Dwarf Ankylosaur

Fic: Untitled Henricksen Snippet, PG-13

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 03:14:12 GMT

Circa Night Shifter, Henricksen muses on the Winchester brothers and the evidence at his disposal. He is, of course, so very, very wrong. 350 words.

Henricksen understands Dean Winchester. Deep down, Dean's just another pissed-off white guy, out to punish the world for not bowing down before him like Daddy and Pat Buchanan promised him it would. That's why he tried to destroy Zack, with his fancy college degree and his bright future. That's why he kills classy, educated women like and Becky Sanders and Jessica Moore, the kind who'd never give a guy like Dean a second glance unless he held a knife to their thoats and made them. Henricksen has nothing but contempt for men like Dean, all those selfish, vicious children in grown-up bodies, but he understands them, and sometimes, maybe, he pities them.
Sam's different. Sam's worse.
Sam hasn't been directly linked to any of the murders, and as far as Henricksen knows, he's never done anything but sit idly by as his brother tortured some poor woman to death. Henricksen can picture it far too clearly -- Sam on the sidelines, his own hands all white and clean, watching his brother work, maybe breathing a little faster as this week's girl bleeds out onto the carpet. He's seen Sam's interrogation tapes, all wide-eyed, earnest smugness, and he can see just how it's going to play out when they finally bring the Winchesters in: He made me do it, Officer, I thought he was going to kill me, thank God it's finally over. Sam thinks he's above it all, thinks he can get his thrills without paying the price. This is all a game to him. But it's not a game to Dean, and Henricksen knows something Sam doesn't know.
Thing is, Henricksen sees a pattern in the trail of bodies that maybe even Dean doesn't see. He knows why Dean slices up all those rich college boys. He knows why Dean's first kill was Jessica Moore, the perfect woman Sam won and Dean would never have a chance with. Dean's been dancing around what he really wants for a long time, but Henricksen knows what it is, even if Dean himself doesn't.
Part of Hendricksen hopes Dean figures it out before they catch him.

---

God, I so desperately want a story about the psycho Winchester Brothers the FBI is chasing, with in-depth exploration of their childhood and Sam's Stanford years and guest appearances by ParamilitaryNutjob!John. I may have to write it.

[fic] Three Blind Men and an Elephant (Sam/Dean, PG-13)

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:55:19 GMT

Title: Three Blind Men and an Elephant
Summary: John and Ellen and Bobby find out.
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG-13
Kindly betad by tigriswolf, who has the patience of a saint.
Author's Notes: Written for lizzypaul for the spn_holidays challenge. Concrit is, as always, welcome.

November, 2000

For once in his life, John got a lucky break, and the hunt that should have taken a week wound up taking three hours. He was finished and free to go home by evening. And, of course, that was a good thing. Of course.

He thought about going back to the library and trying to dig up a new hunt, but he'd already been through forty years of old newspapers, and a new case wasn't going to magically appear just because he stared at the front page long enough. He tried calling some contacts from the payphone outside the town hall, but Caleb was out and Bobby had nothing new. He had a sudden impulse to find a dark bar somewhere, drink slowly, let four o'clock turn into six turn into ten, like his life couldn't find him if he just stayed still enough and stared at the right spot on the bar top. He ignored it. He wasn't going to be that kind of man, not while his boys thought he was out saving the world. He turned the car home.

It was eight o'clock when he pulled into the driveway. The house was dark -- they were in this town until the end of Sam's school year, which meant they would actually have to pay the electric bill -- and quiet except for the sound of the shower running in the back.

Dean was out, then. He'd probably stumble back in at three in the morning as usual, bruised and disoriented and reeking of cheap alcohol and cheaper perfume. John'd tear him a new one, of course, but it was a relief to have at least one son he understood. He'd been a little wild himself at twenty. Maybe Dean was a little more reckless, maybe he got into more fights than John ever had, but he was acting out just like any normal kid. It was proof this life hadn't changed them all too much, no matter what Sam said.

John wandered to the kitchen and dug through the fridge, eventually settling on a grey sludge that might once have been sloppy joe mix. By the time he'd heated it up and made himself a cup of coffee, the shower had been running for over fifteen minutes. He didn't want to deal with Sam right then, but he couldn't let that go. Paying rent on this place was a strain on their budget as it was, and Sam needed to understand that, not just nod and agree and then run the hot water for half an hour behind John's back. He could have called through the door, or at least knocked -- Sam was almost certainly jerking off in there -- but he figured a little emotional trauma might be the one thing he needed to finally drive the point home, so he shoved the door open without warning.

Dean was standing naked under the shower, pressed back against the tiles, and Sam was wrapped around him like an amoeba digesting its lunch.

John slammed the door shut. Inside the bathroom he could hear the sound of the shower turning off, and, in the relative silence that followed, muffled swearing, bodies knocking into one another as they tried to climb out of the too-small shower, and the sound of someone taking deep, panicked breaths. That was Dean, probably, and he fucking *should* be scared, he should be--

John let go of the doorknob and walked back to the kitchen table. As he passed the stove he breathed in the smell of week-old reheated stew and had to sit down suddenly to wait for the wave of nausea to pass.

It couldn't be what he thought he saw. He couldn't accept the idea of Dean talking Sam (coercing Sam) into something that sick, because that would mean Dean wasn't simple, uncomplicated, reliable Dean, wasn't his son, wasn't anyone he knew or wanted to.

And it couldn't be both of them. There was no way they could both want that, because that would mean they were turning into something new and strange, something not-quite-human, something that belonged to this shadow world John had always promised they were only visiting.

It wasn't that. He wouldn't accept that. So it had to be something else.

After a few minutes Sam and Dean filed in without needing to be told and sat down on the other side of the table. Dean kept his shoulders squared and his gaze steady, like a soldier at a court martial. Sam hunched over and wrapped his arms around himself, managing to look scornful and terrified at the same time. Since he had left the bathroom, he appeared to have put on every item of clothing he owned, including three sweaters and a ridiculously oversized orange windbreaker that resembled a hazmat suit. It made him look very young.

John inhaled, laid the sentence out in his mind, and spoke.

"Sometimes, kids... experiment."

Christ, he sounded like a guidance counselor. And it hadn't looked like any goddamn experiment, not the way Sam had his eyes closed and his head tipped back, not the way Dean had his fingers tangled in Sam's hair. John kept going anyway.

"You're young, you're figuring things out, you don't have that many opportunities. I can understand that." Sam got redder and redder as John spoke until he looked ready to explode with righteous indignation, but right then John could give a fuck about how grown-up Sam thought he was.

"It'll have to stop, of course. Dean's getting a little old for this sort of thing." And what a joke that was, Sam was almost eighteen, but there was no good in bringing that up now. He spoke carefully, trying to force the right answer into their brains by sheer power of will. "If that's all it is, though, it's okay. Kids fool around. It doesn't have to mean anything. If that's all it is."

Sam, red-faced and full of adolescent fury, opened his mouth, and John felt the floor being torn out from under him. John, who had never struck his children in his life, who was not that man, suddenly wanted to reach across the table and wrap his hands around Sam's throat, choke him until there was no air left in his lungs to speak with.

"Yeah, Dad," Dean said.

Sam's head snapped towards Dean as though he'd been slapped, but Dean didn't acknowledge him. His voice cracked a little as he spoke, but he looked John straight in the eye.

"Yeah, that's all it was. That's exactly what it was."

John believed him.

January, 2006

The Winchesters showed up mid-afternoon, when the bar was empty. Sam immediately headed to the back room with Ash to discuss something Ellen didn't even pretend to understand, and Dean wandered over to the bar, where she was failing to scrub a mysterious stain out of the wood. He leaned over the bar to switch on the TV to some baseball game, then paused with his fingers hovering over the channel buttons, as though he could feel her glare on the back of his neck.

"This okay with you? I can --"

"Oh, don't mind me, make yourself at home." Dean slid back into his seat, appropriately chastised.

Honestly, she didn't mind. She didn't follow baseball, but any distraction at 3PM was a good thing, and Dean's joy at watching the Yankees get their asses kicked was beautiful to behold. Within fifteen minutes, she gave up on the stain and sat down next to him to harangue the umpire and cheer on -- some team she couldn't name if she had a gun to her head, but they were the underdogs and they were winning, and that was good enough for her. Dean was grinning as wide as she'd ever seen, and he even managed a few genuinely funny digs at the announcers that Ellen would later deny snickering at. At the end of the eighth inning, when Team Whasisface had obviously won and the ninth was just a formality, Dean leaned over and kissed her.

When Ellen had imagined this -- and yes, she had imagined this, so sue her -- she'd assumed Dean would be pushy and overconfident, and she was halfway prepared to find that endearing. As it turned out, though, he had a lot of finesse; even a suspicious amount of finesse, as though he knew he had twenty seconds to showcase every technique he had. See? I can do soft. I can do subtle. It was like being the sole audience for a "Yes, you really do want to sleep with Dean Winchester" infomercial. She could have told him he was wasting his energy, but it was... nice.

When Dean jerked away, she brought herself back to reality and started preparing her "we must never speak of this again" speech. Dean wasn't looking at her, though. He was looking over her shoulder, where Sam was standing, his mouth open.

"Sam," Dean said.

Sam snapped his mouth shut and swallowed. "Um," he said. Ellen could see the blush from where she sat, and even though she was the one who should be embarrassed, she winced in sympathy.

"Sam," Dean said again, "it's --"

"I'm sorry," Sam said, "it's none of my business. It's okay, and it's none of my business. And I'm... going to go now. Um." Sam turned and fled down the hall.

"Sam!" Dean yelled, and practically vaulted off his barstool, then turned back to Ellen. "I'll be right back, okay?" He raced after Sam without waiting for an answer.

Muffled voices came from the back room. "It's okay," Sam said, "It's really none of my business," and then more she couldn't make out, and then Sam was shouting, "I am *not upset*!" It reminded her of the endless phone conversations Jo had had with her ex-boyfriend in high school. Maybe Sam would threaten to take Zack to the prom in revenge.

After a few minutes, Dean walked back in. "So," he said, "this can't happen again." Because the remote possibility that Sam might be upset obviously outweighed the other half-billion reasons it was a stupid idea.

"No, it can't."

Dean looked relieved, as though he had actually expected an argument. "Okay," he said, and sat down two barstools away with an exhausted thump. "Sorry about... well, sorry. Sam's just a little, you know, puritanical." Sam hadn't had a problem with any of the other random women Dean had picked up at her bar in the past few months, but Ellen decided to take pity on him.

"Relax," she said. "You can mend my broken heart by scrubbing out this bloodstain."

Sam pulled her aside that afternoon before leaving. "Look," Sam said, and scrubbed his hand over his face, "I just want you to know that I don't have a problem with it."

"Sam," she said, "nothing's going on. It was just some dumb thing."

"No, really, it's okay. It's none of my business. I mean, it's not like I have an exclusive claim on his time or anything." Sam stopped, and she was pretty sure he hadn't meant to say exactly that. "Anyway. Just. If there were something going on. I wouldn't try to be a problem for you guys."

A month after the breakup, Jo's ex-boyfriend had showed up to say, with all his fifteen-year-old emotional wisdom, that he loved Jo, and that it was okay if she was going out with someone else because he wanted her to be happy. Ellen didn't remember the kid's name, but she recognized the same miserable look on Sam's face. She knew he and Dean weren't actually sleeping together, even if -- and here was an ugly thought -- it was only because Dean hadn't figured out what Sam wanted from him. But she doubted actual incest could make this worse.

She didn't blame them for it. They grew up without a home or a family or human relationships, so of course they tried to recreate all those things using whatever they had at hand. Of course they'd focus all their energy on each other. Of course they'd get it a little wrong. And now Sam needed Dean's attention, needed it like John had needed alcohol and maybe worse. He'd moved halfway across the country trying to get away, got a job and an apartment and a pretty girlfriend, and now he was stuck right back in this hard, dingy life where he could have Dean's eyes on him every goddamn minute of the day, where he could fill up Dean's world until Dean couldn't see anyone else, couldn't connect with anyone beyond a few nameless one-night-stands.

She thought about that kiss, the twenty-second Dean Winchester Wonder, scientifically engineered to coax strange women out of their clothes in fifteen minutes or less before he had to go back to a cheap motel bed and a 3AM wakeup. She wanted something better for Dean. Something real.

But she wouldn't be the one to give it to him. This thing between him and Sam was too complicated, too dangerous, and she already knew she wasn't willing to let herself get involved. Her or her daughter.

"Don't worry," Ellen said. "I'm not going to take him away from you."

May, 2008

After their grand victory, Sam couldn't move for exhaustion, so Dean and Bobby hauled him to the upstairs bedroom together and laid him out. Dean sat down next to him and started working on Sam's clothes, lifting one arm and then the other to get Sam's jacket off. His hands shook. Sam was near delirious, but he was still smiling, and his hands made comically unsuccessful attempts to latch on to Dean's shirtfront. He was murmuring words Bobby was glad he couldn't make out. This wasn't his to see.

Bobby slipped out and made his way downstairs, through the wreckage that had once been his living room, and out to the porch, where Ellen was reclining in a rusty metal lawn chair with a cigarette. He pulled up a chair next to her.

"I thought you quit," Bobby said.

"Seemed like a good time to start back up," Ellen said. "Without something about to kill me, I don't know what to do with myself." When Bobby didn't laugh, she sighed and stubbed her cigarette out on the armrest of her lawn chair. "I'm leaving."

"Now?"

"Yeah."

"You don't want to stay until tomorrow, see the boys off --"

"No."

"Well, where're you headed to?"

"California. Jo's --" She made a perfunctory gesture with the hand holding the cigarette. "I've got a sister in Bakersfield who just got divorced. She wants me to move in with her."

"I'll be sorry to see you go," Bobby said, and waited.

"Look out for them, okay?"

"I will." He meant it, too. He hadn't planned on acquiring two grown kids at his age, but that seemed to be what he was doing, and of his own free will, no less.

"I know you will." She leaned back, and a few flecks of paint dislodged and caught in her hair. "Lord, those two need all the help they can get."

"Yep," Bobby said, and leaned back too. He thought about Sam upstairs, battered and exhausted and crazy with joy, reaching out for his brother.

He came down around seven the next morning, still feeling like the walking dead, to the sound of bickering coming from the kitchen. "Stop it," Dean was saying, "no, really, Sam, stop it, he's going to be down any minute now." If Sam was well enough to commit some minor crime, he was obviously much improved. Bobby felt magnanimous enough to tread loudly on a few damaged floorboards as he crossed the ex-living room, giving them time to hide any evidence.

When he opened the door, Sam was sitting at the kitchen table, the picture of innocence except for the way his mouth was twitching. Dean stood by the stove, grinning the grin of the not-quite-dead-yet.

"Morning, Bobby," he said. "You want breakfast?" Sam stood, wobbling only a little, and pulled three plates down from the cupboard without asking. He was still pale, but the corners of his mouth were tight like it was an effort to keep from smiling, and his eyes were actually sparkling, which Bobby was sure wasn't even possible in normal humans. Dean was smiling too, but it had the slightly manic edge Bobby remembered from the month after the deal, like he'd pulled a fast one and he knew that someone was coming to collect. They were both reasonable responses to a closer-than-usual brush with death, but Bobby felt like he was missing something.

Sam held out the plates out to Dean one by one, and that was strange too: they should have been crowded together at the stove, shoving each other and arguing about who got the burnt pancakes. As Dean filled the plates he began to relate, with a poetry born of near-infinite retellings, an embarrassing anecdote involving maple syrup from Sam's infancy. Dean spoke a little too loud and too fast, not looking Sam or Bobby in the face, and Sam, instead of pressing his mouth shut and exhaling pointedly, was grinning up at Dean through his bangs. It was an impressive trick, given the height difference. Something was definitely wrong.

Dean reached out blindly for the maple syrup bottle Sam was holding, and accidentally covered Sam's hand with his own. He started back just a little before grabbing the bottom of the bottle, and just like that, Bobby knew. His first thought, even before shock and horror, was No wonder no one ever buys their cover stories.

He managed to get through breakfast by inserting monosyllabic grunts in the appropriate places, his glazed, shellshocked early-morning stare apparently only a little more glazed than usual. The sweetness of the pancakes was nauseating, and it stuck in his mouth after he left the table.

The idea disgusted him, but that wasn't where the dangerous roll in his belly was coming from. The thought of two guys together, period, made him a little queasy, and there were plenty of good people who seemed to enjoy that kind of thing, most of them better-adjusted than anyone in Bobby's address book. But this, this wasn't some arbitrary social taboo. This was dangerous.

Sam and Dean weren't going to settle down in clean suburban houses on opposite sides of the country and lead normal lives. They were stuck together now, probably forever, and he'd seen what they were willing to do to keep each other close. He couldn't imagine Dean asking Sam for something like this, but it was easy to imagine Dean giving Sam whatever he thought Sam wanted and not thinking about how hard it might be to keep giving in a month, or a year, or ten years, how it might wear on him harder than the endless drive from grave to grave. Even if they both wanted it right now, it was too easy to see them turning the best thing in their lives into something awful, binding each other with love and guilt and fear and dependence, turning inwards and inwards towards each other until there was no way out.

Sam was committed to this. Sam wanted this. He'd never been good at hiding his feelings, and he was doing a piss-poor job right now. Dean, on the other hand, was harder to read. Bobby agonized for hours, trying to assign meaning to every remembered breath and muscle tic, before finally accepting that he was going to have to talk to the kid.

He caught up with him around dinnertime, sitting on the porch with a bottle of beer in the same spot Ellen had been. Bobby settled down next to him, and Dean looked up and smiled tightly at a point over Bobby's left shoulder.

"So," Bobby said, and realized he still had no idea how to start this conversation. "So," he tried again. "This thing with you and Sam."

"Is this about that story?" Dean asked. "'Cause, dude, I was five. I didn't know he was going to try and bathe himself in the stuff."

Bobby glared at him, because if he thought that act actually worked, then people had been way too polite to him and Bobby intended to fix that right now. Dean swallowed and stared down at the beer in his hands. After a second he raised his head and looked Bobby in the eye.

"Look," he said, "I know this is wrong, okay? I know that it could fuck everything up, and I know that there's a good chance that Sam's going to wake up one morning and decide that I-- that I'm taking advantage of him or something and he never wants to see me again. But I want this. And Sam says he wants it too, and as long as he still wants it I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to lie to you or pretend it's something it's not." Dean's face was pale and his voice was getting rough, but his eyes didn't waver. "And if you don't want me around here anymore, then I'm sorry. You've been good to us. To me. You've been... important."

Bobby was not a violent man, but he had a momentary urge to punch out every person Dean Winchester had ever met, including himself. It was becoming a familiar sensation.

"You know that this is almost certainly going to blow up in your face?"

"Yeah," Dean said.

"You still think it's worth it?"

"Yeah."

"And there's no chance I could beat some sense into either one of you?"

"Well, you're welcome to try with Sam. No one else ever had much luck."

Bobby closed his eyes and sighed. "You both okay with this?"

"I -- Yeah."

"Well, then," Bobby said, "Don't go thinking this is over, but I guess that's all I need to know for now. And don't take it the wrong way if I tell you that's all the detail I want to know on this particular subject, either. Ever."

Dean made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "Believe me," he said, "I'm just as happy to never have this conversation again."

They watched the sun set over the junk-filled school bus in Bobby's front yard. After a while, Sam came out, bringing more beers with him, and Bobby made his excuses and headed upstairs to bed. On the way, he crossed once more through the wreckage of the living room. The war might be over, but the reconstruction was just beginning, and from what he could see he was going to have to rebuild half the house just to make sure it was structurally sound. It was a big job, too big for him to do alone in his advancing years, and the pool of people he could ask for help had recently thinned. He wondered if Dean, or Sam and Dean, would be interested in a junior partnership in a marginally profitable reference library-slash-salvage yard.

When Bobby fell asleep, he could still hear them outside, talking low over the soft May rain.

PSA and a message for my Secret Non-Denominational Gift-Giver

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 03:48:18 GMT

I am thrilled (and, frankly, a little flabbergasted) that I'm still getting comments on my last three posts. I doubt anyone will read this, but: if you've commented on one of my stories or friended me and haven't gotten a response yet, *it does not mean I don't love you.* It means that I'm away from home for the next month or so and my internet access is next to nonexistent.

Now, for my spn_holidays gift-giver, I'm hoping to clarify some stuff from my request.

I know that I'm more specific than a lot of people in my requests. Please remember: I don't want you to write anything you're unhappy with. If some prompt calls to you but one of the specs makes you uncomfortable, do what works for you. I'll be happy with anything. There is just one thing I'd really like you to avoid, and that is this:

In a lot of Supernatural fanfic, Sam comes across as, well, the dominant one, and Dean winds up as this Scarlett O'Hara figure who acts uppity, but who deep down really just wants to be ordered around (sexually or otherwise). There's some canon justification for that characterization and those stories can be very well-written, but there are a *lot* of them out there, and lately I find they're not working for me. Please try to avoid that characterization if at all possible. (Scarlett!Sam, wierdly, I have no problem with. The human brain is mysterious.)

About #2: I don't want kinky porn unless you want to write it. Please remember: 1. It is possible to write a totally PG story with mild D/s overtones and 2. If D/s of any kind still freaks you out too much, ignore that part of the prompt.

About #3: I know nobody is ever going to write the IWW!Winchesters AU, but I figured I had to ask. If you *do* write the IWW-AU -- okay, I won't buy you a pony, but there will definitely be offers of baked goods. And probably flowers.

If all else fails, I'm a sucker for any Sam/Dean that starts out angsty and has a happy ending. Not exactly James Joyce, but hey, I'm easy.

Thank you so much! I look forward to reading whatever you choose to write.

3x05 Coda

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 02:00:34 GMT

Episode reaction as fanfic.

Antigone and Ismene
250 words
Coda to 3x05 (which means spoilers)

Sam stumbles back into the motel room, the Colt still in his right hand, and heads for the bathroom. He presses his back against the wall next to the doorframe, looks out into the room where Dean is still sleeping. His index finger is trembling against the trigger.

Aren't you tired of dealing with Dean's broken psyche?

He can't stand the idea of Dean waking, of explaining to Dean just how badly he's fucked up. He can't stand another day sitting next Dean in the car, all that agony coiled up tight and quiet beneath Dean's skin. He can't stand the voices that say You knew and did nothing, that say You failed me, that say You made me like this. Jess' voice. Dad's voice. Dean's voice.

Desperate, sloppy, needy Dean.

Sometimes he thinks this is Dean's revenge for leaving: loving Sam more than he will ever deserve, piling on debt after debt that Sam can never repay.

He can't stand the idea of Dean waking up, of seeing this latest failure written across Dean's face with all the others.

He can't stand the idea of Dean waking up.

Won't you be just a tiny bit relieved?

He's still standing there, holding the Colt, when the sun rises and Dean comes in and carefully unwraps Sam's fingers from the gun. The kindness in Dean's face is terrible to see.

---

Comments? Thoughts on that part of the episode? Think I'm on crack? Please let me know.

Supernatural 3x05

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 02:00:40 GMT

First fifty minutes? Eh.

Last ten minutes? HOLY FUCK.

The Glamorous Life of John Dillinger [Supernatural, Gen, PG-13]

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:57:36 GMT

Title: The Glamorous Life of John Dillinger
Characters: Henricksen, Henricksen's partner, Sam, mention of Dean
Word Count: ~1200 words
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Thanks to fleshflutter for looking this over. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

The debate starts a week after they get Winchester's file.

"Where should I put the clown thing in the timeline?" Reid wants to know.

Reid is everything Henricksen wants in a partner: methodical, plodding, able to recognize in Henricksen the genius he lacks in himself. Reid's limited powers of deduction, however, are sometimes frustrating.

"Don't put it anywhere. They didn't do the clown thing."

"You think?" Reid reaches over the jumble of paper on his desk to pick up a cold french fry from yesterday's lunch. He pops it into his mouth and chews thoughtfully, like a water buffalo. "Two guys matching Sam and Dean's description working together? While the Winchesters are known to be in the area? Batshit crazy M.O.? Sounds pretty definitive to me."

"It's not. The first clown murder was November fourth. All three Winchesters were in the hospital then."

"Nah, Sam was up and around, and the early reports on the clown thing only have one guy as the killer. Maybe Sam started it while Dean was out of it and then they decided to hook up for a little, ah, family bonding." Reid waves another fry in the air.

"That contradicts everything we know about them," Henricksen says. "So far Dean's initiated every crime. Sam's just along for the ride. We don't even have any evidence of him being directly involved in any of the murders."

"Yeah, well, maybe Sam's just smarter about covering his tracks. The kid did go to Stanford, right?"

Most of the time, Reid's bright enough to recognize his role in their partnership: he does the grunt work, and in return he will eventually ride to glory on Henricksen's coattails. On those rare occasions when he latches onto an idea of his own, though, he gets annoying fast. Henricksen breathes deeply and pictures an endless field of golden wheat, like his therapist told him to. Reid points at him with the french fry.

"Hey, betcha. Standard bet says they did the clown thing."

"You're on."

Standard bet means buying the other guy lunch at Lenny's Deli down the street. Henricksen's won every time so far.

***

It could easily have died there, but the Winchesters are proving to be the most frustrating case of Henricksen's career, and what with spending 90 hours a week poring over police files he and Reid are both a little tense. When Reid comes in to work a month after the Milwaukee debacle holding a manila folder triumphantly over his head, Henricksen has a brief flash of hope. A very brief flash.

"Report from the Medford police," Reid says, tossing the folder onto Henricksen's desk. "November of 2006, two brothers matching the Winchesters' descriptions join the freaking circus right before the owner disappears. We got a positive ID from the midget. You owe me lunch, asshole."

Henricksen picks up the file and skims through it quickly before throwing it away in disgust. It's not that he wouldn't love it if the Winchesters did something this fucked up; he'd be happy for anything that'd show them for the pathetic creeps they are, not the dashing John Dillinger types the newspapers -- and half their victims, for chrissake -- like to paint them as. But it just doesn't feel right. "It's not them."

"How do you figure?"

"Some guy identifies two employees he knew for a week in November? Hell, he probably saw Winchester's face on TV more often than he saw those guys. It's not definitive."

"But pretty damning."

"It's not their M.O."

"Fucked up clown fetishists? Sounds weird enough to me. You think the Winchesters are gonna get squeamish about little kids?"

"Look, Dean Winchester may not care about America's youth, but at least he cares about his image. There's no way he'd be caught dead in a clown suit. Or" -- he glances at the file -- "in a 1988 Plymouth Voyager, for fuck's sake."

"A whole week's worth at Lenny's."

Henricksen closes his eyes. Wheat. Miles and miles of golden wheat. "It's not them."

"A week."

"It's not them."

***

The security tape from Steve Wandell's home office shows up at Henricksen's desk Saturday morning. There's no return address, but the label's in Sam Winchester's handwriting. When the video's done playing, the whole office stares at the TV screen in silence. No one gets up to change the tape.

"So," Reid says over his shoulder, "still think there's no way little Sammy could have come up with that clown shit on his own?"

God, Henricksen is so not in the mood for this.

"They didn't do the clown thing," Henricksen grits between his teeth. "They're fucking crazy, but they aren't that kind of fucking crazy. They aren't dress-up-like-a-circus-clown crazy."

"Whatever. Psycho is psycho."

Sometimes the depth of Reid's insight astounds him. Henricksen takes off his reading glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"A million fucking sandwiches," he says. "A whole year's worth of fucking sandwiches if they did the clown thing."

***

Henricksen pushes through the door to the interrogation room. For the first time in what feels like years, he's got a spring in his step.

"So, Sam, I don't know if you've heard the news, but your brother just turned himself in." He pauses for a reaction. Sam looks back with an air of polite interest. "Soon as he figured out we'd caught you. Says he's willing to sign a full confession if we'll bump your charges down to accessory after the fact." Still nothing. "I guess it's lucky for you you've got such a devoted big brother."

Sam smiles at that, a slight curve of the lips that makes Henricksen's skin crawl. "Yeah," he says, "I'm blessed." He doesn't seem to be joking.

Henricksen feels his good mood slipping a little. The last time Sam sat that quietly in a pair of handcuffs, he went on to cost Henricksen any chance of a promotion before 2030. Still, he tells himself he's being paranoid.

"The Feds are shipping you boys to St. Louis tomorrow," Henricksen says. "So I won't see you for a few weeks. Wish I could say I'll miss you." He turns to leave, then stops and turns back. "One more thing," he says. "Just between us."

A year ago, when he got this case, or even six months ago, before Little Rock, it wouldn't have mattered. But somewhere along the way, his perspective on the Winchesters changed. They've tricked him, thwarted him, and humiliated him at every turn, and he hates them for it. But if he's beaten, he wants to be beaten by the cool, smooth, diabolically clever Winchester Brothers, the greatest criminal masterminds of their time. Not by a pair of losers in rainbow wigs and red foam noses.

"The clown thing?"

He expects confusion, or faked confusion, or, at the very least, the same infuriatingly blank stare he's been getting all day. Instead, Sam winces, and the tips of his ears start to turn red.

Henricksen closes his eyes and imagines stalks of golden wheat strangling Sam Winchester.

Author's Notes: I live for feedback, positive or negative. Help me, I need concrit.

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:06:23 GMT

So, would anyone on my brand-new friendslist of *checks* five people be willing to look over a 1000-word piece before I post it? It's short, and it's not even really worthy of a beta except that I'm obsessive about that stuff. It's nowhere near as freaky as the last one.
It's a light humor piece. Well, what passes for humor in my head.
No, really.
No, really, I promise.

Fic: Dwellers in Silence [Supernatural, Gen]

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:27:58 GMT

Title: Dwellers in Silence
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Kindly beta'd by gestaltrose. Constructive criticism welcome.

After Sam kills the crossroads demon, they drive back to their motel room and bolt the door behind them. Sam sits on the bed farthest from the door, and Dean checks the salt lines before sitting down next to him, not trusting himself to say anything. His hands are sweating against the polyester bedspread. His lungs can't expand far enough to get the air he needs. Every time he gets his breathing almost to normal, his brain serves up another image of Sam, yellow-eyed, standing like the only solid thing in the universe as reality tore and screamed and twisted around him.

The night outside is pitch black, and the weak lamp he'd switched on when they got in barely reaches the corners of the room. The single window shows a crisp, opaque reflection of the room itself, and behind it nothing but darkness. Dean has the horrible, irrational feeling that there is nothing outside -- that the sun will never come up again, that he and Sam will stay, trapped, in their box of a motel room in their little circle of dim light forever.

In a fit of claustrophobia, he gets up to go to the door -- get a coke from the vending machine, a newspaper from the front desk, anything to prove that the world is still there -- but Sam grabs onto his arm.

"Don't go."

"I'm not going anywhere, okay? I'm just going to get some food from the machine outside --"

"Don't." Sam tugs at his arm, looking panicked. "You can't leave me."

"All right, I'll stay, it's okay." Dean sits back down slowly, no sudden movements, and Sam immediately lapses back into trancelike silence. Together, they stare out at the blackness.

After a while, though -- Dean can't say how long -- the sky begins to lighten. The window shifts from black to dark blue to grey, and as the morning fog lifts Dean can see vague patches of color solidifying into buildings and objects: the donut shop across the road, two cars in the parking lot, an occasional truck speeding by on the highway. When the last of the fog has burned away and a few people have started to walk past, Sam finally speaks.

"I had to do it. Nothing else would have worked. If you thought I wasn't going to get my hands dirty to save your life--"

"I know." And he does, really. His head is pounding and his stomach is still threatening to revolt, but he understands. If it had been Sam in danger, he'd have destroyed the world without a second thought to save him.

"Don't freak out, okay?" Sam turns and scrunches up his forehead, like one of those woeful-looking dogs with the long ears, and Dean finds he's calm enough to notice that it looks ridiculous on a 6'4 adult man with two days of stubble growth. He bumps Sam's shoulder with his own. Sam still feels human, warm and uncomfortably bony, and he smells overpoweringly of rancid sweat. "I'm done freaking out."

Sam sighs. "I'm, ah, I think I'm done too, now. We can leave if you want."

Dean does want.

They walk across the road together, Sam never more than a foot behind Dean. When they push through the door of the coffee shop, a small bell rings, and an irritated-looking blonde girl looks up from her copy of People to take their order. Dean takes their tray, and sets it down at a booth by the window. The table is cleared, though covered in a slight film of grease. The napkin dispenser is empty. Dean closes his eyes for a moment, teetering on the edge of hysterical laughter.

"So," he says, when he has himself under control again, "I figure we should call Bobby and let him know I'm not kibble yet."

"Um," Sam says, and swallows a bite of stale danish. "He kind of knows."

Dean's so distracted by the sight of Sam eating -- Christ, there's no way Dean could keep food down right now -- that it takes a moment for the words to sink in. "That so?"

Sam has the decency to look guilty, though not enough decency to explain. His fingers skitter nervously against the tabletop. "Yeah. Look, the truth is that this was . . . a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be. And I seem to be having a hard time with people right now. I don't think I can deal with Bobby just yet."

Now that Sam mentions it, Dean's noticed the way Sam's shoulders tensed up when they walked in, and the distracted way he keeps checking on the counter girl and the old man eating his muffin in the back booth. And the fact that Sam's afraid of meeting up with Bobby probably means that Dean doesn't have to track the man down and beat him to death for helping his brother do something so profoundly stupid.

"All right," Dean says, "we lay low for a while? Put the hunting on hold?"

Sam relaxes and smiles, revealing a smudge of cherry jam on his left front tooth. "You remember you said you wanted to see the Grand Canyon?"

* * *

When Sam was eight, he had an ancient picture book called Natural Wonders of the United States. Like all their books, it was stolen from a public library, and it had a giant, heavy cover that was thicker than the book itself and was wrapped in two layers of scratched and pitted plastic and at least an entire roll of Scotch tape. It was published in the late sixties, and the slightly grainy, over-saturated photographs showed an America even bigger and emptier than the one Dean saw outside the window of the Impala. Sam spent so much time staring at the photo of the Grand Canyon that the spine of the book finally cracked and split the picture in half, and Sam had to press the pages together with his fingers to get it to meet in the center.

Dean figures that the Grand Canyon will have changed, just like the rest of the US: more tourists, more hotels and gift shops, more pollution masking the view. When they get there, though, it's exactly like that photograph, even down to the brick red earth and the dizzily intense blue of the sky.

Sam announces that he's reserved them a room in some swank hotel right on the edge of the canyon. "We deserve it," he says. Dean isn't going to disagree, although he isn't sure how the hotel clerk will react to meeting someone from America's Most Wanted, or, for that matter, to the new, clingier Sam Winchester.

Since That Night, as Dean has begun to think of it, Sam has refused to let Dean out of his sight, and keeps touching him surreptitiously -- a hand on his shoulder, elbows brushing as they walk -- as though trying to reassure himself that Dean is still there. At least after the first few days he had stopped following Dean into the bathroom, although Dean can tell by the way his jaw muscles clench that he still wants to.

That worries Dean a little, but Sam's looking happier, healthier, slowly losing that tired look he gets when they spend too much time around other people, and his eyes have stayed a perfectly normal muddy green. Nor has he shown any interest in spilling the blood of the innocent, or in anything besides chattering incessantly about the natural history of the American southwest and staying within three feet of Dean at all times. He's even stopped trying to sneak his godawful Europop tapes into the rotation and allowed Dean uncontested control of the car's stereo, which Dean considers ironclad proof of Sam's inherent wisdom and virtue. As for the separation anxiety, Dean can relate, and it's not as if he minds having Sam safe where Dean can see him. Letting Sam brush against him 'accidentally' every thirty seconds is a small price to pay for peace of mind.

Fortunately, the hotel, like the park, is practically deserted -- off season, maybe? -- and the clerk doesn't blink at Jonathan Matsumoto's Visa card, or at Mr. Matsumoto's striking resemblance to Fox News' very own Dean Winchester. It's 6 o'clock by the time they find their room and bring their things in. After laying down salt lines and doing a quick check of the room, Dean wanders out onto the balcony to sit and take in the view. Sam waits almost two full minutes before following, which is a new record, and then sits down in the chair next to Dean, leaning back so that his left knee presses against Dean's right. He hands over a leather binder that turns out to be a room service menu.

"I thought we could order in," Sam says.

"Sure," Dean says. He puts the binder in his lap without opening it. They sit silently for a few minutes, staring out at a sunset so vivid Dean's sure it can't be real.

"We can do some hiking tomorrow," Sam says, letting his inner travel agent shine through. "And there are burro rides down to the bottom. We can get up early and watch the sunrise if you want."

"Yeah." Dean closes his eyes and leans back, enjoying the warmth of the sun's last rays on his face. When he opens them again, Sam is staring at him, forehead scrunch in full effect.

"This is okay, right? This is good. I mean, this is what you wanted. Right?"

"Yeah," Dean says, "it is. It's great. What's the problem?"

"I just want to make sure you're having a good time. I mean, if there's anything you want, just tell me. We don't have to stay here for dinner either, there's a Mexican place down the road --"

"Dude, you hate Mexican. You don't have to make this the best vacation ever. It's not like I have an expiration date anymore." Dean feels his relaxed mood slipping away, and when Sam shifts uncomfortably Dean is hit by a truly awful thought. "Sammy," he says, trying to keep his voice even, "you going somewhere?"

"No," Sam says, looking horrified, "Jesus, no, nothing like that."

"Well, what the hell is it, then, because something's going on, and you're not telling me about it."

"What, because I'm trying to be nice to you? God, you're paranoid."

"Okay, there's nice, and then there's two-months-to-live nice--"

"You're unbelievable, I go to all this trouble--"

"Sam." Sam shuts his mouth, red-faced. "I know something's up. Just tell me."

"I'm not-- I'm not leaving. And you can't leave me now, I mean, I couldn't, I'd--" Sam breaks off, inhales, exhales. "I made a choice. And I chose you, okay? I chose you over everything. I'm not leaving. I can't leave. I just -- I want it to be worth it. I want you to be happy."

Dean isn't sure what he's feeling is happiness; it's too intense for him to identify. But he presses his knee to Sam's anyway, and smiles.

"Stop worrying. I am, okay? I am."

* * *

After that, Sam starts to act a little more normal. He doesn't back off physically, but he does start harassing Dean about his dirty socks again, and he claims the right to pick their next destination: the second-largest ball of twine in the US, located in Darwin, Minnesota. Dean goes along cheerfully, although he does point out that the second-largest ball of twine has to be the lamest idea for a roadside attraction ever. What about Fridgehenge, which is right there in New Mexico? What, for that matter, is wrong with the actual largest ball of twine in the US? Sam won't say. Nor will he agree to take a detour to visit the world's largest pile of burlap bags two counties over, which Dean saw while Sam was at Stanford and which he found strangely moving, not that he's about to tell Sam that. Still, seriously, twine?

It's a long drive, and after spending god-knows-how-many straight weeks within touching distance of each other they're both a little on edge. After moving through politics (they've always agreed on everything, which is both surprising and inconvenient), sex (Sam covers his ears and sings "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" for two hours), and religion (Dean's head aches), they eventually settle into arguing about the tape selection in the car, as they always do when they have the luxury of being annoyed by each other.

"The Rolling Stones?" Dean asks, after Sam yanks yet another cassette out of the player. "What problem could you possibly have with the Rolling Stones?"

"Mick Jagger's creepy."

"Yes? And?"

"The lyrics for these songs are really disturbing, okay? Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good, just like a black girl should? Tell me that's not gross."

"It's rock and roll, it's not about the lyrics. If you don't like the lyrics, don't listen to them. You can barely tell what he's saying anyway."

"I can't just ignore it. The human brain is specifically programmed --"

"Oh, good Christ, here we go again --"

"The human brain is specifically programmed to tune into the frequency range of human voices before decoding any other noise. You can't turn it off, it's hard-coded into your DNA --"

The laugh rises crazy and unstoppable out of Dean's chest, and he has to yank the car to the side of the road and hit the brake. Sam glares at him, then looks confused, and that just makes Dean laugh harder. He gulps down air, tears running down his cheeks. Sam unbuckles his seatbelt and leans over, now looking freaked out. "Dean? Dean? It's okay, really, if you want to listen to Mick Jagger we can listen to Mick Jagger, it's not like it matters anymore, just -- Jesus, Dean, tell me what's going on."

Dean wants to tell Sam that he's laughing because his little brother's shitty taste in music is the single worst thing in his life right now, and because that's wonderful, it's unbelievable. He doesn't think Sam will take it in the spirit in which it's intended, though. Instead, he says, between shaky breaths, "I'm good, Sam. It's all good. It's great."

Sam looks unconvinced, but he smiles and pats Dean's thigh, much as one might reassure an elderly relative in the final stages of dementia. Dean catches his breath, wipes his eyes, shifts into first and pulls the car back onto the road, and a giant ball of twine appears over the top of the hill like a sunrise.

The ball of twine, to Dean's surprise, turns out to be kind of cool in a second-tier roadside attraction sort of way. Sam insinuates himself into a group of retirees, and comes back a few minutes later towing a guy who looks like a composite photo of every RV owner Dean has ever met.

"This is George," Sam says. "He says he'll take a picture for us."

They stand with their arms around each other's shoulders next to the sign that reads, "World's Largest Ball of Twine, Made by Francis A. Johnson, Completed 1973," and George snaps a picture with a Polaroid camera the size of a microwave oven.

They eat lunch at a diner in town. These days Sam sits next to Dean in the booth, not across from him, and always so that their legs press together underneath the table. None of the other patrons seem to notice. Sam, for his part, seems more relaxed among the crowd than he has in a long time.

"When we got arrested in Baltimore," Sam says, "you remember that cop?"

"Ballard," Dean says.

"I told her we were on a road trip together, that we went to see the world's second largest ball of twine. I had this whole fantasy word worked out in my head where we were just two guys, out to see America. So I thought, why not make it real? I guess you think it was kind of a weird idea."

"No," Dean says, "I'm glad we came." He looks at the picture face up on the table. The plaque and the ball of twine are fuzzy, but he and Sam are in clear focus, with matching idiotic grins on their faces.

After lunch, they wander down the street back to their car. Dean's lost track of the days and weeks since That Night, but from the gold in the trees and that perfect slight chill in the air he figures it for the beginning of October. It feels like it's always been autumn, and always will be.

* * *

They go to Chicago next. It's Sam's idea. Dean wants to know if Sam's sure, but Sam says he is, and Dean has to admit that Sam's been doing great lately, working his way up to bigger towns and busier streets with almost no strain now. They turn the car east on route 12.

Dean doesn't like cities, as a rule, but he's always loved Chicago. He likes the food, the grandiose architecture, the broad, open streets you can actually drive on. When he was a kid he really liked the giant T. Rex skeleton in the lobby of the Field Museum, but most of their jobs are out in the suburbs and what with work and family crises he hasn't been back since Sam was nine. He doesn't want to suggest it -- Sam's better with crowds now, but he's not sure how much better, and it's not like he can leave Sam and go alone -- but Sam suggests it for him. "I remember the anthropology section was cool," he says. "Besides, it's a weekday, there won't be too many people."

Dean assumes the T. Rex won't be as impressive as he remembers, but in fact it's even more incredible. Its thigh bones are bigger than Sam, and the giant skull looks as though it could crush the Impala. It's awesome, in the true sense of the word. When Dean turns around, though, Sam's not looking at the T. Rex. He's looking at Dean, grinning, like he's watching Dean unwrap a present Sam just gave him. Which, Dean realizes, he is.

They wander through the Hall of African Mammals, Sam's arm brushing against his, and spend a minute staring at the giant fiberglass whale suspended from the ceiling in the atrium. Sam's still got the same jaw-breaking grin, but even a quiet day at the museum means more people than they've been around in months, and Dean can read stress in the muscles around Sam's eyes. When Dean claims he's tired and suggests they go back to the hotel, Sam rolls his eyes but doesn't put up a fight.

By the time they get back to their hotel room it's three o'clock, a heavy fog has rolled in off the lake, and Sam's mouth is a tight line and his left eyelid is twitching. The hotel's some fancy place Sam's picked out, near Wacker Drive -- and that name will never stop being funny -- so at least the beds are made and the sheets are clean. "Lie down," Dean says. "Rest a little. We don't have to go anywhere this afternoon."

"I'm twenty-four, I don't need naptime, you fucker," Sam says, but he lies down on top of the sheets anyway, and within minutes his breathing's evened out and he's drooling on the white card underneath the pillow mint.

Dean carefully rescues mint and card, and sits on his own bed, popping the mint into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. He's not tired, and he's got a lot on his mind. He needs to walk a little, clear his head, spend a few minutes alone for the first time in however-many-months. Sam's out like a light and probably won't wake up until five or six. Dean leaves a note anyway.

What they need, Dean thinks as the elevator carries him down, is a new plan. He lost track of the days and months almost as soon as his sentence was over, but he knows it's been a long time, and neither of them has said anything about finding a job yet. Sam's not ready to go back to hunting; despite his recent improvements, he may never be. And Dean's tired. He's sick of motel rooms and gas station food and watching Sam get his windpipe crushed.

The elevator dings and lets him out into the lobby, which is empty. Dean's not surprised; it's three thirty on a thursday afternoon, and there was no one but the desk clerk when he came in. A smaller town, he decides, would be better: something in southern Illinois or Ohio, something central that could serve as a home base if they want to stay on the road. He'll have to figure out how to pitch it to Sam.

He pushes through the revolving doors, wondering if he can retrace his steps to the coffee shop they passed this morning. The street is deserted, no moving cars or pedestrians. He turns north, thinking he'll take the route by the river he walked down with Sam that morning. Springfield, maybe, he thinks: big enough for anonymity, but not so big that it'll give Sam a nervous breakdown.

He turns east on Wacker Drive, and stops. The street is empty. No cars, no people, no lights, nothing moving. Ahead of him, where he should see the Chicago River open up into Lake Michigan, the buildings fade into a great wall of grey fog. The hairs stand up on the back of his neck, and he realizes that the world around him is completely silent, the kind of silence he's never heard before: no traffic, no wind.

He begins to walk forward, digging his fingernails into sweaty palms, trying to remember what he knows about mist creatures, water spirits, weather gods. The fog doesn't recede the way fog's supposed to; instead it grows thicker, colder, clinging to Dean's skin and clothes. The outlines of buildings waver and shimmer where they fade into grey, light refracting off of thousands of water droplets, but the movement of light is wrong, somehow.

Dean can barely see the sides of the street, now. The mist looms ahead of him, white shading to grey shading to something darker beyond. As he steps forward, he feels his limbs tense up, his muscles automatically tightening. It's the feeling he gets when a dark passageway opens up around him, the feeling he gets when he's swimming and the sea floor drops away and leaves nothing but a bottomless pit beneath him. In that moment, he knows.

If he walks forward, there will be no weather spirit waiting on the other side. There will be nothing but blackness and emptiness and infinite silence, stretching on forever in all directions. He is standing at the edge of their small circle of existence, and beyond it is nothing where the whole world used to be, before --

Before.

Sam.

Dean turns and runs back down the street, racing out of the fog, past the corner where the noises of the city rise back up around him. He crashes through the door into the hotel lobby, slams the up button on the elevator, and when the doors don't open immediately he dashes for the fire exit and takes the stairs two at a time. When he reaches the 15th floor he races down the hall and throws his body against the door. It opens without resistance.

Sam is sitting on the bed, Dean's note crumpled in his hand, with all the blankets wrapped around him. His eyes are wide and red-rimmed, and when he speaks, his voice is hoarse.

"I broke it. That night. I had to, it was the only way to save you, but once it was broken I wasn't strong enough to put it back together, not for real, I could only -- I didn't want you to know. I tried so hard. I didn't want you to know."

Dean stares at this destroyer of worlds, this thing that his brother has become, and it stares back at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Dean closes the door behind him, walks to the edge of the bed, and climbs in, taking the blanket from Sam's hands and pulling it around them both. He wraps his arms around his brother and Sam pulls him in tight and buries his face in Dean's neck. They cling to each other, shaking, their backs facing outwards against the darkness.

Author's Notes: This is my first piece of SPN fanfic, and my second piece of posted fanfic ever, so... be ruthless. I need good criticism.

Sam's imaginary Field Museum is the museum equivalent of the Library of Babel, just because that's what happens to your memory if you visit enough museums as a kid. The Hall of African Mammals is actually at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the giant blue whale is at the Smithsonian Institute. Sue, the world's most complete Tyrannosaur skeleton, is at the Field museum, but her thighbones are definitely not bigger than Sam. They were, however, probably bigger than Sam when he was nine.

"Dwellers in Silence" is the original title of the short story that later appeared in Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles as "The Long Years."