Race Against Myself
-2-
Two months between updates isn't horribly long, right guys? *puppy dog eyes* Sorry about that, and I promise, the next chapters will be up much faster, and I hope y'all enjoy.
Sam's reminded of the first time he learned how to shoot.
John took him into the woods, a dark secluded sort of place that-he thought to himself-seemed like a prime place for the un-dead to congregate. He was nine though and knew better than to say something like that to his father.
It was a short lesson. After proving that he knew how to load the gun, unload it, and take the safety on and off with no mistakes, silently sulking that he was missing soccer practice at his new school because he had to come out in the woods and shoot at air.
How incredibly stupid.
Dean's spread out in the grass behind them, and without watching he knows Dean is running through the lesson in his head and studying his every move-to make sure he's doing like he taught him. He wonders if Dean realizes that if he put half as much work into school as he did into hunting he'd be an honours student, and probably go to Harvard. He knows how smart Dean is, the teachers say so too; he just needs to apply himself.
They don't know that he is-just to other things.
John points his gun into the air and shoots, and Sam jumps in surprise as moments after the shot he hears a dull thud as something dead falls from the air. Embarrassed, he doesn't look at Dean or up at John.
He points-remembering all of Dean's lessons, this is his time to prove to Dean he was listening-and shoots.
Another bird falls from the sky and falls closer. No more than six feet away he sees the white bird-a seagull that looks deceptively like a dove, but its just small, too small to be dead just for a lesson-and the blood pooling over its chest and across its spread wings.
Red on white.
It always reminds him of death-for forever he hates those two colors together. It makes him sick to his stomach too.
He looks back at Dean-this is the first time he's ever killed anything.
I killed it. I killed the bird.
"Dad," Dean jumps up from his seat on the ground, giving Sam a reassuring sort of look. The look that always reminds him, it's okay, everything's going to be alright. Dean gave him the same looks when he used to have nightmares. "Its getting sort of late, and Sam's done pretty good, you think we can head back now?"
"No one made you come, Dean." John tells him. "You didn't have to come if you didn't want to."
Sam ignores the rest of their argument, he doesn't need to listen to know how it goes.
The blood settles in between the feathers, little rivulets of red outlining the white.
He thinks of the bird when he looks at Cas.
They've never seen Cas' wings. Well, he never has. Has Dean?
He thinks the wings are an entity onto themselves. They quiver and flick at Dean's touch and he can only watch in horror. They don't look like feathers, but silk-like silk flowers.
Its like…like…
When they were kids, he and Dean stayed in this backwoods motel for a whole summer, whose only talking point was a view of the Adirondacks from each awful room.
He learned his first real lesson there, two of them. One, that Dean was right and that people are not, not under any sort of circumstances, inherently good, and that two, he hated it when his brother was right.
Don't go outside, Sam. He was in a combative mood with his brother, it had been too many weeks of listening to Dean be the boss, what was he supposed to do when Dean locked himself in the bathroom for a never-ending shower?
Of course he went outside. He wasn't trying to make trouble, though, really. He just wanted a little bit of sun. He took his book, went behind the hotel, and sat in the grassy knoll.
He never had much of a chance to crack it open before he saw another boy, maybe just a little older than him, but not older than Dean, digging in the dirt. Sam saw this as an opportunity to do something he so rarely was given the opportunity to do-make a friend.
"Hi-i-…" Sam's voice caught in his throat in a stutter as he walked up to the boy and saw, to his own nauseating horror that this boy wasn't digging a hole in the ground, but gauging hunks of flesh and fur off of a still twitching tawny rabbit.
He pushed against the boy's shoulder violently, shoving him away from the rabbit. "Leave it alone! You're killing it!"
The boy picked himself up off of the ground and looked down at Sam who realized he'd sized the boy up too fast. He was a lot burlier than he or Dean was, but it didn't matter, he could fight.
"Don' tell me what I kin or kin't do." He drawled in a heavy mountain accent, "A'int hurtin' a'one."
Sam decided not to look back at the rabbit, the evidence of just what this boy had, in fact, done wrong.
"You're killing him." Sam stood in between him and the little rabbit. "I'm not just letting you, that's not right."
What he wanted to tell him was how sick and disgusting he was, but even now Dean had taught him the value of choosing his words with care.
"You dumb city shite." The boy stepped up real close to him, "You k'int tell me nothin' this my pap's land, and our place."
"I don't care." Sam took a step back to the rabbit. Their dad had been teaching him and Dean all sorts of important things about first aid, they could help it until he could get it somewhere safe.
"You gonna care when I make you and it a matchin' pair." He warned, "Now you mind your own business, and I ain't gotta-"
Sam took a swing at his face the way Dean taught him too, wincing as he pulled back his hand. God, that really did hurt.
He turned back while the boy was on his back, and froze. He didn't know what to do, he wanted to help it and he was afraid to touch it and-that was when he felt a concrete blow to the back his head that felt like hitting the pavement.
"You city boys aw'aways need learnin'." He threatened, as Sam fell to the ground, feeling a stab of fear when the boy got closer.
Sam scrambled to his feet, unwilling to let this stupid boy, this bully win. He gulped though, when he saw the flash of silver from that blade.
"We aw'aways need ta teach you boys…" He shakes his head with a threatening glint in his eyes.
"Maybe," Sam takes a step back, thanking God, Jesus, and anyone listening for his brother as he sees Dean running toward them like a bat out of hell. "Maybe you need a lesson."
In a move that would have impressed John, Dean grabbed the boy with a chokehold, dropping him to the ground and pinning him there-immobile.
"Sam," Dean said with the tone that reminded him of their dad, "What the hell is going on?"
Sam pulls the knife from the kids' hand, and for a second, wonders how he'd feel with a taste of his own medicine. The thought makes him sick, but he thinks the boy would deserve it.
That boy is struggling against Dean's grip, but they both know he isn't going anywhere. He may be bigger, but he isn't the stronger one by a long shot.
Sam gestures to the rabbit, and sees that it isn't…it's not even twitching anymore. Not even its nose. Nothing. No…he thinks, blinking back the tears that he refuses to cry, no it can't be dead.
He walks away from them both and sits down by it, carefully touching its head, then petting its nose.
Sam looks back to Dean, still clenching the knife in his hand. "Dean," he bites his lip, swallowing over the lump in his throat, "It's dead."
"Come here, Sam." Dean holds his hand out.
Sam knows what he means, and hands the bloody knife over.
"Go inside." Dean tells him, no arguments in his tone. "Now."
He doesn't argue, and he never asks, ever. All he knows is that anytime he and Dean came outside for the rest of the summer, that boy would run back inside the main building.
Sam decided then that he didn't care as long as the boy wasn't going to hurt any other animals.
He doesn't know why he think of the rabbit when he looks at Cas.
Except that's what it looks like. Like the rabbit. Like something was taken to his wings tearing, burning, ripping, gauging, bleeding them until they looked rusted over with blood.
He doesn't know how Dean can make this better, how either of them can.