starbright73 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
starbright73) wrote2008-09-19 04:19 pm
starbright73) wrote2008-09-19 04:19 pm
Fic: His Father's Son (2/7)
Title: His Father's Son (2/7)
Author: *bright
Rating: Gen. PG-13
Spoilers: None, pre-series.
Character: Sam, Dean, John
Category: Limp!Sam, angst, h/c. Teen!Sam gets hurt.
Summary: A road-trip, a hunt gone wrong and the Winchesters' exploration of their family's dynamic.
Author's note: I wrote this just because hurting Sam is fun! And then I wanted to explore the Sam and John dynamic that was never fully dealt with on the show. This one was intended to be a short one-shot; the bugger grew out of my hands. Not beta'd. The original character have nothing to do with accidental namesakes. Was unable to come up with a nifty title *sighs*
Words: around 34.000
Disclaimer: Me own zip and nada, ‘cept an over active imagination. Everything belongs to Kripke & Co.
Part I
Sam wanted to run; he felt his father's stare burn a hole in his back when he walked to the small diner behind the gas station. He wondered what he had done to change the mood in the car so drastically in the last five minutes? Had he been too late to answer the question? Should he have jumped and said 'yes sir, I am'? Should he have shown some sign that he was honored to finally be spoken to? What had he done wrong?
His eyes stung from fatigue, feeling gritty and achy. Rubbing his right eye with the heel of his hand, he opened the door and stepped into the small diner. He just needed some coffee, something to keep him awake. Sitting down at a table that he knew his dad would like, one with a view of the entire space and a wall behind it, he dug for small change in his pocket when the waitress arrived.
She was elderly, clad in a bright red uniform that had Sam blink.
“Hello sweetie, what'll it be?”
Sam felt himself blushing and cursed himself. “Just a coffee with sugar and milk, please!”
“You sure, hon? You look awfully hungry to me.” The woman's smile was concerned.
Sam's heart melted at the motherly display. “I'm waiting for my brother and father to join me. Just need some coffee first.”
“Comin' right up! If you promise to eat later.” She smiled at him and he nodded.
“Ma'am,” he started, hesitant to ask. “Is there a public library here?”
“Sure there is,” she beamed. “I'll get you a map of the town with the coffee and show you where to find it. Mind you, it's small and Mr. Jenkins, the librarian, is scary.” She backed away, rolling her index finger at her temple in the unmistakable sign and smiled heartily before she turned and made her way behind the counter.
Sam grinned happily. There was something tender in her voice when she spoke about Mr. Jenkins, like she was secretly very fond of his scariness. He was looking forward to meeting this Mr. Jenkins, he sounded like one of the eccentrics that stood out in every small town. The ones the regular town folks loved being afraid of or laugh at. The ones that would never entirely fit.
His smile faded.
When the waitress returned he looked at the name tag, that said 'Gladys', and nothing more. Maybe she too was considered an eccentric?
She put the cup down on the table and laid the small map at its side. Hands moving to straighten the folds out. “Now. sweetie, we're right here!” She rolled the pen between her fingers and marked the
street corner with a cross. A quickly dotted line along streets followed. “First you take a right and walk two blocks before you turn left. You'll see it once you get there. It's the town square and everything is around it.” She drew a circle around the large square, finishing off with a tidy 'L' inside the circle.
“Thank you, Ma'am!”
“You're welcome, sweetness.”
The door opened and a low appreciative whistle followed the soft tingle of the bell.
Sam looked up and spotted Dean's face splitting up in a knowing grin. “Whoa!”
He had to look down and wipe his nose to hide his blushing cheeks and guilty smile. He was so playing Dean's cards right now. And it really wasn't him, he wasn't good at this flirting for info stuff.
“This your brother?” Gladys asked.
“Yeah,” Sam smiled up at the waitress when Dean pulled out a chair and seated himself opposite Sam.
“Can I have a beer?” Dean beamed at her and Gladys let out a a pearly laugher, clearly charmed.
“'Course you can, be right back!”
Dean's eyes followed her while she walked to the counter and returned with the foaming glass. He sent her one of his more cheeky grins when she placed it in front of him before walking away with a bemused shake of her head.
“Dude! You giving the puppy-eyes a work-out here or what? Isn't she a tad old for you?”
“Dean, shut up!” Sam emptied another sachet of sugar into his coffee. Tasting it precariously. “I just asked where the public library is!”
Dean leaned back in his chair, raising his eye-brows jauntily. “Is that geek-boy lingo?”
Sam cast a glance to the counter, from behind which Gladys was watching them. “Dean,” he pouted. “She can hear you!”
The door bell pinged anew and their father appeared in the doorway, making his way to their table.
“Did you order?” He asked while he seated himself on the far end stool. “Coffee, Sam? Shouldn't you be eating something instead?”
“Shh, dad! Sam's working up the waitress for a free meal.” Dean leaned over the table and whispered in an all too loud and conspiratory voice.
“Just for that, young man, I giving your brother pancakes on the house for desert.” Gladys chirped when she fetched the menus and walked over to their table.
Sam felt totally humiliated and wanted nothing more than to slide under the table. He caught his father's eyes and wished that the smile in his direction wasn't quite so pitying.
He didn't return the smile.
Dean stretched out on the bed, looking at Sam's tired face. At least he had gotten some sleep in the car, obviously Sam hadn't because he looked worse than ever while going through the research looking for something that probably only existed in Sam's won, over-tired, mind.. His hands were shaking slightly and he kept blinking his eyes. It was already late and Sam kept insisting that they needed to do more research, that there was something that bothered him about the case that was supposed to be a simple salt and burn. It didn't help matters with dad that Sam didn't exactly know what he thought was odd. John wasn't big on intuition, Sam would have to come up with something better than vague arguments about needing to dig deeper into the history of the place.
But his stubborn ass of a geeky little brother didn't relent. He'd trudged his way over to the library, asked the librarian to look at some microfilms of century-old newspapers. Dean had sat there while the librarian and Sam discussed the mansion's history. Turned out it had been the Confederate headquarters of the area and had been raided by the Yankees at the end of the war. There had been multiple gruesome deaths and Sam was adamant on pinpointing exactly what had happened. It was evident that his geekiness got the better of him at times. And damned if he hadn't convinced the librarian to printout a huge stack of documents for free. Sam really had all elderly people around his little finger. Dean had chuckled silently to himself at the sight of Sam, all wide-eyed and begging, drinking in every word and looking absolutely mesmerized by the story and the storyteller. The gruff librarian had looked ready to adopt him when the library closed.
Dean had tried to point out that it might take years but his mule-headed brother was still skimming though the print-outs. Like knowing exactly what happened would aid them in a simple salt and burn? It was simply a question of finding the grave, dig and torch the fucker.
Although, he had to admit that Sam had some valid points. What if there was more than one malicious spirit, ghost or what the fuck ever and the others did get pissed when they started digging? He didn't even want to think about that scenario. Dad said it was a ghost of sorts, one ghost, singular and he trusted him on that. Sam was just being a wuss. Dean pushed all other thoughts away.
“Sam, we're leaving in half an hour, you ready or not?”
“No!” Sam looked up with bleary eyes. “We should stay away tonight. I think I've spotted a pattern.”
“Me and dad only have three days off, Sam! It's not like this is a vacation, we need to get this done tonight or we'll lose our jobs! Crappy as they are, they still feed you!” He wasn't quite able to hide the irritation in his voice.
“But Dean, why does this spirit only surface when the place is renovated? If it's a cut and clear salt and burn, it wouldn't appear in cycles like this thing seems to do!” Sam looked pleadingly at him, perched forward on his bed.
“Sam, it may just be coincidental! Maybe the fugly wants the place like it was or it gets lost? The place has been empty for ten years before the Kulicks got their hands on it, maybe the spirit's been happy and content with the current wallpaper?”
“That makes no sense, Dean!” Sam threw his hands out in a dejected gesture. “Spirits want revenge, Dean! Not happily ever after.”
Dean rose from the bed, rolling his shoulder to get the tension out. “Dude, if you look for sense in the fugly sons o' bitches, you're worse off than I thought. And I happen to think you're pretty freaky as is!”
“Jerk!”
Dean smiled down at the broody, floppy-haired brother that occasionally drove him nuts. “C'mon, let's get some coffee into you before we leave. I don't want you to fall asleep while we're digging.” He bent down to grip Sam's shirtfront and pull him up to his feet. Sammy was all gangly and coltish, his tiredness making him uncoordinated.
“You stay close to me tonight, Sammy! Understand?”
The pout didn't escape him and he pulled Sam closer by the shirt, just to make him realize that this was serious.
Sam fixated him for a moment, seemingly weighing the pros and cons. Finally he nodded, albeit reluctantly. “Promise.”
Dean shook his head, grinning. “You're such a pain in the ass, Sammy!”
Darkness was falling fast when they finally arrived, after driving through a long alley of century old oaks leading up to the main house.
The area held a huge white mansion, its stone walls contrasting the dusk. There were lights only in a couple of windows in the left corner of the first floor and the trucks and wood piles around it told about the rebuilding in process. The Kulicks had bought it to turn it into a Spa, apparently it was a lifelong dream and it had come to an abrupt end with the unexplainable deaths of two construction workers.
Sam noted that dad was already on the phone, alerting the inhabitants of their arrival. Sam stepped out and was saluted with chirping of birds and crickets. It was a warm and humid night. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary met them as they stood there, close to the van and waiting for the owners to show up and fill them in.
Sam let his flashlight roam the surroundings, stopping at the far end of the yard; a low building covered with Ivy, its stone walls peeking though the green. It looked like it was sucking up all the light.
“We stay close,” dad ordered them. “They've found three stones they believe are ancient headstones. One's tumbled over. We dig, find what's left, we salt and burn. Remember that two are already dead, in different ways so we don't wanna rile this thing up unnecessarily.”
“May be more than one,” Sam huffed. “And maybe salting and burning 200 year old bones isn't enough after all.”
Dad threw him an irritated glance when he shut the cell. “Sam, we salt what's left first, like we always have. That the course of action with most evil. We stick together and do what we've always done. Understood?”
It wasn't like dad wasn't right. It was just his tone of voice that grated Sam's nerves. And the fact that he'd never listened or taken notes when Sam had tried to explain that according to his research, this had to be bout an evil spirit from the Independence War acting up every time there was modifications made to what was mentioned as the 'the old barn'. Sam eyes remained on the sunken in building at the edge of the yard. He had a feeling in his gut that this hunt would be all but easy, but he had no proof to present in order to state his case. Not enough to impress Dad anyhow. Words never impressed dad, he wanted action. And Sam knew he'd never be good enough in that department.
He blinked when the harsh beam from Dean's flashlight blinded him temporarily and had him cringe. “Hey!”
“Quit daydreamin' Sammy!”
Sam watched the light move when Dean started walking toward him, ending up standing at his side, eyes suspicious slits. “What you thinking, Sammy?”
Sam shrugged and turned to the sound of a door opening to reveal Louise and Tom Kulick.
They were in their mid-forties or early fifties, sandy-haired and slightly apprehensive looking as they advanced on the three of them. And why shouldn't they be? Sam looked down on his torn jeans, the coat he was outgrowing fast, Dean's cocky grin and their father's shaggy appearance.
Not to mention the big-ass shotgun dad was carrying.
“John Winchester?” The man asked, his hand reaching out with trepidation and hesitance.
Dad smiled one of his more rare, hearty smiles. “Mr. Kulick? Please call me John,” he shook the offered hand and turned to the woman. “I'm sorry to have to meet you under these circumstances. Pastor Jim informed me that there had been more troubles last nigh?”
The woman took his hand and nodded. “Louise.” With a look at her husband, she lowered her voice and continued. “We found a patch of dried grass around those headstones behind the old barn. It makes no sense because we have been clearing that part up for days and all of a sudden the vegetation is looking like it suffered a thermonuclear war? And only on a particular spot?”
Sam looked at the woman, a hard knot in his guts forming. It didn't sound very ghost-like at all.
“It's not that odd actually, not in our line of work.” John spoke. His gaze drifting in the same direction that Sam's had been glued to for a long while now. “These are my sons, Dean and Sam.” Dad pointed briefly at them. “They are going to help me out with solving this problem.”
“Aren't they a little young for this?“ Tom Kulick peered at Sam through square, thick-rimmed glasses. “My youngest just finished his first year in college and I wouldn't let him anywhere near important things.”
Sam looked away self-consciously and shuffled his feet.
“Dean's been with me for a long time, he knows what he's doing and Sam's merely here to learn.” John's eyes skated over Sam to fall on Dean, a smile of pride emerging. “I want you to show me the patch you found and then you need to drive off. Things may become very ugly and the further away you are, the better we can do our job. Just show me the spot, my sons will wait here with your wife.”
Tom Kulick nodded and started walking, John towering at his side, flashlight illuminating their path.
“So you boys are following in your father's footsteps?” Louise asked. “Isn't this a dangerous career?”
“Not as long as you know what you're doing,” Dean grinned smugly. “It's the family business and I'm awesome at it.”
Sometimes Sam felt outright jealousy at Dean's easy acceptance of his fate. To Dean there were no what ifs, no shades of grays, no questions or second guessing. All those things that made Sam so helplessly bad at hunting. Because really, what was evil and what wasn't? More often than not he felt like walking a very thin line between madness and righteousness.
“How about you, Sam?” The woman asked him and he jumped. Not at all expecting to be addressed. His eyes were still glued to the stony walls of the old barn, something about the building calling out to him.
“Ma'am, has anybody checked out the old barn?” The words flew out of him, although he should be following dad's orders and not poke around unnecessarily.
The harsh inhale and the following silence had him turn to Louise Kulick, wondering. Her eyes were wide and fearful. “No, not since we found Bennett dead in the doorway. Everybody says he was probably trying to get inside, find shelter from the rain and slipped. But that doesn't make sense. That would he have slipped on? The roof covers the cobblestones at the door. They don't get slippery wet during rain. It doesn't make sense that a seasoned construction worker gets tangled up in electrical chords and manages to strangle himself. He had been working inside, setting up the tools, tidying the room up for storing but he was outside when it happened, cutting down some trees. I heard the chainsaw. After he died, the police shut it off as a crime-scene. But I peeked inside, we still have the fire-extinguisher and stuff we need on a daily basis, stored in there. And there's this ancient trunk I've never seen before, in there.”
Dean threw him a glance and Sam felt the hairs on his neck rise.
“Did you tell my dad about the trunk?” Dean inquired and Louise nodded.
“Your father is aware of the trunk but he assured me that the best way was to go to the root of the problem, and the root is probably buried six feet under.”
“Dad's probably right,” Sam admitted, trying to reassure the woman with a smile. He wasn't sure it didn't come off a complete mockery. He'd never admit to it, but he was damned scared and the cold chill he felt in his bones kept increasing.
“Sure dad's right,” Dean spoke with conviction. “The moment we get the fucker salted and burned, this will all be over. He turned to the re-appearing beams of flashlights. “Time to get the show on the road, Sammy! Get the gear out of the trunk!”
Sam looked at the men approaching, talking amongst themselves. And he wondered how come dad seemed to listen to a complete stranger but not to him?
“It's gonna be fine,” he told Louise, sending her another reassuring smile. Then he turned to the trunk and wondered if he had just added another deplorable trait to his long list of faults? Would he turn out to be a freaking liar and a lousy coward for not taking this up with dad and really make the man listen?
Dad and Tom were approaching, still discussing amongst each other and Louise joined in their discussion, vehemently refusing to leave the premises.
He leaned with his hands curled around the edge of the open trunk, the tiredness in his body making itself known all over. Legs feeling numb and uncooperative, head feeling heavy and clouded.
“Falling asleep on me, dude?” Dean's hand came to rest on his shoulder and Sam looked up and forced a smile to his lips.
“Bite me!”
“Without any ketchup? Dude, I do have some limits.” Dean elbowed him and pulled a shovel from the trunk.
Sam shoved him out of the way and gripped the bag of salt. This time the smile on his face was genuine.
The darkness was denser in the shadow of the old barn, the sounds seemed muffled and hollow as Dean shuffled the dirt. He and dad started on opposite sides of the fallen stone. Sam had made very clear that the stones looked like foundation stones, not headstones. Dad had looked pissed and sneered at Sam to keep quiet. Dean marveled that there hadn't been a shouting match, instead Sam had looked mortified but did as told. Still, if they didn't hit jackpot at the first stone, they had four more graves to dig. It would take them the entire night and there would be plenty of time for Sam to dig.
Dean felt his grip on the shovel slip, sweat running into his eyes despite the coolness of the night.
“Dean, it's my turn to dig, dammit!”
Dean grinned, his little brother was getting feisty, not liking having been ordered to watch the onlookers and hold the flashlight. Dad would not let Tom and Louise lend a hand, which was wise, neither of them looked like they'd ever done much digging in their lives and they'd probably just slow the process down by trying. He stretched his back, smirking at Sam before he went back to digging the shovel into the hard ground. Pushing it deeper with his foot and inkling it up to get as much dirt as possible onto it. Then he threw the dirt over his shoulder, nearly hitting Sam with it as it spread in the air.
Sam grunted irritably and the beam of his flashlight cut to the right. Dean signed a point to himself. Sam was talking to the Kulicks, mumbling low enough to make it difficult to decipher the words. Then the light vanished and he heard someone walk away. Footsteps crunching dry twigs.
He turned and watched Sam disappear behind the corner of the looming building. “Wher'ya going?”
John stopped digging and lifted his head to look over his shoulder. “What's he up to now?”
“He's just getting another shovel to help you out,” Tom explained. “We have a lot of equipment in the barn, I'm sure there's some shovels too.”
The flashlight blinded Dean momentarily when Tom angled it off the ground to illuminate the digging men's faces. “I'll help out too, Louise is quite capable in holding flashlights.”
“Bet you a fiver I'll dig a deeper hole than you, Tom!” The voice was a tad sardonic and Dean instantly liked the woman even more. She was a keeper.
“We need a look-out to check that nothing creeps up on us from behind. I told that boy to stay on watch and he up and leaves?“ John's voice was laden with irritation.
“Dad, there's three of them!” Dean protested, wiping the sweat off his brow, eyes sneaking to the direction in which Sam had disappeared. There was no sign of returning light.
“Son, it was a direct order. We don't leave each other, we stay close. Sam just broke that order and did what he wanted to do without any reflection on safety.“ John turned back to the work at hand, shoveling up the dirt with renewed vigor, thanks to the anger Dean was able to spot in the set of his shoulder.
“He just wanted to help out, dad,” Dean tried to mitigate. “I probably should have let him have a go at digging already. Sam can't stand being pushed back.”
Dean put his foot on the metal edge and pushed the metal deeper into the hard-packed ground.
“And he should have slept like I told him to do and not wandered off to the library to do research. No research will help you if you're too tired to see straight on a job. Kid needs to learn!”
“I'll go help him out looking for the shovels,” Tom suggested.
“No!” John shook his head. “Sam made a decision, now, he's gotta handle -.”
A bang was heard from behind the window casting a weak square of light on the ground behind them.
Dean did a full-body turn and held his breath, watching the dirty window intently. The light flickered behind it, sickly yellowish.
“What the hell is he doing now? Trying to demolish the barn single-handedly?”
Dean cast a quick glance over at their dad, standing tensely at his side. Voice gruff with masked fear. The same fear Dean felt like a hard knot in his guts.
Then the clatter from inside had him turn back and a flickering yellowish light flared behind the window pane, followed by loud sounds of wood splitting, metal colliding and fire thundering had him yell his brother's name and start running.
Author: *bright
Rating: Gen. PG-13
Spoilers: None, pre-series.
Character: Sam, Dean, John
Category: Limp!Sam, angst, h/c. Teen!Sam gets hurt.
Summary: A road-trip, a hunt gone wrong and the Winchesters' exploration of their family's dynamic.
Author's note: I wrote this just because hurting Sam is fun! And then I wanted to explore the Sam and John dynamic that was never fully dealt with on the show. This one was intended to be a short one-shot; the bugger grew out of my hands. Not beta'd. The original character have nothing to do with accidental namesakes. Was unable to come up with a nifty title *sighs*
Words: around 34.000
Disclaimer: Me own zip and nada, ‘cept an over active imagination. Everything belongs to Kripke & Co.
Part I
Sam wanted to run; he felt his father's stare burn a hole in his back when he walked to the small diner behind the gas station. He wondered what he had done to change the mood in the car so drastically in the last five minutes? Had he been too late to answer the question? Should he have jumped and said 'yes sir, I am'? Should he have shown some sign that he was honored to finally be spoken to? What had he done wrong?
His eyes stung from fatigue, feeling gritty and achy. Rubbing his right eye with the heel of his hand, he opened the door and stepped into the small diner. He just needed some coffee, something to keep him awake. Sitting down at a table that he knew his dad would like, one with a view of the entire space and a wall behind it, he dug for small change in his pocket when the waitress arrived.
She was elderly, clad in a bright red uniform that had Sam blink.
“Hello sweetie, what'll it be?”
Sam felt himself blushing and cursed himself. “Just a coffee with sugar and milk, please!”
“You sure, hon? You look awfully hungry to me.” The woman's smile was concerned.
Sam's heart melted at the motherly display. “I'm waiting for my brother and father to join me. Just need some coffee first.”
“Comin' right up! If you promise to eat later.” She smiled at him and he nodded.
“Ma'am,” he started, hesitant to ask. “Is there a public library here?”
“Sure there is,” she beamed. “I'll get you a map of the town with the coffee and show you where to find it. Mind you, it's small and Mr. Jenkins, the librarian, is scary.” She backed away, rolling her index finger at her temple in the unmistakable sign and smiled heartily before she turned and made her way behind the counter.
Sam grinned happily. There was something tender in her voice when she spoke about Mr. Jenkins, like she was secretly very fond of his scariness. He was looking forward to meeting this Mr. Jenkins, he sounded like one of the eccentrics that stood out in every small town. The ones the regular town folks loved being afraid of or laugh at. The ones that would never entirely fit.
His smile faded.
When the waitress returned he looked at the name tag, that said 'Gladys', and nothing more. Maybe she too was considered an eccentric?
She put the cup down on the table and laid the small map at its side. Hands moving to straighten the folds out. “Now. sweetie, we're right here!” She rolled the pen between her fingers and marked the
street corner with a cross. A quickly dotted line along streets followed. “First you take a right and walk two blocks before you turn left. You'll see it once you get there. It's the town square and everything is around it.” She drew a circle around the large square, finishing off with a tidy 'L' inside the circle.
“Thank you, Ma'am!”
“You're welcome, sweetness.”
The door opened and a low appreciative whistle followed the soft tingle of the bell.
Sam looked up and spotted Dean's face splitting up in a knowing grin. “Whoa!”
He had to look down and wipe his nose to hide his blushing cheeks and guilty smile. He was so playing Dean's cards right now. And it really wasn't him, he wasn't good at this flirting for info stuff.
“This your brother?” Gladys asked.
“Yeah,” Sam smiled up at the waitress when Dean pulled out a chair and seated himself opposite Sam.
“Can I have a beer?” Dean beamed at her and Gladys let out a a pearly laugher, clearly charmed.
“'Course you can, be right back!”
Dean's eyes followed her while she walked to the counter and returned with the foaming glass. He sent her one of his more cheeky grins when she placed it in front of him before walking away with a bemused shake of her head.
“Dude! You giving the puppy-eyes a work-out here or what? Isn't she a tad old for you?”
“Dean, shut up!” Sam emptied another sachet of sugar into his coffee. Tasting it precariously. “I just asked where the public library is!”
Dean leaned back in his chair, raising his eye-brows jauntily. “Is that geek-boy lingo?”
Sam cast a glance to the counter, from behind which Gladys was watching them. “Dean,” he pouted. “She can hear you!”
The door bell pinged anew and their father appeared in the doorway, making his way to their table.
“Did you order?” He asked while he seated himself on the far end stool. “Coffee, Sam? Shouldn't you be eating something instead?”
“Shh, dad! Sam's working up the waitress for a free meal.” Dean leaned over the table and whispered in an all too loud and conspiratory voice.
“Just for that, young man, I giving your brother pancakes on the house for desert.” Gladys chirped when she fetched the menus and walked over to their table.
Sam felt totally humiliated and wanted nothing more than to slide under the table. He caught his father's eyes and wished that the smile in his direction wasn't quite so pitying.
He didn't return the smile.
Dean stretched out on the bed, looking at Sam's tired face. At least he had gotten some sleep in the car, obviously Sam hadn't because he looked worse than ever while going through the research looking for something that probably only existed in Sam's won, over-tired, mind.. His hands were shaking slightly and he kept blinking his eyes. It was already late and Sam kept insisting that they needed to do more research, that there was something that bothered him about the case that was supposed to be a simple salt and burn. It didn't help matters with dad that Sam didn't exactly know what he thought was odd. John wasn't big on intuition, Sam would have to come up with something better than vague arguments about needing to dig deeper into the history of the place.
But his stubborn ass of a geeky little brother didn't relent. He'd trudged his way over to the library, asked the librarian to look at some microfilms of century-old newspapers. Dean had sat there while the librarian and Sam discussed the mansion's history. Turned out it had been the Confederate headquarters of the area and had been raided by the Yankees at the end of the war. There had been multiple gruesome deaths and Sam was adamant on pinpointing exactly what had happened. It was evident that his geekiness got the better of him at times. And damned if he hadn't convinced the librarian to printout a huge stack of documents for free. Sam really had all elderly people around his little finger. Dean had chuckled silently to himself at the sight of Sam, all wide-eyed and begging, drinking in every word and looking absolutely mesmerized by the story and the storyteller. The gruff librarian had looked ready to adopt him when the library closed.
Dean had tried to point out that it might take years but his mule-headed brother was still skimming though the print-outs. Like knowing exactly what happened would aid them in a simple salt and burn? It was simply a question of finding the grave, dig and torch the fucker.
Although, he had to admit that Sam had some valid points. What if there was more than one malicious spirit, ghost or what the fuck ever and the others did get pissed when they started digging? He didn't even want to think about that scenario. Dad said it was a ghost of sorts, one ghost, singular and he trusted him on that. Sam was just being a wuss. Dean pushed all other thoughts away.
“Sam, we're leaving in half an hour, you ready or not?”
“No!” Sam looked up with bleary eyes. “We should stay away tonight. I think I've spotted a pattern.”
“Me and dad only have three days off, Sam! It's not like this is a vacation, we need to get this done tonight or we'll lose our jobs! Crappy as they are, they still feed you!” He wasn't quite able to hide the irritation in his voice.
“But Dean, why does this spirit only surface when the place is renovated? If it's a cut and clear salt and burn, it wouldn't appear in cycles like this thing seems to do!” Sam looked pleadingly at him, perched forward on his bed.
“Sam, it may just be coincidental! Maybe the fugly wants the place like it was or it gets lost? The place has been empty for ten years before the Kulicks got their hands on it, maybe the spirit's been happy and content with the current wallpaper?”
“That makes no sense, Dean!” Sam threw his hands out in a dejected gesture. “Spirits want revenge, Dean! Not happily ever after.”
Dean rose from the bed, rolling his shoulder to get the tension out. “Dude, if you look for sense in the fugly sons o' bitches, you're worse off than I thought. And I happen to think you're pretty freaky as is!”
“Jerk!”
Dean smiled down at the broody, floppy-haired brother that occasionally drove him nuts. “C'mon, let's get some coffee into you before we leave. I don't want you to fall asleep while we're digging.” He bent down to grip Sam's shirtfront and pull him up to his feet. Sammy was all gangly and coltish, his tiredness making him uncoordinated.
“You stay close to me tonight, Sammy! Understand?”
The pout didn't escape him and he pulled Sam closer by the shirt, just to make him realize that this was serious.
Sam fixated him for a moment, seemingly weighing the pros and cons. Finally he nodded, albeit reluctantly. “Promise.”
Dean shook his head, grinning. “You're such a pain in the ass, Sammy!”
Darkness was falling fast when they finally arrived, after driving through a long alley of century old oaks leading up to the main house.
The area held a huge white mansion, its stone walls contrasting the dusk. There were lights only in a couple of windows in the left corner of the first floor and the trucks and wood piles around it told about the rebuilding in process. The Kulicks had bought it to turn it into a Spa, apparently it was a lifelong dream and it had come to an abrupt end with the unexplainable deaths of two construction workers.
Sam noted that dad was already on the phone, alerting the inhabitants of their arrival. Sam stepped out and was saluted with chirping of birds and crickets. It was a warm and humid night. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary met them as they stood there, close to the van and waiting for the owners to show up and fill them in.
Sam let his flashlight roam the surroundings, stopping at the far end of the yard; a low building covered with Ivy, its stone walls peeking though the green. It looked like it was sucking up all the light.
“We stay close,” dad ordered them. “They've found three stones they believe are ancient headstones. One's tumbled over. We dig, find what's left, we salt and burn. Remember that two are already dead, in different ways so we don't wanna rile this thing up unnecessarily.”
“May be more than one,” Sam huffed. “And maybe salting and burning 200 year old bones isn't enough after all.”
Dad threw him an irritated glance when he shut the cell. “Sam, we salt what's left first, like we always have. That the course of action with most evil. We stick together and do what we've always done. Understood?”
It wasn't like dad wasn't right. It was just his tone of voice that grated Sam's nerves. And the fact that he'd never listened or taken notes when Sam had tried to explain that according to his research, this had to be bout an evil spirit from the Independence War acting up every time there was modifications made to what was mentioned as the 'the old barn'. Sam eyes remained on the sunken in building at the edge of the yard. He had a feeling in his gut that this hunt would be all but easy, but he had no proof to present in order to state his case. Not enough to impress Dad anyhow. Words never impressed dad, he wanted action. And Sam knew he'd never be good enough in that department.
He blinked when the harsh beam from Dean's flashlight blinded him temporarily and had him cringe. “Hey!”
“Quit daydreamin' Sammy!”
Sam watched the light move when Dean started walking toward him, ending up standing at his side, eyes suspicious slits. “What you thinking, Sammy?”
Sam shrugged and turned to the sound of a door opening to reveal Louise and Tom Kulick.
They were in their mid-forties or early fifties, sandy-haired and slightly apprehensive looking as they advanced on the three of them. And why shouldn't they be? Sam looked down on his torn jeans, the coat he was outgrowing fast, Dean's cocky grin and their father's shaggy appearance.
Not to mention the big-ass shotgun dad was carrying.
“John Winchester?” The man asked, his hand reaching out with trepidation and hesitance.
Dad smiled one of his more rare, hearty smiles. “Mr. Kulick? Please call me John,” he shook the offered hand and turned to the woman. “I'm sorry to have to meet you under these circumstances. Pastor Jim informed me that there had been more troubles last nigh?”
The woman took his hand and nodded. “Louise.” With a look at her husband, she lowered her voice and continued. “We found a patch of dried grass around those headstones behind the old barn. It makes no sense because we have been clearing that part up for days and all of a sudden the vegetation is looking like it suffered a thermonuclear war? And only on a particular spot?”
Sam looked at the woman, a hard knot in his guts forming. It didn't sound very ghost-like at all.
“It's not that odd actually, not in our line of work.” John spoke. His gaze drifting in the same direction that Sam's had been glued to for a long while now. “These are my sons, Dean and Sam.” Dad pointed briefly at them. “They are going to help me out with solving this problem.”
“Aren't they a little young for this?“ Tom Kulick peered at Sam through square, thick-rimmed glasses. “My youngest just finished his first year in college and I wouldn't let him anywhere near important things.”
Sam looked away self-consciously and shuffled his feet.
“Dean's been with me for a long time, he knows what he's doing and Sam's merely here to learn.” John's eyes skated over Sam to fall on Dean, a smile of pride emerging. “I want you to show me the patch you found and then you need to drive off. Things may become very ugly and the further away you are, the better we can do our job. Just show me the spot, my sons will wait here with your wife.”
Tom Kulick nodded and started walking, John towering at his side, flashlight illuminating their path.
“So you boys are following in your father's footsteps?” Louise asked. “Isn't this a dangerous career?”
“Not as long as you know what you're doing,” Dean grinned smugly. “It's the family business and I'm awesome at it.”
Sometimes Sam felt outright jealousy at Dean's easy acceptance of his fate. To Dean there were no what ifs, no shades of grays, no questions or second guessing. All those things that made Sam so helplessly bad at hunting. Because really, what was evil and what wasn't? More often than not he felt like walking a very thin line between madness and righteousness.
“How about you, Sam?” The woman asked him and he jumped. Not at all expecting to be addressed. His eyes were still glued to the stony walls of the old barn, something about the building calling out to him.
“Ma'am, has anybody checked out the old barn?” The words flew out of him, although he should be following dad's orders and not poke around unnecessarily.
The harsh inhale and the following silence had him turn to Louise Kulick, wondering. Her eyes were wide and fearful. “No, not since we found Bennett dead in the doorway. Everybody says he was probably trying to get inside, find shelter from the rain and slipped. But that doesn't make sense. That would he have slipped on? The roof covers the cobblestones at the door. They don't get slippery wet during rain. It doesn't make sense that a seasoned construction worker gets tangled up in electrical chords and manages to strangle himself. He had been working inside, setting up the tools, tidying the room up for storing but he was outside when it happened, cutting down some trees. I heard the chainsaw. After he died, the police shut it off as a crime-scene. But I peeked inside, we still have the fire-extinguisher and stuff we need on a daily basis, stored in there. And there's this ancient trunk I've never seen before, in there.”
Dean threw him a glance and Sam felt the hairs on his neck rise.
“Did you tell my dad about the trunk?” Dean inquired and Louise nodded.
“Your father is aware of the trunk but he assured me that the best way was to go to the root of the problem, and the root is probably buried six feet under.”
“Dad's probably right,” Sam admitted, trying to reassure the woman with a smile. He wasn't sure it didn't come off a complete mockery. He'd never admit to it, but he was damned scared and the cold chill he felt in his bones kept increasing.
“Sure dad's right,” Dean spoke with conviction. “The moment we get the fucker salted and burned, this will all be over. He turned to the re-appearing beams of flashlights. “Time to get the show on the road, Sammy! Get the gear out of the trunk!”
Sam looked at the men approaching, talking amongst themselves. And he wondered how come dad seemed to listen to a complete stranger but not to him?
“It's gonna be fine,” he told Louise, sending her another reassuring smile. Then he turned to the trunk and wondered if he had just added another deplorable trait to his long list of faults? Would he turn out to be a freaking liar and a lousy coward for not taking this up with dad and really make the man listen?
Dad and Tom were approaching, still discussing amongst each other and Louise joined in their discussion, vehemently refusing to leave the premises.
He leaned with his hands curled around the edge of the open trunk, the tiredness in his body making itself known all over. Legs feeling numb and uncooperative, head feeling heavy and clouded.
“Falling asleep on me, dude?” Dean's hand came to rest on his shoulder and Sam looked up and forced a smile to his lips.
“Bite me!”
“Without any ketchup? Dude, I do have some limits.” Dean elbowed him and pulled a shovel from the trunk.
Sam shoved him out of the way and gripped the bag of salt. This time the smile on his face was genuine.
The darkness was denser in the shadow of the old barn, the sounds seemed muffled and hollow as Dean shuffled the dirt. He and dad started on opposite sides of the fallen stone. Sam had made very clear that the stones looked like foundation stones, not headstones. Dad had looked pissed and sneered at Sam to keep quiet. Dean marveled that there hadn't been a shouting match, instead Sam had looked mortified but did as told. Still, if they didn't hit jackpot at the first stone, they had four more graves to dig. It would take them the entire night and there would be plenty of time for Sam to dig.
Dean felt his grip on the shovel slip, sweat running into his eyes despite the coolness of the night.
“Dean, it's my turn to dig, dammit!”
Dean grinned, his little brother was getting feisty, not liking having been ordered to watch the onlookers and hold the flashlight. Dad would not let Tom and Louise lend a hand, which was wise, neither of them looked like they'd ever done much digging in their lives and they'd probably just slow the process down by trying. He stretched his back, smirking at Sam before he went back to digging the shovel into the hard ground. Pushing it deeper with his foot and inkling it up to get as much dirt as possible onto it. Then he threw the dirt over his shoulder, nearly hitting Sam with it as it spread in the air.
Sam grunted irritably and the beam of his flashlight cut to the right. Dean signed a point to himself. Sam was talking to the Kulicks, mumbling low enough to make it difficult to decipher the words. Then the light vanished and he heard someone walk away. Footsteps crunching dry twigs.
He turned and watched Sam disappear behind the corner of the looming building. “Wher'ya going?”
John stopped digging and lifted his head to look over his shoulder. “What's he up to now?”
“He's just getting another shovel to help you out,” Tom explained. “We have a lot of equipment in the barn, I'm sure there's some shovels too.”
The flashlight blinded Dean momentarily when Tom angled it off the ground to illuminate the digging men's faces. “I'll help out too, Louise is quite capable in holding flashlights.”
“Bet you a fiver I'll dig a deeper hole than you, Tom!” The voice was a tad sardonic and Dean instantly liked the woman even more. She was a keeper.
“We need a look-out to check that nothing creeps up on us from behind. I told that boy to stay on watch and he up and leaves?“ John's voice was laden with irritation.
“Dad, there's three of them!” Dean protested, wiping the sweat off his brow, eyes sneaking to the direction in which Sam had disappeared. There was no sign of returning light.
“Son, it was a direct order. We don't leave each other, we stay close. Sam just broke that order and did what he wanted to do without any reflection on safety.“ John turned back to the work at hand, shoveling up the dirt with renewed vigor, thanks to the anger Dean was able to spot in the set of his shoulder.
“He just wanted to help out, dad,” Dean tried to mitigate. “I probably should have let him have a go at digging already. Sam can't stand being pushed back.”
Dean put his foot on the metal edge and pushed the metal deeper into the hard-packed ground.
“And he should have slept like I told him to do and not wandered off to the library to do research. No research will help you if you're too tired to see straight on a job. Kid needs to learn!”
“I'll go help him out looking for the shovels,” Tom suggested.
“No!” John shook his head. “Sam made a decision, now, he's gotta handle -.”
A bang was heard from behind the window casting a weak square of light on the ground behind them.
Dean did a full-body turn and held his breath, watching the dirty window intently. The light flickered behind it, sickly yellowish.
“What the hell is he doing now? Trying to demolish the barn single-handedly?”
Dean cast a quick glance over at their dad, standing tensely at his side. Voice gruff with masked fear. The same fear Dean felt like a hard knot in his guts.
Then the clatter from inside had him turn back and a flickering yellowish light flared behind the window pane, followed by loud sounds of wood splitting, metal colliding and fire thundering had him yell his brother's name and start running.
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Loving this story and the way you express Sam's hurt is just brilliant - my heart bleeds for the poor boy.
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btw - So sad to hear you're leaving the SN fandom. I can understand why you feel the way you do. I'm riding it out until the end and will be battling in Sam's corner as always but man, the odds have never been in our favour. I'm still holding on to my thread of hope that the show will do right by Sam anyway.
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;)
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