A/N 1: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed, or favourited or alerted! Thanks to dcp8, Queen Bee and mellon who reviewed anonymously... I really appreciate the comments :-)
A/N 2: I've never been to Death Valley, so I can't say from personal experience, but in the pictures it looks very beautiful. The opinions of it expressed by the characters here (namely Dean!) are not the opinions of the author... we all know how Dean mouths off when he's upset!
Disclaimer: I don't have time for any of this blah blah blah blah...
SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN
"What?" Any amusement that might have been mixed into Dean's voice before was now distinctly absent. He glanced out through the window again, as if to confirm to himself what he'd not fully realised before. "There's no gas?"
"Yuh." Sam still wasn't looking at Dean.
Dean closed his eyes for a long moment, and then turned very deliberately to face his brother.
"In other words, we are actually stranded in the ass-end of nowhere."
Sam's jaw worked, but he didn't answer.
"Sam." Dean's voice was deceptively mild. "Do you mind telling me what the hell you were thinking? You managed to drive us spectacularly off course, somehow mysteriously ignoring the map, the road signs, the fact that we were driving on a gravel road, and then didn't even notice that we were running out of gas?" A thought occurred to him. "What about the spare can?"
"Empty." For the first time Sam looked at him. "And that's your fault, Dean, because you used it on that black dog."
Dean's eyes flickered.
"Black... oh yeah. If I remember correctly, I went back to the motel and collapsed with flu, and since then you haven't allowed me behind the wheel. So enlighten me as to when I'm supposed to have filled it up, Sam!"
Sam was sullenly silent. Dean ran his hands through his hair.
"This is just... this is unbelievable."
"Dean –"
"What, Sam? Please tell me you have some brilliant plan for getting us out of this, or at least a really good explanation! Because right now all I'm seeing is us sitting here becoming prunes when we should be in Vegas, just because you somehow managed not to look at the gas meter!"
"I didn't even want to go to friggin' Vegas!" Anger sparked in blue-green eyes. "It was your idea, and then you got to sleep while I had to drive. You're not the only tired one, Dean –"
"Oh, don't even go there, Sam! I offered to drive, and you wouldn't let me –"
"Yeah, I wouldn't let you because you've just had flu, Dean! You should still be in bed! You can barely walk to the bathroom! If you'd been driving we would probably be wrapped around a tree now, or in some ditch, because you would have gotten dizzy behind the wheel and blacked out or something!"
"I would not!"
"This whole idea was stupid, and if you'd only listened to me –"
"If I'd listened to you, Sam, I would be certifiable by now. If I'd listened to you we would still be in that motel room! Maybe after another brain-meltingly boring week we could have gone for an exciting trip to a library, and then we could have gone back to our thrilling room and watched spine-tingling documentaries together, because God forbid we should ever do anything that's actually fun or relaxing!"
"I have no problem with doing something fun, Dean, it's just that your idea of fun usually seems to involve something illegal or stupid!"
"Yeah? Well, all I know is any time I ever suggest doing anything other than work you look down that long nose of yours and raise objections and get all disapproving!"
"I don't always disapprove –"
"Oh really? When was the last time I suggested we do something together that wasn't a hunt, and you just agreed without giving me some long sermon?" Dean scrubbed one hand over his face. "Man, you're a great hunter, I'll give you that, but as a companion you really suck."
He knew, as soon as the words were out, that he'd hurt his brother. Sam's face twitched, as it always did when he was shocked or upset: his eyes widening fractionally and then hiding behind lowered lids; his lips curling as his nostrils flared. He tilted his head slightly, jerkily, and Dean saw him swallow.
A small part of Dean, the part that always stayed calm and focused, wanted to kick himself for what he'd said. He'd thought it, maybe even meant it to a certain extent, but if he hadn't been angry he would not have dreamt of actually saying it out loud.
But the same anger that had prompted him to verbalise the thought now kept him from really regretting it. Sam had been stupid, had been careless. He'd been so scathing about Dean's Vegas plan, so disapproving, and then he'd somehow managed to land them in what looked to be a serious predicament. Resentment and annoyance warred briefly with brotherly concern, and won.
He clenched his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath through his nose.
"So. Any brilliant ideas?"
Sam leant against the driver's door of the Impala. It was early evening, but the heat showed no signs of abating. There was no position that reduced the discomfort; even as he crouched in the meagre shadow of the car, his t-shirt clung wetly wherever it touched. His over-shirt had long since been discarded.
He knew he'd be more comfortable inside the car. It was probably hotter, but it did at least provide a place to sit. The angular little rocks had thwarted his earlier attempt to seat himself on the ground, and even if they hadn't, his jeans were a poor insulation against the warmth of the sand. He would have liked to take off his shoes – the hot clamminess of sweaty socks was almost unbearable against his feet – but without them his skin would have blistered in minutes.
But Dean was in the car. Dean, who was angry with him. Dean, who didn't want him around.
"...as a companion you really suck..."
If the pebbles hadn't been too hot to handle he would have thrown one.
He was angry with Dean, too, for this whole stupid plan, for dragging them both out when he was convalescent and Sam was exhausted. He clung to the anger, nurtured it, because it was easier to be angry than to face the hurt of what Dean had said.
"...as a companion you really suck..."
He had always been aware that he and Dean were different. Their tastes were different, in music, in clothes, in food, in girls; their goals were different, or had been before a burning apartment ceiling turned Sam's life upside down; Sam wanted normal, and Dean shunned it. Sometimes, secretly, Sam had wondered if he and Dean would even have been friends if they hadn't been brothers.
But they were brothers. Hard on the heels of that uncertainty had always come the awareness of exactly what their brotherhood meant, of the things that they had seen, the experiences that they'd endured together, and he'd known that no college buddy or study partner could ever hope to compare with that. And they'd changed. He'd changed. He understood his brother more than before, understood what drove him. He knew Dean better now than he ever had when they were children. Their interests and tastes might not always correspond, but Dean was his best friend.
And Dean thought his friendship sucked.
He pulled up his t-shirt and wiped his dripping face on the hem.
Dean had been a little startled at his own words. Sam had seen his eyes flicker momentarily, as if he hadn't meant to say it. He'd also seen the brief concern swept away by stronger frustration. And there'd only been impatience in the way Dean had asked for ideas. Dean might have been aware of the impact of his words, but he hadn't cared enough to say anything.
Sam knew he'd been careless. He knew he'd been negligent. He should have paid more attention to where he was going, and he should never have let the gas run out. But it had been enough of an effort to keep his eyes open, to make sure the Impala stayed on the road and didn't wander into oncoming traffic. He'd been too fatigued to wonder why the surface was becoming poorer. He had honestly not even considered the gas tank, and even when the car had choked, spluttered and finally died it had been several befuddled minutes before he'd figured out what had happened.
And now they sat. Or Dean sat, and Sam crouched. Dean didn't want to call emergency services; he was wanted in several states for various crimes, his or otherwise, and being saved from a desiccated fate in one of the hottest places on earth was not exactly low profile. If he had not been distracted by the memory of Dean's words, Sam would probably have made more of a fuss about the decision, but Dean was obdurate. They could not be the only people who used this road; someone would come along. Sam could have told him that they'd passed no-one for hours while driving, but he shrank from the prospect of another fight.
He tipped the bottle in his right hand, and swallowed the last mouthful of warm water. It had been ice-cold when he'd pulled it out of the chest on the back seat, but he'd forced himself to drink it slowly. There were several more bottles, aside from beer and the one he'd silently tossed to Dean. It was enough, but it wasn't much. And Dean had had flu.
"...if you don't stop hovering I'm gonna deck you..."
Well, Dean could just suck it up. Sam wasn't going to let him dehydrate, even if it meant going without water himself.
"I'm gonna call Bobby."
Dean's disembodied voice floated out of the window, startling Sam out of the exhausted semi-trance into which he'd drifted.
"Uh... what... why?" That bottle of water seemed an eternity away; Sam's mouth was sticky with inhaled dust.
He heard Dean mutter something undoubtedly uncomplimentary.
"We've been sitting here for over four hours and no-one's come along. If Bobby's somewhere nearby on a job he could come through and bring us gas, and if he's not he'll probably know someone who could."
"Oh. Okay." If he'd been more awake Sam would probably have thought of that himself. As it was, the suffocating heat made it difficult to be enthusiastic. "Hope you can get service here." He lifted his head from where it had been drooping onto his chest and leaned it back against the side of the car.
"Two bars... one bar..." Dean pushed open the door and got out, peering at the screen of his phone. "It's not great but it should be enough." He half-sat on the hood and then leapt away with a cry.
"What?"
"Friggin' hood's like a hotplate." He patted the seat of his jeans gingerly. "Of all the places you could have chosen, Sam, you had to strand us in hell?" He walked away without waiting for a response.
Sam let out his breath with a huff and stood up stiffly, straightening limbs that had been folded in one position for too long. He leant against the side of the car and watched his brother. From the way Dean's hand cupped the back of his neck and the tilt of his head it was obvious that he was uncomfortable with the conversation. Sam had no doubt that Dean was assigning the blame to him, and he was almost relieved that he was too far away to hear the words. He already knew exactly what Dean thought without having to hear it repeated.
"...as a companion you really suck..."
He lowered his head and stared at a chunky little rock, and blinked angrily when it blurred unexpectedly.
"Bobby's working a gig in Colorado." Dean was back. He opened the passenger door and sat down sideways, booted feet on the hot sand. "He'll be along as soon as he's wasted the sucker. Poltergeist, I think. He said to sit tight, not wander off or do anything stupid, and drink a lot. Of water, ya idjit! His words."
Sam's mouth twitched. Dean leant back across the seat and put his arm across his eyes.
"You okay?" Concern brought Sam a step closer. The exasperation in Dean's voice stopped him short.
"I'm great, Sam. I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, I'm hot, I'm thirsty, I'm bored, and I would be in Vegas right now if my little brother hadn't somehow managed to forget his brain in that crap-hole of a motel. I'm fine. I'm absolutely super."
Sam didn't answer. The silence stretched out as the sun sank slowly behind the distant mountains, a display of brilliant colour that both Winchesters were too preoccupied to notice.
Dean was snoring.
Dean always snored when he slept on his back, but somehow it had never really disturbed Sam.
Before now.
Maybe it was the remnants of the flu, making the sound louder. Or maybe it was the absolute impossibility of cramming six foot four of torso and long legs into the backseat of the Impala. Then again, it might have been the stifling heat, which did not seem to have eased even though the sun had long since vanished.
Maybe it was all three conspiring together.
Sam couldn't sleep.
He'd dozed off briefly, even managed to fit in a nightmare, but since waking in a sweat that was only partly due to the ambient temperature he had been wide awake.
It was ridiculous, really. He knew he was tired. He could feel the weariness dragging at him, and even more than usual he did not want to lie there and listen to Dean sleep. There would be enough hours the next day in which there was nothing to do, in which his thoughts would be the only thing to keep him occupied. It was ironic that it had been lack of sleep that had landed them in this predicament in the first place, and now that he finally had the opportunity sleep wouldn't come.
At least Dean wasn't awake. An uncomfortable silence during the day was bad enough, but at least then they could minutely examine the scenery and pretend that there was nothing wrong. In the dark it would have been impossible to ignore the elephant perched on the seat between them.
"...as a companion you really suck..."
Would it never stop?
It was stupid to mind so much, stupid to be so hurt by something which Dean had said in the heat of his frustration. It was easy to fire verbal weapons without thinking enough about them, and he knew Dean would never have said it if he'd not been angry and irritated.
Well then, why didn't he take it back?
Sometimes being angry was like being drunk. A person blurted things out that he would never have dreamt of saying under normal circumstances. But just because he'd never said them didn't mean that he hadn't been thinking them. The anger or the alcohol just served to remove his usual inhibitions.
Is that what Dean really thinks of me... that I suck... that I'm a useless companion? Is that what he's actually thinking when we're doing stuff together?
He thrust the sweat-dampened strands of hair from his forehead.
Stop thinking about it. Everything's worse at night. And anyway Dean is still here, and he hasn't left me to go hunt with someone else, so he can't hate my company that much.
"...as a companion you really suck..."
Stop it!
He wanted to yell it out loud, break the oppressive stillness, if only to drown out the relentless repetition in his head. But that would only wake Dean, and then the silence would be even worse.
It was impossibly hot. The heat had nothing to do with the tumult of his mind, but he found himself resenting it passionately. If it wasn't hot, he might be able to sleep. If it wasn't hot, he wouldn't be lying there in sweaty stickiness, replaying the day's events. If it hadn't been so hot, he might not have been so sleepy and he might have turned right instead of left and they might now be sleeping comfortably in an air-conditioned room in Las Vegas and Dean might never have been frustrated enough to say those things to Sam.
But he would still be thinking them.
He sat up, hard enough to send a quiver through the Impala. In the front seat Dean shifted, mumbling something and Sam stilled as one hand reached for the door. Dean was in a bad enough mood as it was; if he was woken in the middle of the night like this...
But Dean's mutter faded as he settled back into sleep, and Sam breathed again. Moving more carefully, he opened the door and slipped out of the car.
The air slid idly over damp skin, marginally cooler than inside. Warmth still struck up from the sand and from rocks that had soaked in sunlight, but it was bearable under the soles of his now unshod feet. He wandered around the Impala, away from the open door, and leant against the hood.
It was incredibly stark. No sign of civilisation disturbed the landscape in any direction. He could almost have fancied that he and Dean were the only two on the planet. There was no moon, but he found he could see quite clearly; he'd never really noticed how much light was provided by the stars. But then he'd never experienced a place like this, such an utter lack of human influence. In other circumstances he might have found it beautiful.
He yawned, rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. He'd hoped getting out of the car would wear away the insomnia that plagued him, but although the weariness went deep he was as awake as ever. Through the open window he heard the soft sigh of regular breath, and guessed that Dean had rolled onto his side. It was almost funny, that of the two of them the one who couldn't sleep was not the one who'd spent the whole afternoon snoring in the passenger seat.
A flicker of movement jerked his head sideways, hunter instincts on immediate alert. Then, with a soft breath of amusement, he relaxed. Long, vigilant ears and a soft furry body frozen as its owner scrutinised the surroundings with big dark eyes; the cotton-tail rabbit almost reminded him of himself and Dean in careful reconnoitre before a hunt. Its nose quivered, but there was apparently no threat, and it darted away to the nearest patch of scrub.
Then rabbit number two emerged, and after a moment's pause bounded over to the same scrubby bush as its brother.
Sam caught himself up at the unconscious designation. Brother?
I'll be giving them names next.
Grinning wryly at the thought, he slouched against the Impala and watched the rabbits. The Death Valley Diner was serving nothing but dried out grasses and leaves, but its patrons seemed more than happy. In the starlight Sam could see their activities quite clearly, and it was peculiarly satisfying. He seldom had the chance just to sit and study animals, chiefly because the creatures he observed were generally in need of a silver bullet or consecrated iron rounds; it felt good to have friendly intent, for once.
His eyes were beginning to droop, and he blinked drowsily. For the first time he felt as if he could actually sleep. Dean would probably have ascribed it to the boredom of watching animals eat; Sam just knew that he felt more relaxed. He lifted his head with the intention of returning to the backseat.
The movement in the bush was a shift in shadows, barely there. He tensed, focused on it; his eyes were gritty with dust and lack of sleep, and he knew his tired mind could conjure entities which weren't there – even the rabbits hadn't noticed anything – but he'd been a hunter for too long just to ignore it.
Then it stirred again, faint and stealthy, and he caught the briefest flash of light on a pair of dark eyes. Something slipped, noiseless, through the sparse desert vegetation, and this time he saw the outline of pointed ears.
Wrong shape for bobcat. Too small for coyote. In the split-second of thought he had no time to identify it, other than as a predator. It was after the rabbits, and they were oblivious.
Ecosystems... population dynamics... food chains... whatever it was needed to eat as much as they did. But those were his rabbits, and he wasn't going to stand by and watch them end up on a menu. He lunged forward in warning.
The ground disintegrated.
Lunge became sprawl, legs stumbling and arms thrusting forward as his body tilted. Sand was warm and flimsy and treacherous on a little incline that should have been no threat at all, a height that he could have negotiated in one giant stride if his balance had not been muddled.
A flash of white cottontail as the rabbits vanished...
A rustle of dusty scrub as their would-be killer melted away into the darkness...
The dull impact of collision, of flesh and hard unyielding rock.
Pain flared briefly, white and jagged.
Then it faded as darkness swallowed consciousness.
Heavy breathing faltered; something, some sound, maybe, had reached through the blanket of sleep, and awareness stirred momentarily.
"S'm..."
No-one responded to the mumbled monosyllable.
The speaker didn't notice.
Leather creaked as he shifted position on the bench seat, and moments later soft snores were all that broke the silence.
Pain.
He was aware of that before anything: sharp and relentless, a spear boring through his head. He could think of nothing else for a while and he lay still in a limp sprawl of hurt and half-consciousness.
I think... I hit my head...
The pain was not unfamiliar; he'd experienced it before, but he had no idea how it had happened this time. His thoughts were nebulous, drifting in a disorderly tangle in his mind.
The floor was uneven beneath him, an uncomfortable mix of soft smooth and solid irregular, and gradually he realised that it was not a floor at all. He was outside, and this was the ground he was lying on.
It was a hunt, then.
With the understanding of that came fear.
It was a hunt.
He was hurt.
Dean –
"Dean..." It was a slurred groan.
Pain spiked with the effort of speech, but not as badly as the alarm when there was no response. He was hurt, and Dean wasn't answering. Dean wasn't there.
Something had happened to Dean.
"Dean!"
Dean was hurt... Dean had been captured by whatever they were hunting... Dean was concussed and lost somewhere, or trapped in something... Dean was dying of blood loss...
He couldn't remember. Where they were. What they'd been hunting. How'd he'd come to be lying on the ground with the headache from hell.
He only knew he needed to find his brother.
Movement was more pain, but he fought past it, scrabbling blindly on the sand that slid under hands and knees. Strange darkness pulsed and ebbed at the edges of his vision. The horizon tilted.
So dizzy...
Nauseous...
He couldn't let it take him.
He couldn't abandon his brother to some unknown fate.
Need to... need to find Dean...
The gravelly ground was unforgiving. He stumbled, falling often but staggering to his feet again each time, only half-aware of his surroundings. The sweat of pain, of heat and exhaustion and intolerable effort, soaked dark hair and trickled red where it merged with leaking blood.
Overhead the stars gazed impassively at the erratic movements. They washed the scene with a thin glow, gleaming coldly on the silent black car and gently illuminating the ever-increasing distance between it and that lone faltering figure.
SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN
Reviews are always greatly appreciated!