http://summergen-mod.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] summergen-mod.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] spn_summergen2020-08-16 03:32 pm
Entry tags:

In the Pines, for TheYmp, 3/3

PART THREE



It’s not the first time Dean wakes up bound to a chair. He suspects it’s not gonna be the last time, either. He tugs at the restraints anyway and grinds his teeth over the cloth, taut in his mouth.


“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Kristy pats his cheek, brushes her thumb over the gag. “Take it easy. I only got the one rig so we’ll have to wait until your brother’s sucked dry. Then I can really sink my teeth into what makes you hurt on the inside.”


Dean glares at her since he can’t offer much in the conversation department right now. She pulls the gag out of his mouth.


“Aw, don’t give me these sad eyes, Dean. It’s okay. You can scream if it makes you feel better.”


“I’m so giving your dive a shitty review on Yelp.”


She snorts. “But I love being a bar owner. It’s my calling. It also makes finding the next meal so much easier.”


“Right, yeah. Because everyone and their mother spill their heart to the bartender.”


“You bet. So many people pass by and tell me all their woes, I get to have my pick. And so many of them are transients. People no one reports missing. That’s how I avoided any of you lot coming after me.”


“You’re not as much of a smooth criminal as you think, lady. Sam must’ve been onto you,” Dean mutters.


“Ha, no. Sam stumbling into my bar was just a coincidence. Wrong place, wrong time.” She puts her hands on her hips. “He’s not the luckiest guy in general, judging by the utter shitfest I glimpsed in his head.”


Dean lets out a sharp exhale.


“I feed on bad memories. The worse,” her mouth curls, “the better. Sam, he is a goldmine. He’s seen the deepest levels of Hell.” She strokes Dean’s hair, leaning in breath-close. “Take the best sex you’ve ever had, the best burger you ever ate, and the best drink you’ve ever chugged, and put all of them together and maybe, just maybe, you can imagine what Sam’s memories feel like.”


She straightens up. “I took Sam, then you came along. And I knew I had to take you too. But I wanted to let you stew first. I mean, this past month must’ve been hell on earth for you.” She grins. “And guess what, Dean? The extraction of memories is a deadly process. You killed Sam’s friend and got him killed in turn. I love irony.”


“And hearing yourself talk, apparently.” Dean glares.


“I give Sam’s memories a few days more until they end, and he dies. Hell took a while to get through, but I see the finish line now,” Kristy murmurs. “I plan on having you watch as the light goes out of his eyes. That’ll be some primo suffering, babe.”


“Fuck you,” Dean snarls, tugging at the ropes. “I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna kill you before you can do that shit to him. You sadistic—”


“Yeah, yeah, guilty as charged.” Kristy tucks her braid behind her shoulder and smiles. Dean never noticed how freakishly toothy her grin was before. She yanks the knife out of her ribs and stabs it into Dean’s shoulder. He bites back a scream, arching in the chair. “You’ll taste good, too. In fact, I think I’ll have a sample right now.”


She places a hand on his forehead head and her tattoos flash a bright blue. Dean screams out but a second later he can’t hear his own voice anymore.


Sam’s room, empty. Sam’s car, empty. Sam’s phones, silent.


Sam thanking him for not killing Amy, for taking the higher road, guilt twisting in the pit of his stomach like a snake.


Castiel walking into the water, his arms outstretched, and a black puddle of ooze spreading across the lake.


Sam laying on a cot in the panic room as the giant fan overhead sends a shadow traveling across his face over and over again.


The visions flash faster. Blood, metal, pain. Blood again, so much blood. Sam jumping into the pit. Bobby in a wheelchair, talking about how he’s useless now. Sam’s little happy Heaven memories, away from Dean. Sam’s red-stained mouth. Hellfire and brimstone.


Dean gasps awake to the taste of his own intestines lingering in his mouth. Man, he did not miss that in the slightest. Gonna take more than a stick of Orbit to wash this down.


Kristy is lying on the floor a few feet away, her hands pushing against the floor. Sam’s ghost figure is wedged between the two of them. The air cracks with static.


“Right. How could I forget, you’re psychic,” Kristy hisses, scrambling up. “Didn’t know you had astral projection in your arsenal.” She pulls the knife out of Dean’s flesh with a flourish that leaves Dean hissing through his teeth.


“Change of plans,” Kristy gestures with the knife, splattering Dean’s blood across the floor. “Forget the rest of your memories, I’m gonna slice your pretty throat right now. Dean can still watch.”


The ghost Sam closes his eyes and jerks his head. The knife flies out of her hand. As if having a life of its own, it slices the binds around Dean’s wrists. Dean grabs the handle as soon as it’s done and saws through the ropes around his ankles.


Kristy attempts to punch him again, but Sam sends her flying across the room instead. His hand is raised and his fingers are splayed wide. She crashes into the cabinet with Sam’s memories and it topples on the floor. The glass bottles slide off the shelves and smash in a cacophony of broken glass. Kristy ends up pinned under the heavy shelf, flailing desperately among the glass shards.


“No!” Kristy hisses as the blue liquid evaporates into blue smoke and melts back into Sam’s head. Sam’s ghost vanishes, and the real deal jerks up, eyes wide. He looks like death warmed over, but he’s awake. Alive.


“Sammy, we better move it.” Dean slices the IV drip bag the djinn’s been using to collect his memories open and it evaporates into Sam’s head, too. Sam hisses. “Hey, hey, stay with me.” Dean sharply shakes Sam’s shoulder when Sam’s eyes droop closed, a sliver of whites peeking between his eyelids. “Get up, dammit. I can’t carry you, I’m injured. Sammy!”


Sam’s struggling to keep conscious. There’s no way Dean’s gonna outrun this bitch with one arm down and Sam’s entire boneless weight on his good shoulder.


Okay. Plan B. There was a farm nearby. A farm full of sheep.


Kristy tosses the shelf away. Dean hunches over near Sam’s improvised cot, holding his shoulder, the silver knife clutched in the fingers of his limp arm. “Aw. Looks like little brother is down for the count.” Kristy laughs. “What’s the plan now, tough guy?”


“Catch me if you can.” Dean whips around and darts outside, the door hitting the wall with a slam on the way out. He exhales with relief when he hears the stomp of feet behind him: Kristy is on his heels and not trying to carve Sam up. The trees wheeze by, and he nearly faceplants a few times, tripping on the roots and thick vegetation on the forest floor. He ducks around a thick, low-hanging branch and rustles the tree leaves as he pushes between two trunks that are growing way too close to each other. Gotta hurry, c’mon, c’mon...


Dean hops over a fallen rotten tree, breath coming out in heavy pants. Kristy’s glowing hand misses him by a second, swooshing through the air instead. His footsteps make wet noises as the soles of his shoes stick in the mud. The burning in his shoulder spreads through his torso, and he grabs at his wound through the jacket, an involuntary movement that leaves him hissing in pain.


The farm is close by, just as promised, and Dean forces himself to climb over the chain-link fence, leaving spots of it red and sticky with blood. He falls on all fours on the other side and hacks a lung out, wasting precious moments before he can sprint again, running across the grassy field.


This Dave person keeps sheep, like the men in the bar said. He’s got lambs, too, and Dean sneaks through the grassy field, the silver knife clasped in his hand. It feels downright cruel to stab the poor animal in the night like this, but it’s one lamb versus who knows how many people. It’s one lamb versus Sam. Besides, people eat lamb chops, like, all the time. Hell knows Dean does. It just feels different when you’re the one holding it down and slitting its throat.


He doesn’t want to be reminded of Amy, but he is. Killing for a living can be rotten work.


He gets up, staggering, and turns around to face Kristy who’s crossing the field by now. She’s too caught up in the adrenaline of the chase to pay much attention to the sleeping sheep in the corner of the fenced-off area or the dead lamb a few feet away.


“Aw, Dean. Didn’t take you for someone who’d ditch his brother to save his own hide. Look where it got you.” She narrows her eyes. “Nowhere to run.”


“I guess not,” Dean agrees and grabs her. The security lights in front of old Dave’s house turn on just as he buries the knife deep in her stomach, his other hand holding her back.


Dean tosses her body on the ground and yanks the knife out. He takes a few seconds to kneel down and check with a quick press of fingers to the neck if she’s dead all the way and staggers right back to the fence. As much as this chase took out of him, he better scram before good ol’ Dave gets his shotgun out and stands his ground.


Dean’s got a brother to save.


-


“You know, you’re the one I should be nursing to health right now.” The curved needle goes through his shoulder again, and Dean winces before taking another sip of whiskey to numb the sensation. “Not the other way around.”


“I’m feeling much better now that I’m no longer hooked up to that IV,” Sam says. “But if you’re worried and feel like doing my laundry for a few weeks, I wouldn’t hate that.”


Dean laughs, breathless. “I dunno, you don’t seem that injured to me.”


“But you do. You’re an idiot,” Sam says, shifting closer to take a better look at his injury. “What if you didn’t make it to the farm?”


“I did, though.” Dean rubs his mouth. “Neat trick with that,” he grunts as Sam stabs him with the needle again, “astral projection or whatever.”


“Yeah, I…” Sam picks up the scissors to cut the thread off. “I’ve been under for the longest time. Didn’t see anything, didn’t feel anything, nothing. But then I heard, um, your voice? And I knew I had to get to you.”


“Wow, Sam. That’s the sappiest thing I’ve ever heard.”


“Don’t knock it. It worked. I woke up.” Sam punches his shoulder, the healthy one. “And I needed to send you a signal.”


Dean nods.


“I found myself in the woods, my memories draining by the second.” Sam rubs his hands together and chews on his lips. “I walked to the closest highway I could find and I started trying to hitchhike. Anyone who stopped, I, well, I told them to stop cheating and left. I thought that if it becomes an urban legend and you hear about it, you’ll think it’s familiar and go check it out.”


“You randomly told everyone to stop cheating? Bet you scarred some innocent folks.” Dean cackles. Sam shrugs with a sheepish smile as he applies the gauze.


“If they never cheated, it’ll be a weird memory, nothing more,” Sam says, pulling away. “And if they did, it’s a good thing I scared them straight.”


“Fuck yeah. Cheating is a dick move.” Dean puts his old and worn t-shirt back on, smooths his fingers over the Metallica logo. The flannel and the jacket follow. “So… guess your psychic thing is still around. You feel an urge to bend any spoons?”


“No.” Sam sits back on the bed. “I think this, the astral projecting, whatever it was, zapped the rest of it, everything I had left.”


Dean wouldn’t be so sure. But this time Sam’s power didn't seem to come with a steep bill and it saved both their asses. Dean can live without looking this particular gift horse in the mouth. Unless some shit hits the fan later on, in which case they’ll burn that bridge when they get to it.


“How’s your head, man? All pieces of the puzzle where they should be?”


“They are,” Sam says, voice stifled and glances into the corner of the room as his fingers brush over the scar on his hand. Yeah, Sam’s memories are back, even the ones he didn’t miss. “Except I don’t remember how she snatched me. And, uh, whatever happened to our evil twins? Are they still on their crime spree? Because that would seriously complicate things.”


“You... don’t remember what happened after?”


Oh, shit. But Sam and Dean checked the entire shack and made sure that there was no bottle left unsmashed. Right, fuck, Dean was looking at it, and that's when the djinn came a-knockin’.


Dean carefully pats his jacket's pockets until he feels a lump under the fabric. There it is, a small vial with the last of Sam’s memories.


But it’s the first time since Dean rolled into town that he can breathe easy. So he thinks, I’ll wait until I’m sure Sam’s really okay.


A day or two.



Sam’s smiling. Dean can’t bring himself to ruin that all over again.


There might as well be a crayon in his limp fingers. There might as well be a blank wall in front of him, waiting for him to scribble another “sorry” across the wallpaper.


Dean pulls in a deep breath as if to say something, anything, but the words never come.


Epilogue.


Dean promises to only wait another day. But that day turns into a week. A week turns into three. The bottle burns a hole through his pocket as they hit the road again, as they grab breakfast in a mom-and-pop place, as they ice a werewolf. Sam’s skin is a little too snug on his bones still, and Dean loses count of how many times Sam flinches in one day, but that’s not the only reason why Dean’s hiding the memory away. Second verse, same as the first: telling Sam about what he did is no easier now that he’s confronted with the choice all over again.


Sam predictably gets pissed at him the next time he has a drink too many. Dean is still in that honeymoon period of a miraculous brother resurrection and he has a hard time telling Sam and his stupid wet eyes no. So he puts the glass down and promises him to take it easy.


Sam looks like he doubts Dean’s words, but also wants to believe them. Hell, Dean can relate. He’d like to believe he can stop anytime he wants. But the truth is, as always, much more complicated and messy than that. There’s undoubtedly the next shitstorm lurking around the corner, ‘cause that’s how the Winchesters do. No telling whether Dean’s feeble attempt at drinking less will withstand it.


But at least with Sam around, alive and well, the idea of trying doesn’t seem completely ridiculous.


-


It takes him a good month to come clean. Maybe he never would’ve, but Sam gets significantly less sharp, mixing up similar words and forgetting what he’d done a few minutes ago, which left him with no less than two kitchenette-based burns. Dean would blame it all on the Devil taking residence in Sam’s skull, but there’s been way less hand scar action than he’d expect from a Satan-induced bad trip.


On one fine Monday, after watching Sam rub his temples all damn day, Dean finally asks him if he’s okay and determinedly pries past the first few layers of “I’m fine”-s to get to the meat of the matter.


“Uh, I’ve been getting brain fog,” Sam says with a brave little smile that makes it clear that it’s way worse on the inside of that head of his than what he lets slip. “I can’t stop returning to the gap in my memories at random moments. You know, when you’re missing a tooth and you’re constantly licking that spot in your gums? That’s what it feels like.”


Dean gulps.


He reaches in his pocket and hands the bottle to Sam, wordless. Sam picks it up, his forehead creased with a confused frown. Dean looks away as Sam journeys outside to smash the bottle, doesn’t look up again until Sam storms back in. Dean doesn’t have to look at Sam to know he’s furious just by the sound of his footsteps.


“How could you keep this from me?” Sam hisses. “Again?”


“I didn’t want you to run off. I spent a good month thinking you were dead. Couldn’t deal with a rerun of that. Sue me.”


“And you decided to lie to me about the same thing that caused these problems between us in the first place. Great solution.” Sam rolls his eyes. “How lucky for you. You got to fool me twice.”


“I had to make sure you were okay.” Dean turns around in the seat to properly face Sam. “Lately, I’ve got no idea where your head’s at, what with the Devil tearing through it! And all that Djinn mojo couldn’t have helped matters.”


“Nothing that happened to me gives you the right to pick and choose which memories I get back!”


“I didn’t choose to keep it from you!” Dean takes a step in Sam’s direction. “It was an accident, man. I just took way too long to fess up, but, well, I’m telling you now.”


Sam meets Dean’s eyes as if gauging whether he believes him or not. Once Sam decides Dean is sufficiently earnest, his expression softens. But in a second his mouth thins again and Sam pulls a jacket on, shoving his arms in the sleeves all passive aggressive-like.


“Where the hell are you going?” Dean groans. “You’re giving me ‘Nam flashbacks, I swear.”


“The bar. I need a moment. Alone.”


“Seriously? You want to go to a bar after what just happened?”


“Doesn’t seem to stop you,” Sam says and Dean scowls, ‘cause he sure as hell won’t let a perfectly good thing get ruined for him by a psycho who happened to work in a bar. But he did think Sam would have more hang-ups about it. Sam has hang-ups about everything. Like who you can and can’t ice, for example.


Sam slams the door on his way out.


-


Dean paces the motel room’s floor for what has to be the one-millionth time before going outside. Sam took the one car they got, and Dean considers hot-wiring another, but the bar is close enough for him to walk to.


Another town, another dive. A flickering neon sign overhead that reflects in the giant puddle right in front of the entrance. Sam’s sitting in a booth near the exit. He flinches at seeing Dean and narrows his eyes as if he’s trying to figure whether Dean’s real or a figment of his imagination.


In his hands, there’s a bottle of El Sol Light. The label is half-peeled off, and Sam’s nail is still scratching against the “O” nervously. His bar exposure therapy doesn’t seem to be panning out all that well.


“You’d be better off trying to get drunk off plain water than this crap,” Dean says, plopping down in the seat across from Sam’s.


“I don’t want to get drunk at all,” Sam says, a little tense. “Can’t get sloppy.” Right. Who knows how alcohol reacts with the Hellprazole Sam’s been taking by the fistful. “But there’s nothing else open at this hour.”


“At the late, late hour of 8 o’clock,” Dean sighs. “Dude, I’m kind of sick of the small-town scene. I was thinking, it’s as good a time as any to schedule our annual Vegas trip. And check this out, I heard there’s a Neon Graveyard joint there where they display old neon signs from the casinos and—”


“Stop it,” Sam shakes his head. “You can’t come in here and pretend like everything’s alright.”


“So what? You want me to grovel?”


“No. Dean, stop it.” Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. “Can’t you for once admit, without the dramatics, that what you did was wrong?”


“You’d do the same if you didn’t know her.”


“I mean all the lying. There’s a reason why you hit the bottle that hard. Next time… talk to me.” Sam leans forward on his elbows. “It’s hard enough to be judge, jury, and executioner when it’s two of us. Don’t put it all on you. That’s the last thing you need.”


Dean nods and chews on his lip and Sam’s words for a few seconds.


“Yeah. The lying sucked. And, yeah, it wasn’t right. And everything else that happened next was no better.”


“Hear, hear.” Sam salutes him with his crappy drink. “But you did find me.”


“It was a team effort thanks to you, Poltergeist.” Dean hums. “Look, I won’t pretend I get it, all the crap you’re dealing with. I’ve been to Hell, sure, but I didn’t bring souvenirs when I returned topside. You’re lugging lots of baggage you don’t deserve around right now, Sammy. I didn’t want to add to it, but I ended up fucking it up worse.”


“It’s not all that bad, really,” Sam starts, but Dean cuts him off.


“I’m sorry,” he says. Take that, crayons and walls from his nightmares.


Sam nods, brushes the hair out of his face, and weakly smiles at him. Dean sits with that apology for a while until he can’t handle it being the last thing either of them said anymore. “Okay, man, that was officially way too much sincerity for one day. I need a drink.”


Dean turns around to signal to the waitress, but Sam’s little pleading don’t-get-hammered-tonight expression makes him abort that mission halfway.


“One beer, promise. We never properly celebrated your miraculous comeback,” mostly because Dean felt guilty about hiding the last piece of the puzzle, “and I think it’s high time.”


Sam nods, a little apprehensive.


“And, hey,” Dean awkwardly changes the topic, “I also found the book. The fairytales book? Guess she did find her brother, huh?”


“And she didn’t even need a grenade launcher. Imagine that.”


“But you have to admit, the grenade launcher would’ve solved a lot of her problems.” Dean leans forward. “There’s not a book there that wouldn’t be improved by the main character finding a grenade launcher. I mean it. Lord Of The Rings? Let’s see how the One Ring survives getting blasted by a bazooka.”


There’s a ghost of a smile on Sam’s lips, so Dean continues.


Harry Potter? Vol-what’s-his-name would never stand a chance against a grenade. Hell, even take the classics. Shakespeare plays, now with a grenade launcher? Tell me you wouldn’t go see that.”


Sam tries to hide his face, but the shadow of his dimple betrays him.


One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Bye-bye, Nurse Ratchet. It? Well, duh,” he glances up at Sam. “Bet you’d love to blast the evil clown.”


Sam makes a non-committal noise.


The Forsyte Saga? Okay, I never read that because it sounded fucking mind-numbingly boring, but I’m sure there was something to blow up even there. The Odyssey? Uh,” Dean hesitates. “Been a while since I refreshed my memory on that one. Blast the Mount Olympus, I guess? That’s always a safe bet.”


“Ha, you’re not wrong. The Greek gods were a seriously dysfunctional household. And so were the Forsytes. And so were most fictional families, I suppose.” Sam taps his fingers against the table. “I guess, um, you know that old adage... happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”


“Dunno how that bodes for our family,” Dean says. “We sure as hell aren’t like everyone else.”


“No.” Sam laughs and finally looks at Dean. He looks tired. Tired, but hanging in there. That’s more than Dean could ever hope to ask the swans, the moon, or the sun for. “But even though the classics were very wise men, even they couldn’t have predicted us.”


“Now that,” Dean picks up his El Sol bottle, “is something worth drinking to.”


Sam clinks the side of his bottle against Dean’s.


The bar’s stuffy and full of cigarette smoke, but Dean finds it easy to breathe.





Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting