Chapter 31

Wednesday, May 1st, 2002

Sam had taken his limping brother through Miriam's tent door and deposited him in a chair, to take stock of the ways he'd been hurt while they waited for Miriam to come back. He wasn't sure what would come next, what else there was to do here. Dean had been cut and scraped, twisted something in his leg, thrown, tossed, choked - he said all this to Sam while promising that he was fine, but it was the least sounding 'fine' Sam had heard come out of his mouth. To tell the truth, Dean looked five minutes to death in the low light of the tent. He was worried what the light of day might show, whenever the sun came out again.

It wasn't long before Miriam returned with Ivan in tow. A tight bandage was wrapped around one of his legs, the pant leg cut off, and his bare arms bore the marks of a cat fight. His hair was broken from its gelled place and his skin was pale as salt. He had walked in alongside his mother using her cane as support, nodding in his typical gruffness towards Dean when they met eyes. Dean looked amazed. Sam would learn later what had happened.

Miriam didn't ask what had happened outside the tent and neither shared what had happened inside it. She gave them quick directions towards the next town and the brothers slipped out of the room. But not before Miriam gave a cursory not towards Dean and placed a soft hand on Sam's arm, sharing a wink, then moved to care for her son.

He'd been shocked to see the car; the bullet hole in the back window, and dents in the metal against the driver's side. Dazed, he'd helped Dean get in the passenger's seat and stepped back while he situated himself, wondering exactly what kind of hell he had left his brother in, but the engine still turned over. And so they lived now in the darkness of nightfall, stopped along the side of a back road where Sam had pulled the car over. They were in the middle of a stretch of farmland on a road that had no lines and plenty of potholes. They sat for a moment in the idle car, letting the heater blow. Neither spoke, only stared at the night around them. The rain had slowed to a drizzle while he'd driven and had now gone still.

Sam took himself out of the car and walked around, opened Dean's door. Their clothes were wet still despite the drive. He helped Dean out his belt and set him against the side of the car, then moved to the trunk to dig through their bags. The zipper of Dean's suitcase had split open in whatever impact had dented the car, his clothing in a wild pile, tossed everywhere. As he grabbed for clothes to use, he caught the sense of his detachedness, that he couldn't possibly be here, in this moment. No, he was somewhere else, hearing Miriam's words. Someday this pain will be useful to you. He'd thought, when will that be? Maybe he was happier holding onto it for now, till the time came.

They fell into an old dance of sorts. Helping Dean peel off the old clothes, careful of his pains and the forming bruises. Sam was reminded of the times this had happened at home - wherever that might have been at the time - after something or other had gotten a hold of him while they had been out with John. He was reminded too of how sick the sight always made him; Dean grimacing, sucking in his breath, bleeding, or worse. He knew it too, Sam thought, what it did to him. That was why he always pretended the help never bothered him.

There was no pretending tonight. Although the sky had stopped pouring rain over them clouds still covered the stars and a breeze blew its last breaths across the fields. They hadn't said anything much after getting in the car, and neither during the drive down the country road, Dean a perfect statue while he stared blankly out the window in his soaked clothes. Sam had done the same. Not one word of the charm or the shredded tire or the storm or the friendly witch, nor Dean's less-than-friendly witch. But now Dean stood shivering. When the shirt came over his head his teeth were chattering though his mouth was closed, and his skin underneath was nothing but goose-bumps, his hands clasped into fists at his sides. Sam wondered if the sun were out what he would see. He elected to put a dry shirt on him instead.

"Here, put this over you," Sam said, pulling a spare blanket around Dean's shaking shoulders. He was stiff as a board. He let Sam put the blanket around him, closing his eyes no doubt at the feel of the dry fabric. Sam's hands were cold, but he knew that if he could have felt it, Dean's skin would have been ice. His heart had hardened over the events of the day but he couldn't help the instinct to care for his brother. "Get back in the car, let the heater blow on - "

Dean jerked his head, humming his dissent. "No," he said through gritted teeth, "I can't - can't sit in there. Right now."

Sam opened his mouth to convince him, but stilled, watching as the grief fell over Dean's face, his shaking growing stronger despite the blanket. Dean opened his eyes and looked up to the sky, the whites gleaming.

"I almost - " He stopped, and swallowed. "Almost killed us. Got us killed. It's - " The dam spilled over and a tear ran a fast track down his cheek, but Dean's swipe was faster. The fabric of the blanket ate the tear before it could fall from his jaw.

For a moment Sam didn't know how to answer. Because Dean was right. He almost had. So Sam settled for rubbing the Dean's shoulder in camaraderie, watching his face. Dean sagged under the new weight and leaned back against the car. When his head dipped the welled tears fell this time, a few spare drops to add to the rain of the day, striking Sam at his buried heartstrings. It wasn't that Sam had never seen Dean emotional. But seeing Dean's body, so saturated and heavy with guilt, and knowing that these tears weren't out of any physical pain but from the rawness of how strong he felt, it was…

Sam's nose burned suddenly. He sniffled and rolled his eyes, washing away the moister in them. He stepped away, taking his hand with him. "You, uh - you better lose your pants, too, Dean. You're gonna freeze." From under his arm Sam took the new clothes and set them on the roof of the car.

For a moment Dean hadn't seemed to hear, but he nodded, pushing himself away the car. Through the opening in the blanket Dean fumbled at his belt with numbed fingers, thick with cold, wincing at what pain he felt in his shaking hands, at the metal tink each time his fingers died. Dean's breathing sounded hard and Sam took a deep one of his own. He turned in place, stalked away before he saw anything more, before he lost his cool and did anything to help. This mess was both of theirs, in the end - he was understanding that now - but he didn't feel ready to cross this ravine. Sam went back to the trunk and removed his own wet clothing, stuffing them back in his duffel without a worry for how they would dry. He could hear Dean's shuffles a few feet away as he slowly changed.

The dark fields stretched out around them like waves of black ocean, the tops of the fauna catching whatever light they could like scant gems, swaying in the dying tendrils of the breeze. It felt oddly warmer now that the rain had stopped, and Sam let out a relieved sigh as he sat on the roadside pebbles, atop the mouth of an irrigation ditch. His bare feet skirted mere inches above the surface of the water. The hazed light of the moon was reflected in the collected water that rushed passed, in a way Sam could sympathize with. He didn't know how irrigation ditches worked and if this was the rain from the death of the storm. And after his time with Miriam, and seeing it with his own eyes, Sam knew that 'death' was the only appropriate word for it. He let his mind wander along the surface of the water, riding the reflection of moonlight on the ditchwater till it sank and disappeared, wishing himself away along with it.

The sound of footsteps and dislodged pebbles brought Sam out of the scene and back to his body, and the feeling of Dean's hand on his shoulder was heavy while he eased himself down to sit beside him. Dean still had the old blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape, and before he cinched it up under his chin Sam could see the new dry t-shirt and black gym shorts. He hadn't noticed at first but he'd given Dean one of his own t-shirts.

"Do you feel better?" Sam asked.

Dean rocked himself side to side, lodging the blanket underneath his legs to trap himself inside the warmth. He nodded. "Thank you." In the scant light Dean's face looked awash in a pale glow. The shadows under his eyes stood out in contrast while his hair stood wildly on end. Somewhere he must have found something dry enough to rub over is head. There was no doubting that he was exhausted, and, Sam hoped, warm. Sam looked down at his own hands where he was picking at his palm, stifling the instinct to reach out and wrap Dean tighter in the blanket, then back out at the horizon.

"I'm…sorry, Sam." Dean's voice was barely above a whisper, grim, joining the quiet lull of the wind.

Sam felt his chin jut out, grow tense, but he still let the words sink in. "I know you are," he answered. Sam let a heartbeat pass. "And I am too."

The breeze hefted slightly, shuffling the stalks in the fields, lifting away a few strands of Sam's hair before falling short again. Dean huddled closer to himself.

"The charm," Dean said finally. "You sounded like you…" He faded away, tentative, like he was reaching for Sam to catch on.

"Yeah, we figured it out. Miriam and I. And it - " Sam broke off as a snide laugh left his mouth. "Explained a lot."

"A lot of…what?"

"At the Chevron you said it was something for good luck while we were on the trip, but it wasn't."

Dean huffed through his nose. "Yeah, tell me about it."

"It was a summoning charm."

Dean stilled while he looked at Sam in shock, his brows raised in curiosity.

Sam went on, "For ghosts."

Dean blinked his narrowed, tired eyes once, twice, then broke his stare to look out a the field. Sam saw his eyes widen over the next few moments as the layers peeled back in his mind.

"There was wormwood for conjuration, and…other things that I don't know what they were, but Miriam did. Ms. Gonzales, she'd used your hair as an 'anchor'," Sam said, "to give the ghosts a place to focus on so they would follow us, and so the charm would know where to return to whenever it was in danger. And she'd used one of mine as the only one who was allowed to…" He gestured vaguely, as though he were tearing something, then dropped his hands with a shake of his head. "Dispatch it, is the word Miriam used. Ms. Gonzalez probably thought I would never find out about the charm in the first place, so that you wouldn't be able to destroy it. But I guess that's why I was able to steal it from you…when I did."

That gave Dean another shock. His mouth was open when he faced back to Sam. "One of your - a hair?"

Sam nodded. "So it was a good thing, I guess you could say. You thinking she needed my hair, too."

"No, I did not give her a piece of your hair. I never would have done that."

Sam met Dean's stare. That can't be right, he thought, but the tired insistence in Dean's eyes, and the assuredness that he said his words, gave Sam pause. "You didn't."

"Fuck no I didn't."

Sam stared on, focusing his eyes to find the lie, and while he might not have found it Sam still couldn't decide whether or not to believe him, all things considered.

He broke off and scrubbed his hand over his face, at his eyes, trying to be clean of this night and its contents. "Whatever," he said, "it doesn't matter anymore. It's done."

Dean, though, was dazed. "That fucking…" Sam looked back at the water in the ditch, nodding his head. "She really fucked over…everybody."

They shared another fleeting moment of silence while Dean came to his terms, Sam supposed. And while Dean told his story of the night, of being attacked by the witch who wouldn't die, who had blamed the both of them for Ms. Gonzales' shit, Sam only listened. It wasn't until he'd reached the explosion in the mirror house, where Ivan had come to save him, that he'd felt his heart blip with a tense feeling. It was like being an observer while two cars narrowly missed an accident, that fastening of his anxiety knowing that they had avoided a tragedy by nothing more than mere seconds on a clock. Dean told Sam of the many times he almost died, and the one moment he thought he had.

"And it was, like…" His voice had taken on a gravely sound while he talked, exhausted beyond function. "Like you'd been snatched from me for everything I'd done. I was paying for it. If I was going anywhere, I knew it was hell. I didn't deserve anything else."

Sam looked down, swallowing. Where he picked at his hand was now a sharp pain. He found his own anchor there, in that pain, so he could keep what he was hearing at a little bit of a distance. He better understood Dean's early words and the tears he'd shed, now. Almost killed us. Got us killed. The danger had been real, he knew, but he hadn't known of the killer chasing Dean, only knew that he could feel his power, his bloodlust, while he was pinning Dean to the ground. Perhaps it wasn't as clear before, before he'd reached this place of hindsight. A piece of him wanted to return to the ignorance.

"I'm so sorry, Sam," Dean said again. "For what happened with dad a year ago and for what happened tonight, for lying to you - everything. For all of it. And I was never mad about the money, just…being an asshole."

Sam took a deep breath and held it in, looking at the soft haze of the moon through the dispersing storm clouds. They passed as though they had somewhere else to be, rushing away in the way that left a person feeling dizzy on the solid ground, and even as he watched the moon was revealed in her fullness, the clouds no longer interested in hiding the night. Dean's prodding gaze was heavy on Sam's face. Words meant more at night, Sam thought. They were the clouds parting to let the moon shine. Revealing, somehow. Maybe it was in the weightlessness of the night where you could let truths fly, and they wouldn't be shot down by the sun.

And yet, Sam still found it hard to speak. Couldn't admit that certain pieces of this had been his fault too. He'd backed Dean into a corner where he'd felt no other option than to lie. He knew that. Yet…these were the kinds of truths that the years would swallow and hide behind other things, like common clutter in a closet, till the day came where he could face them.

"Sam?"

In the distance a yellow light appeared through a window, letting the squat house take shape in the night as it hadn't before.

"You know, I'd feel a lot better if you answered me."

"What do you want me to say, Dean?" Their tones were so conversational, quiet, it was almost as if the world hadn't almost ended that night.

"That you - that I didn't screw things up between us. Again."

Sam looked around, suddenly holding his breath, though he kept his features trained, neutral. It was true, but…

"I…" Sam started. The strength he'd clutched at so far was beginning to wane so his voice was thin. "Can't say that, exactly."

They sat.

"What do you want to do now?" Sam asked, to Dean or to the world around him.

Dean kept his eyes on Sam, waiting for some elaboration, most likely, so that it wouldn't make the type of sense Dean was most afraid of. The yellow light disappeared from the window just as it had come, in an instant.

Sam let out his breath. "I think I want to go home," he went on, turning to Dean. "Back to Lyon. To…" He paused, reading Dean's expression. "Whatever. Straighten things out. Then we can go somewhere else, you and me." Sam swallowed. "Right?"

They stared at each other for a beat of the heart. In his eyes Dean held the rawness of his skinned emotions, his drained spirit, his well that had gone dry, but still his voice was silent. His eyes had spoken for him. Sam saw that it stung. Good, he'd thought. Because it hadn't been clear enough to Sam before then that Dean's apology was genuine. Dean nodded silently, looking away, but together they spent a silent moment more before rising.