Work Text:
Chasing The Devil
By: Lexalot
Summary: The Devil has many forms.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If they belonged to me, I'd have better things to do with my time than write slash about them :)
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Spoilers: Pilot, Bloody Mary (vague)
Inspiration and Reference: Magazine - "Weird N.J."
Warning: Incest!
***
"There's not even a fucking welcome sign." Sam hadn't asked for a wake-up call, but he could always count on Dean to let him know when they were almost there.
"Is this New Jersey?" Sam stretched and glanced out the window.
"Since this is obviously not the friendliest state, I'm going to guess that since that was the Delaware River we just drove over, this must be New Jersey."
Different state. Same old shit. Sam could have sworn this was what he had left behind forever. Now here he was doing it 24/7. He was bored and frustrated. If it weren't his brother, he would never have even gotten in the car. He would never have abandoned Jess long enough for anything to come close enough to hurt her. He spent most of every long drive thinking about it. Listening to Dean's entire rock collection just made him resent how that one visit from him had reduced Sam's entire life to this. It was becoming painfully clear. He'd never outrun this nightmare. He was condemned to it.
So another hunting trip, another legend that goes bump in the night calling to them. This one had been Dean's find. The Jersey Devil. What did it matter if it was just another distraction from what they should have been looking for but had nowhere to start anymore? To Sam, it was all a waste of time. They didn't know where Dad was, and they didn't have anything to go on to find Jess's killer. So everything important was pretty much simmering on the backburner. That's why they were driving back and forth across the country without direction or a plan.
"There wasn't even a welcome center, man. What the fuck?"
Sam gave him a sideways look. "So? You never stop at those things."
"No, but I like to know that I could if I wanted to!" Dean could be even more annoying than usual when something was bothering him. This was Sam's first clue that something else was on his brother's mind.
Unfortunately for Dean, Sam had a lot on his mind, and they didn't communicate very well when things got like this. Dealing with Dean was sometimes just as bad as dealing with Dad. Dean was always Dad's favorite. That's because Dean wanted to be Daddy's little hunter, and Sam just wanted his father to let him be whatever he wanted. Which was anything but a hunter.
"I'm not liking this place already." It figured.
"Well, Dean, you're the one who dragged us out here on this job." That earned Sam a scowl that took Dean's eyes off the road for a solid minute. "What?" No answer and Dean still wasn't looking where he was steering them. "Watch the road, will you? You're going to get us killed before we even get there." That came out more irritated than he had meant it to sound.
Dean's eyes turned back to the road for no more than a second, then he turned right back to Sam. "What's with you, man?"
"What's with you?"
Sam turned toward the passenger side window and stared out into the deep woods, letting himself be hypnotized by the quick blur of the trees as they passed by at 90 miles an hour.
"Well," Dean sighed and mumbled to himself, "that's the end of that conversation."
* * *
Another small town in the middle of nowhere, another depressing dingy rundown motel room. Sam guessed this would be it from now on. Lying awake in some strange place on some odd job working some weird mystery. Normal was light-years away from here, and he would never be as close to it as he was before Jess died. He stared at the dilapidated ceiling above him, and all he saw was her. Every time he was within inches of sleep, he would swear he felt drops of blood falling on his face. Sometimes he was afraid to move, sometimes he was determined to bury the image of her but it was too deeply embedded in his brain. His senses playing tricks on him was bad enough, but when he did sleep, it was worse. Dreams before Jess died, nightmares after. Recurring insomnia was preferable to the alternative.
Dean usually slept pretty well. He envied him that he could carry around such darkness and still be able to sleep and eat and live like he would be safe and sound no matter what. Then again, why shouldn't he? Dad had prepared them so thoroughly for the worst that the apocalypse should be able to come with minimal impact on them. Besides, Dean lived for this, loved it, couldn't be without it. If every trace of the paranormal vanished from the earth tomorrow, Dean wouldn't know what the hell to do with himself. In some twisted way, he admired that about his brother. But today wasn't one of those days where he felt awfully close to him. They hadn't said much to one another since they both went silent in the car. And now as part of the fun of being on the road with his only family that wasn't missing in action, Sam got to add tension with Dean to his list of things that would torment him while lying wide awake with no hope of getting any rest.
Suddenly, there was a noise and Sam froze. He realized it was coming from Dean's bed. The springs in the mattress were squeaking and the frame was creaking. Sam thought he must have been turning over or tossing. But then he heard Dean breathing. Heavy. And then came a muffled moan. Sam rolled his eyes. Dean didn't even have the decency to go to the bathroom to jerk off. He had to do it in his feculent motel bed in the same room as his brother, whom Dean probably thought was finally asleep. He had to just wait and let Dean finish. Then, Dean would fall right to sleep, and Sam could pretend he hadn't been awake for his brother's late night masturbation session.
Instead of distracting himself with other thoughts, Sam found himself reminded of a time when this wouldn't have been so awkward. He began remembering things that he lost when he left home, feelings he had put away when he left Dean at home with their father and went out into the world to discover what it is to be like everyone else. He hadn't just walked out on his father. He had turned his back on his brother, and he knew that had cut Dean. But the way Sam saw it, he had no choice. It wouldn't have been so hard if he and Dean hadn't both felt it. An intense bond that went beyond blood and into skin. Sam's mind wandered in ways that it hadn't in years. When they were younger, teenagers, there was something between them. Something Sam couldn't explain. Something he knew wasn't normal. But it was the only thing in his life that he knew wasn't normal but embraced anyway. It was the only time being normal didn't matter so much to him.
They never really did anything about it then. And Sam had regretted not trying harder to talk Dean into leaving with him. Then, maybe they wouldn't feel like strangers these days, like they had drifted apart into two totally different worlds that never meet, walking two separate paths that don't intersect. When he found and fell for Jess, all of that seemed like a distant reality, surreal, devoid of rules, lacking in simple laws of nature. Sam had convinced himself that he never really wanted Dean in that way. He had walked himself through psychological labyrinths to explain away his guilt for ever feeling an attraction to his big brother. His brother who had always protected him and still protected him. Who could always be counted on. Who was only one bed away and pleasuring himself in the dark. But even though it seemed so wrong to Sam now, the feeling quickly came back as powerful as ever.
Dean's bed shook more forcefully, and Sam was just grateful that it would be over soon. This had evolved into a whole other type of torment. He could hear Dean trying to bite back his orgasm so he didn't shout out some obscenity of choice and disturb his younger brother who was supposed to be sound asleep. Then, it finally happened, and when Dean came, Sam swore he heard his name catch on the end of Dean's last strangled breaths. The bed beside him went completely still. When relief should have set in that Dean was done, Sam couldn't have felt more uncomfortable. He reached down under the covers and realized he was hard.
* * *
"Hey! Are you feeling alright?" Sam heard Dean's voice through layers of thick sleep.
"Yeah." Sam's eyes squinted open as he tried to sit up a little. "Why?"
"It's 10 o'clock, and you're still in bed. Usually, you're up at the ass-crack of dawn."
Sam woke up a little more when he heard how late it was. "I guess I've gotta sleep sometime."
Dean stared at him, like he had yesterday in the car, only this time he was more concerned than pissy.
"What? I'm fine." Sam yanked the covers off him and sat up on the side of the bed, rubbing at his eyes.
"You're sure? You were in the bathroom for like an hour last night, man."
Sam looked up, trying to mask his simultaneous surprise and amusement at Dean's observation. "You're kidding, right? Do you think I was in there crying all night? Are you worried that I'm bulimic or something? What are you going to do? Start timing me at rest stops now?" He really couldn't help but find this somewhat funny. "Come on, Dean, even Dad wasn't this bad."
"Dad always got as bad as it took to make sure you were okay. Now you tell me. What's going on, Sam?"
Sam cracked a bitter smile and stopped himself from laughing maniacally, because this was going to get very serious in a couple minutes if he didn't dodge this bullet. "Do we have a lead that we should be following or not?"
* * *
"Welcome to the Pine Barrens." Dean's words smacked of sarcastic grandeur as they left the car parked on a dirt path and stepped into the woods.
Sam followed Dean between the maze of trees. Patches of melting snow were scattered all along the forest floor. The light filtered through a gray blanket of clouds overhead, and the deeper they traveled into the Devil's playground, the harder it was to see. "So what are we looking for?"
Dean stopped and glanced all around him, searching for a path that stood out somehow. "Not sure. I guess we'll know it when we see it."
"There's nothing in Dad's book?" Sam gaped at him, incredulous that they already seemed lost and to top it all off they were going in blind. "You brought us out here without even knowing what the hell we're looking for?"
Blinking away his brother's seeming lack of faith in him, Dean met Sam's dumbfounded stare with calm eyes that gleamed green with a swirl of hazel. "It's the Jersey Devil, okay? There are books that describe this thing and the description is different on every page. The most common features seem to resemble a horse's head, large bat wings, and goat legs. But nothing's for sure."
"That's those books. What does Dad's say?"
Believing he got his orientation back, Dean started walking again. "Dad's theory makes the most sense. He doesn't think it's a demon or a monster."
"So what does he think? Cryptozoological creature?"
"Animal that just hasn't been discovered by modern science yet. Exactly."
"So you think that boy was killed by some kind of unknown animal?"
"I don't know. That's what we're here to find out."
They walked through sandy soil, their eyes searching the ground for tracks only to find none. Nothing, not a hint, not a clue, not a trace. And the search became exhausting all too easily with no breadcrumbs to follow. They hardly spoke a word, keeping their eyes open and their mouths shut. Sam didn't want to question his brother's judgment. Whenever Sam found somewhere they might be needed, Dean picked up and went across dozens of states on his brother's hunch without complaint. Every now and then, they turned up empty-handed on what seemed to be a possible case for them to solve, and the job would yield no results. This was looking like it would be one of those.
Sam was getting too tired to indulge this one any longer. "I don't think there's anything here, Dean."
Dean halted and turned to Sam. "I know we haven't found anything yet…"
"Yet? We've been out here for hours. It's almost nightfall, and we don't have a single thing to go on. Why don't we go back? Maybe we can find out something in town?"
"There's a house at Leeds Point. That's where the legend supposedly began."
"Is that where we're going?"
He fumbled for an answer that would satisfy Sam, but he didn't seem to have one handy. "I don't know…"
"What do you mean you don't know? We're in the woods all day looking for some place that you don't even know how to get to?" Sam tried to freak out as coolly as possible.
"Look, I don't want to be out here playing Davy Crockett versus the Devil anymore than you do, but something's here and I want to find out what that is." He paused, standing his ground, always assertive, resolute, and tenacious. In other words, stubborn and irritating. But then, he softened slightly, just to let his brother know that he wasn't losing his mind. "I just have a gut feeling about this, and I'm not going to be able to move on until I figure this out. Alright?"
His objections stumbled over the determination he saw in Dean. Sam couldn't deny him the chance to find out if there was something to this feeling he had. "Okay."
Just as silence fell between them, an eerie howl swept through the trees on the wind. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"I think you might get your wish to see if your instincts are right after all, Dean." Sam hurried to turn on his flashlight, shining it on every patch of entangled wood that was shrouded by obscurity at this hour. The shadows revealed nothing in the beam of light, and Sam turned to Dean, watching his flashlight creep into the darkness seeking out anything that might be out here with them. "Did you see anything?"
"Nothing." Dean's patience was a little frayed. "That didn't sound like any animal I'm familiar with."
Another cry came, powerful and voracious. And closer. They cast the penetrating light into every corner of the woods, but still nothing. Then, the cry came again, like a bear but shriller, like a horse but stronger, like a wolf but hungrier. Like a few hundred feet away yet closer.
"Talk to me, Sam. Do you see it anywhere?" The usual traces of excitement underlying Dean's slow-building panic.
Sam heard branches snap and rustle nearby, and he was too distracted by how methodically it was closing in on them. "I don't think we're hunting the devil. I think it's hunting us."
"That's not helping, Sam. Tell me you see it somewhere, man!"
The crackling of leaves seemed to be straight ahead of him. Sam slowly raised his flashlight to eye-level. There were still only branches against the pitch black. But when he lifted it a little higher than his head, he paused. There was something standing behind a tree ahead of them. He moved the flashlight, trying to see around the tree. Then, he felt Dean's gaze turn over his shoulder to see what Sam had spotted. They didn't move a muscle, trying not to do so much as breathe. There was something long, solid and curved sticking out from the other side of the tree. In the shadowy night, it almost appeared to be a wing.
Suddenly, it shrieked loudly, practically frantic, and the bizarre, silhouetted figure rose, rearing up like a frightened horse. Startled by the cry so fierce that it shook the ground, Sam dropped the flashlight beam no more than a couple inches, and when he lifted it again, whatever it was had taken off and was making its way very noisily away from them.
"What the hell do you suppose that was about?"
"I … I think something spooked it." Sam was sounding more than a little spooked himself.
Dean was a little more than spooked by that notion. "What the fuck scares a ten-foot high Devil creature?"
"I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to stick around these woods to find out." Sam wanted to bolt and the bewildered look on Dean's face said that he wouldn't argue with that suggestion. "We should get out of here."
* * *
So there they were. Back at a giant fucking impasse again. A discomfiting drive back from the woods to the motel and right to bed. Without more than two words passing between them. Sam lay there, staring over at Dean. Who, of course, had fallen right to sleep. Like a baby. No worries, no fear, no problem. Sam didn't know how the hell he did it. Where did he find the balls to come face to face with the Devil and then crawl into bed like they were perfectly safe, as if nothing could ever hurt them? It was mystifying. It puzzled Sam more than anything they could ever hunt. Sam wanted to feel that secure, that protected. In a way he was, because Dean had always protected him. Dean was the strong one, and he longed for that kind of strength. Sam loved his brother for all those things.
And Sam had loved Jess for letting him be all those things. Jess had been to Sam what Sam supposed he was to Dean. Someone to watch over, someone to care about, someone to need. Someone who supports you when you think you're supporting them. Jess was to Sam's normal life what Dean was to Sam's real life. This was his real life, deny it as he tried and depressed as that admission would always make him. And in his real life, Dean was the most important person in the world.
He just couldn't take his eyes off his brother. He didn't know what he would do if something ever happened to him. He couldn't bear it if he lost Dean. And he didn't know why he was tormenting himself like this tonight, but he needed to be close. Because if Sam didn't hold him, Dean might just not be there anymore one day. Like Mom, or Dad, or Jess. Dean was all he had now. And Sam couldn't stop himself this time.
Sam didn't want to stop himself. He got up from his bed and made his way to Dean's. He felt pressure behind his eyes, but he hadn't cried since tears of blood ran down his face for Jess. It was Dean who held him when that happened. It would be Dean who could make it better now. He carefully slipped under the covers, as sure that he didn't know what he was doing as he was that he didn't care. He wrapped an arm around Dean's chest, settling in behind him, feeling warm and comfortable up against him.
"Sam?" Dean stirred but didn't move away. "What are you doing?"
Sam didn't know what to say. He thought this was pretty self-explanatory. But Dean had asked for an explanation, so Sam needed to give him the best one he could. "I just thought we could both use this." Dean turned and glared at him. Shit. That was the wrong answer.
"Get out of my bed, man." Dean's voice stung with disappointment and disgust. "I don't want your pity fuck."
That was what Dean thought this was? Not that Sam had given him reason to think anything better of it. But at least now he had some idea what was bothering Dean so much. Dean did want him. But not like this. Dean wanted it to be for the right reasons.
Sam couldn't believe that he was actually trapped in this moment. He had dared to cross the line and was being reprimanded for it. Before he could mull over all the extra tension he probably just created for future long car rides, he backed off and removed himself from Dean's bed.
Without looking back, without speaking a word, Sam crawled back into his bed and closed his eyes. It was only for a second, but he felt it again. Blood dripping from the ceiling. He swallowed hard against the painful memory, but he felt another drop fall on his forehead. It made him open his eyes out of reflex alone. The sky outside was blood red, and the entire room lit with the ghoulish hue. And Dean was above him. On the ceiling. An expression of shock permanently wrought upon his face. "No. Not again!" The words came out of Sam's mouth even though his lips didn't move to say them. And then blue flames spread out from Dean's body.
His eyes opened, and there was nothing. It was another nightmare. Dean wasn't above him burning alive, and the ceiling wasn't engulfed in flames like some never-ending supernatural storm cloud that followed Sam wherever he went.
Only when he heard Dean breathing, nearly snoring, asleep safe and sound, did Sam begin to calm a little. Though there was no comfort in the fact that he had been having the same dreams about Jess and those nightmarish visions had come true. He had lost his mother to some unidentified demonic killer, then Jess, and their Dad was missing. But not Dean. His brother was too strong to fall victim to some creepy crawly that kills in the night. He listened to Dean breathe again. It was comforting, soothing, reassuring.
Then, Sam picked his head up to look over at Dean, and there was a dark figure standing at the foot of his bed. Sam stilled, watching. It seemed like a man, but it wasn't one. He couldn't explain how he knew. He just did. The figure was nothing but a dark silhouette in a darkened room, and Sam couldn't make out features of any kind, but he did see the head turn towards him, then look back at Dean. Sam glanced at Dean, anxious to be sure his brother was still breathing, and he was. Then, it spoke. A deep whisper. "Sam."
That was it. This thing had just called him by name and it was standing way too close to his blissfully unaware brother. Sam tossed the covers off him and jumped out of his bed. And in the split second he had taken his eyes off the figure, it was gone. Vanished without so much as an otherworldly scent left in its wake. Not so much as a cold spot, or even a chill.
This thing, this demon, seemed all too familiar. And all too menacing. And the one clue he had was his own name. This bastard knew him. This bastard had been stalking them like prey. They were being hunted. But Sam was the one having the dreams. Ever since he was born, it was his loved ones who were dying, the people closest to him who were in danger.
He was getting dizzy, and it seemed like he would faint, but he wouldn't be that lucky in this moment. It poured down on him like blood from the sky. Always falling on his forehead. Always the ones who meant the most to him being taken right before his very eyes.
All this time it was him. His whole life. He could never escape it, because he was the problem. It had taken him this long to put it all together. And now that he did know, he didn't know what the hell to do about it. Normal could never belong to him because he wasn't normal. He was damned.
But he didn't care if this thing were the Devil himself. He wasn't giving up his brother. He wouldn't let it happen to Dean too. Sam would find a way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~