It's a Dog's Life - Part 4
Oct. 16th, 2013 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsBack to Part 3
Dean was pining.
Sam had left him on his own and … goddammit. He was miserable as hell. He slumped down into the uncomfortable shell of the plastic chair, huddled in his blanket and the starchy white coat and sulked. The spell might have worn off to the extent that Dean had his own body back, but shaking off canine instincts was proving another matter entirely. Not that Dean got as far as articulating this thought; his head was muzzy and everything was jumbled up in there, so he wasn’t really thinking much at all. It was more that he was still feeling things. And what he felt was lonely. Abandoned. He missed Sam. He missed Dad. He missed his baby. His freaking pack.
Dog or man, Dean was not designed to be a lone wolf.
After Sam had been gone for half an hour, Dean could add boredom and hunger to his growing list of issues. It took him a few more minutes to remember that now he was human again, there was nothing to stop him exploring the place. Surely there was a staff kitchen somewhere, or even just a fridge.
His legs were wobbly as a new born pup’s at first, but as he wandered around the small hospital he started to feel physically stronger, though he was still having trouble remembering much about the last few days. His stomach was very happy to discover there was indeed a small kitchen and more importantly, that there was an opened six pack of Sol beer in the fridge and a half-eaten cherry pie. Dean silently thanked whomever and smiled. It was almost as if the kind veterinarians had known Dean was coming. He drank the first beer straight down and opened the second while he polished off the pie.
The edge taken off his hunger, the loneliness washed back over him and he sighed heavily. His shoulders slumped for a moment, then he perked up again at the thought that there must be other animals here. He grabbed a third beer and went to look for company.
The last thing Sam expected to find on his return to the Pet Hospital was the now fully human Dean fast asleep curled up inside one of the open metal pens out the back, all snuggled up with a large golden Labrador with a broken leg. The paw print fleecy blanket was griped in one hand and an empty beer bottle in the other. Where the hell his brother had managed to find alcohol in an establishment for the care of sick animals, Sam had no idea, but wasn’t that just freaking typical? The Labrador looked up at Sam as if to say ‘don’t ask me, man’ and Sam wished desperately for a camera. Not that he expected Dean to stick around long enough to get full value out of the blackmail material this was offering, but it was also surprisingly cute. Brushing aside the temptation to leave Dean sleeping with his new friend, Sam chucked Dean’s jeans at his head with a cheery ‘Wake up, jerk’.
Brady had expected to have Jess to himself for the rest of her short but sweet life, so was not best pleased when Becky turned up out of the blue around 5pm. The two girls decided to bake cookies for Sam, so Brady was left trying to find excuses for hanging around. Fortunately, once the girls got busy with the flour and sugar and all that other crap, they forgot all about Brady, so he just kept his head down in the living room, whiling the time away until he could have his fun.
By 9.30pm Brady’s patience was wearing thin. Would that skinny blonde skank never leave? Not that he was averse to a little collateral damage, but Jess was his real target. He didn’t want to dilute the impact by throwing in any distractions, even though the temptation to add Becky’s blood to the mix was strong, especially as she was winding him up by lingering so long and making him wait for the anticipated denouement. Jessica’s death was all he needed to give Sam the required push back onto the road and into a life of hunting. Anything else would be overkill. Brady chuckled to himself at the pun. But seriously, additional extras, sweet though they might be, would only jeopardise the Plan. Too much death and destruction surrounding the youngest Winchester could draw the wrong kind of attention. Besides, Brady didn’t want the inconvenience of having to explain any variations to the top brass. He had plans of his own, which didn’t include any kind of spotlight shining on Tyson Brady – Orias wanted to melt away into the background once this mission was over and have some fun with his devilishly handsome human meat suit. Going back to Hell would seriously crimp his style.
He was a few seconds away from cracking and coincidentally breaking a few of Becky’s fragile bones when she finally decided to go back home. Brady was hard put not to show his satisfaction as she hugged him and Jess goodnight. He was grinning when he turned round from closing the door behind Becky’s skinny ass, which got him a funny look from Jess. He just grinned wider.
“Now it really is party time!” He said with glee, as he flipped his wrist and sent Jess flying across the room. After all, nobody had said he couldn’t have some fun with her before sticking her up on the ceiling.
With Dean fully dressed and finally feeling more human than dog, the brothers made their way back to the Impala.
Sam was on his cell to Jess but from the sound of it ended up talking to Brady instead. Jess was baking and had her hands full of cookie dough. For a second Dean was warmed by a fleeting memory of Mom’s hand round his as he stirred cake mix in a kitchen filled with golden light. He shook off the vision with a grimace. He couldn’t afford sentimental distractions like this, dammit.
Dean’s first thought was to check his cell phone for any messages from Dad. He wasn’t really expecting there to be anything new on there after nearly a month of silence, so his heart gave an unpleasant lurch when he found the ‘voicemail waiting’ notification flashing at him. Conscious of Sam hovering at his shoulder, Dean pressed play and put the phone on speaker. The message was full of static and broken up, but Dad’s voice was clear.
“Dean...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger.”
“Shit.” Dean checked the details; the voicemail had been left three days ago. Three fucking days.
“You know there’s EVP on that, don’t you? What was he working on?” Sam asked.
“He was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy, Andrew Casey…” Dean pulled out a well folded, torn out sheet of newsprint from the glove box and handed it to Sam. “They found his car, but he’d vanished. Completely MIA. And before you say it, he wasn’t the only one. Five guys, all the same five-mile stretch of road. So Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough, but then I came to Cali and got caught up in the whole freaking witch thing and now this.”
Dean didn’t mention that the whole reason he’d gotten side-tracked was because he’d detoured to Palo Alto to check on Sam. He couldn’t say it, just like he couldn’t beg Sam to leave with him to look for Dad. Maybe he would have before, but not now; especially since he’d seen Sam with Jess, witnessed him laughing, looking more relaxed than Dean had ever seen him. Happy. So fucking happy.
So he swallowed down the words he longed to say, words he knew would make Sam leave Stanford and hit the road with him – I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to do this alone. He clamped it down, shrugged the mask of bravura back on along with his leather jacket. Neither was enough to keep him warm at night, but it would have to do. He’d managed for the last four years without his little brother, he could cope on his own now.
He looked at the apologetic expression on Sam’s face and hid a wince. The two brothers opened the Impala’s doors in perfect synchronisation, as if the intervening years hadn’t left them on opposite sides of the country most of the time.
“It’s getting late and I need to hit the road. You,” Dean punctuated his words with a poke to Sam’s chest that Sam batted away indignantly, “You need to get back to Jess and catch some shut eye before your job interview tomorrow morning.”
He started the Impala’s engine, letting her throaty purr sooth his soul.
“It's a law school interview, Dean, and it's my whole future on a plate.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, Sammy.” Dean grinned, covering for the ache in his heart. He was so glad he no longer had a tail, because it would have been tucked between his legs right now, exposing all his inner most feelings. Thankfully, human Dean was harder to read. His smile became a little more genuine as Sam turned away, grumbling under his breath.
“You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve year old.”
Dean shoved a cassette into the player and AC/DC started to play Back in Black.
“It's Sam, okay?”
Dean turned up the volume and gestured towards his ear with a faux apologetic expression.
“Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud.”
His smile was finally wide and real as he gunned his baby’s engine and pulled away, ignoring Sam’s muttered comment that he’d preferred Dean when he was a dog.
It was a bit strange to be returning to Sam and Jessica’s apartment building in the Impala. The last time Dean had seen it was from a dog’s eye view, and all he’d been interested in at the time was thoughts of food and the freedom of running. Okay and maybe also peeing on every tree and bush in sight. Food and freedom were still pretty high on his agenda but Dean was relieved to find that the latter urge had totally vanished.
He got out of the car when Sam did, and they stood facing each other over the big Chevy’s gleaming roof. Suddenly the car seemed too wide to reach across, a shining black expanse he could easily fall down into and be lost forever. Dean’s gaze flitted about, unable or unwilling to rest anywhere. Sam was sporting that kicked puppy look again that Dean had rather thought he’d made his own over the last few days. It was unfair that Sam seemed to be able to do it better than Dean had, even when Dean had literally been a kicked pup.
Sam looked down where his big hands were resting on the car, then across at Dean.
“You probably shouldn’t be driving with that wound, you know. You don’t have to leave right away, you could stay the night here, with me and Jess.”
As if mentioning his injuries had woken them up, Dean shifted uncomfortably against the dull throbbing ache in his shoulder and the sharper burn in his ribs. He almost welcomed the physical pain as it took his mind off things he’d rather not be thinking about. This he could and would make light of, in a way Sam would find totally familiar and totally frustrating. Deflection and evasion. They were Dean Winchester’s speciality.
“Nah. I’ve had worse. And I’ve got plenty of codeine. It’s been three days since Dad left that message. I need to run it through the gold wave and see what the EVP gives us, and I need to be on the road in case...”
“In case Dad needs you?” Sam’s tone was bitter, and Dean didn’t want to go there, not now. There was a decade of resentment and hostility in that sentence, and that was a Pandora’s box best left unopened. So Dean did his best to keep his voice level.
“Yes, Sam. You heard what Dad said, and you know he doesn’t joke around. You take care of yourself and of your girl. Use salt, protect the doors and windows. Be afraid of the dark again, Sammy, you know what’s out there.”
He didn’t wait for Sam to respond, ducking back into the Impala and slamming her heavy door shut. So he couldn’t be sure if it was just wish fulfilment that he thought he heard Sam say ‘You be careful, Dean. Stay safe.’
Sam stared at the Impala’s tail lights with mingled sadness and frustration as Dean drove away into the night. How did Dean manage to do that to him every time? Leave him wanting to hug him and punch his lights out in almost equal measures? He watched until the Impala turned a corner at the end of the street and sighed. With Dean out of sight, Sam would go back to his normal life. His beautiful Jessica was upstairs waiting for him, his law books were open on the coffee table ready for his interview tomorrow, and his brain just needed a little nudge to resume the patterns he’d imposed over the last few years away from hunting, safe from ghosts and mysterious assailants that burned mothers. Yet knowing all this wasn’t enough to stop Sam missing his brother – or missing their Dad too, though that was one thing he was never going to admit.
He started up the stairs to their apartment slowly at first, each step heavy with regret. But as he neared their door, thoughts of Jess lightened his heart, so that by the time the key was in the lock, he was almost smiling.
There was no sign of Brady, and Sam was relieved. He liked the guy well enough, but all he wanted now was to bury himself in Jessica’s arms and forget about his family, everything. The apartment smelt of baked goodies, it smelt like home.
“Jess? You there?” he called, then he heard the shower running. There was a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table, his favourite, with a post-it note on top. Missed You! Love you! He read it with a smile on his face and grabbed a cookie on his way past into the bedroom. Flinging himself down on the bed he closed his eyes with a sigh of pure contentment.
It was the second warm drop hitting his forehead that made him open his eyes. The third drop stole all the breath from his lungs.
It wasn’t the pain that was now raging through his body as the last of the morphine wore off. It wasn’t the dull ache of leaving Sam behind. The trigger when it came was a scent, the faintest trace of rotten eggs that wafted though the Impala’s open windows as Dean drove past a dumpster outside a Chinese restaurant called Golden Wings – stupid little details Dean was barely aware of registering as all his memories came flooding back. Or rather, Sirius’ memories. Something Sam had said about Brady had been niggling at him, though he had no idea why, but now he was being overwhelmed with Sirius’ instinctive hatred of the man, and Dean knew he had to get back to Sam straight away.
Because Brady was with Jess, and Brady was evil. Sirius had known it, and now Dean knew it, deep down into his bones. Images were flashing into his brain and he had to shake his head to clear it so he could see to drive – eyes flashing black, a gesture that had sent Dean (Sirius) flying back into that pit, sneering hurtful words, Brady’s boots connecting with his ribs, Brady lifting that shovel and bringing it down on Dean/Sirius’s head.
1967 Chevy Impala’s weren’t renowned for their manoeuvrability, but Dean swung Baby into a screeching burnt rubber U turn in a matter of seconds, and pointed her chrome plated nose towards Sam. His shoulder screamed at him worse than the Impala but he ignored them both. Thanks to his stupidity, first in getting bewitched and second in allowing Brady to dupe him and take him out, Jess had been alone with Brady most of the day, while Sam was preoccupied with sorting out Dean’s injuries. If anything happened to Sam or Jess, it would be down to Dean. His fault. His stomach churned as if the Impala was a boat on the high seas instead of a car hurtling too fast down blessedly empty suburban roads, and his palms were sweating, slipping on her leather-cased steering wheel. He thought he was probably developing a fever, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. All that mattered was finding Sam, making sure that his little brother and his girl were safe.
When he slammed on the brakes outside Sam’s place his heart was beating so hard he could barely hear anything over the rushing of blood in his ears. He was out of the car and running before he even registered the ominous orange tinge to the light showing at the window of Sam’s apartment. And that the light was flickering.
Fire. Sam’s place was on fucking fire.
He took the stairs two at a time and didn’t hesitate at the door, just kicking it in so that the frame cracked and splintered. He was prepared for the roar and the smoke and the heat of the flames as the oxygen from the hallway fed the fire, but he only had eyes for Sam. He ignored it all, moving forward into the maelstrom, searching for the only thing that mattered.
Where was his brother?
He yelled, Sam!, coughed, yelled again.
Then he heard Sam’s desperate, anguished cry from the bedroom.
“No!” then “Jess!”
The heat was singeing the hairs on his cheeks as he made a dash for the bedroom door, part of him knowing what he was going to find. And though his heart was aching for Jessica Moore, he barely spared her bleeding, burning body more than a quick glance, where she was pinned to the ceiling over Sam’s bed. It was the stuff of his own nightmares, the way her long blonde hair was catching alight and the dark bloody slash across her belly was dripping blood like rain. He didn’t need to look up to have that image seared into his brain forever, because for him it was already there.
Sam was wide eyed and horrified, transfixed by the sight of his girlfriend burning, but Dean only knew one thing. He had to get his little brother outside as fast as he could. It was an ancient imperative never forgotten, ingrained deep into Dean’s psyche. He grasped Sam’s arms bruisingly hard and didn’t let go.
Sam’s hoarse screams pierced Dean, and his brother’s limbs failed as Sam fought against Dean’s grip. A fist caught Dean’s chin, snapping his head back, and he was hard put to say whether the sparks he was seeing were inside his head or in the burning room. A knee rammed into his side, taking even more of his precious breath away as his broken ribs creaked with the impact. Dean gritted his teeth, tasting his own blood. He held on and half dragged, half carried Sam out of the apartment.
When they crossed the threshold it was as if a line had been crossed for Sam too. All the fight went out of him and he sagged in Dean’s arms, a dead weight that Dean struggled to man-handle down the smoke filled stairs and outside into the clear night air. The building alarms were shrilling out and shocked residents were starting to evacuate the building, providing a convenient crowd for Dean and Sam to melt into. In the general hubbub no one noticed the two young men making their way beyond the circle of interested and concerned bystanders to lean wearily against the classic black Impala parked a little haphazardly across the street. Fire trucks arrived to illuminate up the night with their flashing lights, and Dean stared blankly as the fire-fighters unrolled their hoses. Powerful jets of water arced, sparkling and beautiful, into the air.
A waste of effort, as Jess was beyond rescuing and Dean could do nothing to stop his little brother coming apart in his arms – except hold on. So that’s what he did. Dean held onto Sam with dry burning eyes – everything was burning - while Sam shook with the force of his sobs.
After what seemed like a long time, Sam stilled, then his body stiffened inside Dean’s embrace. Dean felt he should say something, but Sam was the one who was good with words, not him, and he could thing of nothing that wouldn’t sound trite in the face of this desolation. When Sam pulled away, Dean let him go because he didn’t know what else to do.
Sam walked round to the back of the Impala and opened her trunk, and Dean realised his brother had lifted her keys from his jacket. Moving stiffly, Dean stood at Sam’s shoulder and watched in silence as Sam’s long fingers swiftly chambered a couple of salt rounds into Dean’s sawed-off. Sam’s face was puffy and blotchy from crying, but his expression was one Dean recognised all too well.
Dark, angry and completely closed off.
Dean had seen that same look before, on their father’s face long ago in another time and place that was a mirror of this one, way back in 1983 when their journey had begun. His heart sank. He had wanted so badly for Sam to come back, for them all to be a family again – albeit a screwed up family without a Mom who hunted ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night.
But not like this.
Dad was missing and Sam was broken and Dean? Dean was too afraid he was losing them both.
Sam sighed and nodded; some decision had been made. He threw the shotgun back into the trunk and said the words that brought Dean back to himself. Dean didn’t relax. Every muscle was tensed up and screaming at him like Sam had been screaming at Jess, painful and desperate. He couldn’t let go while his little brother was hurting like this, but he could and did fix his game face back on.
Dean squared his shoulders and closed the trunk with heavy thump that signified both an ending and beginning.
Yes.
The Winchesters had work to do.
The End
Part Four - Sunday continued.
Dean was pining.
Sam had left him on his own and … goddammit. He was miserable as hell. He slumped down into the uncomfortable shell of the plastic chair, huddled in his blanket and the starchy white coat and sulked. The spell might have worn off to the extent that Dean had his own body back, but shaking off canine instincts was proving another matter entirely. Not that Dean got as far as articulating this thought; his head was muzzy and everything was jumbled up in there, so he wasn’t really thinking much at all. It was more that he was still feeling things. And what he felt was lonely. Abandoned. He missed Sam. He missed Dad. He missed his baby. His freaking pack.
Dog or man, Dean was not designed to be a lone wolf.
After Sam had been gone for half an hour, Dean could add boredom and hunger to his growing list of issues. It took him a few more minutes to remember that now he was human again, there was nothing to stop him exploring the place. Surely there was a staff kitchen somewhere, or even just a fridge.
His legs were wobbly as a new born pup’s at first, but as he wandered around the small hospital he started to feel physically stronger, though he was still having trouble remembering much about the last few days. His stomach was very happy to discover there was indeed a small kitchen and more importantly, that there was an opened six pack of Sol beer in the fridge and a half-eaten cherry pie. Dean silently thanked whomever and smiled. It was almost as if the kind veterinarians had known Dean was coming. He drank the first beer straight down and opened the second while he polished off the pie.
The edge taken off his hunger, the loneliness washed back over him and he sighed heavily. His shoulders slumped for a moment, then he perked up again at the thought that there must be other animals here. He grabbed a third beer and went to look for company.
The last thing Sam expected to find on his return to the Pet Hospital was the now fully human Dean fast asleep curled up inside one of the open metal pens out the back, all snuggled up with a large golden Labrador with a broken leg. The paw print fleecy blanket was griped in one hand and an empty beer bottle in the other. Where the hell his brother had managed to find alcohol in an establishment for the care of sick animals, Sam had no idea, but wasn’t that just freaking typical? The Labrador looked up at Sam as if to say ‘don’t ask me, man’ and Sam wished desperately for a camera. Not that he expected Dean to stick around long enough to get full value out of the blackmail material this was offering, but it was also surprisingly cute. Brushing aside the temptation to leave Dean sleeping with his new friend, Sam chucked Dean’s jeans at his head with a cheery ‘Wake up, jerk’.
Brady had expected to have Jess to himself for the rest of her short but sweet life, so was not best pleased when Becky turned up out of the blue around 5pm. The two girls decided to bake cookies for Sam, so Brady was left trying to find excuses for hanging around. Fortunately, once the girls got busy with the flour and sugar and all that other crap, they forgot all about Brady, so he just kept his head down in the living room, whiling the time away until he could have his fun.
By 9.30pm Brady’s patience was wearing thin. Would that skinny blonde skank never leave? Not that he was averse to a little collateral damage, but Jess was his real target. He didn’t want to dilute the impact by throwing in any distractions, even though the temptation to add Becky’s blood to the mix was strong, especially as she was winding him up by lingering so long and making him wait for the anticipated denouement. Jessica’s death was all he needed to give Sam the required push back onto the road and into a life of hunting. Anything else would be overkill. Brady chuckled to himself at the pun. But seriously, additional extras, sweet though they might be, would only jeopardise the Plan. Too much death and destruction surrounding the youngest Winchester could draw the wrong kind of attention. Besides, Brady didn’t want the inconvenience of having to explain any variations to the top brass. He had plans of his own, which didn’t include any kind of spotlight shining on Tyson Brady – Orias wanted to melt away into the background once this mission was over and have some fun with his devilishly handsome human meat suit. Going back to Hell would seriously crimp his style.
He was a few seconds away from cracking and coincidentally breaking a few of Becky’s fragile bones when she finally decided to go back home. Brady was hard put not to show his satisfaction as she hugged him and Jess goodnight. He was grinning when he turned round from closing the door behind Becky’s skinny ass, which got him a funny look from Jess. He just grinned wider.
“Now it really is party time!” He said with glee, as he flipped his wrist and sent Jess flying across the room. After all, nobody had said he couldn’t have some fun with her before sticking her up on the ceiling.
With Dean fully dressed and finally feeling more human than dog, the brothers made their way back to the Impala.
Sam was on his cell to Jess but from the sound of it ended up talking to Brady instead. Jess was baking and had her hands full of cookie dough. For a second Dean was warmed by a fleeting memory of Mom’s hand round his as he stirred cake mix in a kitchen filled with golden light. He shook off the vision with a grimace. He couldn’t afford sentimental distractions like this, dammit.
Dean’s first thought was to check his cell phone for any messages from Dad. He wasn’t really expecting there to be anything new on there after nearly a month of silence, so his heart gave an unpleasant lurch when he found the ‘voicemail waiting’ notification flashing at him. Conscious of Sam hovering at his shoulder, Dean pressed play and put the phone on speaker. The message was full of static and broken up, but Dad’s voice was clear.
“Dean...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger.”
“Shit.” Dean checked the details; the voicemail had been left three days ago. Three fucking days.
“You know there’s EVP on that, don’t you? What was he working on?” Sam asked.
“He was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy, Andrew Casey…” Dean pulled out a well folded, torn out sheet of newsprint from the glove box and handed it to Sam. “They found his car, but he’d vanished. Completely MIA. And before you say it, he wasn’t the only one. Five guys, all the same five-mile stretch of road. So Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough, but then I came to Cali and got caught up in the whole freaking witch thing and now this.”
Dean didn’t mention that the whole reason he’d gotten side-tracked was because he’d detoured to Palo Alto to check on Sam. He couldn’t say it, just like he couldn’t beg Sam to leave with him to look for Dad. Maybe he would have before, but not now; especially since he’d seen Sam with Jess, witnessed him laughing, looking more relaxed than Dean had ever seen him. Happy. So fucking happy.
So he swallowed down the words he longed to say, words he knew would make Sam leave Stanford and hit the road with him – I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to do this alone. He clamped it down, shrugged the mask of bravura back on along with his leather jacket. Neither was enough to keep him warm at night, but it would have to do. He’d managed for the last four years without his little brother, he could cope on his own now.
He looked at the apologetic expression on Sam’s face and hid a wince. The two brothers opened the Impala’s doors in perfect synchronisation, as if the intervening years hadn’t left them on opposite sides of the country most of the time.
“It’s getting late and I need to hit the road. You,” Dean punctuated his words with a poke to Sam’s chest that Sam batted away indignantly, “You need to get back to Jess and catch some shut eye before your job interview tomorrow morning.”
He started the Impala’s engine, letting her throaty purr sooth his soul.
“It's a law school interview, Dean, and it's my whole future on a plate.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, Sammy.” Dean grinned, covering for the ache in his heart. He was so glad he no longer had a tail, because it would have been tucked between his legs right now, exposing all his inner most feelings. Thankfully, human Dean was harder to read. His smile became a little more genuine as Sam turned away, grumbling under his breath.
“You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve year old.”
Dean shoved a cassette into the player and AC/DC started to play Back in Black.
“It's Sam, okay?”
Dean turned up the volume and gestured towards his ear with a faux apologetic expression.
“Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud.”
His smile was finally wide and real as he gunned his baby’s engine and pulled away, ignoring Sam’s muttered comment that he’d preferred Dean when he was a dog.
It was a bit strange to be returning to Sam and Jessica’s apartment building in the Impala. The last time Dean had seen it was from a dog’s eye view, and all he’d been interested in at the time was thoughts of food and the freedom of running. Okay and maybe also peeing on every tree and bush in sight. Food and freedom were still pretty high on his agenda but Dean was relieved to find that the latter urge had totally vanished.
He got out of the car when Sam did, and they stood facing each other over the big Chevy’s gleaming roof. Suddenly the car seemed too wide to reach across, a shining black expanse he could easily fall down into and be lost forever. Dean’s gaze flitted about, unable or unwilling to rest anywhere. Sam was sporting that kicked puppy look again that Dean had rather thought he’d made his own over the last few days. It was unfair that Sam seemed to be able to do it better than Dean had, even when Dean had literally been a kicked pup.
Sam looked down where his big hands were resting on the car, then across at Dean.
“You probably shouldn’t be driving with that wound, you know. You don’t have to leave right away, you could stay the night here, with me and Jess.”
As if mentioning his injuries had woken them up, Dean shifted uncomfortably against the dull throbbing ache in his shoulder and the sharper burn in his ribs. He almost welcomed the physical pain as it took his mind off things he’d rather not be thinking about. This he could and would make light of, in a way Sam would find totally familiar and totally frustrating. Deflection and evasion. They were Dean Winchester’s speciality.
“Nah. I’ve had worse. And I’ve got plenty of codeine. It’s been three days since Dad left that message. I need to run it through the gold wave and see what the EVP gives us, and I need to be on the road in case...”
“In case Dad needs you?” Sam’s tone was bitter, and Dean didn’t want to go there, not now. There was a decade of resentment and hostility in that sentence, and that was a Pandora’s box best left unopened. So Dean did his best to keep his voice level.
“Yes, Sam. You heard what Dad said, and you know he doesn’t joke around. You take care of yourself and of your girl. Use salt, protect the doors and windows. Be afraid of the dark again, Sammy, you know what’s out there.”
He didn’t wait for Sam to respond, ducking back into the Impala and slamming her heavy door shut. So he couldn’t be sure if it was just wish fulfilment that he thought he heard Sam say ‘You be careful, Dean. Stay safe.’
Sam stared at the Impala’s tail lights with mingled sadness and frustration as Dean drove away into the night. How did Dean manage to do that to him every time? Leave him wanting to hug him and punch his lights out in almost equal measures? He watched until the Impala turned a corner at the end of the street and sighed. With Dean out of sight, Sam would go back to his normal life. His beautiful Jessica was upstairs waiting for him, his law books were open on the coffee table ready for his interview tomorrow, and his brain just needed a little nudge to resume the patterns he’d imposed over the last few years away from hunting, safe from ghosts and mysterious assailants that burned mothers. Yet knowing all this wasn’t enough to stop Sam missing his brother – or missing their Dad too, though that was one thing he was never going to admit.
He started up the stairs to their apartment slowly at first, each step heavy with regret. But as he neared their door, thoughts of Jess lightened his heart, so that by the time the key was in the lock, he was almost smiling.
There was no sign of Brady, and Sam was relieved. He liked the guy well enough, but all he wanted now was to bury himself in Jessica’s arms and forget about his family, everything. The apartment smelt of baked goodies, it smelt like home.
“Jess? You there?” he called, then he heard the shower running. There was a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table, his favourite, with a post-it note on top. Missed You! Love you! He read it with a smile on his face and grabbed a cookie on his way past into the bedroom. Flinging himself down on the bed he closed his eyes with a sigh of pure contentment.
It was the second warm drop hitting his forehead that made him open his eyes. The third drop stole all the breath from his lungs.
It wasn’t the pain that was now raging through his body as the last of the morphine wore off. It wasn’t the dull ache of leaving Sam behind. The trigger when it came was a scent, the faintest trace of rotten eggs that wafted though the Impala’s open windows as Dean drove past a dumpster outside a Chinese restaurant called Golden Wings – stupid little details Dean was barely aware of registering as all his memories came flooding back. Or rather, Sirius’ memories. Something Sam had said about Brady had been niggling at him, though he had no idea why, but now he was being overwhelmed with Sirius’ instinctive hatred of the man, and Dean knew he had to get back to Sam straight away.
Because Brady was with Jess, and Brady was evil. Sirius had known it, and now Dean knew it, deep down into his bones. Images were flashing into his brain and he had to shake his head to clear it so he could see to drive – eyes flashing black, a gesture that had sent Dean (Sirius) flying back into that pit, sneering hurtful words, Brady’s boots connecting with his ribs, Brady lifting that shovel and bringing it down on Dean/Sirius’s head.
1967 Chevy Impala’s weren’t renowned for their manoeuvrability, but Dean swung Baby into a screeching burnt rubber U turn in a matter of seconds, and pointed her chrome plated nose towards Sam. His shoulder screamed at him worse than the Impala but he ignored them both. Thanks to his stupidity, first in getting bewitched and second in allowing Brady to dupe him and take him out, Jess had been alone with Brady most of the day, while Sam was preoccupied with sorting out Dean’s injuries. If anything happened to Sam or Jess, it would be down to Dean. His fault. His stomach churned as if the Impala was a boat on the high seas instead of a car hurtling too fast down blessedly empty suburban roads, and his palms were sweating, slipping on her leather-cased steering wheel. He thought he was probably developing a fever, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. All that mattered was finding Sam, making sure that his little brother and his girl were safe.
When he slammed on the brakes outside Sam’s place his heart was beating so hard he could barely hear anything over the rushing of blood in his ears. He was out of the car and running before he even registered the ominous orange tinge to the light showing at the window of Sam’s apartment. And that the light was flickering.
Fire. Sam’s place was on fucking fire.
He took the stairs two at a time and didn’t hesitate at the door, just kicking it in so that the frame cracked and splintered. He was prepared for the roar and the smoke and the heat of the flames as the oxygen from the hallway fed the fire, but he only had eyes for Sam. He ignored it all, moving forward into the maelstrom, searching for the only thing that mattered.
Where was his brother?
He yelled, Sam!, coughed, yelled again.
Then he heard Sam’s desperate, anguished cry from the bedroom.
“No!” then “Jess!”
The heat was singeing the hairs on his cheeks as he made a dash for the bedroom door, part of him knowing what he was going to find. And though his heart was aching for Jessica Moore, he barely spared her bleeding, burning body more than a quick glance, where she was pinned to the ceiling over Sam’s bed. It was the stuff of his own nightmares, the way her long blonde hair was catching alight and the dark bloody slash across her belly was dripping blood like rain. He didn’t need to look up to have that image seared into his brain forever, because for him it was already there.
Sam was wide eyed and horrified, transfixed by the sight of his girlfriend burning, but Dean only knew one thing. He had to get his little brother outside as fast as he could. It was an ancient imperative never forgotten, ingrained deep into Dean’s psyche. He grasped Sam’s arms bruisingly hard and didn’t let go.
Sam’s hoarse screams pierced Dean, and his brother’s limbs failed as Sam fought against Dean’s grip. A fist caught Dean’s chin, snapping his head back, and he was hard put to say whether the sparks he was seeing were inside his head or in the burning room. A knee rammed into his side, taking even more of his precious breath away as his broken ribs creaked with the impact. Dean gritted his teeth, tasting his own blood. He held on and half dragged, half carried Sam out of the apartment.
When they crossed the threshold it was as if a line had been crossed for Sam too. All the fight went out of him and he sagged in Dean’s arms, a dead weight that Dean struggled to man-handle down the smoke filled stairs and outside into the clear night air. The building alarms were shrilling out and shocked residents were starting to evacuate the building, providing a convenient crowd for Dean and Sam to melt into. In the general hubbub no one noticed the two young men making their way beyond the circle of interested and concerned bystanders to lean wearily against the classic black Impala parked a little haphazardly across the street. Fire trucks arrived to illuminate up the night with their flashing lights, and Dean stared blankly as the fire-fighters unrolled their hoses. Powerful jets of water arced, sparkling and beautiful, into the air.
A waste of effort, as Jess was beyond rescuing and Dean could do nothing to stop his little brother coming apart in his arms – except hold on. So that’s what he did. Dean held onto Sam with dry burning eyes – everything was burning - while Sam shook with the force of his sobs.
After what seemed like a long time, Sam stilled, then his body stiffened inside Dean’s embrace. Dean felt he should say something, but Sam was the one who was good with words, not him, and he could thing of nothing that wouldn’t sound trite in the face of this desolation. When Sam pulled away, Dean let him go because he didn’t know what else to do.
Sam walked round to the back of the Impala and opened her trunk, and Dean realised his brother had lifted her keys from his jacket. Moving stiffly, Dean stood at Sam’s shoulder and watched in silence as Sam’s long fingers swiftly chambered a couple of salt rounds into Dean’s sawed-off. Sam’s face was puffy and blotchy from crying, but his expression was one Dean recognised all too well.
Dark, angry and completely closed off.
Dean had seen that same look before, on their father’s face long ago in another time and place that was a mirror of this one, way back in 1983 when their journey had begun. His heart sank. He had wanted so badly for Sam to come back, for them all to be a family again – albeit a screwed up family without a Mom who hunted ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night.
But not like this.
Dad was missing and Sam was broken and Dean? Dean was too afraid he was losing them both.
Sam sighed and nodded; some decision had been made. He threw the shotgun back into the trunk and said the words that brought Dean back to himself. Dean didn’t relax. Every muscle was tensed up and screaming at him like Sam had been screaming at Jess, painful and desperate. He couldn’t let go while his little brother was hurting like this, but he could and did fix his game face back on.
Dean squared his shoulders and closed the trunk with heavy thump that signified both an ending and beginning.
Yes.
The Winchesters had work to do.
The End
