House Hunter
K Hanna Korossy
The houses on the street were enough into the trees and far apart that no one would have heard when the yelling started unless they were passing just in front.
But no one was out on the sidewalk that frigid morning.
The voices escalated, verging on the hysterical. Then there was a scream, and a shot. Twenty seconds later, a second shot.
The neighbors did hear those.
By the time police and the ambulance arrived, the house was completely silent again.
00000
"So, get this."
They were in a Seattle library, looking up various stories from across the country that could maybe be their kind of thing. Dean was researching some strange-acting car story, although Sam suspected he just wanted an excuse to go to a car show, even if it was in California.
It was coming up on two years since Jess died, though, and Sam was just as happy to stay far away from Cali. He was tired in general, probably in part from all the research and worrying he'd done about his "shining." A job nearby sounded good.
Dean looked up from the newspaper he was reading, expression hopeful. Maybe his brother was as anxious to work as Sam was?
Sam turned his laptop around so Dean could see the site he was on. "That house in Ashland with the murder-suicide? It's got a history."
"Other deaths?" Dean asked.
"Other tragedies." Sam started clicking through the tabs. "Two pets have been torn apart on the property. Two families sold after divorces. One owner went insane and almost set fire to the place. And I've found at least one miscarriage."
Dean frowned. "Old houses sometimes see a lot. You sure it's not just the years?"
"The house is fourteen years old, Dean. It's in a new development."
Dean's expression shifted from skeptical to that's not normal. "Okay, so…Ashland? That's only a couple of hours." He closed his laptop and started to rise.
Sam still sat, chewing a thumbnail as he gazed at the last website.
"So…" Dean paused. "You comin' with me, or am I doin' this one solo?"
"The property doesn't have any history," Sam said slowly, thinking out loud. "I mean, nothing bad happened that would have corrupted the house." Well, bad things had happened, but not enough to be a catalyst. These were symptoms, Sam just didn't know of what.
"Yeah, so? The building materials could've come pre-corrupted. Or maybe there's a cursed object stuck in a crack somewhere in the house. Or a body buried in the basement. We won't know until we get there, dude."
Sam nodded and began to gather his things. That was often true; he'd gone as far as he could on the research end without going on-site.
But somehow he had a bad feeling about going into this one blind.
00000
They sat in front of the house for a while, taking stock.
The EMF was probably just from the power lines. The house looked normal, even the police tape gone now. There was no dead vegetation around it—if anything, the gardens looked overgrown—and nothing was setting off Dean's "spidey sense." He knew better than to ask about Sam's.
As they watched, a teenage girl walking a dog came along. Just before she reached the house they were surveilling, she glanced at it, then crossed the street with her pet to walk on the far side. She stared at the house as she passed it.
The brothers gave each other a pointed look.
"The dog wasn't freaking out," Dean observed.
"Maybe it was far enough away?"
They sat a little longer in contemplation. Finally, by unspoken agreement, they opened their doors at in sync and went around to the trunk to load up.
Dean mostly took weapons, a little of everything for an unknown foe. Sam focused on the research end of things: a few herbs and a book of cleansing rituals, the infrared thermal scanner, and another detector Dean had rigged up that registered ultrasound, harmonics they couldn't hear. It wouldn't be the first time something physical had set off violent, emotional reactions. He also took his Smith & Wesson and a silver knife, Dean saw approvingly. Prepared as best they could, they shouldered their gear and headed to the porch.
A glance around as they reached the door showed the girl was long gone and no one else was in sight. Still, Dean stood shielding his brother as Sam picked the lock. One more glance and they ducked inside.
The house was still furnished. The murder-suicide had been only a week before, and the property would be in limbo for a while. Dean elbowed his brother, and Sam followed his gaze to the dark rust stain of old blood on the light living room carpet.
"Anyone who gets white carpets is already kinda crazy," Dean muttered, getting only an eyeroll from his brother.
They usually split up on jobs like this, despite experience showing that could be foolish. Some silent agreement kept them at each other's heels this time, however, creeping through the house together. Sam took readings and sometimes stared off into the distance like he was trying to feel anything wrong, and Dean watched his back, sawed-off cocked and ready, his own senses on high alert.
But…he didn't feel a thing. No hair rising on the back of his neck, no hint of sulfur or ozone, no feeling of being watched, no itch under his skin. Not even a twinge of something bad is gonna happen.
"Anything?" he finally asked Sam.
"No. You?" Sam darted a glance back at him.
"Nada." Dean lowered the shotgun a little. "You think maybe it was just…bad luck? I mean, it happens, right? You hear about something that happened before, and you start feelin' edgy: bam, self-fulfilling prophecy."
"Maybe," Sam said, but he didn't sound convinced.
They cleared the basement, which was one of the neatest, most brightly-lit, unspooky basements Dean had ever been in, and the upstairs. They finally ended up back where they started, inside the front door.
"What do you think?" Dean asked. "You gettin' any bad vibes? Or is this not our kinda gig?"
Sam grimaced as he stowed the stubbornly silent EMF detector. "I don't know. I don't feel it, but…"
"Yeah," Dean agreed. But. He thought for a moment. "Could be like Roosevelt," he finally mused.
Sam turned to him, frowning. "The asylum?" Where I shot you, was the unspoken addition. They never talked about Roosevelt.
"Remember, during the day, bupkis, but at night…"
"…ghost city." Sam was nodding. "So, we come back tonight?"
"We come back tonight," Dean agreed. Not only ghosts preferred the nighttime; all manner of evil came out to play when it was dark.
Sam gathered his stuff and headed back to the car. Dean lingered a moment before following him, looking back at the quiet house.
Was it weird that he had a shiver of dread because of the absence of anything foreboding?
00000
They found a decent Vietnamese place for dinner, after Dean had nixed Mexican with mutters of beans and toxic that Sam pretended not to hear. Stomachs full but minds churning, they stopped at the local historical society to double-check their research.
"Well, it's definitely not the land," Dean grumped as they got back to the car a long hour later.
Like he'd said, Sam didn't point out, but he understood Dean's frustration. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility that the house had just witnessed a string of bad luck, but the less they found, the more wary Sam felt. And he couldn't even put his finger on why.
"You want ice cream?" Dean asked suddenly, gazing past Sam. "I want ice cream."
Sam turned to look behind him. Ashland was known for its Shakespearean festival and theatres, and even the stores carried on the theme. Suzy's Homemade Ice Cream was written in elegant script on a building with fancy woodwork along the corners and top. The place was busy. Sam shrugged. "I could go for ice cream."
He ended up with a salted caramel cone that was surprisingly good, while Dean went for a double scoop that looked like it contained every mix-in you could imagine. Sam hid a smile; his brother had two settings, four-year-old and four-hundred. More the latter since their father had died and—while Sam didn't like to admit it—since Sam had started moving furniture with his mind and getting visions of people's deaths. Dean had recently admitted as much to Andy, and Sam…didn't know what to do with that. He knew Dean was afraid for him, not of him, which helped a little bit. But Sam had no clue how to make that better, for either of them.
They sat on the bench and ate ice cream and people-watched. Sometimes when something was wrong in a town, like that shtriga in Fitchburg, there was a feeling of edginess: townsfolk subdued and in a hurry, eyeing strangers with suspicion and fear. There was none of that visible here, though. Kids emerged from the parlor bouncing and chattering with ice cream-fueled excitement. Couples walked by hand in hand. A UPS guy making deliveries looked harried, but it was a warm evening and he was still wrangling a big pile of packages, so nothing strange there.
"Maybe it's some kinda fumes an' we just weren't there long enough to feel it," Dean finally offered with a full mouth.
"Something undiscovered giving off fumes for fourteen years?" Sam said skeptically. The bad things had started happening almost as soon as the house was built.
"Still could be some kind of cursed materials."
Sam sighed, sucking on a hard chunk of caramel. "The houses around it were built the same time, same company, so probably same materials."
"Only takes one piece," Dean said, but it was a half-hearted argument at best. A cursed object could affect a whole household, but Sam had never heard of a cursed board or window. Even recovered wood from, say, the site of a mass killing shouldn't have that kind of mojo.
A little boy in front of them licked his ice cream clean out of the cone, and started to cry when it fell to the ground. The mom was sympathetic but said she didn't have enough for another cone.
Dean promptly switched his cone to his other hand, pulled out his wallet, and offered the mom a fiver with a wink and a charming smile. Sam hid his own smile as the young mother blushed, flustered, and protested, until her son's pleas made her accept the money. They returned to the ice cream shop.
"Softie," Sam muttered into his cone.
Dean ignored him. He was silent in thought for a handful of seconds, then said, "What about the people?"
Sam frowned. "What do you mean?"
"The homeowners. They still have bad luck after they moved?"
Sam had checked up on the former owners, of course, but they had all moved out of the area and none had answered his calls. He hadn't thought to look at whether they'd had further tragedies. He huh-d, tipping his head in acknowledgment that it was a good idea.
Dean crunched the last piece of his cone and looked up. "Sun's down. You wanna wait and do more research, or head over?"
Sam tended to eat slower—he'd wondered sometime if that said something about the way they'd grown up, Dean less sure of his food than his little brother?—and was just nearing the end. "I don't think more research is gonna tell us more about the house." Even if they found the bad luck had followed the people, it still didn't mean the house hadn't done something to them to begin with.
Dean slapped his legs and stood. "All right, let's go hunt…something." The lady and kid had just come out of the store, the boy licking a new ice cream cone. Dean and the kid grinned at each other.
Four-year-old, Sam could swear.
They tossed their napkins and climbed back into the Impala, heading off into the dusk.
00000
The house didn't look creepier at night.
It was tall, so there was some degree of looming, but the street lights reflected off the pale siding and chased away the worst of the shadows. The windows weren't broken, the porch wasn't sagging, and no trees stretched clawlike toward trespassers. Dean suspected they wouldn't find anything tonight, either.
Still, they loaded up again with everything they might need, from Missouri's poltergeist-repelling bags to salt-loaded shotguns to the EMF detector, on and quietly humming from the nearby power lines. Then, with an exchange of nods, they headed up the walk side by side.
They hadn't bothered locking the door from last time, knowing they'd soon be back. Still, they were careful with their flashlights and didn't turn the lights on. The last thing they needed was watchful neighbors calling the police.
The bottom floor held a living room, dining room, kitchen, and one more large room with sofas and chairs: family room? Parlor? Dean had no idea why people needed so many rooms or what they did with them. He rarely felt cramped sharing single motel rooms with his brother, and Sam was six-foot-ninety.
They checked out each room carefully, every sense straining for signs of wrong. No ozone or sulfur smells. No symbols or blood visible. No prickle of the skin or soft scratching noises or metallic taste in the mouth.
With a silent glance of agreement, they headed upstairs, Dean leading with the shotgun, Sam following with the detector and his handgun.
The bedrooms were upstairs. One had baby animals painted on the walls, and another was done in maroon, which, ick. It looked like dried blood, but whatever. People were weird. Dean checked the walk-in closet while Sam looked in the bench seat.
Sam sighed hard. "There's nothing here."
"Maybe," Dean allowed. They could still check the excruciatingly cheerful basement.
"We're wasting our time." Sam lifted his arms and dropped them again. "We should be, I don't know, trying to find more people like Andy and me, or-or figuring out what Yellow Eyes' plan is, not touring houses that are totally normal." He spat the words out, like the whole hunt was a personal affront.
"We gotta make sure, right?" Dean asked, eyebrow raised. Sam had been on edge since the whole visions thing really took off, not that Dean could blame him. Hunts were good distractions. Dead ends, maybe not so much, but was this one? "If something bad happens to the next family that moves in…"
"It still wouldn't be our fault," Sam argued. "Bad things happen to good people, Dean. You of all people should know that."
He wasn't positive what Sam was referring to; Dean himself wasn't what he'd call "good people." But, yeah, they'd certainly seen their share of tragedies. "Sam—"
"I'm calling it," Sam said firmly. "There's nothing here. Let's go."
Dean softened; Sam was really upset. Maybe he needed a little time off instead of another hunt; they could always hit the beach after this. Okay, not in California, but Oregon had beaches. "Fine," Dean soothed. "Let's just check the rest of the rooms and—"
"No! I'm leaving now."
He was actually…kinda awesome when he was mad like that: flushed, his hair mussed and eyes snapping. Dean wanted so badly to keep him safe, but life kept punching him down. Did he know Dean was always on his side? That Dean loved him?
Dean needed him to know. He stepped forward, pushing aside the duffel Sam was trying to stuff the EMF detector into, and as Sam looked up with a frown, fervently kissed him.
00000
Dean was kissing him.
Not the quick peck on the top of the head he gave Sam once in a blue moon after a bad scare. Nothing remotely brotherly. This was a full-on, eyes closed, tender kiss on the lips.
Sam's brain shut down for a second.
Then the shock gave way to realization and, disgusted and horrified, Sam shoved his brother away. The brother who'd just passionately kissed him.
No way was this Dean.
Sam had his gun aimed before he even thought about it, looking wildly at the stranger who was staring back at him. And, yeah, he'd never seen that expression on Dean before, that stunned and naked bewilderment. Not Dean.
"Who are you?" he barked.
"Sam…" Dean touched his lips like he couldn't believe what he'd just done—Sam was totally with him on that one—and then reached out to him. "Sammy, I—"
"Don't call me that! Where's my brother?" He was bellowing now, didn't care even when this fake Dean flinched at the tone.
For a moment, something panicked and sick and appalled passed through Dean's face. Sam almost faltered, because that kind of pain on his brother's face struck the deepest chord in him. But, no, this wasn't his brother, Dean would never have—
Before he could firm his stance again, Dean moved. Faster than seemed humanly capable—not Dean, not Dean—the figure lunged, grabbed Sam's upper arms, and flung him aside.
No, he was yanking Sam along with him. Toward the large bay window. Crap, the thing was suicidal, taking Sam with it.
Dean was going to be so mad.
And then they were crashing through the window and falling, hands releasing him but too late, and then—
Sam hit the bushes. Lots of leafy branches with smooth leaves cushioned his landing as he crashed down and rolled onto grass, stunned.
For a minute he just lay there, breathing hard and looking up at the stars, trying to figure out what had just happened.
Dean had kissed him. Then jumped out a second-story window with him. Yeah, no, it still didn't make sense.
Sam groaned, moving limbs, twisting, checking if anything was broken. His right shoulder and back ached, and he was pretty sure there was a piece of glass in his hand. But, amazingly, that seemed to be worst of it. The bushes had broken his fall.
"Sammy." Dean's ragged voice shook him out of his mental inventory. Sam turned his head to see Dean, blood on his face and propped on one elbow, staring at him from two feet away. He reached out a hand toward Sam, then dropped it before it cleared half the distance between them. "Y'okay?" He looked shell-shocked and sounded…scared. Stunned. Desperate. Exactly like Sam's brother.
He was Sam's brother; how could Sam have doubted that? And he'd probably just saved both their lives.
"No," Sam rasped back. He stretched out his own arm, placing one splayed hand on Dean's chest. "You?"
Dean dropped back into the grass and tentatively laid a hand on top of Sam's. "Not even close," he murmured.
It was a long time before either of them moved.
When they had finally climbed to their feet, Dean swept his gaze surreptitiously over his brother. He couldn't bear to look Sam in the eye, but he still needed to make sure he was—at least physically—okay.
Sam was moving gingerly, but everything seemed intact. He pulled a jagged piece of glass out of the back of his hand, then carefully reached over and plucked one from Dean's neck that Dean hadn't even felt. Sam wasn't meeting Dean's gaze, either, every move tentative.
They staggered back to the car together, one occasionally grabbing the other's shirt or shoulder as they stumbled. Dean's ankle was killing him, but he wasn't about to lean on Sam. He idly wiped blood from his eye as he went and tried not to think about what had just happened.
As if they'd discussed it although neither of them had said a word, they traded their duffels for a bag of rock salt and the canister of gas in the trunk. Something this insidious, this invisible until it struck at the foundation of a person, probably couldn't be cleansed and definitely couldn't be left to trap anyone else. Sam went first, salting the perimeter of the house, and Dean followed with the accelerant, making particularly sure to soak the front and back door. They had to make sure this house was unsalvageable.
Dean took out his lighter when they were just out of sight of the street, lit it, and paused. Then he offered it to Sam without a side glance.
Sam took it and hurled it with unnecessary force at a wet patch by the basement window. The gas immediately burst into flames and started traveling in both directions around the ground floor.
They limped back to the car in silence and drove away before they even heard the first siren.
00000
Neither of them spoke in the car at first. Dean was almost afraid to, his mind shying away from the memory of what he'd done, or how he could ever look at his brother again. He clenched his jaw and drove, never glancing to the right.
But he could feel Sam's distress across the space between them. He was probably as horrified as Dean was, and furious. Repulsed. Dean was supposed to protect him, not…
"Dean—"
"No." Dean rubbed his eyes clear and kept driving.
Sam didn't try again.
Back at the motel, they got out and just left everything behind in the car, numbly trudging into the room. Sam kept right on going into the bathroom, softly shutting the door behind him.
Dean sank down onto the edge of his bed and dropped his head into hands.
What the literal Hell?
He could still feel it. The love he always had for his brother, taking a turn into something so twisted and wrong. Thinking Sam was lashing out in anger, and needing to show him that Dean still loved him. Leaning forward and—
Dean swept the duffel bag off his bed with one arm, then clutched at his head again. It was freakin' incest; what would their dad—?
"Hey."
He hadn't heard the bathroom door open. Dean looked up to see Sam in a towel, hair dripping wet, face anxious. He must've heard the crash.
"Y'all right?" Sam asked quietly.
Dean nodded this time, then pushed to his feet. Sam was still studying him, but Dean wasn't ready for that, so he gimped past his brother, into the bathroom.
He shed his clothes and stood under the hot water for a long time.
Sam's shower must've been record-breaking fast. Had he not felt the dirtiness Dean did, or was he worried about what Dean was up to alone in the room? Concern or mistrust? Dean couldn't even guess, couldn't sort through the clump of misery and shame that lodged in his thoughts. He washed up automatically, dried off before stepping out of the shower, and stopped.
Sam had set out clean clothes for him. Dean hadn't even heard him open the door.
That was… Dean's chest loosened a little. Could be pity or habit or even just pragmaticism, but it felt…normal. Safe.
Dean took a long, shaky breath. Crap, he needed a drink.
He dressed slowly, brushed his teeth, shaved: anything to delay the inevitable opening of the door.
"Suck it up, Dean," he finally muttered to himself. He had to get this over with.
He opened the door.
00000
Dean hadn't taken anything into the bathroom with him, so Sam left him a clean pile of clothes once he heard the shower go on. He got dressed, bandaged his hand, then pulled out his laptop, a thought niggling at his mind as he listened to the water flow.
The house… That wasn't like other evil they'd encountered. The ghost of Ellicott had turned Sam murderous. Poltergeists messed with you physically. Demons took over. But this was far more complicated.
Sam thought back to the house's history. Affairs. Divorce. Madness. Murder. Suicide. Not just the blanket crazy a curse or influence would inflict. Who knew what kind of manipulation each took, what unnatural feelings and urges had driven those poor people to desperate acts?
Like a brother's passionate kiss.
Sam pulled up the first owners of the house again, diving deeper.
He almost missed it again. The couple had seemingly moved in and then out a year later, nothing unusual about their stay or their life since. It took pulling up the documents for both sales before Sam saw what he'd missed.
Kyle Vanderveer had moved into the house with his wife Pamela Vanderveer. Eleven months later, the Vanderveers moved out: Kyle and Debra.
There was no trace of Pamela after that.
She could've been anywhere on the grounds, or in a wall, or even buried elsewhere but with some blood or hair or a special piece of jewelry in a crack or under some paint or in the garden. No, probably in the house since the influence had stopped once they were out the window. But it hadn't been a ghost they were dealing with, so the violent rage and betrayal and love/hate the house had witnessed had most likely seeped into its bones with her death.
Sam cursed under his breath. It hadn't been their own emotions they'd felt, not completely.
He could remember the out-of-the-blue swell of rage at not finding a monster in the house. The fear of the unknown in his own life pressing down on him. The choking feelings of futility and frustration. His experiences, but blown up to extremes. Not unlike his memories of Roosevelt, actually.
But Dean… He'd gentled with every outburst of Sam's. The concern and affection he usually buried in humor and actions had shone openly in his eyes.
Then he'd kissed Sam. Love also amped up, corrupted into something else.
Sam chewed his nail. He remembered his revulsion in response. The fury and fear that this wasn't Dean. Aiming his gun at him.
Then Dean, in an obvious moment of clarity, saving them the only way he could.
And now, he couldn't bear to even look at Sam.
Did he really think Sam would hate him for that? Well, duh, it was Dean, the guy who had Look after your brother burned into his soul. He would think what he'd done was some kind of betrayal, or even, Sam winced, a shameful secret. That it would make Sam doubt him, maybe even reject him.
Sam slowly set his laptop aside. Idiot.
But it was still…weird. You shouldn't know what it felt like to kiss your sibling on the lips. That was messed up, and Sam's stomach was churning with all the leftover emotions, both his own and those forced on him. He could just imagine how Dean felt.
It took a long time for Dean to come out of the bathroom. Sam was pretty sure he'd heard him actually brushing his teeth, which almost made him roll his eyes until he thought about where Dean's mouth had been. Yeah, maybe Sam should've brushed, too, except he'd been too worried about the silence in the room. Finding Dean slumped on the bed, his stuff scattered over the carpet and his face buried in clenched hands, hadn't exactly reassured Sam.
The door finally opened.
Dean's eyes skipped past him, then hovered about waist-high. "Bathroom's yours if you want to…" He made a gesture at his own hair.
Yeah, it would be a mess when it dried, but Sam didn't really care just then. "It can wait. Let me take a look at your ankle and those cuts."
Dean's jaw rippled. Then he tossed his dirty clothes toward his duffel and approached the bed like he was walking into a trap. He perched stiffly on the corner, clearly ready to bolt at any moment.
Dean had never liked being fussed over, and he liked it even less from Sam. Near as Sam could figure, being big brother meant to Dean that he took care of Sam, not the other way around.
Well, tough.
Sam knelt by his feet and carefully lifted Dean's right ankle, noting his brother's hiss of breath. It was already swollen, and he palpated it with a gentle touch. He could feel Dean trembling.
"I think it's just sprained, but we could get it x-rayed," Sam finally said, glancing up.
Dean's eyes were fixed to a spot on the wall above Sam's head. "It doesn't feel broken."
"All right," Sam said. They had enough experience with injuries to know if it was something they couldn't treat themselves, and Sam trusted his brother to be honest with him. He reached over to the chair for the first aid kit and dug out an ace bandage and a chemical ice pack, activating the latter and wrapping it against Dean's ankle. Then Sam pulled the chair over and carefully propped the ankle on it.
Rising, he stood over his brother and started examining him for cuts. Dean didn't protest or shove him away. He could've been carved from stone, he was sitting so rigidly.
Enough was enough. Clearing his throat, Sam said conversationally, "So. That was messed up."
Dean still said nothing, but Sam saw his grip tighten on the bed cover.
Sam pushed the short, damp hair back to find where the now-watery blood was still coming from, and found two cuts. One was just under his hairline and one an inch or so above, neither needing stitches but still seeping. Sam reached for the first-aid kit again. "You know I didn't mean it, right?"
He felt Dean start, could all but see his frown. "What?"
"Wanting to shoot you." Sam carefully squeezed super glue on the cut in the hair; Dean would never be okay with him shaving even a small patch unless absolutely necessary. "The house was really screwing with me, man, and, I don't know, it didn't feel different, you know? Not until we were outside. Like it was totally normal if I killed you." The forehead wound was taken care of with a butterfly bandage.
Dean was silent for a moment. "Like Roosevelt," he finally murmured.
"Sort of." Sam swallowed his own discomfort at that memory, but at least it was easier to talk about it without eye contact. "They both…took what I was feeling and bent into something toxic."
"Like kissing you," Dean said bluntly.
"Sure," Sam said immediately, relieved. "You were worried about me, and the house warped it into something else. And I think I know why." He reached over for the laptop and handed it to Dean.
As his brother read, Sam checked his head, neck, and hands. The gouge on Dean's throat was small and had stopped bleeding on its own, but Sam saw several other nicks and scrapes, and one deeper slice on the palm. Dean was cut up worse than Sam; he'd angled himself to be the first one through the glass. Always protecting, even when his brother had just held a weapon on him.
Sam saw when Dean made the connection, the way he stopped breathing for a moment, then slowly exhaled. He reached for Dean's hand, and Dean set the laptop aside and gave it to him.
There was a long silence. Dean's shoulders incrementally crept down from their hunch. "He killed her," he finally murmured.
"Probably," Sam said. Something was glinting inside the cut. "And I don't think she died easy."
"Not if she left that kinda mojo behind," Dean agreed. "Stew made out of crazy." He thought for a moment. "Ellicott was like that, too, huh?" he asked softly.
Sam grabbed the tweezers and eased out a tiny sliver of glass. Then he smeared the whole wound with antibiotic cream. He'd often wondered if Dean ever totally got over what Sam had said at the asylum. Forgiven him, sure, but not forgotten. Maybe this would help?
"I think some part of me knew something wasn't right at Roosevelt," he finally said, "I just couldn't control it. But the house made it seem…normal." He thought for a moment. "I bet that's what it did with some of the people who lived there, made them feel like they hated each other, you know? Or-or were in love with someone they weren't…"
Dean swallowed, watching as Sam wrapped gauze around his hand. "You know I don't…" he started awkwardly, trailed off. "Right?"
"Want to jump my bones?" Sam risked, smiling.
Dean jerked. "Dude!"
"No, Dean," Sam said patiently. "I don't think you've been secretly lusting after me."
Dean made a little choking sound and yanked himself to his feet, nearly toppling the chair his ankle had been on. "You seriously think this is funny?" he asked, incredulous.
Sam couldn't completely smother his grin. "Little bit. You realize you're more upset about you kissing me than about me almost shooting you?"
Dean clearly didn't know what to do with that, running a hand nervously through his hair. "Well, yeah… Aren't you?"
Sam gave a facial shrug. "Not really. I know you love me. Anything else was just the house." They'd have to check to make sure it had burned enough that it wouldn't be rebuilt. And maybe leave a tip with the local police to look into Pamela Vanderveer's fate.
Dean's face worked through a series of emotions. Winchesters didn't use the L-word a lot with each other, certainly not that matter-of-factly. Sam was half-waiting for his head to explode.
But one of the many, many things he'd learned about his brother since Sam had reunited with him was that Dean dealt better with casual than heartfelt. The less of a big deal Sam could make the whole thing, the more easily Dean could accept it.
And the easier it also was for Sam to handle the fact that he'd held a gun on his brother yet again.
Dean shook his head. "Sit down," he finally said, his voice hoarse. "You're bleeding."
Sam looked down to see the gauze on his own hand had bled through. He could've taken care of it, even put a stitch in it if needed. But another thing he knew about Dean was that actions were a lot easier for him than words. Sam obediently sat and proffered his hand.
Dean gently unwound the gauze, cleaned and examined the cut, then put on two butterfly bandages before rewrapping it. He also tousled a hand through Sam's drying hair, rotated his arm, and checked his ribs and spine. He spread some muscle cream on the bruise Sam could already feel forming on his left lower back, careful not to press on it, then smoothed Sam's shirt down. Then he sat down on the bed opposite Sam and, for the first time, met his gaze.
"We are never talking about this again."
"Okay," Sam agreed easily.
"Like, ever."
"All right."
"Never happened."
"Which part?" Sam couldn't resist, especially now that Dean didn't look like he was dying inside.
"Sam!"
Sam smirked. "I mean, you could use some Chapstick." Once a little brother…
"I hate you," Dean grumbled, and got up to limp over to his discarded duffel.
Sam jumped up to help him gather the stuff he'd apparently swept off his bed. "That's not what your lips said back at the house."
Dean yanked his socks out of Sam's hand with a scathing look and crammed everything back into the duffel. Then he pushed to his feet with a grimace, bobbled on his bad ankle until he caught himself, and scanned the room, probably searching for his boots. "I'm going out for food."
Sam almost asked if it was a dinner date, but there was a distinct possibility Dean would punch him. "You need to stay off that ankle for a while," he said instead.
Dean opened his mouth to argue.
"And your boot won't fit."
Dean's face was flushing again.
Okay, enough lightening the mood. "I'll get food," Sam offered, hand out for the keys. "What do you want, burgers? Sandwiches? I think I saw a Chinese place up the street."
Dean eyed him, expression cooling into something sheepish. He was usually the one who couldn't resist poking at his brother, distracting with humor. "Chinese sounds good," he allowed.
"The usual?" Sam smiled at him, no teasing in his face now, nor an act, just affection.
Dean nodded, dropping the keys into his palm. "Be careful with my baby," he said gruffly.
I love you, too, Sam heard. He bounced the keys once in palm, then shoved Dean back down onto the bed. "Put that foot up. And find something good on TV," he added before he walked out the door. He just caught the sarcastic Yes, sir behind him, and it made him grin.
They'd watch some late-night creature feature, Dean making up new dialogue for the characters, as they ate. Then they'd sleep in the next morning, find a new case over breakfast, and leave Ashland behind after making sure the house was really gone. Sam would worry about his destiny, Dean would pretend he didn't while mocking Sam for his taste in music, and they'd argue about something like who'd had the best chance of getting off Gilligan's Island, or whether the waitress at the diner had been more interested in Sam or Dean. It would take far more than a house from Hell to screw up twenty-plus years of brotherhood.
Thank God.
The End
A/n: A prize to the person who recognizes what book inspired this story! I read it last year, wrote the outline for the story shortly after, but it took reading BagelCat1's excellent "Like a Rock" to give me the nudge to write it. -KHK