fic: no sudden movements
SPN: Sam/Dean, PG-13. Sometime after Salvation. Three thousand miles to get here. The map's smearing in the rain.
No Sudden Movements
--
Coming through Indiana, Sam's driving and Dean's sleeping. Dreaming. Mumbling, his words too soft, too quiet, for Sam to hear, but Sam reaches out to touch his leg and he falls quiet. Passing fields and fields of unplowed grass, of corn. Miles and miles of road, flatness, beneath a flat grey sky, through air that tastes like rain and the scent of his skin.
They stop beside a gas station to look at the map. They drink cold coffee from paper cups as they stand shoulder to shoulder. Three thousand miles to get here. The map's smearing in the rain. Dean stretches, rolling his shoulders. "West," Sam says.
"Yeah, I know," Dean says. He cracks his knuckles against Sam's arm.
"It's too flat," Sam says.
"We've been here before," Dean says. "And we were born where it's flat."
"I know."
"Yeah, I feel it, too." Dean shrugs. "Toss me the keys, I'm driving."
--
Outside of Lodi, they take the ferry across the lake. It's not the fastest way to get there, not the most direct, but Sam's tired of road, tired of blacktop and faded yellow lines. When they dock, Dean gets ice cream from the convenience store. Sam waits outside, leaning against the car.
"You're missing out," Dean says. Sam shrugs. He thinks that Dean shouldn't be so happy about this, that he should want something more. Than ice cream. Than endless driving, endless motel rooms, spilt blood and endless prayers.
"I'm fine," Sam says. He has, after all, always been good at lying.
Dean starts the car and the music cuts in -- of course it's Creedence. Sam raises an eyebrow and Dean doesn't say anything. He drives with one hand, holding his ice cream with the other.
"You're dripping," Sam says. "And you've got ice cream all over your face."
"What, jealous?" Dean asks.
"That I don't look like a two-year-old? Hardly." He shoves a napkin at Dean. "Seriously, Dean."
"Make me."
Dean's mouth is sticky and sweet and cold. The hills rise all around them, like a fortress, like walls.
--
The sun is setting. Sam shivers. Gibralter Rock is yellow in the distance, bright, the only milestone he can see. There's a story about a girl who runs across the road, here, a girl who leads good people to their death. Sam thinks that the people who follow ghost-girls across roads maybe deserve it, just a little. For their stupidity. For making Dean drive them across the country to risk their lives for people who won't ever know.
He doesn't dare say this to Dean.
"I think we've got something," Dean says. The car creaks. The EMF meter resting on the dashboard begins to crackle. Sam nods.
She's right in front of them, then, but he can't make out anything other than vague shapes. Long hair. And then she's moving across the road, away, into the brush and scrub that runs from the road up into the hills.
She turns back to look at them.
"Come on," Dean says, opening his door.
"What?" Sam says.
Dean takes off into the bushes. Sam doesn't have any choice but to follow.
--
They follow her up into the hills. Shape of pale white through the trees ahead. And then she's gone, and Dean stops, grabs Sam's arm just before Sam passes him, before Sam's momentum carries him over the edge. The cliff is sudden and strange, here, amidst the slower curves, as though the land has been torn apart instead of giving way.
"You know," Sam says, when he can breathe again. "Maybe following her wasn't the best idea you've ever had. Just a thought."
"Shut up," Dean says. "She's bringing people here for a reason."
"Yeah, I noticed. Something about leading them off cliffs would be my guess."
Dean frowns at him. "What part of 'respect your elders' don't you get?" Sam opens his mouth to answer and Dean interrupts. "And by 'elders,' I meant 'betters.' Look." He points down the side. There's something caught on a branch four feet down, shining, turning in the wind.
"Somebody dropped it as they fell," Sam says. The wind bites at his skin.
"Or something," Dean says. He scratches his head. "Your arms are longer."
Sam blinks at him. "Fine." He lowers himself carefully over the side.
"You want me to hold your hand?" Dean asks, peering over the edge. Sam stretches one arm out, his fingers closing around the rosary.
The branch he's holding snaps and he fumbles quickly for another, catches hold and watches the broken branch disappear into nothing.
"I wasn't serious," Dean says, but he reaches down to grab Sam's hand anyway.
--
They drive back to Lodi to find a motel. The sky's already beginning to lighten into dawn. Sam sits on the edge of his bed with the laptop and watches Dean shave. The blades of his shoulders are muted beneath muscles and scars and he looks older, fragile, when he bows his head. Dean's the strongest person Sam knows, and the most broken.
"You find anything?" Dean asks. He dries his face with the t-shirt he left on the counter.
Sam nods. His shoulder's starting to ache. "The name on the rosary, Rosalind Wyatt? Her children fell off the cliff. She killed herself a month later. Same place."
"Well," Dean says. "That's kind of obvious." He drops next to Sam on the bed. Sam puts the laptop on the floor. "Are we talking guilt or revenge?"
"Revenge," Sam says. "Mostly, anyway. She wasn't there when the kids fell. There's a downside, though," he says, as though death weren't enough. "She was cremated." He thinks of the scarred hill, the dark cliff, and shudders. If Dean hadn't been there. Or if he'd taken Dean with him.
"So we'll bind her," Dean says. "Keep her on the cliffside and post a few do not enter signs." His thumb brushes the back of Sam's hand. "That should do it," he says softly.
"Yeah," Sam says. He leans back, presses his mouth to the side of Dean's neck. His hands are large and dark where the denim of Dean's jeans has faded to white. Dean pushes against a bruise that Sam didn't know he had and Sam bites his lip, hard.
Like this, they're close as can be. Like this, there's no need for words, no need to explain.
--
They sleep, dark and deep, all through morning. When they wake, they count the hours until sundown.
Dean runs them through the drills like Dad used to. What do you do if --. What's the best way to --.
Sam grits his teeth. "Shut up, Dean. You're gonna give me an ulcer."
"You can't get an ulcer at twenty-two," Dean says reasonably. "Plus, an ulcer? What the hell kind of hunter gets an ulcer?"
Sam looks at the clock. "Time to go," he says, ignoring the look on Dean's face. Knowing that Dean expects the kind of hunter who's got you for a brother, dumbass, and wondering why he can't make himself say it.
--
They trace lines between trees, toss chalk back and forth, waiting for the ghost to show. Something moves, further down the hill, and Sam looks up. "She's coming," he says.
She is. But she's leading someone. Sam looks at Dean and knows what Dean's going to do, raises an arm to catch the chalk Dean tosses to him without even thinking. Dean grabs the man, spins him, and pushes him back the way he came. "Run," Dean shouts after him, stepping forward to take the man's place. The rosary in his hand.
Because the girl won't stay, now that she knows what they'll do. Not if she doesn't have a target.
It only takes a second for Sam to finish drawing the lines, to finish binding her. He looks up and she's pressing her hands to Dean's chest. Sam sees her once, clearly, her ribs curved and prominent beneath her dress, her eyes wide and dark. Her long fingers against the faded black of Dean's shirt and then she is fading, fading, gone.
Dean falls to his knees. "Thought we were binding her," he says.
"I did," Sam says. "We did. I don't know." He crouches beside Dean, tilts Dean's head towards him. There's blood on Dean's face, trickling from his mouth. "Jesus. Jesus, Dean, what did she do?"
"Nothing," Dean says. "She just. She told me I was gonna take care of them now. She trusted me." He laughs weakly. "Crazy. Even for a ghost."
They walk back to the car in silence. Dean's blood is bright under the small light, sticky on Sam's fingers.
"I'm fine," Dean says. "And what kind of ghost believes in the honor system?"
Sam doesn't say anything.
--
They stop at the same gas station, halfway through northern Indiana. The sun is setting and the sky is bloodshot. Sam reaches under the seat for Dean's battered shoebox of tapes and his fingers come up dirty with salt and chalk. He leans his head against the window for a minute and then goes to find Dean, who's standing at the edge of the lot under the guise of stretching his legs.
"Dean," Sam says.
Dean turns, gravel crunching under his boots. He's silhouetted, small against the earth, against the sky.
"Dean," Sam says. "You could have been killed. Fuck, you could have died. You didn't know. The ghost. You didn't know what she would do to you."
Dean steps closer. "It's not like I had a choice," he says. "Maybe you didn't notice, but it was pretty much him or me or you up there."
Sam swallows. His fingernails dig into his palms. "I don't want to do this anymore."
"Yeah, I kinda got that." Dean tries to smile, fails. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks down.
"One stupid thing after another," Sam says. "I'm not gonna watch you die. I didn't come back to watch you die."
Dean looks up suddenly. "But it's okay for me to watch you, is that it?"
"No, Dean," Sam says, and he licks his lips. Waiting. His skin feels cold. There are cars passing on the highway, speeding eighty miles an hour into better worlds.
"You didn't come back," Dean says, and the look on his face could be a smile if not for the broken glass in his voice. "Not for good." He takes a deep breath and then looks up at Sam and shakes his head. "Let's go," he says, and he heads back to his car, leaving Sam to follow.
--
end
No Sudden Movements
--
Coming through Indiana, Sam's driving and Dean's sleeping. Dreaming. Mumbling, his words too soft, too quiet, for Sam to hear, but Sam reaches out to touch his leg and he falls quiet. Passing fields and fields of unplowed grass, of corn. Miles and miles of road, flatness, beneath a flat grey sky, through air that tastes like rain and the scent of his skin.
They stop beside a gas station to look at the map. They drink cold coffee from paper cups as they stand shoulder to shoulder. Three thousand miles to get here. The map's smearing in the rain. Dean stretches, rolling his shoulders. "West," Sam says.
"Yeah, I know," Dean says. He cracks his knuckles against Sam's arm.
"It's too flat," Sam says.
"We've been here before," Dean says. "And we were born where it's flat."
"I know."
"Yeah, I feel it, too." Dean shrugs. "Toss me the keys, I'm driving."
--
Outside of Lodi, they take the ferry across the lake. It's not the fastest way to get there, not the most direct, but Sam's tired of road, tired of blacktop and faded yellow lines. When they dock, Dean gets ice cream from the convenience store. Sam waits outside, leaning against the car.
"You're missing out," Dean says. Sam shrugs. He thinks that Dean shouldn't be so happy about this, that he should want something more. Than ice cream. Than endless driving, endless motel rooms, spilt blood and endless prayers.
"I'm fine," Sam says. He has, after all, always been good at lying.
Dean starts the car and the music cuts in -- of course it's Creedence. Sam raises an eyebrow and Dean doesn't say anything. He drives with one hand, holding his ice cream with the other.
"You're dripping," Sam says. "And you've got ice cream all over your face."
"What, jealous?" Dean asks.
"That I don't look like a two-year-old? Hardly." He shoves a napkin at Dean. "Seriously, Dean."
"Make me."
Dean's mouth is sticky and sweet and cold. The hills rise all around them, like a fortress, like walls.
--
The sun is setting. Sam shivers. Gibralter Rock is yellow in the distance, bright, the only milestone he can see. There's a story about a girl who runs across the road, here, a girl who leads good people to their death. Sam thinks that the people who follow ghost-girls across roads maybe deserve it, just a little. For their stupidity. For making Dean drive them across the country to risk their lives for people who won't ever know.
He doesn't dare say this to Dean.
"I think we've got something," Dean says. The car creaks. The EMF meter resting on the dashboard begins to crackle. Sam nods.
She's right in front of them, then, but he can't make out anything other than vague shapes. Long hair. And then she's moving across the road, away, into the brush and scrub that runs from the road up into the hills.
She turns back to look at them.
"Come on," Dean says, opening his door.
"What?" Sam says.
Dean takes off into the bushes. Sam doesn't have any choice but to follow.
--
They follow her up into the hills. Shape of pale white through the trees ahead. And then she's gone, and Dean stops, grabs Sam's arm just before Sam passes him, before Sam's momentum carries him over the edge. The cliff is sudden and strange, here, amidst the slower curves, as though the land has been torn apart instead of giving way.
"You know," Sam says, when he can breathe again. "Maybe following her wasn't the best idea you've ever had. Just a thought."
"Shut up," Dean says. "She's bringing people here for a reason."
"Yeah, I noticed. Something about leading them off cliffs would be my guess."
Dean frowns at him. "What part of 'respect your elders' don't you get?" Sam opens his mouth to answer and Dean interrupts. "And by 'elders,' I meant 'betters.' Look." He points down the side. There's something caught on a branch four feet down, shining, turning in the wind.
"Somebody dropped it as they fell," Sam says. The wind bites at his skin.
"Or something," Dean says. He scratches his head. "Your arms are longer."
Sam blinks at him. "Fine." He lowers himself carefully over the side.
"You want me to hold your hand?" Dean asks, peering over the edge. Sam stretches one arm out, his fingers closing around the rosary.
The branch he's holding snaps and he fumbles quickly for another, catches hold and watches the broken branch disappear into nothing.
"I wasn't serious," Dean says, but he reaches down to grab Sam's hand anyway.
--
They drive back to Lodi to find a motel. The sky's already beginning to lighten into dawn. Sam sits on the edge of his bed with the laptop and watches Dean shave. The blades of his shoulders are muted beneath muscles and scars and he looks older, fragile, when he bows his head. Dean's the strongest person Sam knows, and the most broken.
"You find anything?" Dean asks. He dries his face with the t-shirt he left on the counter.
Sam nods. His shoulder's starting to ache. "The name on the rosary, Rosalind Wyatt? Her children fell off the cliff. She killed herself a month later. Same place."
"Well," Dean says. "That's kind of obvious." He drops next to Sam on the bed. Sam puts the laptop on the floor. "Are we talking guilt or revenge?"
"Revenge," Sam says. "Mostly, anyway. She wasn't there when the kids fell. There's a downside, though," he says, as though death weren't enough. "She was cremated." He thinks of the scarred hill, the dark cliff, and shudders. If Dean hadn't been there. Or if he'd taken Dean with him.
"So we'll bind her," Dean says. "Keep her on the cliffside and post a few do not enter signs." His thumb brushes the back of Sam's hand. "That should do it," he says softly.
"Yeah," Sam says. He leans back, presses his mouth to the side of Dean's neck. His hands are large and dark where the denim of Dean's jeans has faded to white. Dean pushes against a bruise that Sam didn't know he had and Sam bites his lip, hard.
Like this, they're close as can be. Like this, there's no need for words, no need to explain.
--
They sleep, dark and deep, all through morning. When they wake, they count the hours until sundown.
Dean runs them through the drills like Dad used to. What do you do if --. What's the best way to --.
Sam grits his teeth. "Shut up, Dean. You're gonna give me an ulcer."
"You can't get an ulcer at twenty-two," Dean says reasonably. "Plus, an ulcer? What the hell kind of hunter gets an ulcer?"
Sam looks at the clock. "Time to go," he says, ignoring the look on Dean's face. Knowing that Dean expects the kind of hunter who's got you for a brother, dumbass, and wondering why he can't make himself say it.
--
They trace lines between trees, toss chalk back and forth, waiting for the ghost to show. Something moves, further down the hill, and Sam looks up. "She's coming," he says.
She is. But she's leading someone. Sam looks at Dean and knows what Dean's going to do, raises an arm to catch the chalk Dean tosses to him without even thinking. Dean grabs the man, spins him, and pushes him back the way he came. "Run," Dean shouts after him, stepping forward to take the man's place. The rosary in his hand.
Because the girl won't stay, now that she knows what they'll do. Not if she doesn't have a target.
It only takes a second for Sam to finish drawing the lines, to finish binding her. He looks up and she's pressing her hands to Dean's chest. Sam sees her once, clearly, her ribs curved and prominent beneath her dress, her eyes wide and dark. Her long fingers against the faded black of Dean's shirt and then she is fading, fading, gone.
Dean falls to his knees. "Thought we were binding her," he says.
"I did," Sam says. "We did. I don't know." He crouches beside Dean, tilts Dean's head towards him. There's blood on Dean's face, trickling from his mouth. "Jesus. Jesus, Dean, what did she do?"
"Nothing," Dean says. "She just. She told me I was gonna take care of them now. She trusted me." He laughs weakly. "Crazy. Even for a ghost."
They walk back to the car in silence. Dean's blood is bright under the small light, sticky on Sam's fingers.
"I'm fine," Dean says. "And what kind of ghost believes in the honor system?"
Sam doesn't say anything.
--
They stop at the same gas station, halfway through northern Indiana. The sun is setting and the sky is bloodshot. Sam reaches under the seat for Dean's battered shoebox of tapes and his fingers come up dirty with salt and chalk. He leans his head against the window for a minute and then goes to find Dean, who's standing at the edge of the lot under the guise of stretching his legs.
"Dean," Sam says.
Dean turns, gravel crunching under his boots. He's silhouetted, small against the earth, against the sky.
"Dean," Sam says. "You could have been killed. Fuck, you could have died. You didn't know. The ghost. You didn't know what she would do to you."
Dean steps closer. "It's not like I had a choice," he says. "Maybe you didn't notice, but it was pretty much him or me or you up there."
Sam swallows. His fingernails dig into his palms. "I don't want to do this anymore."
"Yeah, I kinda got that." Dean tries to smile, fails. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks down.
"One stupid thing after another," Sam says. "I'm not gonna watch you die. I didn't come back to watch you die."
Dean looks up suddenly. "But it's okay for me to watch you, is that it?"
"No, Dean," Sam says, and he licks his lips. Waiting. His skin feels cold. There are cars passing on the highway, speeding eighty miles an hour into better worlds.
"You didn't come back," Dean says, and the look on his face could be a smile if not for the broken glass in his voice. "Not for good." He takes a deep breath and then looks up at Sam and shakes his head. "Let's go," he says, and he heads back to his car, leaving Sam to follow.
--
end