Little White Promises
K Hanna Korossy
One of the benefits of not having much was that you didn't lose things easily. Usually.
Sam searched through his duffel again, huffing in frustration when he had no more success than the first time. His back twinged from the increasingly aggressive movements, but he ignored it with the ease of practice. Sam finally dumped his clothes on the bed and shook them out, setting them aside one at a time.
"Dude, what're you looking for?"
He kept looking as he answered. "Nothing, just…" Sam finally did glance up, to see Dean's upraised eyebrows. His brother was watching him over the top of a car magazine he was reading as he waited for Sam to get ready, propped against his bed's headboard. Sam shook his head. "Have you seen my lockpick set?"
"No. Uh—wait. Yeah, I did, actually. The Skin had it in its little shrine o' weirdness in its lair. I didn't have a chance to grab it, sorry."
"You're kidding." Sam dropped his hoodie back to the bed, flushing with anger. One more thing the Skin had taken from him. "Great. You know how long I've had that set?"
Dean had returned to the magazine. "Since Dad gave it to you for your fifteenth birthday." He glanced up briefly before adding, "Sorry, man."
"Yeah," Sam muttered, stuffing clothes back in the duffel. Dean really could have grabbed it; who knew what kind of evidence there was on the tools, starting with his prints. Although, they had been kinda busy when they'd been…
Sam frowned, going over that night in the sewer in his head. The only time they'd looked at the Skin's collection of victim affects had been before they'd run into the creature itself. Long before it had had a chance to knock them out and steal anything from them.
He turned back to Dean, eyes narrowing. "When?"
Dean flipped a page. "When what?"
"When did you see it in the Skin's shrine? We didn't exactly stop to sightsee after we got untied."
"Oh." Dean's eyes slanted away as he shifted a little on the bed. "I guess I caught a glimpse of it before we took off or something."
Sam hadn't been born yesterday. Realization was dawning, and the light was harsh. His feet slid a little apart, stance setting. "You went back there."
"What? No way, dude, just—"
Sam nodded with force. "You did. That's where you found Rebecca, right? I was too messed up to think about it then, but you went back. After you promised not to."
Dean rolled his eyes, magazine dropping to his lap. "Sam—"
"No, Dean," Sam cut him off sharply. "That thing almost killed me because you took so long going back to the sewer instead of meeting me at Rebecca's. Like you promised."
Dean's jaw slackened. Clearly, he hadn't put that together himself, and as guilt and nascent horror appeared in his eyes at the thought, Sam almost felt sorry for him. Dean had been as scarred by the Skin's games as Sam, and there was no worse burden than your brother getting hurt because of you. Of course, that didn't usually happen because of deliberate actions. Because your brother lied to you.
Sam's heart hardened again, and he stared at Dean. "So all that talk before about lying to my friends, that only applied to me? You know, Dean, I was really starting to think we were partners in this, but I'm still just some kind of sidekick to you, aren't I, following you around, being told what's going on only when it's convenient for you?"
Dean had sat up, his feet thumping to the carpet. "Don't be so melodramatic, Sam."
"Don't be…?" he started to repeat, then laughed disbelievingly. "God, you really are like Dad, aren't you? Sometimes you sound just like him." Sam spun away and threw the rolled-up pair of jeans in his hand against the bedspread, hard.
He expected a hot defense. Which in Dean's case usually meant going on the offense. Protestations about Sam blowing things out of proportion, jumping to conclusions, being treated like a little brother because he was acting like one.
Not this.
"I'm sorry," came Dean's subdued voice behind him. "I was trying to protect you, take out that freak before it came after you again, that's all."
"Yeah, well, it didn't exactly work out that way, did it," Sam said with determined anger. He looked back, tight chest not loosening any at Dean's defeated posture, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped. But memories of his own pain were a bitter taste in Sam's mouth. "I'm not some little kid anymore that needs protecting, Dean. For a little while at Rebecca's, I thought you were dead. The Skin could've taken you out just as easily without somebody watching your back. If you want to solo so bad, man, why'd you come get me in the first place?"
He caught Dean's flinch, and felt a stab of remorse. But this was important, darn it. Broken promises meant broken trust, and that could get Dean killed just as easily next time.
"You should've waited for me," Sam said lowly.
There was a pause, then a simple quiet, "Yeah." Then Dean was in motion, carefully not looking at Sam as he grabbed his jacket and shrugged it on. "There's another pick set in the car you can use. You ready to go?" Without waiting for an answer, Dean went out the door.
Sam stared after him, swallowing and feeling his throat ache. Every time he thought they were getting the hang of this brother thing, it was yanked out from under him. Didn't Dean get that Sam needed to be able to trust him for this to work? That it wasn't the idea of nearly having died that bothered him so much as the fact that Dean hadn't kept his word and could have just as easily died for it, too? What did they have if they didn't even have that much?
Sniffing and feeling every bit the kid Dean apparently still saw him as being, Sam dragged his own jacket on and trudged out after his brother.
The ride to the surveyor's office suffocated in silence. Dean didn't look anywhere but the road; Sam knew that even though he never pulled away from his own fixed stare at the side window. This wasn't the way he wanted it, either, but there didn't seem to be any solution he could find even though he'd looked, not if Dean kept acting like Dad, and the thought made Sam want to scream and throw something very solid and heavy. If this didn't work, then he'd lost both Dean and the only home he had left. The first alone was devastating.
Sam picked the lock to the surveyor's office with ease even with the tools that weren't his, and they searched with tacit coordination. Dean said one word—"Sam"—when he found the survey they were looking for, and Sam merely nodded his agreement.
They'd known the Bone-Cleaner was at the north end of the lake, just not where. The creature had left skeletal remains scattered all over the area. But the survey recorded that brush had been cleared recently by the northwest edge, and disturbed ground was the last piece to the puzzle.
The ride out to the lake wasn't any more pleasant.
Sam paused outside the car. They'd always tried not to go into hunts with unfinished business. You never knew when a hunt would be your last, and that was a weight Sam didn't wish on his brother no matter how angry he got.
But Dean had already apologized, and there was only so much Sam could just swallow. They really couldn't do anything more than give it time, see if things got better. Sam clenched his jaw and followed Dean back to the trunk.
Hunting took over for a while, strained silence giving way to terse exchanges of information as they picked up possible trails and lost them. That was more Dean's thing than Sam's, not to mention that Sam was still limping a little thanks to the Skin, so he kept watch, scanning the area, as Dean studied the ground.
So he saw the threat first.
"Dean!" he barked, already darting to the side to give them more space to maneuver. They hadn't been able to find any lore about how to kill a Bone-Cleaner, but it was corporeal and so, presumably, mortal.
Dean brought up his shotgun and fired. It seemed to strike the creature a glancing blow as it ducked, and it yowled its displeasure.
As it darted closer, Sam could finally see it clearly, and he recoiled from the leathery skin and glowing eyes. Sometimes it just seemed wrong when something like that walked—or at least lurched—on two feet. He brought his axe up and slashed out with it, also slicing across the creature's skin instead of really penetrating. Dark blood smoked on his blessed blade.
The injuries just made the Bone-Cleaner mad. It made a sound like an angry moan, and fell back a step, then as they advanced, shot out a clawed hand at Sam. He barely twisted away in time, the edge of his jacket shredding instead of his skin.
Big mistake, attacking Sam. Dean growled with fury next to him and shot forward. Sam instantly slashed with his axe again, distracting the Bone-Cleaner and driving it directly into Dean's path. Dean rolled away a second later, his knife buried to the hilt in the creature's fading neon eye.
The Bone-Cleaner gave a dry gurgle, then folded to the ground. Its flesh immediately dried into ash and blew away, leaving only bones—its own this time—in its wake.
They stood side-by-side, breathing hard with the belated adrenaline of battle, and watched the enemy decompose.
"We should salt and burn it."
"Burning's enough," Dean answered with certainty, and Sam didn't question it. He'd never doubted Dean knew more than he did about hunting.
Sam started to bend down to clear the ground around the remains for the fire, and froze. Had that been a noise, over in the tall grass to their left? Dean stood stock-still, also listening, which gave Sam his answer.
It came again just then. A weak gasp, sounding almost human.
As one, they moved toward the scrub.
Dean got there first, and Sam could see his shoulders jerk at the sight of whatever it was the vegetation hid. Sam loped the last few steps, his brother already on his knees by the time Sam reached him.
Next to the dying woman.
Apparently, the Bone-Cleaner had been claiming one last victim when they'd interrupted. From what was left of the middle-aged woman's clothes, Sam guessed she'd just been jogging near the lake, in the tragically wrong place at the wrong time. But it was hard to tell under all the blood and… Sam swallowed, damage. He didn't know how she was still even alive, except that the human body could be remarkably resilient, even when you didn't want it to be.
The blood didn't deter Dean, though, who laid a hand on hair that Sam thought had once been blond. He seemed at a loss for a moment, back ramrod stiff, eyes traveling desperately down the length of her broken body. But then Dean bent over her face and started talking low, gentle in a way he wasn't with women half her age.
"It's okay, you're safe now, it's gone. You're safe."
Her head flopped loosely, blood-filled mouth opening and closing like a dying fish. Her blue eyes were terrified, locked onto Dean's.
Sam gulped down bile and stepped back in some sort of instinctive desire to give his brother and the woman some privacy. Mechanically, he returned to clearing brush from around the Bone-Cleaner, but still strained to hear every word Dean spoke. Hearing the tremor the woman never would underneath the surface calm.
"You're gonna be all right, I promise, you're not alone. Gonna see your family again soon."
She'd been wearing a ring. Sam had seen that much.
The ground cleared, he reluctantly went back to Dean's side to dig the small bottle of lighter fluid out of brother's jacket pocket. Dean didn't acknowledge him, focused on the woman, but he lifted his arm to allow the intrusion. Sam moved away in silence to burn the bones.
Over the crackle of the flames, it took him a few moments to realize he couldn't hear Dean's murmur anymore. Casting one more look at the flames to assure himself they were under control, Sam returned to the edge of the grass.
Dean's body was bowed. Sam barely dared glance over his shoulder, wincing at the empty, staring eyes. Then his brother's hand was sliding over the bloody face, closing the lids, smoothing away the rictal fear.
"Dean," Sam said softly.
Dean ignored him, straightening clothing, limbs. Trying to give her dignity in death she'd been stripped of in dying.
And understanding stole in quietly, like a blessing.
"Dean," Sam whispered again.
"I know, Sam," came his brother's unexpectedly harsh response, delivered with a head tilt over one shoulder. "I lied again, I shouldn't have promised her. I get it."
"That's not what I was going to say," he said gently. "You did the right thing."
Dean had been braced for another argument; Sam could see it in the way he suddenly unthawed a little, posture suddenly not as brittle. "Yeah, whatever," Dean said tiredly.
"Dean," he said with quiet admonishment.
A pause, then Dean was pushing to his feet. "Gotta clean up," he muttered, and headed for the edge of the lake without looking back at the body. It was murky water at best near the shore, but Sam was familiar with the scour of blood on your skin and wasn't surprised when Dean plunged his hands without hesitation through the scum floating on top.
Dean was a protector. Sam had always known that. Heck, he'd relied and thrived on that fact as a kid. He didn't quite have it in him to damn the man now for not having changed just because Sam had. Or for lying to protect if he had to.
It wasn't as if Sam had exactly been ready to stand on his own after Jess's death. He still leaned a lot. Dean just leaned back. Sam couldn't pick and choose his brother's protectiveness; he'd drive them both crazy trying. And even then he probably couldn't drive Dean away.
Was that such a bad thing?
Sam sighed and walked up to the water's edge to crouch beside his brother. He looked out across the surface of the lake, the peace of it almost making him forget the gory scene behind them. They'd have to call in about the woman—anonymously, of course—but for the moment… Sam draped his arms over his knees and looked sideways at Dean and his brother's carefully closed face.
"You can't break any more promises to me, Dean. I need to be able to trust you."
Dean gazed vaguely at the water. "I know."
Sam nodded, also looked out across the lake. "All right."
Dean eyed him then, and Sam saw out of the corner of his eye as the haunted, guarded look on Dean's face slowly melted into naked relief. He'd probably been expecting Sam to leave or something, and that hurt. They needed to learn to fight without tearing each other up. Sam still half-expected his brother to throw the years spent with Jess into Sam's face in the heat of every argument, and it wasn't right. They needed to trust each other.
Sam could start.
He stood, holding out a hand to pull Dean up. Dean took it without hesitation, skin still damp with lake water, and the slope of the bank put them on a rare eye-to-eye level. Sam stared at him hard. "If you do it again, I'm salting and burning your tapes, man. I mean it." Best to state the terms up front.
"Not gonna happen, but if it did, you'd be riding to the next job in the trunk, dude." Terms accepted.
Sam grinned softly, shaking his head and feeling about a hundred pounds lighter. He finally took a breath and nodded toward the grass that hid the woman's body. "We should go make a call."
Sorrow always shifted Dean's eyes to green, Sam had realized weeks before, when the intensity of his own grief had faded enough for him to start noticing his surroundings again. His brother's eyes were a deep moss now, following his gaze into the scrub. "Yeah."
The flames had nearly died out, but they kicked a few clods of dirt over it, then headed back to the car with their weak victory. Dean slowed to keep Sam's labored pace, and Sam walked close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed.
"We'll swing by George's and get you a new lockpick set."
"Okay."
A beat. "Or we can go break yours out of evidence lock-up."
Sam snorted. "Yeah, I don't think so."
"Just saying."
Sam rolled his eyes and smiled. Yeah. I'm sorry, too.
The End