SPN fic: Dazzleland 9/10
Chapter 9/Coming to Grief

WIPPITY WIP WIP: Gen, PG-13. WIP, penultimate chapter. Horror/drama.

Big Fat Violence: I have a really high tolerance for violence. I do. Some of the rest of you, maybe not so much. In addition to the phenomenal body-count, this chapter is also incredibly…gut-wrenching. Fair warning, don’t read it if your meds are needing upped.

Beta-Beta Bing: They kick the shit of me, but I love them so: jmm0001and lemmypie.

Sleeping with the Fishes: Hey, has anyone actually had a conversation with Kripke lately? Is he still around? They say he ‘owns’ this stuff, but maybe he’s getting weak. Maybe we can push our product in his turf…

Read Dazzleland, previous chapters

Read




STF: Niagara Falls, 2001 – Toad, Sam’s hapless friend in his senior year, has made the ultimate sacrifice to appease the power that resides in the Falls. In 2006, Billy Shuter, a teen with both special abilities and a yellow-eyed friend, forms an unhealthy fascination for his new Law & Society teacher, Mr. Sam Winchester, and decides to get his attention in a bloody and catastrophic way.

--

NFHS, Niagara Falls NY, Monday, November 27, 2006

The Impala was the kind of car that cops noticed; Dean knew that and mostly didn’t care. There was not caring, though, and then there was outright stupid, and despite what several of his high school teachers and more than a few girlfriends had said over the years, Dean wasn’t stupid. So he parked the distinctive car away from the school, knew that the campus was surrounded with bare industrial land and that he’d have to be part careful and part lucky not to get netted in police perimeter security.

It was not what he wanted to do, of course.

He wanted to drive the Impala through the front doors of the Niagara Falls High School lobby, crashing through the trophy cases, just going right in until he found Sam like a hound with a noseful of fox.

Coupla problems with that fine plan, biggest one being Sam Winchester. He was stubborn, Sam, monumentally stubborn, not one fucking ounce of flexibility to him. Their earlier phone conversation: Billy’s here, isn’t he Dean? I think he’s started. I gotta get as many kids out as I can.

To which Dean had responded that Sam better shag ass the hell outta there, because Billy fucking Shuter was coming for him. For Sam. Maybe not to kill him, either, seemed to think Sam was some kind of mentor. And Dean had finally shut up, shut up when it was much too late, because everything his father had demanded of him in what had turned out to be his last words on this earth was choking Dean. Save him. Save Sam.

Or do the other thing that Dean couldn’t accept, not on any level, but was thinking it, standing in Billy Shuter’s bedroom, dead Shuters all over the fucking place like gory throw rugs. Was thinking about it and how he could never do it, not in a million years, and why the fuck did John Winchester ask these crazy fucked-up things of him?

Telling Sam that Billy was coming for him was a mistake. Was coming because of him, really. It made the whole thing Sam’s responsibility and when it came to these kids – his students – Sam had developed a finely honed need to protect. Dean had no idea where this came from, at what stupid Stanford class Sam had learned it, but it was there and Dean had just jammed it in the eye with his finger.

I’m gonna get as many out as I can, Sam had repeated. I’ll make sure Billy doesn’t hurt anyone else. And then he’d told Dean to call the police. Like Dean was in the fucking habit of calling the police to deal with any of the things they encountered, poltergeists, hellhounds, wendigos or demons.

Halfheartedly, Dean wished for the cover of darkness, because there were only so many ways you could disguise a rifle. He opted for a duffle bag because he didn’t see any way around it – he’d need a gun that he could trust over a long range. And the Glock, of course, for close work. Two knives, one strapped to his side, heavy-handled, good for throwing. The other down the side of his boot where you’d miss it if you did a shitty body search, thin worn edge sharp as a scalpel.

If the cops got him with this load, he’d be in the State pen for life. Hell, if the cops picked him up for jaywalking, he’d never be bending down for dropped soap again.

And he didn’t really consider any of those future tenses, either, because all of them were pointless and he’d never been a future tense kind of guy.

No one watched his approach, Impala chugging along a construction road for a new warehouse complex, a couple of machines lying dormant, a long long weekend for their workers, maybe. Dean scanned the vacant stretch between a derelict backhoe and the school in the distance, beyond the cold sweep of track and the soccer fields, up a rise. Three wings, two stories. The large brown architectural box had to be the gymnasium. Or the theater. Let’s say, gym, okay? Because I don’t have time for dicking around.

Sam’s vision had been ‘gym’, loud and clear. And it’s where Sam would be heading because Elise Simon was going to get shot in the head and between the two brothers it would probably be good to prevent it. Dean had no idea what it would do to Sam, having her death on his conscience, but he didn’t want to find out. Dean didn’t even know if he liked Elise, he thought he probably didn’t; her being the catalyst of Sam’s leaving was a pretty big black mark, wasn’t it? And he grinned at that, almost laughed, recognized the sharp fierce burn of fear behind it.

Billy wouldn’t kill Sam. He might do worse. He might do much worse, because there was a demon involved and Dean was dancing as fast as he could between an impossible promise and his own particular education in keeping people safe. Keeping Sam safe. Demon plus Sam and that was not an equation he wanted to finish: it got them one step closer to what John Winchester had described in his flat single-syllable style.

Checked his ammo, slung the duffle bag over his shoulder. Should he chance a call to Sam? Sam would have turned off the ringer, surely, but Dean didn’t want to point any neon lights to his brother if Billy didn’t already have bead on him.

Text message, then: Coming in.

There would be police snipers in the grass, maybe, if the cops had their shit together, so Dean went in on bent knees and elbows, moving fast, fortuitously dressed mostly in khaki and earth tones today, getting wet and muddied in the process, blurring with the standing water and the cold clay and the dried grasses.

He spotted the cops long before they had any chance of seeing him. Dean momentarily settled behind a clump of marshy grass verging on the flat brick red curve of track. Plan: he’d edge around, stay in the weeds, not cross the track where he’d be spotted immediately. Besides, the cops didn’t look like they had any idea of what they were doing; they were hanging around their cars on the track, talking into radios, maybe waiting for a SWAT team to come up from Buffalo.

Confusion stage, cops arguing about jurisdiction and chain of command. Opportunity.

This would be a big news story, one of those ones that John had always told them to stay the fuck away from because they couldn’t risk the exposure. And with St. Louis and with Baltimore, Dean had plenty of incentive to lay low in circumstances like this.

As though Sam was listening in – oh yeah, and that’s a comforting thought – Dean’s phone shuddered in his pocket like a small scared animal, and he looked to see what Sam had sent him: No.

To which he responded: FU. That seemed completely appropriate, given that the cops were now starting to look a little more organized and Dean had maybe thirty seconds to make his move before they secured their perimeter.

Dean wasn’t about to waste even one of those seconds. He crabbed sideways through the grass around the track, all the way along to the cement retaining wall at the bottom of the hill, then kept to a line of hedge, would be spotted if anyone looked. But he was moving fast, not looking back, heart hammering so loud he recalled slicing pain in a flooded basement and electric current and then realized, oh thank god, it was just his phone vibrating again, doubtlessly Sam telling him to do something ridiculous, like keep away.

Dean threw himself and the bag over a chain link fence, on the other side of the school now from the bulk of the gymnasium, but there was nothing to be done about that: getting to the gym from the outside would involve exposing himself to the police on the track below. He tried one of the double industrial doors, knew from the smell he was close to the shops, mix of engine oil and wood shavings. The door didn’t open from the outside, was without a handle and wouldn’t budge, but then it opened from the inside and five boys – wide eyed, panting with fear – fell out and Dean shouted for them to move, to get down the hill, get to the track where the cops were waiting.

They did, they ran, out across the gravel courtyard and over the fence, skidding like the gravel was ice. And just then Dean heard shots from an upper window, looked up and saw that by running the boys were exposed to the upper floors of another wing, a window that Dean couldn’t see from this angle, and someone was up there with a rifle.

Two boys fell like their strings had been cut, clattered down, limbs flailing awkward and nerveless. Dean dropped to a crouch, one foot jammed in the door, putting it all together, helpless. Then he dragged himself inside, pulled the door shut as the other boys tumbled down the hill and onto the track. Dean knew the cops would be closing in soon, would either be opening fire on that upper story, or trying to get to the boys outside, would be doing something, and he couldn’t let himself get distracted now.

Inside. His work was inside. And he was pretty sure if he was fast enough and smart enough, he’d get to Billy before Billy got to Sam. Because he now knew where Billy was: second floor in the wing immediately adjacent to where he was now.

Opened his phone. Sam’s predictable message: Stay back.

Dean rapidly punched in: 2 late. Where r u?

But there was no response, and Dean swore under his breath, opened the bag and got out the rifle, loaded it, pushed boxes of ammo into his pockets. Wondered what the most direct route to the gym was.

--

Sam counted twelve kids and they looked scared as shit. He didn’t recognize any of them: they were younger than the kids he’d been teaching, maybe in ninth grade. Three of the girls were sobbing and the rest didn’t look far from it.

They were crowded into the supply closet next to the science labs on the second floor; the confined space smelled indelibly of fear and rubbing alcohol, the shelves crammed with broken Bunsen burners and boxes of glass slides. A stack of aluminum trays lined with wax for frog autopsies, several boxes marked ‘used’, but Sam couldn’t tell what was in them. Sam glanced at the kids, put on a reassuring face. Didn’t make the slightest impression, he could tell.

“It’s going to be okay. Everyone stay calm,” he said quietly. Then, close by, maybe the next corridor along, three sharp reports so concussive Sam’s eardrums rattled like badly hung windows. He thought about telling them to be quiet, but that wouldn’t do any good one way or another, not with what Billy could do. It offered false hope in the worst way.

He’s looking for me. Maybe if he finds me, he’ll stop.

Sam was clutching his phone in one hand, and it vibrated hard as though it was channeling Dean’s anger and frustration. Sam read the message, cursed under his breath. Where am I, Dean? He thought about taking a picture, sending it to Dean. In a closet with whimpering kids. Wish you were here. The opposite of what he actually meant, which was ‘wish you were anywhere but here, asshole,’ because this was between him and Billy; Dean would just become a casualty like everyone else. Like Elise. Then Sam heard the distinctive shuttle of a pump action rifle getting ready to fire. It echoed hollow in the corridor, the noise bouncing from metal lockers.

“Stay here,” he whispered to the crowd of kids. “Don’t come out unless I tell you it’s okay.”

And Sam opened the door, stepped out into the corridor, arms held well away from his body, looking for the owner of the gun.

Billy would be skittish, would jump at the least provocation and Sam wasn’t inclined to offer him any. The hallway was empty; he wondered where all the kids had gone. Maybe out the C wing staircase and into the staff parking lot. He could hope for that. The hallway smelled of gunpowder and sweat, the cinderblock walls tacked with posters for the upcoming talent show, a football game, both photocopied on the same sickly shade of pink paper. Sam continued to walk slowly towards the juncture between his corridor and the next one over.

“Billy?” he called out, voice level and sure. “It’s me, Mr. Winchester. I think you were looking for me.”

Silence of the same quality as when a dishwasher suddenly lurched to a stop. Loud only because it signaled the cessation of movement. Then, a chuckle from around the corner.

A tall figure stepped into the hallway in front of Sam, gun dangling almost lazily from one hand, a slight smile playing at the lips.

It wasn’t Billy.

--

Niagara Falls NY, June 8, 2001

The only noises were the occasional grunts of exertion, the slide of a box, clatter of wire hangers in the closet. No one was talking and that suited Dean well enough. Cold silence was better than fighting, Sam and their father exchanging insults better kept to themselves, words sharp enough to draw blood. Everyone was avoiding each other like bats in the summer sky, like they had some kind of radar, were waiting for the storm to blow over. Incongruously, sunlight filtered in through the window, peeked past the flimsy curtains onto the mussed bedding, the room looking like someone had tossed it searching for hard evidence.

How much to take with them? Dean wondered. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time they’d lived in a place so long, a time where they’d accumulated so much ordinary, everyday stuff. Last time had been…yeah, it had been Tacoma, four years ago. His senior year. That had ended well, he thought savagely, another running departure made in the heat of the moment under the cold auspices of John Winchester’s wrath, Sam’s outrage steady as an IV drip.

This was worse. This was so much worse. Dean couldn’t think about Tacoma, and he couldn’t think about here, couldn’t think about what had happened last night, so he went stiffly about his business, stopping at one point to get a forgotten bag of freezer-burnt peas, and surreptitiously escaped to the bathroom where he pressed the make-do icepack to his throat.

He didn’t know if either Sam or their dad would notice if his throat swelled so much he couldn’t breathe, but he wasn’t going to ask for a medical opinion today. Sam had a sharp elbow and there’d been a lot of terrified anger in the blow; it hurt like a sonofabitch.

It felt just, though. He’d earned it. What the fuck had he been thinking, holding Sam back like that? Maybe if he hadn’t, maybe if they’d both tried to get to Toad – and that was stupid, was a stupid line of reasoning. They hadn’t worked together; Dean had held Sam back; their dad had underestimated what was going on; Dean hadn’t made Sam’s case well enough or soon enough.

And how did you return from this? How could you possibly say sorry for what had happened?

John had already been through the bathroom; he’d left a single roll of toilet paper and the shower curtain, but that was about it. Dean leaned forward on the closed toilet seat, wished for a towel to wrap the peas in, because cold against skin eventually began to burn.

Sam had gone out to pick up coffee. The only reason Dean knew this was that he’d seen Sam rattle the empty carafe on its burner, check the stripped fridge, the apartment’s mismatched thrift store coffee mugs still in the cupboard. Rifled through his wallet, checking his cash.

Outside the cheap hollow door, Dean heard footsteps, their dad by the weight and the gait of them, heading for his adjacent room. Then fiddling with the knob of the police scanner; maybe he didn’t know Dean was in here, was close enough to hear. Dean noticed that he’d waited until Sam was out. Heard the scanner’s crackle and hiss, pressed the peas to his neck where they burned like liquid nitrogen. Somewhat experimentally, he tried to swallow, but it was still too sore.

As he stood up to spit in the sink, he looked in the mirror, wanting to see how bad it was; it didn’t look nearly as bad as it felt, was only a smear of mauve and sickly yellow, mottled like a Chinese watercolor. The damage was deeper and it didn’t show.

He pressed the peas against the hurt again, wincing. In the next room, John must have adjusted the knob to get a clearer signal, because for a moment Dean could hear perfectly: yeah, not getting anything…you sure it’s the kid’s shoe?…whirlpool rapids, bringing the boat around, but we’re not gonna find...No, maybe try the rocks, between the…better keep the press…yeah, I know it’s a kid…can you call it in or what? I don’t see any sign of the…

Last night, after they’d gone back to the parking lot, no sign of Sam, John had been stoney, unapproachable, and Dean, nursing what he hoped wasn’t a crushed larynx, nursing a deep seated and all-encompassing dread, had slumped against the passenger-side window of the truck’s cab, nostrils wide to take in the combined scent of defeat and cold water.

On the way home, John had suddenly pulled over, agitated and unspeaking, had almost taken out a phone booth beside the highway, jumping out like he’d spotted something to kill, and then picked up the receiver, dialed 9-1-1 and reported seeing a jumper. For the first time in his life, Dean, window open a crack to the fresh night air, hadn’t recognized his dad’s voice.

They wouldn’t find Toad’s body, of course. It had been taken by the god, or the Snake, or whatever power moved in the water. Property of the divine, now, a willing sacrifice, what the god had required. Dean had known immediately that it had worked. Running towards Toad, that moment when his father had yanked him back with a word, what had he been trying to do? Save Toad? Or something else? Over over over. Then the shocking silence. From the moment he’d dragged himself to his hands and knees, his breath barking noisily through the most amazing pain in his throat, he’d known. Toad had done it, had taken the theory, put it to the test. Had believed enough for all of them.

Glory.

Someone should tell Toad’s mother that it hadn’t been suicide, not really, that it had been more like a soldier’s death, taking an impossible hill against impossible odds and falling in the process. Sacrifice. Someone should tell her.

Without thinking, he tried to swallow but coughed instead, face screwing up in pain. He opened the door, heading for the kitchen, tossed the peas into the freezer, a housewarming gift for the next tenants: Welcome to Niagara Falls. He was both exhausted and keyed up, ears ringing unpleasantly, needing sleep, needing respite. Needing to get the fuck out of here.

He looked into his dad’s bedroom; the door was open. He could still hear the police scanner crackling away. John, sitting on the bed, his head bent into both hands like he’d banged his skull against something unyielding, reached out and slowly turned it off, like movement cost money today. Dean licked his lips, wanted to say something. He opened his mouth and a little croak came out, lancing heat up and down his neck. He grimaced and John looked up in that second, met Dean’s eyes. No disguising any of it, for either of them. Just a shared look, a moment of complicit misery.

Dean tapped the doorframe with an open hand, surveyed the room as though he was casting about for things to carry out. John sighed, gut-weary, ran a hand over his head, and then let it drop to his knee. The room was pretty much empty. An open canvas bag beside the scanner; John was already packing up the unit, dropped in there beside papers and his journal, a few folded shirts.

Other than towels and pillows, there wasn’t much to decide about: two vehicles this time, though. That was new. How to divide the stuff? How much should they bring?

What was the fucking point in bringing anything?

The door slammed and Sam was back, a single cup of coffee in his hand, just one more of his many ways of saying ‘fuck you’ loud and clear. Get your own damn coffee. Dean turned from the doorway to his dad’s room, came into the kitchen, meeting Sam’s stare. It wasn’t just anger he saw there, it was bigger and deeper and so fucking vast that he could barely register it, let alone understand it.

The weapons were already stowed, all that was left were clothes and towels, pillows and blankets. The soft things, nothing that mattered. Sam crossed the room, went into the bedroom, came back out with a duffle and a stack of books – Golding and Spanish and three school binders overflowing with notes. He proceeded to the large garbage bin Dean had dragged up from the alley, the one that stank of animal urine and rotten vegetables, and chucked the books in, all of them.

It was at this point that Dean had to turn away, had to suddenly wipe his face with his hand, because it was too much. They’d done this too many times, it wasn’t getting any easier, and this time took the fucking cake. He was at the sink, so he ran the tap, got a plastic cup from the shelf, poured himself some water, swished it around in his mouth. Let a little trickle down his throat, still too difficult to swallow. He spat it out, dumped the cup, splashed some water on his face with one hand, rubbed it through his hair.

He was ready to go, just wanted to get the Impala on the road and drive like there was no tomorrow, head south, maybe, get to the Gulf of Mexico, lie out in the sun like a cold-blooded beast, because he was cold inside for all that it was early June.

Sam was considering his duffle bag like he was wondering if it would fit in the bin as well. He glanced at Dean and took a hit of caffeine, jaw working.

John came out of his bedroom, a bag over his shoulder. He had a map in one hand; he’d already made a series of phone calls – the school, telling them that Sam was taking summer vacation early, giving them Pastor Jim’s address for any correspondence. Mail his diploma there, yes please. A call to Mr. Lum, telling him they were leaving and that they weren’t looking for a refund on the remainder of the month’s rent. Canceled the phone; Dean didn’t even remember what name Dad had used this time. One call to Pastor Jim himself, and that had been brief to the point of rude, even for famously taciturn John Winchester.

John put down his bag, unfolded the map and manhandled it flat onto the kitchen table. He glanced up at Dean who saw everything that was going on in those dark eyes, all of it; he knew his dad better than anyone. No surprise how much harder John seemed now that Sam was back in the room. He had to be, the armor was necessary because Sam had weapons, but Dean had seen what it covered.

“We can make it to North Carolina by tonight, if we leave soon.” He didn’t look up and Dean came to his shoulder, peered over it to see the line John was describing with his finger, running all the way down the Mississippi. “After that, head south to the Delta.” Right to the Gulf of Mexico and Dean wondered if his dad knew him equally well, or if they were just similar in ways he was only beginning to guess.

Dean wasn’t paying attention to the actual route, really, only concentrating on being quiet, so he heard it. The breath Sam took as though he was crossing over an invisible line, was about to make a goddamn speech.

Only one word, though. The one that had been his first, actually. One of Dean’s earliest memories: Sam in his high chair, not yet one, Dean trying to feed him mashed bananas, Sam shaking his head, mouth clamped shut until forced to state his case.

“No.”

Both Dean and John looked up from the map at the same time. Sam stood between the table and the door, the bag on his shoulder, jacket and Converse All-Stars on, ready to go.

Ready to go.

“No?” John repeated, nothing of weight to it, just a sound.

Dean wasn’t surprised, he realized with a dead feeling in his chest. He took a step back from that table so that he could see both of them at the same time, had the terrible premonition that it would be a long time before they all were going to be in the same room again.

“I mean, no, I’m not going to North Carolina. Not going to Mississippi.”

Like the room was full of flammable gas and Sam was standing with a box of matches. Dean’s hands were on the back of the chair, gripping it like he was hanging over the edge of a cliff.

John shifted his stance in the way he usually did before he threw a punch. Ready. Ready to go, both of them.

John laughed, a little cautious. Curious. Calculating. “Well, where are we going, then?” Giving the pretence of allowing Sam input. Actually taunting him with a whole lot of rope. Dean recognized it; he wondered if Sam did too.

Dean saw the swallow his brother took, saw the way his empty hand hung by his side, saw that it shook a little. “I don’t have a fucking clue where you’re going, Dad. Never have. But I’m not going with you.” He shook his head emphatically, eyes hard and steady. Just one look at that hand, though. That told the story.

John came around the table, and Dean adjusted his position minutely, didn’t know what he’d have to do, didn’t know how to fucking stop this, it was like a huge wave, an avalanche. Unavoidable. Holding back the deluge with nothing but his bare hands.

“This about school, Sam? Because I think you’re done. They’ll forward your diploma to Pas-”

Sam was laughing, hard and lethal, jagged as a busted window. “I don’t give a shit about school. This isn’t about school. This is about you.”

Wound up and let loose like one of those toys, his string had been pulled and there was no way Dean could make Sam shut up. Even so, Dean opened his mouth, had a lifetime’s worth of platitudes, the ‘it’s gonna be all right’s, the ‘we’ll figure it out’s, the marching Sam out the door and telling Dad to cool off over his shoulder.

That’s what you did with kids. Sam stood there, a kid, always a kid, but now grown up and separate in a way that Dean immediately apprehended, but didn’t comprehend. “C’mon,” came out like cement sliding down a metal chute, full of vibration and grit, but neither brother nor father looked his way.

“About me, is it? You think I wanted this to happen?”

Sam had a smile big as the state of Texas, and he could make you feel like a million bucks with it, or use it to club you senseless. He wielded it now, bitter and huge and it brought John’s sudden forward movement to a halt. Dean hadn’t realized he’d moved to get in between them until he needed to take a step back so Sam wouldn’t crowd him.

“You didn’t do anything to prevent it. All you wanted was that goddamned demon. Shit, even if there’d been a demon – which there wasn’t, but hell, why listen to me after all – even if there’d been one, do you think the price was worth it? A kid’s life? My friend’s life?” His face screwed up and the smile faded. “How could you?”

It was like a slap in the face and John’s mouth twitched, then hardened into a sharp line.

“I was trying to save lives. That’s what we do, Sam.”

“Well, great fucking work, Dad.” A hiss, viperous. It was already ugly; it was about to get brutal.

“So what now, Sammy?” That terrible chuckle, part broken glass, part rolling dice. “You’re going to stay here? Get a job at Mr. Lum’s store? Sell a few vegetables?”

Sam’s smile was back. It was an awful weapon to have at your disposal. “Not that I expect you to understand, but I have options. No thanks to you.”

Dean backed up against the wall, understanding that they didn’t see him anymore. It was like being a ghost in his own family.

John’s turn to smile, big and ugly. “Like what? What are your options, boy?”

Sam shook his head. “This is fucked up, Dad. Who the hell does this shit? This chasing around ghosts and demons and dead things? Raising us like wild animals. It’s not right.” He was flushed, and Dean had some sense of how much Sam had been holding back, holding in, how badly he needed to say all this. Sam’s voice dug deep, like he was in a tug of war and wasn’t about to lose ground. “And I don’t want any part of it.”

Sam hefted the bag to a more comfortable position, or maybe just needed to move, but it allowed John a sliver of time to marshal his own arsenal, which was not, in the end, inconsiderable.

“You think I wanted this for you?” Soft, cold, snowflakes in a nuclear winter. Radioactive. Poison. “You think this is what your mother and I talked about when you were born? She was protecting you. It’s the least we can do.”

“What? It’s my fault she’s dead? Oh, that’s just great, Dad,” and Sam moved again, was getting closer to John. John took a step forward too, and that was all Dean needed.

He slipped between them and immediately felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, moving him out of the way. Dean held firm, expecting that. Sam was close on the other side and Dean kept his head down so he wouldn’t have to look at either of them, wouldn’t take an accidental blow to the jaw.

“Enough,” he rasped, barely audible, both hands pushing them away from the other.

Trouble was, Sam had such a long reach.

His arm came around Dean just as John was trying to get Dean to one side, the older man not even seeing Dean, Christ, just wanting whatever was between him and his bullheaded, disobedient son to get the hell out of his way. An obstacle, that’s what Dean was in this moment, nothing more.

Sam’s hand grabbed a handful of John’s shirt, which just made John come on stronger, and Dean was suddenly crushed as both rushed the other. He got his hands up, pushed firmly and both staggered back, all breathing hard.

John spoke first like it was his right. Maybe it was. His right to come out swinging, fuck things up first. “Sam, get your goddamned gear into the car. Give yourself some time to cool down. Do it now before I lose my temper.”

No smile now on Sam, all cold, standing straight as a tree so tall it was heartbreaking. Eyes obsidian dark, glittering. He shook his head, but was calm. Dean looked at his father, could see the thin veneer of control breaking. Watched his father’s face as he heard Sam’s voice, still calm, say the words: “I have a full scholarship to Stanford, Dad. I’m gone. I’m done with this.”

Dean turned slowly, literally unable to breathe, nothing moving inside him, not heart, not breath, not blood. Not able to think, let alone say anything. Done with this? This being family, this being them, together in their painful inconclusive way, this. Him. Dean was not separate from this, was just gray on graveyard gray, part of the same unwanted whole.

Sam wasn’t looking at Dean of course.

Every bit of his attention was fastened on their father, all that mattered.

“You walk out that door,” John whispered, “don’t you ever expect to walk back in.”

Sam smirked, but there were tears running down his face and the effect was more desolate than triumphant. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

Turned. Out the door. Just like that.

A long moment passed, Sam’s steps down the stairs echoing, then fading.

Dean stood perfectly motionless, looking at the door, at the impossibly empty door, then John came around him and slammed it shut. It rattled like distant thunder moving off the plain. John brushed past on the way to the window, knocking Dean’s shoulder, maybe by mistake, maybe wanting contact of some kind, a fist a shove, something, anything. Dean wondered if John knew, if he understood, what he’d done. Then his dad turned, hand scrubbing his face, eyes darting back and forth, almost panicked.

Oh, yeah. He knew.

Into his room for a few minutes to do god alone knew what. Hiding some reaction he couldn’t share with the world. With his son. The one who remained.

Dean couldn’t move, couldn’t go out the door, go to the window, couldn’t move a muscle. Didn’t know what to do, what could possibly make it better.

Then John was back out, still pale under the scruffy beard and wild hair. He grabbed Dean by both shoulders, turned him roughly to face him. His eyes were bright in the same way brass knuckles were bright. He’d conquered the panic, or at least relegated it to a backroom. “Dean,” he said clearly, like he was talking to an imbecile, “Dean, you haul his ass back here. I don’t care how you do it.”

What? Was he joking? Dean’s brows quirked together. John licked his lips, always more patient with Dean than anyone else, even now. “I mean it. He’ll listen to you. I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing, he’s just upset. We’re all upset.” A pause again, followed by a small shake to Dean’s shoulders that he knew his father was holding back on. John wanted to shake Dean so hard his teeth would break. “Go get him.”

Released, Dean nodded once, had been given a mission. A suicidal, foolish mission every bit as asinine as standing at the edge of the Falls waiting for a demon to appear, because Sam was at least as stubborn as John.

Sam had a scholarship to some college. He had a plan, had been working on this, had thought it through in that careful way of his, sizing up all the angles, working out the details, doing his research. There would be no talking him out of it, no repairing such extensive damage.

But what else could Dean do? Was he going to say no to his father? No to John when he was this angry, when Sam had done such a pitch perfect job at defying everything John had taught them, everything he valued? Raised us like wild animals. Maybe. Even so, John must have known full well how badly he’d fucked it up. How badly they’d fucked it up. They had done this together.

But once Dean closed the apartment door behind him, he leaned against it for a long while wondering how this flood could have taken them up so unawares. There was only a sea of chaos now, as far as the eye could see.

--

NFHS, 2006

Sam stared at Marcus Delindo, wondering what the hell to do now, because he’d never had any sway over this one, no control whatsoever. Marcus reminded Sam of every schoolyard bully he’d ever crossed paths with: intellectually dull, vindictive, able to find fault in the littlest thing. A miniscule sense of self-worth turned inside out.

“Marcus,” Sam breathed, trying not to show his surprise. His alarm.

“Mr. W.” Marcus held the gun a little more firmly, a half-smile on his face, sheen of sweat across his brow, staining the front of his t-shirt. He’d exerted himself killing his fellow classmates; it was hard work.

“So how does this end, Marcus?” Sam asked, mind moving beyond this encounter, because where the hell was Billy? In it together, certainly, Marcus only useful as an extension of Billy’s murderous hand.

“Dunno, Mr. W. Got some ideas, though.” And he brought the rifle up, almost an afterthought.

“Billy’s really got you wrapped around his finger, doesn’t he?” Sam licked his lips, hoped like hell the younger kids stayed in the closet with the broken science equipment because Marcus had blood all over him and didn’t seem at all inclined to stop now. “This wasn’t your idea.”

Marcus shrugged. He was taller than Sam, given to the dumpiness of too many bags of chips in front of the XBox. “Does it matter?”

Sam wondered about Marcus’s aim, his reflexes. He edged a little closer, kept his hands up. “Might to a jury.” He paused, both of them knowing that Marcus had no intention of going in front of a jury. That’s not how something like this ended. “I have some business in the gym.”

In the distance, beyond the cinderblock hallways and the banks of lockers and smashed windows, Sam heard sirens. An explosion. Screams, far away like a crowded college home crowd lamenting an interception.

Except not quite.

The muzzle of the gun came up and Sam tried to work out how fast he could get to Marcus, if he could knock the gun aside, and realized that he wasn’t magic after all. There was a bullet in there and it was going to move more quickly than Sam’s body could ever hope to duplicate.

The gunshot, when it came, was so loud Sam thought he’d gone deaf. His body turned away reflexively, ears pounding, a flash of white as he closed his eyes, trying not to fall, trying to keep his feet –

He uncoiled to a stand, saw Marcus splayed on the corridor, a bright spray of blood across the lockers – painted orange in this section of the school – and pooling beneath him, one hand twitching, his head twisted to an angle that defied Sam’s inspection. Misunderstood little fuck, all of eighteen and what did you know of world but this? Smell of spent gunpowder amazing. Sam turned slowly, not knowing if Dean would even care about killing a kid, not in the shape he was in, and not a kid that had a gun trained on Sam.

But it wasn’t Dean; it was Billy.

He wore an army-style jacket, pockets bulging ominously, the tight cigarette leg jeans hitched high, cutting into him, black t-shirt too tight, a rifle slung over one shoulder. He cradled a handgun against his chest; maybe the recoil had hurt his wrist, big gun like that. His eyes settled blankly on Sam.

“He was going to kill you, the stupid asshole,” Billy said.

Sam swallowed. “So it would seem.” He listened carefully, couldn’t hear the kids in the closet, but his ears were still buzzing from the blast. “What now?” Fear sizzled through every nerve ending, not for himself, really, but for all the rest of them. Billy was armed to the teeth, but Sam had gone against worse in his lifetime. Hell, over the last month he’d fought five or six things that were more deadly than a hormonally-charged kid with a rifle. Had his own weapon handy, mind you. Still, just a kid.

“The man with the yellow eyes says you’re one of us.”

Yeah, except for that, okay.

Sam looked over his shoulder, back to Marcus. He should help him; maybe he wasn’t dead. “I’m going to check Marcus now,” he said and Billy pointed the handgun and put a single shot in the back of Marcus’s head. Sam flinched, blood misting on his pant legs.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Billy replied. “C’mon, I got something to show you.”

Sam didn’t move, just blinked, heart going like it had forgotten all the rules. “The yellow-eyed man tell you to do this?”

Billy shrugged, a small grin tugging one side of his mouth. Shook hair out of his eyes. “Nah. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Planning it out. Takes planning, you know?” He looked at Sam, really hard. “You know about planning, right? That’s what you’re good at, he says. Thinking a bunch of moves ahead, making sure you got everything you need before doing what has to be done.” He seemed really impressed with that, leaving Sam gulping for air. “I have no idea what you’re thinking. You know how weird that is?”

Sam brought his hands down, looked back at Marcus. “I have some idea. What else did the yellow-eyed man tell you?”

“Bring you to the gym. That you’d …” and here he stopped, faltered, not understanding. “He said you’d save me.”

Fuck.

“He said that?” Sam asked.

Billy nodded. “If I cleared everyone away from you. That you’d shine. That you’d save me.”

“You need saving, Billy?” What else did he say? Marcus’s rifle had come to a rest beside the lockers, nearer to Sam than to Billy. He tried not to look at it, because even though Billy might not be able to read his mind, he wasn’t a dummy. But still – keep him talking, not so much to get away now. Not so much to rescue the rest. But because Billy knew. All the children like you.

The kid shrugged, looked for all the world like he was any bored teen, except for the slight gleam in his usually disinterested eyes. It spoke of need, of something that Billy was trying hard not to show, to acknowledge.

It mattered, of course, knowing what was going on in the yellow-eyed demon’s head. But other things? They mattered more and Sam knew it. Take charge of the situation, Sammy. Any way you can.

“I do what he says-”

“Think for yourself, Billy.” Sam interrupted, causing Billy to blink in surprise. Not used to being interrupted when he had a rifle in his hand. “Take a fucking stand.”

A calculated risk, of course, a complicated set of weights and balances.

But it didn’t add up the way Sam wanted it to: Billy brought the handgun up, pointing it at Sam, crossed the corridor, stepping over Marcus’s blood. He bent to retrieve the fallen rifle, gun on Sam the whole time. “This isn’t enough of a stand for you, Mr. W?” he asked, straightening, perhaps running through his own array of complex equations.

Billy continued, “He said you might need saving as well.” He casually waved the gun at Marcus again. “Maybe Marcus wasn’t what you need saving from after all.” He glanced up through greasy hair. “Maybe you need saving from yourself. C’mon. I got them all down in the gym. Let’s go.” He got behind Sam, prodded him with the rifle. “This is gonna be fun. I promise.”

--

Niagara Falls NY, June 8, 2001

By the time Dean got out to the Impala, Sam was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t waste too much time, because there was only one destination that Sam could possibly be heading for if he was serious.

Dean had no doubt Sam was serious. Sam was as fucking serious as a bullet to the head. Dean only had a vague sense of where the bus station was, even after living here eight months, so he circled a couple of blocks, trying not to think logically about ‘routes’ and ‘headspace’, just going on gut.

Sam wasn’t difficult to spot with the height and the ramrod-straight walk like half the vertebrae in his spine had fused. A residential street lined with sycamore and maple, radiant green in the sun, uneven sidewalk making an imperfect surface for children to play. Didn’t stop them, though. Sam leapt to the side and a posse of kids with training wheels whistled past, then he half-turned, maybe hearing the Impala.

Sam was mad, not stupid. He wasn’t going to outrun Dean in the car. So he stopped, put the bag down, and Dean could tell he was chewing the inside of his mouth, not looking forward to what came next.

Dean pulled over to the curb, reached across the seat and unrolled the passenger window. Sam didn’t move from the sidewalk.

“Sam,” Dean called softly forcing a ragged cough, which he covered with a hand. He watched Sam take a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling, his jacket jammed between the straps of the duffle bag, a warm day already. Sam looked away, then took a few steps on the grass verge, stood for a moment at the window and all Dean could see were skinny hips and torso, a t-shirt once army green now some weird gray from being washed so many times, soft as a chamois. Then Sam, as he leaned in.

“What?” he asked, voice low, curt.

Dean rolled his shoulders, looked away, wished he had his voice now. He could do things with it, his voice, he knew. Could cajole, sweet-talk, soothe. Reminded himself: There’s no coming back from this. He’s made up his mind. No fucking wonder, either.

“Get in,” Dean croaked.

Sam sighed, stroked the doorframe with the fingers of one hand. “I’m not going back.” But that was resignation, that wasn’t anger. Worse, really.

Dean couldn’t look at him. “I know,” he agreed, nodding, slid one hand across his mouth, muffling his thrashed voice. “Bus?” Raised his eyebrows.

Everything was circling round, new leaves, sunlight, kids on bikes, chalk games sketched temporarily on pavement, the ephemera of full spring. Dean had the disconcerting realization that all this would pass, all these things. And still the Falls would thunder on as they always had. Quiet now, and distant, sated perhaps, but present in a way nothing else was.

Especially not Sam, who picked up his bag as though it was loaded with cannonballs, the door creaking open, then slammed shut, and Dean just kept on looking at him, couldn’t stop, had to take his fill. He gave Sam the sort of look that could prompt the childish provocation, ‘why don’t you take a picture?’ And Dean would have, maybe, if he’d had a camera. But photography wouldn’t halt anything, was just light and chemicals, nothing more permanent than what was here and now, so what did it matter?

Sam accepted the long look. Returned it. Finally, though, he’d had enough. “Two blocks that way,” and Sam jerked his nose to the east. “Just drop me off.”

Dean turned the key in the ignition, world still reeling, nothing solid. “D’you-” and tried to clear his throat. No fucking way was he going to let Sam know how much this hurt, how much any of this hurt. “Do you need money?”

Sam looked away, shaking his head. “No. I don’t need money.” Sam wouldn’t, of course, would have worked through the details of how he was financing everything. Dean wondered when Sam would have left if Toad hadn’t died, if they’d have had a summer together, if it would have ended with something different than Dad and his darkened doorstep.

Probably not, John being how he was.

Sam fidgeted a little with the strap of his bag and Dean could tell he wanted to ask something, but couldn’t think of a way to do it gracefully, keep his pride intact. So Dean pulled away from the curb and no matter how slowly he drove, two blocks was no distance at all.

“Sam,” Dean started, hoping to get him going. Fuck, why the hell was he hoping for anything? It was impossible. “Sam, he didn’t …”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” and the sun hurt it was so bright. Without looking, Dean knew Sam was crying and sometimes that drove him crazy, and sometimes it made him cave, and today he just didn’t know what to do with it.

The depot was typical of nondescript bus terminals across the country, barely holding itself together with paint and patched concrete. Travelers milled about outside in the sunshine; more movement inside through the open double doors and the large plate glass windows. A large mural on the outside wall cheerily depicted the Falls, a happy painted guy in a barrel waving from one corner. As Dean found an angled parking spot outside a row of vending machines, he was glad he hadn’t actually seen Toad go over because seeing something like that would ruin you for life.

He hadn’t been able to protect Sam from that.

He cut the engine, swallowed, forcing it down past the pain. He would get through this. They would all get through this, one way or another.

“We could keep driving,” Sam whispered suddenly, voice heavy and liquid with tears, drawing his brother’s gaze. “The two of us. Gas up and drive all the way to California.”

They were looking at each other and Dean knew exactly what Sam was saying, knew what he meant, that they didn’t have to do this, that they didn’t have to live like this, that there were roads still open to them.

It was more tempting than Sam probably knew, but it was only a dream, like everything else today, the sunlight and leaves and whirling sky.

Slowly, Dean shook his head, but Sam had already looked away, that bitter smile pulling dimples on one side, one hand tapping his jeaned thigh.

“Forget it.” The other hand on the chrome door handle, and this is it, Dean thought, you get out now and everything changes forever.

But it had already happened, wasn’t a sudden abrupt end of an era, really, other than the sucking void of Sam’s impending absence, which was so close now Dean could feel it opening in him like a wound. The lack of Sam. But Sam’s leaving had been gradual, had happened over months, was so incremental it had occurred in geologic time, a wearing away of the ties that bound.

All this now was only the snapping break of the final frayed bindings; at the most basic level, the worn bindings held together elements already separate and apart. Sam had known it long before Dean, and playing catch up was never a game Dean enjoyed.

“Hey,” Dean said. Took a deep breath, braced for the pain of talking because fuck it if this wasn’t important. “Be careful.”

Sam nodded once and pulled the handle, door creaking, up up and out, dragging the bag with him. He stood for a moment like he was going to say something else, but nothing came, not from either of them, and so Sam finally turned and walked into the bus station, merged with the other travelers like he belonged until Dean could no longer make him out through the windows or the doors.

Dean sat for a little while and when he was sure he was steady enough to drive without plowing the Impala into a parked car, when he could see again, he slowly backed out, retraced his route, but it all was so different this time, a river that had changed its course, cutting new banks, utterly unfamiliar.

Not until he parked the car outside the Chinese grocery and saw his father’s black truck, boxes in the cab, did it occur to him what he would now have to do: climb the stairs and face his father’s abiding rage and disappointment. Alone.

John would be waiting and the anger would eventually turn to sorrow, maybe to guilt. And this would be it, this would be the new river, wherever it flowed.

--

NFHS, 2006

Those gunshots had been close; maybe the next wing, but certainly the same floor. Dean had already found three dead: two kids and someone who might have been a teacher, a big man, fat as Santa. Followed, more happily, by a half dozen kids huddled in an empty classroom that he’d had to use every ounce of persuasion to entice out. He’d made sure they’d taken the far stairwell, where Dean was pretty sure the sniper couldn’t get to them.

They hadn’t asked about his armaments, about who the hell Dean was, how he’d gotten inside. Once he’d heard them leaving through the double doors on the ground level, he’d kicked himself. The gym. He should have asked which way the fucking gym was.

Shit.

Then the first gunshot, close. Followed after a length by another shot. Handgun, not rifle. Dean had the Glock out, rifle held loosely in his left hand. He pressed against the lockers – he was in the orange zone, apparently – and slid along to a T in the corridor maze.

Just before he got there he passed a closed door with a wire-mesh reinforced window. He glanced in and saw a row of pale faces staring back at him. Deep breath. He held up one finger to his lips then gestured that he was going in the direction of the T juncture. He wasn’t looking for agreement, just letting them know what he was up to, making sure they didn’t start shrieking.

He emptied his mind of everything, just listened, heard nothing, moved on silent feet to the corner. Looking down at the floor, he saw blood, progressing like a stately river. The floor was uneven, and the blood was heading for lower ground, just like any liquid given tilt. Deep breath, gun good to go, peeked around the corner, got ready to have his head blown off.

One body, a big kid, on the ground, categorically dead because a gunshot to the back of the head didn’t leave much room for speculation.

Nothing else, though.

He came back to the closet, opened the door and said softly, “Okay, what went down out there?” They all started talking at once and three of them started wailing. Shit, great crisis line counselor voice, Winchester. He waved a hand around, universal gesture for shut the fuck up. Pointed. “You. Tell me.”

A tall skinny girl, maybe fourteen, looked like she could handle herself when everything went to hell in a handbasket. Wasn’t crying and hadn’t wet herself, anyway. “Mr. Winchester told us to stay in here until it was safe.”

“Where is he now?” he asked carefully, trying not to anticipate the answer.

The girl cocked her head to the side. “He didn’t come back. There were two gunshots. Voices.”

“You recognize the voices?”

“Only Mr. Winchester. I didn’t recognize the other ones, but they sounded like students. Someone said they were going to the gym.”

Dean nodded, already looking around for the quickest way out, preferably a route that didn’t take them past the corpse in the hallway because shit like that just freaked people out. “Okay. Follow me.” The students looked at each other in surprise.

“But Mr. Winchester said…”

Dean rolled his eyes and swore at them. They startled badly, scared, but took his direction. They’re just kids, he reminded himself. He herded them to the far stairwell, hoped it was still safe. Before she disappeared through the doors, Dean grabbed the tall girl’s arm. “Which way’s the gym?” he remembered to ask. Goddamned school and its corridors.

She thought about it, blinked, then stammered, “Down this hall all the way to the end. Go left, then a quick right. Stairwell A. Go all the way to the basement and turn left. No, right. Past the drinking fountain. You can get into the gym through the locker rooms at the end of the hall.”

Great. Down the fucking bunny hole. He nodded and told them to go fast, keep running till they found the cops. As he turned away, it occurred to him that the cops would kill him just as easily as Billy would.

He didn’t find any other students as he went, thank god. You never got used to seeing dead kids, he thought for the second time this day. His morning had started with a dead child, Billy’s sister. He’d seen a lot more now. Maybe it hadn’t ended yet. He had to stop, then. Right in the middle of the corridor, leaning against the fucking orange lockers, face screwing up, hating this. Like some kinda nightmare, wandering school hallways, lost, looking for Sam, finding only bleeding children, a demon looming over all of it. And even further back: what had been on Billy’s computer screen. Local boy in Falls tragedy. And Sam going. Sam gone.

Dean pulled himself off the lockers, wiped sweat from his face; the furnace was going full-blast and it was hot in the school, maybe an administrative ploy to keep the kids sedated. What had the girl said? Stairwell A, to the bottom. Water fountain. Locker rooms.

He couldn’t find stairwell A. He found stairs marked B and already knew where C was. Found the D set. Where the fuck were the A ones? Orange lockers, then blue. Green. Then, the crack of a distant rifle, single shot and Dean’s breath caught. Phone.

He tried Sam again.

Where r u?

No answer. Fuckfuckfuck. Where the hell was stairwell A? Another gunshot and Dean thought he might go a little wild, might hit something, felt every molecule in him straining for a fight.

Turned a corner and there, laying on the floor like a child making a snow angel, was the second blonde girl from the Cayman beach, gold hair haloed out from her, gray eyes to the sputtering fluorescent light on the ceiling. Perfect hole right in the middle of her forehead.

Dean stood still for a moment, just looking, all sensation slipping away like sand through fingers.

Then, something gave in him, a wall that had been slowly worn away from one side, just crumbled, and he leaned heavily against the wall, slid slowly down until he was sitting on his heels, staring at Billy’s sister who had not escaped after all, who had found an ending at her brother’s hands despite Dean’s hope otherwise.

The breached wall did not release rage, or fear. Its fall set loose something else that Dean had been keeping close for too long, ever since John had coded on a hospital bed. And though he had business, had lives to save, it was still a good five minutes before Dean could take his eyes from her and lift them to the door beyond, which was marked.

A large vinyl sign: black san serif A in a white circle. Stairs beyond.

Dean finally named what filled him, identified it and tapped it easily as fury, which had masked it. Grief. He tried to put it away and it almost fit, but not quite, because it was huge and thrashing and it had a taproot in him that went straight down.

It’ll have to do, he thought hollowly, getting to his feet and stepping over Billy’s sister, pushing the door open and taking the stairs. As he ran three floors down, right into the bowels of the building, Dean slid the safety off the Glock. It was open season now.

--

TBC

Read the final chapter: Over, Over, Over


-