Becoming Human - Just Desserts
Argh this chapter just… I actually have no defense for this. It's just kind of sad, all over. Sorry I'm not sorry. ;D
Dear god. Could it be? Is it finally here? YES! I am pleased to announce with much ado that Gabriel is indeed in this chapter! As I've discussed with a few of you, dear readers, I like taking the slow road when it comes to crafting stories and relationships. So this will be long, but hopefully satisfying for ya'll.
In the meantime, here you go!
…
They burned Janelle on a Wednesday. They scattered her ashes in the redwood forests up in Santa Cruz, not twenty feet from the place where Sam knew Janelle had been planning on proposing to Pastor Kay.
…
"You alright Sam?" Bobby asked.
"I'm fine."
…
"Hey Kay, it's Sam, just wanted to check in and make sure you were okay."
"I'm fine, Sam."
...
"Anything I can do love?" Gary asked Kylie, hands twining together where they sat in somber silence on the couch. It seemed less colorful and more threadbare these days.
Everything did.
"I'm fine."
…
"How you holding up kiddo?" Gary asked, gently removing the half empty cup of whiskey from the younger man's hand.
"Fine."
…
"Do you need anything?" Kay asked Gary over the phone. They'd been speaking in soft, low tones since… well, anyway. They took turns going from depressed to angry, but they were too exhausted to do anything more than just go about their daily routines.
It took too much of themselves just trying to pretend that they weren't falling apart at the seams.
"I'm fine," Gary said. "We're fine."
…
They're all so fine they could scream.
…
"Hello Sam."
"Go away."
"Aw, not happy to see me?"
"I'm not in the mood for your stupid head games," Sam said, unable to muster the energy to be properly angry.
"Oh poor Sammy," the demon said, and for once, he didn't sound like he was mocking Sam. The teenager didn't flinch away from the hand that comes to stroke his hair in a gesture meant to be comforting.
"Always loosing the people you love, never being able to save them," yellow-eyes whispered sadly. "And now there's no one left, is there?"
The words left a heavy weight settling over Sam's heart. His small, makeshift family was breaking apart, and he had nowhere left to go, nowhere else left to turn.
"Don't worry Sammy, I'll never turn you away," the demon said softly. It's a promise, and Sam's brain takes a few moments to remember why he might ever consider the words to be a threat.
For now, the silence is easier than having to keep fighting.
...
Kay left San Francisco not three days after Janelle died. She was headed back home to Chicago, because her heart is broken and she really wanted to be around her family. Sam said goodbye to her with a hug and the extraction of an oath to stay in touch that both of them knew would not be kept.
These months, dreamlike and exciting and full of care for each other, will pass away like ripples in a pond; momentary and fleeting.
There was nothing left tying them together now.
…
It was Gary who found it, the online viral video of some asshole in a suit beating on a defenseless young woman.
The video quality was terrible, but Sam ran a screenshot through an editing program and sharpened it enough to get the guy's license plate number as the car drove away.
They went to the police, and got nothing for their trouble.
Sam didn't say anything as the three of them walked back to their apartment. It seemed to quiet, so lonely, without Janelle. The 'house rules' are still written in her handwriting on the fridge, and half of one of her pies is still inside. Nobody wants to touch these things, wants to be the first to erase what traces there are left of Janelle.
None of them could stand it.
Sam returned to the library, pulling up one of the local police databases he used to track down supernatural phenomenon.
There was a small pit of rage in the bottom of Sam's stomach that didn't care that he was actively planning the murder of another human being. Whoever had killed Janelle was a monster of the highest caliber.
The license plate came back with a name: Tom Morgan. The man was a wealthy businessman, general dick, outspoken homophobe, racist, and womanizer. There was a long string of restraining orders and assault cases attached to his file – accusations that had never made it into the system because he could afford to throw around the kind of money that allowed him to cheat the system.
Unfortunately, strangely, it seemed that he was already dead.
Now that was interesting. Sam pulled up the full article and leaned forward in his chair to read it.
Tom Morgan had died earlier that morning. He'd been beaten to death outside a diner – and Sam might had snorted at the irony if this wasn't Janelle.
Apparently, Tom Morgan had been a cross dresser, and been jumped.
Now, that was either one hell of a coincidence, or –
Or there was a Trickster in town. Sam had already found the creature, its hunting grounds, and the stake he'd use to kill it.
That thought didn't bring him any satisfaction.
Sam closed the computer tabs and erased the internet history before leaving the library.
The Trickster, the one he'd been planning on hunting down with Janelle, had found Janelle the justice that she had been denied, had stripped her attacker of his dignity in the most appropriate way possible.
Sam pressed his teeth together.
Could he in all good faith hunt a creature that was concerned with justice, not malignance? The only person this Trickster had killed was Morgan, and there was no denying that the man deserved it.
Could he put his own personal need for revenge above his job as a hunter? Could he just sit back and make the assessment that some people deserved to die, and that was that?
Sam's mind raced in circles around itself, confused, angry, and grieving by turns. He kept moving, wandering aimlessly among the streets as night fell and the amber light of streetlamps, and neon store signs, and the bright fluorescent of car headlights steady replaced the fading daylight.
Wasn't it his job to protect people – all people, even scumbags like Morgan – from the monsters that hid in the dark?
What he kept coming back around to was that he would not – could not –be the one to stake the thing. Somebody else could waste their time hunting something that didn't really need to be hunted, but Sam knew the difference between something evil, and something supernatural – had to believe that there was a difference, had to believe that not all power corrupted everyone, because if he didn't he would just take one of his hunting knives and end it all, quick and clean and smooth, with a single practiced cut to his own jugular that might not even hurt, probably wouldn't have time to hurt with his body falling into shock and his brain frantically releasing dopamine and endorphins to try and keep him going –
Sam's breath caught in his throat and he leaned against a wall for support. He could feel the tears welling up in his chest again and he fought them back, regaining control over his body. With his composure, he came to his final decision.
He wasn't going to go after a trickster that was giving a bunch of assholes their due. As far as Sam was concerned, if supernatural justice was the only kind some of these people would ever see in their lives, well… then they deserved it, because it was something.
There wasn't anyone else looking out for them.
…
His dreams fill his sleeping hours with a demon with yellow eyes and an understanding, soothing smile.
…
Two days later, Sam's boss officially fired him.
"I'm sorry Sam, I really am," she told him. "But you hardly ever show up for your shifts anymore, and when you do, you're only ever really half here anyway."
He couldn't argue with her, because it was true. He just didn't know how to keep working within these same patterns when they had been so drastically changed. With Janelle gone, everything was different.
…
A week later and the night before his turn to buy groceries, Sam was still unemployed and hopelessly broke.
He needed to come up with a few hundred dollars, sometime in the next twenty four hours. He could easily make that on the streets, but Sam was through selling his body and his integrity for a meal. He wasn't the desperate, easily manipulated kid he'd been when he arrived in San Francisco, and he had more choices than he'd had a year ago.
He could hustle, so long as he was careful to do it in a bar he'd never have to frequent again, just in case. So Sam headed out to the more upscale area of town and pulled his con – the twenty-one year old, out for his first drink. It had been a while, and Sam really hadn't been hustling very long (only with his recent growth spurt had he filled out enough to pull off being legal to drink), but this was old hat for him, having seen…
Well, he'd seen the con pulled enough times to know exactly how to play it, and that was enough.
He walked to a bar uptown, wearing his only pair of jeans that didn't have holes in them. Kylie had glanced up as he'd left the apartment, wide brown eyes watching him with a distress that told Sam exactly what she thought he was planning to do to pay for groceries.
"I told Janelle I wasn't going back to the streets," Sam said quietly, barely able to meet his friend's eyes. "I'm not going back on that. We've all lost too much too give up any more, yeah?"
Kylie smiled thinly, and went back to her book with a determined nod, and Sam slipped out into the night.
The bar was far classier than most Sam was used to, but he didn't let himself look out of place. Plastering 'stupid college boy grin #3 – it's my first drink!' over his face, he grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered a beer, telling the bartender with a conspiratorial smile that it was his twenty-first, and this was his first drink, making sure he was loud enough that the group of students playing pool in the corner could hear them. Sam had them pegged almost at once – football jocks, by the look of them, hanging around the pool tables like they owned the game – and knew that they'd be good marks.
Three drinks later, Sam was exaggerating his inebriation, and made his bid for the tables.
An hour later, he pocketed six hundred dollars with what he hoped was a really drunk smile. The quarterback he'd been playing all night even slapped him on the back and congratulated him for his good luck, and Sam promised to come back sometime so they could win back their money. Sam bought them a round of drinks as a thanks for a game well played, and excused himself.
Not bad kids, just rich as hell and smug because they were in their element, being paid scholarships to go to school and play a game they loved, and flush enough to go out regularly and get plastered.
Sam, who was just barely past tipsy at this point, went to settle his tab with the bartender.
That was when he caught sight of the hunter.
Son of a bitch.
There was no doubt what the man was. Leather jacket, hiding the fact that the man was packing heat, a silver flask that almost unquestionably contained holy water, and a sharp expression that was every inch the predator stalking it's prey.
Forcing himself to remain calm, he scanned the bar. He found the second hunter near the back, leaning casually against the wall near the rear door, cutting off any escape.
Sam didn't recognize either of them by their faces, but there was no doubt that the two of them were hunters.
The real question was, were they here for him?
How could they not be? John had probably spread the word among the hunting community that there was a teenager with demon blood in his veins walking around, a possible liability for the entire world. Of course hunters were looking for him.
Instead of paying his tab right away, Sam ordered another beer. Neither hunter would act while their prey was in their sights in a public place.
But that was the thing – they were both focused on the bar counter, but not the space where Sam was sitting.
Both of the hunters were watching a man on the other side of the bar. Dirty blonde, late thirties, wicked smile, sharp eyes, incredibly attractive, bright green drink, three bars of chocolate –
Oh.
Oh.
So this was coincidence then. The hunters had followed their Trickster to his hideout. Sam guessed the Trickster must have moved and set up camp here, in the collage bar. Perhaps there had been more incidents on campus Sam had ignored in the wake of his best friend's death.
He could walk away. The hunters had no idea who he was, wouldn't follow him, wouldn't even glance twice. He could let them take care of the damned Trickster.
He hesitated.
It was one thing to stand aside and decide not to hunt a Trickster.
It was quite another to place himself between a supernatural creature and the hunters set on killing it. He'd be drawing his battle lines. He would never be trusted in the hunting community again, and everything John was telling hunters about him would become truth.
God fucking damn it.
Sam's hands clenched into white-knuckled fists as he made his choice. In the interest of justice, he couldn't let these hunters kill the Trickster. Not when it was dealing out what people deserved. Not when the Trickster had been the only one to care about finding justice for Janelle, not when Sam had seen so little of real justice in this world.
He paid his tab, still playing up the drunk twenty-one year old, and stumbled towards the Trickster, who was now sandwiched between a blonde and a redhead.
"Get lost for a minute," Sam told them, still smiling, but his voice was low and dangerous, and something in his eyes must have convinced the two girls that they could find more fun elsewhere.
"Aw, now why'd you have to go and ruin my fun?"
With a confidence Sam didn't feel, he leaned right into the Trickster's space with a seductive grin.
"There's a hunter by the back exit, and one on your three o-clock," Sam told him quietly.
He pulled back and took a brave swig out of the Tricksters drink, keeping up the image that he was just looking for a guy to take home.
"Well, well, you're full of surprises," the Trickster murmured, leaning in close. Sam's breath hitched in his chest when the trickster smiled. "Why the warning? You're a hunter yourself, or you wouldn't know what I am, or what they are. For all I know, you could be working with them, trying to get me to leave this enjoyable bar without any fuss."
"Janelle Foster," Sam whispered into the Tricksters ear, leaning close to keep up appearances for the hunters watching them. "Remember her? She was a good friend of mine."
The Trickster's eyes lit with understanding and he smiled back at Sam.
"Just thought you might want to know," Sam told the Trickster. "I'm leaving now."
He didn't move.
"Sure about that?" the Trickster asked, a positively lecherous grin moving across it's features, and Sam could clearly see in that one expression just how not human this thing was and oh god was he making the right call here? His heart was beating too quickly and he couldn't take in enough air with every breath –
He tore himself free, looking down. No way was he attracted to this thing. He was repaying a personal debt, nothing more. A life for a life.
"I'll be seeing you then," the Trickster grinned, downing the very bright drink in one go. "To whom do I owe the pleasure?"
"Sam," Sam breathed out, not knowing why on earth he was being truthful with the demigod.
"Well Sammy, you've been fun!" the Trickster grinned and pulled Sam down into a bruising kiss.
Before Sam even had a second to protest, the Trickster was gone. He'd used Sam as a shield to hide as he vanished.
The hunter at the booth across the bar started. Reacting on instinct, Sam looked around confused, as though he was trying to remember something important about the chair in front of him, and then just shrugged, wandering out of the bar.
If they were good enough hunters, they'd take the hint that the Trickster had messed with his memories of the event, and not come after him.
Sam could feel the memory of the Trickster's lips pressed against his own all the way back to the apartment.
He really hoped this wasn't going to come back to bite him in the ass.
…
Kylie's brother came to find her two weeks later. After several loud conversations that involved a lot of shouting and a great deal of tears, she agreed to move into the apartment he rented in Santa Cruz.
"You boys look after yourselves," Kylie told Sam and Gary tearfully as she packed. They hugged each other tightly, and just like that, Sam and Gary were living together, on their own.
"Do you know what you're going to do in the summer?" Gary asked him over a dinner of Chinese take-out one night. The older man was going to be graduating in June, only a few months away.
"Go back to traveling maybe?" Sam said, shrugging. "I think this whole school thing was a mistake. A good experience, but not really my thing."
"I'm worried about you," Gary said softly. "I don't want to leave you all on your own, not with-"
"I can take care of myself," Sam muttered, turning red.
"I've seen the kind of care you afford yourself when you're alone," Gary shot back, lips pursed in an angry frown. "You were practically skin and bones when Janelle found you, doing whatever you could just to get solid meal in you once a week-
Sam put a hand on the older boy's shoulder.
"I'll be fine," Sam told him. "I promise. I have family I can go to-"
He thought of Bobby, who had made it clear to Sam in no uncertain terms that he truly did care whether or not Sam was okay, who had made sure Sam knew that he would go to bat for him if Sam ever ended up in trouble…
Yeah, Sam had family. It might be a small, crappy family, but it was still family.
…
Sam picked up his second ever job at the local library. Gary congratulated him with a beer and a snide remark about how much of a nerd Sam was turning out to be – working first at a bookstore, and then a library.
Sam just smiled and shrugged.
…
He was shelving texts in the bibliography section when his life was dumped on his head all over again.
"Why would anyone read this crap?"
Sam closed his eyes and prayed to god that the voice didn't belong to who he thought it belonged to.
"I thought you were going to get lost," Sam observed dryly, because he already knew his hopes were in vain.
"Eh, got bored," the Trickster said with a grin, leaning against the wooden bookshelf. "What's this? Lewis and Clark? How fascinating."
"Go away," Sam asked. He really didn't need to end up on a hunter's radar.
"Oh come on Sammy, you're interesting."
"Please go away?" Sam tried. The Trickster laughed.
"Does this stalker routine usually work for you, because it isn't doing anything for me," Sam muttered, turning back to his books.
"Eh," the Trickster shrugged, pulling a lollypop out of thin air. "Who said anything about trying to pick you up, Sammyboy? Maybe I'm just really fascinated with… biographies of American pioneers from the southwest?"
Sam snorted.
"Fine, ruin my fun," the Trickster said. "I'm paying a debt if you must know. There's a pack of ghouls gathering up in the construction site down by the beach. I'd get that looked at."
Sam groaned. God damn it, he hated ghouls.
"Why tell me?" Sam demanded. The Trickster shrugged.
"I don't like owing people. And I know, I avenged your friend but its not really the same thing, and I'd rather not chance it. Knock yourself out!"
Sam looked down at the cover of the biography of Pocahontas, wondering if the cardboard hardcover was thick enough to actually hurt the demigod.
By the time he looked up again, the Trickster was gone.
…
Twenty-seven ghouls.
Twenty-seven fucking ghouls.
They were al holed up in the construction site down by the water. It was supposed to be a new school or something, but someone must have cut funding to the project, because nobody had worked there for at least a few months, given it's state of disarray.
It took nine and a half hours of sneaking around the structure, carefully picking off the ghouls in sets of ones and twos to bring down the entire nest.
Sam chased every single one of them down and decapitated them, and left their remains to burn, just to be thorough.
He came home covered in blood and his own bruises. He was lucky Gary was still in class, and that Sam had the time to clean himself up and dispose of the damning evidence of his violent campaign against a series of flesh eating monsters.
Sam really hated ghouls.
…
June came far to fast, and Sam realized that he hadn't even noticed that he'd completely missed marking his second year on the run from John and Dean. He quietly toasted that victory when he and Gary celebrated his eighteenth – and then Gary's twenty-second, a few weeks later.
Sam went to Gary's graduation, and cheered for him from among the group of students that had shared their study group –loose acquaintances with nothing better to do on a Sunday.
A week later, they left their notices for the apartment, and started packing up everything that belonged to them.
"You sure you're going to be okay?" Gary asked again.
"Yeah," Sam nodded, trying not to gulp. He thought that maybe he'd head towards Bobby's, see if the older hunter had any work Sam could help with in exchange for letting Sam stay with him for a bit. South Dakota wasn't so far away by train, and Sam had the money to get down there.
"Write me," Gary told him firmly. "We'll email, something."
"Definitely."
…
Sam and Gary locked the door behind them and said goodbye for the final time. Sam was headed towards the tram car with his single duffle, ready to hop a train to South Dakota, and Gary was getting in a cab to the airport.
"I'll see you around," Sam said, and the two exchanged a long, tight hug before letting go.
"I'm gonna miss you Sam," Gary said, ruffling the younger boy's hair. "Stay out of trouble, will you!"
Sam grinned back and waved, fighting back the tears that were prickling at his eyes.
So this is what it felt like, moving on.
Life just keeps going, tearing apart old relationships and finding new ones to put in their place.
It didn't make the loss hurt any less though. Not now, when he felt so terribly alone.
Sitting in the back of the tram car, Sam wiped at his eyes, hoping to clear up the tears before they came. He didn't want to cry, not when Gary and Kylie and Kay were all fine, just moving on with their lives, like he should be.
It was time that he got back to hunting seriously, going where he was needed and not just where it was convenient.
He was lost in thought as he left the tram, walking the six blocks to the train station.
He never made it.