A/N: I'm very sorry to have to divide this chapter into part a and b, but the mid-season finale broke my brain and I was a mess of incoherency and shock (still am, to be honest!). I just couldn't concentrate on editing more than this. I'll post part b during the weekend, I just need to get my brain back in order! LOL
CHAPTER 2a:
Three days ago
"Where the hell are you, man?"
Sam's voice through the phone was half way too cheery and the other half way too anxious for Dean to handle it very well so early in the morning. Sure nine o'clock was late by some people's standards, but for him, it was waaaay too early. Especially when he spend more than half of the night staring at the ceiling, thinking over what their dad said to him. About Sam. About his baby brother. About dad's baby boy.
Kill him? Kill his brother? Fuck, dad …
But he had to keep his game face on. Had to be who he was before their dad died, because Sam mustn't know anything about this. Anything. He needed to suck this up, bring up his walls and go on with the game.
"Coffee, dude. Coffee. I have to get it every morning to stay alive. Don't worry, I have some girly crap for you too."
And he did. Black coffee with enough sugar to kill a horse and something that smelled of some kinda roasted nuts, although to him it smelled like burned coffee, but if that was what his brother liked, then who was he to deny Samantha that. He was no one. He was just a person who lost his dad, watched his body burn on a pile of wood in some no name forest somewhere. And now, all that he had was his little brother, who wanted to drink weird coffee. So who the hell was he to say no?
"I have a case. Drink fast then we're out of here."
And the phone line went from Sam yapping about something to silence in point one second. Dean poured the freshly brewed coffee – black, like a man was supposed to drink it - into his system and was at the motel room before Sam could start bitching about leaving him there alone without leaving a note. Or waking him up and taking him with.
"So, where's the case?"
"Tell you on the way, come on."
"Where's the rush?"
Because yeah, where was the rush? Was the world ending? Let it end, if that would mean that he wouldn't have to follow through or even just think about what his dad told him before he died.
Kill him? Kill his brother? Fuck, dad …
"Dude, just come on."
Dean raised his eyebrow, but didn't argue. Arguing would be pointless with Sam looking at him like that. Or well, with Sam not looking at him like that, because Sam was already half way out the door and half way inside the Impala.
His brother was just so weird sometimes. He was used to it – he had been living with the kid almost all of their lives – but sometimes some things still caught him by surprise.
"Alrighty then."
He closed the motel door behind him with a soft click.
-:-
The ride in the Impala was silent, except for the too loud music that burned Sam's eardrums. But he was pretty sure, his eardrums were already burned into ashes, with all those years spent like this … yeah, he was pretty sure his ears were a mess. But monsters … he always heard them. And Dean … he always heard him too. In tune with them, someone might say. In tune with his brother, that's what he would say. Although right now, he had no idea what was going on inside Dean's head. After their ... dad … Dean tried so hard to act like nothing was wrong, but he knew everything was wrong.
He peeled his eyes from the side of the road, the moisture in them that he always carried these days, almost spilling over in the rapid movement.
He smirked, looking at his brother. Nothing has changed over the years. Tight jaw and focused eyes, hair plastered to his forehead by the summer heat, freckles on his cheeks that stood out on the pale skin. Tensed shoulders and his arms stretched out, gripping the steering wheel as it should be held. As he was taught by dad and what they'd been taught by dad, they never forgot. Be it about hunting, be it about driving or eating or drinking, be it about how the world worked and how it didn't … they'd never forget all the lessons their dad beat into them.
Dean's right hand was tapping the beat on the steering wheel, the silver ring clashing with the leather and the string that held the whole thing together. If the car would be silent, Sam would have heard the clickclickclick of it. Somewhere deep inside … he felt it. All those years … and he could feel certain noises only by casting a look at what was causing them.
"Dean?" he tried with a steady voice, barely a notch above the singer's.
No response from his brother, just eyes glued to the road. The long gray stretch of road that seemed endless in its voyage. Endless in time. They had driven down so many roads; long, short, wide, narrow. So many roads and they all felt the same. So endless. Sometimes he felt like his whole life was a road and that it would never end the way he'd liked it to end. But that was okay. He knew that no one ever got what one wanted. And that really was okay.
"Dean!" he yelled over the song that was pushing through the speakers.
Even yelling from the top of his lungs got him nothing. Just green eyes, turned on the road … not even twitching.
He bit his lower lip and reached his hand towards the radio, his fingers touching the knob. He could feel vibrations through his fingertips, the vibrations of the song, the melody and the chords. The voice, the drums, the guitar. But he didn't hesitate. He turned the knob and silence washed over him for a split second, before his brother's voice found its way to his abused ears: "Hey, whatcha doing? I was listening to that."
"Well, tough." he looked at Dean and caught a frown but that shifted real soon into an eye roll and a tight jaw.
Dean, please give me this. Silence in this already noisy world. Jess's screams, the monsters screams, the victims pleas … the noise of the burning wood under his dad's body. He just needed silence. Just for this ride.
He could feel Dean's eyes on him from the moment he looked back out the window. He could feel that Dean knew, he could feel when Dean slid his eyes back on the road. Always on the road. Always moving from something to something. Away. Forward. Who the hell knew anymore? They just lost their dad, and moving felt right in some messed up way. Being in the Impala felt right, especially since Dean rebuild it and made it home again. Even with the rattling Legos in the vent.
The scenery was flying by with warp speed, as 'warp' as a '67 Chevy Impala could reach before being pulled over by the police. Or ruining the engine. And Dean couldn't have that. Neither of them could have that.
"'s nice here, isn't it?" he bit into his thumb, biting off some of the hard skin there. It's nice, this, you know?
"If you think so." What, riding like this?
"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it." Yeah, riding like this, with my brother.
"Don't get your panties in a twist, jeez." Dean looked at the road ahead and how it was straight one second and weaving the next, "It's nice." Just you and me, little brother, just you and me.
"So, uh, you wanna fill me in on the case?"
"Yeah, uh, yeah, so it started in 1925 when a Lily Callen disappeared, she was ten and no one heard anything, saw anything. She just disappeared one night and was found three days later. In the woods. Bled out. She had no hair on her head. As in no hair, no skin. Someone, uh, someone scalped her."
He shuddered and knew, just knew in his bones that Dean shuddered too. He didn't dare look at Dean from the file he was holding in his hands, because kids … that always hit hard.
"And uh, since then, every coupla years a kid disappears. Always a little girl, ten, eleven years old and always with red hair. Whatever we're up against, has a fetish with red hair," he shook his head, "I don't know, don't ask."
"Okay," he cleared his throat and eased up on the gas, wanting this drive to last a little longer, "do we know what it is?"
"I got a call from Bobby about this and he didn't say for sure, but he suspects it's a warlock or a witch … something in those lines. 'm gonna have to do some research on this."
"Damn I hate cases with witches of any sex. Magic, man, just makes me itchy all over."
"Yeah, tell me about it."
The sun was grazing over a meadow on the left side of the car. Resting its rays on the green and brown patches of grass, the sun tangling his heat with the dirt, making it crispy and brown. The road glowed in the sun, lines of heat rising from the asphalt somewhere in the distance, not moving when the Impala's wheels ran them over.
The meadow was a constant in his peripheral vision, Dean could see how the sun laid down its tentacles to place the heat on white daisies, yellow dandelions, violet alfalfas … and in the distance a farmer was cutting it with his state of the art lawnmower.
He knows nothing about monsters and creatures that lurk in meadows. Poor lucky bastard. He has no knowledge of what skanks witches are, he knows nothing of magic and other crap. He doesn't know how it is when your dad tells you to kill your baby brother if you can't save him. He knows nothing. The lucky son of a bitch.
Dean shook his head and bit his tongue before he could say anything out loud and averted his eyes to the road. Always on the road. One would call it running away – from dad – but he knew it wasn't running. It was being at peace. It was moving forward; towards another case, another chance to save people, another chance to slice and dice and shoot and chop another son of a bitch that was taking lives.
Took their dad's life.
But even the yellow summer sun couldn't make the road look … not chilling. Couldn't make it look not old. So traveled on. So close. Dean could feel it under him, flying under the wheels, under his hands. He could touch it through his palm … the road was the only constant he had in his life. Not even Sam was that, because Sam left for a few years. While the road stayed and stretched into infinity.
The sun tried to help the road in concealing things that made a road alive ... feet, wheels, throwing up, music, lovers quarrels, laughter, break lines, damage from the rain and now, little pebbles, speed … death, but it didn't work. All those things were still there, in plain sight, if one just looked closely enough.
"Did he say anything else? Any clues?"
"No just that we can call if we need anything. So …"
"We're on our own, basically."
"Well, yeah."
Because, dude, when are we not on our own?
"Okay then. Let's go gank us a witch," he rolled his eyes, "or a warlock."
He pushed the pedal to the metal and …
"Ewwww, man. We hit a bug."
"What?" Sam looked at the windshield and saw the yellow dot in the middle of the glass.
"'s all yellow and crap looking."
"We hit millions of bugs…"
"But this one's huge. Look at the mess … oh baby 'm so sorry, I didn't mean too, the mean bug just came out of nowhere."
Sam wasn't really sure when Dean stopped talking to him and started a conversation with the Impala, but he found it amusing. And … he had missed this. Missed Dean talking to the Impala, as if it was a human and not a car and … he had missed this. If Dean hadn't rebuild it, if he hadn't … what … where … the Impala was their life, from the army men in the ashtray, to their initials carved into its body, and the Legos in the vent … Dean rebuild their lives … and dad, was still dead.
He closed his eyes. Dad… and opened them back up, cleared his throat and just went with it. If Dean wanted to wail over a bug hitting the car's windshield, then who was he to not play along? He was no one. He was just someone who lost his dad and trying to not lose his big brother too.
"A bug committed a suicide on your baby's window?"
"Shhhhh, baby don't listen to the big, mean man. We'll get you cleaned up in a sec."
"Dean, you're talking to a car."
"Sam, shut your piehole."
And he turned up his baby's windshield wipers. The water first smudged the yellow gut of the bug into an even bigger smudge and after a few seconds of struggles with the damn thing the wipers finally wiped it off.
"There. See baby? All better." He grinned at Sam and then at the road.
The tiny droplets of water quickly dried off, lost themselves in the heat and the wind. The ones that remained reflected the sun and the clouds, flickering light into Sam's eyes, making him squeeze them into mere slits.
"D'ya know where my sun glasses are?"
"Aaaa," I sat on them 3 years ago, "try in the glove compartment." Dean listened to Sam shifting various things left and right, heard things rustling, something falling on the floor and saw Sam lean in to get it, some more rustling and a click.
"Not there."
"Well, I, ah, use mine."
"Where?"
"In the glove compartment."
"You mean that piece of old plastic?"
"Hey, if you don't want 'em…"
"They're covered in mustard; they slipped from my hand earlier and fell on the floor. No, thanks." he wiped his hands on his jeans.
"You dropped 'em. 's not my fault they're dirty."
"Well they are. You got mustard on them. I know you eat with your eyes too, but that's just gross man."
"Take it or leave it."
"Leave it. Definitely." He settled back into his seat, the soft leather already designed to his butt when the smell hit him. It hit him hard and it hit him fast. A warm breeze through the open window was all it took for him to slide back on the seat and sigh.
"Smells good." softly.
"What? The manure or the one week old hamburger wrapper?" Harsh.
"The grass, you idiot." Harsh.
"Oh, yeah. Ah, yeah." softly.
And it did smell … fresh. Dean looked at the man mowing the grass, the tiny stems falling dead underneath the sharp edges of the mower. Losing battle … a familiar feeling. Losing everything. Losing your family … life. Home.
Dad…
"Yeah." softly.
Sam looked back at the dirtier side of the road, the pebbles and throw away cans, and paper wrappers and dead animals. Yup, he got a really nice view … like always. A panoramic view of all things dead. If he could find any humor in it, he would have thought that it was his life he was looking at through the window. All things dead.
And the smell of grass followed his every movement; he scratched his head and removed a wayward lock of hair from his eye. He crunched up the map and the file with their latest case information and sneezed. Three times going on five.
"Can you close the window?" it was more of an order than a plea.
"Why? It's freaking hot in here." Annoyance.
"Unless you want to listen to me sneeze every three seconds…" going on seven sneezes and a half.
"You," a hand towards the window, "are," gripping the handle, "such," fidgeting with the handle, "a pain," the window going up, "in," and up, "my," up and up, "ass." And the window was closed.
"But you still closed the window." He showed Dean his biggest grin ... all white teeth and dimples.
"Shut up, Sammy." An eye roll.
"'s Sam." calmly.
"No," a look towards his brother, "it's," a tug in the corners of his lips, "Sammy." and a full smile.
"Jerk."
"Still a bitch, Sammy."
"Not gonna fight with a child."
"Who you calling a child, stupid?"
"Well unless that's a baby fly stuck in the back window, ahhh, you."
"Says the baby in the family."
Sam gritted his teeth and smiled. A dimpled smile in the midst of the black interior of the hot car. It felt good to smile … even if it hurt like hell.
Looking at the dead side of the road, Sam didn't even notice when the music came back on. But with his already ruined hearing … who could blame him? But it wasn't as loud as it was before. It was quiet, like holding onto the edges of falling into silence. It was a background noise, an accompanying symphony to their breathing. A noise he could bare. A noise that he could wrap away for later. It's been a while since they left their previous hunt, two days maybe. Or three nights. It didn't matter anyway. They were just enjoying a drive to their next hunt … there was no nervousness, no fidgeting, just coolness and togetherness. They've done this a million times already and one more time shouldn't make any difference. But there was something different.
There was no dad somewhere in America. There was no dad anymore anywhere.
"Is this making you nervous?"
"What?"
"This hunt?"
"Why?" Ah, the tense shoulders, the tight jaw, the conversation that is slipping into nothing, the music, the pale skin…
"Nothin'."
"Sam?"
"'s just that," he found a loose string in his pants, "kids, ya know," his palm became sweaty as he twirled the string around his finger, "'s never easy when kids are involved," he tightened the string, cutting off blood supply to the tip of his finger, "and witches, man," he could feel his fingertip going numb, "stuff like that never ends well."
"I feel fine, Sam. We'll deal with this, save some villagers and be on our merry way. It's what we do, or have you forgotten that? Stanford didn't ruin you that much, right?"
Sam let go of the string and flinched as blood begun to flow into his finger again. Dean saying that he felt fine was a bunch of horse crap. His brother wasn't feeling fine, he was hiding stuff, burying it deep, deep inside and it was just a matter of time when all of it would explode in the form of guts and heads and limbs flying everywhere. And blood. Lots of blood, because Dean liked to do things bloody.
"Okay, fine." he resumed his 'keeping my mind of the hunt and dad' routine … keeping himself busy darting his eyes over the map, busy counting the miles, calculating them into hours, busy listening to the song, busy listening to Dean fighting with his stomach.
"Hungry?"
"Could eat a horse."
"I don't know about a horse, man."
"A big steak, or hamburger, better make it two hamburgers. And some French fries. Can't have a hamburger without French fries. Oh and a Coke. And I need me some pie." He emphasized his words with his hand rubbing a small circle over his stomach.
Sam's own stomach rolled a few times, making a squealing noise as it stopped on the thought of food. He swallowed down a thick ball of saliva and could taste a hamburger of his own in there. And some salad; can't have a hamburger without salad.
"What happened to a horse?" Sam chuckled and gripped the map with both hands as it was on its way of sliding down his legs.
"I made it into a hamburger. Now, tell me how far?" his eyes never wavered from the road, the line separating the lanes making him dizzy. Flying by way to fast to be normal, and he eased off the gas pedal again. No need to hurry today … just enjoy the ride. Just enjoy the day, before he'd have to kill whatever creature was praying on the kids. Killing them. Kids. Godamnit. Sam would have to do research with the speed of light, because he wanted this thing dead yesterday. Years ago.
"Uh, not far. Just a couple of hours. You 'kay to drive?" the last words just slipped out, he wasn't really sure what unnatural force made him say it. Because denying Dean driving? What the fuck was he thinking? That was like one of the great sins. But truth was, he really had no idea how to handle his brother right now. Dean was slipping out of control, spinning from 'all is fine' to 'killing things furious and bloody and efficiently'. He had no idea how to handle Dean right now. What to say to him that wouldn't set him off, that wouldn't make him pissed at him, that wouldn't make him yell at him and leave him behind with the door banging in his face.
Dean gripped the wheel tighter in his hands and let his eyes seek out Sam's: "You serious?"
A blank mind was all Sam had at the moment and two words managed to escape: "Never mind."
But still … he had to try, even if that would've resulted in a fight and broken bones or soul. His brother had been driving for a while now, and somewhere along the way … that would come out to play.
"Just let me drive, alright? I'll tell you if I wanna stop."
And there it was. The tension. That great divide, the freaking Grand Canyon between them that appeared when dad died and they just didn't know how to fix. That anger. Resentment? Secrets.
Sam sighed and tried to relax into the seat. It was hard to do this, when he never knew what would set his brother off. It was hard to stay strong and brave when all he wanted was to scream stop and cry his eyes out.
It was hard watching his brother be like this. So hard. And what was even harder was waiting for the moment when everything would become too much and Dean would lose it. That … that was the hardest thing to do. Because he wasn't sure how he'd handle it. How he'd be there for Dean, when really, he felt as broken as Dean did.
But right now, he just wanted to find the quickest route to a diner and then to a motel. That was on his shoulders and all the rest was on Dean's. Then they would settle down, do some research and kill the evil son of a bitch that had been ripping kids from their families for decades. Probably centuries, depending on what the hell they were dealing with.
And then? Then they'd do this all over again; drive down an endless road to their next case.
TBC in CHAPTER 2b