itle: Seeking Babylon
Author: kodiak bear
Cat: Gen
Word count: 2,000
Rating: T
Warnings: Set after Dean's time is up. AU (because I'd REALLY hope canon doesn't do this.)
Summary: Dean's gone, and Sam's hunting.
AN: This idea just popped up. I have no idea if it's been done before, I selfishly hope it hasn't, but I haven't read any spn fic in months. And if it has, hopefully this one will be different enough approach to be enjoyable. Well, I don't know if 'enjoyable' is the right term but, there you go. This is also posted at my LJ. I'm much better about posting there and replying than I am here (scattered brain syndrome).
SEEKING BABYLON
Sam shuts his battered journal, closing his eyes wearily; he pinches the bridge of his nose, hoping to ease the pain already building in his head. What'd Dean expect him to do? What'd Dean think he's able to do, after everything that's happened?The journal slips from his fingers and falls onto the spread-out pages of a dozen newspapers from a dozen cities. He flops back on the motel bed, and lets his eyes open again, just so he can stare at the bleak ceiling. Rain batters the over-sized window in the small bedroom, condensation gathering against the sill. It lulls him into a fitful sleep and when he wakes, it's morning; the rain has stopped, and Sam feels like he hasn't slept at all.
"You're a Marshal?" the young woman asks skeptically. Her eyes rake over his jeans-jacket, denim pants, and a four-day growth of something that might be a beard.
Sam shifts his hand to his pocket and presents his doctored ID. There was a time he'd tried to play the part, but now he flips it open, desultorily, and lets the woman take it or leave it. His apathy isn't lost on her, but she shrugs; he guesses it's acceptance, because she returns to stocking the shelves. It's the international aisle – cheap knock-offs of German, Japanese, and Spanish foods – "Barbara was last seen when she left her shift a week ago. Did she have a boyfriend? Was there anything to indicate she --"
"Hey, D'Angelo!" A pimple-faced kid pokes his head around the corner at the end of the aisle. "You're not being paid to socialize." His attention shifts to Sam, his eyes glaring from behind a pair of thick, black frames. "It's closing time, Mister. An announcement was made to gather your items and head to a check-out line." Those beady-eyes glance at Sam's empty hands.
D'Angelo grimaces and shouts back, "He's a Marshal, for chrissakes' Dev. He's asking about Barb." Dev narrows his eyes at Sam, but then pulls away, shaking his head, disappearing back into the rest of the store and whatever duties he has. She grabs Sam's arm and drags him towards the front. "I need a smoke, come'on. I'll tell you what I told the other ten cops."
She taps out a cigarette.
Sam says, "That'll kill you, you know."
"Something always does."
He leans against the rough cement of the darkened store-front and nods tiredly. "Yeah," Sam's lips twist unexpectedly, "I guess so."
His bitter reply startles her for a moment, but then it's gone. She tells him Barbara had plans and that she was saving up for college; no boyfriend, her parents had died; the mom when Barbara was ten and her dad, last year. Despite all of that, she'd been happy. An easy-going person that everyone in the store had liked. No enemies, no one who hated her or would want to hurt her. Sam fingers the notepad absently and his mouth tightens into a flat line. "Thanks," he says, "you've been a big help."
When D'Angelo grabs his arm, holding him back, he looks at her hand, then her face. She's expectant, hopeful. Maybe she senses something in him. That he's not your typical cop, that he knows things. God – Sam knows leagues of things. And it still hadn't meant a damn.
Sam almost wants to tell her. He wants to confess everything, what he's really here for. What kind of trouble he thinks her friend is in. "Do you think," she nervously licks her lips, dropping the half-smoked camel and grinding it out, "do you…can you find her? She…" D'Angelo is restless, strung-out from fighting with her pseudo care-free bubble and the inner-reality of caring just too much. "She was like a sister to me," she finally says quietly, painfully. "The cops that've talked to me, it's all SOP. Bullshit. They're gonna file her case as a run-away and that's it. I just…I need to know. You know?" and her face when it meets his, it's so full of need that Sam mentally falls back.
He has enough pain buried deep in himself. There's no more room for others. "I'm sorry," he whispers. Then he spins on his foot, and retreats as fast as he can to the waiting Impala. It sits forlornly in the empty parking lot, the overhead light ensconcing the car in a hidden halo of desire that only Sam feels. He slides behind the wheel and just sits, head bowed, until dawn.
Sam finds Barbara, but he's too late. He drives to another city, and another, and each one he finds the corpses and nothing else. His frustration builds and builds, until one night it boils over; all he's done for a month is recover the dead. He goes to a bar, has too much to drink, and loses over a hundred playing pool to a kid that reminds him painfully of Dean.
"Another," Sam slurs, banging the empty shot-glass against the veneered counter.
The bartender's eyebrow lifts, but he finishes drying one glass, and pours Sam another. "You're about done, kid," he warns.
Sam laughs. He tips his glass and tosses it back. Wiping his mouth, he says, "You have no idea."
Some people would've asked, recognizing the desperation he knows positively reeks from his pores, but not this guy. He has a job, he does it, and he leaves the care for fallen humanity in the more capable hands of others. Damn thing, though, there's no one left to care for Sam, and he orders another round. He wakes up in the backseat of the Impala, and has no fucking clue how he got there. He rolls over the seat, into the front, slinging his jacket into the empty passenger side. He starts the car with a vicious roar that pisses his headache off and thinks he doesn't really give a shit, anyway.
In Des Moines, the trail goes cold.
Sam barreled into the warehouse only to find bodies and hear an echoing clank of dislodged, falling metal far in the distance. He runs, forgetting the hanging bodies behind him. He runs like his life depends on it, and still only catches the faint shadow disappearing in the night. Sam feels his anger burn, and turns, punching the factory door so hard he splits skin across his knuckles and feels blood.
He's tired, furious. He's been tracking the bastard across twenty-seven states, four months, and this time he was so close he can taste it. When he trudges back through the labyrinthine building, he doesn't even gather the bodies. Sam can't do anything for them and he just can't face anymore accusing, open-eye stares.
Weeks of newspapers and internet trawling turn-up nothing. It knows Sam is close. Not every supernatural creature is stupid. This one has done an unnervingly good job of staying a step-ahead of him and Sam phones an update to Bobby.
"What're you going to do, Sam?"
He's pinching his nose again, holding onto the plastic handle of the phone like it's a lifeline. "I don't know. Maybe stay here, law low, wait for it to make a mistake."
"Sam…why don't you come here? Visit for a while. I could use another set of hands." Bobby's voice is static-laced. "Dean would've --"
"What Dean wanted doesn't matter anymore," Sam snarls, startling them both. There's a breach of silence, stacking upon itself, one moment, two… "I'm sorry," Sam finally says, his voice cracking slightly. "I'll call you later."
Wounded, Bobby grunts in reply. Sam lets the phone fall into the cradle. The Winchesters have always hurt those they care about; Sam guesses there's no reason to change now. He used to not be such a bastard. That'd never been his job.
He gets a job at a gas station. You can talk to a lot of people, from a lot of different cities, that way. On his job application for former employers, he wrote self-employed. Previous job experience, bending over and taking it in the ass. The manager – the owner of the place – stands up, laughing, and says, "Son, it don't take much to fill shelves, gas cars and wash windows. I like an honest man, you're hired." Sam almost feels normal. But then again, the 'honest man' twists guiltily in his gut. The name on the job application is Kevin Moss. A victim from a case when he'd been a teenager. If the guy does a background check, Sam's a goner. It's reckless, but Sam hasn't cared about that in a long time.
Five months.
Seems like eternity, Sam thinks, aching. He always aches, souldeep, and all he wants is to not feel it for one night. Just one fucking night. Sam doesn't think it's asking for a lot. In the scheme of things, he sure as hell deserves that one absolution. That one favor from whatever is running this screwed-up excuse of a planet. He tries a bar, again, because there's nothing else to try, and afterwards, hugging the toilet, he accepts it's not the solution. It'll never be. And just maybe, as Sam lets his sweating head rest against the cool porcelain, he weeps. But then again, he was drunk, and he can never remember all that much the morning after.
Sam finds it in Wyoming. Maybe he got lucky, or maybe fate has finally quit being such a fickle bitch. Three bodies are already hanging, though Sam's sure one of them's alive.
It steps back, keeping a few feet distance between them; eyes glitter dangerously. "I am tired of being hunted."
Tired, Sam thinks, funny. "Ironic. I'm tired of hunting you."
"I'm stronger than you."
Sam shrugs, his hand tightening around the knife's handle. "Not the first time."
It lunges, dropping its wary façade in a so-fast instant that Sam wonders with a start, if he would have actually had a chance, had he wanted one. Maybe. Want can be a strong motivation; it can move mountains, it can save millions…it can also kill. It can take. It can hurt like hell.
The dry hand caresses Sam's face, commanding him to stay still. The inhuman eyes look almost compassionate. "It won't hurt," it assures Sam, "it'll be better than anything you've ever had."
"I hope so," Sam whispers brokenly.
And then his eyes close.
"Hey! Sleepyhead!"
Sam's body is rocked to-and-fro. He jerks, tumbling to the floor in a tangle of blankets and pillows. When he manages to blink the room into distinct shapes, he frowns, disgusted at the grinning face inches from his own. "Jesus Christ, Dean," he swears, "What the hell?"
"Dude, you're gonna sleep the whole frickin' day?" Dean disappears behind Sam and returns, tossing a suit wrapped in dry-cleaner plastic. "Come on, Dad's waiting downstairs."
It takes a minute. But then it slams into him like a ton of bricks, so hard, that Dean is holding him up, patting Sam's shoulders, suddenly fussing and murmuring, "Fuck, what, it's not that big a deal, Dad can wait," and then more teasingly, "breathe, hey, you didn't get drunk last night without me? You never could hold your liquor."
But then Sam is grabbing Dean back, holding him so tightly he's surprised Dean's bones aren't cracking under the pressure of it. "Jesus, Dean," he breathes, smelling, touching, and even though he knows it's not real, Sam knows he won't ever care. Reality, he thinks savagely, is overrated.
"She said," Dean tells him, "That it'd feel like a lifetime."
A lifetime. Sam thinks that's only fair. It's what they should've had in the first place. If there'd ever been any fairness left in the world. He lets go of Dean and smiles so fucking hard he's sure his face is going to shatter. "It's good to see you again, man." He breathes and nods. "Really good."
Dean shakes his head and climbs unsteadily to his feet. "Whatever, dude. Think that poltergeist threw you around more than we realized last night."
Poltergeist.
Sam starts laughing. That his perfect world is the one he'd thought he'd never wanted in the first place. He waves off Dean and realizes that his happiness had long ago narrowed to a very small window of requirement, after Jess's death. And he'd never actually realized it'd happened until he'd stood over Dean's pyre and realized he'd had no more idea of how to go on living than he'd had on what to say when Dean had died.
An hour later, after a shower and breakfast, their Dad drives off to chase down a rumored Wendigo to the north. Sam had hugged him, too, surprising the man. Dean had looked embarrassed enough for all of them and shrugged. "He's having a chick-flick moment." Then, when Dean thought Sam wasn't looking, he'd made a surreptitious whirl of a finger around his ear that abruptly turned into a scratch when Sam glared. John had recovered his composure, looking almost wistful for a second, watching Sam under curious eyes; then he made sure they had his cords and plans. He left them in charge of a possible haunting two states over with a promise to rendezvous at Bobby's in a week.
Dean tosses the bag of weapons into the trunk and slams it. He glances at Sam and Dean's smile is so deep, and so utterly complete and content, Sam finds himself grinning back.
"Let's go kill us some bad guys, Sammy."
Sam's already sliding into the passenger seat.