SpN fic:Tail Gunner part 5 /5
6/21/07 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roxyTitle: Tail Gunner
Fandom: SpN
Pairing:
Rating:3
Summary: some people are born soldiers, some are made into soldiers.
All previous parts of Tail Gunner here.
Dean walked along the main road in town. Milk, cereal, bread, and a couple of candy bars because Sam liked chocolate, weighed down the plastic bags bumping against his legs. He was wincing against the glare of the sun, harsh light bouncing from the white concrete and into his eyes, blinding him. He blinked hard once or twice—stopped and listened closely until he could see again. Habit.
He heard Sam's voice. Sam's and another, talking together.
Across a green postage stamp of public land, he caught sight of Sam and the priest talking together; their voices were lower now, too low to be heard. Dean could pick up the distant chug of traffic and the bickering of sparrows, other voices floated in the air but not Sam's. This was a private conversation. He saw how curved in Sam was, bent over his words, how hard the other was listening. More than private—it was a secret conversation.
Dean's eyes narrowed. He wasn't sure he liked that at all.
******
In the evening, they worked quietly together to make dinner. Dean chopped onions and peppers and Sam dumped a can of tomato sauce into a pot.
Sam backed up, letting Dean squeeze in to the stove so he could scrape the onions and peppers into the pot. Dean handed him the cutting board and moved behind Sam. "So what were you talking to Father Patrick about?"
Sam looked surprised, and not at all happy. "You followed me?" He dropped hamburger into the cooking onions, stirred it. He wiped the board down and tossed it onto the table.
"Don’t be stupid. I just happened to catch you…I didn’t try to find you. It's just…here." He handed Sam the salt and pepper.
"Don’t worry. We weren't talking about the—the—what we do. We were just talking." Sam shook the spices into the pot and watched it for a minute. It was obvious that he was avoiding Dean's eyes. "About other kinds of stuff."
"Sam, you know you can talk to me about…about girls, or anything, if you want."
Sam's head jerked up. "Girls? Oh…sure. Thanks. I know that." He blushed hard, and turned back to the stove. "Gimme the spaghetti, the water's boiling."
Dean handed him the spaghetti, and watched Sammy drop it by handfuls into the roiling water, his concentration as complete as if he were…conjuring some spirit or something. He leaned against him a little. He noticed that he couldn't rest his chin on Sam's head anymore; he rested it on his shoulder. "So…do you want to talk bout it? Girls, I mean?"
"Um…if you’re asking me do I know about sex, yes, I do. And birth control, and safe sex and everything, okay? I can probably school you, dude."
Sam smirked, but he was a ferocious red, from forehead down. Dean pulled away, momentarily furious with jealously. Sam probably could…he turned the move into a gentle shove, and managed to laugh. "Bitch-face."
Sam ducked his head and grinned. "Yeah—jerk-off."
******
It was nearly Halloween before Dad came back and this time he brought something with him, something that crawled under his skin, fluttered in his eyes…he watched them, but what worried Dean more was that he watched *Sam* all the time. Out of the corner of his eye, from a distance. With naked speculation on his face, he watched him. Dean circled between the two of them and saw that Sam misunderstood—misread the attention. Sam could be so blind; it really pissed him off sometimes. Sam blocked anything he didn't want to see, and it was up to Dean to protect him from his blind spots.
They decorated the house, just like the others in the neighborhood. So what if hidden between the big plastic pumpkins and grinning black cats there were real signs of protection? So what if tucked in the dried stalks of corn were bundles of holly and bay leaves?
So what if Dean watched Sammy do that and just shook his head? Poor fool—so busy protecting them from something that only went bump in the night of a crazy person's mind. What really mattered was the monster on their doorstep; the one Sam really needed protection from. Dean was on the edge all the time. Since he'd come back from the last hunt, all Dad did was drink, silently and steadily. Dean worried--this was not a good sign. This was the type of drinking that just lead to…bad things. He was afraid he'd have to do something to head Dad off and he didn't want to but it was for Sam's sake…
Dad sat in the dark and drank and drank. He smelled of alcohol, sweat, the sweet-sour smell of unwashed, uncared for body. Every day, Dad slipped farther and farther away from them, struggling to move in a daze of drink and whatever it was that was dragging him down.
"Something must have gone horribly wrong," Sam whispered to Dean, late at night, when Dad finally passed out. "He must have lost someone; the hunt must have gone...."
Sam insisted they had to fix it in some way. He asked Dean what they could do to help and Dean could only shrug. He had his own ideas about what was wrong, and the solution that came to him over and over was the big hunting knife, wrapped in chamois and slid in between his mattress and box spring.
"Listen, Sammy, do me a favor and keep away from him. He'll hurt you if you don't."
Sam's eyes widened in outrage--"Dad would never hurt me. He'd never hurt us." His voice was full of betrayal, and Dean laughed. Sure. Not Dad.
"Oh yeah, he would and has. I'm warning you—begging you—keep away. And…and let me know if he. Touches you. Any kind of way."
"What the fuck? This is beginning to sound like some kind of good touch-bad touch thing here…Dean. Are you okay?" Sam's expression shifted from outrage to worry and…and pity. "Dean, are you mad that Dad finally wants to spend time with me—he loves you, you know that--"
"Jesus. Look. Dad…Dad…does things. Wrong things sometimes. I just. I'm just trying to protect you." As soon as he said it he knew—that was precisely the thing to say to trigger Sam's stubborn streak.
"I don't need you to protect me. You're jealous, or something. You want to make problems—why? Why are you lying?" Sam was angry now, seriously angry, and he had that set to his jaw that promised trouble.
"No, I'm trying to keep you safe--"
"You've always come between me and Dad and now that he's making an effort to get to know me, you make it seem wrong. He's hurting and you're not trying to help. You're sick, Dean. Something's really wrong with you." Sam ran out of the room, and Dean let him, fuck—he could get mad too, damn it--and worst of all, he felt hurt, hurt and angry enough to let Sam take off without protection.
When Dean finally did fall asleep that night, he tumbled in and out of dreams—nightmares in which Sam died gruesomely, or killed him in horrible ways, or fucked him--in some of them, Sam and Dad took turns-- in every nightmare there was blood and there was fire and death and he screamed and screamed….
Dean jerked awake.
That--that *was* a scream—"Sam?"
He jumped to his feet and ran to Sam's room, found it empty. Dad's room was empty too and the truck was gone—none of their weapons were gone but that meant nothing, Dad had a hell of a lot of firepower in the truck—he boasted he could practically hold off a small army. Dean grabbed Sam's gun, and the knife under his bed, buckled the sawed-off to his hip and still felt he lacked firepower...he looked around wildly before gathering himself—get a fucking grip, he's just one man….
He grabbed the keys to the Impala and took off. Once out of the village, he took the roads that led up into the mountains. If something was about to jump off—if it was what he thought it was—then he was pretty sure he knew where Dad was headed. He could see it in his mind, clear as a vision.
A mile from the cabin they used to live in, he found the truck—doors open and keys still sitting in the ignition. Dad had no plans to come back, Dean could see that too.
The cabin was door wide, its rooms empty…there were signs of struggle, blood on the floor, a dusty, torn bed-sheet rumpled up and shoved nearly under the couch…
Dean ran, ran as fast as he could.
Up on the ridge, he sighted dim flickers of a campfire. He dashed through trees and scrub until he was nearly on a clearing, a small circle of grass surrounded by a stockade of thin trunked trees. The fire was small, the dim flickering light made the underbrush look black, made the tree-tops seem to meet over the circle of black and orange—he could see his dad, he was standing over something crouched on the ground in front of him.
Dean's heart stuttered, he drew in a shocked breath—for one terror-struck moment, he thought the thing in the dirt was actually a demon--
It was his brother. Sam was on his knees, naked, bleeding, his hands tied in front of him, staked out like bait. His eyes over the black smudged duct tape were wide and shocked and betrayed…innocence murdered.
"Dad!" He had the shotgun in one hand, Sam's Glock in the other…he shoved the shotgun in the holster, raised Sam's gun and centered on Dad. The gun wavered—he was afraid, so afraid—not of killing him, he was afraid he might miss....
"Dean—you get back, son. I have to do this." There was blood on Dad's shirt, his mouth. His hands were scratched and bleeding, his face. Dean experienced a weird feeling of...pride. He taught him good--Sammy was a tough little motherfucker….
Dad had an axe in his hand, a little utility axe, and he reached down and dragged Sam's head up with a fist locked in his hair. "Sacrifice...blood for blood. On the road here, it came to me—a voice told me, His voice--He's demanding proof of our conviction, He wants proof that we put the mission above everything." He looked down at Sam, shaking, quivering at his feet. "I explained it to the boy, and he still didn't understand, even after I tried to show him just how much I could love him..." His voice hardened, his eyes glittered like oil in the firelight. "Dean, we need to do this. What you don’t understand it that this boy was never really your brother—he belongs to them. He's not my flesh and blood…I know that now."
"Dad, let him go, okay? Let him go, and we'll all go back to the way it was. It'll be better, even. I'll do better, I'll…I'll learn to love it—I—I mean, more than I do now, I swear, I'll make you happy--" Dean babbled on, ignoring Sammy's head jerking in his direction, huge horrified eyes spilling over, tears running over the silver strip of tape. "Or—or take me instead, Dad, take me. My blood--"
Dad dropped the razor sharp edge of the axe across Sam's throat and a few drops of blood spattered the dry ground beneath him.
"No! You crazy murdering son-ofa-bitch! Let my brother go! He's the only thing in the world…" Dean's voice caught in his throat and he scrubbed at tears blurring his eyes. "Fuck. All I've ever loved…" He raised the gun, finger tightening on the trigger—"I'll kill you first."
He felt like he was hanging alone in space, surrounded by falling stars and fire, sealed in a bubble empty of time, and death was all around him, and he was about to kill, to protect his brother and he knew it was right, god damn it, the right fucking thing to do—a ferocious joy filled him and--
From the time he was five years old, he'd known that his life was hostage to a maniac who may or may not believe in what he did. The only thing Dean was certain of was that on that long ago night when the house burned and his mother died, he'd saved Sam and he was going to do it again. Fuck, he'd been doing it all Sam's life.
Simple.
--and his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a noise, and there was a rip in the world….
A black cloud boiled out of the hole torn in the world, right behind Dad, huge and black and reaching arms out in all directions and tendrils roiled out and swept up the blood under Sam and whipped back towards Dad.
Sam strained back on the tether holding him to the ground and even over the gag, Dean could hear him screaming.
"What--the fuck is going on?" He stood, his arms limp by his sides, finger off the trigger and the gun pointed at the ground…"The fuck?" He dropped the gun, fumbled the shot gun up, pointed at…whatever it was…hesitated again….
Dad turned to him and screamed, his eyes were full of blackness, his mouth—it took Dean a second to realize the blackness was blood and the smell of it was thick on the air--there were yellow eyes in the cloud, swarming like bees, yellow eyes and mouths, teeth--sharp, sharp teeth. Blood sprayed outward, things wet and warm hit them, and Dean could hear Sam screaming but not his dad, not anymore.
There was something standing in front of them…tall and oily black and maybe scaled, maybe feathered…onyx claws reached for Sammy, and the shot gun whipped up and Dean pulled the trigger, realized with a horrible sick sensation he had the shells loaded with fucking stupid worthless salt and was cursing because he'd dropped the fucking Glock, shot again because he had no idea what else to do—and the thing exploded. Shrieked, clawed the air and blew into shredded rags of black—the smell of burning flesh and sulfur filled his nose and mouth, clung to the inside of his throat before fading...
It was gone. Sammy was alive, and he was alive and Dad—Dad—
Dean cut Sam loose and tore the gag out of his mouth.
"God, Dean, Dean, did you see it? It was horrible, it killed him…oh God, Dean he's gone…"
Dean's world tipped and shattered. "Come on, come on, we have to get out of here, now--" before I lose my mind….
part b
Fandom: SpN
Pairing:
Rating:3
Summary: some people are born soldiers, some are made into soldiers.
All previous parts of Tail Gunner here.
Dean walked along the main road in town. Milk, cereal, bread, and a couple of candy bars because Sam liked chocolate, weighed down the plastic bags bumping against his legs. He was wincing against the glare of the sun, harsh light bouncing from the white concrete and into his eyes, blinding him. He blinked hard once or twice—stopped and listened closely until he could see again. Habit.
He heard Sam's voice. Sam's and another, talking together.
Across a green postage stamp of public land, he caught sight of Sam and the priest talking together; their voices were lower now, too low to be heard. Dean could pick up the distant chug of traffic and the bickering of sparrows, other voices floated in the air but not Sam's. This was a private conversation. He saw how curved in Sam was, bent over his words, how hard the other was listening. More than private—it was a secret conversation.
Dean's eyes narrowed. He wasn't sure he liked that at all.
In the evening, they worked quietly together to make dinner. Dean chopped onions and peppers and Sam dumped a can of tomato sauce into a pot.
Sam backed up, letting Dean squeeze in to the stove so he could scrape the onions and peppers into the pot. Dean handed him the cutting board and moved behind Sam. "So what were you talking to Father Patrick about?"
Sam looked surprised, and not at all happy. "You followed me?" He dropped hamburger into the cooking onions, stirred it. He wiped the board down and tossed it onto the table.
"Don’t be stupid. I just happened to catch you…I didn’t try to find you. It's just…here." He handed Sam the salt and pepper.
"Don’t worry. We weren't talking about the—the—what we do. We were just talking." Sam shook the spices into the pot and watched it for a minute. It was obvious that he was avoiding Dean's eyes. "About other kinds of stuff."
"Sam, you know you can talk to me about…about girls, or anything, if you want."
Sam's head jerked up. "Girls? Oh…sure. Thanks. I know that." He blushed hard, and turned back to the stove. "Gimme the spaghetti, the water's boiling."
Dean handed him the spaghetti, and watched Sammy drop it by handfuls into the roiling water, his concentration as complete as if he were…conjuring some spirit or something. He leaned against him a little. He noticed that he couldn't rest his chin on Sam's head anymore; he rested it on his shoulder. "So…do you want to talk bout it? Girls, I mean?"
"Um…if you’re asking me do I know about sex, yes, I do. And birth control, and safe sex and everything, okay? I can probably school you, dude."
Sam smirked, but he was a ferocious red, from forehead down. Dean pulled away, momentarily furious with jealously. Sam probably could…he turned the move into a gentle shove, and managed to laugh. "Bitch-face."
Sam ducked his head and grinned. "Yeah—jerk-off."
It was nearly Halloween before Dad came back and this time he brought something with him, something that crawled under his skin, fluttered in his eyes…he watched them, but what worried Dean more was that he watched *Sam* all the time. Out of the corner of his eye, from a distance. With naked speculation on his face, he watched him. Dean circled between the two of them and saw that Sam misunderstood—misread the attention. Sam could be so blind; it really pissed him off sometimes. Sam blocked anything he didn't want to see, and it was up to Dean to protect him from his blind spots.
They decorated the house, just like the others in the neighborhood. So what if hidden between the big plastic pumpkins and grinning black cats there were real signs of protection? So what if tucked in the dried stalks of corn were bundles of holly and bay leaves?
So what if Dean watched Sammy do that and just shook his head? Poor fool—so busy protecting them from something that only went bump in the night of a crazy person's mind. What really mattered was the monster on their doorstep; the one Sam really needed protection from. Dean was on the edge all the time. Since he'd come back from the last hunt, all Dad did was drink, silently and steadily. Dean worried--this was not a good sign. This was the type of drinking that just lead to…bad things. He was afraid he'd have to do something to head Dad off and he didn't want to but it was for Sam's sake…
Dad sat in the dark and drank and drank. He smelled of alcohol, sweat, the sweet-sour smell of unwashed, uncared for body. Every day, Dad slipped farther and farther away from them, struggling to move in a daze of drink and whatever it was that was dragging him down.
"Something must have gone horribly wrong," Sam whispered to Dean, late at night, when Dad finally passed out. "He must have lost someone; the hunt must have gone...."
Sam insisted they had to fix it in some way. He asked Dean what they could do to help and Dean could only shrug. He had his own ideas about what was wrong, and the solution that came to him over and over was the big hunting knife, wrapped in chamois and slid in between his mattress and box spring.
"Listen, Sammy, do me a favor and keep away from him. He'll hurt you if you don't."
Sam's eyes widened in outrage--"Dad would never hurt me. He'd never hurt us." His voice was full of betrayal, and Dean laughed. Sure. Not Dad.
"Oh yeah, he would and has. I'm warning you—begging you—keep away. And…and let me know if he. Touches you. Any kind of way."
"What the fuck? This is beginning to sound like some kind of good touch-bad touch thing here…Dean. Are you okay?" Sam's expression shifted from outrage to worry and…and pity. "Dean, are you mad that Dad finally wants to spend time with me—he loves you, you know that--"
"Jesus. Look. Dad…Dad…does things. Wrong things sometimes. I just. I'm just trying to protect you." As soon as he said it he knew—that was precisely the thing to say to trigger Sam's stubborn streak.
"I don't need you to protect me. You're jealous, or something. You want to make problems—why? Why are you lying?" Sam was angry now, seriously angry, and he had that set to his jaw that promised trouble.
"No, I'm trying to keep you safe--"
"You've always come between me and Dad and now that he's making an effort to get to know me, you make it seem wrong. He's hurting and you're not trying to help. You're sick, Dean. Something's really wrong with you." Sam ran out of the room, and Dean let him, fuck—he could get mad too, damn it--and worst of all, he felt hurt, hurt and angry enough to let Sam take off without protection.
When Dean finally did fall asleep that night, he tumbled in and out of dreams—nightmares in which Sam died gruesomely, or killed him in horrible ways, or fucked him--in some of them, Sam and Dad took turns-- in every nightmare there was blood and there was fire and death and he screamed and screamed….
Dean jerked awake.
That--that *was* a scream—"Sam?"
He jumped to his feet and ran to Sam's room, found it empty. Dad's room was empty too and the truck was gone—none of their weapons were gone but that meant nothing, Dad had a hell of a lot of firepower in the truck—he boasted he could practically hold off a small army. Dean grabbed Sam's gun, and the knife under his bed, buckled the sawed-off to his hip and still felt he lacked firepower...he looked around wildly before gathering himself—get a fucking grip, he's just one man….
He grabbed the keys to the Impala and took off. Once out of the village, he took the roads that led up into the mountains. If something was about to jump off—if it was what he thought it was—then he was pretty sure he knew where Dad was headed. He could see it in his mind, clear as a vision.
A mile from the cabin they used to live in, he found the truck—doors open and keys still sitting in the ignition. Dad had no plans to come back, Dean could see that too.
The cabin was door wide, its rooms empty…there were signs of struggle, blood on the floor, a dusty, torn bed-sheet rumpled up and shoved nearly under the couch…
Dean ran, ran as fast as he could.
Up on the ridge, he sighted dim flickers of a campfire. He dashed through trees and scrub until he was nearly on a clearing, a small circle of grass surrounded by a stockade of thin trunked trees. The fire was small, the dim flickering light made the underbrush look black, made the tree-tops seem to meet over the circle of black and orange—he could see his dad, he was standing over something crouched on the ground in front of him.
Dean's heart stuttered, he drew in a shocked breath—for one terror-struck moment, he thought the thing in the dirt was actually a demon--
It was his brother. Sam was on his knees, naked, bleeding, his hands tied in front of him, staked out like bait. His eyes over the black smudged duct tape were wide and shocked and betrayed…innocence murdered.
"Dad!" He had the shotgun in one hand, Sam's Glock in the other…he shoved the shotgun in the holster, raised Sam's gun and centered on Dad. The gun wavered—he was afraid, so afraid—not of killing him, he was afraid he might miss....
"Dean—you get back, son. I have to do this." There was blood on Dad's shirt, his mouth. His hands were scratched and bleeding, his face. Dean experienced a weird feeling of...pride. He taught him good--Sammy was a tough little motherfucker….
Dad had an axe in his hand, a little utility axe, and he reached down and dragged Sam's head up with a fist locked in his hair. "Sacrifice...blood for blood. On the road here, it came to me—a voice told me, His voice--He's demanding proof of our conviction, He wants proof that we put the mission above everything." He looked down at Sam, shaking, quivering at his feet. "I explained it to the boy, and he still didn't understand, even after I tried to show him just how much I could love him..." His voice hardened, his eyes glittered like oil in the firelight. "Dean, we need to do this. What you don’t understand it that this boy was never really your brother—he belongs to them. He's not my flesh and blood…I know that now."
"Dad, let him go, okay? Let him go, and we'll all go back to the way it was. It'll be better, even. I'll do better, I'll…I'll learn to love it—I—I mean, more than I do now, I swear, I'll make you happy--" Dean babbled on, ignoring Sammy's head jerking in his direction, huge horrified eyes spilling over, tears running over the silver strip of tape. "Or—or take me instead, Dad, take me. My blood--"
Dad dropped the razor sharp edge of the axe across Sam's throat and a few drops of blood spattered the dry ground beneath him.
"No! You crazy murdering son-ofa-bitch! Let my brother go! He's the only thing in the world…" Dean's voice caught in his throat and he scrubbed at tears blurring his eyes. "Fuck. All I've ever loved…" He raised the gun, finger tightening on the trigger—"I'll kill you first."
He felt like he was hanging alone in space, surrounded by falling stars and fire, sealed in a bubble empty of time, and death was all around him, and he was about to kill, to protect his brother and he knew it was right, god damn it, the right fucking thing to do—a ferocious joy filled him and--
From the time he was five years old, he'd known that his life was hostage to a maniac who may or may not believe in what he did. The only thing Dean was certain of was that on that long ago night when the house burned and his mother died, he'd saved Sam and he was going to do it again. Fuck, he'd been doing it all Sam's life.
Simple.
--and his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a noise, and there was a rip in the world….
A black cloud boiled out of the hole torn in the world, right behind Dad, huge and black and reaching arms out in all directions and tendrils roiled out and swept up the blood under Sam and whipped back towards Dad.
Sam strained back on the tether holding him to the ground and even over the gag, Dean could hear him screaming.
"What--the fuck is going on?" He stood, his arms limp by his sides, finger off the trigger and the gun pointed at the ground…"The fuck?" He dropped the gun, fumbled the shot gun up, pointed at…whatever it was…hesitated again….
Dad turned to him and screamed, his eyes were full of blackness, his mouth—it took Dean a second to realize the blackness was blood and the smell of it was thick on the air--there were yellow eyes in the cloud, swarming like bees, yellow eyes and mouths, teeth--sharp, sharp teeth. Blood sprayed outward, things wet and warm hit them, and Dean could hear Sam screaming but not his dad, not anymore.
There was something standing in front of them…tall and oily black and maybe scaled, maybe feathered…onyx claws reached for Sammy, and the shot gun whipped up and Dean pulled the trigger, realized with a horrible sick sensation he had the shells loaded with fucking stupid worthless salt and was cursing because he'd dropped the fucking Glock, shot again because he had no idea what else to do—and the thing exploded. Shrieked, clawed the air and blew into shredded rags of black—the smell of burning flesh and sulfur filled his nose and mouth, clung to the inside of his throat before fading...
It was gone. Sammy was alive, and he was alive and Dad—Dad—
Dean cut Sam loose and tore the gag out of his mouth.
"God, Dean, Dean, did you see it? It was horrible, it killed him…oh God, Dean he's gone…"
Dean's world tipped and shattered. "Come on, come on, we have to get out of here, now--" before I lose my mind….
part b
Tags:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
6/23/07 12:05 pm (UTC)