![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: A Heartbeat At My Feet - 2/2
Rating/Warning: PG (language)
Wordcount: 4,047
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Category: Gen
Summary: An event in their childhood leaves Sam and Dean Winchester separated without knowing the true reason why - that reuniting could kill them both.
Notes: Fusion with His Dark Materials - do not have to be familiar with the books to read. Some liberties have been taken.
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Part One | Part Two
Dean had never disobeyed a direct order from his father in his life.
He’d never abandoned a hunt.
He was doing both on the same day.
Dean drove, white-knuckled and only stopping when the urge to piss became intolerable, towards Bobby’s junk yard. He hadn’t seen the man in years but he remembered exactly where his place was. Men like Bobby didn’t tend to move either so Dean was pretty damn sure he would find his father exactly where he thought he was going to.
Kiri was on the passenger seat, currently a small ferret with his body curled in a half moon. He looked up and yawned, half of his tiny face disappearing. “Are you sure we should be doing this?” he asked gently.
“No,” Dean replied tersely. He wasn’t sure at all. He didn’t know what he was going to find when he followed his father. It was most likely exactly what John had said, something that didn’t concern him, maybe a long-standing hunt that he thought Dean should stay away from.
Deep down though, Dean was sure that it was going to have something to do with him. He knew calling he and Kiri unusual was a massive understatement. For one thing, having a male dæmon was virtually unheard of. Dean liked to think it was because he was more man than most people, so much so that there wasn’t enough of a feminie side about him for his dæmon to be a chick.
There were other theories about people with same-sex dæmons and while one was slightly annoying, the number of women just assuming he was gay and having to be set well and truly straight on that matter notwithstanding. The other though, was troubling.
Dean had met exactly one other person with a dæmon the same sex. A woman named Barb with a spider monkey dæmon named Miase. The woman had been a seer who had given Dean a strange look and had refused to help with their queries until Dean was out of the house. John had shrugged and called her a kook, claiming she had thrown him out a time or two as well but Dean just didn’t buy it.
Kiri traversed the small space between them, climbed Dean’s arm and finally came to rest curled around the back of his neck. “You’ve got a lot of tension in your shoulders,” he pointed out, sounding tired and kneading his small paws into Dean’s nape. Dean hoped he wasn’t getting sick. Kiri had been sounding run-down all day.
That was the other thing. Dæmon’s got sick when their humans did. The number of flues and hangovers Dean had suffered through while Kiri looked on, still bright and bushy-tailed when he chose a form that was capable of it, was too many to count. What was much more frightening was when Kiri fell ill while Dean was fine. Dean felt completely powerless on those occasions. At least when Beresh was ill, his father was too and tending to his own health meant that he was helping Beresh’s.
000
“Sam,” Bobby said from the doorway, watching Sam angrily stuff clothing into a duffle. Sam put a hand up, palm outward to Bobby and then continued scooping armfuls of t-shirts and underwear out of his chest of drawers to transfer to his bag. “Just where do you think you’re going to go?”
“I have somewhere,” Sam said and looked down at Sasha. She was currently a squirrel, sitting back on her hind legs and with her tail clasped in her forepaws at her belly. She was looking between Bobby and Sam and trembling. Sam took a moment to pass a hand over her and the trembling eased but didn’t stop.
She’d always hated people arguing.
“Just… would you stop for a second?” Bobby pleaded, finally coming into the room and making a grab for the duffle. Sam snatched it aside, Sasha having to dart out of the way and becoming a moth, disappearing up into the exposed beams above. “You just don’t understand.”
“Oh really?” Sam scoffed, releasing his duffle and turning on Bobby. “What’s there to understand about you hiding the letters I wrote to my brother since I was eight!” Sam crossed his arms and glared at Bobby, chin pushed out. After a moment, colour drained out of his face and he dropped his arms. “Is Dean… is he even alive?”
“Jesus, yes. Of course he is,” Bobby assured, rubbing a hand over his mouth and looking pained.
“Does he know I am?” Sam asked, narrowing his eyes. When Bobby didn’t answer immediately, Sam grunted in frustration and then dropped to his bed, scrubbing hands over his face. He turned and dug the one letter he’d brought down from the attic out of his duffle and held it up. It was written in shaky, childish hand and the ink was smudged in places. Sam remembered he’d been crying when he’d written it and had kept wiping a hand over his eyes and then back to the page. “Tell me where he is,” Sam said in a voice devoid of all emotion.
“Sam, not everything I told you was a lie even though you’d probably like to believe that right now. We’re pretty sure it would be dangerous for you and Dean to meet now.”
“Pretty sure?” Sam spat, getting to his feet, towering over the smaller man. He was still lean but he’d realised that with time, he was going to be a size not many people would mess with. “How can I believe you? I don’t know what sick game you and my father are playing but I’m out.” Sam swiped his forearm across his eyes, angry that he was so close to tears. “I’ll find him myself. I’m pretty good at tracking people down. I learned from you after all.”
“Sam,” Bobby tried again, moving into the doorway when Sam shouldered his duffle and put a hand out, Sasha landing lightly on his fingers and becoming a small gecko so she could cling to his wrist.
Sam put his head down, eyes flat. “Don’t make me go through you,” he said, sounding much older than his eighteen years.
Bobby relented, stepping aside. “You’re making a mistake,” he said. “Me and your Daddy… we had our reasons.”
Sam was out the door and down the stairs before he could have second-thoughts about it. He knew he was burning bridges with Bobby, leaving the way he was but he didn’t know what else to do. He had an acceptance letter from Stanford burning a hole in his pocket and a scholarship that meant in only three short months he’d have on-campus housing and money for supplies and tuition. He might be living a little lean until then but he was a Winchester.
He would cope.
Sam stepped out the door, not really hearing the low growl from outside until his eyes landed on the large black truck that had pulled up in front of Bobby’s. The driver’s side door opened and Sam let his duffle thump to the porch in surprise.
“Dad?”
000
“Where were you going, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Sam and John were sitting on Bobby’s porch steps, Sam concentrating on the ever-widening hole in the knee of his jeans and John watching Beresh and Sasha looping around each other in the sky, two falcons playing what looked like a rousing game of tag.
“Places to go, people to see,” Sam answered noncommittally. He figured his father would be about as laconic on the subject of Dean as Bobby had been so it wasn’t even worth asking. He was also tempted to ask yet again why he had been left behind. Had he had some fundamental failing as a son that meant that John had chosen Dean?
“That’s not gonna fly, kiddo,” John warned with a gruff voice.
“Oh really,” Sam said, lip curling. “I think you gave up any right to my life or what I’m doing the moment you dumped me on a friend and made for the horizon.”
“Sammy,” John exclaimed, looking like he’d been slapped. “You know I didn’t-”
“Have any choice?” Sam interrupted, pushing off from the steps so he could pace. “I think there were a lot of choices made when I was a kid. You chose to leave me behind. You chose to spin some story about how it was for my own good. You chose to let my brother believe I was dead!” Sam’s voice had risen into a yell by the time he was finished and John just blinked at him and then his eyes darted to Bobby, who had come out onto the porch, Farnes leaning heavily against his leg and whining low.
“I’ll tell you what I choose,” Sam said, stabbing a finger out in John’s direction and then swinging it to encompass Bobby. A headache that had started in the back of his head that morning was now spiking through his temple. Sam put a hand to his forehead and then ground a fist into his right eye where the pain had seemed to have localised. “I choose to find my brother, go to school and have nothing, nothing to do with either of you.”
Sam turned away from the house and staggered a little, the pain increasing. John came to his feet, his concern wiping everything else from his features, putting a hand out towards his youngest son. “Sam?” he started forward and Sam backed away a few steps.
“You don’t get to choose when you care!” he yelled, his voice going hoarse with it. Sasha had dropped out of the sky and was now circling around Sam’s feet as a german shepherd, her ears flattened.
Sam’s vision washed white and he dropped to his knees, breathing raggedly. “Sam!” John called, running forward and then he skidded to a halt as another engine broke the morning’s quiet, a low purr that Sam dimly remembered from dark nights spread across leather seats with the smell of gun oil and smoke in his nostrils. “No!” John cried as the now loud rumble died and there was the squeak of a car door opening.
Sam looked up, squinting against the glare that he knew was only in his eyes and could see the outline of a six-foot tall man in jeans and boots before the pain became too much and swept him under.
000
Stay in the car, Sammy.
Sammy pressed small hands to the Impala’s back window and then sat back on his haunches, breathing out in a sigh. His breath created a small fogged circle on the glass and he leaned forward long enough to draw a frowny face with a finger before it disappeared. He smiled a little to himself, knowing that the next time the car windows fogged inside it would appear like magic.
He hated waiting.
Sammy sorted through the colouring books he’d been left but most of them had been completed. He also couldn’t really concentrate on them properly when his Daddy and Dean were out in the forest he was sitting on the edge of, hunting something with big claws and sharp teeth. His daddy had been talking to Uncle Bobby about it and Sammy had heard the words dæmon killer. Sammy watched Kiri doing rolls on the other side of the bench seat and reached out, the small rabbit immediately darting into his waiting hands and accepting Sammy hugging him close, patting his ears flat.
“I’m worried, too,” Kiri said with a small tremor in his voice and Sammy hugged him tighter.
Something heavy hit the side of the car and Sammy let out a squeak of surprise, scrabbling backwards until he was pressed against the opposite door of the car. The car was hit again and this time it rocked with the impact. Sammy tucked Kiri into the pouch on the front of his sweatshirt and put a hand to the door release.
Stay in the car, Sammy.
Sammy took his hand away and bit his lip, lowering himself into the footwell. If he crouched down low and small like Dean had shown him, he couldn’t be seen from the windows even if someone came right up to the car and looked in. Kiri was making a small, low sound of concern and Sammy tucked one of his hands in the pocket, finding Kiri was now smaller, probably a field mouse. He stroked a finger over Kiri’s nose.
A shotgun blast echoed through the night’s quiet and Sammy put his hands over his head and curled tighter. It had sounded far away which meant that either his daddy and Dean were hunting something else and the thing hitting the car was maybe just a forest animal, or there was more of the dæmon killers around and Sammy was alone with one of them. Maybe pressing a nose to the Impala’s glass, Sammy was thinking now, fragile windows. He’d seen movies where normal people were able to break through car windows, let alone a monster.
“We can run,” Kiri urged. “It was only on one side. Maybe we can run for the forest and hide until daddy comes back.”
“Daddy said to stay in the car,” Sammy insisted. He heard a twig snap outside on the same side that the car had been hit and put his head up.
“He’s far away and he doesn’t know the monster is here,” Kiri said urgently, freeing himself from Sam’s pocket and scurrying up until he was pressed against Sam’s cheek. He scrabbled higher until he could peek over the edge of the window and made a noise of surprise. “There’s a lady outside.”
“What? Where?” Sammy asked, uncurling and edging up next to Kiri slowly so only the top of his head and his eyes appeared over the edge of the door. It was true. There was a woman sitting hunched on a tree stump a few yards from the Impala. From what Sammy could see in the darkness, she was wearing raggedy layers like street people who pushed shopping carts and muttered to themselves did.
“She doesn’t know there’s a monster!” Kiri said, blinking wide, liquid eyes at Sammy. “She’s not safe.”
Sammy’s mouth thinned down into a little determined line and he nodded. He pushed his own fear way down deep and pushed down on the door release, opening the Impala’s door and wincing when it made its usual squeak of protest. He and Daddy and Dean Saved People so he knew he didn’t have a choice.
Sammy slid out of the car, his sneakered feet squelching in the mud because it had been raining when they’d arrived. Kiri, back to being a rabbit, loped forward a little way. He reached back into the car to get the small dagger his daddy made sure he always had when he was alone. “Ma’am?” Sammy called softly, advancing and casting about a wary eye.
The woman didn’t look up or move and Sammy moved a little closer. He wanted to go back to the car for the flashlight but he dared not, in case the monster had circled around and found the open door. Sammy balled his fists, took a deep breath and ran the rest of the small distance between him and the lady.
“Sammy!” Sammy froze when he heard his brother’s voice yell. There was the sound of something moving fast through the forest and Sammy didn’t know if it was his brother or the monster. He turned back to the old woman to warn her and found she’d risen to her feet. She was holding a large pair of rusty scissors aloft and her face was a carved mess of lines and shadows.
“Little child,” she crooned, swaying forward, her dress of rags moving like it was underwater. Sammy felt rooted to the spot, unable to lift a foot or hand.
“Sam!” He heard again, this time his dad and the crashing sound was getting closer. The woman lunged and Sammy threw his arms up in front of his face, the dreadful paralysis breaking but she wasn’t aiming for him. Sammy turned his head and saw her bring the scissors between him and Kiri who was bounding back towards him. She closed the scissors with a tidy snip sound and Sammy screamed.
000
Sam wanted to move his legs but something was across them. He cracked open an eye and waited for the light to stop being so blinding before he looked down at himself. There were two otters curled around each other and across the bottom of his legs and feet.
One of the otters was Sasha and the other…
Sam turned his head sideways, slowly because he still felt like he was moving through molasses and expecting a pain that didn’t come. There was a man sitting on a chair beside the bed he was stretched out on, early twenties from what Sam could tell, pale skin and a fine dusting of freckles across his cheeks. He was sleeping, chin tucked into his chest and leaning just a little bit to the right but not enough to be precarious.
“Dean?” Sam tried, the sound of the name rusty in his throat and mouth but familiar for all that.
Dean jerked a little and snorted, head coming up and one of his hands immediately going to his mouth and wiping at one corner like he was used to drooling. Dean blinked for a moment and then his eyes came to rest on Sam. Sam’s memory of Dean had faded in time like a photograph in the sun but he’d always remembered his eyes. Green like the sea and laughing, always laughing.
They weren’t laughing now but he recognised them all the same.
“Sammy,” Dean breathed and his voice sounded just as rusty, or maybe it was the name too. He hadn’t had to say it in so long. “I thought… I would’ve…” he started and then leaned forward, concern etched deep on his face when Sam moved slowly, careful not to dislodge the two dæmons, only enough to prop himself up on his elbows. He felt but resisted the urge to put a reassuring hand to both because somehow, some way they were both him and not at the same time.
“S’okay,” Sam said, casting a look back down at the curled dæmons. He couldn’t tell Sasha from… Kiri, his mind supplied. They were pressed together like ying and yang, two opposing halves of a whole.
000
“It was a Hag,” his father explained, Sam and Dean crowded on one side of Bobby’s peeling kitchen table. Sasha sat on Dean’s knee and Kiri was on Sam’s, both now hares with their front paws resting on the table and their ears flat back. Every now and again Dean would put a hand up like he was going to run it over Sasha’s head, but then would clench his fist and put it down again. The fourth time in a row he did this, Sam reached across and picked up his hand and then dropped it on Sasha’s back.
“Thankyou. That was driving me nuts,” she mused, turning to twitch her nose in Sam’s direction. Kiri seemed to take that as his cue to drop back against Sam’s belly, hindpaws up in the air.
“They can cut the threads that tie you to life,” Dean recited absently and then looked at his father with a frown. “Only, they can do it literally?”
“They can severe the connection between human and dæmon, yes,” John said with a small nod. “I’d never seen anyone survive it before but when we got back to Sammy he was hanging on, Kiri too. They were both lying on their sides, pale as milk and… you did the damndest most crazy-fool thing I’d ever seen.”
Dean blinked. “Me?”
“You picked up Kiri and there was this kind of tangled trail of smoky… something from him. You tried to put him back with Sammy but they seemed to get weaker the closer they got. You kept saying something about Peter Pan and his shadow, how you just needed to sew them back together while there was still time.”
Sam looked sideways at his brother. They’d been reading Peter Pan right before Sam had woken up at Bobby’s. A chapter whenever they were alone together. Dean had watched Sam clap for all his worth when Tinkerbell had been sick and hadn’t even called him a dumbass for it.
“A chestful of rocksalt had the Hag running for the hills but she’d dropped her scissors. You went over and picked ‘em up and before I could stop you, you’d passed them between yourself and Sasha and cut.”
“Holy…” Sam breathed, putting a hand to his mouth.
“You rolled Sam over and put Sasha on his chest and I saw that tattered end of whatever it was kind of settle on him and disappear. You scooped up Kiri and the same thing happened. Then you collapsed and I rushed you both back to Bobby’s.”
“Nobody could tell us what it meant, what it would do,” Bobby said from the doorway. He had his arms crossed and was leaning one shoulder against the frame. “We went to seers and shamans. Called every witch doctor I knew and some sorcerers I had to wrangle the names out of from other people. No one knew how it had happened but they all said a variation on the same thing. You boys had to be separated for it to stick. The damage was done.”
“Why did you tell me Sammy was dead?” Dean asked, putting his hands down flat on the table.
“It was a spur of the moment thing,” John said with a heavy sigh. “You kept asking for him and screaming and crying. For weeks you asked for him and I had to tell you that you couldn’t see him. Not ever. You said as soon as you were old enough you’d run away. You’d run right to him and that… I’m ashamed to admit that that scared me badly.”
“We’re fine though,” Dean said, looking down at Sasha and back up at their father.
“I guess so,” John said with a half-smile.
000
Sam felt like his knees were up around his ears the first time he got into the Impala but after a while of moving about and shoving the bench seat as far back as it would go, he was finally comfortable. Dean had volunteered to drive them over to Stanford to have a look and get the lay of the land. Sam was pretty sure he wanted to see just exactly where Sam’s dorm would be so he could check up on him every two seconds.
He hadn’t had to pack, just throw his duffle in the backseat even though he would have way too many clothes for the week they were planning on being on the road. Dean said they could check out a werewolf on the way back so he might need the spares.
Sam was a little worried though because he was now getting the tugging ache between his shoulder blades and along his temple when Sasha had ranged too far out when Kiri did too. Even when the dæmons were close, he would sometimes be hit by it if Dean wasn’t which was more worrying. He wasn’t sure if Dean was getting the same feeling and just hadn’t said anything.
Sasha had been a lynx for three days and didn’t look like she was changing again any time soon. Her pointed ears twitched when Sam looked back at her, lying on his duffle. “I don’t know, Sam,” she said to the question he didn’t have the nerve to ask. Kiri was a coyote, his fur the exact same mix of grey and black as Sasha’s. His paws were hooked over the end of the seat and Sam knew he was resisting the temptation to stick his head out the window.
Sam looked back out the front window, seeing Dean talking to their father and Bobby, sketching something with his hands, probably their route.
He hoped Dean knew where they were going, because he had no idea.
Rating/Warning: PG (language)
Wordcount: 4,047
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By:
kellifer_ficCategory: Gen
Summary: An event in their childhood leaves Sam and Dean Winchester separated without knowing the true reason why - that reuniting could kill them both.
Notes: Fusion with His Dark Materials - do not have to be familiar with the books to read. Some liberties have been taken.
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Dean had never disobeyed a direct order from his father in his life.
He’d never abandoned a hunt.
He was doing both on the same day.
Dean drove, white-knuckled and only stopping when the urge to piss became intolerable, towards Bobby’s junk yard. He hadn’t seen the man in years but he remembered exactly where his place was. Men like Bobby didn’t tend to move either so Dean was pretty damn sure he would find his father exactly where he thought he was going to.
Kiri was on the passenger seat, currently a small ferret with his body curled in a half moon. He looked up and yawned, half of his tiny face disappearing. “Are you sure we should be doing this?” he asked gently.
“No,” Dean replied tersely. He wasn’t sure at all. He didn’t know what he was going to find when he followed his father. It was most likely exactly what John had said, something that didn’t concern him, maybe a long-standing hunt that he thought Dean should stay away from.
Deep down though, Dean was sure that it was going to have something to do with him. He knew calling he and Kiri unusual was a massive understatement. For one thing, having a male dæmon was virtually unheard of. Dean liked to think it was because he was more man than most people, so much so that there wasn’t enough of a feminie side about him for his dæmon to be a chick.
There were other theories about people with same-sex dæmons and while one was slightly annoying, the number of women just assuming he was gay and having to be set well and truly straight on that matter notwithstanding. The other though, was troubling.
Dean had met exactly one other person with a dæmon the same sex. A woman named Barb with a spider monkey dæmon named Miase. The woman had been a seer who had given Dean a strange look and had refused to help with their queries until Dean was out of the house. John had shrugged and called her a kook, claiming she had thrown him out a time or two as well but Dean just didn’t buy it.
Kiri traversed the small space between them, climbed Dean’s arm and finally came to rest curled around the back of his neck. “You’ve got a lot of tension in your shoulders,” he pointed out, sounding tired and kneading his small paws into Dean’s nape. Dean hoped he wasn’t getting sick. Kiri had been sounding run-down all day.
That was the other thing. Dæmon’s got sick when their humans did. The number of flues and hangovers Dean had suffered through while Kiri looked on, still bright and bushy-tailed when he chose a form that was capable of it, was too many to count. What was much more frightening was when Kiri fell ill while Dean was fine. Dean felt completely powerless on those occasions. At least when Beresh was ill, his father was too and tending to his own health meant that he was helping Beresh’s.
“Sam,” Bobby said from the doorway, watching Sam angrily stuff clothing into a duffle. Sam put a hand up, palm outward to Bobby and then continued scooping armfuls of t-shirts and underwear out of his chest of drawers to transfer to his bag. “Just where do you think you’re going to go?”
“I have somewhere,” Sam said and looked down at Sasha. She was currently a squirrel, sitting back on her hind legs and with her tail clasped in her forepaws at her belly. She was looking between Bobby and Sam and trembling. Sam took a moment to pass a hand over her and the trembling eased but didn’t stop.
She’d always hated people arguing.
“Just… would you stop for a second?” Bobby pleaded, finally coming into the room and making a grab for the duffle. Sam snatched it aside, Sasha having to dart out of the way and becoming a moth, disappearing up into the exposed beams above. “You just don’t understand.”
“Oh really?” Sam scoffed, releasing his duffle and turning on Bobby. “What’s there to understand about you hiding the letters I wrote to my brother since I was eight!” Sam crossed his arms and glared at Bobby, chin pushed out. After a moment, colour drained out of his face and he dropped his arms. “Is Dean… is he even alive?”
“Jesus, yes. Of course he is,” Bobby assured, rubbing a hand over his mouth and looking pained.
“Does he know I am?” Sam asked, narrowing his eyes. When Bobby didn’t answer immediately, Sam grunted in frustration and then dropped to his bed, scrubbing hands over his face. He turned and dug the one letter he’d brought down from the attic out of his duffle and held it up. It was written in shaky, childish hand and the ink was smudged in places. Sam remembered he’d been crying when he’d written it and had kept wiping a hand over his eyes and then back to the page. “Tell me where he is,” Sam said in a voice devoid of all emotion.
“Sam, not everything I told you was a lie even though you’d probably like to believe that right now. We’re pretty sure it would be dangerous for you and Dean to meet now.”
“Pretty sure?” Sam spat, getting to his feet, towering over the smaller man. He was still lean but he’d realised that with time, he was going to be a size not many people would mess with. “How can I believe you? I don’t know what sick game you and my father are playing but I’m out.” Sam swiped his forearm across his eyes, angry that he was so close to tears. “I’ll find him myself. I’m pretty good at tracking people down. I learned from you after all.”
“Sam,” Bobby tried again, moving into the doorway when Sam shouldered his duffle and put a hand out, Sasha landing lightly on his fingers and becoming a small gecko so she could cling to his wrist.
Sam put his head down, eyes flat. “Don’t make me go through you,” he said, sounding much older than his eighteen years.
Bobby relented, stepping aside. “You’re making a mistake,” he said. “Me and your Daddy… we had our reasons.”
Sam was out the door and down the stairs before he could have second-thoughts about it. He knew he was burning bridges with Bobby, leaving the way he was but he didn’t know what else to do. He had an acceptance letter from Stanford burning a hole in his pocket and a scholarship that meant in only three short months he’d have on-campus housing and money for supplies and tuition. He might be living a little lean until then but he was a Winchester.
He would cope.
Sam stepped out the door, not really hearing the low growl from outside until his eyes landed on the large black truck that had pulled up in front of Bobby’s. The driver’s side door opened and Sam let his duffle thump to the porch in surprise.
“Dad?”
“Where were you going, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Sam and John were sitting on Bobby’s porch steps, Sam concentrating on the ever-widening hole in the knee of his jeans and John watching Beresh and Sasha looping around each other in the sky, two falcons playing what looked like a rousing game of tag.
“Places to go, people to see,” Sam answered noncommittally. He figured his father would be about as laconic on the subject of Dean as Bobby had been so it wasn’t even worth asking. He was also tempted to ask yet again why he had been left behind. Had he had some fundamental failing as a son that meant that John had chosen Dean?
“That’s not gonna fly, kiddo,” John warned with a gruff voice.
“Oh really,” Sam said, lip curling. “I think you gave up any right to my life or what I’m doing the moment you dumped me on a friend and made for the horizon.”
“Sammy,” John exclaimed, looking like he’d been slapped. “You know I didn’t-”
“Have any choice?” Sam interrupted, pushing off from the steps so he could pace. “I think there were a lot of choices made when I was a kid. You chose to leave me behind. You chose to spin some story about how it was for my own good. You chose to let my brother believe I was dead!” Sam’s voice had risen into a yell by the time he was finished and John just blinked at him and then his eyes darted to Bobby, who had come out onto the porch, Farnes leaning heavily against his leg and whining low.
“I’ll tell you what I choose,” Sam said, stabbing a finger out in John’s direction and then swinging it to encompass Bobby. A headache that had started in the back of his head that morning was now spiking through his temple. Sam put a hand to his forehead and then ground a fist into his right eye where the pain had seemed to have localised. “I choose to find my brother, go to school and have nothing, nothing to do with either of you.”
Sam turned away from the house and staggered a little, the pain increasing. John came to his feet, his concern wiping everything else from his features, putting a hand out towards his youngest son. “Sam?” he started forward and Sam backed away a few steps.
“You don’t get to choose when you care!” he yelled, his voice going hoarse with it. Sasha had dropped out of the sky and was now circling around Sam’s feet as a german shepherd, her ears flattened.
Sam’s vision washed white and he dropped to his knees, breathing raggedly. “Sam!” John called, running forward and then he skidded to a halt as another engine broke the morning’s quiet, a low purr that Sam dimly remembered from dark nights spread across leather seats with the smell of gun oil and smoke in his nostrils. “No!” John cried as the now loud rumble died and there was the squeak of a car door opening.
Sam looked up, squinting against the glare that he knew was only in his eyes and could see the outline of a six-foot tall man in jeans and boots before the pain became too much and swept him under.
Stay in the car, Sammy.
Sammy pressed small hands to the Impala’s back window and then sat back on his haunches, breathing out in a sigh. His breath created a small fogged circle on the glass and he leaned forward long enough to draw a frowny face with a finger before it disappeared. He smiled a little to himself, knowing that the next time the car windows fogged inside it would appear like magic.
He hated waiting.
Sammy sorted through the colouring books he’d been left but most of them had been completed. He also couldn’t really concentrate on them properly when his Daddy and Dean were out in the forest he was sitting on the edge of, hunting something with big claws and sharp teeth. His daddy had been talking to Uncle Bobby about it and Sammy had heard the words dæmon killer. Sammy watched Kiri doing rolls on the other side of the bench seat and reached out, the small rabbit immediately darting into his waiting hands and accepting Sammy hugging him close, patting his ears flat.
“I’m worried, too,” Kiri said with a small tremor in his voice and Sammy hugged him tighter.
Something heavy hit the side of the car and Sammy let out a squeak of surprise, scrabbling backwards until he was pressed against the opposite door of the car. The car was hit again and this time it rocked with the impact. Sammy tucked Kiri into the pouch on the front of his sweatshirt and put a hand to the door release.
Stay in the car, Sammy.
Sammy took his hand away and bit his lip, lowering himself into the footwell. If he crouched down low and small like Dean had shown him, he couldn’t be seen from the windows even if someone came right up to the car and looked in. Kiri was making a small, low sound of concern and Sammy tucked one of his hands in the pocket, finding Kiri was now smaller, probably a field mouse. He stroked a finger over Kiri’s nose.
A shotgun blast echoed through the night’s quiet and Sammy put his hands over his head and curled tighter. It had sounded far away which meant that either his daddy and Dean were hunting something else and the thing hitting the car was maybe just a forest animal, or there was more of the dæmon killers around and Sammy was alone with one of them. Maybe pressing a nose to the Impala’s glass, Sammy was thinking now, fragile windows. He’d seen movies where normal people were able to break through car windows, let alone a monster.
“We can run,” Kiri urged. “It was only on one side. Maybe we can run for the forest and hide until daddy comes back.”
“Daddy said to stay in the car,” Sammy insisted. He heard a twig snap outside on the same side that the car had been hit and put his head up.
“He’s far away and he doesn’t know the monster is here,” Kiri said urgently, freeing himself from Sam’s pocket and scurrying up until he was pressed against Sam’s cheek. He scrabbled higher until he could peek over the edge of the window and made a noise of surprise. “There’s a lady outside.”
“What? Where?” Sammy asked, uncurling and edging up next to Kiri slowly so only the top of his head and his eyes appeared over the edge of the door. It was true. There was a woman sitting hunched on a tree stump a few yards from the Impala. From what Sammy could see in the darkness, she was wearing raggedy layers like street people who pushed shopping carts and muttered to themselves did.
“She doesn’t know there’s a monster!” Kiri said, blinking wide, liquid eyes at Sammy. “She’s not safe.”
Sammy’s mouth thinned down into a little determined line and he nodded. He pushed his own fear way down deep and pushed down on the door release, opening the Impala’s door and wincing when it made its usual squeak of protest. He and Daddy and Dean Saved People so he knew he didn’t have a choice.
Sammy slid out of the car, his sneakered feet squelching in the mud because it had been raining when they’d arrived. Kiri, back to being a rabbit, loped forward a little way. He reached back into the car to get the small dagger his daddy made sure he always had when he was alone. “Ma’am?” Sammy called softly, advancing and casting about a wary eye.
The woman didn’t look up or move and Sammy moved a little closer. He wanted to go back to the car for the flashlight but he dared not, in case the monster had circled around and found the open door. Sammy balled his fists, took a deep breath and ran the rest of the small distance between him and the lady.
“Sammy!” Sammy froze when he heard his brother’s voice yell. There was the sound of something moving fast through the forest and Sammy didn’t know if it was his brother or the monster. He turned back to the old woman to warn her and found she’d risen to her feet. She was holding a large pair of rusty scissors aloft and her face was a carved mess of lines and shadows.
“Little child,” she crooned, swaying forward, her dress of rags moving like it was underwater. Sammy felt rooted to the spot, unable to lift a foot or hand.
“Sam!” He heard again, this time his dad and the crashing sound was getting closer. The woman lunged and Sammy threw his arms up in front of his face, the dreadful paralysis breaking but she wasn’t aiming for him. Sammy turned his head and saw her bring the scissors between him and Kiri who was bounding back towards him. She closed the scissors with a tidy snip sound and Sammy screamed.
Sam wanted to move his legs but something was across them. He cracked open an eye and waited for the light to stop being so blinding before he looked down at himself. There were two otters curled around each other and across the bottom of his legs and feet.
One of the otters was Sasha and the other…
Sam turned his head sideways, slowly because he still felt like he was moving through molasses and expecting a pain that didn’t come. There was a man sitting on a chair beside the bed he was stretched out on, early twenties from what Sam could tell, pale skin and a fine dusting of freckles across his cheeks. He was sleeping, chin tucked into his chest and leaning just a little bit to the right but not enough to be precarious.
“Dean?” Sam tried, the sound of the name rusty in his throat and mouth but familiar for all that.
Dean jerked a little and snorted, head coming up and one of his hands immediately going to his mouth and wiping at one corner like he was used to drooling. Dean blinked for a moment and then his eyes came to rest on Sam. Sam’s memory of Dean had faded in time like a photograph in the sun but he’d always remembered his eyes. Green like the sea and laughing, always laughing.
They weren’t laughing now but he recognised them all the same.
“Sammy,” Dean breathed and his voice sounded just as rusty, or maybe it was the name too. He hadn’t had to say it in so long. “I thought… I would’ve…” he started and then leaned forward, concern etched deep on his face when Sam moved slowly, careful not to dislodge the two dæmons, only enough to prop himself up on his elbows. He felt but resisted the urge to put a reassuring hand to both because somehow, some way they were both him and not at the same time.
“S’okay,” Sam said, casting a look back down at the curled dæmons. He couldn’t tell Sasha from… Kiri, his mind supplied. They were pressed together like ying and yang, two opposing halves of a whole.
“It was a Hag,” his father explained, Sam and Dean crowded on one side of Bobby’s peeling kitchen table. Sasha sat on Dean’s knee and Kiri was on Sam’s, both now hares with their front paws resting on the table and their ears flat back. Every now and again Dean would put a hand up like he was going to run it over Sasha’s head, but then would clench his fist and put it down again. The fourth time in a row he did this, Sam reached across and picked up his hand and then dropped it on Sasha’s back.
“Thankyou. That was driving me nuts,” she mused, turning to twitch her nose in Sam’s direction. Kiri seemed to take that as his cue to drop back against Sam’s belly, hindpaws up in the air.
“They can cut the threads that tie you to life,” Dean recited absently and then looked at his father with a frown. “Only, they can do it literally?”
“They can severe the connection between human and dæmon, yes,” John said with a small nod. “I’d never seen anyone survive it before but when we got back to Sammy he was hanging on, Kiri too. They were both lying on their sides, pale as milk and… you did the damndest most crazy-fool thing I’d ever seen.”
Dean blinked. “Me?”
“You picked up Kiri and there was this kind of tangled trail of smoky… something from him. You tried to put him back with Sammy but they seemed to get weaker the closer they got. You kept saying something about Peter Pan and his shadow, how you just needed to sew them back together while there was still time.”
Sam looked sideways at his brother. They’d been reading Peter Pan right before Sam had woken up at Bobby’s. A chapter whenever they were alone together. Dean had watched Sam clap for all his worth when Tinkerbell had been sick and hadn’t even called him a dumbass for it.
“A chestful of rocksalt had the Hag running for the hills but she’d dropped her scissors. You went over and picked ‘em up and before I could stop you, you’d passed them between yourself and Sasha and cut.”
“Holy…” Sam breathed, putting a hand to his mouth.
“You rolled Sam over and put Sasha on his chest and I saw that tattered end of whatever it was kind of settle on him and disappear. You scooped up Kiri and the same thing happened. Then you collapsed and I rushed you both back to Bobby’s.”
“Nobody could tell us what it meant, what it would do,” Bobby said from the doorway. He had his arms crossed and was leaning one shoulder against the frame. “We went to seers and shamans. Called every witch doctor I knew and some sorcerers I had to wrangle the names out of from other people. No one knew how it had happened but they all said a variation on the same thing. You boys had to be separated for it to stick. The damage was done.”
“Why did you tell me Sammy was dead?” Dean asked, putting his hands down flat on the table.
“It was a spur of the moment thing,” John said with a heavy sigh. “You kept asking for him and screaming and crying. For weeks you asked for him and I had to tell you that you couldn’t see him. Not ever. You said as soon as you were old enough you’d run away. You’d run right to him and that… I’m ashamed to admit that that scared me badly.”
“We’re fine though,” Dean said, looking down at Sasha and back up at their father.
“I guess so,” John said with a half-smile.
Sam felt like his knees were up around his ears the first time he got into the Impala but after a while of moving about and shoving the bench seat as far back as it would go, he was finally comfortable. Dean had volunteered to drive them over to Stanford to have a look and get the lay of the land. Sam was pretty sure he wanted to see just exactly where Sam’s dorm would be so he could check up on him every two seconds.
He hadn’t had to pack, just throw his duffle in the backseat even though he would have way too many clothes for the week they were planning on being on the road. Dean said they could check out a werewolf on the way back so he might need the spares.
Sam was a little worried though because he was now getting the tugging ache between his shoulder blades and along his temple when Sasha had ranged too far out when Kiri did too. Even when the dæmons were close, he would sometimes be hit by it if Dean wasn’t which was more worrying. He wasn’t sure if Dean was getting the same feeling and just hadn’t said anything.
Sasha had been a lynx for three days and didn’t look like she was changing again any time soon. Her pointed ears twitched when Sam looked back at her, lying on his duffle. “I don’t know, Sam,” she said to the question he didn’t have the nerve to ask. Kiri was a coyote, his fur the exact same mix of grey and black as Sasha’s. His paws were hooked over the end of the seat and Sam knew he was resisting the temptation to stick his head out the window.
Sam looked back out the front window, seeing Dean talking to their father and Bobby, sketching something with his hands, probably their route.
He hoped Dean knew where they were going, because he had no idea.
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*fangirls you madly*
Yes!!!
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