Chapter Text
March 1998
Dean was tired, bone tired, and sorer than he'd been in a very long time. He was still a little confused over why John had sent him on this hunt alone. It wasn't like he couldn't do it, and it wasn't as though it was his first hunt alone either. John had sent him out a handful of times in the past year when he had heard of something and been out of state and too far away to take care of it himself. Dean had always taken Sam with him on those milk runs because it really didn't matter that the kid was nearly fourteen and as capable of taking care of himself as Dean had been at that age. He still didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone. There was something intangibly fragile about Sam, something Dean had never been able to quite lay his finger on, but had always felt deep in his gut, and had probably been the driving force in Dean's overdeveloped protective instinct concerning all things Sam. If it had something to do with Sam's latent powers, Dean wasn't ready to admit that to himself. Not yet. Sam's 'episodes' were getting more frequent and more intense, also less random, almost as though Sam were focusing, trying to bring them on, which he adamantly denied, but still Dean wondered. So he kept him close as he could and didn't leave him alone for any length of time, and tried like hell never to leave him alone with John.
This time, though, Sam had taken the decision out of his hands. He'd come down with a mild case of stomach flu the day before John called, and even though it was only shaping up to be a twenty-four hour bug, Dean didn't have the heart to drag pull the kid a hundred and seventy miles away for a possible overnight stay when he was just barely recovered and still weak as a newborn kitten from a full day of throwing up everything but his own toenails. So, Dean had very reluctantly left after extracting a promise from Sam that he wouldn't leave the trailer at all until Dean got back.
When Dean turned down the street to the trailer park that sat out west of the tiny no name town John had planted them in (too small even for a school of its own, the closest was three towns over) he spied the Impala sitting in the dirt drive in front of their ramshackle, drafty single-wide. He hadn't been expecting John to be here, especially since he'd called Dean out on this hunt. If he was headed back, there wouldn't have been a reason, and that thought made Dean's stomach ache.
He was about a day and half later than he'd planned to be getting back, and his cell had died from drowning when the vengeful spirit of Aspen Leaderbaum had tossed him into the icy fountain her parents had erected in her memory ten feet from her grave. She had a right to be pissed, he supposed, seeing as her jet-setter parents hadn't been around long enough at any given time to notice the Nanny's constant flow of male companions whose political and religious connections that could pay well for services rendered, through their five thousand square foot mansion, and how when seven-year-old Aspen had threatened to tell her parents, the Nanny had seen to it that she met with an accident in the family pool.
Dean really hated it when the spirits turned out to be kids because they'd usually died unjust and awful deaths and didn't have any idea what they were so pissed about or why they were stuck here anyway. It really sucked putting them down because he always felt in a round about way that he was letting whoever had killed them off the hook.
Dean threw the beat up blue Gran Torino he'd 'borrowed' from the used car lot in Milton, Ohio when John had sent them this direction, into park beside the Impala, sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. He wasn't looking forward to seeing John again. Things between them were getting more and more tense, and Dean wondered often if it wasn't because of Sam. Sam had a deep rooted resentment for John that Dean still couldn't suss out and Sam was disinclined to fully explain. The only one thing that Sam was absolutely clear on was that John not figure out what Sam could do. Not difficult in Dean's book, as neither of them were really too sure what he could do either, short of giving himself skull splitting migraines and gushing nose bleeds whenever whatever power he did have took over.
The car creaked and complained almost as much as Dean's hips and back as he got out and retrieved his duffle and weapons bag from the trunk. When he opened the trailer's front door, he was absolutely unprepared for the sight that met him.
John was sitting splay-kneed in the chair directly across from the door, like he'd been waiting for Dean to come back. Sam was crumpled in a heap in the corner of the couch as far from John as he could get, pale, with a small pile of bloody towels beside him and one held to his nose.
Dean's stomach flipped over and he felt the blood drain from his face. 'Sam?'
Because his first concern was always for Sam, no matter what, no matter what other threat there may be nearby. Sam's eyes were big and dark and round in his ashen face when he looked up at Dean, but he gave the tiniest shake of his head, and Dean stayed rooted to the spot where he stood, no matter that he was leaning so far forward in his want to get to his little brother that he might topple over.
'Dean.'
John's voice was low and calm and scary as hell because he sounded so sober and sane it sent a frisson of icy fear down Dean's brainstem to his guts that turned over and churned and it was all he could do not to give in to the urge to vomit all over his boots right there on the threadbare shag rug. John just continued to look at him, but his expression was strangely neutral, not something Dean was used to seeing, nor could he really recall having seen it before.
'How long have you known?' he asked quietly.
Dean wanted to say, 'how long have I known what'? But the words died dry and choking in his throat when he followed the flick of his father's gaze to a battered spiral notebook lying on the scarred and splintering coffee table in the middle of the cramped space. He recognized that notebook. He'd never opened it, didn't know its contents. It was one of the few possessions Sam had acquired on his own, for himself, bought with a crisp five dollar bill Dean had scrounged for his birthday three years back at a random Gas 'n Sip in Louisiana along with a pack of twelve cheapo, throwaway mechanical pencils. Sam had guarded the thing like it was the Holy Book of Life from that point on. Dean had only caught him writing in it on the rare occasion and had just assumed it was a record of all his little brother's pent up frustrations with his overbearing big brother and half–crazy, mostly absentee father.
A glance at Sam now told Dean that there was nothing so inconsequential written on those pages in Sam's sharp but neat up and down script.
Dean licked his lips like he was going to say something, but he still came up empty. John's eyes glittered darkly in the bright, early afternoon light.
'Do you have any idea,' he began very slowly. 'Any idea at all, what it is he can do?'
Dean spared another glance at Sam, but the hopeless look in the kid's eyes said there was nothing he could reveal now that John hadn't already surmised. He looked back at John, cleared his throat,
'He has, uh, visions…sir.'
'And the kind of visions he has…?'
Dean tensed. He knew when he was being lead to something, but it couldn't be avoided, and it wasn't anything that John didn't seem to already know, so he couldn't understand the drawing out John was doing now.
'Random. Mostly. Nothin' that's made any sense so far.'
'He tells you about them.'
It wasn't a question, and John's gaze darted to Sam, calculating and measuring, and it made the bile rise up rebelliously in the back of Dean's throat again. He barely managed to swallow it down.
'In as much as he can, most of them, yeah,' he answered. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam tremble this odd look broke across his face, almost imploring, eyes pouring out sorrysorrysorry like it was his last chance to ask his brother's forgiveness before the guillotine fell.
'Has he told you that he's been chatting with his mother's killer?'
Dean had the urge to grab his pump action still loaded with salt rounds, the way the room went suddenly cold, like the heat—what little there had been—got sucked out. He trembled and then shook and then collapsed. Not far. Just against the door at his back. Sam tried to lurch from the couch to catch at him, but even before John's voice cut across his intent, he'd dropped back, shackled by his own guilt over something Dean did not understand yet. He'd dropped the towel from his face, but his nose was starting to bleed again, and this time Dean knew it was good old–fashioned stress.
John didn't wait for an answer. He got up and retrieved the thick spiral notebook with the stained and curling covers and opened it, to a page he'd obviously marked, and held it out to Dean.
Yellow Eyes
The words were written tiny and shakily, like Sam had been afraid to put them on the paper or in the midst of one of his fits while writing it, over and over again on the page with doodles of eyes all around in random places, mostly crossed out.
John had never been particularly forthcoming on any information regarding their mother's death. Dean had always assumed it was because John either knew too little for it to be of any value, or the pain of the loss was simply too great to dredge it as a bedtime story to tell his sons. But Dean had read some of John's journal, specifically some of the earlier entries, in a search for information on the mother he could only remember in fuzzy vignettes at the bidding of random scents he couldn't even place in his memory or certain slantings of the light in early morning or late afternoon in the fall. The book had revealed surprisingly little about Mary. He had honestly expected a lot more, some record of moments John didn't want to forget, or maybe a collection of love letters—though he wasn't really the type—but there was none of that. Only the letters 'Y.E.' scattered in close proximity to her name through the early entries that were so broken and disjointed Dean hadn't been able to make any kind of sense out of them at all.
Dean could barely hold the book, grabbed it a bit too tight, fisting the pages until they bent in his grip. That threatening wave of sickness was pushing up his throat again. He folded the cover over, rolled it up in his fist for a moment and then dropped it. He looked up at John, eyes hard.
'What did you do to him?'
'Nothing.'
'Doesn't look like nothing.' Dean was still leaning in Sam's direction, every muscle in his body wanting to move him to Sam's side and take him in his arms and hold him, shield him, take him away if need be, from whatever John had done or was going to do.
'Dean, do you understand what that is? What he can do?' John asked, and the crazy was finally starting to leak through, making his eyes shine oddly and the words tumble out fast and slightly breathless. 'Do you understand what you've been keeping from me?'
'What I understand,' Dean said, pivoting slow and easy away from the door, shifting steadily toward Sam, eyes never leaving his father. 'What I understand is that Sam may have been right not to want you to know.'
The hurt in John's eyes was a surprise, but it did nothing to lessen Dean's need to get between him and Sam. He kept moving slow until he was a mere two steps from his brother and Sam slithered off the couch and latched onto Dean, pressing into his shoulder blade and fisting his jacket in his fingers, but he wisely stayed clear of the gun he knew was tucked down the back of Dean's jeans—a gun he wouldn't hesitate to pull, even on John, if he felt Sam was threatened.
Dean wanted to loop an arm around Sam's shoulders because he could feel him quaking and swaying unsteadily against him, but he kept his attention focused on John.
'You can't use him,' Dean said.
John had the audacity to look angry. 'What have I always told you boys? Use the weapon at hand.'
'He's not a weapon. He's your son.'
'And the thing that killed your mother is walking around inside his head!' John exploded.
'So?'
John twitched, like Dean's words were a physical blow, bullets lodging, unerring, in his heart. Dean knew he'd struck more than a nerve, he'd severed a cluster, perhaps even hit the spine. He shifted a little more, easing Sam behind him, loosening his knee joints and settling his stance into one that could launch an attack with less than an eye-blink's notice. But John just looked at him a moment longer, fury and some inconceivable pain battling for dominance, until he turned on his heel and slammed out the door.
Sam wilted against Dean's side the second the Impala's engine turned over. Dean felt knock-kneed himself and just barely controlled their tumble to the dusty carpet, twisting as they went to gather Sam up against him.
'Jesus, Sammy, did he hurt you?' Dean asked, trying to check Sam all over for any kind of wound, even a scratch, while at the same time not losing bodily contact with any part of him. 'Did he?'
Sam preempted Dean's fumbling examination by throwing his arms around his brother's neck and burying his face under his jaw. Dean felt his breaths hot and quick against his skin and his heart was hammering. Dean sank back on his haunches and pulled Sam into the V of his splayed thighs.
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry…
The litany just kept coming, quick and frantic like Sam's breathing. Dean sank his hand into the shaggy curls at Sam's nape and cradled the back of his head, tightened the arm he had around his ribs, and rocked them both.
'Sammy, it's okay. I'm not mad. I swear I'm not. Just…Christ! Why didn't you tell me? I could have—I don't know—kept a closer watch. Protected you better.'
Sam gave a tiny snort.
You do. Already. So much more than you know.
Dean shook his head. 'Why did you write it down, Sam? You had to know there was a chance he'd find it.'
Tiny shrug and Sam inched closer.
Had to. Had to get it out of my head. It was like poison…Dean, please…
'Shhh, shh. Just rest. Don't worry about it now. I'll take care of it, of…John.'
Tight squeeze at Dean's neck and the barest butt of Sam's nose under his jaw.
Dad. He's still our Dad.
That was more for Dean's benefit than Sam's belief and he knew it.
'He doesn't deserve it right now, Sammy. Maybe he never did, and I just couldn't see it.'
Tighter squeeze and the hot, wet damp of tears.
Not his fault. Not him I was afraid of. Me.
Dean had no response to that. He pulled Sam in closer and dragged them both to their feet, kept his stance wide to steady Sam's swaying.
'C'mon. Put you to bed before you have an aneurysm or something.'
Muffled huff of breath at his throat. Sam's version of a chuckle.
I could only be so lucky.
Dean gave him a quick, sharp shake that elicited a gasp of pain. 'Don't you even think things like that.'
Sam tucked his head down further, nestling.
Hurts, Dean. So much. So much sometimes that I wish…
'Don't.' Dean grabbed both sides of Sam's head and tilted it back to look into his bloodshot eyes, red-rimed and wet with tears, wide open in fear of what he was becoming, whatever that was. 'I know it hurts. I know. And I'd do anything to make it go away, Sam. You know that. Anything.'
Sam shook his head in his brother's hold, just a little.
Not anything.
Dean stared at him, heart tumbling in his chest, jaw slack, breath tangled up in the back of his throat. 'No. No, I— No!'
The tears came unbidden and against his will and suddenly everything was reversed and it was Sam holding him and holding him up while the sobs wrenched and tore a brutal path up out of his chest. He felt the flutter of long, delicate fingers on his cheeks followed by the softest of kisses tracing the lines of his tears down along his jaw and over to the corners of his mouth, and the breath left Dean's lungs entirely when he felt the tiniest flick of Sam's tongue at the edge of his lip, tasting the salt of his tears.
That's all it was. Just Sam licking away his signs of grief, like a puppy would, Dean told himself. But that's not what it felt like. What it felt like was an electric charge, fast and jolting, leaving behind a heady, disorienting buzz in his skull that the couldn't think around.
'Sammy…' Dean breathed
Sam pressed into the space his name made and slid his tongue across Dean's bottom lip. Slow. So slow.
Let me. Please.
And Dean did. God help him, but he did. He stood there and let Sam kitten lick at his mouth, sweet and slow and a little wet, entirely innocent and inexperienced, caught between 'I love you because you're my big brother' and something else. Something Dean was far too confused to try and put a name to right now. Somewhere in the back of his brain the klaxon warning that John could come back at any moment was going off loudly, but the song of Sam in his blood drowned it out to nothing more than indistinct background static on the line.
He shifted, to pull back or press closer, he wasn't sure, but it was then that he felt Sam's hands at his hips, fingers tangled in his belt loops and tugging him close.
Don't leave. Don't leave. Not yet.
Dean covered his hands, pried them loose, and pulled them up between them, held them tight. 'Sam.'
Sam exhaled, swayed, and folded up on Dean's shoulder.
'Sam?'
Sam was trembling, the kind Dean recognized, the kind that came when he'd used the very last of his reserves, to fight the pain or cover it over, and he couldn't hold together any longer. Unconsciousness, welcome or not was only seconds away, so Dean was ready when Sam went limp, and tucked him up close, swinging him up in his arms like he had when Sam was five or six and carried him back to their room.
He laid Sam out on the bed, tugged off his trainers and socks, and pulled a heavy quilt over him, tucking it up around his shoulders. He stood at the side of the bed for a long stretch of minutes, just staring down at his little brother, messy hair haloed on the pillow, brow drawn in pain even in his sleep, lips moving around soundless words. He bent down, bracing his arms out at the edges of the pillow, mere inches from Sam's face.
'Talk to me, Sam. Jesus, would you just talk to me. Please,' he whispered. But Sam stayed silent, and Dean leaned in closer to listen, like he might be able to make something out in the whisper of breath passing Sam's lips. But there was nothing. Nothing except the draw of that soft pink curve, parted, waiting. And Sam had kissed him first, hadn't he? He wanted it. Dean had felt that sure enough in the clench and dig of his fingers at his hips.
Dean stared at Sam's mouth. This should be wrong. Something about it should feel wrong. He shouldn't even feel it at all. But there was nothing. Nothing except a warm wanting curled up under his ribs that was unfurling into his blood like a slow acting drug.
He dropped the last inches to press his mouth to Sam's.
It was just as good the second time.
Sam stopped mouthing in his sleep, held his breath for half a heartbeat like he was about to wake, but he stayed asleep, and Dean worked the tip of his tongue past his pliant lips and took the tiniest taste of the inside of Sam's mouth.
Sam let out a breathy sigh, and Dean pulled back, reluctantly, denying himself anything more. He brushed his lips across Sam's forehead, soothed the tiny new crease there, and straightened up. He backed out of the room slowly and closed the door behind him.