TITLE: Beware the Life You Save
AUTHOR: fixomnia scribble
RATING: A shadowy "T"
PAIRING: Sam/Madison (Supernatural)
SUMMARY: Boy meets girl, girl wolfs out, boy kills girl...then what?
A/N:
Well, this was a surprise. No, I'm not hopping fandoms again, but when the muse calls, she usually has a shopping list.
"Heart" was the first Supernatural episode I watched, quite by accident, before I knew anything about the characters or the series. I've since caught up to that point, and I have to say that except for a few historical points, the episode is like a standalone stageplay, complete with sets, and characters that come bearing massive subtext. And the beginnings, at least, of some interesting philosophical explorations. All of which demanded to be written. Plus, being a forensic lab rat in training, one of my few gripes with the show is the lack of attention to scene clean-up, especially as our boys are on the lam federally.
And now it's back to "Rhapsody" and "Shekhinah", before my dear readers arrive with torches and pitchforks.
Beware The Life You Save
They buried her in a sunny clearing, deep in the heart of a forest of Ponderosa pines, in a pretty blue and white print dress that she probably only kept for the occasional Sunday lunch out with her parents. Inexplicably, it had been Dean's idea. Sam was all for jeans and a casual top, the kind of thing she seemed to prefer.
"She looks, I dunno, nicer in that." Dean had said gruffly, gesturing to the dress, as they quickly surveyed the contents of her closet. "I know nobody's gonna see her in it, but still. She never meant to hurt anyone. That's what she looks like in that."
Sam had gone along with it. Dean maintaining a shred of human response over their victims was worth cultivating. And anything was better than the stained, bullet-scarred t-shirt Maddie had been wearing, and her jeans, soiled as she relaxed into death. They'd never get her safely out of the house and into the car in those.
"Plus, a dress with a side zip is way easier to get a girl into," Dean had added.
Sam hadn't asked how he came by that piece of arcane trivia.
Now he crouched down and pulled her slowly stiffening body from where it lay across the back seat of the Impala. He looped one of her arms around his neck, and, balancing her weight across his knee, stood up carefully, lifting her into his arms.
She was light against him, even with the weight of death on her, and she looked just as if she were sleeping. Sam could attest to that. He'd watched her drift into a hazy doze, between one love-making and the next, and he'd watched her fall deeply, exhaustedly asleep, after she finally kissed him goodnight with a promise to be there when he woke up.
She'd kept her promise, anyway. Sort of. How much had been her and how much werewolf, they'd never know. But the fact remained that he'd run after her, stark naked, and she hadn't tried to attack him - only to escape. He'd never know if it was some vestigial trace of Maddie's own awareness, or if the werewolf scented something...familiar...within his blood, and would not attack a member of the tribe.
It didn't bear thinking of. Or more to the point, he couldn't bear to, not now.
Sam looked down at Maddie's eyes, which had fallen slightly open again, and thought that even the pro-euthanasia crowd wouldn't have liked this one. But then, neither the euthanasia lobby nor the right-to-life brigade tended to consider the possibility of true evil inhabiting otherwise innocent human hosts.
In good faith, he and Dean had sought to give her a long and happy life. Eventually, they'd hoped, she'd shelve the whole werewolf jaunt as a trauma-fallout nightmare, from that horrible summer when she got mugged, split from her violent ex, and discovered that the local serial killer had gone to work on her boss. Just survivor-guilt manifesting itself in her dreams.
It hadn't worked out that way. They'd ended up giving in to her pleas to be killed, quickly and quietly, before she changed and killed again. She must have known she had a month before turning again. She'd decided that such a month wasn't worth living, especially if the were-blood within her rose up and led her to run away before then, to flee her helpers before they became her hunters.
Sam smiled grimly. So often, it was he having to reconcile with Dean's methods: kill, cleanse and leave. For once, Dean had tried to see things his way, tried to help him save a life instead of taking one. Dean needed to believe that a cursed human being could be saved, and Sam, in particular. And if saving Sam and his chance-met lover would somehow redeem Dean in his own twisted, self-annihilating mind, Dean was going to do it.
Sam loved him all the more for it, as much as he wanted to smack him upside the head for the reasons behind it.
Beware the life you save, went the saying, for you become responsible for them forever. And how. It was becoming a bad habit.
Dean pulled the pick and shovel from the trunk, and, mercifully not whistling, led the way up the forest path.
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She hadn't asked how long he would be in town. She'd seen the mile-weary car and and the shadows in his eyes, and she knew she couldn't ask him to stay. Whatever happened next would happen despite them. So when his job was done, she offered what she could, wordless and giving, as if he was a soldier going off to war in the morning with nothing but a kit bag and the memory of a girl's smooth skin under his hand. She rose with him, pleasure ripping through them both, and let him take her wild and hard, hitting her release with a cry as he surged inside...
"Oh, my God," he'd said, after that first time, heat and sparks and raw relief matched in each other. "Maddie...oh, my God."
She stretched out on top of him, where he'd settled her, not wanting to suffocate her with his weight. She leaned down to kiss him, generous and sweet. "You said that already."
"I always thought that was a cliché. Like in a romance novel or something," he murmured, into the warm curve of her neck.
"What, coming at the same time?" she giggled. He felt it all along his body, and hummed in pleasure. "Had to have been a fluke. A memorable, deeply satisfying fluke, but..."
He felt a smile cracking his face in two and looked up. "You think?" he asked, still a little breathless. "I was totally happy going with the romantic thing."
"Hm," she said, looking at him speculatively. She brushed a finger down his cheek. "Maybe I just I need more proof."
Proof. Yes. He, of anyone, could understand that. Madison was still getting her life back together in any number of ways, from escaping her violent ex to finding her boss literally ripped apart. And then he'd come swaggering into town, lied his way into her life and tied her to a chair, telling her she was a monster. And then he'd proved to her that he was right. She was a monster. A real one. Or had been. Not anymore.
Maddie wanting more proof was probably the least of the hurdles in front of them, if they were ever going to...and what, exactly, were they going to?
"Proof, huh?" he grinned. "I could help you with the research..."
She flashed him an amused look. He tilted her chin up and kissed her, tasted the rough edge of awakened need in her mouth. She tugged on his lip with her sharp little teeth, and somewhere in the aching goodness of it all, he felt something that was frozen into a block of solid fear begin to melt inside and run free.
He stroked her hair off her face and kissed her softly, over and over.
We're going to live.
She rolled over and tucked herself into his side.
"That was amazing."
"Mm," he agreed, stroking his palm up and down her spine, till she purred quietly and her breathing slowed and deepened. He closed his eyes, and happily inhaled the surrounding scent of of apple-wood fire, sex, and Madison.
When he opened them again, the fire was down to a bed of embers, and the sun was high. She'd been puttering: there were a couple of bottles of water and a plate of cheese and crackers on the night-table, and she'd snuck in a shower while he was out cold.
She woke from her own slumber, and smiled, leaning over him.
"I've decided to put you in quarantine," she told him drowsily, tangled up in the sheets. "Something tells me your brother can entertain himself in a strange city for a while."
"Oh, don't get me started," he groaned. "I can't even embarass him with his worst stories - he tells them better than I do."
"What're you going to tell him when he asks about me?"
"I don't know yet. I think I need more proof."
She grinned wickedly, dropped her head and sank her teeth into his pectoral, her hand moving in gentle counterpoint over his ribs. He hissed with the sensation and brought her chin up so he could kiss her.
"Again," she said, her eyes dark with a wary, watchful desire he recognized very well.
He slid his leg between hers, flipped her over, and kissed her hard and hungry. She growled and dug her nails into his back, and he let himself slide into the animal abyss, unrestrained.
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Sam stood up for a moment from driving the pick into the damp, crumbling ground, and wiped his forehead as Dean shovelled out the loosened earth. The strain was a sort of penance. Even on a good day, it was backbreaking work. After all the events of the past twenty four hours, it was tortuous.
Six feet was the shallowest grave they could give her, to avoid discovery for as long as possible. Especially after the salt and gasoline, because nothing would grow on such contaminated soil, even if it was free of dark energy. Natural foliage was the best cover there was, so several feet of good healthy soil was a must.
"She was gonna go back to school," Sam said at length, pausing for a swig of water. "She told me. After Nate was killed. She wanted to be a lawyer."
"Well, that figures. She was already, what, a paralegal?"
"Yeah. She said she used to be happy doing the paperwork. She never used to want to get into a fight, but after getting...attacked..."
"Wolfed-up," Dean supplied.
"...she realized there were a lot of good fights worth fighting. And she wanted to help."
Dean stared at him uneasily, and bent to shovelling dirt up over the edge of the pit. They worked at opposite ends for a few minutes in silence.
"You guys talk about us?" Dean asked. "How we live, life on the road? I mean, I know you just met, but..."
What're we going to do if one of us falls in love, for real? Sam interpreted. And what the hell happens if we fall in love with someone who wants to come on board? Sounds good, but complicates everything tenfold.
"No. We just said we'd talk about things later on. In the morning."
"Sammy..."
"What?"
"I'm sorry. I really am. You shouldn't...why the hell didn't you just let me do it?"
"She asked me to. For her."
It was an act of love, he thought. Not some stranger. Not some random whiskey-breathed hunter who never knew her.
But then, what does that say about us, and all the things we've killed without pausing to think? How many of them used to be human? Used to be loved?
"You never said what went down. At the end." Dean said.
"No, I didn't."
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He opened the door and stepped back inside. He saw his shirt neatly folded over a chair, but he couldn't see Madison, and for a moment he thought, with a fleeting hope, that she'd escaped. He'd trust her better self to find a way to shut herself away when she became a danger.
He had to. If he couldn't trust someone like Maddie to be able to confront her demons, he could hardly hope to trust himself, if the choice was ever given him.
If only she could... But even if he kissed her and locked her away every full moon night, even if she ran away alone and drove hundreds of miles into the uninhabited desert, trying with all her might to stay awake or crash-starve her body into a weaker state, with only wild animals within her reach, sooner or later, the were-beast would assert itself.
Yes, he could trust Madison. She'd already made the right decision, even if it took him longer to get around to reconciling with it.
"I'm here," she called softly.
He saw her then, in an antique carved wooden chair she'd pulled to the window. She sat looking into her back garden. She'd been so proud of her condo, having bought it with no help from anyone, carefully saving every possible penny of her salary towards the down payment. After years of hard work, she'd finally had time to begin landscaping her small garden.
It would have to remain a work in progress. Some day, someone else would take it over.
He walked over to her. He went on his knees in front of her, and looked up.
"Forgive me?" he begged.
"And me," she reminded him, tear-shaken but resolute. "It wasn't you who did this."
There wasn't time to say another word. Any more and they would have lost their nerve. She trusted him to know what to do, afterwards. Girls plucked out of human existence left no final words, called no friends, made no arrangements. It had to be now.
He drew the gun up to her breastbone. She wrapped her hand around his, pressed the muzzle tighter against her heart, and met his eyes. Then, tearing her gaze away to look out over her garden, lush and green in the morning sun, she nodded once.
Clenching his teeth, he pulled the trigger. She jumped as if she was startled, and then slumped. He watched her lovely face slacken and the light fade from her eyes. When he was certain, he reached out and closed her eyelids.
Was that what we recognized? The touch of the demon in both of us, riding in our blood?
He remembered the dizzying buzz when she touched her tongue to the scratches on his face, as if cleaning him...or getting a taste for him?
The ice inside grew solid again, colder than ever.
Dean poked his head around the door, with the clean-up kit from the car. Sam stood up, and began to give directions.
"Bullet's in that wall," he said, pointing. "It'll need patching. Thank God it's white paint. Leave the closet; she was the only one in there. It'll all just end up part of whatever story they spin about her. I'll take the chair apart and we'll burn it with her."
"I'm, ah, gonna let you do the bedroom," Dean said, and pulled out a pair of long-nose pliers.
It didn't take them long. They knew how to leave a scene sterile, but not too sterile. When they were finished, Sam carried Maddie to the car, cradling her carefully against him in her blue and white dress. Dean carried on a little as if they were too lovestruck for words, just in case anyone was listening, but as soon as the doors were closed, the boys fell silent.
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"What's that?" asked Dean.
Sam unwrapped a small bundle of sticks and leaves all done up in a sack.
"A rose tree. From her garden. Maybe next summer we'll come back and see."
Dean nodded. He drove in the blade of the shovel at the head of Madison's grave, and Sam knelt to unwrap the bundle. Far below, Madison lay, her arms folded over her stomach, her dark head tilted to one side as if dreaming.
"Yeah, we'll come back next year." Dean said. He looked straight at Sam as he spoke, and Sam understood what lay behind his words. You, me, we're both gonna be alive a year from now. I swear it.
He finished covering up the roots and straightened up. The two of them stood together looking down at Maddie, in an unplanned moment of silence. Even the birds were silent, wary of these strange men and their doings. Between them were piled a bundle of bedsheets, her jeans and blood-soaked soft gray top, sticks of shattered wood that had been a chair, and a jerry-can of gas.
"It's time," Sam said, and reached for the cannister of salt.
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Dean smirked, and flicked a glance to his side.
"What?" asked Sam.
"I thought I was the dog person. You always liked cats."
Sam stared at him, horrified.
"Aw, c'mon, there's no place for 'too soon' in our line of work." Dean chucked him on the shoulder. "Dude, chill. Getting you to crack a smile is a no-go, I know that. I might as well get a rise outta you, right? You're always telling me not to shut down on you."
"Just drive, willya?"
"Not your usual savoir-bitch, there, Sammy."
"Whatever. Jerk."
Sam cranked the stereo, Dean touched the gas, and they flew down the I-5, into the darkening night.