AN: Once again, my deepest thanks for the kind comments and reviews. This story was a lot of fun to write, and I'm delighted y'all have enjoyed reading it, too! Thanks again -- EB.

Under a Haystack

By EB

©2006

11. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down

The brain-bombs take them to Lake Alpine, California, where something is eating the good townspeople, without bothering to kill them first. Sam's been thinking zombies, maybe, but it turns out to be a gaki, a hungry ghost that isn't only eating people but just about anything else, including everything Sam can throw at it in terms of weaponry. Holy water has no effect. It can be diverted with salt, but Sam has a weird suspicion it's because it doesn't like salt, as a food additive, rather than any demon-deflecting properties per se. Bullets and crossbolts just whicker through it like air. Which, in a way of course, it is.

On the fourth night he kills it with an incantation in broken Japanese and a meal of enokitake mushrooms and grave dirt, a theory based on some of the loosest associations he's ever had the nerve to test out in the field, and after it dissipates Sam whispers, "I'll never look at stir-frys the same again," and trudges back to the motel to check on Dean.

It's good to be back in California, though, and the next morning Sam lies in bed gazing at the sun poking through the worn curtains over the window and thinks, It has to be up to Dad. Because Sam can't keep on risking himself and leaving Dean to fend for himself. No doubt Dean has skills, arcane and mundane, and on the short term he can handle things. But if Sam is killed, or worse, Dean will be entirely alone, and that isn't an option.

There is still that red coal of vengeance lying hot and angry in his belly. But nearby are other responsibilities, ones he refuses to shirk, and later that morning over breakfast he looks over at Dean and says, "How would you like to stay around here for a while?"

Dean's table manners need some work. He gazes at Sam with ketchup-smeared lips and shrugs. "Right here?"

"Well, California. I went to school here, college, and it's pretty familiar. As much home as anyplace, I guess." Sam nods slowly. "Wouldn't it be good to stop moving around so much?"

Dean shrugs again and replies, "So we just hunt around here then?"

Sam smiles, leaning forward a little. "That's just it. Maybe we don't hunt for a while. I can put you back in school, I can get a job. Get a nice place to live."

"But hunting is what we're supposed to do. Daddy said."

"Well, maybe if everything had stayed the same, you know? But things are different now."

Dean lays his fork on his plate and looks down. "Because I got little."

"I'm not saying it's your fault," Sam says immediately. "It's not that at all. And maybe we can use California as a home base, you know? And when we hear about things nearby, we can check them out, do what needs to be done."

"Can I have a dog?" Dean asks, and Sam stares at him and then laughs out loud.

"You're damn straight you can have a dog," Sam tells him, and the uncertainty on Dean's face becomes a rare, luminously happy smile.

"That'd be good," Dean says firmly.

"Yeah," Sam whispers. "I think so, too, buddy."

He isn't sure exactly where to put them. Palo Alto's a natural spot, but the thought of enrolling to finish the last requirements for his degree, while obvious, doesn't hold much appeal. Not until he's made them a place that's a little more solid, let Dean have a taste of what it's like to stay in one place for longer than a month or two.

He's tentatively decided to take them a little north of the Bay area, maybe up near the Oregon border, near the coast, when everything changes.

They've gassed up in a tiny town that doesn't even have a population sign, maybe isn't a town at all, just a fuel stop. It's beautiful, though, winding coastal highway, an incredible view of the Pacific to their left. Sam finally has to pull over, smell the salt air, think about how he could get used to this again. Dean is wide-eyed at the panorama, fervently agreeing that it's real pretty, yeah, and maybe we could go swimming.

"I bet we could," Sam agrees, hand gentle on Dean's sun-warmed head. He grins down at him. "Want seafood tonight?"

Dean nods enthusiastically.

Sam thinks, later, that all it takes is a moment of inattention. A split second, while he takes in the view, builds the castle of their new life inside his head, lets himself just relax into it. He hears Dean say, "Oh, look." But Sam doesn't, not right away, because he's busy congratulating himself on the perfection of his plan, going over the call he needs to make to Dad to tell him what's going on. They'll need an apartment, or maybe even a house if Sam can find work that pays well enough. It would help if he'd actually finished at Stanford, but hell, even being admitted is good, and he's got plenty of skills. Including those appropriate to an office setting as opposed to the more esoteric ones he and his family have shared for so long.

And so he's slow turning around to see what Dean's looking at, and for a second he wonders just how Dean got all the way across the highway without Sam noticing. He can't tell what it is Dean's seen. Doesn't really matter; Sam lifts his chin and calls, "Dean! Hey, come back over here, stay off the highway."

Which makes it sort of his fault, because Dean's trotting back, grinning and mouthing words Sam can no longer hear because the bomb is dropping, he can see it all and this time he knows he won't be in time. There is no time, the candy-red SUV's coming fast, way above the speed limit, around the curve that has hidden Dean from view, and Sam's feet scrabble in the gravelly dirt and can't find purchase.

Dean looks to his right, mouth still open but this time with surprise, and there is a tiny, too-brief squeal of tires and a sickening thud that Sam will never, ever forget. And Dean disappears briefly, flung high and to the left, and when the SUV shudders to a halt several hundred yards further down the highway, Dean's lying in the ditch, and he isn't moving.

Sam utters a scream of denial, and staggers forward, hunched over as if the SUV has hurt him, too.

Dean looks so terribly small. Lying on his back, staring up at the sky. Sam flings himself down, can't bring himself to touch, ghosts his hands an inch above Dean's chest, and Dean blinks slowly and says "Daddy" very clearly.

Sam's eyes are blurry with tears, and he blinks furiously, can't be blind now, I have to SEE him, it might be the last time, he's all broken, his HEAD is broken. There is a dent in Dean's skull, not just a dent, a POTHOLE, big enough for Sam to fit both his fists inside, and clear fluid runs from Dean's ears.

"Sshhh," Sam says, bending close and kissing Dean's scraped cheek. "Be still, honey," he whispers. "You're gonna be fine. I promise. Everything's gonna be just fine." But it isn't, it can't be, they're a long way from help and Dean is dying, there is blood everywhere and beneath that shock of wheat-gold hair Sam can see Dean's BRAIN showing.

Dean's lips move, but Sam can't hear the words. A bubble of blood forms between his open lips, and pops, sprinkling little drops of red on his cheeks.

There is someone behind him, jabbering, a woman's hysterical voice: "He was just RIGHT THERE, I didn't SEE him, oh my god I didn't mean to HIT HIM."

"No," Sam whispers. Draws back, shaking his head. "No, no, it doesn't HAPPEN like this."

"Doesn't hurt, Sammy," Dean says, with a funny wheeze in his voice. "It's okay."

It's his smile that finishes undoing Sam. Smiling, because even when he's seven and dying Dean is still somehow Sam's older brother, still trying to look out for Sammy, make him feel better, and there is nothing Sam can do to make DEAN better. It is too late, he dropped his guard, and Sam groans wordlessly, cups Dean's hand between his own and leans his head back and screams to the sky, "NO! I won't allow it! You take me instead! You fucker, you want your mortal sacrifice, you fucking GOT IT! Take me! You let him LIVE!"

The woman is staring at him, backing away, and Dean's eyelids flutter closed, and Sam shoots to his feet, stalks back to the highway and straddles the yellow line and bellows, "ME!" Thumps himself in the center of his chest, hard and not even touching the pain inside. "He's just a little boy! You don't GET him. You take ME! My life for his! That's what you WANT! DO IT! DO IT, YOU FUCKER!"

Someone says, "Sam?"

But it isn't Dean, too old a voice, not nearly high enough, and Sam whips his head around, glares, don't FUCK with my goddamn sacrifice-in-progress here, bucko, and sees Dean propping himself up on his elbows, a confused look on his face.

Dean. Grown-up Dean, HIS Dean. The real Dean.

Whole, and staring around himself with utter incomprehension.

"What the fuck?" Dean mutters, and Sam gives a low, broken cry and sags to his knees.

The woman screams, and Sam hears the wail of tires, but doesn't look around. Just stares disbelievingly at Dean's slightly stubbly, otherwise entirely intact face as he sits up, brushing gravel from his jeans. "Okay," Dean says hoarsely. "What'd we do?"

Sam smiles, and then bursts into tears.

Dean doesn't remember a bit of it. He holds a newspaper like it's a rabid dog, just long enough to look at the date, and then flings it aside.

"So you're telling me I lost a MONTH?"

"A little over a month, actually." Sam feels sort of like he's an asthmatic who's just getting over a really bad attack. It's still hard to breathe; his chest feels delicate. Almost as fragile as his mind, staring at Dean – HIS Dean – and trying to believe it all really happened.

Dean purses his mouth, doesn't nod. "And I was a kid." Flat.

Sam nods. "Seven years old."

"And you've been…babysitting."

"Kinda," Sam agrees with a wheezy laugh. "Talk about your role-reversals, huh?"

"Which was a curse. That you broke, with a mortal sacrifice. In which nobody died."

Sam's smile vanishes; he feels cold again, and looks away. "Would have," he whispers. "Was going to."

There is a very long silence, and then Dean's dry voice: "You let me get hit by a CAR?"

"Hey, it was YOU who wandered off! Should have put you on a damn leash!"

Dean looks affronted. "Hey, I was a kid, not a DOG."

"And I still owe you for kicking me in the face."

Dean stares at him, then grins. It is a beautiful sight. "Man, even at seven I could kick your ass. I KNEW it."

"You did NOT kick my ass. It was my face, and don't think –"

Dean snickers, and says, "Face it, Sammy. Truth hurts, I know."

Sam pauses, and then smiles a little. "Yeah. Guess it does."

"Hey."

"What?"

Dean pats the car. "You take care of her while I was watching Sesame Street? You did, didn't you? Because if I get in that car and I find out there's a problem, so help me God, Sam, I will do more than kick you in the face."

Sam thinks about the ditch outside Tuba City, and immediately decides that there are times when judicious lying is nothing short of a survival skill. "The car is fine," he says smoothly. "I mean, you took some naps back there, and as long as there were no incontinence problems –"

"I was NEVER. A bed-wetter."

Sam lifts an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"

Dean's mouth opens and then closes, and then he says, "This is totally unfair."

"Why? You changed MY damn diapers when I was a kid. This just – evens the score a little."

"I'm the oldest. This –" Dean waves his fingers and makes a face. "Is just plain unnatural."

Sam bites the inside of his lip and says, "But illuminating."

Dean snorts, and opens the driver's-side door. "Yeah, illuminate my ASS," he mutters.

Sam's feet crunch in the gravel as he circles around to take shotgun. Inside, he glances over at Dean. Dean, who is a very normal twenty-seven years old, that bright gold hair darkened to sandy brownish-blond, freckles faded with time. But the hazel eyes are the same. He can still see that little boy in the man seated next to him. A little battered – it ain't the years, honey, it's the mileage – but that's Dean. His Dean.

"Next time," Dean pronounces, "it's you who gets cursed. Okay?"

"Hey, don't blame this on me. I think I deserve a medal for not putting you in foster care."

Dean darts him a narrow look, and Sam grins. "Actually, you were a pretty cute kid. Funny-looking. But cute. Sort of. When you weren't kind of – uncivilized."

"You're not gonna hug me or anything, are you?" Dean glares at him. "Because, dude, I'm NOT seven years old."

Sam ignores it, reaches out and touches his hand to Dean's spiky, messy hair. "Nah," he says softly. "You're back to being you, all right. Warts and all."

"I got NO warts. They wouldn't DARE."

Sam smiles, and takes his hand back. "I think I liked you better at seven."

"So if it had been you, you'd have been what? Two years old?"

"Don't remind me."

Dean turns the key in the ignition, reaches for the box of battered tapes, and says, "Bet you made us listen to NPR and boring shit like that. Emo rock."

"Not Metallica. Please, Dean. Doesn't teaching you to read count for ANYTHING?"

"Dude, I could read. I KNOW I could read."

"Not when you were seven."

Dean selects a tape and brandishes it like a talisman. "Sammy."

"It's SAM, and would you –"

"Hagar."

Sam thinks about it. "Compromise?"

"Can't drive in California without Sammy Hagar. It's a law."

"Yeah. Right."

The opening chords of "High Hopes" twang in Sam's ears, and Dean grins and yells, "I bet chicks loved me when I was seven. Chicks dig kids."

"Yeah, Dean," Sam says, pretty sure it's inaudible over the music. "Everybody loved you."

Dean puts the Impala in gear and throws a little gravel when he digs out, and Sam leans his head back and smiles.

Little Boy Blue come blow your horn

The sheep's in the meadow the cow's in the corn

But where's the boy who looks after the sheep?

He's under a haystack fast asleep.

Will you wake him? – No, not I;

For if I do, he's sure to cry.

END