In Clearest Night (1/2)
Title: In Clearest Night (1/2)
Rating: R (for language only), Gen
Characters: Dean, Sammy, John
Word Count: 6,838/13,870
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchesters for fun and angst. Sorry about the holes!
A/N: Very belatedly for the spn_christmas Prompt 15: John doesn’t come home from a Christmas-Eve hunt, leaving wee!Sam and wee!Dean alone on Christmas Day (gen).
This is the first part of the All Thy Harms Repair series. Thanks to msscullyred for the Super!Beta!; mysticmhorag for a quick grammar overview; and Camille-is-here for the loan of Aunt Tilly's lamp. The title comes from My Thoughts Are Wing'd With Hopes by John Dowland
Setting: Winter. Pennsylvania, December 1993.
Summary: Sammy and Dean go on a hunt for their missing father at Christmas. “Whatever you do, don’t take off on your own unless you don’t have a choice.”
Part 1
‘Shit,’ Sammy cursed through the intermittent water from the shower, as he watched the filth and everything else that he’d just as soon forget about trickle off his clothes and swirl disturbingly over the cracked tiles before draining slowly away. He swore again, this time at the moron who’d dumped him in the cubicle fully dressed and turned the taps on before he could get out. Quicker and less mess, my ass! He spat out more water and damned his big brother to hell as he struggled with waterlogged and still grimy denim. The only reason he managed to get undressed at all in the end was that he was yet again wearing Dean’s baggy cast-offs.
A thumping on the flimsy bathroom door was accompanied with one of his brother’s usual caring comments. ‘Hurry up, dude,’ Dean shouted. ‘I wouldn’t have let you go first if I’d known you were going to use up all the hot water.’
‘Hot water?’ Sammy yelled back as he kicked his clothes into a corner. ‘What fucking hot water? It was lukewarm when you stuck me in here you idiot!’ He reached deliberately for his brother’s new shampoo and poured it lavishly all over himself. Sammy grinned as he happily stomped up and down on his clothes, managing to create a veritable snowstorm of brown foam. Who says you never learned anything useful on TV? If it worked in India it would work in Pennsylvania. He was enjoying himself immensely when the door slammed open with enough force to threaten its cheap hinges. He squinted through the bubbles coating the tacky gold rippled glass shower-screen. Yup, the arm waving definitely wasn’t a good sign.
‘Fucking?’ Dean asked much too quietly for Sammy’s peace of mind. ‘Did you just swear at me, Sammy?’
Oops, Dean always got like this when he was “in charge.” Started acting just like their father. Just because he was fourteen there was no need to act like he was Sammy’s boss. ‘You’re the one who taught me to swear,’ Sammy pointed out with what he thought was a reasonable defence as he jolted the screen open and angled his arm around the corner to snag a towel from the hook, ‘And you made us go on that stupid hunt, anyway.’
Dean took a breath and was obviously about to enforce the whole Marine discipline thing when he got a good look at the roiling mass of reddish-khaki suds oozing out of the shower. ‘What the fuck?’ he demanded, snagging his brother’s soapy arm as Sammy attempted to slip past him.
‘Now who’s swearing?’ Sammy asked busy shifting his feet on the cold floor. He hated winter as much as his brother loved it. ‘Hell,’ he said, waiting a second. Wait, he could feel it. Here it comes … ‘Hah - Shoo!’
‘Goddamnit, Sammy,’ Dean snapped out. He grabbed another towel and wrapped it around him before picking him up and carrying him out and plonking him down in front of the kerosene heater. ‘You never listen do you?’ he asked rhetorically as he briskly rubbed his brother dry, attacking any sign of dampness as if it was some new evil to be exterminated.
‘Enough, already,’ Sammy gasped out the next time his head escaped the confines of the elderly towel.
Dean ignored the protest as he turned Sammy around checking him over for any injuries. ‘Thought so.’ Blood trickling down his brother’s left shin. ‘Why didn’t you say you took a hit?’
Sammy looked down at his leg. ‘I didn’t know. Must have caught me with one of its hooves. Besides it’s only a scratch.’
‘No such thing as only, Sammy,’ Dean said. ‘That zombie pig was pretty toxic. We’d better go with the whole holy water routine just in case.’
‘You look kind of toxic yourself,’ Sammy pointed out truthfully as Dean dug one of their first aid kits out from under the black and white television.
Dean glanced down at his outer layer of slime which had dried to a nice tight shell-like consistency. ‘We would have been fine if it hadn’t exploded when your stake went through its stomach. Next time target the heart or neck.’ He held the kit out to his brother. ‘Grab a pad and keep some pressure on it for a few minutes while I de-gross myself. Otherwise we’ll never keep your wound clean.’ He winced as he bent to grab one of the damp towels off the floor and trudged back into the bathroom, muttering under his breath as bits of bile and stomach juice flaked off with every step.
Sammy sat down in front of the heater to toast himself. Through the walls Dean was swearing. Out of hot water. Hah!
~~~
‘Dimitte nobis debita nostra,’ Sammy said, watching the wound fizz as Dean poured holy water over his leg, with an extra splash, just ‘cause he knew it stung.
‘Libera nos a malo,’ Dean responded bitterly as he quickly secured the cut with closure strips. ‘If you’re gonna pray, skip sin and go straight for the big one. Besides who wants forgiveness?’
‘Maybe us?’ Sammy asked.
‘For what?’
‘For everything.’ He’d started to wonder lately if all this killing was going to send their family straight to hell to join everything they’d sent there ahead of them. For all this? Lately it was bothering him. He needed another long talk with Pastor Jim. Maybe this is wrong. At least Pastor Jim was always ready to listen to his weird questions, and try seriously to answer them. Dad said Jim Murphy had the soul of a Jesuit, whatever that meant. It didn’t bother Sammy much, Pastor Jim’s answers made a nice change from his brother’s, “If it’s evil, just kill it, dude.” He looked down at Dean busy bandaging the wound. ‘Doesn’t it bother you …?’
‘Nope,’ Dean said bluntly. ‘Dad knows what he’s doing. All we need to do is follow orders and everything will be fine.’ He got to his feet, slapping Sammy on his shoulder. ‘Stop thinking yourself into a state. Go get dressed; you’re going to get a little crispy round the edges if you stay there much longer.’
Sammy looked at him. He knew when his big brother was trying to get rid of him. ‘Whose idea was it to spend our Saturday night tracking zombie pig while Dad was away anyway?’ he asked stubbornly, his stomach growling annoyingly as Dean pushed him into the bedroom.
‘He’s been away almost a fortnight and we’re running out of entertainment options,’ Dean said over his shoulder as he walked back to the main room. ‘Pittsburgh isn’t the hippest city we’ve ever been stuck in. What about the hassle we had getting into that pool hall last week?’
‘We got in okay,’ Sammy said rummaging on the floor behind the door for his clothes from the previous day. ‘Trouble was, once we were in you were beating the pants off the owner’s son.’
‘Yeah. Poor little Colin lost all his pocket money. But who cares? I’ve still got enough left for the movies tomorrow and as much popcorn as even you can tuck away in two hours.’
He could practically feel Dean’s smirk through the door. ‘We’re lucky we got out with the money and without them calling Juvie,’ Sammy said over the drone of his brother humming one of his endless rock tunes.
‘Dad always taught us to have more than one escape route worked out. This time we only needed the first one.’ Dean yelled out between the odd thud.
‘Next time can we not jump out the window exactly when the kitchen hand from that dive next door opens the garbage bin to toss in the leftovers?’ Sammy asked with a grimace. That smell had been almost as bad as the pig.
‘It was pretty disgusting,’ Dean agreed as he slouched in wearing only marginally cleaner clothes and leaned with annoying nonchalance against the doorframe before tossing a packet of crisps at him. ‘At least we had a softer landing.’
‘Smellier,’ Sammy said precisely as he caught his late dinner. ‘And squishier.’ He didn’t know how his brother did it. Last year Dean had been just another wiry kid. Now look at him. They’d been out most of the night rolling around in the mud with that damned pig, and all he had to do was have a shower and come out looking - trendy? Hip? Cool? Whatever it was, Dean now had it.
‘Dude, that’s not even a word.’
‘Since when did you become an English critic?’ Sammy wanted to know. ‘Don’t tell me you have a secret passion for grammar?’
‘The things you don’t know about me would fill Dad’s journal,’ Dean answered as he threw the wreck of his towel on the floor with the remains of his clothes. ‘Besides my last English teacher was hot.’
Sammy yawned. Deliberately.
‘Are you falling asleep over there?’ Dean waved a hand in front of his face. ‘Admit it, with Dad not due back till tomorrow there wasn’t much else for us to do.’
‘Nothing to do, so you decided to fill in the time by finding us something of our own to destroy?’ Sammy asked in resignation. The hunt had been a rush, and fun in its own twisted way, but Dean’s new eagerness to get the two of them out on these solo hunts was becoming a problem. He didn’t know how they’d managed to keep them a secret from their father for this long. They were just lucky that he hadn’t come home early and caught them out. Otherwise they’d both be stuck detailing the Impala with a toothbrush until they were thirty. Thank God he was still away.
Sammy wished he couldn’t remember his father saying, “Never thank God. You don’t know who else is listening.”
~~~
John Winchester took the last bag of ammunition from Sammy and put it in the trunk of the Chevy. ‘Don’t forget to salt …’
‘Dad,’ Dean groaned out as he handed over the newly cleaned Colt to his father before placing all the other guns into their slots. ‘We both know the drill, okay? We’ve been doing this for years now. We’ll be ace, won’t we, Sammy?’ he said with a glance at his brother.
‘Sure. Everything’s great, Dad. Don’t worry. I’ve got a lot of study to do before we start up at the new school after Christmas. And Dean, well, I think he’s going to be spending all his time making eyes at that waitress at the diner. As if she’d even look at him.’ Sammy deftly dodged his brother’s kick and flipped him a return gesture of affection.
‘Boys. For once can the two of you manage not to kill yourselves while I’m off on a job?’ He looked sternly at Dean. ‘You’re team leader for the next two weeks. Don’t forget those drills. I expect you both to top your previous ratings when I get back.’
‘Yes, Sir,’ they chorused, unconsciously straightening at the order.
Dean relaxed enough to scuff one sneaker through the gravel. ‘Just watch out for those jikininki. You know they can be tricky. And no blood in the car, ‘cos you know how I hate having to clean the upholstery.’
Sammy and his father just rolled their eyes at each other. Dean’s obsession with the Impala made him the butt of many a family joke between hunts.
‘Dean, the motel’s paid up to the end of the month. You’ve got the food money and you both know where the emergency stash is buried.’ Their father swept them both into one of his all-encompassing bear hugs. ‘I’ll be back on the 19th. Don’t leave town without me,’ he joked as he gave them a look that said he hoped they’d never, ever, end up in that situation. But John Winchester wasn’t stupid and hadn’t raised his sons to be either. They’d grown up expecting the worst in every situation and were rarely disappointed when it eventuated. After what had happened to their mother they knew that any hunt could be the last one for any of them. It didn’t make any of them like the idea though.
‘Call Pastor Jim, Bobby, or Caleb if something happens. Whatever you do, don’t take off on your own unless you don’t have a choice. I need to know you’re both here waiting for me, even if I get held up.’ John squeezed them tight one last time before getting into the car.
‘We could come with you and help,’ Dean offered eagerly, hoping for a last minute reprieve.
‘I know you could, son,’ their father said. ‘Not this time, I need you to stay here and look after Sammy.’
‘Yes, Sir,’ said Dean.
‘I don’t need looking after!’
‘Sammy.’ Just the one quiet word. When John Winchester lowered his voice everyone paid attention.
‘Yes, Dad.’ Muttered. Sammy wasn’t going to look at Dean. He didn’t need to see his disappointment and feel any more guilt than he already did.
A long pause.
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Good man.’
Sammy gave in, and glanced at Dean. He’d closed up again, like always. ‘What if we came with you, but didn’t go on the hunt?’ A solution, not perfect but the best he could think of. He could feel his brother tense beside him. Hoping. ‘We could stay somewhere closer and Dean could still …’
‘No.’
‘Yes, Sir.’ He and Dean in sync, as they so often were, whether they liked it or not.
A sigh. ‘I would if I could. The intel tags this batch as particularly feral, I don’t want either of you close enough to worry about. Just look after yourselves so I can get the job done.’
‘Don’t worry about us, Dad. I’ll take care of Sammy.’
‘That’s my boys.’
‘See you soon,’ Sammy said with determination, holding onto the side of the window as his father started the engine.
‘Later, Dad,’ Dean agreed shortly, and pulled his brother back to his side as they watched the Impala force its way out into the almost gridlocked holiday traffic.
Standing next to Dean under the streetlight in the silent parking lot Sammy could only hope his father’s hunt was a successful one. That luck would be with him, with them, and he’d be home soon.
It was a damn shame that luck wasn’t something that paid much attention to the Winchesters.
~~~
Sammy bounced noisily out of bed before dawn on Sunday morning, heartlessly ignoring the groan coming from the lump in the other side of the bed. Dean wasn’t known for being the morning person among the Winchesters. It was one of the reasons their father had never called him on his caffeine consumption even back when he was Sammy’s age. Coffee was one of the few things guaranteed to get him any where near coherent in the morning. Unless he was being attacked of course, then the adrenaline kicked in and everything ducked for cover. For a moment he seriously considered taking the dividing pillow - Dad’s version of the Berlin Wall - and testing that theory one more time.
Instead he shook enough coins out of the pockets of Dean’s jeans then stuffed all their clothes into a drawstring bag for the laundry. No point waiting for Dean to come to on his own. Just get it all done, so they had something clean to wear. Better him than Dean, because his brother’s version of washing clothes tended more towards tossing everything in the one machine with a scoop of detergent and then falling blithely asleep next to the washer as everything turned various shades of grey. And if he didn’t do it now they’d have a repeat of Buffalo where the entire motel turned out on a hot June evening to watch Dean do the washing in his boxer shorts. It would have made a great blackmail moment except for two things - the lack of a camera, and any modesty on his brother’s part.
When he got back a few hours later lugging the bulging sack it was to find Dean predictably downing coffee and engrossed in a comic. Sammy dumped the laundry on the floor and put his maths textbook back onto the pile on the nightstand.
‘Jeez, slowpoke, you took forever.’ Dean flapped a free hand towards some paper bags sweating on the table. ‘We were out of food, so I had to go and get us some breakfast, but it’s gonna be cold by now. Might be easier to just stuff you full of milk and monsters.’
Sammy stuck his tongue out and snagged the nearest offering. Yeah, still hot, despite his brother’s lie. He pulled out one of the lime green vinyl chairs and settled down to enjoy the local diner’s version of a grilled sandwich. More like a toasted Frisbee really in both size and taste, but okay once he managed to eat it into submission. He’d had much worse, he thought as he used his elbow to nudge the other packet at Dean.
‘So, what do you want to do till Dad gets back? Catch a flick? Go do some last minute target practice over in one of the old warehouses?’
‘Gnhh,’ Sammy muttered as he worked his way stubbornly through his meal. He swallowed, choked and grabbed thankfully at the milk container his brother thrust at him, chasing the uncomfortable chunk down with a long swig.
‘If you backwash you’re dead, minnow.’ Dean said slapping him a bit too helpfully on the back.
‘Jerk,’ Sammy coughed out with a spray of milk.
‘Sammy!’ Dean managed an impressed leer. ‘I’d have thought you were too young for premature e…’
Sammy blinked and choked again. No. Not even Dean could joke about … Yes, only Dean would. He let his head drop onto the orange Formica table, and began to bang it repeatedly up and down, creating his own audible graffiti to echo that already gouged into its surface - Mr T Rules! - J loves M - Hulk me - The end is nigh - Stephen sucks - Get sM*A*S*Hed! - Storm’s coming - I shot J.R.
‘Sammy?’ Dean rubbed his back. ‘You okay, dude?’
‘Uh huh,’ Sammy said finally raising his head. Now he really had a headache.
~~~
‘Take that!’ Dean said jubilantly as he used the last of his tiles to cross Sammy’s “Govind” with “Eligos.”
Dean loved whupping Sammy’s ass over Demon Scrabble. Sammy knew it; Dean knew it.
‘All that and a double word score. That gives me …’
‘Gives you what, Dean?’ Sammy asked. Sometimes the wait is worth it. Ever since their father’s friend, Bobby, had introduced them to his version of the board game three years ago they’d been fairly evenly matched. Dean’s age and experience offset by the amount of time Sammy spent with his head deep in some of the more obscure research books. Dean might bitch, but it was a good way to memorise some of those names. And a heck of a lot more fun than their father’s rote teaching.
‘Ah, 452 to your 666,’ Dean finished ruefully. ‘Way to go! Still it’s not always about size, but more about style.’
‘Just keep telling yourself that, Dean,’ Sammy said. ‘I’m sure the girls might even believe it one day.’
‘You’re so going down for that,’ Dean said, knocking over the Scrabble board as he made a grab for him.
‘Have to catch me first,’ Sammy said, snorting with laughter as he dashed outside into the clammy afternoon air. He dodged a decrepit white Ford Escort - Huh, Kansas plates - in the parking lot in an attempt to keep ahead of his brother. Whoops! Bad move.
‘What was that, Sammy?’ Dean asked, expertly flipping him down onto the damp gravel.
‘Nothing. Come on, Dean. Let me up already.’ He looked up, aiming for pathetic and missed by a mile. ‘Pretty please?’
‘Well, duh! But you’re still staying right here.’
There was only one possible response. Sammy twisted and went for it.
‘Fuck, Sammy!’ Dean contorted, but unfortunately didn’t loosen his grip as Sammy’s fingers began an all out tickle attack under his ribcage.
‘Wuss.’ Sammy loved it that Dean had this one great weakness. He grinned up at his brother, watching him flinch as a particularly sensitive spot became the next target.
Dean grabbed both his hands and forced them back over his head, banging them repeatedly on the ground for emphasis. ‘Did you hear me? You’re. Staying. Right. Here. Till Dad’s home,’ he finished triumphantly.
‘Scrabble loser. Ow. Scrabble joker, I mean, ace?’ Sammy winced as Dean relented, pulled him to his feet and began to brush him off distractedly. ‘What?’ he followed his brother’s gaze to the Ford’s license plate.
‘Nothing. Come on let’s get dinner and go see “Groundhog Day.” You love that movie. We’ve got plenty of time yet.’
‘Dean?’
‘It’s fine, Sammy. Everything will be fine.’
~~~
Neither of them got any sleep that night, though Sammy pretended to for the first few hours. When he couldn’t take it any more he sat up in bed. Dean was still curled up in the same position, the shabby outsized armchair pulled tight against the curtained window, radio turned down so low the music was just a muted background hum while he distractedly played with his lighter.
‘Dean?’
‘Sorry, Sammy,’ Dean thrust his lighter in his pocket and turned the radio off. ‘Go to sleep. I know damn well you haven’t had any yet. Dad’ll be here by morning. He just got held up is all.’
Sammy rolled out of bed.
Dean sighed. ‘Bring a blanket, kiddo.’
Sammy dragged the top one off the bed and pulled it across the room after him.
‘Come here,’ Dean said softly, wrapping it around him before letting the cocoon that was Sammy wriggle onto his lap. ‘Watch your elbows, dude.’
Sammy manoeuvred one hand free and patted his brother on the cheek.
‘Don’t worry, Dean.’
‘I’m not worried; it’s a clear night, a good night for travelling. Dad will be okay. He always is.’ Dean reached over and clicked the radio back on and changed it to a local station to listen to the latest news and weather.
They both heard a lot of weather reports that night.
~~~
At dawn they squashed into the phone box outside the local post office. An hour later they were still there.
‘Nothing,’ Dean said. ‘No one home, anywhere.’
‘But one of them is always there while Dad is on a hunt,’ Sammy protested. It wasn’t something they’d ever been told for sure. Just a fact of life they’d become certain of over the years. The sun rose and set, their mother was dead; Dad went hunting, and there was always someone to call.
‘You know what we have to do now, don’t you, Sammy?’ Dean asked quietly.
‘We’ve never had to. Ever.’
‘First time for everything. And Dad gave us both one for a reason. He’d be pissed if we didn’t use it when we should have. I just …,’ he trailed off.
‘What?’ Sammy asked, though he was sure he knew.
‘Nothing,’ Dean said steadily.
‘Want to wait longer?’ Sammy asked.
‘You know Dad, he’ll get mad either way.’ Dean thumped the beeping receiver just the once against the wall. Not quite as calm as he was making out. ‘We’ve just got to do it.’
Sammy looked up at Dean. Trusting. Watching while his brother finally took out his wallet and slid a battered sealed envelope out of the back section. Twin to the one in Sam’s own wallet. Envelopes pulled out so many times - blankets screening, torches on low; whispers, questions. Torn. No more secrets.
He peered at the sheet in Dean’s hand. Just the one piece of notepaper. A logo. What was that? A pan and a pick? “Herb’s Holiday Hideaways - Sacramento’s Finest.” Didn’t sound familiar, but they’d had those envelopes forever. Definitely their Dad’s strong, erratic scrawl. It was brief and to the point. A name and a number. Gerry, 555-0918. Sammy repeated it aloud, fingers automatically sketching the numbers across the closest surface - Dean’s back - as his training kicked in. Read it. Rhyme it. Three fives will give you hives … Say it. Write it. He knew his brother’s lips were moving in harmony with his own. Again. Again. Again. Again. “Fifth time for forever,” Dad used to say.
‘Gerry? You ever …?’
‘Nope.’ Dean said as he put the now memorized document carefully away and cycled more coins through the slot.
Not sure why, they both crouched down on the floor of the phone booth. Two rings, and a click. Sammy hunched closer to Dean. No voice. No message. Background static. Quiet. Waiting. Listening. He looked at Dean, grip rigid on the phone, eyes focussed. How could he stay so calm? Sammy just wanted to grab the phone and scream, “Help our Dad, please.” He tucked himself under Dean’s free arm instead.
Dean’s arm tightened around him as he said, ‘My name is …’
Another click. ‘Dean?’
Shit.
“Are you both okay?’
‘Yes, we …’
‘What’s happened to John?’
Sammy looked at Dean. He knew Dean was thinking the same thing he was. Weird didn’t cover it. Dean shook his head at him; time to wonder later.
‘Dad went to Ridgway.’
‘Hunting jikininki. I know.’ That voice. They didn’t know it, so why did it sound so familiar?
‘He was due back yesterday at the latest,’ Dean rushed out before that voice could tell him any more about their lives, their - secrets. ‘He hasn’t made it back.’
‘Your backups fall through?’
‘Yes,’ Sammy could feel Dean’s increasing tension as he tried to burrow further into his side.
‘You still at the Citrus Tango in Allentown?’ Knew too much, that voice did. Sammy didn’t like this one bit.
‘Yes.’ Dean, biting it out. Mad as hell now. Not wanting to need help from this stranger.
‘I’m leaving now. I’ll be at the motel …’
‘We’ll need a codeword,’ Dean finally getting a chance to return the interruption.
Sammy tried not to think about who or what else Dean thought might come for them.
‘Just like John.’ A laugh.
Sammy couldn’t work out why that sound did nothing to make him feel better.
‘Osiris, we might as well use that. I’ll be there by 7pm. Take care of Sammy.’ A final click, then nothing.
Always someone to call?
~~~
Sammy spent the rest of a long Monday watching his brother go quietly, calmly crazy. It wasn’t something anyone outside of the family would have been able to spot. It was the small things. The stillness, and the silence.
Dad said Dean was a perfect example of perpetual motion, with a lemon twist. Unless he was completely absorbed in a hunt Dean was always moving, talking, just being. More alive than anyone else. He sang, he hummed, he fidgeted - every pen in the known universe ended up in his mouth. Dean always talked, a constant stream of consciousness on every random thought skipping through his head. In truth that was merely Dean’s version of background noise. Camouflage for the real person. There were just three people who’d heard that other Dean. Only Sammy knew he still kept a lot of himself locked away, more than even their father understood. When Dean really wanted to say something he didn’t use words.
Sammy had learnt to read Dean’s body language before he could crawl. Now, watching him lying back on the couch, serenely reading a schoolbook, all of Sammy’s many alarm bells were going off at once. He’d been tiptoeing around his brother all day. Not sure when the bomb was going off, but knowing the fuse was burning shorter with every hour that passed.
Dean had finished all their outstanding chores, taken them out to the diner for lunch, and even insisted on them spending an endless hour duelling on the one video machine the motel boasted before forcing Sammy to grab a few hours sleep. Through it all he’d also found the time to check over all of their weapons and fill their backpacks with a very comprehensive assortment of items. He hadn’t said much, except for everyday things like “more bullets,” and “pass the whetstone.” Weapons aside, anyone watching them would have just thought they were two extraordinarily well-behaved children. Two kids who were never, for a single moment, more than a foot apart for the entire day.
At 7.02pm the fuse reached its target.
~~~
Sammy looked from his watch to Dean. In just a few seconds he’d gone from studied lolling to combat ready. Jacket on, pack slung over one shoulder.
‘Come on, Sammy. We’re out of here.’ No room for argument with that voice. He sounds just like Dad.
Sammy tried anyway. ‘What about Gerry?’
‘He didn’t make it.’ Dean shoved Sammy’s arms into his padded jacket, flipping up the hood, and zipping him into the full Eskimo look. ‘I followed Dad’s standing orders. Gerry had his chance. Time’s up, day’s gone and we’re going to need every bit of that crappy quarter moon. Snow’s forecast for the next few days. Dad’s got to be hurt bad, or he’d be here. He won’t last too long if a storm hits. We’re his only backup now.’
There was no possible answer to that statement.
Dean pushed Sammy ahead of him out the door, locking it and pausing only long enough to bend down and carve a few seemingly insignificant scratches low in the frame with his knife. A message few would notice, and fewer still could understand. Signs for “hunt” overlaid with “rescue”, then “Winchester,” and finally a last unique flourish that Sammy knew was Dean’s version of “Fuck you, Gerry.”
~~~
Dean made stealing a car look easy; like it was something he did every day and twice on Sundays to take the Mickey out of Pastor Jim. Sammy would have been jealous if he hadn’t been nervously keeping a watch around the parking lot of the busy shopping centre. He still thought it would have been quicker to take one from the motel, but no, Dean had to talk sensibly about not leaving a link back to their current base. All those practice sessions with their father in every new town had definitely paid off for his brother. But Sammy knew there was a big difference between breaking into a car while Dad was timing them, and doing it for real.
One quick clunk of the door release and Dean was inside, throwing his pack in the rear set and reaching under the dash for the wiring.
Sammy shrugged out of his own backpack and clambered up into the passenger seat. ‘A ute, Dean? If we’re going to steal a car I thought you’d pick something faster. What about that Triumph over there?’ Not really wanting an answer, just desperate for any conversation to take his mind off their father.
‘Better in the snow,’ Dean said tersely as the engine finally caught and he reversed their new possession out into the congested lanes of fractious, homeward bound shoppers. ‘A bored patrol officer is also less likely to pull over a farm truck at Christmas.’
Dean obviously had a whole master plan thought out and was working through it, step by stolen step.
~~~
‘Dean? Sammy? Help me!’
‘Dad?’
‘Sammy, please!’
All Sammy could see was his father lying broken in the snow. ‘No!’
‘Sammy!’
Sammy woke to the reassuring touch of Dean’s hand on his face. ‘Dad! I heard Dad, I saw him, he was begging for us to help him!’
“Shhh, it was just a dream, Sammy. It’s not real - Dad would never beg. Come on, up and at ‘em.’
‘Where are we?’ It was still dark outside. He pushed the crumpled route maps aside and tumbled outside into the reality of his brother’s steadying arms. Just a dream.
‘On the road to Nowhere, Pennsylvania,’ Dean said dumping him unceremoniously down onto the ground before stretching all his joints till they popped.
‘Really?’ Trying hard to mimic Dean’s sarcasm, and also getting nowhere.
‘No, Sammy. We’re off to visit Santa Claus at the North Pole,’ Dean taunted, thumping him briefly on the head.
Sammy wished he’d stop doing that. It was probably one of those genetic flaws that came with being a big brother.
‘We’re just over halfway there. This is the rest stop just outside Punxsutawney.’ He waved a gloved hand at a nearby cinderblock structure. ‘Let’s check for Dad’s route markers.’
Sure enough there they were, easily overlooked amongst all the other graffiti on the back wall. ‘He left a cache here,’ Sammy said surprised at the second sign. ‘He doesn’t usually leave one so far from his hunt.’
‘Only when he thinks he might have to double back in an emergency,’ Dean said thoughtfully, as he jotted down the numbers that followed. ‘We’d better take it with us. The extra weapons and supplies won’t hurt.’
‘Now, unless you want to pee in a jar for the rest of the trip, you’ve got two minutes to use these palatial facilities while I get the cache. Move it, I want us there by yesterday.’
‘After that I’ll check these coordinates, looks like he made a detour. We can’t take Ridgway for granted. Dad could be anywhere now.’
Assumptions could get Dad killed.
~~~
‘41°9’35”N, 79°4’49”W? That’s Brookville. Nice and close, we can be there in less than 30 minutes.’
Sammy just nodded, glad it was going to be a short trip. He fumbled with a knob before sticking one finger in his mouth and biting into the waxed leather glove, using his teeth to pull it off. Stupid gloves. All he wanted to do was get the heating turned up to a nice sizzle. Five minutes outside in the cold and he’d lost half the warmth he’d been nestled in for the trip. He shivered and tried not to think about their father out there somewhere, hurt, and alone. Hang on, Dad. Dean will find you.
‘Hey, don’t do that.’ An unsubtle warning accompanied another whack on the head before Dean reached forward and easily adjusted the temperature without having to expose any skin to the winter air.
Brothers! Sammy decided it was better if he didn’t get into a fight with Dean today and jerked his glove back on with as much attitude as he thought he could get away with.
‘Here.’ Dean handed him a cup. ‘Hold it still, silly. The floor’s already awake enough.’
Sammy watched happily as the hot liquid poured into the cup. ‘You put milk in it!’
‘Lots, and sugar, so no complaints, you lightweight,’ Dean said grumpily. ‘It was the only hot drink I could manage. Just don’t get all hyper on the caffeine, okay? I don’t need you boinging off the walls of the truck while I’m driving.’
Slurps were the only answer that Sammy was going to give to that insult. At this stage he didn’t care what he drank as long as it was warm. He smiled magnanimously over the edge of the plastic cup. ‘I’ll share while you’re driving.’
‘Damn right you’ll share,’ Dean said, taking a quick sideways gulp from the cup as he pulled back onto the highway and headed them towards Brookville.
Just hold on.
~~~
Brookville was a washout.
Sammy backed off as Dean tried to slam his fist right through their father’s latest sign.
‘Fucking Clearfield? That’s another hour in this weather. Get in the truck, Sammy, we’ve got to backtrack and head East. Damnit! If Dad hasn’t finished off those jikininki by the time we get there, I’m going to fry their asses for giving us all the run-around.’
Ten minutes was as long as Sammy managed to keep quiet. It was either say what was bugging him or turn up Dean’s choice of radio station to block out the emptiness. Talking won by a landslide. ‘Dean?’
‘What?’ It was more a groan than another question.
Sammy flinched at the same time as Dean glanced over and visibly forced himself to relax.
‘It’ll be all right, Sammy. We can do this. Dad needs us, and we can help him. Don’t worry, okay?’ He grinned cheerfully at Sammy. ‘I need you to check the maps again. You’re my navigator, suss out Clearfield and anything else within a 50 mile radius. I want to know how to get anywhere we need to fast. I get a feeling that Clearfield won’t be our last stop.’
Dean could turn his emotions on and off like his lighter. It made Sammy proud, jealous and not a little nervous. Still Dean knew what he was doing, and apart from the mess with the zombie pigs, and that thing with the imps in Tallahassee, and the … well, despite all those things, he always did manage to save Sammy in the end - just like Dad. He smiled back at Dean; they could do this, just as long as his brother didn’t decide to shoot him after his next question.
‘Dean?’
‘Yes?’ Very calm now.
Not for long. ‘Don’t you think we should have used that payphone to call the motel to see if Gerry got there?’
‘No, Sammy, I don’t.’ Very quiet. Dangerously so. ‘Wherever he is, whoever he is, he’s not here. It’s just the two musketeers to the rescue.’
There used to be three.
~~~
Sammy thought the musketeers had had it easy. All that dashing around on horses waving swords. It certainly was a far cry from driving a stolen farm truck through ice and snow. Not that he was doing the driving, of course. There was no way Dean was going to allow himself to be spelled at the wheel, no matter how tired he was. They’d both learned early on how to rack out anywhere. Dad said it was a major survival technique. You slept where and when you could, even 10 minutes was enough to keep you going when you had to. The trouble was, that he was sure Dean hadn’t even had that much since Saturday night. Not that his brother would ever admit to being only human. He wondered if it was wrong to consider drugging Dean - just a little, at the next stop.
Dad. He knew that was what was keeping Dean going. Worry. Love. Fear. All that, and most of that first thermos of coffee; Dean was keeping the second one for their father. Sammy just hoped it would still be warm when they found him. That Dad would. Don’t think about that! He looked out the frosted window, more trees, and some sort of bush tinted an almost fluorescent blue-pink under the moonlight. Prettier to look at than the endless truck stops of the main drag, he really hoped this back road shortcut lived up to Dean’s expectations. It was certainly quieter.
Dean had even stopped humming along to the radio some time back. Too tense to remember to act as if it was all going to be okay. Sammy wished he would still pretend, because in a weird way it did make him feel better.
‘Dean?’
A quick concerned glance, then eyes back to their focus on the icy road. ‘Yeah, Sammy?’
‘Tell me a story.’ Too many years since the last time, but he didn’t care how childish that request made him sound, or even if Dean teased him mercilessly for it. He just needed something - normal, even if it was only for the next few miles till they got to Clearfield.
Another brief look, this time the smile was back in Dean’s eyes. ‘Which one, dude?’ He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, ‘You know I have a million, ‘cos you’ve heard them all that many times at least.’
‘You know which one,’ Sammy said quietly.
‘Oh.’ He could see Dean’s face soften as he began to speak, ‘A long time ago there was a knight called …’
‘John.’
‘A knight called John who rode around the country on his horse …’
‘Charger.’
‘On his charger saving people from dragons …’
‘And demons.’
‘Saving people from dragons, and demons. Then one day he heard about a lovely princess called Mary, who’d been captured by …’
‘Don’t stop!’
‘I was waiting for you to interrupt again.’
‘Just tell it properly.’ Sammy released the catch on his seat belt. If he was going to get a story he wanted it the old way, curled up in his big brother’s lap. Safe.
‘Okay, Sammy,’ Dean said as he took them carefully round the next tight corner, dipping his lights off high beam at the sight of another set of lights approaching fast.
‘A long time ago there was a totally awesome knight called John who rode around the country on his fabulous black charger saving people from scumbags, and dra…’
~~~
Part 2
Rating: R (for language only), Gen
Characters: Dean, Sammy, John
Word Count: 6,838/13,870
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchesters for fun and angst. Sorry about the holes!
A/N: Very belatedly for the spn_christmas Prompt 15: John doesn’t come home from a Christmas-Eve hunt, leaving wee!Sam and wee!Dean alone on Christmas Day (gen).
This is the first part of the All Thy Harms Repair series. Thanks to msscullyred for the Super!Beta!; mysticmhorag for a quick grammar overview; and Camille-is-here for the loan of Aunt Tilly's lamp. The title comes from My Thoughts Are Wing'd With Hopes by John Dowland
Setting: Winter. Pennsylvania, December 1993.
Summary: Sammy and Dean go on a hunt for their missing father at Christmas. “Whatever you do, don’t take off on your own unless you don’t have a choice.”
Part 1
‘Shit,’ Sammy cursed through the intermittent water from the shower, as he watched the filth and everything else that he’d just as soon forget about trickle off his clothes and swirl disturbingly over the cracked tiles before draining slowly away. He swore again, this time at the moron who’d dumped him in the cubicle fully dressed and turned the taps on before he could get out. Quicker and less mess, my ass! He spat out more water and damned his big brother to hell as he struggled with waterlogged and still grimy denim. The only reason he managed to get undressed at all in the end was that he was yet again wearing Dean’s baggy cast-offs.
A thumping on the flimsy bathroom door was accompanied with one of his brother’s usual caring comments. ‘Hurry up, dude,’ Dean shouted. ‘I wouldn’t have let you go first if I’d known you were going to use up all the hot water.’
‘Hot water?’ Sammy yelled back as he kicked his clothes into a corner. ‘What fucking hot water? It was lukewarm when you stuck me in here you idiot!’ He reached deliberately for his brother’s new shampoo and poured it lavishly all over himself. Sammy grinned as he happily stomped up and down on his clothes, managing to create a veritable snowstorm of brown foam. Who says you never learned anything useful on TV? If it worked in India it would work in Pennsylvania. He was enjoying himself immensely when the door slammed open with enough force to threaten its cheap hinges. He squinted through the bubbles coating the tacky gold rippled glass shower-screen. Yup, the arm waving definitely wasn’t a good sign.
‘Fucking?’ Dean asked much too quietly for Sammy’s peace of mind. ‘Did you just swear at me, Sammy?’
Oops, Dean always got like this when he was “in charge.” Started acting just like their father. Just because he was fourteen there was no need to act like he was Sammy’s boss. ‘You’re the one who taught me to swear,’ Sammy pointed out with what he thought was a reasonable defence as he jolted the screen open and angled his arm around the corner to snag a towel from the hook, ‘And you made us go on that stupid hunt, anyway.’
Dean took a breath and was obviously about to enforce the whole Marine discipline thing when he got a good look at the roiling mass of reddish-khaki suds oozing out of the shower. ‘What the fuck?’ he demanded, snagging his brother’s soapy arm as Sammy attempted to slip past him.
‘Now who’s swearing?’ Sammy asked busy shifting his feet on the cold floor. He hated winter as much as his brother loved it. ‘Hell,’ he said, waiting a second. Wait, he could feel it. Here it comes … ‘Hah - Shoo!’
‘Goddamnit, Sammy,’ Dean snapped out. He grabbed another towel and wrapped it around him before picking him up and carrying him out and plonking him down in front of the kerosene heater. ‘You never listen do you?’ he asked rhetorically as he briskly rubbed his brother dry, attacking any sign of dampness as if it was some new evil to be exterminated.
‘Enough, already,’ Sammy gasped out the next time his head escaped the confines of the elderly towel.
Dean ignored the protest as he turned Sammy around checking him over for any injuries. ‘Thought so.’ Blood trickling down his brother’s left shin. ‘Why didn’t you say you took a hit?’
Sammy looked down at his leg. ‘I didn’t know. Must have caught me with one of its hooves. Besides it’s only a scratch.’
‘No such thing as only, Sammy,’ Dean said. ‘That zombie pig was pretty toxic. We’d better go with the whole holy water routine just in case.’
‘You look kind of toxic yourself,’ Sammy pointed out truthfully as Dean dug one of their first aid kits out from under the black and white television.
Dean glanced down at his outer layer of slime which had dried to a nice tight shell-like consistency. ‘We would have been fine if it hadn’t exploded when your stake went through its stomach. Next time target the heart or neck.’ He held the kit out to his brother. ‘Grab a pad and keep some pressure on it for a few minutes while I de-gross myself. Otherwise we’ll never keep your wound clean.’ He winced as he bent to grab one of the damp towels off the floor and trudged back into the bathroom, muttering under his breath as bits of bile and stomach juice flaked off with every step.
Sammy sat down in front of the heater to toast himself. Through the walls Dean was swearing. Out of hot water. Hah!
~~~
‘Dimitte nobis debita nostra,’ Sammy said, watching the wound fizz as Dean poured holy water over his leg, with an extra splash, just ‘cause he knew it stung.
‘Libera nos a malo,’ Dean responded bitterly as he quickly secured the cut with closure strips. ‘If you’re gonna pray, skip sin and go straight for the big one. Besides who wants forgiveness?’
‘Maybe us?’ Sammy asked.
‘For what?’
‘For everything.’ He’d started to wonder lately if all this killing was going to send their family straight to hell to join everything they’d sent there ahead of them. For all this? Lately it was bothering him. He needed another long talk with Pastor Jim. Maybe this is wrong. At least Pastor Jim was always ready to listen to his weird questions, and try seriously to answer them. Dad said Jim Murphy had the soul of a Jesuit, whatever that meant. It didn’t bother Sammy much, Pastor Jim’s answers made a nice change from his brother’s, “If it’s evil, just kill it, dude.” He looked down at Dean busy bandaging the wound. ‘Doesn’t it bother you …?’
‘Nope,’ Dean said bluntly. ‘Dad knows what he’s doing. All we need to do is follow orders and everything will be fine.’ He got to his feet, slapping Sammy on his shoulder. ‘Stop thinking yourself into a state. Go get dressed; you’re going to get a little crispy round the edges if you stay there much longer.’
Sammy looked at him. He knew when his big brother was trying to get rid of him. ‘Whose idea was it to spend our Saturday night tracking zombie pig while Dad was away anyway?’ he asked stubbornly, his stomach growling annoyingly as Dean pushed him into the bedroom.
‘He’s been away almost a fortnight and we’re running out of entertainment options,’ Dean said over his shoulder as he walked back to the main room. ‘Pittsburgh isn’t the hippest city we’ve ever been stuck in. What about the hassle we had getting into that pool hall last week?’
‘We got in okay,’ Sammy said rummaging on the floor behind the door for his clothes from the previous day. ‘Trouble was, once we were in you were beating the pants off the owner’s son.’
‘Yeah. Poor little Colin lost all his pocket money. But who cares? I’ve still got enough left for the movies tomorrow and as much popcorn as even you can tuck away in two hours.’
He could practically feel Dean’s smirk through the door. ‘We’re lucky we got out with the money and without them calling Juvie,’ Sammy said over the drone of his brother humming one of his endless rock tunes.
‘Dad always taught us to have more than one escape route worked out. This time we only needed the first one.’ Dean yelled out between the odd thud.
‘Next time can we not jump out the window exactly when the kitchen hand from that dive next door opens the garbage bin to toss in the leftovers?’ Sammy asked with a grimace. That smell had been almost as bad as the pig.
‘It was pretty disgusting,’ Dean agreed as he slouched in wearing only marginally cleaner clothes and leaned with annoying nonchalance against the doorframe before tossing a packet of crisps at him. ‘At least we had a softer landing.’
‘Smellier,’ Sammy said precisely as he caught his late dinner. ‘And squishier.’ He didn’t know how his brother did it. Last year Dean had been just another wiry kid. Now look at him. They’d been out most of the night rolling around in the mud with that damned pig, and all he had to do was have a shower and come out looking - trendy? Hip? Cool? Whatever it was, Dean now had it.
‘Dude, that’s not even a word.’
‘Since when did you become an English critic?’ Sammy wanted to know. ‘Don’t tell me you have a secret passion for grammar?’
‘The things you don’t know about me would fill Dad’s journal,’ Dean answered as he threw the wreck of his towel on the floor with the remains of his clothes. ‘Besides my last English teacher was hot.’
Sammy yawned. Deliberately.
‘Are you falling asleep over there?’ Dean waved a hand in front of his face. ‘Admit it, with Dad not due back till tomorrow there wasn’t much else for us to do.’
‘Nothing to do, so you decided to fill in the time by finding us something of our own to destroy?’ Sammy asked in resignation. The hunt had been a rush, and fun in its own twisted way, but Dean’s new eagerness to get the two of them out on these solo hunts was becoming a problem. He didn’t know how they’d managed to keep them a secret from their father for this long. They were just lucky that he hadn’t come home early and caught them out. Otherwise they’d both be stuck detailing the Impala with a toothbrush until they were thirty. Thank God he was still away.
Sammy wished he couldn’t remember his father saying, “Never thank God. You don’t know who else is listening.”
~~~
John Winchester took the last bag of ammunition from Sammy and put it in the trunk of the Chevy. ‘Don’t forget to salt …’
‘Dad,’ Dean groaned out as he handed over the newly cleaned Colt to his father before placing all the other guns into their slots. ‘We both know the drill, okay? We’ve been doing this for years now. We’ll be ace, won’t we, Sammy?’ he said with a glance at his brother.
‘Sure. Everything’s great, Dad. Don’t worry. I’ve got a lot of study to do before we start up at the new school after Christmas. And Dean, well, I think he’s going to be spending all his time making eyes at that waitress at the diner. As if she’d even look at him.’ Sammy deftly dodged his brother’s kick and flipped him a return gesture of affection.
‘Boys. For once can the two of you manage not to kill yourselves while I’m off on a job?’ He looked sternly at Dean. ‘You’re team leader for the next two weeks. Don’t forget those drills. I expect you both to top your previous ratings when I get back.’
‘Yes, Sir,’ they chorused, unconsciously straightening at the order.
Dean relaxed enough to scuff one sneaker through the gravel. ‘Just watch out for those jikininki. You know they can be tricky. And no blood in the car, ‘cos you know how I hate having to clean the upholstery.’
Sammy and his father just rolled their eyes at each other. Dean’s obsession with the Impala made him the butt of many a family joke between hunts.
‘Dean, the motel’s paid up to the end of the month. You’ve got the food money and you both know where the emergency stash is buried.’ Their father swept them both into one of his all-encompassing bear hugs. ‘I’ll be back on the 19th. Don’t leave town without me,’ he joked as he gave them a look that said he hoped they’d never, ever, end up in that situation. But John Winchester wasn’t stupid and hadn’t raised his sons to be either. They’d grown up expecting the worst in every situation and were rarely disappointed when it eventuated. After what had happened to their mother they knew that any hunt could be the last one for any of them. It didn’t make any of them like the idea though.
‘Call Pastor Jim, Bobby, or Caleb if something happens. Whatever you do, don’t take off on your own unless you don’t have a choice. I need to know you’re both here waiting for me, even if I get held up.’ John squeezed them tight one last time before getting into the car.
‘We could come with you and help,’ Dean offered eagerly, hoping for a last minute reprieve.
‘I know you could, son,’ their father said. ‘Not this time, I need you to stay here and look after Sammy.’
‘Yes, Sir,’ said Dean.
‘I don’t need looking after!’
‘Sammy.’ Just the one quiet word. When John Winchester lowered his voice everyone paid attention.
‘Yes, Dad.’ Muttered. Sammy wasn’t going to look at Dean. He didn’t need to see his disappointment and feel any more guilt than he already did.
A long pause.
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Good man.’
Sammy gave in, and glanced at Dean. He’d closed up again, like always. ‘What if we came with you, but didn’t go on the hunt?’ A solution, not perfect but the best he could think of. He could feel his brother tense beside him. Hoping. ‘We could stay somewhere closer and Dean could still …’
‘No.’
‘Yes, Sir.’ He and Dean in sync, as they so often were, whether they liked it or not.
A sigh. ‘I would if I could. The intel tags this batch as particularly feral, I don’t want either of you close enough to worry about. Just look after yourselves so I can get the job done.’
‘Don’t worry about us, Dad. I’ll take care of Sammy.’
‘That’s my boys.’
‘See you soon,’ Sammy said with determination, holding onto the side of the window as his father started the engine.
‘Later, Dad,’ Dean agreed shortly, and pulled his brother back to his side as they watched the Impala force its way out into the almost gridlocked holiday traffic.
Standing next to Dean under the streetlight in the silent parking lot Sammy could only hope his father’s hunt was a successful one. That luck would be with him, with them, and he’d be home soon.
It was a damn shame that luck wasn’t something that paid much attention to the Winchesters.
~~~
Sammy bounced noisily out of bed before dawn on Sunday morning, heartlessly ignoring the groan coming from the lump in the other side of the bed. Dean wasn’t known for being the morning person among the Winchesters. It was one of the reasons their father had never called him on his caffeine consumption even back when he was Sammy’s age. Coffee was one of the few things guaranteed to get him any where near coherent in the morning. Unless he was being attacked of course, then the adrenaline kicked in and everything ducked for cover. For a moment he seriously considered taking the dividing pillow - Dad’s version of the Berlin Wall - and testing that theory one more time.
Instead he shook enough coins out of the pockets of Dean’s jeans then stuffed all their clothes into a drawstring bag for the laundry. No point waiting for Dean to come to on his own. Just get it all done, so they had something clean to wear. Better him than Dean, because his brother’s version of washing clothes tended more towards tossing everything in the one machine with a scoop of detergent and then falling blithely asleep next to the washer as everything turned various shades of grey. And if he didn’t do it now they’d have a repeat of Buffalo where the entire motel turned out on a hot June evening to watch Dean do the washing in his boxer shorts. It would have made a great blackmail moment except for two things - the lack of a camera, and any modesty on his brother’s part.
When he got back a few hours later lugging the bulging sack it was to find Dean predictably downing coffee and engrossed in a comic. Sammy dumped the laundry on the floor and put his maths textbook back onto the pile on the nightstand.
‘Jeez, slowpoke, you took forever.’ Dean flapped a free hand towards some paper bags sweating on the table. ‘We were out of food, so I had to go and get us some breakfast, but it’s gonna be cold by now. Might be easier to just stuff you full of milk and monsters.’
Sammy stuck his tongue out and snagged the nearest offering. Yeah, still hot, despite his brother’s lie. He pulled out one of the lime green vinyl chairs and settled down to enjoy the local diner’s version of a grilled sandwich. More like a toasted Frisbee really in both size and taste, but okay once he managed to eat it into submission. He’d had much worse, he thought as he used his elbow to nudge the other packet at Dean.
‘So, what do you want to do till Dad gets back? Catch a flick? Go do some last minute target practice over in one of the old warehouses?’
‘Gnhh,’ Sammy muttered as he worked his way stubbornly through his meal. He swallowed, choked and grabbed thankfully at the milk container his brother thrust at him, chasing the uncomfortable chunk down with a long swig.
‘If you backwash you’re dead, minnow.’ Dean said slapping him a bit too helpfully on the back.
‘Jerk,’ Sammy coughed out with a spray of milk.
‘Sammy!’ Dean managed an impressed leer. ‘I’d have thought you were too young for premature e…’
Sammy blinked and choked again. No. Not even Dean could joke about … Yes, only Dean would. He let his head drop onto the orange Formica table, and began to bang it repeatedly up and down, creating his own audible graffiti to echo that already gouged into its surface - Mr T Rules! - J loves M - Hulk me - The end is nigh - Stephen sucks - Get sM*A*S*Hed! - Storm’s coming - I shot J.R.
‘Sammy?’ Dean rubbed his back. ‘You okay, dude?’
‘Uh huh,’ Sammy said finally raising his head. Now he really had a headache.
~~~
‘Take that!’ Dean said jubilantly as he used the last of his tiles to cross Sammy’s “Govind” with “Eligos.”
Dean loved whupping Sammy’s ass over Demon Scrabble. Sammy knew it; Dean knew it.
‘All that and a double word score. That gives me …’
‘Gives you what, Dean?’ Sammy asked. Sometimes the wait is worth it. Ever since their father’s friend, Bobby, had introduced them to his version of the board game three years ago they’d been fairly evenly matched. Dean’s age and experience offset by the amount of time Sammy spent with his head deep in some of the more obscure research books. Dean might bitch, but it was a good way to memorise some of those names. And a heck of a lot more fun than their father’s rote teaching.
‘Ah, 452 to your 666,’ Dean finished ruefully. ‘Way to go! Still it’s not always about size, but more about style.’
‘Just keep telling yourself that, Dean,’ Sammy said. ‘I’m sure the girls might even believe it one day.’
‘You’re so going down for that,’ Dean said, knocking over the Scrabble board as he made a grab for him.
‘Have to catch me first,’ Sammy said, snorting with laughter as he dashed outside into the clammy afternoon air. He dodged a decrepit white Ford Escort - Huh, Kansas plates - in the parking lot in an attempt to keep ahead of his brother. Whoops! Bad move.
‘What was that, Sammy?’ Dean asked, expertly flipping him down onto the damp gravel.
‘Nothing. Come on, Dean. Let me up already.’ He looked up, aiming for pathetic and missed by a mile. ‘Pretty please?’
‘Well, duh! But you’re still staying right here.’
There was only one possible response. Sammy twisted and went for it.
‘Fuck, Sammy!’ Dean contorted, but unfortunately didn’t loosen his grip as Sammy’s fingers began an all out tickle attack under his ribcage.
‘Wuss.’ Sammy loved it that Dean had this one great weakness. He grinned up at his brother, watching him flinch as a particularly sensitive spot became the next target.
Dean grabbed both his hands and forced them back over his head, banging them repeatedly on the ground for emphasis. ‘Did you hear me? You’re. Staying. Right. Here. Till Dad’s home,’ he finished triumphantly.
‘Scrabble loser. Ow. Scrabble joker, I mean, ace?’ Sammy winced as Dean relented, pulled him to his feet and began to brush him off distractedly. ‘What?’ he followed his brother’s gaze to the Ford’s license plate.
‘Nothing. Come on let’s get dinner and go see “Groundhog Day.” You love that movie. We’ve got plenty of time yet.’
‘Dean?’
‘It’s fine, Sammy. Everything will be fine.’
~~~
Neither of them got any sleep that night, though Sammy pretended to for the first few hours. When he couldn’t take it any more he sat up in bed. Dean was still curled up in the same position, the shabby outsized armchair pulled tight against the curtained window, radio turned down so low the music was just a muted background hum while he distractedly played with his lighter.
‘Dean?’
‘Sorry, Sammy,’ Dean thrust his lighter in his pocket and turned the radio off. ‘Go to sleep. I know damn well you haven’t had any yet. Dad’ll be here by morning. He just got held up is all.’
Sammy rolled out of bed.
Dean sighed. ‘Bring a blanket, kiddo.’
Sammy dragged the top one off the bed and pulled it across the room after him.
‘Come here,’ Dean said softly, wrapping it around him before letting the cocoon that was Sammy wriggle onto his lap. ‘Watch your elbows, dude.’
Sammy manoeuvred one hand free and patted his brother on the cheek.
‘Don’t worry, Dean.’
‘I’m not worried; it’s a clear night, a good night for travelling. Dad will be okay. He always is.’ Dean reached over and clicked the radio back on and changed it to a local station to listen to the latest news and weather.
They both heard a lot of weather reports that night.
~~~
At dawn they squashed into the phone box outside the local post office. An hour later they were still there.
‘Nothing,’ Dean said. ‘No one home, anywhere.’
‘But one of them is always there while Dad is on a hunt,’ Sammy protested. It wasn’t something they’d ever been told for sure. Just a fact of life they’d become certain of over the years. The sun rose and set, their mother was dead; Dad went hunting, and there was always someone to call.
‘You know what we have to do now, don’t you, Sammy?’ Dean asked quietly.
‘We’ve never had to. Ever.’
‘First time for everything. And Dad gave us both one for a reason. He’d be pissed if we didn’t use it when we should have. I just …,’ he trailed off.
‘What?’ Sammy asked, though he was sure he knew.
‘Nothing,’ Dean said steadily.
‘Want to wait longer?’ Sammy asked.
‘You know Dad, he’ll get mad either way.’ Dean thumped the beeping receiver just the once against the wall. Not quite as calm as he was making out. ‘We’ve just got to do it.’
Sammy looked up at Dean. Trusting. Watching while his brother finally took out his wallet and slid a battered sealed envelope out of the back section. Twin to the one in Sam’s own wallet. Envelopes pulled out so many times - blankets screening, torches on low; whispers, questions. Torn. No more secrets.
He peered at the sheet in Dean’s hand. Just the one piece of notepaper. A logo. What was that? A pan and a pick? “Herb’s Holiday Hideaways - Sacramento’s Finest.” Didn’t sound familiar, but they’d had those envelopes forever. Definitely their Dad’s strong, erratic scrawl. It was brief and to the point. A name and a number. Gerry, 555-0918. Sammy repeated it aloud, fingers automatically sketching the numbers across the closest surface - Dean’s back - as his training kicked in. Read it. Rhyme it. Three fives will give you hives … Say it. Write it. He knew his brother’s lips were moving in harmony with his own. Again. Again. Again. Again. “Fifth time for forever,” Dad used to say.
‘Gerry? You ever …?’
‘Nope.’ Dean said as he put the now memorized document carefully away and cycled more coins through the slot.
Not sure why, they both crouched down on the floor of the phone booth. Two rings, and a click. Sammy hunched closer to Dean. No voice. No message. Background static. Quiet. Waiting. Listening. He looked at Dean, grip rigid on the phone, eyes focussed. How could he stay so calm? Sammy just wanted to grab the phone and scream, “Help our Dad, please.” He tucked himself under Dean’s free arm instead.
Dean’s arm tightened around him as he said, ‘My name is …’
Another click. ‘Dean?’
Shit.
“Are you both okay?’
‘Yes, we …’
‘What’s happened to John?’
Sammy looked at Dean. He knew Dean was thinking the same thing he was. Weird didn’t cover it. Dean shook his head at him; time to wonder later.
‘Dad went to Ridgway.’
‘Hunting jikininki. I know.’ That voice. They didn’t know it, so why did it sound so familiar?
‘He was due back yesterday at the latest,’ Dean rushed out before that voice could tell him any more about their lives, their - secrets. ‘He hasn’t made it back.’
‘Your backups fall through?’
‘Yes,’ Sammy could feel Dean’s increasing tension as he tried to burrow further into his side.
‘You still at the Citrus Tango in Allentown?’ Knew too much, that voice did. Sammy didn’t like this one bit.
‘Yes.’ Dean, biting it out. Mad as hell now. Not wanting to need help from this stranger.
‘I’m leaving now. I’ll be at the motel …’
‘We’ll need a codeword,’ Dean finally getting a chance to return the interruption.
Sammy tried not to think about who or what else Dean thought might come for them.
‘Just like John.’ A laugh.
Sammy couldn’t work out why that sound did nothing to make him feel better.
‘Osiris, we might as well use that. I’ll be there by 7pm. Take care of Sammy.’ A final click, then nothing.
Always someone to call?
~~~
Sammy spent the rest of a long Monday watching his brother go quietly, calmly crazy. It wasn’t something anyone outside of the family would have been able to spot. It was the small things. The stillness, and the silence.
Dad said Dean was a perfect example of perpetual motion, with a lemon twist. Unless he was completely absorbed in a hunt Dean was always moving, talking, just being. More alive than anyone else. He sang, he hummed, he fidgeted - every pen in the known universe ended up in his mouth. Dean always talked, a constant stream of consciousness on every random thought skipping through his head. In truth that was merely Dean’s version of background noise. Camouflage for the real person. There were just three people who’d heard that other Dean. Only Sammy knew he still kept a lot of himself locked away, more than even their father understood. When Dean really wanted to say something he didn’t use words.
Sammy had learnt to read Dean’s body language before he could crawl. Now, watching him lying back on the couch, serenely reading a schoolbook, all of Sammy’s many alarm bells were going off at once. He’d been tiptoeing around his brother all day. Not sure when the bomb was going off, but knowing the fuse was burning shorter with every hour that passed.
Dean had finished all their outstanding chores, taken them out to the diner for lunch, and even insisted on them spending an endless hour duelling on the one video machine the motel boasted before forcing Sammy to grab a few hours sleep. Through it all he’d also found the time to check over all of their weapons and fill their backpacks with a very comprehensive assortment of items. He hadn’t said much, except for everyday things like “more bullets,” and “pass the whetstone.” Weapons aside, anyone watching them would have just thought they were two extraordinarily well-behaved children. Two kids who were never, for a single moment, more than a foot apart for the entire day.
At 7.02pm the fuse reached its target.
~~~
Sammy looked from his watch to Dean. In just a few seconds he’d gone from studied lolling to combat ready. Jacket on, pack slung over one shoulder.
‘Come on, Sammy. We’re out of here.’ No room for argument with that voice. He sounds just like Dad.
Sammy tried anyway. ‘What about Gerry?’
‘He didn’t make it.’ Dean shoved Sammy’s arms into his padded jacket, flipping up the hood, and zipping him into the full Eskimo look. ‘I followed Dad’s standing orders. Gerry had his chance. Time’s up, day’s gone and we’re going to need every bit of that crappy quarter moon. Snow’s forecast for the next few days. Dad’s got to be hurt bad, or he’d be here. He won’t last too long if a storm hits. We’re his only backup now.’
There was no possible answer to that statement.
Dean pushed Sammy ahead of him out the door, locking it and pausing only long enough to bend down and carve a few seemingly insignificant scratches low in the frame with his knife. A message few would notice, and fewer still could understand. Signs for “hunt” overlaid with “rescue”, then “Winchester,” and finally a last unique flourish that Sammy knew was Dean’s version of “Fuck you, Gerry.”
~~~
Dean made stealing a car look easy; like it was something he did every day and twice on Sundays to take the Mickey out of Pastor Jim. Sammy would have been jealous if he hadn’t been nervously keeping a watch around the parking lot of the busy shopping centre. He still thought it would have been quicker to take one from the motel, but no, Dean had to talk sensibly about not leaving a link back to their current base. All those practice sessions with their father in every new town had definitely paid off for his brother. But Sammy knew there was a big difference between breaking into a car while Dad was timing them, and doing it for real.
One quick clunk of the door release and Dean was inside, throwing his pack in the rear set and reaching under the dash for the wiring.
Sammy shrugged out of his own backpack and clambered up into the passenger seat. ‘A ute, Dean? If we’re going to steal a car I thought you’d pick something faster. What about that Triumph over there?’ Not really wanting an answer, just desperate for any conversation to take his mind off their father.
‘Better in the snow,’ Dean said tersely as the engine finally caught and he reversed their new possession out into the congested lanes of fractious, homeward bound shoppers. ‘A bored patrol officer is also less likely to pull over a farm truck at Christmas.’
Dean obviously had a whole master plan thought out and was working through it, step by stolen step.
~~~
‘Dean? Sammy? Help me!’
‘Dad?’
‘Sammy, please!’
All Sammy could see was his father lying broken in the snow. ‘No!’
‘Sammy!’
Sammy woke to the reassuring touch of Dean’s hand on his face. ‘Dad! I heard Dad, I saw him, he was begging for us to help him!’
“Shhh, it was just a dream, Sammy. It’s not real - Dad would never beg. Come on, up and at ‘em.’
‘Where are we?’ It was still dark outside. He pushed the crumpled route maps aside and tumbled outside into the reality of his brother’s steadying arms. Just a dream.
‘On the road to Nowhere, Pennsylvania,’ Dean said dumping him unceremoniously down onto the ground before stretching all his joints till they popped.
‘Really?’ Trying hard to mimic Dean’s sarcasm, and also getting nowhere.
‘No, Sammy. We’re off to visit Santa Claus at the North Pole,’ Dean taunted, thumping him briefly on the head.
Sammy wished he’d stop doing that. It was probably one of those genetic flaws that came with being a big brother.
‘We’re just over halfway there. This is the rest stop just outside Punxsutawney.’ He waved a gloved hand at a nearby cinderblock structure. ‘Let’s check for Dad’s route markers.’
Sure enough there they were, easily overlooked amongst all the other graffiti on the back wall. ‘He left a cache here,’ Sammy said surprised at the second sign. ‘He doesn’t usually leave one so far from his hunt.’
‘Only when he thinks he might have to double back in an emergency,’ Dean said thoughtfully, as he jotted down the numbers that followed. ‘We’d better take it with us. The extra weapons and supplies won’t hurt.’
‘Now, unless you want to pee in a jar for the rest of the trip, you’ve got two minutes to use these palatial facilities while I get the cache. Move it, I want us there by yesterday.’
‘After that I’ll check these coordinates, looks like he made a detour. We can’t take Ridgway for granted. Dad could be anywhere now.’
Assumptions could get Dad killed.
~~~
‘41°9’35”N, 79°4’49”W? That’s Brookville. Nice and close, we can be there in less than 30 minutes.’
Sammy just nodded, glad it was going to be a short trip. He fumbled with a knob before sticking one finger in his mouth and biting into the waxed leather glove, using his teeth to pull it off. Stupid gloves. All he wanted to do was get the heating turned up to a nice sizzle. Five minutes outside in the cold and he’d lost half the warmth he’d been nestled in for the trip. He shivered and tried not to think about their father out there somewhere, hurt, and alone. Hang on, Dad. Dean will find you.
‘Hey, don’t do that.’ An unsubtle warning accompanied another whack on the head before Dean reached forward and easily adjusted the temperature without having to expose any skin to the winter air.
Brothers! Sammy decided it was better if he didn’t get into a fight with Dean today and jerked his glove back on with as much attitude as he thought he could get away with.
‘Here.’ Dean handed him a cup. ‘Hold it still, silly. The floor’s already awake enough.’
Sammy watched happily as the hot liquid poured into the cup. ‘You put milk in it!’
‘Lots, and sugar, so no complaints, you lightweight,’ Dean said grumpily. ‘It was the only hot drink I could manage. Just don’t get all hyper on the caffeine, okay? I don’t need you boinging off the walls of the truck while I’m driving.’
Slurps were the only answer that Sammy was going to give to that insult. At this stage he didn’t care what he drank as long as it was warm. He smiled magnanimously over the edge of the plastic cup. ‘I’ll share while you’re driving.’
‘Damn right you’ll share,’ Dean said, taking a quick sideways gulp from the cup as he pulled back onto the highway and headed them towards Brookville.
Just hold on.
~~~
Brookville was a washout.
Sammy backed off as Dean tried to slam his fist right through their father’s latest sign.
‘Fucking Clearfield? That’s another hour in this weather. Get in the truck, Sammy, we’ve got to backtrack and head East. Damnit! If Dad hasn’t finished off those jikininki by the time we get there, I’m going to fry their asses for giving us all the run-around.’
Ten minutes was as long as Sammy managed to keep quiet. It was either say what was bugging him or turn up Dean’s choice of radio station to block out the emptiness. Talking won by a landslide. ‘Dean?’
‘What?’ It was more a groan than another question.
Sammy flinched at the same time as Dean glanced over and visibly forced himself to relax.
‘It’ll be all right, Sammy. We can do this. Dad needs us, and we can help him. Don’t worry, okay?’ He grinned cheerfully at Sammy. ‘I need you to check the maps again. You’re my navigator, suss out Clearfield and anything else within a 50 mile radius. I want to know how to get anywhere we need to fast. I get a feeling that Clearfield won’t be our last stop.’
Dean could turn his emotions on and off like his lighter. It made Sammy proud, jealous and not a little nervous. Still Dean knew what he was doing, and apart from the mess with the zombie pigs, and that thing with the imps in Tallahassee, and the … well, despite all those things, he always did manage to save Sammy in the end - just like Dad. He smiled back at Dean; they could do this, just as long as his brother didn’t decide to shoot him after his next question.
‘Dean?’
‘Yes?’ Very calm now.
Not for long. ‘Don’t you think we should have used that payphone to call the motel to see if Gerry got there?’
‘No, Sammy, I don’t.’ Very quiet. Dangerously so. ‘Wherever he is, whoever he is, he’s not here. It’s just the two musketeers to the rescue.’
There used to be three.
~~~
Sammy thought the musketeers had had it easy. All that dashing around on horses waving swords. It certainly was a far cry from driving a stolen farm truck through ice and snow. Not that he was doing the driving, of course. There was no way Dean was going to allow himself to be spelled at the wheel, no matter how tired he was. They’d both learned early on how to rack out anywhere. Dad said it was a major survival technique. You slept where and when you could, even 10 minutes was enough to keep you going when you had to. The trouble was, that he was sure Dean hadn’t even had that much since Saturday night. Not that his brother would ever admit to being only human. He wondered if it was wrong to consider drugging Dean - just a little, at the next stop.
Dad. He knew that was what was keeping Dean going. Worry. Love. Fear. All that, and most of that first thermos of coffee; Dean was keeping the second one for their father. Sammy just hoped it would still be warm when they found him. That Dad would. Don’t think about that! He looked out the frosted window, more trees, and some sort of bush tinted an almost fluorescent blue-pink under the moonlight. Prettier to look at than the endless truck stops of the main drag, he really hoped this back road shortcut lived up to Dean’s expectations. It was certainly quieter.
Dean had even stopped humming along to the radio some time back. Too tense to remember to act as if it was all going to be okay. Sammy wished he would still pretend, because in a weird way it did make him feel better.
‘Dean?’
A quick concerned glance, then eyes back to their focus on the icy road. ‘Yeah, Sammy?’
‘Tell me a story.’ Too many years since the last time, but he didn’t care how childish that request made him sound, or even if Dean teased him mercilessly for it. He just needed something - normal, even if it was only for the next few miles till they got to Clearfield.
Another brief look, this time the smile was back in Dean’s eyes. ‘Which one, dude?’ He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, ‘You know I have a million, ‘cos you’ve heard them all that many times at least.’
‘You know which one,’ Sammy said quietly.
‘Oh.’ He could see Dean’s face soften as he began to speak, ‘A long time ago there was a knight called …’
‘John.’
‘A knight called John who rode around the country on his horse …’
‘Charger.’
‘On his charger saving people from dragons …’
‘And demons.’
‘Saving people from dragons, and demons. Then one day he heard about a lovely princess called Mary, who’d been captured by …’
‘Don’t stop!’
‘I was waiting for you to interrupt again.’
‘Just tell it properly.’ Sammy released the catch on his seat belt. If he was going to get a story he wanted it the old way, curled up in his big brother’s lap. Safe.
‘Okay, Sammy,’ Dean said as he took them carefully round the next tight corner, dipping his lights off high beam at the sight of another set of lights approaching fast.
‘A long time ago there was a totally awesome knight called John who rode around the country on his fabulous black charger saving people from scumbags, and dra…’
~~~
Part 2