Chapter 20 - Finale: Ramble On

1993

Sam - 10

Dean - 14

Dean's feet sank into the hot sand.

Interesting how something as simple as water could change the characteristics of sand so thoroughly. Down where the ocean swept in and out, the sand was almost hard, cool, with a kind of slimy quality. A few feet above the surf it was thick and heavy and gritty and hot, sometimes sucking his feet up to his ankles if he ran.

It was glorious.

The cast on his right arm was heavy, but even that wasn't an impediment to the bliss as he kicked up some sand, turned, and sat down heavily next to his little brother who was busy poring over a book. Dean tossed a couple new, interesting looking shells onto the page he was perusing and shoved Sam lightly.

"Hey, nerd. Incoming."

Sam shoved Dean back, but he picked one up. It was rough, white, like baked clay on the outside, but the inside was shiny and pink and smooth with a touch of twilight purple.

"Slow down. I haven't caught up with the last three you brought me," Sam complained. "But this one is kind of cool."

"Right?" Dean grinned, looked behind them 15 feet away where Dad was sitting in a camp chair, looking totally out of place on a public beach, writing in his journal. And then he said conspiratorially, "hey, check it out." He nudged his cast at Sam, showing off his latest acquisitions.

Sam had the polite decency to actually look and read.

"'To Ozzy. Hope this cute arm heals quick –Stacy.'" The look Sam gave him was withering, but it wasn't all condescending. "Really? Ozzy?"

"Sammy, I'm telling you, this is the most brilliant way to meet girls, like ever."

"You're impossible."

Sam went back to his shells and his book, but his mouth turned up at one corner.

"I'm a genius," Dean insisted and Sam didn't deny it for a change.

"What story are you giving all these girls about how you broke it in the first place?" Sam asked, his eyes going from his book to the cast.

"Whatever I feel like. I rescued someone's cat from a burning building. Was in a drag race with James Dean, whatever." Because even though "I beat back a vampire to save me and my brother" was pretty badass, it wasn't ever going to get a hottie on a beach to sign his cast. And if it got back to Dad, there'd be hell to pay no matter how magnanimous the man had been for the last week and a half.

It had been a long week and a half since that night.

Dean didn't remember much after Sammy came back to full consciousness in the shower. With the clear and present danger over and Sam back (Back!) The adrenaline keeping Dean vertical ran out, and he collapsed. He remembered going in and out of consciousness for awhile, Sam in different states of distress over him, his body in multiple stages of Sam doing some crazy first aid to stop his bleeding, splint his arm, keep him from going into shock because Sam was a good kid. And every time he could get a word out, he'd say "S'okay, Sammy. Looks worse than it is," which he didn't realize was a total lie at the time, so he couldn't be held accountable. And Sam would say some stuff that Dean couldn't make out half the time but sometimes sounded like, "Dean, stay with me. Can you hear me?" over and over.

And his whole body felt really light. Sam kept trying to make him drink salt water. Because I probably lost a lot of blood. Good call, but gross. It made Dean dream of the beach. Sun and sand. When was the last time he was at a beach? It was before Mom died, he thought. That bright sun on Mom's golden hair…

After that, Dean had a vague memory of Dad in the bathroom door standing over them both, Dean's head in Sammy's lap and the kid saying, "Dean's dying, Dad!" and thinking Sam needed to stop being so goddamn melodramatic and that Dad wasn't going to appreciate how Dean had fucked everything up and put Sam in the worst danger of his life to date.

And then there was the hospital.

He fought the white-garbed, masked people. Fought hard, until he heard his father telling him to stand down, to let them work. Sam's hand grabbed his. He knew it was Sam's because it was a strong grip but it was small. And then he was okay. He stopped fighting.

And then a fog came in and swept him away. The rest was a collection of soft beeping sounds, murmurs of voices, hands on his forehead, his arms, his hands, dim light and bright light and laying on a cloud of painlessness.

It was two days before he was actually conscious, and could he see his brother and father first? No. He had to talk to some "nice people" who just wanted to "ask him some questions" and Dean had to fight through the pain meds a little to keep his head fully connected because he'd been through these situations before and he knew exactly what they were trying to figure out.

So he told them about the psychopath intruder that broke in, attacked him and his brother, and he kept it simple, and of course that would be the same story Sam told in isolation. Same story Dad told. Because this had happened before and they always had a plan in backup. It was still nerve-wracking though, because he never knew if this particular shrink was going to be sharper than the last one, and Dean felt like he hadn't seen his family in a year.

But eventually, after the "nice people" all cleared out, Sammy and Dad were let in. And Sam looked good. Looked great. Was moving and talking and being Sam-hugged Dean where it wouldn't hurt, smiled, ribbed him for being a hero, all the things Dean expected.

Except.

Except there was something just a little different. Something more reserved. Sam's eyes were his, but there was a subtle change in the way he listened, the way he watched, and Dean couldn't get the picture out of his head of Sam standing in front of him, covered in blood, looking at his hands...

And Dean fully expected that he was going to get a lecture from his father. He didn't ask about the vamp or the farmhouse or anything because Dad would have dealt with all of that, but he thought there was going to be a teachable moment in all this at the very least. Later, when Dean was healed up, he'd get maybe some stronger motivation to do better.

But Dad said nothing about any of it. He took Dean's left hand in his, smiled at him, told him he "did good." Dean even tried to protest, that he failed, that if it hadn't been for Sam they'd both be dead, but John just squeezed his hand, looked at Sam and said, "you boys make a pretty damn good team when you back each other up. Just remember that."

Dean was in the hospital for three more days, and even though Sam brought him comic books, he was dying of boredom. On the last day, when the doctors put on the permanent cast, Dad asked them where they wanted to go.

Dean didn't even understand the question because he'd never been asked it before.

But Dean remembered Sam cradling his head saying, "Goddammit, Dean, I know it tastes like shit but drink the salt water. Your blood pressure is bottoming out. Please. Just drink it or you'll die." And he had been kinda shouting and crying...

And Dean knew he was going to hell for thinking that it was one of the happiest memories he had, Sam so worried about him. And now it was tied with another happy memory of the way Mom's hair had looked in the sun, with the salt in the air...

So, it was the beach. And Dean knew that Sam had seen beaches before, like, in passing, along the side of the road. He'd seen every ocean in America ten times, but had never been on the beach. Dean's conception of the beach had changed after he saw his first "Spring Break Special" on Mtv, and he was totally on board with checking out the scenery even if he couldn't swim with the cast on.

Which was how they had gotten to this kind of out-of-the-way beach with not too many people but plenty of sun and sand. Sam didn't even complain about needing to go back to school, but he did get one trip to the bookstore and one book to take to the beach and Dean had to pinch himself 20 times that this was all happening, that Dad was letting this happen, right up until his toes hit the sand.

So now he sat next to his little brother who was busy looking up aquatic life like nothing had ever happened.

Except it had.

And that feeling Dean had gotten from Sam in the hospital wasn't going away.

Dean looked back at Dad and then said quietly, "Hey, Sam. I gotta ask you a question."

"Shoot."

"What...what do you remember?"

Sam stopped reading. He looked up and their eyes met briefly, but then he went back into the page and said, "I went over this with dad. I don't remember anything."

"Nothing?"

Sam bit his bottom lip, and Dean felt like an asshole but he had to know. Had to know, because things were different and Dean could guess at a million reasons why, but he wanted to hear the truth from Sam.

"I remember Osseo. I remember all that. I remember..."

Sam was suffering, and Dean was a jerk but he didn't try to cut the kid a break-He had to hear it through, and this was as good a time as they'd ever get.

"I remember about Amber. And then...I don't know. It felt like I was asleep for a long time. The next thing I really know for sure was standing in the tub and you..."

Sam looked up at him finally.

"Jesus, Dean. You know you almost died."

"Yeah, I think you kept telling me that."

"I mean, you were covered in blood all over."

That wasn't all mine, Sammy.

"Like, horror movie covered in blood or-"

"I'm serious Dean," and Sam gripped the book he was holding so hard that his fingers turned white.

"Sam, I'm fine now. I'm good. You did that, you know. Saved us. Pulled my ass right out of the fire. Take it easy." Dean put his hand on Sam's shoulder, squeezed it.

"I don't remember the vamp. Just the blood," Sam said quietly. "Dad said I was catatonic for two weeks. He told me everything."

Thanks, Dad. Don't sugar coat it.

Sam continued. "But I don't remember it. I don't remember Missouri or the...the boogeyman. Nothing. Just. Sometimes I thought I was dreaming about us."

"Us?"

"Yeah. Me and you."

"What kinda dream?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't know. Bad, I think."

Dean shoved Sam again lightly before his brother's brain went too far down into the rocky places. Because Dean wanted to know, but he didn't want to risk Sam ever going away in his head again. Ever.

"Okay. I'm shutting up now. Whatever, Sam. It's fine. It's over."

"It's not fine," Sam's voice was low, aching.

"What?"

"I said, it's not fine. It's not fine because Amber's dead. Because you almost died and where the hell was I? Sitting in a basement?"

Sam slammed the book closed.

"It's not fine, Dean. I get it, okay? I get it. Monsters are out there. Monsters want to kill us, kill people. Hurt us. And I tried to make it all go away, or...something, I don't know what was happening, but I'm not gonna let it happen again. So, the whole ugly world wins and I'm on board. The boogeyman won and now it's time to wake up and do something about it. I get it. I can still hate it, but I get it."

Dean didn't know where this was going, but the look in Sam's eyes was cold. Almost as cold as the moment he chopped off a vampire's head with strength he shouldn't have had. Hard, the way a hunter's eyes were hard.

And then Dean got it.

Sam had changed. He was becoming like Dad...

"Sam..."

Dean didn't know what to do, what to say, because he only wanted to somehow go back in time to when Sam was an overachieving little five-year-old who read to him out of short chapter books about kids who lived on a boxcar.

"Dean, when you get the cast off, I want you to teach me how to fight."

"What? You mean, instead of homework?"

"I'm not kidding," Sam said, and Dean knew he wasn't.

"Everything you know, I wanna know. I have to be ready."

"Sam..."

"Dean, I have to."

Emotions were waging a civil war in Dean's head-Sam wanting him to teach him was, like, the most awesome thing Sam had ever said...but the reasons why...

"Sam, I told you. That boogeyman thing was my fault, not yours. Okay? Blame that on me."

Sam shook his head. "No, Dean, no. I wanted you to take over. I let you take over. I can't be like that anymore. I've gotta be ready to do what I have to do when I have to do it, and not just as an accident. Because I'm scared, and we're never safe, and I can't lose you or anyone else anymore."

Sam took a deep breath, and there was nothing Dean could say to that. His little brother, the Sam he knew, was gone. Had given up. Had become part of the family business, but the distance between him and Dean and Dad had never felt greater.

Hurray for progress.

Except Dean felt sick to his stomach because Sam was right.

"Okay, Sam. If you want, but I'm not gonna go easy on you."

He summoned up a wicked grin, but inside he felt like crying.

May 3, 2007

Sam - 24

Dean - 28

"Seriously, Dean. You don't have to go easy on me."

Sam's hands were in his pockets. There was just enough of a chill in the night in early May that their breath came out in clouds, picking up the light from the small funeral pyre he and Dean had made together for Brother Luciano's leather satchel. For the last remains of the children he had brought back.

"Shut up about it, Sam. Only the Irish punch people at a funeral."

"I'm just saying..."

Dean turned to him and gave him a face. "Look, stop asking for it like some creepy masochist. It's pretty fucking simple. You drug me again and I'll kill you. We done?"

Sam felt himself smile through the short exhalation of breath that was half laugh, half resignation.

"Yeah, we're done."

Dean shifted his weight as he leaned against the hood of the Impala. Changing the subject.

"It's a crazy story, Sam."

"Yeah. Kinda feel like it was a messed up Alice in Wonderland."

"But you don't remember all of it."

Sam took a deep breath. Paused. "No, I do. I mean, I remember everything I did, everything that happened in there, it's just...some of the images the boogeyman made me see. Those things are warped. Seem surreal."

"All the heaven and hell stuff." It was a statement.

"Yeah. Like, I remember the emotions, the...the intense fear of it all. And I feel like at some point I even knew what it all meant, but now? Now it just sits in my head like memories of a bad dream."

Dean looked over at him but didn't say anything right away.

"Sam, they were probably just for freaking you out enough to get you scared. That's the damn thing's MO. Was it's MO."

Sam liked the past tense, could see that even Dean was relieved to correct himself. But Sam wasn't so sure it was that simple. There was a point of revelation where Sam could hear things, see things...but maybe as a last gift or curse, the boogeyman took it with him.

"Yeah, you're probably right," is what he said, though, because there was enough going on, and enough done that it wasn't worth opening it up to set them both on edge.

"So that stuff Dad left for you worked. The ghost physics stuff."

Sam nodded, but he didn't tell Dean that in the afternoon at the motel, when he had woken up after Dean insisted on driving all night away from Osseo, he found a small tin soldier on his night stand. Just that. And Sam had no idea at all how it had come to him. It felt like a friendly farewell though. A message that maybe more kids had escaped that plane when he burned the house than he thought was possible.

Sam answered. "Might still be some areas in the theory to explore, though. 'More things in Heaven and Hell then are dreamt of in dad's philosophy.'"

Dean gave him a look. "What now?"

"Uh. Quote. From Hamlet."

"Hamlet? You quote your breakfast?"

"What? No, it's Shakespeare." Sam huffed, but Dean's smirk proved Sam had walked right into that one, so he just went on quickly before Dean could savor more amusement at his expense playing the dumb guy. "I just mean that Dad was right on target, but there's still plenty of supernatural business. Plenty of mysteries."

"Yeah. At least one of them is wrapped up. Signed, sealed, delivered. To hell, hopefully. What do you think it meant when it said it was the 'first?'"

Sam took a deep breath, shook his head and shrugged at the same time he let the air out. "I got nothing there. I don't know. First monster? First creature? First planes walker? No clue."

"What about Brother Luciano's journal. Any ideas there?"

"Haven't had a chance to decipher it all. Maybe. But I doubt it. I mean, there's probably a lot of great stuff in it, but maybe the boogeyman is just going to be one of those mysteries that we never solve."

Dean tilted his head briefly, a nod of acceptance. "As long as it's dead, as long as we're done with it, I couldn't give a crap."

"Yeah, I'm with you there."

A few more moments of silence passed before Sam began again, quietly. "There is one mystery that's been solved." He thought of the letter in his back pocket. That letter that had given him so much peace. "I know why dad brought me to Osseo in the first place."

Dean turned to him, listening with intensity.

"I know why it all happened, and knowing what I know now, it's pretty ironic. But he didn't bring me there as bait, and he didn't bring me there to...sacrifice me to the boogeyman. None of that."

"Of course he didn't," Dean said forcefully, but it was a little too fast. Sam had to be careful because Dean seemed to have moved on from his guilt over dad's death, his life for their father's soul, over the last several months, but Sam knew better. Dean had plenty of unresolved issues with their father even though, technically, Dean was the one who was with him in his last moments, heard his last words, and Sam knew nothing until he was walking back to their father's room with coffee.

"So, what was the reason?" Dean continued more calmly after a second.

Sam took a deep breath. "Missouri wasn't the only psychic dad consulted about things after Mom died. Apparently, he talked to a quite a few, in several places. He knew things, a lot of things, about Yellow Eyes and...and me before he ever let on anything to us. He knew for a long time, Dean."

Dean sighed. His gaze went to the ground. "Yeah. I figured."

"Anyway, when he was in Louisiana he talked to a psychic named Franklin Mont Franc who gave dad his first shred of hope that things would turn out okay. This psychic told dad that if he brought me to Osseo, I'd have a chance to change my fate. Was emphatic about it. Gave the dates we should be there. Said a different path opened up, one that would take me beyond the demon's influence."

Dean barked out a half laugh that was all despair.

"Yeah? Way to be fucking literal about it. If the boogeyman had managed to keep you, you'd be safe from Yellow Eyes, that's for sure."

Sam went on quickly, "But that's not how dad took it."

"Who's this psychic again? I'm gonna go fucking give him a new path..."

Sam nodded. "Yeaaaah, my thoughts ran similar, but I already checked it out. He died a few years ago in an apparent suicide."

"Well, that ain't suspicious."

"Exactly. The thing is, dad didn't walk us in blind. He checked out Osseo, the date. Did his homework. Figured out the disappearances, the boogeyman, worked it like a case, and wasn't happy that I ended up being a target. But he actually did have a way to kill it, and he was pinning this one hope for me on me."

Dean made a sound that sounded half groan, half sigh.

"But of course, things didn't go as planned," Sam finished with a quiet brush of his foot over gravel.

"Yeah. See? I told you. This was my fault-"

"No, Dean, listen. The things I know now about the boogeyman? It tried to create psychics to listen in on Heaven and Hell, it could get in your head with one look, and I know it got to whatever psychic was feeding Sarah Winchester false info about the ghosts coming after her. Told her to build the Winchester house as some creepy funland."

"Get to the point, Sam."

"The point is the boogeyman used psychics, Dean. In fact, I think it's entirely plausible that the boogeyman used this Mont Blanc guy to get dad to bring me right to it. Dad died and didn't know about that particular psychic connection."

Dean bridled noticeably. "That supposed to make me feel better?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, dad essentially walked me into a trap if my hunch is right. There's no way he could have known he was being used, and you knew what I was going through that night. You knew I wasn't ready, I was tired, I was scared. You were doing what you always did." Sam slid closer to Dean, pushed him with an elbow. "And if the boogeyman had taken me when I was nine? I would've died. You did save my life. Only the 14 years in between that day I told you to teach me how to fight and last night did I get the strength, the will, the knowledge, and the ability to win, to come back alive. And even then, I wouldn't have made it out of the motel room if you hadn't woken up and come get me. So, Dean, like you said, it's over. It's behind us both, and though the little kid in me will always be frustrated, mad, that I couldn't save Amber back then, she's okay now. She's okay, and so am I. Really. We're all absolved."

Dean looked up at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"But what about the whole 'changing of your path' thing. That's why you went on this crusade in the first place."

"Part of it," Sam corrected.

"Okay, fine, part of it. But then if the boogeyman was just using this Mont Franc guy as his Pinocchio, then you get nothing. It was a sham, and Yellow Eyes is still out there and all that crap Dad worried about hasn't changed."

Sam shrugged. "Maybe. But maybe, in a roundabout way, I did change my path. I did this to fix something I failed to do. I had to. I was different before all of this, Dean. Maybe the act of persevering through it, winning, getting out alive has given me a new path."

Dean took a deep breath, seemed to be considering it.

"I don't know. This psychic stuff is like some VIP card to an exclusive club, and I don't get any of it. I just get to watch what it does to people, and, so far, I've seen nothing good."

"It's not the psychic abilities that make things good or bad, it's what I do with it. So. I'm gonna keep positive. The boogeyman was the worst thing I ever faced to date. Maybe I leveled up. Maybe Yellow Eyes is in for the disappointment of a lifetime, whatever his plan is."

Dean turned to the side and bent down to the cooler. He pulled out two beers, cracked on, and handed it to Sam who readily took it.

"Well, I'll drink to that anyway." Dean said and took a long draw. Sam did likewise.

Both brothers turned their attention back to the blaze and were silent for several minutes.

Finally Dean raised his bottle to the golden glow. "Here's to the heroes."

Sam smiled, lifted his own bottle. "To Amber, who found ways to make the best out of the bad in life and even in death-who kept the faith even when she could have given up a long time ago."

A heartbeat passed and Sam summoned up the image of the girl in the pink nightgown. He hoped that wherever she was, she was finally truly happy. That all those kids were. His own future felt a little brighter for it.

Dean cleared his throat and broke the moment.

"What?" Sam asked.

"I was just thinkin'. Is it appropriate to pour out libations for minors?

Sam did laugh at that. The ancient Greek tradition of pouring fine spirits in tribute over the graves of the beloved was something that had been passed down through their father in Hunter culture. The humor in Dean's question was bittersweet, though-neither one of them had had to toast a comrade in death who had died so young...

"Yeah, Dean. I don't think the Heaven Police are gonna care."

They poured out half the beer, both smiling.

When the fire was reduced to cinders, they pushed the dirt over it with their boots, got back into the Impala, and drove into the night.

Two nights later, Sam disappeared from The Sunnyside Diner and woke up alone in Cold Oak, South Dakota.

THE END

Author note:

Thank you so much for reading my, er, Supernatural novel. I hope you enjoyed it. To the people who've been there since the beginning, and especially those who commented and kept it going, THANK YOU! Couldn't have done it without you!

Also, if you read this story and enjoyed it, and you like the kind of Sam and Dean portrayed here, then don't lose heart. There IS more.

Agelade, my friend and beta and Sam to my Dean has been writing an exceptionally awesome Season 9 AU. She's a better writer than me, and the relationship between Dean and Sam is very similar to the one in this story. It's really worth checking out.

Also, she and I have collaborated on several stories that take place during Sam's early Stanford years and they are much fun and sometimes much angst.

Everything we write dovetails together and so we've pooled all of our stories together in a project we call "Lustraverse." You can visit her on fan fiction dot net as author "Agelade" or on Archive of Our Own under "Agelade" where you can find her work and the other stuff we've done for Lustraverse. (I'm also on Archive of Our Own as "Caladrius")

Lustraverse is also a community on Livejournal.

Annnnnnnd we also have a Tumblr blog called Lustraverse as well.

If you've just read The Boogeyman, then you haven't gotten the whole story. Hopefully we'll see you over in Lustraverse soon! THANKS FOR READING! :D

-Caladrius