Archive of Our Own

Dean smacks Sam’s fingers away from his mouth without a word.

Sam tucks himself back against the passenger seat of the Impala, crossing his arms. The leather squeaks beneath his weight. His bitten nails disappear beneath his armpits, arms squeezing hard enough so that the urge doesn’t rise again. His biceps protest with aches. Nirvana snarls from the cassette box, Kurt Cobain’s lyrical impression of Lithium filling the silence. Stale air blows from the vents, tickling his bangs and cooling his sunburned cheeks.

Blocks of light from the lamposts pass over the car, casting the entire dashboard and cab in fuzzy yellow. Dean’s figure brightens and darkens, one hand on the wheel and the other supporting his chin. His face and arms are tinged pink, similar to Sam.

His eyes flick over to the passenger seat. “What’s up?”

Sam looks back to the windshield. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

“Anything in particular?”

“About how good it’ll feel to finally relax.”

It’d been scorching all week, the Minnesota sun glaring from the afternoon until dusk. The heat became an additional rival to the case they took on from Ellen, baking their backs as they hunted down the thing roaming the waters of Lake Minnetonka. Rumors of a large sturgeon, or perhaps a massive, prehistoric turtle have been terrorizing the fishermen there every ten years. It was stupid, really. At first, with their usual asking around, it’d been a lot of ‘he said, she said’ that never amounted to much.

Not until two days ago when they talked to the county sheriff, posing as coordinators of the local watershed district. The sheriff, a gruff old man with a furred jaw and a rasp that shadows his years, revealed a demographic of young men drowning within the lake. They talked to two of the families, revealing one to be a varsity swimmer for Minnesota State. Both of them came from a generation of slavic families who migrated into the area after the Russian Revolution.

“Next time, we bum a speed boat off someone,” Sam says.

Dean snorts. “What, didn’t like the ab workout?”

“In a hundred degree weather?”

“Oh, c’mon. The kayaks weren’t that bad.”

“Your hands are blistering.”

Dean casually glances at the angry crimson blush on his hand draped over the steering wheel. “Eh,” he shrugs, “worse come to worse I get sun poisoning and die from heatstroke.”

Sam rolls his eyes. He rests his cheek against the window, sapping the coolness from the surface within seconds. Exhaling deeply, he blinks languidly at the road ahead, hands entwining tight in his lap.

Dean lowers the music. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Sam answers. “Just don’t like being hot, you know that.”

“Born and bred a friggin’ Kansas boy and you can’t take the heat?”

Despite the jab, Dean leans over the middle console and cranks the AC. Stronger air blasts his way as he angles the vents towards Sam. It eases the sting on his skin, but the burn still bubbles beneath. He finds it immediately clearing some of the fog away from his mind.

“I don’t get it,” Sam says suddenly.

“Get what?”

“I mean, if it was a siren we were hunting, it wouldn’t have killed their victims. It’d have kept them alive to hurt other people. But this thing just…drowned the men. Nothing more to it.”

“Could just be an angry water spirit taking it out on random people.”

“But it’s not random. Everyone who died in that lake has been Eastern European to some capacity.”

“Maybe it just hates Russians.”

Sam looks back over. “Dean.”

“What?”

“Take this seriously.”

“I am.” Dean drums his fingers against the top of the wheel, considering. “Not the first time we’ve heard of an ethnically prejudiced ghost before, huh? We can check Dad’s journal once we get back to the motel.”

Sam tucks his arm between his head and the window. “Sure.”

______

His head’s spinning by the time he sits down on the shitty mattress.

Dean moves around him, tossing their duffel bag on Sam’s bed and shedding his shirt. He hisses as he does, sharp lines dividing sunburn and healthy white on Dean’s shoulders. Wordlessly, Sam tosses the aloe vera bottle his way.

Dean catches it against his chest. “Thanks.”

Sam grunts, pulling his boots off his feet. “You look like a lobster.”

“Pretty sure most women like seafood boils.”

“Whatever makes you feel better about yourself.”

Sam’s leg bounces as Dean lathers his burns with the aloe. The motel room, despite the terrible ventilation system, is cool enough to stave off the heat from outside. Still, he fidgets, sweat cooling underneath his shirt and the fanned edges of his hair clinging to the back of his neck.

Summer was always his least favorite season, especially when they were in the midwest, which was more often than not. Heat pressing him down to the hot asphalt of the road. Sam can feel every bit of sweat, every wrinkle in his damp clothes, the burns stinging as he brushes up against something. Even worse with how pale he is. An hour in the sun is enough to assault his skin and cause it to rage against the oppressive sun.

With the dingy motels they hole up in, AC isn’t always a guarantee either. The room they have now barely sputters out cool air from the vents. They might as well have just stayed in the Impala.

Dean sits down on the other bed, the scent of grass and cucumber pungent. He offers the bottle of aloe vera. Sam takes it, yet doesn’t apply it, hands falling limp between his knees.

“Sure you’re alright?” Dean asks.

“Yeah,” Sam answers, eye twitching as another drop of sweat slips down his back, “I just need a sec.”

Grunting, Dean shifts on the mattress, crushing pillows as he reaches over to grab the duffel bag. He fishes through it for a few moments before pulling the journal out. The leather cover, bulging with the scraps of paper stuffed inside, peers whimsically at them both.

“Let’s see if Dad had anything to say about violent sirens.”

Sam perks up slightly. “I can look through it.”

“You aloe up, I read.”

“Aloe up?”

When Sam doesn’t move, Dean makes a ‘go on’ gesture.

Sam snorts, yet complies. He knows what Dean’s doing, trying to make him feel less miserable by indulging in his pastime, skimming through the grimoire of supernatural lore. It’s an appreciative attempt, but it still doesn’t distract from the thick liquid he’s slathering on his sunburns. It cools him, but it also sends shudders down his spine.

Sticky and gross. Bad texture. His nose scrunches.

“Is there anything Russian in there?” Sam asks, doing his best to distract himself.

Dean hums contemplatively, thumbing through a couple pages. “I know Dad had something on domovoys and banniks. House spirits that live by the motto of  ‘scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’ He ran into one awhile back in oh-three.”

“What?”

“It’s a transactional relationship. Treat them right, they’ll treat you right.”

“And the catch?”

“None. Well, Dad didn’t think so, but he never got any evidence pointing out otherwise.”

“Of course he didn’t think so.” Sam rubs the back of his burned neck, the gel cool yet slimy over the dry skin. “But house spirits are house spirits. They have an attachment to the place. Not much of an incentive to haunt the lake.”

Dean considers something for a moment. “Hey, remember that lake in Indiana we went to when we were with Dad?”

Sam blinks. “Yeah, uh, we took the trail around the water. It’d been hot that day too.”

That had been a strange trip. Sam was around twelve, happy for once after being stripped from another motel from yet another town. They stopped in Indiana for a night while on their way to a potential lead in Tennessee. Dad had been tired from driving across the country and gave them a day to do what they wanted with a twenty dollar allowance while he rested in the room they rented for the night.

Dean had just gotten a forged driver’s license, Dad’s way of saying that he trusts him with the Impala, so he was more excited to head out than Sam was. That day had just been them two, one of Sam’s rare occasions of sitting in the passenger’s seat. Dean belted out Bon Jovi as they cruised down the lonesome backroads highway at forty-five until Sam got fed up with the noise and told him to shut up.

They got burgers and fries from some roadside shack and scarfed them down while sitting on the hood of the car. At some point, Sam clocked the sign for a lake and begged Dean to turn down the gravel road after the bridge. After a long, exaggerated sigh and a whinny from Chris Cornell’s electric guitar, Dean whipped the wheel.

On the far side of the lake trail, there was a hole dug out in the nearby reeds, draped over with leaves and clumps of grass. Sam only noticed it because he was trudging in the dirt, much to the resistance of Dean’s warning about ticks. When he leaned over, he noticed ringed brown scales wriggling inside. It was a water snake swallowing a clutch of painted turtle eggs.

Sam had stumbled out of the reeds, dumbfounded and upset. Whatever revealed on his face was enough for Dean to clamp his jaw shut midway through some dumb joke and haul him back onto the trail. That snake had soured his mood for the rest of the day. He didn’t speak, even with Dean’s attempts to tell him what’s wrong on the way back to the car. By the time they made it back to the motel room, Sam merely crawled into the bed he and Dean shared and didn’t get up until the next morning, when Dad was shaking him awake.

It was the quietest he’d been in the car that entire trip, no longer bickering with Dean and leaning over the front bench. Dad had been pleased about it, but Dean kept looking at him through the rearview mirror, brows pinched tight with worry.

What was worse was that Sam didn’t have the words at the time to explain why he felt the way he did.

“Well, it was a man-made water reservoir," Dean says, pulling him out of his thoughts. He has the journal splayed open on his lap., no longer in his hands. “There was an entire neighborhood in that area before they told everybody to move out and tore it down. Filled it up with water and it became a lake.”

“You think the same thing happened with Minnetonka?” Sam questions.

“Only reason why there’d be house spirits in a lake, drowning people.”

Sam thinks about it, flapping his right hand as if the motion would magically remove the texture of aloe from his fingers. “Banniks lived in bathhouses. I can’t imagine one being in an 1800s Minnesota suburb.”

“So, a domovoy then.”

“But that also doesn’t…hang on.” Sam caps the bottle and reaches over for their duffle. He pulls his laptop out from one of the pockets and opens up a browser tab. It takes several moments of buffering with the terrible motel network they’re connected to, but eventually, he’s able to open up a webpage built by a group of Cambridge researchers. “Domovoi aren’t hostile. Not in their folklore, at least.” He skims through a couple sentences of an abstract before landing on a more specific tab about Slavic spirits. “They watch over their families and usually go with them if they move. They have to do a ritual though. It’s like dusting before locking everything up. Common courtesy for the next residents so they don’t have a rogue spirit causing chaos.”

“Like a guardian angel?”

“Sure, if a guardian angel was a small hairy dude. Or a snake.”

Dean shrugs. “Maybe someone didn’t clean up their mess before they skipped town.”

Sam continues reading. “The family would usually give annual offerings in the spring in order to appease the spirit. Keep them benevolent and continue protecting the property.”

“Huh.”

Over the top of his laptop, Dean sticks his tongue in the hollow of his cheek.

Sam lowers his screen. “What?”

“You remember what the sheriff said? About divers going into the lake without licenses?”

He does, although it had been one branch of a much larger conversation about the two men who “drowned.” Dean had given him that side eye when the sheriff commented about it, and Sam not-so-subtly stepped on his thrifted shoes just so that he’d look away.

With the idea of a wrecked town hiding below the surface, divers looking for underwater sights suddenly doesn’t sound like such a random tidbit of information anymore. Where there’s leftover ruins, there’s probably things buried in the lakebed still. Valuable things.

Another quick search, and Dean’s hypothesis about Lake Minnetonka’s sunken town is proven correct.

“Oh.” Sam rubs the bridge of his nose, the headache coming back on again. “They’re stealing shit the domovoy must’ve guarded at some point.”

Dean snaps Dad’s journal shut. “That’s why your hairy dwarf-snake-thing is dragging people under the water. Tryna protect the family goods.”

A more dreadful realization comes to Sam’s mind. “We have to talk to the families,” he says with an exhausted sigh. “Figure out if the two men were diving.”

If there’s a few things Sam can nitpick about the business, this part of the job is certainly one of them. It makes him feel slimy prying into freshly grieving lives while under whatever guise they decide is most useful to get them to talk. Of course, it’s all for a good reason, to protect more people from getting hurt, but it still crawls under Sam’s skin like a— well, like a snake.

Even worse is that Sam doesn’t know how to hold a regular conversation with a typical person, let alone a grieving one. Not without his hands fidgeting at his sides or his gaze drifting everywhere but their eyes.

“Yeah.” Dean, however, isn’t too perturbed by the idea. He rises from his mattress and grabs his jacket from where he threw it over the bedpost, tugging it on. “How ‘bout I run out and grab us some food and we can ponder over costumes once I get back.”

Sam glances towards the bathroom, the door cracked slightly ajar. A shower sounds really good right about now too, or at least once the aloe dries off a bit more. Grit in his hair and sweat on his skin is probably what’s making his head pound.

“Sounds good.”

A jingle of keys. “Any preferences?”

“Uh, garden salad. No–”

“No onions. Oil and vinegar dressing. Got it.”

Sam snorts, looking over his shoulder to retort, but Dean’s already giving him a knowing wink as he shuts the door.

Of course, they’ve been on the road together long enough that Dean’s picking up on the dishes Sam’s leaning towards now. He supposes it’s not that hard to observe someone like Sam, who naturally falls into certain habits when seeking stability, but still. It’s the thought that counts and warms his chest, even though he’ll never dare admit it to Dean, who would probably just tell Sam to stop acting like a girl.

Maybe Dean’s comforted by the same old habits that Sam is.

______

Sam’s eye twitches for the third time within the past minute, and he has to bite his tongue from exploding on the poor woman who’s sobbing her son’s story out in front of him.

Dean’s giving him those side glances. The ones glazed with worry.

So, it’s obvious then. Fine.

The suit feels scratchy against his skin, still sunburnt. The sleeves are too tight around his shoulders, and the dress shirt beneath has rolled up to his elbows. He told Dean he wanted to forgo the jacket, knowing how it wasn't tailored for him and makes him look stiff, but Dean insisted that it’d make them appear more professional. So, Sam grit his teeth and shrugged it on as he stepped out of the Impala and onto the gravel driveway of the Cherkasovs’ family home.

After introducing themselves as FBI agents, they were warily welcomed inside by Mr. Cherkasov. Floral wallpaper and creaking wooden floorboards that faintly smell of Pine-Sol guided them into the dining room, where Mrs. Cherkasov was making some sort of stroganoff on an old gas stove. She offered them a portion, insisting that their daughter wasn’t going to return home from school for another half hour and could spare some. Sam refused while Dean happily accepted, ignoring his brother’s repelled glare.

That had led to now, the four of them sitting at the round table with Dean’s plate already reduced to scraps. (He has a stain on his tie that Sam so desperately wants to point out). Mr. Cherkasov sits across from them, comforting his distraught wife by rubbing her back, a despondent look on his face. Mrs. Cherkasov has her own buried in her hands, the skin that Sam can see a blotchy red. She made it through about fifteen minutes of conversation, Sam and Dean insisting that the FBI just needs to clear up a few details and no, no it really can’t wait, before she cracked.

Dean crumples up his napkin and drops it on his plate. “I think we have what we need,” he says suddenly, standing up. He pushes his chair in and looks at Sam. “Don’t you?”

Sam leaps at the opportunity to get out of here, rising as well. “Uh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.”

Mrs. Cherkasov looks up at them, her cheeks streaked with tears. “Are—” she sniffles, choking down another sob, Slavic thick in her voice, “Are you sure?”

“We’re sure.” Dean deposits the napkin in the trash and the plate in the sink, a small courtesy. “We’re so sorry we bothered you. We’ll be on our way now.”

It sounds genuinely apologetic. For Dean, anyway.

Sam rips the jacket off as soon as they’re in the car and Dean’s safely cruising at thirty down the road, windows cracked open to let some air in.

Led Zeppelin's on the radio, his acoustic guitar a soothing yet loud thing that takes up too much of a presence within the cabin. Once he tosses the jacket into the backseat and loosens his tie from where it was choking him, he leans over and turns the music off. The engine rumbles, the tires chew on asphalt, nicer and much more distant sounds.

Dean glances over to the radio, then to Sam. “You looked like you were about to implode in there.”

“Because I was,” Sam grumbles.

Dean hums, swapping hands on the wheel.

Two turns later, Sam sighs. “I know it sounds messed up, but that woman in there…she just wouldn’t stop crying.” He looks down at his palms, then curls his fingers. His nails are bitten down to the stubs. “It was that, and then that stupid jacket pulling at my shoulders, and we were trying to talk to them.” He presses his fists against his thighs. “Also, it just smelled weird.”

“Smelled weird?” Dean repeats.

“Yeah, didn’t you notice? It was like— floor cleaner and candles. It didn’t mix well with the stroganoff.”

With the way Dean’s mouth twists, Sam makes the assumption that he—in fact—didn’t notice.

“Can I ask you something?” Dean says eventually.

“Hm?”

“Is there any way I can help?”

Sam blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Well, sometimes you get like this. You act all squirrely about stuff. I figure it has something to do with your…” Dean trails off, making a vague gesture. “Y’know.”

“Autism?” Sam supplies.

“Yeah.”

“You can say it. It’s not a bad word.”

“No, I know, it’s just—” Dean exhales, swapping hands once again, something he only does when he’s caught on the wrong foot. Or avoiding something. “I see you get wide-eyed and I don’t know what to do. I used to know but… well, like you said. You’re not twelve anymore.” He clears his throat. “I wanna know if there’s anything I can do to make it better, I guess.”

“Just don’t make it worse,” Sam jokes.

“Sammy, I’m being serious.”

He knows. He knows Dean is, and it sets aching pangs off within his chest again, just like last night.

Sam twists his hands into the hem of his button down. As they both got older, and their hunts grew in frequency, there was never much room to discuss his autism. Dad’s solution was to shove it down and tell him to man up, despite the doctor’s insistence that there wasn’t inherently anything wrong with him, per say. Yet, Dad’s desire to nip it in the bud always made Sam feel like it was something that shouldn’t be expressed in any capacity. The behaviors he did were meant to be stopped.

When everything felt like too much, he’d grit his teeth and push forward, because Dad would snap at him otherwise. When he needed to move his hands, he’d sit on them, because Dad would get annoyed at the insistent flapping. When he discovered something new that caught his eye on Dad’s computer, he’d stuff the urge to blabber about it deep down and delete his searches. 

Some habits faded as he got older. Sam learned how to mask in childhood, and therefore passed socially when he was at Stanford. Jess figured it out quickly though, but that was because she was like him. She had behaviors she was told she had to suppress. It’s why they got along so well.

The difference between them was that she was proud about it.

With the time Sam had with her, he slowly learned how to be unapologetic with himself too. Jess taught him healthier ways to cope, gave him a safe place to unmask and truly be himself at the end of each day. He learned how to let himself be safe with someone that doesn’t share his blood. And yeah, okay, maybe he did get soft, but he didn’t mind it. Jess had told him it was okay to be soft.

Then she died, and Dad did shortly after, and a whole new heap of bad habits arose.

“Uh,” Sam starts off strong, “I don’t really know. I mean, my ideal thing is that I kind of just step away until everything clears up again. If I can’t, then I do other things to make up for it.”

“Like biting your nails?” Dean offers.

Sam blinks, not realizing that he’s brought his fingers to his mouth again. He jerks them away, twisting his hands in the hem of his button down instead. He side glances Dean, but his brother isn’t even looking at him, still keeping his eyes on the road.

“Yeah,” he answers quietly. “I’ll bite my nails. Or my face’ll start twitching and won’t stop.”

“You used to flail your hands around as a kid. Was that part of it?”

Sam’s face heats up. He can already hear Jess chastising him in the back of his mind, telling him it was nothing to be ashamed of. Dean wasn’t being cruel with his question, not in the way he phrased or spoke it, but shame still manages to nestle in his gut like a stone. Old habits die hard and all that.

“It was,” he admits. “I hardly do that anymore though. Now it’s more—” destructive “—quiet. Harder to spot. I’ve gotten better at hiding it, so you won’t have to worry about me embarrassing you or anything.”

Dean’s face twitches. “Embarass me?”

“Well, yeah. I won’t freak out in public or anything. Make a scene and all that.”

Silence sinks inside the Impala, and discomfort rises in Sam’s chest. He suddenly wishes Led Zeppelin was strumming his guitar again, but it would feel weird if he suddenly reached for the radio. So, Sam sits there, refusing to look over at Dean, hands digging in his shirt.

Wildflower meadows and old-growth cedars blur on both sides of the road as they drive back into town. He can smell the damp earth and fresh pine needles from the slit in the windows. Minnesota’s certainly one of the nicer states they’ve been in as of late. Here in the mountains, there’s not a lot going on. Just them, the Impala, and the open road. It’s an appreciative change in pace.

That is, until Dean speaks again, voice tight with something Sam can’t quite identify. “Is that really what you think about when you’re like that? Embarrassing me?”

Sam frowns, hesitant to respond, wondering if he might say the wrong thing.

Dean takes his silence as a response. “Jesus, Sam.”

“What?” he demands.

“You don’t— That’s not something you worry about with me, okay?”

“I can’t exactly control what I—”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean.” Dean’s grip is tense at the wheel now. “If everything’s becoming too much for you, you should be concerned about gettin’ yourself somewhere safe, not my reaction to you.” His gaze jumps to Sam for a brief moment. “I might not understand it, not fully, but I’m not gonna judge you for what you need to do.”

Growing up, Dean’s response to his autism had been slightly different. They’d never talk about it. Of course not, because that wasn’t Dean’s style. But instead of adopting Dad’s method of telling him to smother his behaviors, Dean redirected them.

When Sam needed to move, Dean took him outside of whatever motel they were staying at that week and went on an impromptu run together. There, in the safety of his brother, he could flap his hands however he wanted and breathlessly spill about whatever new rabbit hole he discovered that week, talk Dean’s ears off without ever having to hear a grovelled shut up in his direction.

When his anger was at the boiling point, Dean would take him off into some nearby patch of trees. There, they’d stack up abandoned cans against bark and shoot lead with Dean’s personal handgun. Other times, they’ll spar with each other, trudging back to the room with dirt smeared across their faces and a new spattering of bruises.

When Sam’s mind betrayed him and everything flooded the threshold, Dean would set his leather jacket around Sam’s shoulders. And sometimes, when it was really bad, Dean took him into his arms and held him tight. The pressure grounded him. Reminded him that he was a real person among the overwhelming sea of sensory input.

“Alright,” Sam says simply.

Dean nods, curt, although clearly unsatisfied.

Sam musters the courage to speak again. “I’m not twelve anymore, you’re right,” he says. “But some things… I never really grew out of them, as much as I hoped otherwise.” He thinks about himself, much smaller than he is now, pulled into a much smaller Dean’s embrace. “The things you did when we were young to… help me? Some still might.”

“That being?”

“Uh, being led away like you just did was nice.” That hug lingers in his mind, the comfort and safety of it, as if nothing could get him if Dean was there, curled around Sam with his jacket draped over his shoulders. “And pressure,” he says instead. As kind as Dean’s being, asking for a hug would maybe be a step too far in what Sam’s being offered right now. “That works too.”

“Pressure?”

“Pressing down on my hands, or my shoulders, things like that.”

Dean grunts. “Okay.” He turns the wheel, and they enter a strip of road that bears witness to a couple windswept storefronts and rundown restaurants. “I wish you had said something earlier about this to me.”

“Never had time to mention it.”

“We definitely did. Ample time, actually.”

“I am very sorry about not having a deep discussion with you about what goes on in my brain.”

Dean smacks his shoulder without looking.

______

Sam sits at a table just outside of The Museum of Russian Art, watching the cars at the intersection stop and go. They’re just outside of Minneapolis, the roar of the interstate only a couple hundred feet away, the ground beneath his feet rumbling due to the proximity of the overpass. It’s near noon, but not quite, so the sun still has an angle that Sam can hide away from in the shadows of the building.

He thumbs at the bruise developing near his eye. They’d been wrong about the domovoy. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a domovoy at all.

After the Cherkasovs, they paid a visit to the Grinevskys next, the family of the other man who drowned in the lake. Ms. Grinevsky, a young woman with an ornate tattoo of hands strangling her neck and sharp eye, refused to shake their hands at the door, gesturing them to come inside first. Stepping into their ranch house, they took notice of the little trinkets of superstition prevalent among the rooms.

Sam pointed out the kolovrat symbol above the doorway to Dean. The glass vases on the windowsills harbored an odd number of violet orchids. The smoky trace of some herb danced on his tongue with each breath he took.

Ms. Grinevsky, being the only one in the house at the time they came in, had discussed her brother, but had also indulged their conversation of a domovoy. More importantly, how to drive one away. That was the one thing Dad’s journal had little information about, and most websites were sparse. Even the hunter websites that need a certain code to crack into their forums.

The thing is about hunting, using an entity’s disposal techniques doesn’t work if it’s actually another.

Sam and Dean left the lake with snapped brooms, cuts and bruises, and the afterimage of a slovenly woman transforming into a beastly cat. Or, as much of a cat as it tried to look like.

Muscles rippled beneath her pelt, fur pitch-black. Eyes milky and a muzzle too long to be a cat’s, closer to a bat with a twitchy nose on the end. Slim horns poked out from some sort of patterned veil knotted tight around her neck. Clothes spun from moss and threadbare skirts clung in scraps from her form. Instead of paws, she stalked on three-digit claws. She moved through the shadows as a wisp, impossibly jumping from one to the next, lunging at them on the rocky bank.

So, not a domovoy.

A pamphlet is dropped on the table in front of him.

Sam blinks, pulling himself out of his daze. Dean comes around his back and sits down on the opposite bench. A bandage is slapped across his jaw and a smaller strip above his right brow, both covering angry marks the panther-lady gifted him last night.

Sam picks up the pamphlet. “What’s this?”

“From inside.” Dean jerks his head towards the museum’s entrance. “Figured you might want some reading material on the way back.”

“Okay,” Sam says slowly. He flips to the first page, pictures of Byzantine medieval wood carvings and imperialist paintings of sacred icons accompanied by blocks of text stare back at him. “Anything else? You were in there for half an hour.”

“This guy called Kazimir Male-something painted a black square on a canvas and everyone treated it as the second coming of Christ.” At Sam’s blank stare, Dean adds helpfully. “He painted four of them.”

“And how’s that supposed to help us?”

“It doesn’t. The chick I was talking to wouldn’t shut up about him.”

Sam groans, slamming the pamphlet shut. “Dude—”

“And,” Dean holds a finger up, “she was one of the docents. Took me through the fairy tale exhibit they had in there.” He pulls his phone out, flipping it open. “Most of it was nesting dolls and other crap like that, but this caught my eye.” Pressing a button, he turns the phone Sam’s way. “This familiar to you?”

Shielding the screen from the sun’s glare, Sam looks at what seems to be a painting on the screen. It's hard to tell what exactly is being depicted, harsh brushstrokes of black, white, and yellowing age muddying the image. The background is impressionistic at best, lines suggesting bricks and pieces of floorboard. Sam frowns, ready with some report about Dean going on some impromptu museum date with some girl he just met until he catches it. A slender nose lifted up, sniffing the air, barely distinguished from the murky background. One gaunt eye illuminating a furred chest. Two horns. A veil wrapped around its head.

“Oh.” Sam breathes.

“Yeah, oh.” Dean flips his phone shut, leaning forward. “She called it a kikimora.”

“Kikimora? Why does that sound—”

“Because it’s traditionally the wife of the domovoy.”

Sam leans his face against his hand. “So we weren’t entirely off the mark then.”

“Nah, but that means we were foolin’ around with brooms last night for no reason.”

“I dunno Dean, I think you made a great housewife.”

“Don’t start with me.”

Ms. Grinevsky had told them the custom for getting rid of unwanted domovoi, having done it once for her own when she moved from a town over. Let an animal into the home first, as it’s believed that domovoi could move into a new house riding one. It was simple, really. Except, of course, there was the fact that whatever property harbored the domovoy was underwater and turned to rubble.

So, they pried Ms. Grinevsky for an alternative, and they got one out of her with only some suspicion. Sacrifice an animal, dip a broom in its blood, and sweep all the corners of the old house and yard while reciting a chant. Again, the whole underwater thing was in issue. But the blood was a beckon, and so they figured they could lure the domovoy out of the water and ward it off.

That’s all well and good, until the thing you’re hunting isn’t interested in the blood of a hare, it’s you.

Dean’s hand reaches across the table. Sam jerks slightly, unsure of what he’s doing until he’s pulling his fingers away from his mouth. 

“You gotta knock that shit off,” Dean tells him.

Sam blinks at his half-bitten nails, then shakes his hands out with a shudder. “Sorry,” he says, genuine. He grabs the pamphlet. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll look something up on the way there.”

Dean gives him a look, then joins him on his feet. “Fine. I’ve got a girl to call and schedule a night with anyways.”

Sam’s nose wrinkles. “You’re gross.”

“You’re uptight.”

______

Sam feels the trunk of the Impala slam closed from where he leans against the hood, biting down on a vegan wrap from a smoke house they passed on the way to the lake. Dean sidles up next to him, one rifle tucked underneath his arm and another in his hands. He runs along its handguard then checks the magazine, pulling a box of salted ammunition out of his back pocket.

Sam wipes his mouth. “What’s the play?”

“Grab the kayaks, push out into the water.” At Sam’s groan, Dean looks up at him, a round clinking against the others in the compartment. “There’s a reason why we’re goin’ out at night.”

The crickets in the reeds are loud. There’s an owl somewhere up in the trees. A couple feet back on the road, he thinks he hears a frog croak.

“Really? I thought you just liked the atmosphere.”

“If it was for the atmosphere I would’ve brought a Discman with us.”

It’s still warm, but the moon gives a gentler light. Sam gratefully welcomes the reprieve from the unbearable heat of the summer day. His skin does as well, aloe-dried burns protected against the harsh fabric of his cheap detergent-washed shirt. At least he doesn’t want to rip himself out of his body.

Once the rifles were fully loaded, Dean hands one off to him and digs around in the front compartments of the car. Sam, out of force of habit, checks the magazine himself before lowering it at his side. The doors slam shut, and Dean tosses a flashlight over to him.

“You ready?” he asks.

Sam swallows the rest of his wrap, crumpling the wrapper in his pocket. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Twin streams of amber light guide their way through the undergrowth and towards the patch of shrubs they used to conceal their stolen kayaks. Pulling them out and shaking the plant debris off them, they drag them out onto the bank.

Sam pushes out first, then Dean. Their paddles cut through the water, still as glass. Peeking out through the cloud cover, the moon shines and scatters its light, always a perpetual couple feet ahead from the nose of their kayaks.

It takes fifteen minutes to make a decent amount of ground into the lake. Despite what they’re out here for—the rifle across his lap refusing to let him forget—Sam feels strangely at peace. Or something close to it, at the very least.

Don’t get him wrong, his shoulders are tense and something’s knotting at the base of his skull. His eyes scan the treeline for any hint of those glowering white eyes peering back at him. Of any shadows that’re too dark and consuming. Still, still, Sam inhales and a sense of relief floods through him.

They left the crickets behind on the shore, along with the occasional car passing through the area this late at night. Insects skim the water and baby dragonflies land on his kayak, but they don’t make a noise. Too small to make much of a difference. Out here, the only sound that escapes within this realm of tranquility is the soft dip of Dean’s and his paddles breaking the water.

It’s the first time in a long while he hasn’t felt overwhelmed in a new place.

Sam stops paddling for a second, giving Dean a chance to slide up next to him. It’s quiet for a few more moments until Dean slaps his own arm.

“Son of a bitch,” he grumbles.

“What?”

“Mosquitos.”

“I told you to wear long sleeves,” Sam points out.

He pulls his sweater sleeves down, cusping the heel of his palms. It’s not only for the bugs. Out here on the water, the temperature dropped a few degrees. That’s another thing that brings him this strange peace.

Sam drifts left, the wind carrying his kayak, and then Dean’s, who bumps into him with a soft thump. He blinks, then looks over.

Dean raises his eyebrows. “What’re you all smilin’ for?”

And Sam— Sam didn’t realize it, but he was.

He was smiling. Because he was here, with his brother, treading water in Lake Minnetonka. 

Sure, they’re out on a hunt, and he should probably stay focused, but there’s something about this moment that soothes the ache in his chest. Something that erupted when Jess died and hasn’t gone away since. Pulling, gnawing, consuming his heart just to spit it back out and repeat the process all over again.

Here, it’s calm. His head isn't spinning, flashing images of people who haven’t died yet. Things around him aren’t trembling, ecstatic with kinetic energy, raring to go. Ready to pop and snap through the air. Much like that dresser Max had lodged beneath the knob of the closet door Sam was trapped behind, scraping across the floor when the image of Dean with a hole in his forehead flashed through his mind.

Sam opens his mouth, but he never gets the chance to answer.

One moment, he’s inhaling the late night air, and the next, he’s sucking in mouthfuls of lake water.

Cold as ice, burrowing through his clothes and into every pore, seeping into the darkest places of his body that even he didn’t know about. Bubbles flitter up around him. Water, water, water. Sam thrashes in it, throwing a hand out and feeling— foam. The synthetic fiber of his kayak seat, which can’t be right, because that would mean that it tipped over and Sam—

Something dark slams into him.

Any remaining air in his chest claws its way out of his throat. Sam clamps down on the breathless scream, whirling around and attempting to right himself in the water. He pries his eyes open, but it’s like looking into a void. Up-kicked dirt contributes to the murkiness. Sam can feel the grains striking his cheeks.

His lungs burn. Sam realizes he’s still holding his rifle, but it’s certainly flooded and there’s no doubt that the rock salt disintegrated as soon as he hit the water. Moonlight glitters through the depth of the water. At the surface, two shadows float, one with an additional silhouette that jerks around the shape. Looking. Scanning. Garbled screams muffled by his clogged ears and the expanse of water between them.

Dean.

Sam kicks, flailing his arms, doing his best to swim back up to his brother. His clothes, water-logged, weigh down on him like sacks of sand. He’s not swimming up fast enough. His throat convulses, chest spasming, desperate for oxygen.

Something seizes his ankle. Sam jerks, looking down, and there.

It’s what they saw two nights ago. White eyes piercing through the muck, rodent-like face wrapped in that same patterned veil. A slender body fading off into the black, claws digging into Sam’s flesh. A tail whipping like a ripcord.

Kikimora.

Sam drops the rifle, letting the steel sink to the bottom of the lake. He reaches down, despite every instinct telling him to not get his face any closer to those rows of fangs, and rips the knife from his boot. Iron swiping across her muzzle. She recoils, shrieking so loud Sam’s ears ring. Black smoke sizzles in the water between them. He takes the advantage, turning and fighting his way towards Dean.

An arm plunges through the water, fingers outstretched. The closer he gets, the more details he can make out in Dean’s face, wavering above the surface. Gray creeps in from the edges of his vision. His chest is on fire. Still, he fights. Fights, fights, fights, because that’s what Dad told him to do. That’s what Dad—

Claws grip his thighs, yanking him down again.

Panic settles where there should be air. Air, air, he needs air—

Sam slashes blindly. Knife swinging. The kikimora tears through his pants, shredding them into strips all the way down to his boots. She’s relentless. Red swirls up in his face. Blood. His blood. Ah, shit.

There’s a flash, and something shoots through the water, striking the beast. Black smoke weaving in with the red. Another inhuman screech. The claws retract, and Sam takes the chance to drive the knife into her shivering chest.

She disintegrates beneath his hands, a dying shriek on her blackened gums. Sam watches, wide-eyed, kicking backwards. The knife starts to sink down. One claw stretches out towards him, and he feels that same pain he always does when killing something like this. They didn’t ask for this. They just happened to be who they were.

The claws, too, wisp away into the shadows. Solid mass breaking apart until there’s nothing but Sam in the water. Sam and his tattered pants. Sam and his blood, and darkening vision.

Right, his brain thinks. Air.

But he doesn’t move. Too tired, his limbs insist.

A hand clasps beneath his arm and hauls him up.

Sam breaks the surface with a shuddering inhale, then hacks. His hands fly out, splashing water, fingers slipping on a slick surface until he realizes it's the kayak’s hull he’s latching onto. Dean’s kayak, who’s gripping his arm with one hand and holding his rifle with the other. One finger hangs close to the trigger.

“Is it dead?” He demands, eyes flickering between Sam and the water around him.

“Yeah,” Sam gasps out, blinking water from his eyes. “Yeah, I stabbed her.”

“I shot the bitch.” Yet, his brother relaxes, shoulders lowering. He drops the rifle on his lap and grabs at Sam with his other hand. “Alright.” Dean grunts, adjusting for a better grip. “I gotcha, tiger. C’mon up.”

“Wait,” Sam protests, “I can paddle myself to…”

His sentence collapses. Next to them, his kayak, or the remains of his kayak to be more precise, float in the water. It’s been cracked in two, both halves flipped over, floating facedown. His paddle’s nowhere to be seen. Probably shattered and lost to the depths.

“Yeah,” Dean says, “I don’t think you’re gonna be paddling anywhere.”

Sam spits out more lake water, then lets Dean pull him up. It takes some awkward maneuvering to keep them from tipping, and with Sam’s height, that’s more of a struggle than it really should be. Should’ve gotten that damn speed boat. Eventually, Sam settles himself on the stern, hatch straps uncomfortably digging into his ass, hands clutching his brother’s shoulders. His legs remain dipped in the water on both sides of the kayak, unable to keep them up on the sides, unless he screws up Dean’s stroke.

He waits for him to move, but he doesn’t. Shifting uneasily, Sam leans forward, chest brushing the back of Dean’s seat, wet hair dripping into the foam.

“Dean?”

But Dean’s looking down over the coaming pads, white-knuckling the grips of the paddle. Sam follows his gaze, wincing when he realizes, exhaustion crashing down over him and nestling deep in his bones, adrenaline finally running dry.

Around his legs, the water’s stained red, streams of sluggish blood dripping down from his thighs and calves. Deep gashes are carved into them, dragging down in jagged patterns. His pants, more rags than proper clothes at this point, hang off his skin.

And all Dean says is— “Dammit, Sammy.”

Sam slumps forward in response, arms draping over Dean’s shoulders.

On the way back to the bank, his legs throb in tandem with his head. It’s not just the pain, it’s the sensation. Of being wet, of bleeding, of fatigue. Soaked clothes clutching his skin, the rips of his pants tickling his legs, hair flat against his head yet rubbing up against the collar of his sweater. So many textures and feelings against his skin that don’t mesh well with each other.

Everything is bothering him and he’s unable to do anything about it.

A few feet away from the slope of gravel, Sam’s feet grazes the lakebed as the water grows shallow. Dean helps him out once they beach themselves, pantlegs darkening as he holds Sam up at the waist, rifle in the other, splashing through the last foot of water until they’re stumbling on land.

Each step he takes sends licks of fire up his legs. Blood gushes out of his wounds, diluting as it mixes with the water dripping off him. He’s cold. His skin feels slimy. Sam withstands it for about a minute until he squeezes his eyes shut and balls his hands into fists.

“Sam?” Dean must’ve noticed him tensing because they stopped walking. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Uh…” Sam answers, gritting his teeth. “I can’t— um—”

“You hurting? Got painkillers in the car. I can give them to you once we patch you up.”

“No, no, it’s not—” His eyes sting. Christ, is he really going to cry from this? “It’s not…just that.”

Dean doesn’t respond. Instead, he’s being pushed somewhere and forced to sit down. When Sam opens his eyes, he realizes through the blur that he’s among the gnarled roots of a tree. His brother is crouched in front of him, concerned gaze drifting between his face and his torn up legs.

“Okay.” He pats Sam’s boot, “how ‘bout I grab the supplies and you stay here?”

“No.” Sam winces. His breath’s coming in quick. “No, just— just stay here. Please?”

Dean shuffles on the balls of his feet. “Alright,” he says, “alright. Calm down.”

Sam shuts his eyes again. Despite his shivering, a flush sets deep within his cheeks. He knows what’s happening, he knows the symptoms of what’s erupting inside him right now. The thing is, he hasn’t had one in so long (not since Stanford), and it’s been even longer since Dean bore witness to one.

To Dean, Sam’s meltdowns consist of a pudgy face from a lifetime ago, nose scrunched up and eyes screwed tight, both the same color of red. Sam’s hands thrown over his ears as he curls up in the furthest corner away from the world and sobs quietly to himself. Heart beating out of his tiny ribcage as he struggles to keep quiet, not wanting to disturb Dad if he’s done it once already.

But Sam— Sam’s twenty-three now. He’s a grown man. No matter how many times Jess was good to him, meltdowns were the one thing she couldn’t change his mindset on. He felt stupid for having them, which in turn made him even more frustrated when the workload of college would push him to his limits. He was already stressed. He didn’t need the texture of his shirt or the sounds of Palo Alto outside grating under his skin and making him want to rip it off.

Tears slip. Here we go, Sam thinks, fighting a shuddering cry. He’s gonna tell me to suck it up.

As Sam prepares for the verbal assault, a pair of hands rest on his shoulders.

Gently, yet firmly, they press down.

Sam chokes on a wet breath, eyes snapping open once more. Dean’s closer now, leaning his entire body over Sam’s, scanning his face with the usual concern, but also with an underlying softness that looks so strange on his face. So wrong.

Dean doesn’t say anything, however. He keeps the pressure, holding Sam in place against the trunk of the tree. It’s nice. Grounding. Something that Sam can focus on while every nerve within his body screams at him for things that’re entirely out of his control.

He leans into the touch, breath steadying with each inhale. He’s calm. He’s calm. He didn’t just get thrown into the lake by a beast made of shadows. Didn’t have his legs ripped to shreds. He’s here, on the shore, with his brother awkwardly hovering over him.

Dean’s hands shift from his shoulders to his hands, squeezing them. “Sammy?”

“Yeah.” He breathes.

“Take your shirt off. You’re gonna get sick.”

Sam scoffs, yet obliges. He lifts his arms up and Dean meets him halfway, pulling the sweater off him. As soon as the fabric slides off, the wind wisps by, chilling his soaked skin and raising gooseflesh. He shudders.

“C’mon.” Dean hauls him up from the roots, sweater tucked under his arm. “Let’s get ya to the car.”

Sam lets his brother pull him along the rest of the way, their kayaks left behind them as forgotten relics on the bank. He holds his arms against his chest, leaning hard into Dean’s side to steal his warmth. Dean allows it, his palm resting against the back of Sam’s neck, maybe pulling him closer if Sam isn’t imagining it.

Through the overgrown fronds, the site of the Impala parked on the side of the road sends a wave of relief through him. He shuffles a bit faster, groping for the handle of the passenger seat.

“Uh-Uh.” Dean pulls him forward. “You ain’t getting in Baby all torn up like that.”

Sam’s propped up on the hood instead, legs draping over the front, the backs of his knees rubbing up against the cold grille. He keeps his head down, plucking at the wiry threads of his pants. If he had the energy, he’d probably feel embarrassed, but he’s so exhausted that he can’t care.

Something sets across his shoulders, and he jumps before realizing that it’s a jacket.

More than that, it’s Dean’s jacket.

Heavy, distressed leather and the sharp tang of some cheap, douchey cologne floods his senses. It smells so much like Dean that the urge to cry again boils up, his nervous system shot to shit. He blows out a breath, steady now, reaching up to draw it tighter around himself.

Sam’s ten again, swallowed in Dean’s presence, concealed from the world that wasn’t made for him. He’s chewing on Dean’s amulet, overstimulated from the walk to the nearby convenience store, but Dean doesn’t mind. He just holds Sam to his chest, whispering in his ear about the plot of some sitcom rerun he watched inside one of the many motels they stayed at.

Maybe there was a reason why he could never control his meltdowns in college.

Dean comes back around from the trunk, a couple rags, a first aid kit, and bandages in his arms. As he helps Sam shimmy out of the remains of his pants and boots, his eyes are drawn to that same amulet dangling around Dean’s neck. He wonders if there’s still teethmarks indented in the metal after all these years. If Dean still runs his thumb over them from time to time.

In only his boxers and wrapped in Dean’s jacket, he portrays a messed-up hood ornament for the Impala, letting his brother wipe him down and treat his legs. The rags smell suspiciously of oil, and there’s that taste of algae again as Dean leans close, and Sam can’t even imagine how he smells after taking a dip in the pond.

He bends his legs when Dean asks him too, and plants his right foot on Dean’s thigh as he stitches up a particularly deep gash crossing his calf. Sam breathes through it, staring at the road over Dean’s shoulder, watching for any headlights that might pierce through the dark. He’s sure there would be questions for why two men as young as they are are roaming around Lake Minnetonka so late, especially when one of them is half-naked and bleeding.

“Sam.”

He tilts his head up. “Yeah?”

“Nails. Stop biting.”

Blinking, Sam pulls his hand away, settling it against the edge of the car. Dean gives him a pointed look, then continues, puncturing his skin with the suture at least three more times before cutting the thread.

“How you feeling?” he asks, tucking the supplies back into the first aid kit.

“Tired,” Sam answers honestly. “Wet.”

“Sounds like a good night to me.”

Sam’s too exhausted to even put up with Dean’s antics. He merely sighs in response.

Maybe realizing that, Dean bandages his legs up in silence. While packing the gauze into his wounds, he not-so-subtly palpates his knees as he goes along. The only other thing that flares beside the gashes are the bruises that are already beginning to mottle his skin all the way down to his feet.

Dean pulls back once he secures the last bandage with tape. “Good news, nothing seems broken.”

“Great.” Sam slides off the hood, planting his feet firmly on the ground. Dean’s hand shoots out as he wobbles, the pain in his newly-stitched up legs scorching for a brief moment. “I’m good,” he gasps out automatically. “I’m okay.”

“Right.” Dean grouses. “C’mon Rambo, let’s getcha inside.”

With a hand on Sam’s waist, Dean helps him into the passenger’s seat. Ensuring his legs are fully in, Dean shuts the door and gathers up the loose cloth and first aid draped on the hood. Sam huffs, leaning his head back over the bench as another diminuendo of energy seeps out of him. All that’s left is the ache in his thighs and the uncomfortable prickling of hair along his arms.

The driver’s side door slams shut and the Impala purrs to life. Sam doesn’t lift his head up again until they're back on the road and the Foo Fighters are singing about looking for signs in the sky between spurts of static.

Dean smacks the radio. “Damn broadcast signal.”

Automatically, Sam reaches for the dashboard, pulling open the compartment that harbors all of the cassette tapes. He finds The Queen is Dead album and slips it into the feeder. It clicks, and a steady thrum of The Smith’s romantic gloom and distinct guitar jangle echoes in the cabin.

“Not bad,” Dean comments, reaching over to turn the volume up, then pausing. He glances at Sam.

Another bout of fondness swells in his chest again. Dean’s quietly asking for permission from him.

Sam inclines his head.

A flash of teeth from Dean. Bigmouth Strikes Again starts its frantic strumming pattern, Morrissey admitting to knowing how Joan of Arc felt when the English burned her alive. Dean drums his fingers to the beat, humming along every once and awhile.

Sam’s content to just listen to his brother and zone out, planting his cheek up against the window. He watches the spattering of trees pass by, swallowed by the dark. After they report back to Ellen at the Roadhouse, maybe they can stop in Sioux Falls for a bit, take a breather with Bobby. Kick back a few bottles of beer.

Sam can reorganize his archive of hunts across the midwest and Dean can help Bobby with a few cars at the shop. He’s more than positive that Dean would agree, but he’ll bring it up tomorrow morning. Right now, he’s sure that Dean shares the same sentiment about sinking into the flimsy motel room beds.

“Y’know,” Dean says suddenly, taking the first turn off the lonely road leading up to the lake, “I actually got you something while we were at the museum.”

Sam glances at him. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Dean nods at his jacket stills draped around Sam, “it’s in my right pocket.”

Frowning, he slips his fingers into the fabric and brushes across something. He pulls it out, lifting it up to the passing lights to get a better look at it. A strip of plate-like beads curl around the meat of his palm, two larger anchor beads on each end. Catholic runes are etched into the bleached wood, stars and crosses faintly visible.

At Sam’s questioning look, Dean explains. “It’s called a chetki.”

“A chetki?” he repeats.

“They’re a type of rosary. Guy at the counter explained how Russian prisoners made them to pass time in the slammer ‘cause regular prayer ropes were banned. Or that’s how the legend goes.”

“Huh.” Sam flips it in his hand, the wood making a satisfying clack. “Thanks for the…prison beads?”

“It’s something to keep your hands busy, dumbass. S’pose to stop you from chomping your nails off.”

Oh.

“Oh.”

“Figured if you wanna drive me crazy with something, you can do it without mutilating yourself.” Dean huffs, switching his grip on the wheel. “And…” he adds hesitantly, “you can use it for prayer too.” His eyes flick to Sam. “If you wanna.”

Another wave of emotion surges up that Sam has to fight to keep down. He swallows thickly, looking down at his hands. Running the chetki through his fingers, he starts to get a feel for it, the wood turning into water under his manipulation.

“Thanks.”

Dean shrugs. “Whatever, bitch.”

Sam smiles. “Jerk.”

He doesn’t miss the way Dean’s lips uptick.