fic: that karma thing
Bite me, Cthulhu. Season one, PG-13, Sam/Dean, 4,900 words.
It was summer, the leaves gone bright-green against a brilliant blue sky, and Sam and Dean were heading towards the coast. It had been eight months since Jessica Moore, the once-love of Sam's life, had died in flames upon a ceiling in California, and just a little more than that since John Winchester had disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a leatherbound journal, some scrawled coordinates, and his eldest son's unshakeable faith. While neither of these events were ever far from the minds of the younger Winchesters, today they had been pushed back a bit farther due in part to the weather.
That they were heading south to investigate something witnesses claimed was a sea monster might have also played a part in their uplifted moods, as that morning, over a breakfast that gave literal meaning to the phrase "greasy spoon," Dean had declared the sighting to be "awesome," and Sam, despite himself, had been forced to agree.
"We've never hunted a sea monster before," Sam said. This observation was not entirely random, for side B of the tape they had been listening to for the past three hundred miles had just ended and Dean's hand was edging towards the tape deck for what was, by Sam's count, the fourth time.
Dean glanced at him. "We hunted a kelpie that one time," he said.
"Yeah, that doesn't really count," Sam said. "And it was in a lake."
"It didn't start out there," Dean said.
Sam thought for a moment about arguing or using a perfectly reasonable tone of voice to share various theories regarding evolution in isolation, but decided against it, as perhaps there was no point in delaying the inevitable. He rolled his window down instead and closed his eyes while Dean readjusted the volume and Robert Plant informed them once again that it had, in fact, been a very long time since he had enjoyed, among other things, walks in the moonlight.
The sun was still shining when they passed a sign announcing their arrival in Allensville, population 6,117, and wishing them a lovely day, though, due to a piece of graffito, not in precisely those words.
As Dean drove down the main street -- slowly, to avoid attracting the attention of the local police to whom he and Sam would perhaps be introducing themselves anyway, though with different names, and perhaps also as he believed the young women waiting to cross the street were possessing of delicate natures and, being a gentlemanly sort of fellow, he did not wish to frighten them by speeding past -- Sam used his cell phone to contact one of the witnesses to the alleged sea monster’s appearance.
Having warned him as to their imminent arrival, the Winchesters arrived at the home of James Elizabeth, who was most delighted to find that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was taking his claim seriously.
"I wasn't fishing," Mr Elizabeth said, leaning forward in his chair. "Ain't nothing worth a damn in there, nothing but oil and plastic and empty goddamned sodapop cans."
"Of course," Sam said. He agreed that the pollution of natural waterways was an important issue, but not, perhaps, for the same reasons as did Mr Elizabeth. Dean, on the other hand, did not give much thought to this issue one way or another, and often called Sam various names involving leftist political organizations when Sam thought to mention it in conversation. "What, exactly, did you see?" Sam asked.
"A sea monster," Mr Elizabeth said. "I looked over and his head was coming up out of the water just like a brontosaurus."
"Did he, uh, come ashore, or did he just, uh, sink back down?" Dean asked. He accompanied this question with a hand gesture that was probably meant to portray a brontosaurus-resembling sea monster returning to an underwater lair, but in reality looked sort of dirty. Sam thought that this was more than likely intentional and so favored him with an uncharitable expression. Dean's response to this was to grin widely, which Sam took as proof that his assumption had been correct.
Mr Elizabeth, perhaps fortunately, seemed to notice none of this.
"He looked right at me," Mr Elizabeth said. "He looked right at me, and then he went back down, I swear on my mother's grave." He regarded the Winchesters solemnly as though he thought they might otherwise disbelieve him. Sam thought that Dean's expression wasn't exactly sympathetic and so tried to compensate with his own. This was not difficult, as the death of one's mother was far from a laughing matter for the Winchesters.
"So you didn't see anything more than its head," Sam said. "And neck."
"I didn't need to see flippers to know what it was I was seeing," Mr Elizabeth said.
Dean obtained directions to the location at which Mr Elizabeth had spotted the alleged sea monster, and Sam promised to call if they found anything out about the same, particularly if there was the potential of a monetary reward. This was, of course, a lie, but it wasn't a very big one, and Sam did not give it much thought, as he had much larger things to worry about, such as finding the sea monster before it decided to attack a human being, as sea monsters were known to do, and finding the demon responsible not only for the death of his mother, but for the death of Jessica Moore.
While Sam did not think that finding the former would lead to the latter, he did not have anywhere else to be, as Dean had pointed out the day before, a slight note of hesitation obvious in his voice below the veneer of sarcasm. Sam had agreed, both because it was true and because something twisted in the pit of his stomach when he thought about what the expression on Dean's face would look like if he said that he did, in fact, have somewhere else, somewhere better, to be.
That there was a part of him made happy by the idea of spending a summer day chasing sea monsters with his brother was something Sam thought unwise to share with the brother in question. Luckily he had spent four years living across the country from Dean, trying to pretend that part didn't exist, so he'd had plenty of practice as far as that was concerned.
Sam and Dean stood on the creaking dock and looked out at the water. Waves washed up on the rocky shoreline, bubbling amidst the boulders. Seagulls shrieked and wheeled overhead, fighting over some small bit of bread or garbage. The air tasted of salt and kelp and was much colder than it had been when the Winchesters had departed the home of Mr James Elizabeth. This chill was of course caused in part by their increased proximity to a large body of water, but Sam imagined that it was perhaps a mental chill, too, for the Winchesters would soon have to deal with the possible physical existence of a sea monster and the associated dangers thereof.
While both Sam and Dean had been trained in numerous methods of combat and were readily familiar with a wide variety of weaponry, they were, to use a popular and poetic phrase, only flesh and blood, and Dean in particular had a tendency to let his enthusiasm get in the way of what Sam considered an appropriate level of research and preparation.
Essentially, Sam was a bit worried that Dean would get eaten by a sea monster, for if this were to happen, Sam would lose yet another person about whom he cared deeply to yet another dramatic manner of tragedy, and this was something that Sam did not wish to endure ever again.
"This is a crappy beach," Dean said. "Who even comes to this part? Nobody. Nobody but us and people fishing for, I don't know, cans or whatever he was talking about."
Dean often said things like this not necessarily because he felt that the information or observation was pertinent, but because it worked well as far as distracting his brother from what were, if the expression on Sam's face was anything to go by, extremely depressing thoughts.
"Yeah, but just because it's here now doesn't mean it's gonna stay here," Sam said. "If it runs out of food or, or decides to migrate or something, it might head to the more populated areas."
"Not if it hates people," Dean said.
"And how were you planning on finding out?" Sam said. "Were you gonna ask it directly or what?"
"Shut up," Dean said.
"What are we going to do if we find it?" Sam asked. "It hasn't hurt anyone. Yet. If it even exists."
"We'll figure out something," Dean said. "Don't start with that bleeding heart shit already. It's not like you could keep it as a pet, anyway. It'd probably try to bite your gigantic head off." He paused. "We should get a boat."
"Uh, okay," Sam said, tucking his hands into his pockets and raising his eyebrows. "Like, to tow behind your car?"
Dean gave Sam a look that, after many months, he had learned to interpret as "stop being an enormous smartass, enormous smartass." That the first hundred times it had been used, Dean had actually uttered some variation of that phrase as well had probably helped as far as learning to associate the two. "Or maybe we could just use you as bait," Dean said.
Sam sighed, which usually meant that he was choosing to ignore something that Dean had said or insinuated. "It's gonna be dark soon," he said. "We should wait until morning so we'll be able to see, at least."
"Yeah, okay," Dean said. "I get to drive the boat in the morning, though."
Sam rolled his eyes and headed for the car. This was tantamount to agreement, so Dean followed him, leaving behind for the moment the idea of piloting a motorboat through pitch-black night in search of a sea monster which may or may not have resembled a dinosaur.
As Allensville was not a particularly large town and so did not take long to traverse, and having temporarily delayed the search for the sea monster, Sam and Dean rapidly found themselves with some time on their hands. As it had been quite a few hours since they had stopped at a quaint roadside diner in search of lunch, they decided to patronize a local eating establishment its proprietor had opted to name "Mom's Home Cooking." While they were unable to verify whether the meals were, in fact, similar to what their own mother might have prepared, due to her untimely death, suffice to say that the meals probably bore a resemblance to the sort of meals that someone's mother, somewhere, might have prepared had she chosen to undertake such an activity and not been particularly happy about it.
Sam and Dean then visited a tavern belonging to a man whose name, Bud, was emblazoned in neon over the door. They enjoyed a rousing game of pool with some of the town's citizenry and Dean engaged in a spot of conversation with a young woman of a particular charm and joie de vivre, and then, having exhausted what appeared to them to be the majority of the town's sources of entertainment, Sam and Dean found themselves on a quest for an available motel room. This was slightly more difficult than either of them had expected, as the town had precisely two motels, one of which had been closed since an incident involving a circus troupe and the former mayor and the other of which was occupied by a traveling youth group. However, after Sam presented the manager with what Dean realized belatedly was the majority of their pool winnings, they were given a key to what had been the only vacancy left in the complex.
"At least it's a room," Sam said as he stood in the doorway and surveyed their lodgings.
Dean gave him a rude expression and set about determining whether they did, in fact, get hot water, as the manager had assured them they would. After Dean had determined this to his satisfaction, Sam found that the hot water supply was depleted, which he supposed was mildly ironic in a way made briefly notorious by a popular female musical artist in the mid-nineties, but mostly it was just irritating.
That night, both Winchesters found it difficult to fall asleep, but not as a result of their poor dinners or the disturbing noises coming from next door. The Winchesters had never slept well, though considering the images that composed much of their daily lives, perhaps it would have been more surprising if they had slept like proverbial babies.
Sam often found himself experiencing particularly vivid nightmares in which he was, once again, a witness to the death of Jessica Moore. While it would be easy to say that this was a result of his actually having been a witness to the death of Jessica Moore, the truth was that he had experienced these nightmares even before that dreadful event had occurred. This truth was one that caused him no small amount of guilt, for he often thought that he should have acted upon this vision and thus prevented it from ever becoming a reality.
On this night, however, as Sam lay awake, his heart pounding after he'd awoken from yet another dream of fire and blood and things he could never, ever make right, his thoughts drifted to the outcome of another hunt he and Dean had recently undertaken. He thought about Mary Worthington and the terrible weight of the words his reflection had said to him, and he thought about how Dean's eyes had bled, too, even as he had pulled Sam away from the mirror.
"Dean," Sam said, not bothering to be quiet, for Dean was doing an even worse job of pretending to be asleep than he himself was.
After a moment, Dean uttered a terrifically fake yawn and said, "What."
"Nothing," Sam said. He wasn't sure there were even words for what he wanted to ask, and he thought that even if there were, Dean would interrupt before he could say all of them. He had the habit of doing things like that.
"Go to sleep, Sam," Dean said. The bedsprings creaked when he rolled over. Sam sighed and tried to do just that, but found himself unable to do so, exhausted and inexorably awake in the pre-dawn chill. That was fair, he thought, because Dean was in the same situation. Out of a combination of stoicism and stubbornness, they listened to each other pretending to sleep, each pretending to believe that the other actually was asleep, until it was light enough outside to qualify as the sort of hour at which one might reasonably be expected to awaken.
While Dean swore at the shower, which was steadfastly refusing to yield water of a more pleasing temperature, Sam closed his eyes and dreamed finally of falling asleep while watching the sun slip across the sky. He woke up shortly thereafter, when Dean kicked the foot of the bed, stared down at him and asked if he was gonna get his lazy ass out of bed or what.
As it was the height of tourist season, such as it was, by the time Sam and Dean got to the marina, such as it, too, was, they found that the selection of rentable boats, such as they were, was severely limited.
"This isn't a boat," Dean said. "It's a dinghy." Dinghy wasn't often used as an expletive, as far as Sam knew, but Dean made it sound as though it should have been.
"It has a motor," Sam pointed out.
"So?"
"So technically it's not. A dinghy, I mean."
Dean glared at him. "Whatever."
Dinghy or not, the boat proved fairly easy to operate, and shortly thereafter Sam and Dean were speeding across the water in search of the sea monster.
"The hell are we looking for?" Dean asked over the sound of the motor. "And if you say 'a sea monster,' so help me--"
Sam shook his head. "All of the witnesses saw it from shore, so we shouldn't have to go too far out." He took out the hand-held radar device he had also rented, though not from the same place as they had rented the boat. While Dean was very good at building all sorts of things, from engines to devices used for detecting the alterations in electromagnetic frequency that were often the sign of a ghostly manifestation, they hadn't had the time, or the resources, for him to construct exactly what they needed for this particular hunt.
"I don't see anything yet," Sam added, looking down at the display. "A couple of fish, maybe, but that's all."
"So we just sit here and hope it shows up?" Dean asked.
"You're the one who wanted to get a boat," Sam pointed out. He felt he was perfectly justified in saying this, as Dean had been the one who wanted to get a boat. Sam would have preferred to find out more about the local wildlife and the structure of the coastline, particularly as far as underwater formations that could have served as a home to a potential sea monster, before actually going out on the water.
"I didn't see you coming up with any better ideas," Dean said.
"I did. You didn't ask," Sam said.
"Since when do you wait for me to ask? Usually you're all, Dean, let's do this, let's go to the library, let's go find everything anybody's ever written about this and, oh God, please don't spare any details." That Dean adopted a particularly high-pitched tone when he mimicked Sam caused Sam no end of irritation. That this was precisely why Dean chose to do it did not escape Sam, but this, unfortunately, did not lessen the amount of irritation it caused.
"At least I don't go around waving my gun at," Sam began. Before he could finish his sentence, the radar device beeped alarmingly. "Um," he said.
"'Um' what? 'Um' isn't helpful, Sam!"
Sam considered informing Dean that they appeared to have found the sea monster, as something large appeared to be bearing down directly upon them, but he settled for the more succinct, "Hold on." This was very good advice, for mere seconds later, a large object breached the surface of the ocean mere feet away with enough force to not only rock the boat, but to send numerous waves crashing down upon said boat before the object re-submerged itself.
Sam and Dean wiped water from their respective faces.
"You okay?" Dean asked.
"Fine," Sam said. He frowned. "I don't think we're gonna get our deposit back on the radar gun, though."
"Bite me, Cthulhu," Dean shouted. He harbored no illusions that the alleged sea monster could, in fact, hear him, but he shouted all the same. He slammed his hand down on the boat's steering wheel, jerking them briefly to the side and causing Sam to grab onto the edge for balance. "Son of a bitch."
The librarian frowned at the Winchesters as they squelched into the library. Luckily the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" sign that someone had thoughtfully posted in the front window did not include anything about being soaked, sodden, seeping, or any other adjectives that implied potential damage to the books or upholstery. While this was poor planning on the sign-poster's part, unlike most everything else, it worked in the Winchesters' favor.
Dean drummed his fingers on the table. Sam stared at the computer screen and tried to ignore him. This proved difficult for a few minutes, until he found a piece of information he thought was extremely interesting. He then stared intently at the computer screen and gave no further thought to Dean’s drumming fingers.
"What is it?" Dean asked, when it became apparent that Sam was fully, if metaphorically, absorbed in the material displayed on the computer screen.
"It's an article about preserving the beach," Sam said, a bit distractedly. Water dripped from his hair onto the back of his neck and onto the table.
"Okay, great," Dean said, but his tone did not imply that he found this statement to be either okay or great. It did, however, imply that he hoped Sam would soon say something that might change his mind.
"So they're trying to sell it, right, because somebody wants to build a hotel or something," Sam said. "And the only way that the sale won't go through is if the beach is declared home to an endangered species."
"Sea monsters aren't endangered," Dean said, slowly and clearly, as though he thought that Sam would perhaps have difficulty understanding this concept.
"They're not exactly flourishing, either," Sam said, ignoring his tone. "I mean, as far as people know." He stared at Dean. Dean stared back.
They left wet footprints on their way out of the library and the librarian, noticing this, frowned at them again. Normally this would have made Sam feel uncomfortable and guilty, as he had spent much of his life trying not to do things that would make people frown at him, or take much notice of him at all. This was less about modesty than it was about trying to counteract the fact that the very nature of what Dean had once referred to as "the family business" tended to make people not only notice him, as well as the other Winchesters, but to frown very severely at him indeed.
That Sam had spent most of his childhood attempting to perfect his invisibility skills and instead grew up into a man who, due to his height, often literally stuck out of a crowd, could have been interpreted as a sign that this was not meant to be, but Sam chose instead to interpret it as a sign that he should try harder.
At this moment, however, he was more concerned about the implications of the article he had discovered and so he did not pay the slightest attention to the librarian's stern and disapproving gaze.
While Allensville was not notable for many things, one fact for which it was notable was that its environmentalists, while small in number, were passionate enough about their cause not only to form a club, but to house this club in a dedicated building and to keep it fully staffed at all hours in case of visitors.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service. Really," said Wilbur Danning, whose badge declared him to be Chief Environmentalist on Duty.
"Really, sir," Sam said. He peered down at the diminutive environmentalist and then, suddenly aware of what he was doing, took a step back. Mr Danning did not appear comforted by the gesture.
"So if you don't wanna have your little clubhouse shut down for infringing not only upon our, uh, trademark, but for at least five code violations I can see from right here, you'd better start talking," Dean said.
Mr Danning rolled his eyes. "Okay, yes, we do have a strong interest in preserving that stretch of beach," he said, crossing his arms. "And I'm sure you feel the same way, what with being from the Fish and Wildlife Service and all."
"What we have a strong interest in is making sure people don't get attacked," Sam said. "By, uh, sea monsters."
Mr Danning made a strange noise that could, perhaps, have been construed as a laugh. "Then we're on the same page, gentlemen. If I see any deadly sea monsters, I'll give you boys a call."
"So you don't believe the witness reports," Sam said.
"I believe that they saw something," Mr Danning said. "I just think that if someone were to investigate further, they probably wouldn't find anything. Anything they would have found would have been dismantled, and anything they did find would be totally meaningless out of context. And biodegradable. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think we're done here."
While neither Sam nor Dean felt inclined to excuse the unlikeable environmentalist, they did have to agree that they appeared to be done at that location. They allowed themselves to be ushered out and stood, facing the street, which was otherwise deserted.
"So," Sam said. "Dry clothes?"
"Good plan," Dean said.
It was at this point that Sam realized that while they did, in fact, have numerous changes of clothes back at the motel, all of them were dirty, as Sam and Dean had been forced to leave town in a hurry -- that is, without a chance to do laundry -- right before Dean had come across the article regarding a sea monster, which had resulted in them standing outside of an environmentalist's club, no sea monster to be found, in sodden clothes, and, as soon Sam opened his mouth to remind Dean of this fact, in the rain.
The good thing about the rain was that very few people wished to travel in it, and even fewer wished to do laundry in it, so Sam and Dean were the only people in the laundromat. The bad thing about the rain was that the laundromat attendant disappeared into it two minutes after Sam and Dean arrived in the laundromat, hence the previous statement.
"You got a quarter?" Dean asked.
Sam dug into his pocket and fished one out. Dean put it into the washer, which began to whir and spin happily. Sam stared at the window, at the raindrops splattering on the glass. Dean followed his gaze.
"You ever notice how we can't go a goddamn week without getting rained on?" Dean asked. "You think it's a karma thing?"
Sam crossed his arms and did not answer. He wasn't foolish enough to think that things would get better from here simply because getting rained on and then having to wait for an entire laundry cycle to complete before getting into dry clothes was the worst thing that had happened to them in two days. He wasn't foolish enough to think that this was anything more than an interlude in the middle of the middle of the war they'd been fighting all their lives, He did think, however, that maybe it would be okay -- that is, he thought, in that moment, that perhaps the fact that things would not necessarily get better from here was, in fact, okay. Perhaps he would later recall this moment with a sense of ironic amusement, but he had no way of knowing this at present.
"Lighten up already," Dean said, elbowing him.
Sam thought about everything he had spent most of his life wanting, and he thought about everything he wanted at this point in his life, and he thought about how some people don't get anything they want, ever. He thought about how often it had rained while he was in California, and how instead of worrying about sea monsters and demons and other supernatural menaces, he had worried about midterms and bills and making Jessica Moore, the love of his life, as happy as possible. Then he leaned in just a little, accounting for what Dean referred to as a "slight difference in height," and kissed Dean.
This was one of the most terrifying moments in his life, though in a different way than most of the other contending moments, for while he had been able to fight his way out of those with various weaponry or with his own quick thinking, neither of those methods seemed likely to work in this case. It could be said, in fact, that it was through quick thinking that he had found himself in this position.
Thus, he was relieved when Dean kissed him back, just for a moment, even though Dean then broke away, his eyes wide and startled.
"Sam," Dean said. His voice was low and tight like he was panicking, like he was scared to death. Sam had heard him use this voice before, in particular when he was on an airplane, 30,000 feet in the air and with no obvious means of escape that weren't also very final.
"It's okay," Sam said. He wasn't sure this was true, but he hoped desperately that it was, and he hoped that by hoping hard enough, perhaps it would be. He was aware, however, that there was no rational or scientific basis for this way of thinking.
Dean blinked.
"It's okay," Sam repeated, not because he needed to make himself believe it, for some part of him had accepted long ago -- perhaps when Dean had shown up in his apartment, or perhaps when he left for Stanford in the first place, or perhaps even before that -- that the things he accepted as normal were not, by any means, widely popular, that is, "normal." He repeated this, and then reached out, because Dean's head was bowed and this was rapidly becoming, if not another one of the most terrifying moments of his life, at least an item for the appendices.
It had been eight months since his brother showed up in his apartment in the middle of the night with a smirk and a plea, and Sam swallowed, wondering if the next months were going to be very awkward indeed -- or perhaps if there were to be no "next months" at all. The washer demanded another quarter. Dean's hand was warm through the sodden fabric of Sam's shirt, and, dizzy with relief, Sam opened his mouth to express precisely that.
The laundromat attendant chose this moment to return.
--
end
It was summer, the leaves gone bright-green against a brilliant blue sky, and Sam and Dean were heading towards the coast. It had been eight months since Jessica Moore, the once-love of Sam's life, had died in flames upon a ceiling in California, and just a little more than that since John Winchester had disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a leatherbound journal, some scrawled coordinates, and his eldest son's unshakeable faith. While neither of these events were ever far from the minds of the younger Winchesters, today they had been pushed back a bit farther due in part to the weather.
That they were heading south to investigate something witnesses claimed was a sea monster might have also played a part in their uplifted moods, as that morning, over a breakfast that gave literal meaning to the phrase "greasy spoon," Dean had declared the sighting to be "awesome," and Sam, despite himself, had been forced to agree.
"We've never hunted a sea monster before," Sam said. This observation was not entirely random, for side B of the tape they had been listening to for the past three hundred miles had just ended and Dean's hand was edging towards the tape deck for what was, by Sam's count, the fourth time.
Dean glanced at him. "We hunted a kelpie that one time," he said.
"Yeah, that doesn't really count," Sam said. "And it was in a lake."
"It didn't start out there," Dean said.
Sam thought for a moment about arguing or using a perfectly reasonable tone of voice to share various theories regarding evolution in isolation, but decided against it, as perhaps there was no point in delaying the inevitable. He rolled his window down instead and closed his eyes while Dean readjusted the volume and Robert Plant informed them once again that it had, in fact, been a very long time since he had enjoyed, among other things, walks in the moonlight.
The sun was still shining when they passed a sign announcing their arrival in Allensville, population 6,117, and wishing them a lovely day, though, due to a piece of graffito, not in precisely those words.
As Dean drove down the main street -- slowly, to avoid attracting the attention of the local police to whom he and Sam would perhaps be introducing themselves anyway, though with different names, and perhaps also as he believed the young women waiting to cross the street were possessing of delicate natures and, being a gentlemanly sort of fellow, he did not wish to frighten them by speeding past -- Sam used his cell phone to contact one of the witnesses to the alleged sea monster’s appearance.
Having warned him as to their imminent arrival, the Winchesters arrived at the home of James Elizabeth, who was most delighted to find that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was taking his claim seriously.
"I wasn't fishing," Mr Elizabeth said, leaning forward in his chair. "Ain't nothing worth a damn in there, nothing but oil and plastic and empty goddamned sodapop cans."
"Of course," Sam said. He agreed that the pollution of natural waterways was an important issue, but not, perhaps, for the same reasons as did Mr Elizabeth. Dean, on the other hand, did not give much thought to this issue one way or another, and often called Sam various names involving leftist political organizations when Sam thought to mention it in conversation. "What, exactly, did you see?" Sam asked.
"A sea monster," Mr Elizabeth said. "I looked over and his head was coming up out of the water just like a brontosaurus."
"Did he, uh, come ashore, or did he just, uh, sink back down?" Dean asked. He accompanied this question with a hand gesture that was probably meant to portray a brontosaurus-resembling sea monster returning to an underwater lair, but in reality looked sort of dirty. Sam thought that this was more than likely intentional and so favored him with an uncharitable expression. Dean's response to this was to grin widely, which Sam took as proof that his assumption had been correct.
Mr Elizabeth, perhaps fortunately, seemed to notice none of this.
"He looked right at me," Mr Elizabeth said. "He looked right at me, and then he went back down, I swear on my mother's grave." He regarded the Winchesters solemnly as though he thought they might otherwise disbelieve him. Sam thought that Dean's expression wasn't exactly sympathetic and so tried to compensate with his own. This was not difficult, as the death of one's mother was far from a laughing matter for the Winchesters.
"So you didn't see anything more than its head," Sam said. "And neck."
"I didn't need to see flippers to know what it was I was seeing," Mr Elizabeth said.
Dean obtained directions to the location at which Mr Elizabeth had spotted the alleged sea monster, and Sam promised to call if they found anything out about the same, particularly if there was the potential of a monetary reward. This was, of course, a lie, but it wasn't a very big one, and Sam did not give it much thought, as he had much larger things to worry about, such as finding the sea monster before it decided to attack a human being, as sea monsters were known to do, and finding the demon responsible not only for the death of his mother, but for the death of Jessica Moore.
While Sam did not think that finding the former would lead to the latter, he did not have anywhere else to be, as Dean had pointed out the day before, a slight note of hesitation obvious in his voice below the veneer of sarcasm. Sam had agreed, both because it was true and because something twisted in the pit of his stomach when he thought about what the expression on Dean's face would look like if he said that he did, in fact, have somewhere else, somewhere better, to be.
That there was a part of him made happy by the idea of spending a summer day chasing sea monsters with his brother was something Sam thought unwise to share with the brother in question. Luckily he had spent four years living across the country from Dean, trying to pretend that part didn't exist, so he'd had plenty of practice as far as that was concerned.
Sam and Dean stood on the creaking dock and looked out at the water. Waves washed up on the rocky shoreline, bubbling amidst the boulders. Seagulls shrieked and wheeled overhead, fighting over some small bit of bread or garbage. The air tasted of salt and kelp and was much colder than it had been when the Winchesters had departed the home of Mr James Elizabeth. This chill was of course caused in part by their increased proximity to a large body of water, but Sam imagined that it was perhaps a mental chill, too, for the Winchesters would soon have to deal with the possible physical existence of a sea monster and the associated dangers thereof.
While both Sam and Dean had been trained in numerous methods of combat and were readily familiar with a wide variety of weaponry, they were, to use a popular and poetic phrase, only flesh and blood, and Dean in particular had a tendency to let his enthusiasm get in the way of what Sam considered an appropriate level of research and preparation.
Essentially, Sam was a bit worried that Dean would get eaten by a sea monster, for if this were to happen, Sam would lose yet another person about whom he cared deeply to yet another dramatic manner of tragedy, and this was something that Sam did not wish to endure ever again.
"This is a crappy beach," Dean said. "Who even comes to this part? Nobody. Nobody but us and people fishing for, I don't know, cans or whatever he was talking about."
Dean often said things like this not necessarily because he felt that the information or observation was pertinent, but because it worked well as far as distracting his brother from what were, if the expression on Sam's face was anything to go by, extremely depressing thoughts.
"Yeah, but just because it's here now doesn't mean it's gonna stay here," Sam said. "If it runs out of food or, or decides to migrate or something, it might head to the more populated areas."
"Not if it hates people," Dean said.
"And how were you planning on finding out?" Sam said. "Were you gonna ask it directly or what?"
"Shut up," Dean said.
"What are we going to do if we find it?" Sam asked. "It hasn't hurt anyone. Yet. If it even exists."
"We'll figure out something," Dean said. "Don't start with that bleeding heart shit already. It's not like you could keep it as a pet, anyway. It'd probably try to bite your gigantic head off." He paused. "We should get a boat."
"Uh, okay," Sam said, tucking his hands into his pockets and raising his eyebrows. "Like, to tow behind your car?"
Dean gave Sam a look that, after many months, he had learned to interpret as "stop being an enormous smartass, enormous smartass." That the first hundred times it had been used, Dean had actually uttered some variation of that phrase as well had probably helped as far as learning to associate the two. "Or maybe we could just use you as bait," Dean said.
Sam sighed, which usually meant that he was choosing to ignore something that Dean had said or insinuated. "It's gonna be dark soon," he said. "We should wait until morning so we'll be able to see, at least."
"Yeah, okay," Dean said. "I get to drive the boat in the morning, though."
Sam rolled his eyes and headed for the car. This was tantamount to agreement, so Dean followed him, leaving behind for the moment the idea of piloting a motorboat through pitch-black night in search of a sea monster which may or may not have resembled a dinosaur.
As Allensville was not a particularly large town and so did not take long to traverse, and having temporarily delayed the search for the sea monster, Sam and Dean rapidly found themselves with some time on their hands. As it had been quite a few hours since they had stopped at a quaint roadside diner in search of lunch, they decided to patronize a local eating establishment its proprietor had opted to name "Mom's Home Cooking." While they were unable to verify whether the meals were, in fact, similar to what their own mother might have prepared, due to her untimely death, suffice to say that the meals probably bore a resemblance to the sort of meals that someone's mother, somewhere, might have prepared had she chosen to undertake such an activity and not been particularly happy about it.
Sam and Dean then visited a tavern belonging to a man whose name, Bud, was emblazoned in neon over the door. They enjoyed a rousing game of pool with some of the town's citizenry and Dean engaged in a spot of conversation with a young woman of a particular charm and joie de vivre, and then, having exhausted what appeared to them to be the majority of the town's sources of entertainment, Sam and Dean found themselves on a quest for an available motel room. This was slightly more difficult than either of them had expected, as the town had precisely two motels, one of which had been closed since an incident involving a circus troupe and the former mayor and the other of which was occupied by a traveling youth group. However, after Sam presented the manager with what Dean realized belatedly was the majority of their pool winnings, they were given a key to what had been the only vacancy left in the complex.
"At least it's a room," Sam said as he stood in the doorway and surveyed their lodgings.
Dean gave him a rude expression and set about determining whether they did, in fact, get hot water, as the manager had assured them they would. After Dean had determined this to his satisfaction, Sam found that the hot water supply was depleted, which he supposed was mildly ironic in a way made briefly notorious by a popular female musical artist in the mid-nineties, but mostly it was just irritating.
That night, both Winchesters found it difficult to fall asleep, but not as a result of their poor dinners or the disturbing noises coming from next door. The Winchesters had never slept well, though considering the images that composed much of their daily lives, perhaps it would have been more surprising if they had slept like proverbial babies.
Sam often found himself experiencing particularly vivid nightmares in which he was, once again, a witness to the death of Jessica Moore. While it would be easy to say that this was a result of his actually having been a witness to the death of Jessica Moore, the truth was that he had experienced these nightmares even before that dreadful event had occurred. This truth was one that caused him no small amount of guilt, for he often thought that he should have acted upon this vision and thus prevented it from ever becoming a reality.
On this night, however, as Sam lay awake, his heart pounding after he'd awoken from yet another dream of fire and blood and things he could never, ever make right, his thoughts drifted to the outcome of another hunt he and Dean had recently undertaken. He thought about Mary Worthington and the terrible weight of the words his reflection had said to him, and he thought about how Dean's eyes had bled, too, even as he had pulled Sam away from the mirror.
"Dean," Sam said, not bothering to be quiet, for Dean was doing an even worse job of pretending to be asleep than he himself was.
After a moment, Dean uttered a terrifically fake yawn and said, "What."
"Nothing," Sam said. He wasn't sure there were even words for what he wanted to ask, and he thought that even if there were, Dean would interrupt before he could say all of them. He had the habit of doing things like that.
"Go to sleep, Sam," Dean said. The bedsprings creaked when he rolled over. Sam sighed and tried to do just that, but found himself unable to do so, exhausted and inexorably awake in the pre-dawn chill. That was fair, he thought, because Dean was in the same situation. Out of a combination of stoicism and stubbornness, they listened to each other pretending to sleep, each pretending to believe that the other actually was asleep, until it was light enough outside to qualify as the sort of hour at which one might reasonably be expected to awaken.
While Dean swore at the shower, which was steadfastly refusing to yield water of a more pleasing temperature, Sam closed his eyes and dreamed finally of falling asleep while watching the sun slip across the sky. He woke up shortly thereafter, when Dean kicked the foot of the bed, stared down at him and asked if he was gonna get his lazy ass out of bed or what.
As it was the height of tourist season, such as it was, by the time Sam and Dean got to the marina, such as it, too, was, they found that the selection of rentable boats, such as they were, was severely limited.
"This isn't a boat," Dean said. "It's a dinghy." Dinghy wasn't often used as an expletive, as far as Sam knew, but Dean made it sound as though it should have been.
"It has a motor," Sam pointed out.
"So?"
"So technically it's not. A dinghy, I mean."
Dean glared at him. "Whatever."
Dinghy or not, the boat proved fairly easy to operate, and shortly thereafter Sam and Dean were speeding across the water in search of the sea monster.
"The hell are we looking for?" Dean asked over the sound of the motor. "And if you say 'a sea monster,' so help me--"
Sam shook his head. "All of the witnesses saw it from shore, so we shouldn't have to go too far out." He took out the hand-held radar device he had also rented, though not from the same place as they had rented the boat. While Dean was very good at building all sorts of things, from engines to devices used for detecting the alterations in electromagnetic frequency that were often the sign of a ghostly manifestation, they hadn't had the time, or the resources, for him to construct exactly what they needed for this particular hunt.
"I don't see anything yet," Sam added, looking down at the display. "A couple of fish, maybe, but that's all."
"So we just sit here and hope it shows up?" Dean asked.
"You're the one who wanted to get a boat," Sam pointed out. He felt he was perfectly justified in saying this, as Dean had been the one who wanted to get a boat. Sam would have preferred to find out more about the local wildlife and the structure of the coastline, particularly as far as underwater formations that could have served as a home to a potential sea monster, before actually going out on the water.
"I didn't see you coming up with any better ideas," Dean said.
"I did. You didn't ask," Sam said.
"Since when do you wait for me to ask? Usually you're all, Dean, let's do this, let's go to the library, let's go find everything anybody's ever written about this and, oh God, please don't spare any details." That Dean adopted a particularly high-pitched tone when he mimicked Sam caused Sam no end of irritation. That this was precisely why Dean chose to do it did not escape Sam, but this, unfortunately, did not lessen the amount of irritation it caused.
"At least I don't go around waving my gun at," Sam began. Before he could finish his sentence, the radar device beeped alarmingly. "Um," he said.
"'Um' what? 'Um' isn't helpful, Sam!"
Sam considered informing Dean that they appeared to have found the sea monster, as something large appeared to be bearing down directly upon them, but he settled for the more succinct, "Hold on." This was very good advice, for mere seconds later, a large object breached the surface of the ocean mere feet away with enough force to not only rock the boat, but to send numerous waves crashing down upon said boat before the object re-submerged itself.
Sam and Dean wiped water from their respective faces.
"You okay?" Dean asked.
"Fine," Sam said. He frowned. "I don't think we're gonna get our deposit back on the radar gun, though."
"Bite me, Cthulhu," Dean shouted. He harbored no illusions that the alleged sea monster could, in fact, hear him, but he shouted all the same. He slammed his hand down on the boat's steering wheel, jerking them briefly to the side and causing Sam to grab onto the edge for balance. "Son of a bitch."
The librarian frowned at the Winchesters as they squelched into the library. Luckily the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" sign that someone had thoughtfully posted in the front window did not include anything about being soaked, sodden, seeping, or any other adjectives that implied potential damage to the books or upholstery. While this was poor planning on the sign-poster's part, unlike most everything else, it worked in the Winchesters' favor.
Dean drummed his fingers on the table. Sam stared at the computer screen and tried to ignore him. This proved difficult for a few minutes, until he found a piece of information he thought was extremely interesting. He then stared intently at the computer screen and gave no further thought to Dean’s drumming fingers.
"What is it?" Dean asked, when it became apparent that Sam was fully, if metaphorically, absorbed in the material displayed on the computer screen.
"It's an article about preserving the beach," Sam said, a bit distractedly. Water dripped from his hair onto the back of his neck and onto the table.
"Okay, great," Dean said, but his tone did not imply that he found this statement to be either okay or great. It did, however, imply that he hoped Sam would soon say something that might change his mind.
"So they're trying to sell it, right, because somebody wants to build a hotel or something," Sam said. "And the only way that the sale won't go through is if the beach is declared home to an endangered species."
"Sea monsters aren't endangered," Dean said, slowly and clearly, as though he thought that Sam would perhaps have difficulty understanding this concept.
"They're not exactly flourishing, either," Sam said, ignoring his tone. "I mean, as far as people know." He stared at Dean. Dean stared back.
They left wet footprints on their way out of the library and the librarian, noticing this, frowned at them again. Normally this would have made Sam feel uncomfortable and guilty, as he had spent much of his life trying not to do things that would make people frown at him, or take much notice of him at all. This was less about modesty than it was about trying to counteract the fact that the very nature of what Dean had once referred to as "the family business" tended to make people not only notice him, as well as the other Winchesters, but to frown very severely at him indeed.
That Sam had spent most of his childhood attempting to perfect his invisibility skills and instead grew up into a man who, due to his height, often literally stuck out of a crowd, could have been interpreted as a sign that this was not meant to be, but Sam chose instead to interpret it as a sign that he should try harder.
At this moment, however, he was more concerned about the implications of the article he had discovered and so he did not pay the slightest attention to the librarian's stern and disapproving gaze.
While Allensville was not notable for many things, one fact for which it was notable was that its environmentalists, while small in number, were passionate enough about their cause not only to form a club, but to house this club in a dedicated building and to keep it fully staffed at all hours in case of visitors.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service. Really," said Wilbur Danning, whose badge declared him to be Chief Environmentalist on Duty.
"Really, sir," Sam said. He peered down at the diminutive environmentalist and then, suddenly aware of what he was doing, took a step back. Mr Danning did not appear comforted by the gesture.
"So if you don't wanna have your little clubhouse shut down for infringing not only upon our, uh, trademark, but for at least five code violations I can see from right here, you'd better start talking," Dean said.
Mr Danning rolled his eyes. "Okay, yes, we do have a strong interest in preserving that stretch of beach," he said, crossing his arms. "And I'm sure you feel the same way, what with being from the Fish and Wildlife Service and all."
"What we have a strong interest in is making sure people don't get attacked," Sam said. "By, uh, sea monsters."
Mr Danning made a strange noise that could, perhaps, have been construed as a laugh. "Then we're on the same page, gentlemen. If I see any deadly sea monsters, I'll give you boys a call."
"So you don't believe the witness reports," Sam said.
"I believe that they saw something," Mr Danning said. "I just think that if someone were to investigate further, they probably wouldn't find anything. Anything they would have found would have been dismantled, and anything they did find would be totally meaningless out of context. And biodegradable. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think we're done here."
While neither Sam nor Dean felt inclined to excuse the unlikeable environmentalist, they did have to agree that they appeared to be done at that location. They allowed themselves to be ushered out and stood, facing the street, which was otherwise deserted.
"So," Sam said. "Dry clothes?"
"Good plan," Dean said.
It was at this point that Sam realized that while they did, in fact, have numerous changes of clothes back at the motel, all of them were dirty, as Sam and Dean had been forced to leave town in a hurry -- that is, without a chance to do laundry -- right before Dean had come across the article regarding a sea monster, which had resulted in them standing outside of an environmentalist's club, no sea monster to be found, in sodden clothes, and, as soon Sam opened his mouth to remind Dean of this fact, in the rain.
The good thing about the rain was that very few people wished to travel in it, and even fewer wished to do laundry in it, so Sam and Dean were the only people in the laundromat. The bad thing about the rain was that the laundromat attendant disappeared into it two minutes after Sam and Dean arrived in the laundromat, hence the previous statement.
"You got a quarter?" Dean asked.
Sam dug into his pocket and fished one out. Dean put it into the washer, which began to whir and spin happily. Sam stared at the window, at the raindrops splattering on the glass. Dean followed his gaze.
"You ever notice how we can't go a goddamn week without getting rained on?" Dean asked. "You think it's a karma thing?"
Sam crossed his arms and did not answer. He wasn't foolish enough to think that things would get better from here simply because getting rained on and then having to wait for an entire laundry cycle to complete before getting into dry clothes was the worst thing that had happened to them in two days. He wasn't foolish enough to think that this was anything more than an interlude in the middle of the middle of the war they'd been fighting all their lives, He did think, however, that maybe it would be okay -- that is, he thought, in that moment, that perhaps the fact that things would not necessarily get better from here was, in fact, okay. Perhaps he would later recall this moment with a sense of ironic amusement, but he had no way of knowing this at present.
"Lighten up already," Dean said, elbowing him.
Sam thought about everything he had spent most of his life wanting, and he thought about everything he wanted at this point in his life, and he thought about how some people don't get anything they want, ever. He thought about how often it had rained while he was in California, and how instead of worrying about sea monsters and demons and other supernatural menaces, he had worried about midterms and bills and making Jessica Moore, the love of his life, as happy as possible. Then he leaned in just a little, accounting for what Dean referred to as a "slight difference in height," and kissed Dean.
This was one of the most terrifying moments in his life, though in a different way than most of the other contending moments, for while he had been able to fight his way out of those with various weaponry or with his own quick thinking, neither of those methods seemed likely to work in this case. It could be said, in fact, that it was through quick thinking that he had found himself in this position.
Thus, he was relieved when Dean kissed him back, just for a moment, even though Dean then broke away, his eyes wide and startled.
"Sam," Dean said. His voice was low and tight like he was panicking, like he was scared to death. Sam had heard him use this voice before, in particular when he was on an airplane, 30,000 feet in the air and with no obvious means of escape that weren't also very final.
"It's okay," Sam said. He wasn't sure this was true, but he hoped desperately that it was, and he hoped that by hoping hard enough, perhaps it would be. He was aware, however, that there was no rational or scientific basis for this way of thinking.
Dean blinked.
"It's okay," Sam repeated, not because he needed to make himself believe it, for some part of him had accepted long ago -- perhaps when Dean had shown up in his apartment, or perhaps when he left for Stanford in the first place, or perhaps even before that -- that the things he accepted as normal were not, by any means, widely popular, that is, "normal." He repeated this, and then reached out, because Dean's head was bowed and this was rapidly becoming, if not another one of the most terrifying moments of his life, at least an item for the appendices.
It had been eight months since his brother showed up in his apartment in the middle of the night with a smirk and a plea, and Sam swallowed, wondering if the next months were going to be very awkward indeed -- or perhaps if there were to be no "next months" at all. The washer demanded another quarter. Dean's hand was warm through the sodden fabric of Sam's shirt, and, dizzy with relief, Sam opened his mouth to express precisely that.
The laundromat attendant chose this moment to return.
--
end