Entry tags:

fic: spn, receiver, spnbigbang2008

SPN fic: Receiver (Gen, PG-13) 3/4
Title: Receiver
Author: dotfic
Rating: Gen, PG-13, slightly AU
W/C: 21,700
Disclaimer: The OC's are mine. The Winchesters belong to Eric Kripke and The CW.



Sometimes Dean hated his job.

More and more lately, if he was honest about it but Dean would rather not think about that because hey, he only had so much time left and hunting was still a kick. Not as good as sex but better than Metallica cranked up loud on the radio while he did eighty on an empty highway.

The fold-out bed in the guest room was about average as far as fold-out beds went; his back only ached a little when he woke around nine with sunlight slanting through the blinds. Dean rolled out of bed and tugged on the same jeans and t-shirt from yesterday, then went looking for the bathroom.

Seventy percent of hating the job was because of Dad and Sam. Bloodstained towels on the floor, too many overnight vigils wishing he could pray to God. He'd spent most of his life afraid the job would take them. Not the way Stanford took Sam, because he'd known Sam was out there and he could call if he wanted to even if he didn't.

Then it did. It took Dad, and then it took Sam, beyond the reach of anything. Only he'd gotten Sam back. He'd gotten him back. Fuck the job.

The rest of the time he spent hating it, that was for strangers. Stuff like them having to explain to Bill Andrews that the only way to kill the thing in his son's closet was to use his son as bait.

Fucking, stupid job.

He tugged on his boots. Feeling about as alert as a drugged sloth, he stumbled out into the hall and found a bathroom. Sponge Bob and Simpsons toothbrushes rested in a cup next to soap stamped with an image of what looked like Batgirl, hard to make out since the soap was well-used.

Last night they hadn't bothered going out to the car for their stuff, so he didn't have his toothbrush. Dean splashed cold water on his face, looked at himself in the mirror and hey, same old Dean. Needed a shave. You'd never know to look at him how totally frikkin' screwed he was.

I wish you would drop the show, Sam'd said, and it was freaky how sometimes he could stare right into Dean. Drop the act, he'd splinter and fall apart -- and Sam knew that, he knew that, damn him. And so great, Sam would feel better because what, he'd get proof that Dean minded dying? But then there was the whole problem of stitching himself back up again and no thank you. The act would have to stay in place -- they had work to do. Besides, Dean didn't really mind all of it, the deal, not really, because Sam had been dead and he wasn't now so there was just no fucking way he'd have it another way.

This was how it had to be.

When he got halfway down the stairs he smelled bacon and strawberry pop-tarts, making his stomach growl like a savage thing. But he stopped in the hall when he heard Sam's voice.

"Plus, there's your Dad, he's not going to let anything get you. And Cal, I'll bet Cal would beat that monster up..."

Dean moved closer and saw Sam sitting next to Tommy, who had his elbows on the table, chin propped in his palms. Tommy's face was so glum that Dean felt it, right in his gut, poor little kid. No, Dean liked the job.

He liked it just fine.

"No, she wouldn't," Tommy said.

Sam lowered his head. "Sure she would."

"No, she wouldn't."

"Why do you say that?" Sam asked.

"Because she doesn't like me."

"How do you know she doesn't like you?"

"Last week she called me a dorkface."

"Oh." Sam bit his lower lip, and Dean could see him trying not to laugh. "Um. Tommy, that doesn't mean she doesn't like you."

Tommy looked up at Sam like this was the freakiest theory he'd ever heard on how the universe worked. "It doesn't?"

"Nah. See, when she says you're a dorkface that's like her saying 'I love you.'"

"No way."

"Yeah, it's like this weird secret language. You just have to learn how to listen."

"Excuse me," Cal walked past Dean in the hallway, and he jumped. He hadn't heard her moving up behind him like that, what, did she have ninja training? He followed her as she went into the kitchen. She kissed the top of Tommy's head. "Morning, dweeb. Where's Dad?"

"Taking out the trash," Tommy said.

"Morning, dorkface." Dean smacked Sam on the back of the head, hard, as he walked past.

"Morning, jerk," Sam said, ducking and making an annoyed face so severe Dean was pretty sure that insult wasn't ruder only because Sam was conscious of minors in the room.

The back door opened and Bill walked in. "Morning," he said. "You two find everything you needed last night?"

"Yeah," said Dean. "Thanks for letting us stay here." He needed coffee so bad he could practically taste the bitterness already. His mouth watered from the smell of the bacon. The kettle on the stove was already hot, mugs out with a spoonful or two of instant already in them, waiting for the water.

"Uh." Rubbing his hands over his tired face, Bill headed for the stove and stood next to Dean. "You guys kind of...shot the scary monster that almost ate my kid. So you're welcome here."

Dean almost pointed out that they'd only wounded it, that the thing was still alive but that would open the discussion he was trying to put off. For now, breakfast was the way to go. Definitely, breakfast, with bacon burnt just the right amount at the edges and also, Dean hadn't had a Pop Tart in a few years. Mostly because he didn't like them cold, and not every motel room had a toaster, and when they did rent a place with a kitchenette for a few nights, seemed like he was always thinking too much about the hunt to ponder the finer points of what they should have for breakfast. Breakfast was always diners -- and what diner served Pop Tarts, anyway (he seemed to remember one somewhere in Michigan that did) -- or donuts or a fast food egg and sausage sandwich from a drive-through window.

This Bill guy was organized, even if his house was messy. Dean fixed himself a mug of coffee and seeing as how there wasn't a mug in front of Sam already, he fixed some for him too, then put it down in front of him.

"Thanks," Sam said, wrapping his long fingers around the mug as if needing to warm them, before he poured what had to be at least half a cup of sugar in.

Dean sat next to Sam, drank his coffee, which was hot and not in the same zip code as fresh brewed -- but he wasn't going to be picky about that. Coffee was coffee. He'd had worse.

"So..." Bill said. "What now?"

"What now what?" Dean said, stalling.

"Last night, you said we'd pick this up in the morning. The thing in Tommy's room. You said last night that it might come back. How do we get rid of it for good?"

"You don't, we do. Me and Sam, we got it covered." Dean shot Sam a look across the table.

Sam took another swallow of coffee, then pushed back his chair. "We'll go get a few things out of our car and fill you in when we get back."

"We'll be here." Bill handed a napkin to Tommy. "Wipe your face," and Tommy obediently did.

---

The morning was sunny and their flannel seemed to be enough warmth for the short walk to the Impala.

"How do you want to tell him?" Sam said, as they both stepped off the sidewalk at the same time to cross the street. Dead leaves filled the gutter in front of a pretty house painted red with white pillars on the front porch. Nice street, lotta trees, you'd never know a strip mall and traffic-choked major highway was just a few miles off.

"The only way we can. His kid's in danger, Sam." Dean started to walk faster, the hunt almost a comfort in its certainty. A lot easier to think about than Sam waking up yelling from a nightmare, freezing on the job. "We tell him straight up."

"Right. Because that's always worked so well before."

"There's no point in dancing around it. Tommy has to be in his room, so we can get that thing to come back and we can waste it. No way to do that without Bill knowing."

"He seems like a good guy," Sam said. "Just. He didn't flip out at us too much or anything."

"Wait until we tell him. You'll see a freak out."

They reached the car, his girl waiting for them as he'd left her. He picked the dead leaves off the windshield, gave her a pat while Sam got the trunk open.

"I dreamed about this hunt. Before we found the Andrews," Sam said, when he was hidden from Dean's view behind the trunk lid.

The stab of panic in Dean's chest took care of the contentment of a sunny fall day, his car, and a stomach full of bacon and Pop Tarts.

"What?" Dean said.

Sam propped up the trunk's false bottom with the old shotgun and started rummaging among the weapons. When Sam said nothing, just kept his head down, Dean grabbed his elbow, harder than he'd meant. "You have a vision?" The words came out sharp and he hoped Sam couldn't hear how scared they sounded.

"No." Sam gently tugged his arm out of Dean's grasp. "It wasn't a vision. It was...I dreamed about a monster in the closet before we saw it. A few nights before we even saw Tommy and Cal and Bill in the diner."

"That sounds like a vision to me, Sammy. Jesus fuck, how long were you planning to take before you told me?"

"I said, it wasn't a vision!" Sam turned to him, eyes darkened, as he shoved aside a book of Latin incantations with too much force. "It wasn't the future, it was the past. Our past." He stepped back from the trunk and straightened up, arms out at his sides in a way that looked helpless. "Dreams aren't usually so precise, right? They're usually mixed up and weird. Even my visions were kind of dreamlike, all these disjointed images and out of order. But this --" Sam wrapped one arm across his own chest, rubbing his shoulder. "This wasn't even like memory, because memory's kind of disjointed too, right? We remember bits of things. But these dreams, it's like I was reliving it. The night I finally killed the thing in my closet. And then you and Dad did something with the corpse." He swallowed, dropped his arm to his side again.

Dean made himself take a few deep breaths, trying to figure out what to say. Moments of that night were burned into his head, as they probably were into Sam's. He'd dreamed about it a few times, but those had been regular old dreams, where the details were wrong or the monster suddenly turned into Madonna and started dancing and singing around Sam's room while Dad played the violin.

Okay, so his dreams were weird sometimes.

"Not a vision, got it," Dean said, keeping his voice level. "But...kind of like a vision, right?" A car hurried by them, the back-draft kicking the dead leaves into a swirling circle. "Because you dreamed about your monster, and then we find another kid with a monster."

"A vision in reverse, sort of." Sam leaned against the side of the car, reaching behind him to put his palms against the metal.

"Headaches?"

"Nope."

The sun went behind a cloud. Wishing he'd worn something heavier than just a flannel shirt after all, Dean went over to lean against the car next to his brother.

They didn't speak for a few minutes, and that was fine. The peace of the morning and the street settled over them, giving Dean a chance to recalibrate with the new information that Sam wasn't having visions, not exactly, only he sort of was, only they weren't visions they were memories, only not. Shit.

"Hey, Dean?" Sam began, finally breaking that safe quiet, and Dean knew, before Sam even went any further, this was going to be a sticky one. "How did you get to my room so quickly that night?"

"I run fast," Dean said, feeling the ache as his jaw clenched.

"But your room was farther away than Dad's and you got there first." Sam paused. "Almost before I'd even finished screaming--"

Don't go there. Crap, don't go there. Don't--

"Because I felt how scared you were. In here." Dean tapped his own chest. "Before you screamed."

He looked off at the brown and golden woods, not at Sam, but Dean heard him sharply inhale. This wasn't over, he knew this wasn't over, but he needed it to be over for right now so Dean pushed himself off his car and returned to the trunk. Sam remained leaning against the car like he'd been glued there.

Dean made as much noise as he could rearranging boxes of ammo and bottles of holy water, searching for what they needed. "We tell Bill straight up," he said, finding what he wanted and replacing the false bottom. He slammed the trunk shut. "And then tonight, we kill this thing."

---

But they didn't tell him right away. As they walked across the front lawn with their duffels, Sam said, "Dean, y'know, we should try--"

"Yeah, Sammy. I know."

They spent most of the day holed up in Bill's home office, where Sam could plug his laptop into the ethernet connection. Dean spread a couple of towels out on the floor and went to work cleaning and oiling the guns while Sam got online at his usual message boards and blogs. He sent out bunches of emails, gathering what information he could on monsters in the closet.

Bill's office was as cluttered as the rest of his house, stacks of files next to the chairs, shelves full of law books, a wall of diplomas, pictures of Cal and Tommy on the desk and table. Dean paused with an oil-stained rag in his hand and watched Sam work. The sun coming in through the slats of the blinds shed strips of shadow over his brother, who seemed to fit there at the paper-strewn desk. The pictures, the law diplomas, the office, that could've been Sam's life. It looked like Sam's life. But they were both well past there being any point in thinking about that. Things were what they were. Dean rubbed the barrel of the shotgun clean, remembering Sam in a suit and tie, clean and prosperous without the haunted look, a gorgeous blonde on his arm, a smile that was and yet wasn't anything like his Sam.

At around one, a fax came in from Bobby, copied pages from some old volume, with a cover sheet reading "don't say I didn't tell you so" in Bobby's scrawl. The page documented four cases where the monster wouldn't emerge unless the child was in the room alone.

A moment later Dean's cell phone went off.

"Hey, Bobby."

"You boys find anything else yet?"

Sam was looking at him so Dean made a question face and Sam shook his head.

"No," Dean said.

"Look, Dean, it's rotten having to put a kid in danger to get the job done, but if you don't do it, he'll be a lot worse off. Weren't for you two being there, he'd get taken."

"There's gotta be something..."

"It's common knowledge, boy. They don't come out except for the kid." Bobby paused. "Call if you need anything else."

"Okay, thanks Bobby." Dean ended the call, then looked down at the shotgun parts arranged in front of him, savoring the easy way his brain saw what went where without having to puzzle over it, knew how the pieces fit. He could do it blindfolded, had done it blindfolded a hundred times during Dad's training sessions.

"Dean?" said Sam.

"Let me put these back together first. Then we'll go tell him."

---

"Cal, take Tommy outside and play for a while," Bill said softly, as if trying to make her believe it was her idea.

"But Dad..." Cal's lower lip drew in, jaw jutting.

"Just do what I say, honey. This is grown-up talk."

With a sharp, annoyed tug, Cal tightened the ponytail holding back her dark hair and shot all three of them a glare that bumped Sam down to amateur status in the pissy looks department. She hooked her arm around Tommy's neck in a hammerlock, ignoring his noises of protest, and led her little brother out of the living room. The afternoon was inching towards dusk, but not quite there yet.

"Okay, tell me. Right now." Bill sat in the center of his couch, back rigid and his hands on his knees.

Sam leaned forward in his chair and opened his mouth; the hunch of his shoulders and his expression signaled a long, rambling explanation.

"Tommy has to be bait," Dean said.

"What?" Bill's fingers clenched more tightly on his knees.

"It's how the monsters work. They go after a kid, they won't come out unless a kid's in the room. Only way to kill it is to get it to come out again."

"You're not using my kid as bait."

"We don't like it either." Sam's thumb worked the frayed edge of his sleeve, his mouth turning down. "We've tried to find another way. Believe me, we've tried."

"I promise you we won't let anything happen to him," Dean said, but the words wouldn't be enough, they never were, not even to himself. It was true, though, there was no way, no friggin' way he'd let the monster near Tommy, and Sam wouldn't either.

But he felt no surprise at all when Bill stood up too slow, his whole demeanor changing.

"I think you'll leave now," he said, the pleasant voice gone cold.

"Bill--"

"That's Mr. Andrews to you. God, you think I'll listen to a couple of...of strangers I don't even know over the safety of my child? Get. Out."

"C'mon, Sam." Dean took Sam's arm, feeling the tension in his brother's muscles.

But Sam had that look on his face, that digging-in look, and he didn't move, not a millimeter, when Dean tugged. It was really scary that he couldn't actually budge Sam by light force, not any more -- Dean'd been aware of that for about a year but the reminders threw him every time. Short of tackling Sam to the rug, Gigantor was staying put.

Bill's fingers twitched, and Dean sucked in a breath, caught in a flash of deja-vu, because Sam was -- this was Dad, this was how Dad was with people and Dean always stepping in.

"Hear us out, please," Sam said, nothing threatening at all, just pleading. "Please."

"What?" Bill folded his arms.

"We know how to deal with this. I had one. When I was nine. We know how the monsters work and how to end them and how to make sure they don't come back."

"Jesus, how long have you two been in this line of work anyway?"

"A long time," Sam said, and in the tired note in his voice, Dean felt things click over to a new place where he saw Sam hunting on after Dean was gone, an eternal wanderer. The very small box he kept shoved away in the back of his brain threatened to open. He pushed down the brief and overwhelming panic.

"The monster would only come out for Sam," Dean said, his voice maybe a little too sharp. "Not for me, not for our father."

He couldn't quite manage the next part, and our dad used Sam as bait because it sounded wrong, with the words put together like that, even though to him it had made sense, they'd had no choice.

Bill turned to look out the window, where the day was fading, where he could probably see his kids playing on the front lawn. His shoulders twitched, convulsed like a shiver, before he turned back to them.

"Why do you need Tommy? "

"Only way to stop it for certain, keep any more from coming back." Dean nodded tightly. "The monsters get in through a portal that opens up in the back of closets, once they pick one."

"No one knows for sure what's on the other side -- but when the monsters come, they don't kill, not right off. They take the child through, back with them." Sam gestured, turning his palms up. "Back to...wherever they came from."

"Kinda like in Monsters, Inc.," Dean said, a heavy weight in his chest. He felt no humor as he gave Bill a half-smile. "Only less cuddly."

"Well. Might as well throw that DVD away." Bill's mouth took on a sour twist.

"We can't just kill it," Sam said, standing in that hunched way he had, as if trying to make up for his earlier insistence, and look less threatening. "We have to use the blood of a monster to paint sigils on the back of the closet. To seal the portal."

"Are you sure? There isn't some other way?" Bill's voice took on a pleading note. Dean shut his eyes a moment, not wanting to hear it.

"Believe me, we looked," Dean said.

"We researched recent cases," Sam said. "Called people we know. Everyone says the same thing. What Dean said is true. It's the only way."

Bill sighed. "I'll have to talk to Tommy. It's up to him. If he doesn't want to do it--" his gaze moved to Sam, then to Dean, his eyes hard. "We're not doing it."

---

The sun hung low, almost below the rooftops of the houses across the street. Dean looked at the bare trees caught in the pale light and thought about how a lot of horror movies always seemed to be set in the fall. Did dead leaves seem all moody and creepy because they were moody and creepy, or had horror movies made everyone feel like they were? He'd found out when he was ten that big old empty creepy-ass Victorian mansions were frightening for a reason, so maybe dead leaves really were a reason to be a little uneasy.

Signs of a dying year.

Tommy stood on the grass watching his sister as she dribbled a basketball on the driveway, took aim at the net, shot, scored. Cal retrieved the ball one-handed, with easy motions that looked automatic.

"Hey, guys," Bill said, as he and Sam and Dean walked towards them both. "Have to talk to you both about something. Cal, come over here."

The dribbling stopped, and Cal walked over, the ball tucked under her arm, while Bill knelt on the grass in front of his son.

Bill looked right at Tommy. "I'm sorry," he said, then reached out to touch Cal's arm, drawing her closer. "Both of you. The monster was real and I didn't believe you. I should've listened."

"It's okay, Daddy." Tommy put his hands on his father's shoulders.

"Yeah, Dad, it sounds pretty crazy," Cal said. "I don't blame you..."

"Go ahead, kiddo, you're dying to say it." He gave his daughter a lopsided smile.

"I told you so," Cal said, her voice teasing. She rolled her eyes.

"These two men here, Sam and Dean, they're going to get rid of it." Bill cleared his throat. "But they need our help. They need Tommy to do something."

Dean saw how Cal shifted immediately, moving closer to her brother, and knew she probably wasn't even aware of doing that.

"The monsters work a certain way," Sam crouched down, so the kids could look him in the eye. "They only come out for a kid. We need to get Tommy's monster to come back so we can kill it. Make sure it never comes back again. To do that..."

"Tommy's got to be in the room," Dean said. "And we can't."

Tommy's eyes widened.

"No way." Cal dropped the basketball. "Use me. I can be bait!"

"It won't come after you," Dean said, the panic in her face twisting at something inside of him. "The monster picks a kid and that's it."

"Tommy," Bill said. "I don't want you to do this. It scares me. But you'll be safe if they can kill it. They have to kill it and then they do something special with the blood. They'll paint marks in the closet and nothing will be able to come out of it to hurt you again. Do you understand?"

Tommy nodded, leaning against his father.

"No!" Cal shouted. "Dad, I'll call Mom, I'll tell her--"

"Tell her what?" he said, voice sharp. "Tell her there's a monster, and two strange guys are here to kill it? Do you know how that will sound to her, what will happen? Do you..." Bill drew in a breath before he continued, and Dean heard his voice crack on the words. "Do you want to move to Chicago and not live with me?"

It seemed like he wasn't using it as a threat, but warning her of something he feared. From the way Cal's face crumpled, he thought she didn't want it to happen either.

"No," she said, her voice very small.

Shit, Dean hated family drama.

He saw the basketball lying in the grass a few yards away, where it'd rolled after Cal let go of it. He walked over and picked it up, weighed it in his hands, feeling the familiar, pleasant roughness.

Guiding Tommy towards the house, Bill glanced over his shoulder. "Can you give us a little time?"

"Of course," said Sam.

"Cal," Bill said, and after a moment of hesitation, Cal followed, her head down.

The front door closed behind the Andrews. The wind kicked up and beyond the pleasant small houses the horizon started going to red.

"Think fast," Dean said, thrusting the basketball like he was going to throw it.

Sam fell for it, like he always did, whole body jerking. Dean laughed.

"Jackass," Sam said.

"Want to play?" Dean put the ball on his index finger and gave it a push.

"How many?" Sam shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it to the grass.

"Eleven. Winner's outs. Three point line's here." Grabbing Sam's jacket, Dean dropped it about halfway down the driveway.

"Who's first?" Sam stepped onto the concrete of the driveway, started to stretch, rotating his shoulders.

Moving over to face Sam, Dean stopped spinning the ball, caught it with his left hand, then fisted his right. Sam did the same.

Rock beat scissors. Paper beat rock. Rock beat scissors. Sam grabbed the ball from Dean's hand, and the game was on.

For a few minutes it was nothing but their breaths, the sound of the basketball hitting concrete or against the backboard, the quiet swish of the net. Dean felt everything else growing small and far away as he pivoted, dodged Sam's arms, feinted left, went right, ducked, turned and shot.

Then Dean missed and Sam started with the ball.

"Foul," Sam said, after Dean slammed into him and the shot went wild.

"Excuses, excuses." Dean jogged off to get the ball, threw it hard at Sam, who caught it and they started all over again.

"Hey Dean?" Sam dribbled, then darted right, while Dean kept on him, staying close, running interference and trying not to actually touch. "What you said, about knowing I was afraid--"

Dean accidentally-on-purpose let his elbow hit Sam in the stomach but Sam ignored it, darted around Dean, and made the shot.

"--that's happened other times, hasn't it?" Sam said, as the ball teetered on the rim, then dropped through the net. It bounced once and Sam caught it.

Bending over with his palms against his thighs, Dean felt his heart jump, thudding not just in his chest but now somewhere up in his throat.

"Yeah," he said, stealing the ball and racing back towards the three point line, making a wide arc to avoid Sam. "Bunch of times when we were kids. Twice when we were adults."

"It ever happen with anyone else?" Sam tried to grab the ball and Dean pivoted. "Dad? Anyone?"

"Fuck. No."

"That's how you got back so fast in Palo Alto. The night Jess was killed." That wasn't a question, that was the goddamned light bulb going on in Sam's head. "The way I've worked it out, it was me projecting, and you hearing me. Like a transmitter and a receiver." Sam was right up in his grille, trying to grab the ball, and no matter how Dean feinted and dodged, he couldn't seem to get a clear shot at the net.

Screw it. Dean shoved Sam, leapt forward, and made the shot.

"Foul," Sam said.

"Wuss," said Dean. "You...you think it's related to your visions? To old yellow eyes?" He hated even asking it, but he'd been worrying over it since Sam told him about the dream. Worrying about who and what Sam was ever since Dean went to the crossroads and Sam woke up in Cold Oak with a scar on his back.

"I'm not sure," Sam said, going to the three-point line for his shot. He scored and the ball bounced back to him.

"Well, I've got no special powers." Dean bounced in place, keeping himself moving. "It's got to be you doing something freaky with your brain."

"But this, it happened when we were kids. My visions didn't kick in until I was twenty-three." Sam started dribbling the ball slow, then speeding up, faking Dean out which was he was going.

"Could be a latent thing," Dean said, and that was what he didn't want to look at, something strange about Sam himself. Sam stumbled and recovered. Dean moved with him, the soles of their boots scuffling on the cement driveway. "Didn't need to wait until you were twenty-three for it work." He snatched the ball, pivoting away from Sam.

"Maybe. But if it was related to Azazel..." Sam pivoted with him. "The last time it happened --" Sam made a wall of himself between Dean and the backboard "--was in Illinois, two years ago. Not too long after my visions started. Azazel was still alive and kicking for a year after that."

He stayed low. Sam was taller and longer-limbed and could box him in, but Dean's footwork was better and faster, and the height difference actually helped him, because he could duck under Sam's arms.

Dean could almost always read Sam's moves, practically before Sam had even thought of them. But right now, he couldn't.

He took a shot. The ball bounced off the backboard, flew off to the lawn, and rolled down towards the sidewalk. Dean started after it, but Sam was quicker, bounding past him, scooping up the ball, then planting himself in Dean's path.

"Dean. Stop. Just. Stop. Stop for a second."

As soon as he did, the wind went cold against the sweat on Dean's face and neck. He'd rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt and the chill made the hairs on the back of his arms stand up. The light was dying, shadows getting deeper, the sky now a furious red that made Dean think of fire. He wondered if all of the sky looked that way in hell.

"Why hasn't it been happening?" Sam turned the basketball over and over in his long fingers. "It's not as if I was never scared last year."

"I dunno, Sam." He remembered the yellow-eyed bastard in the cowboy graveyard, how certain are you that what you brought back is one-hundred percent Sam? This -- oh, please -- maybe this was something that didn't belong to Azazel. Dean made himself look at his brother. "Maybe it's because...when it happened in Palo Alto, and even Illinois, you hadn't hunted in a while, not for years. So at first, yeah. It was like when we were kids. But things changed." Thinking about the hard look on Sam's face when he fired the Colt, about Gordon, doubt skittered across the back of Dean's mind like a spider. "You got better at hunting." Dean grabbed the basketball from Sam, a little too roughly. "Maybe you don't need to transmit anymore."

He turned from Sam and walked quickly up towards the house. Better for them both if he pretended he hadn't seen that flash of -- whatever it was -- in Sam's eyes. Hurt.


artwork by dun

Part 4




Part 1|Part 2