A/N Please forgive me for this one - I haven't done my typical edit, re-edit, edit again and then edit ONE MORE TIME (3 times), but I wanted to get this up tonight because I am having carpal tunnel surgery on my dominant hand tomorrow. I'm told it's an easy surgery and I should be back to typing by early next week - but I was told something similar about my "simple" shoulder surgery several years back, and was out of commission for 3 months.
Hopefully, I'll be back to this early next week, but in case I'm not…. well, here you go.
And for those of you wondering, yes, I am absolutely setting us up for the first season. Not sure if this will be the last chapter before that, or if there will be (at least) one more, but we're getting there.
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Bay View Cabins
Palo Alto, CA
December 25, 2003
7:35 a.m.
Sam parked his bike behind Dean's cabin, shrugging his backpack off his shoulders with a self-satisfied smile. He couldn't believe he'd been able to pull it off, after five years. The perfect Christmas present.
To top it off, it was a beautiful morning for a bike ride to and from his dorm to check his mail for the present, and he'd been able to watch the sun come up over the Bay on the way back.
Not a bad way to start their la—-Christmas, he decided, pushing down his thoughts of tomorrow, stepping up to the back deck, and setting his backpack down beside the door until it was time to give his big brother his present.
"Dean," he called, opening the french door, "I'm—"
And suddenly, he was half-standing, back against the wall, holding his jaw.
"What the hell, Sam!" Dean yelled, shaking something in his hand at him.
"What the h—what the fuck, Dean?!" Sam yelled right back and pushed himself away from the door jamb he'd landed against — and that was going to hurt later — and faced a clearly pissed off Dean.
"I always knew that, for a genius, you're a fuckin' moron, Sam," Dean continued, "but I didn't think you were fucking suicidal to go with it! What the fuck are you thinking?" Dean demanded, again waving the small object in front of Sam.
This time, Sam recognized it. His Blackberry. He must've left it behind when he went for his ride. And Dean had the missed call list up, which meant…
Oh, shit.
"Dean…"
"Guess who called why you were out, Sammy," Dean snarked.
"Dean," Sam tried again.
"No. NO," Dean warned and shoved the phone into Sam's hands, before stalking into the kitchen. "Don't you try to justify this to me, dammit. You can't! There is no justification for you getting a call from DAD!"
"Actually…" Sam began, slipping the phone into his back pocket and following his brother — at a safe distance, well out of the range of Dean's still-clenched fists.
"Don't you even," Dean snarled. "Don't you get all apologetic and — and — explanatory and fucking logical on me, dammit."
"Explanatory?"
"Shut up. Goddammit, Sammy, we got you a new number, man, just to keep him from being able to find you, and you…you fucking gave it to him, didn't you? Cuz I didn't, and I can guaran-fucking-tee he didn't get it from Bobby. Why would you ever give your new phone number out to the guy who TRIED TO FUCKING KILL YOU, Sam? Huh?" he demanded, moving so quickly towards his brother that Sam didn't have time to move back, and pushed Sam in the chest, hard, sending the younger man tumbling over the coffee table and onto the floor between the table and the couch. "You stupid fucking moron!" Dean yelled.
"NO! PLEASE!" Sam yelped and Dean froze, fist raised, staring down at his brother, his Sammy, cowering in front of him, arms raised above his head, panting.
In fear.
Sammy was afraid.
Of HIM.
"Oh, shit, Sammy," Dean whispered, all anger gone, and dropped to his knees in front of his shaking brother. He reached to offer comfort, and broke a little when Sammy flinched back with a muttered no.
"I'm sorry," Dean said quietly and retreated a few feet to sit with his back pressed against his armchair. "Sammy, I'm so sorry, I'd never hi…" he began and stopped himself from finishing the sentence, too full of shame at the realization that he had hit his brother, just minutes ago. "I didn't mean…I'm sorry," he repeated, his voice rough and his heart broken. "Sam?"
"Shut up, Dean," Sam growled, pressing his fingers to his eyes and trying to get his harsh, panting breathing and pounding heart under control. "Just give me a fucking minute."
"Yeah," Dean nodded. "All the time you need, Sammy. Whatever you need."
They sat in silence, Sam working on his breathing, Dean trying to figure out how to help.
After a few minutes, Dean stood and retreated to the kitchen, grabbing his cup from the table as he passed.
"Coffee?" he offered, his voice very nearly normal.
"Yeah, please," Sam agreed, his voice only barely shaking, and, with a deep sigh, stood to meet Dean at the kitchen table, nodding when Dean set a cup in front of. him.
Dean sat cautiously across from him. "Sam, I…"
"No, it's…I'm sorry, Dean."
"YOU'RE sorry!" Dean scoffed. "The fuck have you got to be sorry about? I'm the one who…"
"You hit me, Dean," Sam said flatly. "You got mad, and you took a swing. Not the first time, not the last, and you know damn well I can give as good as I can get. It's just…I overreacted," Sam sighed. "I fell, and then I looked up and…"
"And I was gonna pummel you," Dean shook his head. "It's my…"
"I didn't even see you, Dean," Sam cut him off. "You get that? I never would've reacted that way if I'd been seeing you. I just…" He paused and nervously pushed his hair back, and shrugged. "My therapist said that I'd have flashbacks. That there'd be…triggers." He huffed a short laugh. "Apparently, texting the guy who nearly killed me is a trigger. Who knew?"
"You've been in therapy?" Dean asked, amazed. They'd never discussed it or anything, but Winchesters didn't do therapy. That was a rule, he was pretty sure.
His rule, anyway. Dad's for damn sure. But apparently, Sammy had other ideas.
So what else is new?
"Yeah, it was an assignment from my Psych 121 class Freshman year."
"Your what now?"
"It was a general course elective," Sam half-defended. "Anyway, on a hunt, we run into a lot of fucked up people. Thought it would be helpful to know how to, you know…talk to 'em. Without fucking 'em up worse."
"Wow. You…you really…"
"Not a big deal, Dean."
"Yeah, no, I know, but…you actually…TALKED to somebody. A stranger. About Dad. About…uh…is that all?"
Sam chuckled. "You are not part of my trauma, Dean. And as I think I've mentioned, I want an education, not an extended stay in a padded room. Honestly. I didn't talk about much. I just saw her twice, and…finished the class," he shrugged.
"Okay," Dean nodded. "Okay. Cool. Did…uh…did it…you know. Like. Help? At all?"
"Got a chance to vent about Dad to somebody not otherwise invested," Sam admitted. "But, Dean, man…the shit we went through as kids? Not just Dad, but the monsters, patching each other up in seedy motel rooms you definitely didn't want to see under a black light? Movin' all the damn time. No amount of therapy was gonna deal with that," he laughed. "And honestly, it doesn't have to. We did a lot of general talking in that class. The professor had us all filled out a questionnaire, yabout our life. Have you ever been hit by your parents, or bullied in school? Did you feel safe as a kid, stuff like that. And then, he had us add a note at the bottom with the best and worst thing in your life. My worst was…well, Dad, obviously. But my best? You and me, man. The professor totaled up all the answers, and gave us a statistical breakdown. Turns out, almost 20% of the class got knocked around at home. 3% got raped; like incest rape. But what really got me was the number of kids in that class who said they've never felt loved; like over half. And that sure the shit wasn't me, not with you around," Sam assured his brother, looking at Dean with that soft, slightly sappy my big brother is awesome expression that had, by the age of 6, become as essential to Dean as breathing. "So you know what? On balance, our life? It wasn't that bad." He sighed and gave a soft, sad little smile. "I mean, Hunting is never going to be my favorite thing, and frankly I'd be a lot happier if I didn't know what was out there in the dark. But, at least I had you. And we fixed ourselves, man. Got away from the abuse, and… You know, we came out the other side. Better off than a lot of people. Like you said, no matter what else…. You. Me. The Impala. We always had a home. It was a pretty good one," he decided and grinned. "The beatings notwithstanding."
"Wow." Dean sat back and took a sip of his coffee. "I'm glad you did that, then, man, if it helped at all. But, uh…that's an awful lot of heavy, deep and real for only my second cup of coffee, dude."
"Sorry, man," Sam laughed.
"Eh, what the hell. It's Christmas, right? Isn't that supposed to be the time for chick flicks?"
And just that fast, the Brothers Winchester were in harmony again.
"So," Dean said after another sip of his coffee. "You just texted him."
"Yeah. Actually, I was hoping he'd just text back. 'Cuz, I don't want to actually speak to the man," Sam admitted, and frowned as a thought hit him. "Did you pick up?"
"No!" Dean scoffed. "I don't want to talk to him. And I didn't get to the phone in time," he admitted, "but mostly, I don't want to talk to him."
Sam nodded and waited for Dean to say what was clearly on his mind.
"And that that's why you didn't want to talk about the dream until tomorrow. Because the dream had something to do with Dad. A 'nice Chirstmas', you said. Guessing you figured talking about Dad would screw that up," Dean said and shrugged. "You're not wrong."
"Well, no, that's not…" Sam sighed and raised a hand before Dean could protest the apparent lie. "When I asked you to wait until tomorrow, I didn't know Dad was even in the dream. I knew it was some hunter, I was pretty sure someone we knew. And I was hoping to have the last piece of the puzzle before we talked about it. Which I got," he added with a shrug, "last night. Well, stupid early this morning. That's what woke me up, realizing that — that one of the Hunters was Dad. In the dreams, I mean. So I texted him, to be sure he was…you know…okay. And then I took a bike ride to clear my head."
"Okay, Sammy," Dean said, slapping his hands on the table as he stood and moved into the kitchen proper. "I'm gonna come over here and make us a nice Christmas breakfast," he decided and started picking out pans and utensils. "And you, little brother," he added, pointing at Sam with a spatula, "are going to tell me your dream."
Sam frowned and Dean paused as he pulled a carton of eggs out of the fridge. "No. NO, Sam," Dean shook his head in warning. "If Dad's involved, all bets and agreements are off. You tell me, now."
"No, I get that," Sam agreed, but his blue-green eyes narrowed in consideration.
"Then what?" Dean asked cautiously.
"Well, it was an agreement," Sam pointed out. "A deal. And breaking a deal…that's serious business, Dean."
"Sam…."
"So, if compensation for the invalidation of the deal is breakfast…"
"Compensation for the… Dude. I never would've let you go pre-law, if I'd known you'd turn into a douchebag."
"…I expect the full-on Dean Winchester Breakfast Experience," Sam continued, as if Dean hadn't interrupted. "Eggs — Dean eggs — Bacon — turkey bacon, for me, dude," he specified, and ignored the disgusted snear and rolled eyes he received in return.
"Of course the Full Dean," Dean shrugged. "It's Christmas," he added, like they had ever had more than stale bread or day-old greasy breakfast sandwiches for Christmas, before they'd left Dad and Sleazy Motels behind.
"And I expect the biscuits, Dean," Sam warned. "I don't know what you do to those tubes of biscuit dough, but I love to eat your biscuits, man."
"All right," Dean frowned as if he'd just stumbled over a ghoul feast, "first off, never ever say that again. Second, chill, Dude, I got it covered. Oven's already pre-heating."
"Excellent," Sam beamed and leaned back in his chair to wait for his epic breakfast.
Dean cracked six eggs into a medium sized bowl, and began to whisk them with a tiny bit of milk and a less tiny bit of vanilla extract. "Well," he challenged, glancing over his shoulder as he sprinkled in a pinch of salt and dash of pepper. "Start."
"Oh, right," Sam nodded. "I'm going to tell you from the beginning, okay? In parts, like I got it, so you understand what's going on and why I felt I had to check on Dad."
"Okay," Dean agreed.
"It'll take a little time to tell, so don't be pushing me, all right?" Sam warned and Dean just shrugged.
"No pushing, got it. Get on with it, Sammy."
"Okay," Sam nodded and took a deep breath. "First dream, first night. There's a Hunter — I can't see any details, not his face, not his car, not his equipment…" he paused to shoot a bitchface at Dean's back when his brother snickered. "His hunting equipment," Sam clarified, because apparently his 24-year-old brother was really an 8-year-old in disguise. "I have no clue who this Hunter is, or where he is, or when he is — past, future, now. Ish. And I don't know what he's hunting, but whatever it is, he thinks — he knows — he can't handle it himself. It's at least a two-person job, maybe even three, so he starts calling around. I never get names of who he calls, or anything, but he calls at least a dozen people, and no takers. Everybody is busy, or too far away. "
"Ain't that always the way," Dean frowned. "See, at least we have each other for backup. Poor bastard."
"Anyway," Sam continued, "the hunter can't find backup, but whatever he's hunting, it's still out there, killing people."
"So he goes it alone," Dean guessed with a sigh, and poured the whisked eggs into a hot cast iron pan.
"So he goes it alone," Sam confirmed, and paused until Dean set the ceramic mixing bowl down, slid a tray full of biscuits into the oven, and added bacon to a hot, wide, flat bottomed skillet. "And he dies. And then I woke up," Sam finished.
Dean stirred the eggs before adding them, to a cast iron pan he'd melted some butter in, all the while running over what Sam had told him so far.
Finally, when he felt like he had a handle on it, he leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms and just looked at his brother.
"Okay," Dean nodded. "So, that was first night. Next night?" he challenged.
"Like I said the other day, there were two entirely different dreams going on," Sam continued. "This one was…" Sam sighed and shook his head. "Honestly, Dean, it's the worst — the flat out most terrifying dream I've ever had. The shit I dream about Dad doesn't come close." It didn't quite out-scare the dreams where Sam watched Dean die, bloody and painfully, on a hunt because Sam wasn't good enough to protect him — but he wasn't going to mention that, not to Dean.
"Worse than the Asheville dreams?" Dean marveled, and gave a low whistle when Sammy just nodded. "Shit, Sammy. What was it about?"
"The best way I can describe it," Sam said slowly, "is, well…End Times."
"End Times."
"Yeah. Full on End of the World shit, Dean. I'm talking earthquakes, floods, tidal waves. Volcanoes going off all over the world, whole countries just wiped out by lava. And War. Like, all over the world, suddenly, everybody is just bombing everybody else. Conventional weapons at first, but then…mushroom clouds over North America, South America, Europe, Asia, the fucking Arctic. And, even before the nuclear bombs, people just…dropping dead in the street, by the thousands, bleeding from their eyes and ears and screaming in pain. It's every bad disaster film ever made, all at once."
"Holy shit," Dean whispered, turning back to the stove to check the bacon and stir the eggs with a slightly shaky hand. "No wonder you were so freaked out. I'm freaked out just hearing about it," he admitted. and Sam nodded gratefully at the understanding.
"And through the whole dream, I keep getting pulled back to this one place, like a park or something. I felt like there's something I was supposed to see there, but…I woke up before I figure it out."
"Okay," Dean nodded and refilled both their coffee cups, before returning to the stove. "And the next night?"
"I'm back to the first dream," Sam shrugged. "Some Hunter — still don't know who — trying to get help with a hunt. But this time is different. This time, someone does go with him — and I don't who that is, either, not then — and they kill the…whatever it is, I never actually find out, not in any dream. And then the dream just ends."
"Huh."
"Yeah. So, fourth dream? I'm seeing all the places I saw in the second dream, the End of the World dream — but the world isn't ending. Everything is peaceful, fine. No volcanoes, no earthquakes, no nuclear war. Nothin'. And the dream ends."
"Hmm."
"Fifth night," Sam began, "and we're back to the Hunter; back, really, to the first dream. A tough hunt, no backup. Hunter dies. This time, before the dream ends, I'm back in the park I kept getting pulled to during the End Times dream. And now I realize, it's not a park at all. It's a cemetery. And I'm standing by this one gravestone, but I'm looking at the back of it, and I can't — I wake up before I can move to see what's carved on the face."
"Well, that's frustrating."
"Tell me about it," Sam chuckled. "Sixth night…"
"Oh, let me guess!" Dean interrupted. "It's the End Times again."
"Yeah," Sam nodded, "just like before. Except this time, when I'm pulled to the cemetery? I can walk to the front of the stone. And it's…The ground is all cracked and there's ash everywhere, and weeds are almost as high as the headstone, and there's ivy all over it. I kneel down, and I try to clear it off, to see what's carved there, but I can only clear off part of the bottom, and all I see…It says…it doesn't make any sense, what it says, but… there's just one word on the bottom line: Broken. That's it, just, Broken. And I wake up."
Dean moved the eggs off the heat and pulled the biscuits out of the oven, turning the oven and all burners off, then set the bacon on a towel-covered plate to drain, before putting half the eggs, two biscuits and the fowl-derived blasphemy that Sam persisted, against all logic and reality, in calling "bacon" on a plate he set before his brother, before serving himself and joining Sam at the table.
Silence fell, broken only by appreciative sighs and yummy noises as the brothers began to eat.
"Oh, god," Sam sighed, after taking a bite of one of the biscuits. "Man, I ever find someone who can replicate your biscuits — or your eggs — I'll marry her."
"Good luck with that," Dean snickered. "I don't give my secrets away to anybody. Now, keep going, dreamweaver, don't keep me in suspense, here. What did you dream the night before last? Hunter lived again?"
"Yeah," Sam admitted, taking another quick bite of his turkey bacon and a quick sip of his coffee. "And this time, once that dream ended, I went right into the everything-is-right-with-the-world dream. But then, I went into the Hunter dies dream. It's a little different this time, because after the Hunter dies, I'm back at the cemetery again, and I can see the seasons changing around me as I walk back to the tombstone. By the time I get to the right grave, the sky is all black, and the cemetery is covered in ash again, and I know we're back to the end of the damn world. The bottom line of the carving — Broken — is still cleared, and I'm trying to clear more off. And I get another line, and now I can read a full sentence. The First Seal was Broken. And then I woke up."
"The first seal?" Dean repeated. "The fuck is that?"
"I don't know, man. I tried to research it, but there are so many seals in the lore. The Seal of Solomon, Seals on all kinds of crypts, hidden realms, some really nasty shit locked away for all time, and who knows what all."
"I don't suppose we could be lucky enough to be just looking at some kind of injured sea mammal."
"Yeah, right," Sam scoffed. "Like the Winchester Luck would ever let that happen. We'd be more likely to have broken the seal to Cthulhu's realm, then anything that simple."
Dean nodded. "Okay," he said quietly, and got up to top off their coffees again. "You said last night, you figured it out."
Reluctantly, Sam nodded.
"Tell me."
"Well, after that last set, where I had both dreams, in both versions, I thought I had a handle on it. There's a Hunter, and a hunt he needs back up for. If he gets the backup…"
"If Dad backs him up, because he's the best," Dean nodded, and failed to notice the way Sam's eyes flicked up to Dean's face, then away.
"If he gets backup, he lives and everything is fine. If he dies…the world burns."
Dean blew out a breath. "Man, that's just…how could one guy dying cause the End Times?"
"I don't know," Sam sighed. "I'm as baffled by that bit as you are. Anyway, last night, early this morning, I had the two good dreams first, then the two bad. And this time, I'm able to clear off the bottom half of the headstone, and read the whole inscription. His Guilt Dragged Him Down Until The First Seal was Broken."
"What the fuck?"
"I don't know," Sam chuckled. "I was starting to back away from the headstone, trying to wrap my head around it all, and there was this flash of lightning, and…It cracked the stone, but it also blew off the rest of the ivy and shit, and finally I could see the name," he admitted and for the first time, Dean noticed the slight tremor in his little brother's voice.
"Sam…"
"It's Dad, Dean," Sam said quietly. "The Hunter was Dad. And as soon as I knew that…" he shrugged and shook his head. "There's no question. The Hunter is Dad, and the backup? The one who saves his life, and stops the world from ending?
It's you."
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A/N
Black lights are a type of fluorescent bulb with a specific coating. It causes some items that are otherwise invisible to the human eye to glow when exposed to the black light. Most bodily fluids will glow under a black light.
I don't know about other countries, but in the U.S. premade, uncooked biscuits in a variety of forms and flavors, come in literal cardboard tubes, kept in the refrigerator. They only take a few minutes to cook, and taste decent, but nowhere near as good as homemade. Still, they're fast and easy and Americans love that.
Cthulhu is a cosmic entity created by H.P. Lovecraft. He is the High Priest of the Great Old Ones, the Great Dreamer, and a nerd icon pretty much from when he was first unleashed upon the world in the short story The Call of Cthulhu in 1928. Cthulhu and Lovecraft are both mentioned in Supernatural, and I couldn't resist the reference here.
For anyone wondering — I don't know what Dean does to the biscuits, but the vanilla in the he eggs is something I learned from a friend who's a chef. I've made eggs with a good bit of vanilla ever since and all who have had them sing there praises. My grandson, when he was little, used to call them "candy eggs" and we had to have them every time he stayed over!
yassy30 - So glad you're enjoying it! I'm not giving up on this one - in fact, there's a potential series of powers!witch!Sam in my head...Not on AO3, but I have requested an invite, which should be here any day, I'm told. Hang in there! I'll get more as soon as I'm able.
