Don't Feed After Midnight
Chapter 2
"Mornin'. What you got there Sammy?" Dean asked looking up from cleaning the weapons, as his brother walked in to the library carrying a dusty box.
Sam grinned at him through his hair and began to cut it open.
"This Dean, is a piece of history!" He enthused, pulling a rusty metal box from inside the cardboard one, and flipped it open, to reveal a bundle which he opened in turn.
The thing inside was large, black and clunky looking; and held a crude resemblance to a camera.
"It's a Fairchild k-17 aerial reconnaissance camera, not just any Fairchild k-17 either," Sam shot him a dimpled grin while cradling the thing reverently in his big hands, "this one came from the Lockheed P-38 Lightning crewed by none other than Private Leroy Winchester, in World War 2."
His brother shot him a dubious look. "Right... so you're taking up photography now?"
"Oh no, I doubt it works Dean. And getting film for it would be a mission."
Dean's frown deepened and he opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again, "Leroy Winchester?" He asked finally.
Sam nodded., "It occurred to me after the stuff with Aaron and the Thule that we're Legacies, which means…."
"That Henry wasn't the only man of Letters in the family."
"Right, right, and if there was one thing the Men of Letters loved it was keeping records."
"So this Leroy Winchester was a man of letters, like Henry?"
"Leroy's older brother, Jethro, was actually. There were 3 brothers, Jethro, Leroy and William. That must be where our middle names came from."
"Jethro and William… yeah, explains things."
"Apparently Mom and Dad didn't name you for the character on Beverley Hillbillies, or Jethro Tull after all." Sam smirked. "Can't blame me for wondering."
"I can and I do Sam, just like when we were kids. So, I got the bookworm huh?"
"Jethro actually corresponded with the Judah innitative a number of times, but couldn't join the war effort because of childhood polio, it left him with partial paralysis in his right leg."
"Gimpy bookworm, great." Dean rolled his eyes. "So you've gone all crazy Aunt and developed a fetish for our family tree now? Wonderful! Please tell me you aren't gonna start draggin' all the useless lame-ass family heirlooms outta storage, an' clutter this place up."
"It's not lame or useless." Sam drew the thing back against his chest.
"You just said it probably doesn't work, Sam.
By definition, if it don't work, it's useless."
"It's history Dean, part of the war effort. I thought, I thought you'd like it. I mean you usually can't get enough of old machines. The, the car..."
"Baby ain't useless, she does her job, earns her place…"
Sam's face hardened and it occurred to Dean suddenly, that talking about things, being useless and not earning their place, made him sound like Dad, and that still wasn't a smart move with Sam. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Sam…"
Sam put the camera back in it's box, and let his shoulders slump, all previous animation fleeing.
"No Dean, you're right. Leroy, Jethro, William and Henry, they're all dead, gone. Died in the line of duty. Doing their jobs," his mouth twisted like he'd bitten into something sour.
Dean watched his hand clench, and noted it was the one he'd cut during the demon cure, that final trial meant close the gates of hell.
Suddenly his brother's defensiveness made sense.
"Think I need a shower," Sam muttered and turned his back on him, "I'm covered in dust…" he muttered, waving a hand back at the box, "I'll put it away later, okay?"
Dean watched Sam walk away, feeling troubled. Did Sam still feel that finishing the ritual, and sacrificing himself was his job? That standing down was a failure or made him useless?
He wanted to chase after his brother, tell him, it hadn't been his job, and that standing down had been the right move. The only move.
But he knew Sam wouldn't want to hear that, he could scream it till he was blue in the face, but Sam would still think what Sam thought.
The only thing Dean could do was be grateful his brother was still alive.
Walking over, he looked down at the 'piece of history' Sam had dug up, and lifted it out of the box. Was surprised by the weight of it, caught off guard by the unexpected heft of the contraption he fumbled it, and the antique camera spun out of his hand to clattered to the floor.
"Sonofa.." Dean looked guiltily over his shoulder as he crouched quickly to retrieve it from the ground under the table.
The camera seemed broken, was in pieces on the floor, with what looked like fine splinters of broken glass scattered around the camera and separated lense housing.
"Great, just great, Sammy's never gonna let me hear the end of this." He picked up the lense housing and was surprised to see it wasn't broken after all, what he thought was broken glass from a shattered lense, was in fact, just salt, which must have spilled at some earlier date, when one of them was filling salt rounds.
Dean picked up the body of the camera and looked it over for damage.
Surprisingly, it too appeared unmarked by the fall.
"Guess they really don't make stuff like they used to." He hummed to himself, relieved he wouldn't have to admit to breaking his brother's 'piece of history,' and didn't need to hide the evidence.
Straightening he placed both parts of the camera onto the table again. Oddly the two bits didn't feel nearly as heavy as he had thought the camera had been only a few moments earlier.
It took Dean hardly any time to reassemble and place the reconasance camera safely back into the metal case it had come out of.
Sammy wouldn't be any the wiser, and if something inside it was damaged, he could plead ignorance.
Dean flipped the metal box closed decisively; as he did so, something small and green was swept up out of the box by the puff of air and fluttered to the floor by the hunters boot.
Dean turned back to the weapons he had been in the middle of cleaning, and his boot scuffed over the thing, breaking one of the lobes off the tiny dessicated four leaf clover that had fallen from the box.
—-/—
Authors Note:
Yeap to quote Granny Weather wax "I ain't dead."
A certain person promised me that if I ever wrote this story that she would read it. We shall see.