Chapter Five
Dean surveyed the smouldering wreck of the building.
"Cletus is gonna be pissed. Ow, shit... head hurts" he explained to Sam.
"Your pupils are fine."
"Thanks for the sympathy. Some bastard people-eating thing smashes me up, and as long as my pupils are fine..." Dean's grousing had no bite to it, and tailed off as Sam stared through the remains of the cabin and the Wendigo.
"You know, I could be one of those. A Wendigo. They started out as humans, turned cannibal. The shaman would curse them and then they turned again..."
Dean didn't dare breathe, hoping for the next words, knowing they would hurt. Sam always did choose the weirdest times for confession – catch him half-concussed, strung out, bone-tired, all of the above, and he'd say anything.
"Please." He barely knew he'd spoken, the word just a whisper on the afternoon breeze. No way of knowing whether Sam heard.
"In Hell... there wasn't a lot to eat, and I..." Sam took a deep breath, pushing the words out like splinters of sound. "I was starving, and she would have died anyway. But that doesn't make any difference. She had brown eyes."
"Did you know her?"
"No. I just killed her. She was innocent and I snapped her neck and ate her flesh. And all I could feel was gratitude, that I got to live... We make our own hells and put each other in them. I was her torture, she was mine. That's what I dream about." He closed his eyes against the memory. "The light going out of her eyes and the demons laughing."
Dean thought about hell. The kind you put other people through. The kind of hell Sam was putting himself through every day.
"I don't... It'll get better, Sam. It's screwed up beyond belief, but you'll survive this and one day the dreams will fade."
"Should they? Do I deserve to forget about her, even a little? I have to live with it, not bury it, or I'm not human any more. I'm something less."
"It's done , Sam. There's no point in suffering over it. I hate to see you going through this, not getting any peace, any-" Dean searched for the right phrase.
"Redemption." Sam rolled out the word quietly, like holy writ.
Dean thought back to the time when Dad had traded with the demon, when he'd felt so raw and shamed by the enormity of that sacrifice he'd been ready to die. The idea of it had beaten him down and kept him fighting all at once, trying to repay an impossible debt.
"Yeah. You can't find it by feeling guilty for something you had no choice in. Redemption comes through living. You're alive, so live. Make every second count. That's how we honour the dead." His voice was sure. "How we thank them, and how we atone."
They were silent for some time after that. Smoke hung in the sunlit air and between the trees, dispersed slowly in curling, fading patterns by the light breeze. Eventually Sam levered himself onto his feet and offered a burnt-pink hand to Dean.
"Let's go. It's a long way to the car and the sun's going down."
"Sure." Dean took the offered hand and swung up.
"Thank you." For what, neither of them were entirely sure. Acceptance. Maybe even hope.
"De nada, little brother." They walked on. "Hey, it's been a while since I spoke Spanish."
"Dean, you don't speak Spanish. You make up words."
"Whatever. Wanna go south?"
SNSNSNSNSNSNSN
Epilogue - A phone call.
"Hey Bobby!"
"Dean. Why're you so cheerful-sounding?"
"We found out what was killing those hikers. A Wendigo came calling."
"Don't tell me you boys got it."
"Sure did. Lean mean huntin' machine, here."
"Cocky is what you are. You two okay?"
"Oddly enough, I think we are. Headed for New Mexico - let us know if you're gonna come down, chase chupacabra or anything."
"Sam okay?"
"Yeah. We – uh – talked. It's cool. Want me to steal you a sombrero?"
"God no. Stay out of trouble."
"That reminds me – could you say sorry to Cletus for me, and we'll pay him back?
"Why?"
"We may have, ah, burned down his cabin."
"You what!"
"Thanks a million, Bobby. Be seeing you."
"Go to He-"
-click-