Under a Haystack
By EB
©2006
9. The knave of hearts he stole the tarts and took them clean away
He does his belated research after Dean has gone to sleep that night. Dean – the old Dean – would have known this, Sam is sure of it. They're in the so-called Spooksville Triangle, and he finds the ghost's story on the first page of Google hits. A mother, whose daughter went out on a foggy night and never returned. A grieving mother, searching for her child by lantern light and never finding her, until she went insane.
It's standard fare, and he thinks about the ghost's words – you can't have him, he's mine – and he can feel no anger towards it, not anymore. Maybe it would have been Sam, if he hadn't found Dean. Wandering eternally, a flashlight instead of a lantern, calling Dean's name and hoping to lure someone else's child away, never the same but a welcome replacement.
And just how did he find Dean, anyway? Because whatever happened out in that field, Sam doesn't know what it was. Sending his MIND out of his body, luring a revenant back to himself? That isn't precog, that isn't teke, that's something ELSE new, and he's damn sure he couldn't do it again right now. Knows it for a stone fact. But at the time, there had been NOTHING he could not do, not with the power of his terror and determination backing him up.
Like Max, and the telekinesis, wasn't it? Dean's quick sharp death at the forefront of his mind, galvanized by that vision, and moving some goddamn furniture was a piece of cake.
He wants to ask Dean about it. Dean, I think some of these things only work when I'm scared, when I have nothing else to lose. When I'm scared for YOU. What do you think? Am I full of crap, or what? If someone else is in danger, will it still work? Could I move furniture or have an out-of-body experience or bend a goddamn spoon if it was anyone BUT you? Or does it only work when the person in danger is someone I love?
But he can't ask Dean that, because he won't know, and the Dean in Sam's head just shrugs, because he doesn't know, either. Doesn't know anything Sam doesn't, because the only place that Dean lives any longer is in Sam's memories.
Because he's paranoid, because the mention of CPS has got him thinking like their father, Sam makes them get a very, very early start. Dean isn't himself, still too quiet and puzzled-looking much of the time and all he seems to want to do is sleep, but he can do that in the car and be out of harm's way at the same time, so Sam packs him carefully in the back seat, tucks a blanket around him and adds a stolen pillow before heading out.
They veer east to hit Arkansas instead of continuing through Oklahoma, and Sam feels better when they cross the state line. No signs of pursuit, nothing funky, but he checks the rear-view mirror a lot, partly looking for staties, partly to watch Dean. Who sleeps all the way to Ft. Smith, wakes for a lukewarm breakfast sandwich, and promptly goes to sleep again. Maybe he should see a doctor. Maybe this daze he's in is a sign of something ominous, but Sam pulls over three times that afternoon to check Dean's temperature and it's pretty much normal, and he's certainly not in any pain. The last thing Sam wants to find himself explaining is how a child was brought into the clinic suffering from the aftereffects of hypothermia in the middle of summer. He'd be lucky to fight off CPS; if they really got hard-assed on him, it would be cops he'd be sweet-talking.
He's eager to hit Texas, get where they're going. Missouri's words echo in his mind, but so do his doubts. He's aware that curses are hinky things, that each is kind of unique and is broken in its own specific way, but the number of serious curses that truly cannot be broken is small and definite.
Dad would know. And late in the afternoon Sam turns off at a roadside park, gets Dean awake and settled in with a juice box and a snack, and stands outside the car to call.
"Hi, Dad," he says, watching a semi maneuver into the rest area. "I wanted you to know, right, this stuff, the thing that happened to Dean -- Nothing's changed. I'm gonna try to find out how it happened, you know, but we were at Missouri's, and she said –" He clears his throat. "Said there wasn't anything I could do. We're about to hit Texarkana right now. Look, Dean -- He's younger, Dad. A lot younger. That's what happened, and you know, I'm doing the best I can but I could really use your help. He's – Dean's okay, but he's just a little kid, you know? Doesn't really understand stuff, and he misses you. He keeps asking when we'll find you, and it's one thing when it's, you know, the regular Dean, but he's seven fucking years old. So call me. Please? Any time. We're headed back down to Rockport, probably stay tonight in Nacogdoches or someplace, but do this for Dean. He's – " Sam smiles. "He's a cute kid. And all this, it's kinda hard on him. All right. Please call."
When he looks in the back seat Dean has cracker crumbs on his lips, and he doesn't look quite as distant at the moment. "Where are we?" he asks, looking so interested that Sam feels a glad clench in his chest.
"Here, share." He takes the cheese-and-cracker combo Dean holds out, and chews. "Almost to Texas."
"Didn't we just come from there?"
Sam nods and swallows his food. "We gotta go back. Unfinished business."
"Is it monster business?" Dean asks matter-of-factly.
Sam reaches out to brush Dean's hair back. Needs a trim, bad. "Kinda, yeah. Not hunting, though. I just need to do some research, that's all. Ask some questions." He smiles. "Nothing to be scared about." He hopes, and feels the smile slipping.
"I'm not scared," says Dean in his very rational voice. "What happens then?"
"Well, I'm not sure yet. Guess we'll just have to wait and see."
That gets him a faint nod, while Dean slurps the rest of his juice. "Okay."
"Ready?"
"Yep."
Sam pauses. "Dean, I'm sorry. About the other day. I'm sorry it made you feel like you had to run away."
Dean looks away, face resolute in the waning afternoon light. "Won't do it again."
"Well, I hope not, but maybe we ought to talk about why you did it at all. You really scared me, buddy. Scared me so bad."
Dean glances at him, but there's no ripple in the impassive features, so very adult-Dean right now. Hiding things, keeping a stiff upper lip. "I was mad," he says indifferently.
Sam nods cautiously. "So you left when I wasn't looking. What happened then?"
"Dunno."
"Dean –"
"I don't remember, okay?" Dean says loudly.
Sam says nothing, watches with his throat drying, and Dean shifts a little and looks back out the window and whispers, "It got cold. And then you came."
"You don't remember seeing a lady? With a lantern?"
Dean shakes his head. "Just got really cold. That's all."
The weird thing is, Sam can't tell right now whether Dean is lying or not. And he thinks that scares him, too, maybe just as much as the ghost thing. Maybe a little more.
Feeling not a little like a child himself, Sam asks, "You still mad at me?"
"No," Dean says without pausing, shaking his head. "I'm okay."
"Good." The sense of relief is startlingly sharp. Sam leans over and gruffly kisses the top of Dean's head. "That's good to know."
"Sam? Are we ever gonna see Dad again?"
He's glad Dean can't see his face from this angle. The twinge of mixed guilt and fear is too strong for him to hide. Unlike Dean, he's not all that good at putting a good face on things, and kids have good bullshit detectors built in. Especially this one. "I hope so," Sam whispers. "I really hope so."
He's sort of verbally committed to Nacogdoches for their overnight, so he finds a place to crash and they get settled in. He's surprised Dean's sleepy after his marathon naps, but while Dean yawns and slides under the covers Sam gets out the Dicamillo book and looks at Dean speculatively.
Dean's look brightens, and so Sam stretches out next to him and points the bedside lamp so he can read the pages. He missed most of the story back in that bookstore, and it is good. With Dean curled next to him, warm and sturdy, it's like the rest of the world doesn't exist. Just Edward's adventures, and the safe security of their little room.
Dean's asleep before Sam finishes, and he's so comfortable himself he doesn't want to move yet, so he reads silently and quickly through the rest of the book, curious about the ending. Then, unsure if he wants to smile or maybe cry a little, he gets Dean tucked in and puts the book away in his bag.
His cell phone rings at ten minutes after eleven. There's only one person who could be calling. Sam goes outside, leaving the door ajar so he can hear if Dean makes a sound, and perches on the Impala's hood.
"Hi, Dad," he says softly. "Thanks for calling me back."
"Seven?" His father sounds incredulous, unsurprisingly. "Sam, how in the hell?"
"I think it's a curse." Sam shrugs. "The only possibility I've been able to come up with so far."
"You have to break it. You need Dean, not – this. We can't afford this."
"Dad, this IS Dean. I mean, minus twenty years, but still. It's definitely him." Sam smiles, shaking his head. "Man, the first time he saw me he kicked me in the face. You'd have been proud, I swear. Great reflexes, like –"
"Listen to me." Dad's voice is grainy and immediate, and Sam sort of hates how his spine straightens, hearing that curt command. Fucking Pavlovian, when you come right down to it. "There's business waiting, and I need you boys to see to it. I can't fix this for you; you have to do it on your own. And the clock is ticking, you know that."
"You don't get it, do you?" Sam says bitterly. "God, why did I even bother."
"Stop whining," comes the immediate reply. "Dean wouldn't whine. He'd get the job done, Sam, period."
"Dean? Oh, well, let's talk about Dean, Dad," Sam says crisply. "Want to know how Dean and I spent the last two days? Trying to warm Dean up after a goddamn ghost grabbed him and kept him for twenty-four hours. Want to know how the ghost got him? Because he was looking for YOU. Ran away from me, decided he could find you on his own. You're all he talks about." His voice wavers, and he keeps going anyway. "It's all he wants, to see you. To see his DADDY. You gonna tell him to suck it up, too? Is that what you told him when he really WAS seven? Because I dare you. I fucking DARE YOU to look in those eyes and face him and –"
"Stop."
Sam does, mouth shutting abruptly, because his father sounds as choked as he feels. And that's not a tone Sam ever hears from him, not often enough for it to sound anything but alien. John Winchester never loses that edge, but this guy sounds like he's on the brink of crying.
"What – does he say?" Dad asks after a long uncomfortable moment.
"Aw, man. 'Daddy'll come get me.' 'Don't worry, Sammy, Dad'll take care of us.'" Sam gives a watery sigh. "He doesn't understand, you know? Not everything. To him, this is like a vacation, and pretty soon you'll come get him and he'll know what the hell is going on. But you won't, will you?"
There is another long pause, and his father says, "No."
"You BAST –"
"He can't see me, Sam. We can't afford that."
"Why NOT? It's such a little thing! Christ, can't you do ONE –"
"Because I can't be his father right now. Not like before."
"What –"
"I don't have TIME!" Dad roars, and Sam jerks as if he's been slapped. "There's no TIME, Sam, don't you see? I don't have time and neither do you! Things are progressing! I can't have you off – changing DIAPERS or some crap while we –"
"Dean's a little old for diapers," Sam says slowly. "And he doesn't even know how to read. Seven years old, and he barely knows half the alphabet. Did you know that? Back then? What, did he fall through the cracks? We moved around all the time, and darn, we forgot Dean's elementary education back in Boise. Guess we'll just have to leave it."
"He learned. It took time, but he learned." He sounds – affronted, and that makes Sam feel so very tired.
"Dad, listen to me. Missouri -- She said she didn't think the curse could be broken. That someone died to make this curse real, and unless someone else dies, it won't break."
"Well, she's wrong."
Sam snorts softly. "Yeah, that's what I said, too. Only what if she's not wrong? What if Dean is stuck this way? What do you want me to do, Dad? Leave him? Stick him in an orphanage someplace and –"
"No." It's quiet, and fervent. "Of course not, don't be absurd."
"Well, what then?"
"He dealt with this before. He's tough. He can handle it."
"Yeah, I've seen how tough he is. And I've seen what it costs him, too, I've seen how hard it is for him. He's a little KID! And you want me to put him through it all over again? No way. No fucking way."
He can hear his father swallowing. "All right, then," comes the measured response. Calm, cool, back under control. Let's deal. "What do you want from me, Sam?"
"I want –" Sam sags a little. What does he want? For John Winchester to act like Dean's father instead of – what? Dad was always a hunter first, then a father. Hell, putting it second on the list might be ambitious. Always knew he loved them, and always knew the first thing on his mind was hunting. Always had been, Sam's whole life.
"I want you to give him a hug," Sam says huskily. "And tell him everything will be okay."
"I'm – nowhere near you. I can't, I."
It gives Sam an odd, clenching feeling in his gut, hearing the uncertainty in his father's voice. That wandering, tell-me-what-to-do sound. His anger has evaporated. He takes a slow breath and says, "Then talk to him. Just say hello. Please, Dad."
A very long silence, and then, "All right. Put him on the phone."
"Hang on." He goes inside, and shakes Dean's skinny shoulder with his cold hand. Dean blinks at him, giving a groggily questioning noise, and Sam says, "Guess who wants to talk to you on the phone?"
Dean sits up and rubs his eyes with both fists. "Who?"
"Here." He puts the phone in Dean's hand, helps him because Dean has never used a cell phone, doesn't quite grok that such a tiny thing unattached to a cord actually works. Frowning, Dean says, "Hello?"
Sam stands straight, backs up a few steps, and sees Dean's face dissolve into wonder. "Daddy?"
And that's kinda when Sam loses it, the room gets all blurry and sparkly, and he sits down on the edge of the next bed and has to wipe his cheeks, because Dean's whole BODY is suddenly wide-awake, wonder morphing into tears while he says, "I miss you, Daddy."
He wishes he could hear Dad's responses, and is glad he can't. Thinks maybe it would just finish undoing him, unravel him until he can't do anything but lie there and cry, so he smiles at Dean, nods encouragingly, while Dean listens, and asks his questions, listens some more.
Dean's eyes go to Sam. "He said – he's all grown up, but he's really Sammy." Dean presses his lips together, listening, and nods. "Yes, sir. Okay. Are you gonna come get me now?"
Sam stands up sharply, turns away, because Dad isn't coming, Dad will never come, not like Dean wants him to, needs him to, and the sound of Dean's forlorn sobs burns into Sam's skin like acid. If Dad's close to the fucker that killed Mom and Jess, then he needs to keep going. And in the same moment, his brain snarls, Yeah, because that's more important than a little kid. Just a little squirt, who gives a shit about him? It's all about the hunt, Sammy-pie. That's all it will ever be about, and don't you fucking forget it.
But Dean isn't crying anymore, and when Sam risks another look Dean's wiped away his tears, is nodding slowly at whatever Dad is saying. And it feels ridiculously good to hear Dean whispers, "I love you, too, Daddy," because nothing else really matters except Dad said it, said what Dean needed to hear.
"Will you call me again?" Dean asks, and even smiles a little at whatever he hears. "Okay. Yeah. Bye, Dad." He looks at Sam. "He wants to talk to you again."
Sam takes the phone, holding it loosely at his side. "You okay, buddy?"
Dean gives an unsteady nod. "Yeah."
"Gimme just a minute." He strides outside, and holds the phone to his ear. "Yeah."
"Jesus, Sammy." There is a breathless sound to Dad's voice, one Sam finds weirdly familiar. Shades of his own reaction, when it first happened. "He's really – a child."
"Yeah, no joke." Sam nods slowly.
"I – remember. I remember him, that age. He -- We were in Amarillo, six months, and then there was the vampire in Enterprise. Alabama. My god."
"Thank you for talking to him. I think it helped."
"I understand now. I think." Dad still sounds shaky, but there's a depth of belief in his voice that was entirely absent before he spoke to Dean. "Sam, I – apologize, I thought -- I don't know what I thought."
That I was just bitching for the hell of it, probably, Sam thinks dourly, but doesn't say it out loud, for once. "It's okay," he says instead, although it isn't, not really. Doesn't matter. "But if this doesn't work -- If I can't break this curse, then things are gonna change. They have to change."
"You can still do the work." Dad pauses, and then adds, "But of course. He's a – child. It was different when you were kids. Had to be."
Not that different. Let's not veer off into revisionist history. "Call him when you can," Sam says tiredly. "He needs to hear from you."
"I will," Dad promises, in a tone Sam doesn't trust. "Let me know what happens. Please."
"Yeah. I can do that. Thanks for calling."
"Be careful. He can still help, but."
"I know. Believe me."
His father hangs up without anything more, and Sam closes his phone and has to swallow a couple of times before he can make himself go back into the room. Dean is still sitting up in bed, knees clasped to his chest. He looks alertly at Sam.
"Feel better?" Sam asks, coming over to sit next to him.
Dean nods.
"What did he say to you?"
"That he couldn't come get me right now, because there were things he had to do. Hunting things."
There's a steadfast belief in Dean's eyes that Sam hates, suddenly. Hates that his father has inspired such faith, such trust, and yet abandoned this child in the very same breath. "What else?" Sam asks hoarsely.
"That I had to do what you say, because you're my brother, and you'll look out for me. Because that's what brothers do."
Sam nods with difficulty. "Well, he's got that part right."
"And you're gonna make me grown-up again."
"Did he say that?"
"Yeah. And then I can help again, because I'll be big like you and strong."
"You want that?"
Dean looks up at him, a dry expression – "duh" – in his eyes. "Well, yeah."
"But it's okay to be little, too, right?" Sam watches him carefully. "Right? Because Dad and me, we're not sure this will work. You might get big again, you might not. And either way, you're still Dean. Big or little."
"But I can help better if you make it work. Chasing the bad things."
"True. But." Sam pauses uncertainly. Then thinks, It's late, kid is zonked, and I have no idea how I'd say this anyway. "Listen. Time to go to sleep, okay? We'll talk more in the morning."
Dean stifles a yawn and nods. "Okay."
But after Dean's asleep, Sam sits up, staring out the grimy window and glancing at his silent phone from time to time. Where is Dad now? Is he close to what all three of them seek, or is that a fantasy? Does it matter anymore?
He has no answers. Just questions piling on top of more questions, an endless growing mountain of uncertainty.
He goes to bed sometime around two, but sleep is a long time coming.