Chapter Text
December 1995
The school bus pulled away in a splash of half-melted snow and road salt, leaving Sam alone in the gathering dark.
Tall pines, their branches low and heavy with snow, were crowded in close around the last stop on the afternoon bus route, four miles outside of town and a stone’s throw south from the turnoff to the particularly, epically shitty trailer park he’d been calling home for the past three weeks. It was barely four o’clock in the afternoon, but it was also the winter solstice in northern Maine, and so the light was already fading, the sky grey and only getting greyer; there was supposed to be twelve inches of fresh snow before morning. The old gas station across the street had clearly closed up early—windows dark, lot empty—and the faded sign proclaiming the place to be Phil’s Fill-Up was creaking with the wind. As the rattle of the bus engine faded around a curve, the reeeeek . . . reeeeeek of its old wood and rusted iron seemed suddenly like the only sound in all the world.
Heart-sore and tired to the bone, Sam ducked his head against the wind and tried not to let himself dwell on the eerie loneliness of the place, just shrugged his old book bag into a more comfortable position on his back and slogged up the road a little through the ankle-deep slush on the shoulder and headed in to Black Pine Mobiles (A Proud Mobile Home Community Since 1964). It probably had been nice enough back in the sixties, he supposed, but three decades later it was the sort of place that looked like it might be showing up on Cops any day now, and the single pathetic string of Christmas lights blinking around the sign somehow only made everything look even more tired and worn-down and sad. The place John had rented was at the back corner of the lot, off the very end of the narrow, sullenly plowed main road, and Sam trudged past empty rusted trailer after empty rusted trailer on his way. Not a lot of people lived here anymore, and the few who did were mostly clustered in three cozy rows on the opposite edge of the park, close to the office and the laundry room and on the other side of the forbidding line of pines that cut the park in two. Sam had been telling himself for the past week that this was a good thing—that he liked the quiet, that it made it easier to study, that over here he didn’t have to deal so often with creepy Mr. McGill, who always seemed to be around whenever Sam went over to do laundry or to grab a Snickers bar. But this afternoon he was pretty sure he would have given his left arm to see a light on in any of these black blank windows, just to know that he wasn’t alone. Dean had been gone in the northern wilderness for two weeks, off the grid and out of cell range as he hunted a nest of shamblers with Eben, and John had taken off five days ago for some unexpected case in Florida that couldn’t wait, and Sam hadn’t slept well since, curled up in their trailer with a silver knife and a loaded .45 beside his pillow, doors and windows ringed in cats-eye shells and salt, his face tucked against an old sweatshirt that smelled like his brother as he dozed and waited for dawn.
The rush of pine branches in the wind made precisely the same sound as fire catching on bones doused in kerosene, and that made for restless sleeping, alone in the vast and windy dark.
The nights he’d looked out the living room window to find Mr. McGill just standing in the snow and moonlight, looking back, smiling, maybe five feet from the trailer, hadn’t helped.
He was just was an old man, Mr. McGill was, skinny and stooped, with three big dark dogs that looked like wolves, and Sam knew that, he did. Just an old, odd man, more than a little cracked, who wore an old Irish driving cap and red paisley pyjama pants that were always just visible between the ragged hem of his coat and the tops of his heavy boots. Dean, amused, had taken to calling him Crazy Paisley the week before he’d left with Eben, and their dad had been uncharacteristically gentle with him the afternoon he'd sidled up with that creepy, toothless smile to show all three of them a shell he kept in his pocket, to offer them some bits of string and a feather. Sam hadn't wanted to admit, even to his brother, how much the old man scared him, because he was twelve and a half years old and supposed to be a grown-up, and he had no real reason for it, besides, nothing he could put a name to: he'd splashed a little holy water on him once at the washing machines; had tested him with silver and a thorn; had looked at him through an adder stone in sunlight; and nothing. Just a man, just an old, odd, creepy man, but he always . . . he always just seemed so hungry, somehow, whenever he was looking at Sam, and sometimes his greedy, faded eyes glinted yellow when they caught an odd angle of the light. They reminded Sam of a serpent's, and ever since that basement in Tucson he hadn't been fond of snakes.
He tucked his chapped hands into his pockets and tried to walk faster, feet slipping in the ankle-deep slush. He was freezing and he was exhausted, and with thoughts of Mr. McGill clattering around in his skull he was all of a sudden also stupidly, childishly scared—of the cold silence and the space all around him, of the huge looming trees all along the roadside, of the rapidly falling dark. The light was going now, real twilight sweeping in blue off the eastern horizon; his breath and footfalls were the only sound beneath the darkening sky. He hurried around a curve in the road, came up short so fast he nearly fell. His stomach clenched, hard.
Two of Mr. McGill's dogs were standing in the middle of the road, unnaturally still, watching him with disconcerting steadiness through the gloom. (They were waiting for you, something whispered, in the very back of his mind, though that was stupid, clearly). He could see their breath, smoking white in the still cold air, and his tired eyes and the chancy light did something so odd to their shapes that for half a heartbeat they seemed . . . they seemed—
They're just dogs, Sam told himself, fiercely, because they were. Pull it together. They're just dogs, just big dumb dogs; you've seen them a dozen times and you and Dean played with them—
A rustle to his left, and the third was slinking out from beneath the trees, closer, much closer, not more than ten feet away, seven, five. It had something dead in its jaws, and blood was dripping from its muzzle, landing red on the dirty snow. It sank almost to its belly as it crept closer, fawning, and then it was dropping a snowshoe hare at Sam's feet, its throat in ribbons, so fresh a kill Sam could feel the warmth of its dead flesh through his sneaker. As the dog lifted its dark head the other two suddenly threw theirs back and then all three of them were howling, impossibly loud and long and eerie in the falling dusk, and the trinity of sound hammered a heart-deep, bone-deep spike of cold straight through the center of Sam's chest. He caught a sobbing breath that ached in his throat and lungs as the dogs' voices rolled on, echoes ringing through the near-empty park, the bitter twilight, the marrow of his bones, and for half a heartbeat it felt as though something were . . . were waking, somehow, somewhere deep inside of him, one lazy eye opening from a long, dark sleep.
The dogs fell silent, finally, stood staring at him with eerie calm—dark fur and darker eyes and long, lolling tongues. After a moment more they turned and melted, all three, into the shadows of the trees, leaving Sam alone in the middle of the road with death and blood at his feet, and the night rising all around him. He was shaking, badly, for no clear reason he could name—They're just dogs!—and couldn't get himself to stop. His breath was short and sharp and hurried, deafening loud in his ears. He stepped around the mangled rabbit, forced himself not to run. There was nothing to run from. There had been three black dogs in the snow; that's all, just three black dogs with a dead rabbit, and he was just going to—he was just going to get inside, now; he just needed to get inside, even if inside he'd still be alone, even if nothing were waiting for him there besides a can of Hormel chili and the long silence of a long, long night.
He was so very, very cold.
The sky overhead was the lilac of nighttime in snowy winters by the time he got to the back corner of the lot, and as he turned into the beginning of their row he swore that he could feel his heart actually kick against his ribs. There was a lamp on in their small trailer, bright and steady against the gloom, and an unfamiliar rust bucket of a pick-up truck parked out in front, and Sam would have recognized the jacket tossed over the chair just inside the living room window anywhere in the world.
Dean.
He lurched forward, slipped, landed hard on his knee; scrambled to his feet and slid and hurried the rest of the way, got the door open, ducked inside. The first thing he saw was what looked like a half dead shrub in a paint bucket, ringed with cheap flickering lights and standing vigil over a small package wrapped neatly in newspaper and twine; it took him a moment to recognize it as something that was possibly supposed to be a Christmas tree. The second was Dean (Dean Dean DeanDeanDean), safe and whole and here, stretched out comfortably on the couch with their old down blanket pulled up over him against the chill, a bowl of popcorn beside him on the floor and two thin pillows stuffed beneath his head, and the light from the TV and the space heater flickering gently across his face. He looked around as Sam came in, and smiled, and all the color and warmth seemed to come back into the world at once.
‘Heya, Sammy,’ he said.
Sam didn’t stop to think, didn’t stop to breathe, just dropped his bag and shrugged off his coat and toed off his sopping shoes and socks and then crossed the room and crawled under the blanket and onto Dean and over Dean to tuck himself into the narrow space between Dean and the back of the couch, ending up half on the cushions and half on top of his brother, curling in close. Dean startled, but he didn’t pull away, didn’t push Sam away, just let him wrap himself right around him, all cold skinny arms and legs, and Sam pushed his face into his brother’s chest like a little kid and swallowed against the hot knot tightening in his throat, because he was twelve and a half years old and supposed to be a grown-up, and there was no excuse for tears anymore unless someone were dying.
‘Whoa, whoa. Hey,’ Dean said, softly. He smelled like their cheap detergent and no-name soap and . . . and Dean, and he was here, he was right here, one big hand coming up to cup the back of Sam’s head. ‘Hey, little brother. What—’
Sam swallowed. He breathed. He was not going to cry. He was not, except for how his lashes were already wet and his narrow shoulders were trembling and he couldn’t get them to stop.
‘Sam. Jesus. Sammy. Hey.’ Dean was trying to lift him, trying to get him to look at him; Sam shook his head and burrowed in, and after a minute Dean stopped trying to shift him, just pet him anxiously where he was tucked up against him, strong hands stroking through his hair, rubbing along his spine, his ribs, tense with worry. ‘Hey,’ he said softly, pleadingly. ‘Sammy, c’mon, kiddo, you gotta talk to me, okay? Are you hurt? Huh? Did—’
Sam shook his head again, took a ragged breath, almost succeeded in steadying his voice before he spoke. ‘I’m fine,’ he managed, because he was, really, and because You were gone and Dad was gone and I’ve been lonely and scared and afraid of an old man in his pyjamas, and also today there were three dogs and a dead rabbit sounded stupid. And he didn't want to sound stupid, not in front of Dean. He scrubbed his damp cheek against his brother’s shirt. ‘I’m fine, really; I just . . . I just had a bad day.' Couple of days. Six days. Fourteen. 'And I didn't know you were back and I'm . . . I'm just really glad you're home.'
That had sounded significantly less childish in his brain, it really had, and he half-expected Dean to tease him for it, but his brother just relaxed a little beneath and beside him, one hand in Sam's hair and the other still warm and restless on his back, rubbing idly between his shoulder blades, familiar callouses scraping softly along his skin through the thin cotton of his shirt. 'Yeah, well. Makes two of us, kiddo,' he said. His mouth was warm against Sam's scalp. 'Hunt wasn't so bad, really, but you ever try sleepin' in a tent with Eben? Snores like a freakin' grizzly, and his gas, Jesus. 'S worse than Dad's. Do not let ever that man eat beans around you, Sammy; I'm serious.'
The laugh that caught in Sam's throat was muffled and watery, but it was real, all the same, because Dean was six feet of slim solid warmth pressed against him, and the eerie panic of the afternoon and the loneliness of the past week was already starting to fade, slowly, beneath the sound of his brother's voice, the smell of his skin, the feel of his arms wrapped around him. Sam could feel his own muscles shaking, just a little, shoulders to heels, as a week’s worth of tension started bleeding out of them all at once.
Dean's hand carded gently through his tangled hair.
'This day you had,' he said, quietly. 'You wanna tell me?'
Sam shook his head, tightened his fingers where they were fisted in Dean's tee. 'Can I.' He swallowed. 'Can I just.'
The easy pressure of Dean's hand, sliding from his hair to cup the back of his neck, reassuring and familiar, was answer enough. Sam closed his eyes, curled a little closer. Most of the time he hated how small he still was, how easy it was for Dean to pin him when they sparred together and then grin down at him, eyes teasing and bright, but he was stupidly, pathetically grateful for it today, for being able to just cuddle into the familiar warmth of Dean’s long body. And Dean wasn’t going to make him move, he realized. Dean was just going to let him lie right here half on top of him like a little kid, was going to let him tuck his still-cold face into the warm crook of his neck and just breathe him in; and Sam wondered, with a kind of idle desperation, what chance he’d ever had at not falling in love with him, because Dean was beautiful and brave, and the only person who loved him in the world.
His brother's breath and heartbeat were steady and slow, the TV a warm, comforting buzz in the background. Five minutes later Sam was asleep, soundly, for the first time in days.