Dean says, shivering. What an unglamorous way to die; death by cold. In fucking Michigan. He spares a mournful thought for the Impala, sitting -shit, he forgets where- and thinks that he's going to haunt the next owner if the lucky fucker doesn't treat her the way she deserves.
"S-s-s-subdivi-vi-vi-sion," Sam mumbles, his teeth chattering so violently that Dean can barely understand him.
"Ngh?" Dean questions, somehow unable to convey his lack of understanding in words. He squints at his brother, barely able to see Sam through the thick snow and mumbles annoyed curses under his breath as snowflakes catch on his eyelashes.
Sam turns onto a random residential street. It looks like apartments or condos, judging from the way each of the huge buildings have about eight billion different entrances. Dean follows and uncomfortably notices the paleness of his little brother's skin. "S-sammy," he starts to say and has a fucking panic attack as some dog starts barking like crazy and from out of nowhere a blur of fur nearly knocks Sam off his feet. Dean is fumbling for his gun when he realizes, oh, fuck, it's just a dog.
"I'm sorry!" someone is shouting, voice high-pitched with panic and... femaleness. Dean looks to his left and sees someone waving frantically, a leash attached to an empty collar dangling from the other hand. "I'm sorry! Jack, you bad dog - oh, shit-" And now both arms are waving after the girl slips as she climbs over the curb. She falls backwards ungracefully and knocks her head painfully against the ground. Dean winces sympathetically at the loud crack he hears.
The little dog (looks like a Sheltie, Dean thinks) stops barking at Sam and pads calmly over to the girl and steps on her chest with its two front paws. She groans and shoves it away irritably, muttering, "Annoying dog." It nudges her face apologetically and she frowns down at it.
"Y-y-you okay?" Sam asks, all concerned and chivalrous, which sounds vaguely funny as he stutters. Except not really.
"Yeah," she mumbles, rubbing the back of her head and wincing. She pulls off a glove to probe the back of her head and decides, "Probably no permanent damage."
"Y-y-you s-s-sure?" Sam presses.
Now she looks up, surprised. Her gaze flickers between the two of them, bewildered. "Uh, yeah," she says and tucks 'Jack' under one arm and struggles to get up. Dean grabs one arm and helps her up, earning himself another perplexed look. She pulls her arm back quickly. "Um. Thanks."
"N-no problem," Dean says and is annoyed when despite his attempts he still stutters a bit as his teeth clatter. He can see she's definitely got Oriental ancestry now that he's a little bit closer. He wonders which one. He can never tell just by looking at someone, but he figures it's probably rude to ask.
"Okay," she says dubiously and backs away warily, "Um, bye." She turns away.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam's shivering intensifies and oh God he's too pale. The temperature seems to drop another few degrees and Dean blurts out, "Wait."
The girl stiffens in surprise. Dean exhales sharply and fumbles for something to say.
"Please," he says finally, desperately. "Help us."
Slowly, she turns around.
* * *
July 2008
Sam opens his eyes.
And then closes them again, because this can not be happening. He counts slowly to ten and cracks his eyes open again.
"Hi," she says, sounding amused.
He groans and covers his face with his hands. Sam had really hoped that she had just been the result of the ten some shots of whiskey he'd had and was now regretting as the hangover treated him to a throbbing headache.
Wait a second.
Sam pulls his hands away from his eyes and lifts his head up slightly to get a clear look at her. "Why do you have wings?"
* * *
January 2008
The girl lets them into her home with the barest hint of reluctance and fusses at Dean when she realizes that he's about to go up the carpeted stairs with his boots still on. Dean grumbles a bit, but strips off his boots and the girl advises them to take off his socks too since they're probably wet - "Well," she sighs, looking resigned, "Actually, you might as well pull off all your top layers, I'm guessing they're all soaked. Just hang them on the railing there to let them dry. I'll go get some blankets."
She goes upstairs to what Sam assumes is the living area, leaving Dean and Sam to strip off their outmost layers. Sam guesses that it's only her and her mother, who probably won't be too happy about her allowing two strange men into their home when he sees that all the shoes are distinctly female. He wonders where her father is.
The sweater he had been wearing underneath his parka is damp, but Sam decides to leave it on. He might take it off later. Sam sits down on one of the lower steps to untie his shoes and pull off his socks. He's nearly done when Dean kicks him in the shin, impatiently grumbling, "Hurry up."
"Shut up," Sam mutters and stuffs both his socks in his left shoe.
Chinese characters emblazoned in gold sweep across red banners that hang brightly on the beige colored walls are the first things Sam sees when he climbs up to the living room. "Just sit down on the couch," the girl says from somewhere to his right, startling him. He nearly smacks Dean in the face.
"Dude," Dean protests. "Watch the face."
Sam sits down on the couch and can't help glancing around. A couple of SAT and ACT study books sit, closed, on the kitchen table while open textbooks are strewn across the table in front of the couch Sam and Dean sit on. There are random papers spread out among them and a pencil sits on the book closest to Sam. Physics, he notes. Their Christmas decorations are still up, but they blend oddly well with the red and gold banners, the Yuanbao ingots and the chrysanthemums. Sam remembers that the Chinese New Year is coming up in a couple of weeks.
"Here," the girl says, popping out of nowhere and dumping a load of blankets on top of them, "Bundle up. I'm boiling some water and I've got some instant hot chocolate packets." She heads to the open kitchen where the self-boiling kettle is steaming.
"Sam," Dean says, looking a little freaked out, "This whole place is like... infected with beige." And it is, Sam realizes. The walls are beige, the carpet's beige, the couch is an off-white color that might as well be beige-
"Just don't think about it too much," Sam advises him as a metal spoon clinks against sides of the porcelin cup as the girl stirs the hot chocolate in.
"It's done," she announces a moment later and walks over with both mugs in one hand, the other hand gripping a carton of milk. It seems strangely domestic and... American for this girl to be living in this entirely beige condo, handing them hot chocolate and warm blankets. Sam hisses in pain as the hot liquid burns his tongue and she promptly pours some cold milk in when he sets the mug down. A good hostess, Sam thinks.
"This isn't too bad," Dean says thoughtfully. "It's sugar free though, isn't it?"
"Yeah," she says. "How can you tell? I don't know the difference."
Dean smirks.
Sam rolls his eyes. "He thinks himself a real connoisseur of hot chocolate," he says wryly before Dean can say anything, and his brother makes a face at him. "I'm Sam," he says and nods at Dean. "This is my brother. Dean."
She nods in greeting. "I'm Lee," she says and smiles.
* * *
July 2008
"I'd never been to Las Vegas before," Lee muses. She frowns. "Well, my mom used to say she took me once when I was a kid, but who can appreciate the wonders of anything at five years old, let alone Las Vegas?" She's pacing back and forth within Sam's motel room and once in a while she stops by the window to peer out.
"That doesn't answer my question," Sam points out. "And why are you here? You're supposed to move on."
She stops moving and is silent for a moment, not meeting Sam's eyes. "I died to save my family," she says quietly, "But your brother was never supposed to have been involved. I'm sorry for that."
Sam flinches in reminder. "That..." he trails off.
Lee snorts. "Yeah, it's not okay," she says. "I saw what it did to him after." She sighs. "In return I offered him one miracle; one wish that I would do anything within my power to grant."
"...Spirits can't do that," Sam says with a frown.
She shrugs. "I died as a virgin sacrifice to protect my family from evil. I'm a... blessed being. I guess. Or a blessed post-being, maybe? I don't really know how it works - I'm definitely not completely corporeal and I'm pretty sure I'm some kind of a spirit." To illustrate, she sticks her hand through the wall and waves it around a bit.
"Is that why you have wings?"
"No," she says, rolling her eyes. "You're the reason they're there."
Sam stares. "What?"
"You want them there so they're there," she says as if it should be perfectly obvious. "I can't actually control my outwardly appearance. You see what you want to see. I can only really appear and talk at you until you listen." Lee grins. "Dean tried to make me look like Jimmy Page, but it didn't work - I'm guessing you can't change my... essence, or whatever."
"Why would I want you to have wings?" Sam asks.
She shrugs. "To make it more normal or easier to believe?" Lee suggests, "I don't know. I can't read your mind either."
Sam doesn't really want to think about it. He's pretty sure it has something to do with holy saviors that just come out of the woodwork whenever the hero needs them, just in time to save the day; a false hope that comes from days sitting in a comic store just down the street that one summer when he was twelve or so. Dad and Dean dropped him off there while they tracked down a voodoo witch who was using poppets to torture a man.
Ironically enough, she ended up being the quiet daughter of the comic store owner. She was punishing him for having raped her - turned out the bastard was a serial rapist. Sam remembers asking what would happen to that girl, to that man. Dad had clenched his jaw so tightly Sam thought it might break and Dean had gone unnaturally quiet.
'Sometimes, Sammy,' Dean had said later, 'Sometimes justice isn't always fair - you know why?'
'Why?'
'Because justice was created by humans - and humans are flawed, little bro.'
'But Dean, aren't we human?'
'Yeah. But don't worry, Sammy. I'll always look out for you. I promise.'
He never did find out what had happened, but something in Dean's voice had always kept him from asking. Nothing had ever really squelched his belief in the possibility of someone that would sweep in to save the day though. Even after he realized there were no such things as superheroes, that Dad and Dean wouldn't always be there to save the day and make everything right, after all he'd seen, learned... He guesses he'd always hoped, he guessed, that there would be someone who would save him. Them.
Like an angel. Sam snorts to himself. Man, what would Dean say if he knew what he was thinking about?
"What-" Sam's voice catches for a second and then he plows on, "What did he wish for?"
Lee cocks her head. "You can't guess?" she asks curiously. Sam looks down at his hands and it feels like his heart has lodged itself in his throat. "Dean wanted the world for you," she says, her tone gentling and turning wistful, "He wanted you to live the life that you wanted, to have anything -everything- that you could ever want. So he wanted me to give you his wish."
Startled Sam looks back up at her. "What?" His mind is working furiously.
Lee gives him a wry smile. "You heard me."
"Any wish?" he presses.
"Yeah," she says, raising an eyebrow. "I guess, but I can only do so much-"
"I want my brother back," Sam interrupts her. "I want Dean back."
Lee falls silent, her mouth gaping open a bit.
"Can you do it?"
"I don't-"
"Can you do it?"
"I don't know," she snaps irritably. "I'm not a miracle worker, I'm a spirit." She pauses and adds, "Or something!"
Sam frowns and crosses his arms. "I don't want anything else," he says. "So I guess you can just go now."
Lee takes a deep breath. "I didn't say I wouldn't do it," she mutters. "Just... I might not be able to do it." She exhales sharply in frustration. "I'll try," she tells him. "I'll try, but if it doesn't work, you can have another wish."
"What's the point in getting a wish if I can't have what I really want?" Sam demands.
"I said within my power," Lee points out. "I don't have any control over life or death. I can only try to influence what happens."
"I just want my brother back," Sam says stubbornly.
"Yeah, I heard," she grumbles.
* * *
January 2008
It's a little bit awkward, considering the fact that the girl is basically a stranger and Dean really has no idea how to speak to a girl without flirting. "Hey, I'm sixteen," Lee had said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Be careful where you try to cast your charm." Dean is still reeling. While he wasn't really hitting on her (credit card scams are nothing, but he's not going to mess around with statutory - 'sides, waaaaay too young for him, dude, and he likes blondes better), he's never really had anyone turn down his flirting so firmly.
Anyway now she and Sam are discussing physics, which is interesting enough if, you know, you're a complete nerd. Dean just sits there and listens as terms like 'universal gravitational constant' and 'Carnot's principle' fly right over his head.
The phone rings once, breaking the easy flow of conversation and Lee reaches out one hand to grab the phone - click - "Hello?" Lee's voice is cool and professional and her entire demeanor changes to reflect it. It's a little creepy, but this is the third phone call that's come in about two hours and every time, the girl answers the exact same way.
Usually they're telemarketers and Lee smiles politely despite the fact they can't see her and promptly hangs up the phone. This time though, Dean is surprised when a genuine grin breaks out across her face, breaking the cool facade. It's silly and full of unrepentantly childish happiness. "Mom!" Dean only hears a buzz of worried chattering from the where he's sitting and Lee sighs exasperatedly, but fondly says, "I'm fine, Mom. School let out early today 'cause of the storm and - huh? They went camping in the middle of January?"
She gives the two of them an unimpressed look that seems to say, 'Man, there are bigger idiots than you out there.' Sam winces sheepishly.
Her mother is still talking. "Alright," Lee says finally, "Be careful. Bye! Love you too." She grimaces as she hangs up and mutters to herself, "Ow."
It piques Dean's interest. "What happened?"
She waves a hand. "Nothing important, just some guys got severe frostbite. I think I'm going to do the laundry now."
Dean blinks. "Uh," he says dubiously, "Sentence A is related to Sentence B how?"
"It all relates in my head," Lee says sheepishly and Dean guesses that she does this kind of thing a lot from the way she blushes, but doesn't look too surprised that he brought it up. She gets up and disappears into a room and comes out with a laundry basket full of clothing. "I'll just be down in the basement," she tells them, "Do you care if I wash your clothes separate from ours or not?"
Dean's first thought is, 'Huh?' before he realizes that she means she's intending to wash their clothes for them. He opens his mouth to protest or maybe warn her that she needs to use warm water first and then switch to cold, he hasn't decided yet, but Sam jumps in before he can say anything.
"Oh no, you don't have to do that."
She shakes her head. "No, it's okay. I have to do it today anyway."
Sam gets up from the couch. "Let me help then."
"You don't have to-" she starts to say, but is cut off when Sam plucks the basket out of her hands. She blinks bemusedly at her empty hands and then has to tilt her head back to look up at Sam's face. Dean grins. It's a bit of a sore spot with him that his little brother is taller than him, but it's strangely funny to see him standing next to the small Chinese girl. She's only about five foot four inches at the most. She's slim in a healthy way, though her wrists are tiny and she makes Sam look like a goddamn giant.
"Where to?" Sam asks patiently.
"Um," she says, "basement." Sam nods and he takes the stairs back downstairs, Lee trailing behind him. Even with Sam one or two steps lower than her on the stairs, he's still taller than her and Dean snickers at the rather flat look that Lee gives the back of Sam's head. His brother gives him a funny look.
Dean waves them off cheerfully. "Have fun!"
Sam rolls his eyes at him and keeps on walking.
"Turn on the TV if you get bored," Lee says to him as Sam disappears down the steps, "Remote's probably under one of the seat cushions." Dean nods and she follows Sam down the stairs.
Jack whines and paws at Dean's leg, looking at him with big woeful brown eyes.
Dean stares back. "What d'you want?" The dog barks once and runs down the stairs. Dean blinks. "Dumb dog," he mutters.
* * *
July 2008
"Wake up, loverboy."
Sam's eyes fly open and he nearly falls out of bed in his effort to scramble away. "Ruby," he gasps. He glances around; Lee's nowhere in sight.
She smirks at him. "You didn't miss me?" Ruby taunts. "Don't hurt my feelings, Sammy boy."
"Sam," he corrects automatically and then frowns. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Ruby smiles. It's incredibly frightening. "I told you I would help you save your brother, didn't I?"
Sam turns away from her and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Maybe his palms come off a little wetter than they should, but he ignores it. "Yeah, well, you're too late now."
"Oh, I already knew that," Ruby says dismissively and her smile spreads at his disbelieving look. "Word travels fast among demons." Sam's phone rings, interrupting Sam before he can say anything and her eyes gleam. "Aren't you going to get that?" she asks.
He gives her a wary look, before he picks up the phone and flips it open. "Hello?" Sam mutters into the phone, watching Ruby uncomfortably. She's still smirking at him, as if she knows something he doesn't.
/Sam?/
He blinks. "Becky? I haven't heard from you in a while."
/Yeah./ Becky laughs nervously.
Sam frowns. "Are you alright?"
/Um, yeah. I'm good./ She laughs nervously again. /Can you do something for me?/
"Sure," Sam says, "What is it?"
/Just... just, um, say now for me./
He blinks. "Now? Why-"
"Sorry, kid," Ruby says and something connects hard with the back of his head and he blacks out.
* * *
January 2008
Dean wakes, inhaling sharply. Cold sweat soaks the clothes he went to sleep in and the blankets Lee let him borrow for the night. Sam mumbles questioningly from the top bunk of the bed.
"M'okay," Dean grunts. "Go back to bed, Sammy, I'm just gonna get a drink." Sam mumbles again in a response that is either sleeptalking or agreement.
The lights in the kitchen are already on when Dean climbs down the stairs from the loft. Lee's sitting at the table, sipping something steaming from a mug. Her eyebrows shoot up when she sees him and chokes on her drink in surprise. "Yo," she says when she recovers and quickly pulls her feet off the table. "I hope I didn't wake you up."
"Oh, you didn't," Dean says quickly, "Just, uh, nightmare got me up." -Sam dead again, the crossroads bitch smiling cruelly- "Thanks for letting us stay the night," he adds quickly, just for something to say so he won't think back to the dream.
She shrugs. "It was that or kick you guys out to freeze to death," Lee points out. "And I'm not so heartless as to leave anyone to that fate if I can help it. Want some hot water? I just boiled some. I didn't really want to drink anything cold in this weather."
"Yeah, thanks," Dean agrees and she gets up to get him a mug. He hovers at the door of the kitchen, unsurely. She notices and smiles at him.
"Go ahead, sit down at the table," Lee says, too cheerful for it to be - he checks the clock in the room - one o'clock in the morning. "I'll just be a moment."
He sits down at the table. The seats are squishy and comfortable. "Um," Dean says. "So, I mean, not to be ungrateful, but why did you let us come in anyway? You looked kind of freaked when you met us." Lee doesn't say anything at first, just offers him a warm mug full of water instead of answering and he accepts it. "Thank you."
"No problem," she says and sits across from him and chews thoughtfully on a cracker. Dean takes a drink; the sip is warm and soothing on the way down. "I think it was the way you asked," she says thoughtfully, enough time later for Dean to have almost forgotten what his question was. "Like there was nothing else more important." She smiles. "I thought you guys were lovers or something at first."
Dean chokes. "Guh," he coughs.
She chuckles. "I already asked Sam about it; I was afraid of having to do the laundry again," Lee tells him. "I know you guys are brothers." She pats him on the back. Dean grimaces and she laughs again. "Which is kind of a relief," she says, like an afterthought, "since I don't know if my mom will be okay with this, and if you were having gay sex under our roof too, I don't know what she'd do."
He wipes his mouth. "She's, uh, conservative?"
Lee snorts into her cup. "You could say that," she mutters and takes a drink. "I don't think she likes anyone, really. Not gay people, blacks, whites, other Asians; sometimes I think even me. Oh, don't get me wrong," she says quickly, "I know she loves me. She takes good care of me, but..." she trails off, eyes downcast.
Dean looks down into his mug and at the ripples in the clear liquid. "Sometimes it seems like you just don't live up to their expectations," he muses.
She huffs in amusement. "Yeah."
They sit quietly for a few minutes. It's strangely companionable.
"The weather's supposed to get worse," Lee says after a while. "My mom can't get home yet. The roads are blocked. You can - and you're going to have to - stay for another couple of days or so." Dean opens his mouth. He doesn't really know what he's about to say, but Lee cuts him off. "It's no problem," she tells him.
"Oh," Dean says, "Thanks."
Lee nods. "I've got a little sibling too, you know. A sister," she says and giggles softly when Dean automatically glances around. "Half-sister," she corrects herself. "Doesn't live with me, but with my dad and my stepmom. She's two years old," she says fondly. "She's adorable. She's going to grow up to be beautiful."
There's a softly reverent, yet wistful tone in her voice that makes Dean's brow furrow. "She's my sister," Lee repeats, as if she can't quite believe it herself and smiles. It looks painful. "I think she might already be smarter than I am."
"I can tell you love her a lot," Dean says carefully.
She grins wryly. "Yeah," she says and her previously melancholy air is broken. "I guess I do. It's pretty silly since I've only seen her a few times."
"Ah," Dean says and fights a grin. "Is all the lore about stepmothers true?"
Lee shrugs. "You mean, is my stepmother a crazy, backstabbing, hypocritical bitch who hates me?" she asks and huffs under her breath and wrinkles her nose. "Well, yeah."
Dean laughs.
She laughs too and then winces. "Well, I guess she's not that bad," Lee says fairly, looking reluctant to say so, "And maybe I left a bad first impression, but she's the adult, isn't she? She's the one supposed to be mature about this, isn't she?" Lee sighs. "Oh well."
"Yeah," Dean chortles, "Oh well." He finishes the rest of the water in the mug and sets it on the table. He sits for a few moments, a sense of courtesy he hadn't known he'd possessed advising him to, before he stands up. "I'm, uh," he says awkwardly, "I'm gonna go back to bed."
Lee stands up too and smiles at him. "Yeah, okay, I was just about to go too. Don't worry, I'll clean up the cups."
Dean nods in thanks. "G'night," he mumbles and turns around to head back upstairs.
"Uh, hey." Dean turns around again and Lee's standing at the sink, holding a mug in each hand. She gives him an awkward half smile. "Take good care of your brother, okay?"
He blinks at her. "Um, okay," Dean says. "I always have. Always will for as long as I can." Even if in about five months he was about to get dragged to hell.
She nods. "Yeah," Lee mumbles. "Yeah, that's good. Good night."
Dean blinks again, and shrugs to himself. "See you tomorrow." He goes back upstairs and gets into bed.
"You okay?" Sam mumbles into his pillow, or at least Dean thinks he does.
"Yeah, Sam, I'm okay," Dean says quietly. Something prompts him to ask, "You?"
"Ngh," Sam mumbles and Dean takes that as a yes.
He slides into sleep easily and for the first time in months he has no dreams.
* * *
July 2008
"Sam. Sam!" A soft hand taps the side of his face insistently and he groans. "I think he's waking up!"
The voice is startlingly familiar. "Becky?" he rasps out, dragging his eyes open with difficulty. His mouth feels full of cotton and the back of his head throbs steadily.
She smiles down at him, relieved. "Oh, good, you're awake," Becky says and adjusts his tie. Sam blinks down at himself. He's wearing a suit. "We weren't sure if you'd wake up in time."
"In time for what?" Sam asks and sits up abruptly - he nearly bangs his head on the top of the car. He's sitting in the back seat of a car he doesn't recognize.
Ruby turns around to smirk at him from the passenger seat. "Sorry, tiger, I didn't mean to hit you so hard."
"Ruby," he says blankly and then turns to Becky, wide-eyed. "What the hell is going on? And who changed me?"
Becky looks kind of like a kicked puppy. "I- I-"
"This is how you treat your friends?" Ruby sounds disappointed in him, but she's smiling mockingly at him when he looks back at her. "Who needs enemies if they have you?"
Sam grinds his teeth together. Becky hovers over him worriedly, glancing at Ruby disaprovingly.
"Play nice, you two." On the other side of Becky, Lee leans forward to wave at Sam. "Hi." She doesn't have her wings anymore.
"You're behind this," he hisses at her furiously.
"I have a plan," Lee informs him, cheerfully. She looks far too pleased with herself.
Sam grimaces at her. "What does this plan involve?"
The car stops and Zack peers over his shoulder from the driver's seat. "We're here."
"Zack?" Sam gapes.
"Alright, thanks," Lee says cheerfully and Zack nods.
"By the way, it was me who changed your clothes," he tells Sam. Zack gives him a grin and it's somehow reassuring.
"Thanks," Sam says, but Zack shakes his head.
"Nah, man, I should be thanking you," he says.
The car door opens and Ruby yanks him out with a strength her body doesn't seem to have; demonic side-effect, he supposes. "This is very touching and all, but Sam's got an appointment to get to," she says. Becky scrambles out of the car after him.
"What appointment?" he demands.
Lee steps out too, and grins. "Look around, Sam," she says happily. "And say hello to Stanford. Again."
"Well," Ruby puts in, "You'll have to impress the admissions flunkie before they'll let you back in. Now come on." She tugs at his arm; Sam resists and Ruby sighs irritably. She gives Lee a meaningful look.
Lee sighs too, only it sounds resigned. "Sam," Lee says tiredly, "Just... this one thing. Please? For Dean." There are layers to that last thing she says that Sam doesn't want to think about, but the statement hits home and he purses his lips and allows Ruby to drag him into the building.
"Welcome back, Sam," Becky whispers to him happily and clutches his hand.
"Hm," he says.
* * *
January 2008
The storm rages for four days; the longest, most severe storm that's hit this area of Michigan in a long time. There's plenty of food in the pantry to sustain them, but on the third day the power goes out, cutting off the heater too. Their solution is to hole up in Lee's room, because it's the smallest, possibly smaller than Sam's first dorm room at Stanford and Dean figures that the smaller the area, the warmer it'll be since there will be "less cold air to deal with."
Sam's not impressed by this logic and he makes sure to tell his brother what he thinks of this whenever he can. Lee just thinks it's funny and reasons there's no harm in it, as long as none of them decide to rummage through her underwear drawer or something.
They'd had to unfold her futon bed to accommodate all of them and they are all huddled together for warmth underneath the stack of every blanket they could find in the condo. Beside the bed is the piano bench with all the food Dean could fit laid carefully on top.
Lee snickers. "Wow, my mom would kill me." She's in the middle of the two of them, because Sam had said that she had the least mass and would lose body heat faster. It makes sense, but it's kind of hard for Dean to believe when she feels so warm. He makes Sammy take the inside of the bed, closest to the wall and farthest from the window though and Sam gives him a look of I-know-what-you're-doing-here, but he goes with no complaints. Right behind Sam's head, Jack is curled up, watching them mournfully.
"Why, 'cause you're in bed with two dashing and handsome older men?" Dean grins shamelessly. Sam snorts from her other side and she laughs.
"Well, yeah," she says, shrugging, "I mean, she even freaks out when I just talk to a guy. She says I'm not supposed to date until I'm twenty."
Dean barks a laugh, but Lee raises an eyebrow at him and he blinks. "You're not kidding," he says disbelievingly and she shrugs again.
"That's kind of... excessive," Sam comments, his eyebrows going up.
"Just kind of," Lee agrees, amused. "But she's my mom. She knows best, I guess. I don't want to deal with all the dramatics of a high school romance anyway."
"Isn't that kind of lonely?" Sam asks quietly. Dean glances at him.
One side of her mouth quirks up in a wry half smile. "Yeah, sometimes," Lee says thoughtfully. "But it's not really fair of me to date someone short term just because I'm lonely, is it?"
Sam cocks his head. "You're pretty mature for a teenager," he observes, "And it just sounds like you want someone to love, not to flirt with."
Lee laughs. "I'm that obvious, huh?" she asks and shrugs again. "I don't know about love. I think I just want someone to be there for me. Like a life-long friend or something. You guys are pretty lucky."
Dean's brow furrows. "Why do you say that?"
"You've got each other, don't you?" she asks, smiling wistfully. "And you're close, too. I just have a rocky relationship with my mom, who works all the time, a dad who I don't talk to because I don't like my stepmom and a baby half sister who thinks I'm her aunt."
Lee stares up at the ceiling and Dean feels weighed down by her sorrow.
"I wonder if anyone will remember me after I'm gone," she says quietly, sadly. "Or if I affected anyone's life for the better. I just want them all to be happy, but it's hard sometimes when it seems like all they want to do is wallow in their self pity, in their pain, and they don't care that I'm drowning trying to pull them out."
Sam meets Dean's eyes over her head and holds his gaze. "You can't heal all their wounds," Sam says and Dean knows that he's not just talking to Lee. "Some things you need to just leave be."
Lee turns her head to look at him and Sam breaks his stare down with Dean, much to his relief. "Are you serious?" she asks Sam curiously. "You don't just leave the people you love like that when you could try to do something."
"Even at the expense of yourself?" Sam responds incredulously. "It's not worth it."
"It's always worth it," she disagrees.
Sam shakes his head. "What if that's just the way the world needs to be?" he asks, almost sounding angry. "Why can't you just leave it well enough alone?"
"Sam," Dean says quietly. Lee looks back at him and for one terrifying second he thinks he sees something in her eyes that he's been seeing in his own since the day he made the deal with the crossroads demon. Kindred spirits, he thinks, but then she's turning back to Sam and he thinks he imagined it.
"How could I?" she whispers sadly, unknowingly echoing Dean's thoughts. "How would I live with myself?"
Sam says nothing, but Dean sees his jaw working furiously.
"Anyone want to play poker?" Dean asks, the tension in the room too much for him to bear.
Sam stares at him disbelievingly.
"Okay," Lee says.
She is really, really bad at poker and since they're gambling truths by the end of the game, Dean knows a lot more about her than he did before. For example, she likes fish a lot, even raw fish, and she's okay with red meat, but she prefers seafood and bird meat.
"I think she's evil," Dean whispers conspiratorially to Sam, who laughs and smacks him upside the head. Lee, who's between them and obviously hears every word he says, just shakes her head and grins.
They switch to cutthroat after a while, which she calls three person euchre, and she wins every game. By the time they get bored and they start discussing random topics until they all drift off to sleep, Dean has mostly forgotten what he thought he'd seen.
Mostly.
* * *
October 2008
It feels weird to be back in school, but it surprises Sam how easy it is for him to get back into the swing of things. Suddenly he's not worrying about the next job or demons, he's worrying about papers and grades - it's disconcerting. He's feels like his priorities have gotten messed up somewhere, and Sam's getting steadily more and more frustrated. He wants his brother back, he shouldn't be here, doing nothing, and what if the people around him get hurt, isn't that why he left?
These thoughts swirl in his mind for months, and he finds himself getting angry more and more often. He unfairly lashes out at Becky and Zack, when they're just worrying about him; he lashes out (fairly, he thinks in this case) at Ruby; he doesn't lash out at Lee, but not for lack of trying. At tthe beginning of the August, she'd disappeared and he hasn't seen her since.
He's at the library when he sees the Chinese spirit again. She finds him at a table studying. Sam looks up and nearly has a heart attack when he sees her sitting across from him.
"Where have you been?" he hisses at her.
She blinks at him. "I'm so feeling the love," Lee says sarcastically. He doesn't answer, just glares at her, and she sighs. "Whatever."
Sam drops his pen and leans forward. He couldn't care less about the shit he's reading about anyway. "Can you do it? Can you save him?"
She's quiet for a second, searching his eyes for something. Sam waits impatiently and finally Lee nods slowly, and it's like all the tension in his shoulders just melts away. "Yes," she says uneasily, "but there are risks, consequences-"
"I don't care," Sam says, "I just - he's my brother. I can't leave him there. He doesn't deserve it." Not like I do, he doesn't say and for a moment, Lee just looks at him, and her eyes are wise and thoughtful. He wonders if she knows what he's thinking.
But she doesn't say anything so he doesn't either.
* * *
February 2008
They leave the house a few days after the storm ends and the sun is shining brightly again. Lee sends them packing after she gets a phone call from her mom saying that the roads are clear so she's coming home. "Sorry," she apologizes, and shoves packets of air activated hand warmers into their hands as they hurriedly pull on their now dry snow gear.
Dean insists on finding the Impala before they do anything, and they do; she's buried under about three feet of snow in a lot in front of a Starbucks, but when Dean turns the key, he whoops as she purrs like it's a perfect day. "Oh, baby," Dean murmurs, stroking the wheel, "I knew I could count on you. I swear I'll never leave you like this again."
Sam makes a disgusted sound. "Dean, ew," he complains and his brother flips him off.
The moment they finish off the Black Dog, Dean guns for Ohio. "I don't want to see snow for the rest of my life," he swears without thinking and Sam doesn't speak to him for two days. They don't make it far out of Michigan, only out halfway through Illinois when they meet up with another hunter who's heading to Michigan.
"You must be out of your fucking mind," Dean says to him, and the other man grins.
"No way, man," the hunter drawls, smiling with teeth stained yellow from smoking. "There's honest work to be had there."
It piques their interest and the three of them sit down for a beer and it turns out the hunter's name is Eric. Apparently back in Michigan there's a family promising to pay hunters ten thousand dollars just to show up and offer their services and a hefty reward for any 'services rendered.' It sounds sketchy, but it's the kind of sketchy that makes Dean scowl and resignedly ask where exactly this family is supposedly located.
Sam calls Ellen and the information's legit. The offer had been put out long enough ago that it'd leaked to the Roadhouse too. "Why didn't you tell us about it before?" he asks curiously.
"Well," Ellen says wryly, "I think we might have been a little busy." Sam hangs up.
So they go back to Michigan, Eric in tow. They show up at the house which is located right in the middle of a labyrinth disguised as a subdivision and knock on the door.
No one answers. Dean patiently waits fifteen minutes and then promptly picks the lock.
"Dean!" Sam scolds, but isn't really surprised when Dean just flashes him a grin, then jauntily opens the door and steps through the entrance. Eric follows immediately and after a brief hesitation, Sam follows.
As they proceed deeper within the house, Sam regrets having gone in as he hears the echoes of a fight and it feels too personal to him. It's uncomfortably like he's walking in on something he shouldn't be seeing or hearing. But Dean presses on, looking curious, so Sam continues to follow him.
A woman is spitting out angry, cruel words. "How could you be so selfish?" she snarls. "I've given you everything I have, my time, my energy, my money - and this is how you repay me? Making all of it a waste? I hate you, I should have left you to your father, let him drag you to Taiwan. You're so ungrateful! I hate you!"
Broken, wracking sobs fill the cool silence that falls then and Sam hears whimpers and one long, shuddering breath. "I'm sorry, Mommy," a girl hiccups, "I'm sorry."
"You can't do anything right," the woman continues on cruelly, and Sam flinches in sympathy, "Can't get good grades, can't do well on your ACT - your PSAT was pathetic!" A sharp intake of breath and the woman chuckles coldly. "You didn't think I would find it? You can't hide anything from me, I'm your mother. You're so stupid - maybe it's just as well that that you die!"
"No, Mommy, you don't mean that-" the girl immediately protests, her voice high pitched with hysteria, but she's cut off by a man.
"Su Mei!" he says sternly.
Eric locates the door through which all the shouting is coming from, and waves Sam and Dean over. Sam catches Dean's gaze, and his brother cocks his head towards the door so Sam goes over to Eric, a sick feeling pooling in the bottom of his stomach. Dean is right behind him.
Laughter, low and distinctly feminine. "See?" another woman says darkly, "Even her mother doesn't want her. I don't know why you're so attached to her, Chin, she's a selfish little brat and you know it. She should die, not our daughter."
'Die?' Sam mouths at Dean questioningly. He shrugs.
"Fuck you, bitch," the daughter spits. Sam is nudged in the side and he looks over to see Dean quirk an eyebrow upwards; a silent way of saying, 'Man, check this out, some families are more fucked up than ours.'
"Liang!" the man snaps. "Watch your mouth."
"Why?" she asks angrily. "She's a bitch. She badmouths everyone behind their backs; even you, Dad! It's disgusting and cowardly, and she hates me because one summer when I was fourteen I was anorexic and wouldn't eat her fucking cooking! I'm not the only immature one here. At least I have the excuse of being a teenager - she's at least twenty years older than me!" Sam sees Dean's eyebrows draw together, like he recognizes the girl's voice or something.
"Oh, I'll tell you what I think of you now, you stupid, selfish little girl," the stepmother begins to say, but she stops when the sound of skin slapping skin cuts through the air. Sam guesses she's been slapped.
"Don't you talk to my daughter like that," the mother warns her.
The man laughs bitterly. "This is coming from you?" he asks disbelievingly.
"This is different," she says coolly, "because she is my daughter. Not hers. Your precious little new daughter can suffer whatever abuse your new wife decides to inflict upon her. She will not touch Liang."
Sam nearly jumps out of his skin when a weathered hand lays itself on his arm and tugs. An old Chinese woman looks at him sorrowfully and says something he doesn't understand. "Excuse me?" he asks.
A young man standing behind her bows and says in the carefully enunciated English of a foreigner, "She apologizes for you hearing this and expresses her regret that you must be here to, um," his brow furrows in thought, then his face lights up with success. "That you must be here to witness our family 'air our dirty laundry,'" he finishes triumphantly, grinning brightly. He is immediately cowed by the vicious look the old woman gives him.
The old woman pushes past Sam and swings the door open. Everyone inside the room turns as one to look at her, but the daughter's eyes flicker to Sam and Dean, who stand behind her, and they all gape at each other.
Dean jabs Sam painfully in the side with a finger. "That's Lee!" he hisses.
Sam resists the urge to knock him over the head. "I noticed!" he hisses back.
The old woman is jabbering angrily in Chinese at the previously bickering family members and gesturing wildly at Eric, Sam and Dean, who are still standing unsurely at the entrance of the room. She stops to take a breath and then both Lee's father and one of the women start talking at her at the same time. She's the only one of the two that is wearing a ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, so Sam guesses she's the stepmother.
Sam doesn't know what they're saying. He took a course in Chinese history as an elective and it was interesting, but he'd never had the interest to study the language. Suddenly Lee snorts in the middle of their simultaneous rants, interrupting them. The stepmother looks annoyed.
"This is stupid," she mutters and then raises her voice to make sure everyone is listening. "Dad, I hate to say it, but Violet has a point," Lee says clearly, but with a slight grimace, "I'm sixteen and Cathy's two. I've lived more of a life than she has. It should be me. Not her."
"But-" he begins to protest, but she raises a hand to silence him.
"I chose this," she says seriously, vehemently, "I know what I agreed to, I've accepted the consequences, and I believe the rewards will be worth the cost. You won't change my mind."
"Liang," her mother says and Sam's breath catches in his throat; there's so much emotion packed into that one word and it's heartbreaking. He tries to surreptitiously glance at Dean, but Dean makes him meet his gaze steadily and Sam has to look away.
Eric coughs. "Excuse me," he says. "But what the fuck is going on?"
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