Under a Haystack

By EB

©2006

6. She sat by the fire and told a fine tale

After a while he's aware of Missouri's warmth next to him, seated on the porch step. Sam coughs and wipes his cheeks and asks, "Is he okay?"

Matter-of-fact, Missouri holds out a clump of tissues, and pats his back after he takes them. "Oh, Dean's just fine, sugar. I introduced him to Duchess, and they're already best friends."

Sam blinks at her. "Duchess?"

"Oh, don't ever tell her she's a dog. She KNOWS she's really a human." Missouri gives a fond smile. "Out back. No," she says, when Sam starts to rise. "Just leave them be. Little boys and dogs are like butter and honey; they just go together naturally."

Sam subsides, and turns his head to blow his nose. "Guess you're wondering how this happened."

"I'd say a curse. From someone pretty powerful, too."

"That's just it. I don't know who put the curse on him. If I did, I feel like I could – break it, undo it."

Missouri's eyes are dark and not without sympathy, but her words hit him like two-by-fours. "Sugar, it don't work that way. You know that."

Sam glares at her. "Of course it does. There has to be a way! I just –"

"There are curses, and then there are curses," she interrupts, nodding to herself. "Some, well, it's just a matter of appeasement. Fixing whatever got broken, or messed up. Some, though." She pauses, and sighs. "Some, there ain't no fixing, Sam. Some you just gotta learn to live with."

"So what are you saying?" Sam demands, drawing back a few inches and staring at her. "That – Dean's gonna STAY this way? I won't accept that! I refuse!"

Missouri lifts her chin. "Come on inside. I think we'll need coffee for this."

"I don't WANT coffee, I want answers!"

She nods. "And I got those, too, but I don't know that you're gonna want them once you know what they are. Come on. If you don't want coffee, I do."

It's cool inside Missouri's house, comfortable, and Sam glances around before following her down the hall to the kitchen. He's never seen this room before, but it fits his preconceptions: cozy, clean, organized. It smells like baking, something sweet, and his mouth waters. He sits at the battered table and watches while she busies herself making their coffee. The phone rings, and Missouri glances at him.

"Why don't you go check on that boy? I need to take this, and the coffee'll be a few minutes."

The hallway ends in a screen door looking out over the small, tidy backyard. Sam can already hear laughter before he opens the door, and has to smile when he sees Dean ruffling the ears of a medium-sized dog, shaggy fur almost the exact shade of old gold as Dean's own hair.

"Looks like you made a friend," Sam calls, stepping down onto the grass.

Dean casts him an open, unguarded smile, and Sam's heart clenches at the strangeness of that totally natural boyish look on Dean's face. "That's Sammy," Dean informs the dog, who gazes up at him with tongue-lolling adoration. "He's my brother. Used to be my little brother and now he's my big brother."

Sam lowers himself down next to them, grins when the dog sniffs his hand and then dismisses him in favor of Dean. "You have chocolate on your face."

Dean snickers and goes back to bonding with the dog. "Missouri made cookies."

"Oh, really? Awesome."

"They were good."

"Feel better now?" Sam asks.

Dean nods. "Can I go to the park? I bet Duchess would like the park."

Catching his hopeful look, mixed with no little slyness – Duchess isn't really the one who wants to go to the park, after all – Sam finds himself laughing. "Well, it's kinda late now. How about tomorrow?"

"Okay."

"Hey, I bet this is hers." Sam reaches out to grab a battered tennis ball. Dean crows, and jumps up to fling the ball across the yard. With a sharp bark Duchess tenses and flies after it, and Dean throws his head back and laughs, unfettered, just purely happy in the moment.

"Told you," Missouri says from the open screen door. "Love at first sight."

Sam climbs to his feet, brushing grass off his jeans. "Totally." He walks over. "Coffee?"

"Just about ready."

"Hey, Dean?"

Dean looks up from where he's wrestling with Duchess in the grass. "Yeah?"

"Be careful."

"I'm okay." Dean rolls his eyes and turns back to the dog.

The cookie smell is mixed with coffee now, and Sam accepts a cup, sighing as he sits back at the kitchen table. "So," he says after tasting the coffee. "I'm not gonna like hearing this, am I?"

Missouri settles in with her own coffee, in a chipped red cup. "Well, that depends on you, doesn't it?"

"You know, I really hate it when people answer questions with questions."

"I didn't much care for Dean, when I met him last year." Her honesty makes him squint at her, and she raises her eyebrows and shrugs. "Can't tell a lie. Something about him back then, felt like biting on tinfoil. Hard edge to him, hiding so much of who he was."

Sam shifts awkwardly. "Dean, he's got his own coping mechanisms. You have to look deeper than that."

"Oh, I did. And what I saw was good. No doubt about that. I'd have done more than razz him if I didn't." She looks down into her cup. "He's already learned some of that hardness, that boy outside." Now she looks back at Sam. "Only it's already different for him. Just this little space of time. You're changing things, Sam. Already have, a little."

Sam nods grimly. "Maybe not for the better."

"Can't tell that yet." Her expression hardens. "Breaking a curse like the one fixed up your brother requires a sacrifice, child."

"Anything," Sam says. "I mean that."

Missouri nods and says, "A mortal sacrifice."

Sam swallows. "Someone has to die?"

"Someone already has died. You think power like that comes from the air? A curse like that, someone is dead. And someone else, who loved that person like you love that boy out there, they done it."

"Then," Sam says carefully, "why isn't Dean dead?"

Missouri shifts in her chair, takes a sip of her coffee. "When you put love in the mix – love like I think caused this in the first place – funny things can happen. See, you can't shape a high-level curse to your will, not completely. Ain't you ever heard of the genie that grants wishes, and all of 'em backfire? You gotta read the fine print, that much is always true."

Dry-mouthed, Sam nods. "So this – backfired."

"Oh, I didn't say it did. But whatever that person called down on poor Dean out there, it took the form of proper vengeance." Her eyes narrow. "Y'all had any dealings with children? Before this happened?"

Sam's mouth opens, closes, and then he whispers, "A werewolf. She was – young, not as young as Dean, but –"

"Then there you have it."

"But we didn't kill her! We – didn't have the heart, either of us."

Missouri sighs, and reaches out to touch his wrist. "Baby, something happened back there. Maybe something you just don't know about yet. And whatever it was, it cost some daddy or mama their baby, and that curse rained down on your brother's head. Eye for an eye, Sam: you won't break that curse without a like sacrifice."

His headache is crucifying; he touches his temple and feels his stomach churning from the strong coffee. "He'd do it for me," Sam whispers. "I know he would, without hesitating. How - How can I do any less?"

Missouri gives his arm a squeeze. "You're hurting right now, and you're real tired. It's a handful, keeping up with a child, guess you're learning that now."

"I feel like – I don't know what I'm doing," he says unsteadily. "What if I let him get hurt? A few nights ago –"

"I know. I know you both did what you had to do, to make sure nobody else got hurt. And you been carrying that around ever since, like it's your fault that that boy saw such awful things, but Sam, it ain't you that brought that ghul to life, nor made it the way it is. You know that. In your heart of hearts, you know that good and well." She draws her hand back, smiles at him sadly. "It's just the way things are. And both of you are just fine, aren't you?" She cocks her head when Dean's delighted laughter carries from the open back door. "Children got their own strength, Sam. Wouldn't none of us survive if that weren't so."

"He's not a child," Sam whispers. "Not really."

"Shouldn't be. But that's no grownup out there right now, either."

He nods slowly.

"You'll stay here tonight, won't you? Been a while since I had overnight guests, and I been looking for an excuse to get out those new linens."

He produces a shaky smile. "I'd like that. Thank you."

"You'll see things clearer in the morning."

He isn't sure of that, but he nods anyway.

Missouri makes a huge supper for them that evening, pork chops and all the trimmings, and a peach pie. Sam's stomach is still dicking with him, so he doesn't do much more than pick at his food, but Dean demolishes two platefuls, no sign that he was sick with a stomach bug only a couple of days ago.

After coffee, which does absolutely nothing to lift the caul of sleepiness now sliding over Sam's eyes, Missouri shows them down another hallway, revealing a guest bedroom and, further down, another bedroom that was clearly once for a kid, although Sam thinks it was definitely for a girl if the pink wallpaper is any indication.

The bedtime rituals are becoming less unfamiliar. Not comfortable, but a kind of routine. It strikes Sam, watching Dean brush his teeth, how often his memories of such times are tinged with Dean's influence. Dad might have done the best he could – Sam's of two minds about that, although he's developing more than a little reluctant sympathy – but it was once again Dean who enforced the bedtime rules, Dean who –

Well. Sam swallows. If Missouri's right, he'd better get used to the role-change. At least on the short term.

It's barely dark when he pulls Dean's door to and goes to bed himself. He can hear Missouri talking endlessly on the phone, a muffled conversation Sam doesn't try to overhear. The bed is high and old-fashioned, and Missouri's new linens smell like the packaging, a sharp-sour scent that reminds Sam of Elmer's glue.

He's asleep, and then his eyes open and a part of him knows this is the dreamscape, this isn't reality, not quite, but it doesn't really matter anymore. His life is hedged with nightmares, bordered and shut-in and defined by them these days, and in his dream he thinks, Is this the dream? Or is everything else?

The worst part is, he still has a headache in his dream.

Dean, turning to grin at him, pop bottles and candy in his hands, eyebrows waggling like, hey, see, two of the four major Winchester food groups. Sam draws a breath to scream, Don't go, don't fucking GO, DEAN, and their father says, Let him go, Sammy. You want him to give you freedom, but you won't do it yourself. How fair is that? Be fair to your brother.

Sam tilts his head back and stares into the sky, and sees Jess against the clouds, mouth gaping and tears falling. When he looks away, screaming, a woman walks down a sidewalk, holding a child's hand. What a beautiful pair, mother and son, and the blond boy glances up at Sam on their way past, smiles a luminous smile and winks. He has blood caked in the corners of his mouth. Sam reaches out to take the woman's arm, and she snarls at him, revealing sharp, long teeth.

At the end of the street, the deserted, dusty street, lies his father, dead in a pool of dark red blood.

Sam sags to his knees, and looks down at his arms, covered with flames.

He screams, and opens his eyes, his real eyes, maybe, is there such a thing as real, he can't tell anymore. Stares at the little boy staring at him, and gasps, "You're not him. I want him BACK."

Dean doesn't say anything. His expression is hard to read, maybe scared, maybe something else, something wrong, and Sam flings the heavy coverlet back, stumbles off the too-high bed and staggers before his knees finally cooperate.

"Sammy?" Dean asks, in his piping child's voice, high and terrified.

Sam lumbers out the door, down the hall, and finds himself in the backyard. Duchess growls, then subsides, standing stiff-legged by her kennel, as wary as Dean no longer is, and Sam sobs and goes on, until his back is against a tree, cool middle-of-the-night air soft on his wet cheeks.

Sam is not going to see Dean again, his Dean, Dean is gone, nothing but memories that now seem like Star-Trek temporal-anomaly doublespeak. There won't be any more convenience-store breakfasts, no more teasing about cassette tapes and no more junior-high pranks. Dean is DEAD, HIS DEAN, his BROTHER, and Sam howls his grief to the sky, and hears Duchess joining the chorus, bewildered and vigilant and unbearably sad.

Then Missouri is gathering him to her perfume-smelling breast, soft hands and softer voice, crooning without words, and Sam leans against her and gasps, "I MISS him."

"Shhh. Oh, child, such power. Oh, baby, yes, it's hard to bear, isn't it?"

"It's like he's – DEAD, I lost him, and I'll never get him back."

"Go on, let it all out." Missouri rocks him as he's rocked that child, that imposter, the changeling bearing his dead brother's name. "It don't feel like him, I know that. He's your big brother, and he's always done for you, only now it ain't the same." Her broad hand curves over his head, strokes his hair. "But child, sometimes those dreams don't give us the whole story. You know that. By now, you know it, don't you?"

He can't think of anything to say, because he doesn't, he isn't sure of anything. Missouri hums under her breath, a tune Sam can almost identify but not quite, and when he raises his head he sees Dean sitting on the back porch stoop, motionless and silent. Watching, a child with his nose pressed to the glass, looking in.

He can't stand that, can't see that loneliness that so completely matches his own, and so he pushes away, stands with his arms hanging at his sides and says, "Oh, Dean," and Dean's pale face crumples.

Sam drops to his knees, holds out his arms, and Dean trudges over, cheeks shiny with uncomprehending tears. He's a solid weight against Sam, a kind of comfort Missouri could never be, no one else on the planet ever could be but the one who's not here, who IS here, and Sam smiles shakily when Dean's arms lock around his neck. The dichotomy is still there, but as long as this lasts, it will always be there, and isn't this a gift, of a sort?

"It's okay, Dean," Sam whispers. "We're okay."

Against his shoulder, Dean nods.