Our Little Secret
Summary: A dark part of Sam's past comes back to haunt him in the form of an old family friend. A simple dinner at Bobby's spins out of control.
Warnings: Graphic violence and non-explicit references to child molestation.
Disclaimer: I already sold my soul for a craptastic, unreliable muse, and no crossroad demon would cut me another deal. So, no, I don't own Supernatural or anyone/thing affiliated with it.
Set sometime after 3.7 (Fresh Blood). Spoilers for up to 3.3 (Bad Day at Black Rock).
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Seeing Red
Sam
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"I better not hear Sam complaining about the selection of grub here," I heard Bobby grumble indistinctly from the direction of the kitchen.
I closed the back door to his house behind me with a clatter to announce my presence (a practice I'd generally found to be wise when entering a house full of hunters) and, with a gentle clink of glass, juggled one of the two cold six-packs I was toting from its uncomfortable position under my arm back into my right hand. With a roll of my eyes I strode toward the kitchen, preparing to comment on how I could have brought food – real, non-artery-clogging food – back from my beer run had I been given any sort of warning. As I reached the threshold, though, a gravelly voice brought me to an abrupt halt, rooting my feet to the spot and leaving my lips parted, mouth agape, and tongue frozen in place. Had every muscle in my body not seized up in panic I would have dropped both six-packs all over the entryway to the kitchen and made a mess that I'd have had no intention of cleaning up.
"What kinda growin' boy don't eat burgers?" The voice was rough, likely a result of a lifetime of cigarettes and whiskey, and reminded me disconcertingly of a sickly sort of fear and hushed commands in a stifling log cabin.
"Growing?" Bobby grunted incredulously. "Just wait 'til you see the kid."
"Don't know how the sasquatch got so big on nothing but rabbit food anyways," my brother mumbled, crunching noisily on something that hadn't completed its journey from the kitchen counter to his plate. My bet, had I had the presence of mind to make one, would have been on bacon.
Normally I might've commented on the fact that Dean's diet was likely to put him in an early grave, assuming a monster didn't get him before the cholesterol did, but all of my snark seemed to have left the building, gibbering in alarm, along with the rest of my higher thought function. I stood silent as the proverbial grave (that we weren't in the process of digging up or lighting on fire). The light banter was largely lost on me as an icy sensation spread through my body, freezing the breath in my lungs and moving outward. I hadn't heard that voice in… how many years was it? Fifteen? Sixteen? Not long enough, safe to say.
I heard a whistle from the direction of the kitchen table. "Whoo-ee, Bobby, you weren't kiddin'! Boy's grown up like some sort 'a loco weed." Bobby's guest appraised me avidly in a way that made me feel like I'd just been added to the dinner menu.
"About time," Dean griped lightheartedly from the counter as he turned from the monstrosity of a burger he was assembling, seemingly both enthused by the availability of ground cow in its greasiest form and welcoming my offering of beer with a relaxed grin. "Sammy, you remember Mister Barret, right?"
Hell yes, I remembered Frank Barret. And I'd have really preferred not to, if it was all the same, but there was a regrettable lack of convenient amnesia on my part.
"Frank. Call me Frank," I heard him insist cheerfully from somewhere in the background of my mind. It sounded like a fifteen – no, a sixteen-year-old echo.
My vocal cords declined to join the conversation so I jerked my head in a vague nod, casting my eyes around the room at anything but the elderly retired hunter hovering by one of the kitchen chairs. I realized with a muted horror that he'd situated himself across from Bobby's seat, and as Dean deposited his heaping plate beside our surrogate father I was left with nowhere to sit but beside Barret.
There went any plans I'd had for dinner.
"Well, whatcha waiting for, idjit?" Bobby groused good-naturedly. "Engraved invitation? Grab a bite and pull up a chair."
My attempt at pressing a plastic smile on my numbed face resulted in something that probably looked more like a facial tic than any sort of actual expression. "I'm not hungry, Bobby," I finally lied through what felt like a mouthful of cotton, hoping no one heard the untimely grumble of my empty stomach. "I think I'll, uh, go check out that tome you mentioned." The excuse was weak and vague, but the library was sounding more like a refuge than ever before. Stiffly forcing my muscles into action, I placed the beers on the counter near the hamburger patties, appropriating a couple bottles for myself and resisting the urge to take all twelve and sprint for the stairs.
"Aw, c'mon boy," Barret wheedled slyly, knowing full well he had the support of the other two hunters in the room. "Don'cha wanna catch up? If I recall we had a good ol' time back at my cabin that one summer."
Maybe he had, but the feeling wasn't mutual by any means.
My "Maybe later" didn't even make it past my lips before Bobby cut me off.
"Boy, sit your ass down here and have some dinner," he ordered in a grumpy approximation of a mother hen. "You already skipped lunch. And it wouldn't kill you to climb out of those books and be social every once in a while."
Some still-lucid voice in my mind came up with an idiom involving glass houses and throwing stones, but I decided it would be too much trouble to bother voicing my thoughts.
Dean snorted, obviously sharing my train of thought. "Pot, kettle, black, Bobby," he said wryly.
I decided that it didn't look like I was going to have much say in the 'be social' situation if I didn't want to make a scene. My tight lungs expelled a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. Fine. I could handle one meal with the man, surely. I was no nine-year-old child anymore.
"Still got his head buried in them books then, huh?" Barret asked with a fondness that made me shudder.
I finally raised my head to inspect the man who had royally screwed up my already-bungled childhood. The years hadn't been kind to him, and I was vindictively pleased by that. He looked to be in his late-70s, sporting a nearly bald pate that was as bright red as his bulbous nose, with a few contrasting rogue gray hairs sticking up at random that suggested he really should have gone with the cue-ball look instead of whatever mutiny the remnants of his hair was currently attempting. Dainty freckles that had always reminded me disturbingly of Dean's splashed across his cheeks and beneath the folds of his eyes. Gray and white whiskers sprang from his wrinkled face like a 3-day-o'clock shadow. His cigarette habit seemed to have caught up with him, its presence betrayed not only by the stale scent of tobacco but by yellowed teeth and sagging skin drooping over nearly every inch of the fat that covered his thick bones. I remembered him being heavy in a chubby-linebacker sort of way, but in the past decade and a half obesity had hit him like a freight train. It was really too bad he hadn't dropped dead of a heart attack already.
"Pretty much every waking minute," Dean chimed in with a smirk, pulling me out of my assessment and sending me mentally scrambling back to the conversation at hand. "Only he's gone from Dickens to ancient Sumerian lore for light reading." Right. The current subject was my penchant for books.
"Make any progress on that hunt before we ran out of beer?" Bobby asked with amusement as I prodded myself into action and listlessly surveyed the pickings laid out next to the six-packs. The sooner dinner was over the sooner I could get the hell away from the human monster hiding in plain sight in Bobby's kitchen.
"Maybe," I replied woodenly, absently picking up a plate and beginning to assemble my burger. "Based on what Roy said about this thing's fighting skills and, uh, teeth, it could be something along the lines of a Ōkami, since it's only targeting geriatric men" – maybe we could toss Barret in front of it and find out – "but it's hard to tell. Like you said," I nodded to Bobby, "something's just off about the whole case."
"We could dangle Bobby in front of it to find out," Dean teased with a quirk of his lips.
Okay, that was just creepy. My brother needed to either get out of my head or at least pick the right bait.
"I'd like to see you try, boy," Bobby challenged, directing a jesting glare to Dean, to which my brother replied with a friendly flash of teeth. "And this ain't exactly East Asia, Sam," our mentor pointed out as if I'd somehow missed that tidbit of information.
"That's one of the reasons I said 'maybe,'" I shot back, piling on toppings until the burger was more vegetable than meat.
The shop talk was helping to relax me minutely until I finished preparing my dinner. Then I turned back toward the table and was reminded that my seat was situated next to Barret, the conniving asshole. I sat down gingerly and scooted the chair farther from the old man, edging away like I was afraid he would lean over and take a chunk out of me at any moment. Or worse. So much for my attempt at 'casual.'
"So, Sammy," Barret began after chewing perfunctorily, either oblivious to or feigning ignorance of my behavior, "Bobby says y'all've been workin' hard, travelin' all over creation and ridin' herd on all sorts of nasty critters." Somehow the glob of ketchup that oozed from his working lips was more repulsive than the gore splattering from the severed heads of the vamp nest Dean and I had taken on earlier that month. Funny how I could think of the bodily fluids of common monsters during dinner and not be bothered in the slightest, but a misplaced condiment was making my stomach roll. Finally the man swiped his lips with his tongue, taking care of the rogue ketchup. I wasn't sure which was worse – his darting tongue or the red sauce previously leaking from his mouth.
I stifled a shudder. "Yeah, we've been keeping busy," I replied shortly with averted eyes, putting a slight stress on the 'we' in attempt to shy from the spotlight. "Dean, tell him about our run-in with that rabbit's foot in Black Rock," I suggested with extremely faked nonchalance, trying to mask my desperation to withdraw from the conversation.
"Aww, kiddo, I'd like to hear it from you," Barret objected mildly, eyes sparkling as he sent a cajoling grin my way. I was relieved that he didn't try to muss my hair like he used to when I was nine.
In reply I pointedly lifted my burger and sunk my teeth in without any real enthusiasm. It tasted remarkably like a thick slab of cardboard adorned with flavorless lettuce, tomatoes and mustard. I halfheartedly struggled to keep an array of toppings from spilling back onto my plate and only partially succeeded, earning an amused smirk from Dean.
My brother, bless his heart, took the hint – or the opportunity – and launched into an enthusiastic if slightly embellished version of our recent adventure, allowing me to fade into the background. I was making do with vague nods of agreement, monosyllabic replies, and a few eye rolls (I did not fall on my face that many times) for a good portion of the dinner until Dean decided to take a stroll further down memory lane.
"So you're still in that place in the mountains?" he asked Barret.
It was all I could do not to cringe at the memory of the man's log cabin, perched high on a picturesque mountainside in western North Carolina. It had been isolated, which was an advantage Dad had jumped all over in the summer of '92 when he was instructing Dean on hunting tactics generally frowned on by law enforcement and the civilian population at large. At nine years old, having only recently discovered that monsters were indeed real and that my father's business trips were actually supernatural hunting expeditions, I'd been left at the cabin with a trusted, aging hunter while my brother and father went gallivanting around the countryside with heavy firearms and the occasional explosive. Barret had taken me out to a nearby stream to go fishing a few times during our week-long stay there, but we spent most of the days in the dank, chilly basement engaging in activities that he called 'our little secret.' I could still smell the dust and stagnant air pervading the stonewalled room though I knew I was sitting in Bobby's kitchen with the taste of a greasy burger on my tongue. I felt the panic rising in my chest and physically anchored myself to the present by digging my palm into the sharp corner of the table and squeezing until my knuckles turned white.
"Yep, sure do," Barret replied with a nod after swiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "That's where I stay holed up most 'a my time. Not real fond of leavin' the mountain, y'know, but I was on my way back from my niece's weddin' so I thought I'd stop by and have a belt with Bobby here while I still got a li'l life left t' me."
I couldn't help myself; I had to know. "You still get a lot of kids staying with you?" I asked as casually as I could manage, winding an ankle around the leg of my chair and pressing my flesh into the metal as hard as I could in attempt to ground myself. The words felt like crushed glass clawing their way up my throat, and I was sure that I'd garnered at least one strange look between Dean and Bobby, but I couldn't tear my eyes from Barret.
The old man grinned good-naturedly. "Oh, yeah, sure. If hunters still need a place to keep their young'uns I'll keep takin' 'em in. Nice to be of some use to the community, y'know." His grin turned sly. "And I always do enjoy takin' the boys fishin'."
It was his wink that did it. I might have been able to hold it together had he not cut me that self-satisfied expression and winked at me.
I'd always thought 'seeing red' was a figure of speech, but I suddenly found my vision tunneling, a spectrum of red hues rapidly spreading inward and discoloring the entire room as my heartbeat escalated. My breathing became ragged and black spots cropped up to obscure the outer edges of my red-tinted sight. It was hard to make out any further conversation over the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears. Gritting my teeth in a silent snarl, I found myself standing abruptly and viciously clamping my fingers around the startled old man's flabby arm, dragging him up and out of his chair with adrenaline-assisted brute force. I don't recall how we got to the porch and down the stairs to his ancient Ford sedan, but I know I'd snatched a rusting hunting knife from a nearby pile of junk, not entirely conscious of my own intentions (and not really giving a flying fuck either way). Had I had any sort of coherent thought process going on I might have made a mental note to thank Bobby for his cluttered hoarding and auspicious placement of random armament. But then I probably also would have stopped to ask myself what the hell I planned to do with an aged child molester and a knife bucking for the title of 'machete.' Instead I mindlessly pushed Barret along, my fist on his back clenching both the old knife and the fabric of his shirt, the flat of its blade lined up with and pressing forcefully against the fat blanketing the shorter man's spine. The tip of the rusty metal hovered dangerously close to the sloping nape of his neck.
Upon reaching his car I wrenched the driver's door open and threw him violently into the seat, ignoring his panicked stare and pathetic sounds of protest. I had no idea what expression adorned my face, but it seemed to be alarming him. Though, to be fair, that could have been the large blade I was white-knuckling. I'd call it a toss-up. Leaning in with a hand on his shoulder to hold him in place and intentionally looming over him to enhance the ambiance – which in this case was apparently abject terror – I unceremoniously rammed the hunting knife between the older man's legs and deep into the seat cushion below in one smooth motion. The crotch of his jeans parted with barely any resistance and blood began blooming around the blade, staining the rough fabric, but not at a rate that told me I'd fully severed anything vital. Some part of my brain registered shock and horror, whispering frantically that this entire situation had just spun far, far out of control, but my mindless rage easily overrode it.
(I always do enjoy takin' the boys fishin'.)
"Listen up," I said in a guttural voice over the man's shrieks, "because I'm gonna tell you what you're going to do, and I'm only going to say this once."
I was rudely interrupted by my brother and Bobby, who'd belatedly followed me onto the house's front porch, confused at my behavior and alarmed by the man's thready screams.
Dean's aghast, nearly breathless "Son of a bitch!" came at the same time as Bobby's bellow of "Sam! What the hell're you doin', boy?!" and I could only assume that they could see at least part of what was transpiring in the driver's seat from the raised porch. That was unfortunate.
They thundered down the stairs and when they drew close I held my free hand up in the universal 'stop!' motion. With a strong jerk and a nauseating squelching sound I whipped the gore-covered blade from Barret's ruined pants to the sagging skin of his neck, letting it press through the flaccid folds until it met enough resistance to tell me there was indeed a vulnerable throat hiding under there. Had the blade been properly sharpened his flesh would have parted like warmed butter, but the rusted metal, dulled from disuse and exposure to the elements, just pushed the skin up and out of the way, not even drawing blood. Yet. Barret had let out a broken gasp at my harsh treatment of his pathetic pride and joy and his sharp cries morphed into a series of long, anguished moans.
"Don't come any closer!" I demanded harshly and somewhat desperately, adrenaline pumping. My red-tinged gaze flickered between Dean and Bobby's appalled expressions and I found part of myself feeling the same. Not because I was stopping this pedophile from hurting even more children, but because I was holding someone hostage against my only remaining family. Oh, and for brutally mutilating my victim – my victim! – in nearly the worst way imaginable to achieve my aim. Less than an inch to the right and I'd have fully castrated him, likely causing him to bleed out in minutes. As it was, he was going to need reconstructive surgery and a tetanus shot.
When exactly did I lose control here?
Oh, right. That wink.
(I always do enjoy takin' the boys fishin'.)
Still, satisfied that Dean and Bobby had momentarily halted their advance, I returned my attention to Barret and glanced at the blood welling from the newly-fashioned hole in the old man's jeans, confirming that I probably hadn't mortally wounded the man (assuming he made it to a hospital in a timely fashion). I wanted justice, but I wasn't really gunning for it to be the salt-and-burn kind. I gathered the presence of mind to delicately pluck a grimy bandana from where it was peeking out of the man's pocket and let it float down to his lap. "Put pressure on that," I growled, unwilling to put any part of my body on the man's dick. My captive unfortunately looked to be going into shock, however, and I shook my head angrily.
"Bobby." I waved him over and pointed at the passenger seat with my free hand. "Make sure he doesn't bleed out, please." The words were polite enough but my strangled tone was one of terse command that I couldn't remember ever directing toward my mentor before. Somewhere in the back of my mind I congratulated myself for pulling myself together enough to form sentences and some semblance of a plan of action. "I need you to drop him off at the hospital," since he doesn't seem to be courteous – or conscious – enough to make his way there on his own, I finished silently.
Bobby stared at my face for a few brief seconds as if he didn't even recognize me before grabbing the bandana and applying pressure to the bleeding. "Boy, what in holy hell –"
"Frank," I continued as if I hadn't heard him, "during your vacation at the hospital you are going to make a full disclosure to the police of everything you've done. Everything. Every child, every trophy, every picture, every name" – I lowered my voice, though I was sure Bobby, and probably Dean, could still hear me – "but one." Mine.
The man's close-set eyes rolled wildly in his bloodless face and I slapped the bottom of his chin smartly with the flat of my blade, staining the short whiskers there crimson and sending minute droplets of gore flying upward. I ignored the light rain but Bobby flinched as if slapped when a few drops of his friend's blood landed on his face and beard. "Are you getting this, or do I need to write it down for you?" I asked Barret scathingly.
He jerked his head in a nod, looking even more unnerved when he felt the scrape of the dull blade against his throat.
I felt reassured that he'd gotten the message. The name 'Samuel Winchester' would never show up in that police report. There was nothing I could do if my picture was hanging on the monster's wall, but I could hope that it didn't have any identifying information written on it. If I thought I could beat the cops there I might be tempted to travel the thousand-plus miles to make sure I wasn't part of his sick collage, but I wasn't confident in my ability to step foot inside that cabin, much less the basement, and I sure as hell wasn't sending Dean or anyone else in to see something like that.
"And if I haven't heard about your long-term change of address to a North Carolina prison in the very near future I will hunt you down – I've gotten to be fairly good at the job, if you haven't heard –" I added ominously "– and I will finish what I've started here today." An adamant gulp on the part of my hostage finally had a thin line of fresh blood trickling down his scruffy neck and I made myself release some of the pressure against his throat. I'd almost shivered from the ice in my tone myself.
From the passenger seat Bobby glared back and forth from my face to the knife in my hand. "You mind tellin' me what's going on here now?" he demanded hotly.
My eyes flicked to him for a brief moment and I became aware of Dean cautiously approaching to stand just outside of my arm's reach. My brother usually backed my play around other people, even if he'd yet to be clued in to my intentions, but in this case he might've just been too taken aback to manhandle me into submission or was unwilling to risk Barret's neck (literally). I jerked my head in a facsimile of a nod and bared my teeth at my childhood nightmare. "Why don't you do the honors, Frank?"
A few pathetic whimpers escaped the man's throat before he could manage to form words. "I… Sam…." His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. "I…. When – when Sammy was li'l –" My blade twitched, drawing another few ruby droplets, and Barret shut his mouth with a clack of teeth.
"Not that," I hissed. "Everything." Everything else.
Barret got the unspoken message. He seemed to consider and then wisely reconsider nodding submission. "I – I like kids. The little boys, they're…." He shifted his eyes around his car, avoiding all eye contact. "I like the boys. An' the hunters, they want me to babysit… so I take them fishin'. Out at my cabin."
"'Fishing,'" I spat, remembering the scarce occasions we'd done any actual fishing from the stream behind his North Carolina mountain house… and all the other times we didn't. "You're pathetic. You can't even say it." With a huffed breath, I turned to address Bobby, wide-eyed in the passenger seat and beginning to lean away from the friend he was supposed to be saving from exsanguination. "He's a pedophile, Bobby. These clueless hunters have been leaving their kids with him to be molested. For decades." I looked back to my captive. "How many little boys, Frank? How many?" My right hand trembled with poorly suppressed rage, and the knife shook with it, prompting another red line to make its way across Barret's throat.
He miraculously turned even paler. "I – I don't know." Another shallow cut appeared on his saggy skin as I silently encouraged him to tell the truth. "Dozens, maybe?" His fearful eyes locked on me. "Been a long time, y'know?" he whined. "I… I don' know right off hand."
Dozens. Part of me was stunned. Another part of me was downright murderous. "Dozens," I hissed. "Dozens of little boys, Bobby. And. He's. Never. Stopped." It was an effort not to swing my knife arm in Barret's direction with each word for emphasis. I wisely lowered the blade and meticulously wiped the blood off on the old man's sleeve with jerky motions. "It ends now." I met Bobby's eyes with an abrupt dispassion. "Get him out of my sight."
Bobby, whose face had drained of all color, returned my gaze with haunted eyes for a moment before silently nodding acquiescence. Accompanied by a myriad of moans, groans and the occasional scream, he unceremoniously dragged Barret's bulk from behind the wheel to the passenger side of the bench seat, plopping one of the semi-conscious man's hands firmly down on the bloody rag at his crotch. Slamming the passenger door, he hastily circled the car and climbed into the driver's side after quickly snagging a worn jacket from the backseat to swipe over his face and hands, then draping it over the blood-soaked upholstery.
"Come pick me up in a few," he instructed Dean quietly with a meaningful glance toward me. "Behind the liquor store." He'd have to wipe the car down and ditch it after tossing Frank out at the ER. Leaving bloody fingerprints at a crime scene was bad form, after all. "Assumin' I don't have too much blood on me I'll pick up some of the good whiskey." He looked again to Barret, bathed in blood and moaning softly in the passenger seat. "A bunch of good whiskey," he added grimly.
"Yeah, you got it," Dean replied in kind, sending an inscrutable look in my direction.
I was aware of Dean's concerns that I had come back from the dead… different. Darker, unstable. (Also – coming back from the dead? How insane were our lives when I could even think that phrase casually?) But really, would I have ever imagined mutilating another human being like that before? Sure, I was preserving the innocence of other little boys like me, but was that just a poorly veiled excuse for long-overdue and exceptionally cruel revenge? Had I taken it too far? Was that even a valid question? Hell, I hadn't been able to kill Jake at Cold Oak when my life literally depended on it (though, my mind whispered, I'd taken some sort of sick pleasure in ventilating him an excessive number of times at the Devil's Gate after he'd detailed how he'd killed me). But surely, surely there'd been another way in this case. This wasn't life-or-death. This wasn't the guy who opened the gate to Hell. My personal hell, maybe, but not a nationwide demonic-flavored disaster. An anonymous tip to the police directing them to Barret's secret stash of souvenirs would still have left him spending the rest of his years in prison, very likely experiencing atrocities even beyond the pain he'd inflicted on his own victims. Because everyone knew what happened to child molesters in prison.
But then the sick rush of satisfaction, the befitting result of righteous vengeance, surged through me again and reminded me of the wave of rage that had overtaken me at Barret's callous, smug remarks. I'd been shaking so hard he was lucky I hadn't bisected his femoral artery or completely severed his pathetically small dick – though he might not recognize his good fortune anytime soon. That rage had taken years to lock away behind what I'd thought to be an impenetrable mental barrier, and hearing him practically boasting of his atrocities in that oblique fashion (I always do enjoy takin' the boys fishin') had struck that wall at just the right angle to allow the dam to break. And it had broken all over the pedophile, with a backsplash that enveloped my brother and the man who was like a father to me. Would they be able to look at me now, seeing the old hunter's blood all over my hands and suspecting, if not knowing, my secret shame?