rivers_bend

header at Master Post

The Road So Far
In Filcher's Hollow, just over a mile south south west from the lightning-struck oak on Pillar Mountain Road, there is a clearing in the woods. Because of underbrush and fallen logs, it's not evident from the ground that the clearing is a perfect circle, and sturdy branches arching into the space from above hide its shape from anyone flying overhead. It's just a clearing, always been there, and no one has ever thought to question it.

At 11:45 PM on August 7th 2000, Tim Baylor and Ray Jenkins are in the clearing with a case of beer, a bottle of whiskey, and an eighth of weed. They are celebrating their release from county lockup by getting wasted. Neither of them care even a little that they are in violation of the conditions of release. At 11:59, they hear a rustling in the underbrush.

"Did you hear that?" Tim says.

Ray is too slowed by weed and booze to respond before three dogs leap at him and start tearing at this throat and stomach. At the same time, two more dogs jump Tim, ripping into his arms and legs. He's screaming, his eyes and mouth full of his friend's blood, when the church bells six miles away strike midnight.

Their bodies are found two days later by three college students on a road trip from San Diego to Boston.

On August 13th, in an effort to prove how not scared of wild dogs they are, Max Bloom and TJ D'Argent bring their girlfriends Missy and Krissy Clementine out to the clearing. The twins have been away at their grandparents' farm since the end of July and haven't heard about the attack yet, so the gesture is lost on them. They assume Max and TJ just want to party. Both girls have been here before with other boyfriends. No big deal.

At least it's no big deal until, less than three minutes after they arrive at the clearing, two-year-old Johanna Jordache toddles out of the woods clutching a dirt-matted teddy bear.

Max screams, though later he swears up and down to anyone who will listen that he was just shouting to get the girls’ attention because everyone knows that girls are better with little kids. Krissy runs over to pick Johanna up. The child disappeared from her bed two weeks before the girls left for their grandparents', and Krissy, who wants to be homecoming queen when school starts again, correctly assumes that the person who can be credited with finding the missing girl will get her picture in the local paper. All press is good press, but being-a-heroine press is best.

Johanna is too young to tell anyone where she's been, and though volunteers from across the county search the woods, no trace of her captors or where she was kept is found.

On August 20th, Miles Rankin goes into the woods with his shotgun, hoping for some out-of-season venison. Two hours later, Albert Wilkie, the town's mailman, picks up Miles, naked, mute, and demented, on the side of the road. Sherriff Alpert finds Miles' gun and clothes in the clearing, but no sign of what might have happened to him. Angie Rankin, who's put up with Miles drinking and sleeping around for twenty-seven years, decides that she can't deal with a man who won't even speak and who keeps trying to eat her prize flowers right out of the garden, so she sends him up to the mental ward in the city hospital.


Washington County, Virginia

Dean's been after John for going on a year now to let him go on a hunt on his own. John was in the jungle by the time he was Dean's age—younger— and didn't even think about it. But now that he knows what's really out there, he's been stalling, even though Dean's smart, quick, as good a shot as John, maybe better. However, lately it's starting to feel like he's got two sullen adolescents on his hands: Sam being Sam, and Dean reverting to the kind of teenager he never was, bored here while Sam's in school and John's making use of a local hunter's library and waiting for a contact to show his face. Tired of Dean's grumbling, John's been scouring local papers, trying to find something to occupy him and Dean both.

Second week of September, he finds a possibility. Two local men mauled by wild dogs in the woods. Not unheard of, but John has learned to be suspicious of animal attacks over the years; they're a favorite explanation for things police or journalists can't explain any other way.

The article is a little short on details: Misters Baylor and Jenkins, fresh out of jail after serving time for animal cruelty, found ripped apart in a clearing a few weeks back. John's karma meter is pinging—torturing animals and then mauled by them?—but there's a better than average chance it is just a bear or coyote attack. No harm sending the boys out, get them to have a look in broad daylight, report back if anything looks strange. Dean's more than capable, and it might get him off John's back for a while. Even if it's something bigger than a coyote, the boys, well-armed and during the day, will be just fine.


~~~~~||~~~~~

Sam hates that he feels excited when Dad asks him to go out alone with Dean to do recon—he's seventeen, he should want to go to the school dance, cop a feel of a cheerleader under the bleachers. He wants to want to. But going out to the woods with his brother: full moon, mossy clearing, no dad— Even knowing that 90% of the appeal is things that will never happen outside his fevered (and sick, let's not forget sick, Sam) imagination doesn't make him less enthusiastic. Just the ten percent that's a late-night drive and time spent with Dean, the maybe chance to impress him with quick reflexes or ninja powers of observation—even that sounds better than a crappy DJ and overpriced soda and a bunch of kids he couldn't care less about getting to know better.

It turns out Dad wants them to go in the afternoon—figures—but Sam still doesn't make plans to go to the dance. Even though he's grumbling that it's not much of a challenge, Dean's clearly excited to have something to do besides sift through stinky old books. With Dean in a good mood, Sam's sure he can talk his brother into going somewhere when they're done looking for coyote shit or whatever. Dad doesn't say anything about them having to come back right away.

With a map sketched by the motel's owner, they find their way to the pullout near the burned-hollow tree—a patch of dirt on the shoulder, big enough to hold three or four cars, tamped down by use over the years. Parked right in the middle is a dusty pickup, empty gun rack in the back window. They won't be the only ones hunting today, which has its advantages. At least they won't look out of place toting guns through the woods.

Still, "Keep your pistol under your shirt," Dean warns Sam, like Sam doesn't know deer hunters don't generally use pistols. Looking around to make sure no one is spying on them from the trees, Dean lifts the false floor of the trunk to get out their weapons.

Sam glances at the truck again. "With luck they'll have headed the other direction and we won't even see them." But, after checking the ammo and the safety, Sam tucks the Smith and Wesson in the small of his back, making sure his sweatshirt isn't caught in the grip.

Dean shoulders their rifle and hands Sam the shotgun, and they head for the clearing.

Sam's first thought is that it looks like something out of a movie—a sunlit beacon ringed by oak and pine, fallen logs inviting hikers to sit and rest—but then they get closer and it just looks like a break in the trees, maybe somewhere the topsoil is too thin over rocky ground for the pines and oaks to take root.

"We'll criss-cross the clearing together," Dean says, interrupting Sam's musings, "and then split up to circle around. But don't leave my sight."

"I can take care of myself, you know," Sam argues, but without much heat. He doesn't want to let Dean out of his sight either; not only because he's enjoying spending time with him, but because he's not exactly hating the way the dappled sun picks up the shift of muscles in Dean's forearm as he moves the rifle to a more comfortable spot, or the way it makes his freckles seem to appear and disappear.

"Yeah, yeah, you're a regular Billy the Kid. But we're still not going farther than the other one can see. Dad's orders."

Sam doesn't bother sharing his opinion on Dad's orders. It's nothing Dean hasn't heard before, and Sam doesn't want to start a fight. Instead, he walks with Dean toward the center of the clearing.

There's not much to see. Grass, dirt, a few late wildflowers, a tatter of crime scene tape. Sam turns to Dean to ask if they're going to go across or side-to-side. He never even gets his mouth open.

The next thing Sam sees is the sky. He's on his back on the ground, the shotgun hard under his right elbow, and the pistol a painful lump against his spine.

"Dean?" he asks, even as he hears Dean saying, "Sam?"

They sit up and look around. Shadows stab deep into the clearing from the west. The sun was high in the sky when they arrived.

"Are you okay?" they both ask, turning to look at each other, and then they both answer, "I think so."

"Jinx," they say next and then laugh. There's an edge of hysteria to the sound.

Standing, they pick up their guns and then stare at each other. Sam can't remember why they're here, and from the look on his face, neither can Dean.

"We should probably get back to the car," Dean says.

Sam looks around the clearing—a quiet peaceful space, with birds twittering from tree branches, a squirrel sitting on a log, tail twitching, watching them—and he can't think of any reason to disagree with his brother.

When they get to the car, Dean puts the guns back in the trunk and gets behind the wheel. Sam's happy to be sitting next to Dean, summer air pouring through the windows, sky starting to go pink in the rear view mirror. He wants to tell Dean to just keep driving, to take him somewhere they can sit and watch the sun set then lie under the stars, but there's a niggling worry at the back of his mind, too. Something's wrong, he might have gotten hurt in that clearing, sick, Dad won't be happy.

Last year, Sam got really, really drunk one night while Dad was away and Dean was out with some girl. The whiskey made him vomit, but it also made him feel disconnected from his anger and frustration. He feels the same disconnection from the worry now.

"Do you think we're drunk?" Sam asks.

Dean looks at him sharply. "Do you feel drunk? Dizzy? Like you're going to be sick?"

The answer is obviously very important to Dean, so Sam considers it carefully before replying. "Not really. I feel fine, actually. But then there's like, I don't know, this haze of worry?" He can't really explain.

"Well, you should be worried," Dean snaps. "We just passed out in the woods for no reason and I don't even know what we were doing there in the first place."

On the tail of Dean's words, Sam's worry becomes clear and focused, but also focused is Sam's memory of Dad sending them out to look for signs of either a wild animal attack or something more in their line of work.

"Looking for coyote shit," Sam blurts.

"What?" Dean keeps his eyes on the road, but Sam can feel him like he's looking anyway.

"We were looking—"

"For coyotes," Dean interrupts. "Or bears. Right. How could I forget?"

"There was nothing there anyway," Sam says. "Just a clearing in the woods. Think Dad was just giving us something to do."

So you'd stop bitching. Sam knows he doesn't say that last part out loud, but Dean still slaps his thigh.

Sam hits Dean back, and they glare for a minute before getting into a slap fight like they used to when Sam was six and Dean was ten and they were both riding in the back seat, supposed to be sleeping. Only this time Sam's winning, Dean handicapped by needing to drive and Sam bigger enough now to have an advantage anyway. They start laughing so hard that Sam can hardly breathe, and only stop because Dean needs both hands to make the sharp left turn into the motel lot.


~~~~~||~~~~~

Dean gives Sam first shower, though, not liking how flushed Sam looks, he warns his brother not to let the water get too hot. Dean's feeling flushed himself, muddle-headed, and wonders again what exactly happened to them. Maybe he should lie down for a minute. Dad probably won't be back for a few hours, no reason not to rest before he cleans up. Then he can get organized, figure out what to tell his father once Dean is less covered in forest floor.

When Dean's hand runs over his abs as he's stripping off his muddy clothes, it sends a thrill south to his cock. Not his everyday reaction to getting undressed, at least not since he was fourteen or so, when just about everything sent a thrill southward. He'd ignore it, but it's a compelling sensation, hardening his dick in his briefs as though he were already stroking himself. The water is still running in the bathroom, so Dean finishes taking his clothes off and sinks down on the bed, wrapping a hand around his cock and tugging. Instead of one of his stock fantasies, his thoughts go unbidden to Sam in the shower.

"No," he says out loud, trying to force his favorite busty Penthouse red-head over the image instead, but the shower scene persists. Only—huh—it isn't actually Sam he can see, but himself, down on his knees, mouth on his brother's dick.

Dean lets go his own dick like it's on fire. "What the—"

He doesn't like to do it, but Dean will, in the darkest recesses of his private thoughts, admit that he's occasionally (or even not so occasionally) thought about Sam in ways that aren't exactly fraternal. However, a longing feeling when Sam wraps arms around him from behind and peers over his shoulder to see what Dean's cooking, or a jolt of lust when a shirtless Sam dips his fingers below his waistband to scratch, is a whole universe away from seeing himself down on his knees, slurping and sucking and—Jesus.

Flat on his back, Dean grips tight to the bedspread either side of his hips. He's not doing this—he's not—but god, it still feels like he's got a hand on himself, jerking hard and slow, the way he likes it when he's got time—

"What the fuck?" he mutters, glaring down his body at his jerking dick and thrusting hips. Then a light bulb goes off. The thing in the woods—it must be a succubus.

An invisible, incorporeal succubus… that made him and Sam pass out for over an hour with no dreams at all and come to just as dressed as when they'd fallen, then followed them home and forced a definitely awake Dean to fantasize about sucking— Yeah. Okay, maybe not a succubus then.

Dean is still gripping the bedspread, but the kneeling-Dean in his mind's eye has just jerked shower-Sam to coming all over kneeling-Dean's chest, and somehow that relieves some of real-Dean's desperate need to touch himself. It doesn't get rid of his hard on, though, and when he realizes that the showering-with-Sam images are gone, he quickly jerks himself to orgasm, thinking of nothing but beautiful busty centerfolds.

Maybe a Siren, Dean thinks as he idly rubs his jizz into his belly. Except Sirens are also not so much with the invisible, incorporeal schtick. He's digging in his duffle for clean clothes when he hears the bathroom door open behind him.

"Hey, Sam—" he starts, but he's hit again with a thigh-shaking quake of want that stops him mid-thought. Gripping the wash-greyed t-shirt nearest his hand, Dean takes a deep breath and turns around. Towel around his waist gripped in one white-knuckled fist, Sam is standing in the doorway, staring at Dean. Or, well, at the wall above and to the right of Dean's head.

"Sam?" Dean's suddenly embarrassed about the flecks of come dried to his stomach, about being naked in front of his brother, though he was naked in front of him this morning and didn't think anything of it. He drapes the shirt he's holding so it covers his dick.

"Shower's all—done. I'm your—It's yours," Sam mumbles.

Dean was set to ask if Sam felt okay, if anything weird happened to him in the shower, but he decides that is a conversation best had when neither of them is naked, so he makes a break for the bathroom the second Sam moves out of the doorway.


~~~~~||~~~~~

As soon as the door closes behind Dean, Sam shakes his head like he's trying to get water out of his ear. Jerking off in the shower had cleared the last of the haze from his head, but then he'd come out into the room and seen his brother bare-ass naked bending over his duffel and been hit with not only his usual lust, but a rush of panic. It's been three or four years since Sam gave up panicking when he got hard thinking about what he'd like to do to his brother's ass, so the return of that feeling is a little freaky.

Now that Dean is safely on the other side of the door, Sam feels better, but he's definitely starting to wonder if there is some kind of panic-inducing creature out there in the woods. Maybe it affects animals as well as people, and it drove whatever canines are out there to attack those two guys. Probably a ghost or something. With all the research they've been doing lately, Dean or Dad might know more.

Dean's wearing his t-shirt when he comes out of the bathroom and keeps his towel wrapped around himself until he's pulled his jeans on. Clearly the panic ghost got to him, too.

"So, I think it might be a poltergeist," Sam says when Dean finally finishes dressing and looks at him.

"Yeah?"

"Something that induces panic, anyway. Maybe not a ghost. But I keep getting freaked out for no reason, and, I don't know, it doesn't really feel like me, you know?"

"Panic?" Dean does concerned-big-brother face for a moment but then his features smooth out. "So like you get a vision of something scary?"

"No, not a vision. It's more like that feeling when you're sure you're being followed but you turn around and no one is there?"

"So you're not seeing things?"

"No." Then Sam actually looks at his brother. Dean looks a little disappointed. "Are you seeing things?"

Dean shakes his head totally unconvincingly.

"What are you seeing?" Sam's worried again, but it's actually his worry this time. "Savage packs of dogs? Axe murderers?"

"No," Dean says. "Not exactly." He flushes, and for a second Sam can see Dean again as he'd imagined him while he was in the shower, flushed, wet—

Then the door bangs open and Dad's back.

His mouth is pinched and he throws his bag with more force than necessary into the corner; it's a good bet the guy he went to see didn't show. Again.

"So," he says, turning to Dean. "Is it a hunt or just some wild dogs?"

The panic is back, buzzing at the back of Sam's head, though panic is too strong a word this time. Worry, maybe.

What the hell am I supposed to tell him? Sam thinks. Only he's not thinking that at all; he knows just what he plans to tell Dad. It's more like the worry is thinking it.

"There's something there," Sam says when Dean doesn't answer Dad.

Shit, don't tell him about losing time, or— The words like a whisper in Sam's head.

Sam looks at Dean, who gives him the tiniest head shake from behind Dad's arm.

Okay, that's fucking weird. Voice in his head again, only this time definitely Sam's own thoughts.

"Boys?" John says in a voice that means they'd better spit it out, and now.

With a quick glance at Dean, Sam continues. "We didn't see any sign of animals at all, wild or supernatural, but—" Sam gets a strong sense again that he shouldn't tell Dad too much, though he's not sure why not. When he fumbles for a moment wondering what he should say, Dean takes over.

"It's probably nothing, but, well, since we got back— Sam and I, we've—"

Sam jumps in before Dad can do more than look sharply at them. "I've been feeling this fear that's not my own."

"What do you mean?" John looks cross still but is starting to look worried, too.

Sam struggles to explain, thinking the drunk metaphor might not be the best one to use with his father. "It's like if you're watching a horror movie, and the guy on screen is terrified and you kinda— You feel what he's feeling, but it's not your fear—"

"So you are seeing things?" Dean interrupts, sounding pissed like he thinks Sam lied last time Dean asked that.

"No! I just meant that it's not my fear."

Now Dad's looking back and forth between them. "Are you having visions, Dean?"

"It's just like Sam said. With the movie. Only I guess I can maybe see more of the— whatever than he can."

Sam feels his chest go tight like he's the one who just lied to Dad, but before Sam can wonder how he knows Dean is lying, Dad's stomach growls loudly, and he declares there isn't much they can do about it tonight anyway, with Conrad gone on an errand and his books therefore out of reach. Asking if Dean feels okay now, and getting an affirmative answer, Dad sends him out for pizza and spends the time Dean's gone yelling at various people on the phone about not being where they said when they said.

Food makes Sam feel better, no more weird feelings that don't belong to him. Surprisingly, Dad doesn't give them the third degree, even after they've eaten; he's happy to settle down in front of the TV, only checking once to see if Sam or Dean has had any strange feelings since he got back.

With Dean and Dad both paying more attention to the documentary about military submarines than to Sam, Sam wonders if maybe he should have gone to the dance after all, but there's something nice about this too. Something settled. So Sam just lies on the bed, watching his dad and brother splitting a six pack, letting sleep pull him under while a narrator drones on about sonar and torpedoes, and the TV's blue-white light flickers on the ceiling.


~~~~~||~~~~~

Saturday morning, the boys are fine, no strange panics, no talk of visions, so when Conrad calls to tell John about a seer just over the state line who has some information about mysterious house fires, John back-burners whatever is going on in the clearing and heads over to Kentucky for the night, leaving Dean with instructions not to go anywhere near the woods.

After a six hour drive, John discovers the fires the seer knows about turn out to be something to do with a single property and nothing to do with Mary's death. But when she sees that her information is a disappointment, the woman has some pretty compelling suggestions about how they can make his trip worth both their whiles, so John not only gets a bed for the night but heads back to Virginia feeling like the weekend wasn't a total waste.

He gets back late Sunday after both boys are asleep. Dean lifts his head when John is unfolding the rollaway, makes as if to offer John the bed, but John just shakes his head and Dean goes back to sleep. Since the boys got too big to share, when they're in a motel they take turns on sofa beds or rollaways. John doesn't mind taking his turn too. He's slept plenty worse places.

Sam gets himself up and ready for school quietly enough that even in their cramped quarters, John doesn't wake until he hears Dean grumble, "Can you take the bus today?" to a Sam all dressed and standing by his brother's bed, backpack in hand.

"Sure," Sam murmurs.

Dean, probably too sleepy himself to worry about waking their father, doesn't lower his own voice when he says, "I'll pick you up after, though," then adds, "There's bus money in my pocket if you need it."

John props up on one elbow. "You gonna be late if you take the bus? You can take Dean's car; he can borrow the truck if he needs to go anywhere."

"Nah," Sam says, looking at Dean instead of John. "I'll be fine." With a clumsy shrug/nod/wave goodbye, he slumps out the door.

John should get up, but he and his new friend hadn't gotten much sleep Saturday night, and he's tired. Before he can second guess the decision, he lets his eyes slip shut and returns to the land of nod.

The second time he wakes, it's to the smell of coffee and fast-food sausage. Dean's putting a grease-stained white bag and a tray of drinks on the table when he notices John's awake.

"Hey," he says. "Loan out your own damned car if you want to be giving Sam something to drive."

Dean's not actually angry—John's seen Dean possessive and pissed off about the Impala often enough to know—but it wouldn't hurt to remind him who the father is around here anyway. "Technically speaking, that is my car. And I've got stuff in the truck."

Dean doesn't bother answering, just tips a pile of wrapped breakfast sandwiches out onto the table and digs into one. John stretches carefully, wary of the wobbly cot, and gets up to join him. After two cups of coffee and three sandwiches each, John is about to tell Dean what he has planned for the day when Dean flinches, hard, like someone shoved him.

"Fuck! Sammy!" Dean cries, jumping up and diving for his jacket.

"Dean?" There's a kick of dread trying to hit John in the guts, but he out-stubborns it, has himself half-convinced that Dean just remembered no one gave Sam lunch money before Dean's half out of his chair.

"Jesus. No." Dean's not talking to John, is looking the other way, and he really doesn't sound like this has anything to do with lunch money. But he's out the door before John can get any more out of him.

"They are going to be the death of me," John mutters, listening to tires chirp as Dean accelerates out of the motel lot.

Short of calling the school—and what the hell is he supposed to say, "My older son just flew out of here like the proverbial bat, shouting his brother's name; anything you want to tell me about Sam Winchester?"—there isn't much John can do except wait for Dean to come back. He has translating to do, so he settles down to that.

Both boys are back just over half an hour later, Dean with his jaw set and his eyes glinting hard, and Sam with a split lip, a grazed cheekbone, an eye starting to swell shut, and one hand clutching at his ribs.

"What the hell happened to you?" John shouts, never having been one to bother with bedside manner when there's information to be gained.

"I'm fine," Sam says, which doesn't answer the question.

Caught up in the mess of Sam's face, John completely forgets the mystery of Dean knowing it had happened from three miles away.

"Kid left his chemistry project in his locker and it spilled, blew the door off; I was in the way," Sam finally says when John looks at him hard, waiting for an answer.

"Looks an awful lot like damage caused by a fist," John counters.

"Well, I guess you'd know all about that." Sam tries to glare, winces, and settles for fixing his good eye on John's face. "Have you ever been hit in the face with a metal door?

John allows that he hasn't. But, "And did the locker door hit you in the ribs, too?"

"Yes," Sam says, gaze steady.

Dean's not saying a word, eyes flicking back and forth between his brother and his father, still looking like he'd like to take a swing at something. John remembers suddenly what started all this. "Dean? You have anything to say about why you ran out of here?"

"No, sir."

"No?"

"No. Sir." Unlike his brother, Dean's looking at his boots, mouth in a hard line.

Differently as they go about it, both his boys' faces mean the same thing. John's not getting any more out of them—not now, anyway. Dean on his own might crack, but when he's in cahoots with Sam, patience is the only thing that works. Doesn't mean John has to like it.

"See to that cut," he snaps. "I've got shit to do."

He scoops his books and journal off the table and slams the door behind himself.


~~~~~||~~~~~

Dean feels sick every time he daubs at Sam's face with the alcohol-soaked swab, which just adds to the anger churning in his guts. It'd be one thing if Sam lied to Dad; Dean's not exactly keen on telling him the truth about everything that's been happening to him the last couple days, either. But he doesn't get why Sam isn't telling Dean the truth.

When Dean tries to lift up Sam's shirt to look at his ribs, Sam bats him off.

"That's it, Sam. What the hell is going on? And don't give me any bullshit about chemistry experiments."

"What do you mean?" Sam's voice is flat as he busies himself putting stuff back in the first aid kit.

"I mean I was serious when I told you the school didn't call me. I could see those guys kicking the shit out of you, Sam. See it like it was happening to me. What the hell is going on?"

He means the visions, but Sam misconstrues, or pretends he does, and starts talking about the bullies instead. They've been after Sam since the second day of school; he hit one of them in the face with a stray basketball in PE and refused to give over his lunch money as an apology. They've been goading Sam for two weeks, but today they decided to drag him behind the old gym, let the one Sam had hit with a ball use his fists and feet on Sam while his five friends held Sam still.

"It's no big deal," Sam insists, when he gets to the point where the janitor came by and the guys let him go. "Assholes in every school."

"Yeah, there are. And it doesn't mean you ignore them beating the shit out of you. But that's not what I'm talking about." Dean grabs Sam's arm, keeping him from walking out of the bathroom.

Sam starts to pull away, but then gives in, dropping back to the toilet seat, his knees brushing Dean's where Dean's sitting on the edge of the bath tub. "I don't know what you want me to say, Dean. You keep asking if I'm having visions. I'm not. Asking me again isn't changing that."

Resisting the urge to squeeze Sam's wrist and shake it in frustration, Dean smoothes his palm over the back of Sam's hand, then links their fingers instead. Tells himself Sam looks like he needs the reassurance, doesn't admit that he needs it just as much.

"What about those weird feelings you said you've been having?" Dean keeps his voice low with effort.

"They're just feelings Dean, I don't know. Hormones or something. Teenagers have fucked-up feelings all the time, right?" Sam's voice echoes Dean's state of mind, too loud in the small space, too high pitched.

Fucked-up feelings. Dean wonders if maybe Sam's been feeling what Dean's been seeing. The shower stuff. If Sam's scared that Dean wants to do shit like that to him, it would explain his freakout. Maybe Dean should leave. He would hate it. Not being with Sam. But it would be safer for both of them. Would be—

"Dean, don't leave me alone. Please! You can't!" Sam clutches at him, one hand crushing Dean's and the other fisting in the collar of Dean's shirt. "I know I shouldn't have let them get me. I should have been able to fight them off. You trained me better than that. But I never thought—"

"Woah, woah, woah." Dean interrupts, stroking Sam's face, his chest, with the hand not being ground to burger in Sam's fist. "You think I'm mad at you, disappointed, because you got a black eye in a six-against-one fight?"

Sam won't look at him. Dean jerks Sam's chin up and lets how he feels about that show on his face. "Sam," he says, when his brother finally meets his eyes.

"They're just a bunch of jocks. I should have been more careful. You work so hard making sure I know how to defend myself… And you were disappointed. I know you were. I could see it in your face."

Dean doesn't understand. Sam has always been good at reading him, and Dean really, genuinely wasn't upset with him for getting in a fight. But. Now that Sam mentions it. "I was disappointed that you lied to me, Sam. That you didn't trust me enough to tell me the truth."

"I— Oh." Dean sees the moment Sam believes him flit across Sam's face, feels it in the relaxed grip on his hand. "You flew into the nurse's office, so angry and scared, and dragged me out of there so fast; I just thought— I don't know. I felt like everything was falling apart. I can't remember ever feeling so scared before. I don't even know why I lied, really."

Sam might not be having visions, but whatever is going on with him is not just teenage hormones. "I think something happened in the woods," Dean says quietly.

"What do you think it is?" Sam looks and sounds ridiculously young.

Dean wishes he had any other answer than, "I have no idea."


~~~~~||~~~~~

At Dean's insistence, Sam spends an hour on the bed with an ice-filled towel over his face, even though he's fine, and he really doesn't need to. He even lets Dean examine his ribs, and hardly gloats when Dean confirms what Sam already knew: none of them are broken. There is a bruise shaped like the combination dial on a locker door, thanks to the bike lock Pete swung at Sam just before the assholes were scattered by the arrival of Batty Bill and his push broom. Proof for Dad, if he needs it. If Dad even remembers Sam got hurt at school by the time he gets back.

While Sam lies in bed feeling more and more frustrated about being treated like a child, Dean prowls around the room like a caged cat, poking through the few books Dad always carries with them, tugging his hair into spikes with restless fingers. When he deems Sam rested enough, he lets him up, sends him out to the vending machine for cokes, and declares it time to brainstorm.

The brainstorming isn't all that helpful. Sam writes ??Wild dog attack and Visions: of violence and unspecified—because Dean's still being cagey about what, other than Sam's attack, he's seen, even when Sam shouts and asks how the hell they're supposed to brainstorm if Dean won't tell him everything—and Feelings ?? not my own on a piece of paper. None of it seems to fit together. Not even when he circles the words and draws spidery lines out from them. Not that he's surprised. The technique has only ever really worked for the paper he did on the Civil War in tenth grade.

Dean proposes that it could be something manifesting people's deepest fears, which makes Sam want to know more than ever what Dean's not telling him, but they decide that while Ray and whatever-his-name-was might have been terrified of dogs, that probably would have made stealing and torturing them difficult if not impossible. And as scared as Dean is of Sam getting hurt, and of seeing it but being unable to do anything to stop it, Sam getting a black eye isn't even close to the scariest thing he can imagine. And Sam isn't afraid of feeling worried. Even when the worry isn't over anything he can identify.

They discount ghosts and all the creatures they've ever heard of that hunt in the woods and decide they don't know enough about black magic to come down on either side of that argument. Sam's just thinking about the town library, and wondering whether it has a computer research station, when he's hit by a wave of frustration and helplessness. He looks up and catches sight of Dean, fists clenched on the table, glaring at their meager pile of books like he's about to set them on fire with his eyes.

"Dean," he says, "are you feeling frustrated?"

"How the hell do you think I'm feeling? We have no idea what the hell is going on and—"

"I think I'm feeling your feelings," Sam interrupts.

Dean turns his laser stare on Sam. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I was sitting here calmly planning how we could get more information while Conrad's gone, and suddenly I wanted to punch something I was so frustrated. I looked up and you were all grr-faced and clenched fists and clearly pissed as hell."

Dean takes a deep breath and Sam can feel the tension in his own chest receding.

"And you were scared in the car after we woke up in the woods, right?" Sam continues. "Like, really scared. Wow. I didn't—"

"I wasn't scared, alright? I was just worried that you were hurt and not telling me."

Sam wonders if all his knowledge that Dean is defensive as hell right now is reading Dean's voice and body language, or if any of it is being able to read Dean's feelings directly.

"Okay," he says, placating. "Whatever. You were stressed. I don't know what that has to do with your visions. Or being mauled by dogs. But it's a place to start, right?" His mind whirls off on a new list of things he wants to look up when they can get their hands on Conrad's library again. Or if the library in town is better than he suspects. He's not really focusing on Dean until he notices a scratching noise and sees his brother has picked up the pen and is scribbling a black square in the margin of Sam's paper, frowning down at it. "Dean?" Sam asks.

"So are my visions coming from you?" Dean's voice, face, and the feelings he's bleeding into Sam are all congruent. The idea makes Dean tense as hell.

Sam's not sure how to answer, made nervous by Dean's stress. "I guess," he finally says. "I mean, it makes sense, right? You said that you could see Pete and his friends beating me up like it was happening to you. Except you knew it was me, somehow." Which, now he thinks about it, doesn't make much sense. Dean has never met Pete or seen the old gym.

"Yeah." Dean pauses, taps the pen a few times. "I could see your shoes when I looked down in the vision, but I knew anyway. It was you. Couldn't be anyone else."

"So I'm feeling your feelings, and you're—I don't know. Seeing through my eyes? Seeing my thoughts?" Sam suddenly feels sick. If Dean is seeing his thoughts, and saw what Sam was thinking about in the shower after they got back from the woods, no fucking wonder he doesn't want to talk about it.

"Sam?" Dean puts his hands on Sam's wrists, squeezing them, eyes flitting over Sam's face. "Sam? What's—"

"Nothing," Sam says, more shakily than he'd like. "I just—So, are you?"

"Am I? Oh. Seeing your thoughts?" Dean takes his hands back, picks at one thumbnail with the other. "Maybe? I can't see what you're thinking now, for sure. But when those guys were—Maybe it's just when you're scared. Or hurt. Something like that." Dean examines his thumbnail like the answers are written on it somewhere.

Sam doesn't want to know, but he has to. "But the other day, you said you saw something that scared you."

"I don't think so." Dean frowns. "You said you were scared and I asked if you were seeing visions of something scary."

Dean doesn't usually play word games. "Whatever," Sam snaps. "You implied that you saw something scary." Though maybe Dean wasn't scared. Probably disgusted is a better word if he did see what Sam was thinking about in the shower.

"I don't know what I saw, okay? I was stressed, like you said. I was stressing you out, too. It wasn't anything clear." Pushing back from the table, Dean stands, turning his back on Sam. "I'm hungry. Dad'll probably be back soon. I'll get us some barbecue from that place the other side of town."

Sam doesn't really want barbecue—his stomach is roiling—but he doesn't want to argue with Dean either, so he doesn't say anything, just lets him go. Once Dean is gone, Sam takes some more Tylenol, and gets himself another ice pack for his ribs, which are starting to hurt again. Lying on the bed with the TV on low, he thinks about his brother.

Dean's been touching him this afternoon. Not only as he had to cleaning Sam's wounds, but casual touches too, just like he always has. Maybe even a little more than always. If he'd seen what Sam thinks about when he jerks off, he wouldn't do that. He'd run a mile in the other direction. Or at least keep his distance. Sam tries to remember what else he might have been thinking that Dean could have seen. Waiting for the water to heat up, he'd thought for a minute how horrible it would be to be ripped apart by dogs; maybe Dean saw that. It would be a little weird for him to hide it, if so, but if he didn't know what was happening, he might have. Dean hates to look like he doesn't know what's going on.

There wasn't really anything else, though. Unless Sam's thoughts strayed to something while he was drying off that he can't remember now because it wasn't important at the time. Forgetting his bruises, Sam rubs his forehead, trying to remember. Not a good plan.

Shifting the ice from his ribs up to his eye, which has gone from dull ache to throbbing, Sam lets out a frustrated noise. He's not going to be able to guess what Dean saw, and Dean seems determined not to tell him, so there isn't much point in thinking about it anyway. The question is, if the same thing happened to Sam and Dean out in the woods, how come Dean's the only one getting images? Why isn't he getting the disquieting feelings that Sam's getting? Sam would rather have the visions. He generally sees the world in pictures anyway. If something is scaring him he can see what it is, doesn't have to deal with just the emotions piling up in his chest without any center.

Maybe that's it. Sam sits up, dropping the soggy towel in the ice bucket. Maybe Dean doesn't see the world in pictures. So he's not sure what to do with what he's getting from Sam, same as Sam's not sure what to do with all of Dean's feelings without images to focus them on.

Sam can't imagine not thinking the way he thinks, but it must be possible. People do process information differently. They did a whole unit on it in social studies last year, with experiments to see if they were visual or auditory or kinetic learners. In class they only discussed teaching, but it would make sense if it's not just about different learning styles but all kinds of brain differences. He wishes Dean would come back so that he could ask what his brother thinks about his theory.

Instead—of course—Dad walks through the door.

"I need a hand with some boxes," he says. "Conrad's back with some more books, so I said we'd give him a hand going through them."

No chance of talking to Dean tonight, then. And tomorrow's school, then god knows what Dad will have planned. Sam wants to tell his dad to catalog the damn books himself, wants to drive his fist through the brown-and-orange wallpaper, rip into the plain white plaster underneath. Then a car door slams and he recognizes that most of his irritation is coming from outside.

Dad has the door open before Dean can get his key in the lock.

"Fucking assholes!" Dean storms in, filling the room with the smell of barbecue. "Don't pay any attention, nearly drive me off the road; I almost took out a mailbox!"

"You're okay though?" Sam asks. Then, "And the car?" knowing that's more important to Dean than his own skin.

Dad rescues the bags of food from Dean's angry gesticulating.

"Yeah, I'm fine. She's fine. No thanks to—"

"Let's eat," Dad interrupts. "We got a lot of books to look at tonight."

Dean calms down pretty quickly at the prospect of pork and cornbread, which makes Sam feel better, too. He's grateful that whatever this is wasn't happening a few years ago when he was learning to deal with pubescent mood swings. He'd have had no chance against a second set of emotions then. Pushing books aside and opening the bags, they all sit at the table and dig into the food.

With full bellies, Sam and Dean follow Dad out to the car to help with the boxes. Sam worries for a minute that the whole truck is full of books, but the large, tarp-covered lump is just a rocking chair Dad's delivering for Conrad because it won't fit in the man's car. Not that the forty or fifty books that are there won't be tedious enough.

They each get a legal pad and a stack of books and set to work. Sam hopes that he might be able to kill two birds with one stone, that there might be something in the books that will help him figure out what's going on with Dean, but so far all of the books in his stack contain rites and rituals, most of them in Latin to boot.

Dean seems to have a box of books about mythical-looking creatures, and Sam tries hard to picture finding a creature that can make two people share thoughts, willing Dean to pick up on it. His brother does look at him, and bumps his knee, but Sam isn't sure if Dean actually did read his thoughts, or if it was just a coincidence. By 10:30, Sam feels as though his eyes are burnt holes in his skull so he says, "I've got school tomorrow. I'm gonna go to bed."

It's his turn for the rollaway, but when he starts towards it, Dean says, "I'll take it. It can be your turn tomorrow. Save us moving the boxes out of the way before we're done."

Sam brushes his teeth and gets into bed, pulling a pillow over his head to block out the light, keeping his thoughts focused on the quiz in English tomorrow instead of on the way Dean looks silhouetted against the lamp, just in case it's getting easier for Dean to read him.


~~~~~||~~~~~

With the boxes of books taking up a lot of the space in the room, Dean doesn't have much choice but to set up the cot right next to Sam's bed. He's quiet about it and succeeds in getting in and under the covers without waking his brother up. With this whole sharing thoughts thing, Dean's worried he's not going to be able to go to sleep, but he's more tired than he thought and drifts off after only a few minutes.

Dean and Sam are in the clearing again, but after dark this time, except Dean can see clearly as though it were day. Sam is young, maybe ten or twelve, his foot caught in a tree root. They need to be running, need to get away. Whatever is after them is getting closer, making Dean panic. Sam is scared, crying, but Dean can't get close enough to dislodge him. Then Sam is free, racing through the woods, shouting for Dean to hurry. When Dean finally catches up to him, Sam has grown up, turned into the Sam he is now, cornered by a gang of vampires, all Bela Lugosi in white-face, cloned and cloned again, claws and fangs bared, advancing on Sam, swinging chains. Dream-Sam screams, and Dean wakes up, panting, choking on air, to see his brother huddled safely under the covers a few feet away.

The sight of him is like a kick in the chest. Dean wants to climb into bed with him, pet and soothe him the way he used to after Sam woke up from a nightmare, to draw comfort from comforting the way he did when they were younger.

But that's not all Dean wants. His cock is hard enough that it's poking out the wash-stretched top of his boxers, his jaw and fists ache with clenching and he can feel his heart pounding in his throat. He wants to be the vampire that catches Sam, tilts his head back and tastes him, wants to drink Sam's blood, feed Sam his own, crawl in through the holes he makes and be Sam's oxygen.

Everything is jumbled in Dean's head, comfort, love, protection, but also sex, hunger, and other, even more twisted things Dean can't let himself think about.

Then Sam stirs, stretches, and Dean starts getting fragments, then whole moments of images echoing his desire to hold his brother. Dean doesn't recognize at first that the thoughts are Sam's instead of his own, and for a few minutes, they feed off each other, Dean's dream thoughts turning into the image of Dean getting up, lifting up Sam's blankets and sliding into bed with him, pulling him close, stroking his hair, kissing his forehead like he used to when Sam had a nightmare. Then Dean tilting Sam's face up, kissing his lips, sliding a hand down Sam's back to move him closer, pull him in so their hips are pressed together, so Dean can't help but feel how hard Sam is—

Even once he realizes that these are Sam's thoughts, understands somehow that Sam saw what Dean was thinking and that he's showing Dean this in response, Dean stays still, hardly breathing. Until Sam stirs and says his name, all the longing and desperation Dean's feeling himself evident in Sam's voice.

That one word galvanizes him. There is nothing Dean could say that makes him anything but the worst brother ever, so he runs, wearing nothing but his boxers, grabbing nothing but his car keys, remembering too late that Dad moved the blanket that usually lives in the Impala's back seat to his truck. Dean gets out to the car, and all he has to keep himself warm is an old corduroy jacket of Sam's. He curls up under it as best he can, but there is no way he's going to get back to sleep tonight.

Unfortunately, that gives him plenty of time to think.

Once Sam's gone to school and Dean can get some clothes, he has to get out of here. He tries, during his hours freezing his nuts off in the car, to convince himself it was just a dream, that he isn't responsible for the fucked-up things his subconscious comes up with, that he didn't make Sam think those thoughts at him. But the more he tries, the less he believes it. Every time he's looked at Sam in the last few years with more than a fraternal gaze grows in significance in his mind until by the time the sun starts glowing on the horizon, Dean has himself half-convinced that he's been molesting his brother since Sam hit puberty.

Of course, Sam picks that moment to come out and bang on the windows. Dean screws his eyes shut, only just remembering in time that if he pulls the coat over his head, it will leave his boxers-clad ass bare to Sam's gaze.

"Dean, for fuck's sake open the door. Stop freaking out about whatever you're freaking out about."

Grateful as he is that Sam can only feel that Dean's freaking out and apparently can't read Dean's specific thoughts right now, Dean would still really rather Sam didn't know anything at all. Even more than he wishes he couldn't see that Sam's thinking about searching Dad's truck for a slim-jim and breaking into Dean's car.

"Don't you fucking dare," Dean thinks as loudly as possible, though he's keeping up the sleeping act as he does.

Sam's thoughts turn briefly to kicking the windows in, then he slaps the car's roof one last time, swearing under his breath, and finally Dean hears his footsteps receding across the gravel-strewn lot.

Based on the sun, Dean reckons that he's probably got another hour to wait before Sam leaves for school, but it's only about twenty minutes before he and Dad walk past, get in the truck and leave. As soon as the truck clears the lot, Dean goes and takes the hottest shower he can stand, until the chill leaves his bones (if not his guts).

Being warm and awake does make him feel better, and for a minute or two, Dean even imagines that he can stay and everything can just go on like it always has, the three of them hunting, getting Sam through school, Dean perfectly happy with his own right hand when there's no time for a pick-up in a bar. But he knows it's too late for that, even if they can find whatever did this mind-reading thing and get it stopped now. Sam knows what Dean was thinking, and even if Sam is thinking the same thing completely independently of his brother, it's Dean's job to keep either of them from acting on it.

He packs quickly, not knowing when Dad's going to be back, and certain that Dad isn't just going to let him leave. Sam will probably kill him for going without saying goodbye, but if he does this right, Sam isn't going to have the opportunity. He'll get over it. They both will. It's the right thing to do. The only thing.

Dean makes it about ten miles before the pain starts. Like a headache in his whole body at first, within two or three minutes it's more like being on fire. Dean has to slam on the brakes because he can't see the road through the crushing pain in his skull. Even while the tiny part of his brain that isn't occupied with wanting to scream in agony wonders what the hell is going on, he knows that it's because he's trying to leave his brother. Somehow he gets the car turned around without driving into a ditch, and heads back towards town.


~~~~~||~~~~~

When John wakes up, he can hear water running in the bathroom. Both boys' beds are empty, though the clock only says 6:48 AM. Sam doesn't have to be at school until 8:30. "Boys?" he calls.

The water shuts off and Sam opens the bathroom door, already dressed, but with sleep-wild hair. He's wearing his early-morning what do you want? face, which is different from his pissed-off what do you want? face, though John would be hard pressed to say how.

"Dean go for breakfast already?" John asks.

Sam raises a hand as though to rub his eyes, then clearly remembers the cuts and pushes his hair behind his ear instead. "Dean's— Yeah. I'm not sure where Dean is." He doesn't look real happy about that.

"Well, he's a big boy. I need to take that chair round to the woman this morning, if you want a ride to school."

Sam looks a little surprised but says, "Yeah. Um, sure. Thanks."

"You gonna do something about that hair, or can I have a shower?" John asks. There's time to stop at the place with homemade muffins and the best coffee in town if he gets up now.

"It's all yours," Sam says.

When John is done, he finds Sam glaring out the window.

"Dean's in his car." Sam says when John asks if everything's okay.

John's not sure he wants to know, but he asks anyway. "What's he doing out there?"

"Sleeping. Sulking. How do I know? He won't open the door."

"You're sure he's breathing?" Of course Sam's sure he's breathing. He wouldn't have come back inside if he wasn't. "Did you two have a fight?"

"Have to talk to fight," Sam huffs, and reaches for his backpack. "Can we stop and get some food on the way?"

"Sure," John says. "Let's go."

They have to walk past Dean's car to get to the truck. Sam glares through the back window at Dean who is lying huddled under a jacket, shoulders and legs bare. He has his eyes shut tight, but John's seen faking enough to know he's not actually sleeping.

"Why doesn't he have any clothes on?" John asks, but Sam just looks at him like that's the stupidest question he's ever heard, and jerks the truck's passenger door open, so John lets it slide.

"I want muffins," Sam says while John's pulling out of the parking space.

"Good. Least we can agree on something." John doesn't bother saying it loud enough that Sam can hear, just heads for Barbara's Buns and Things.

There's time enough to stay and eat at a table like civilized folks, and John wants to ask Sam a few more questions, so he doesn't give his son a choice, just says, "For here," when he orders. Sam scowls, but that's only what John expects.

"Is all this to do with those visions you boys were talking about the other day? With Dean running off to the school?" John is withholding Sam's muffin until he answers, though Sam has both cups of coffee and John wants one real bad, so he hasn't got a leg to stand on, really. He just hopes Sam doesn't notice.

No such luck—the raised eyebrow in the direction of the muffins speaks volumes—but Sam seems willing to talk anyway. "We both woke up in the middle of the night. I was having that feeling thing again, like I told you about, and I'm not sure what was going on with Dean, because before I could ask, he up and bolted, spent the rest of the night in his stupid car."

Once Sam starts talking, John pushes the Very-Berry muffin his way; Sam pushes the black coffee towards John. Waiting to see if Sam's going to say any more without prompting, John takes a sip of his coffee and a bite of his Walnut Wonder. When Sam doesn't go on, John asks what they saw out in the woods.

"We didn't see anything." Sam hesitates. "It—" He takes a bite of his muffin and then blows on his drink but doesn't take a sip. "We got to the clearing. There was nothing to see—just, well, a clearing—and we were walking across it, and the next thing we knew, it was later, and we weren't sure why we were there."

Sam won't meet his eyes, but his jaw's set like even if he knows he should have said something sooner, he's not going to take being told off about it. John can hear his wife saying You catch more flies with honey, John, and he manages to keep his voice conversational.

"Did anything hit you? Knock you over? Was there some kind of smoke, bad smell?"

Sam does look up then, maybe a little surprised John isn't yelling, says, "Seriously. Nothing. One minute I was about to ask Dean what direction we should go, next I'm lying on the ground, Dean next to me. Squirrels, birds, everything just totally normal."

"And you were going to tell me all this when?" John can't help his voice rising a little. He thinks he should get points for trying, but that's not how it works with Sam.

"Ask Dean." Sam picks up his mug, turning in his chair to watch the other customers decide what kind of muffin they want or eat the ones they've chosen. John's gotten what he's gonna get out of him.

"Drink up," John says. "Let's get you to school."

Neither of them bother with small talk in the five-minute drive, but Sam thanks John for the ride when he gets out. "One of us will pick you up at three fifteen," John calls out the window after him, but there's no answer and he has to hope Sam hears over the squealing pack of girls he's passing on his way up the stairs. Pulling out of the drop-off zone, John parks up the street and digs through the glove compartment for the address where he's got to take the chair and the map Conrad drew him. Eugenia Parsons. John can picture her already.

She's pretty much just what he imagined: wizened and stooped, but a firecracker and a half, not shy at all about directing him just where he should put the thing or ordering him to sit and drink some sweet tea with her once the chair is settled to her satisfaction. A woman like that, John figures, knows what's going on in the whole damn county. And he doesn't think he's likely to have any trouble getting her started talking.

Years of practice have made John able to slip things into conversation, to turn a chat into an interrogation, without the other person hardly being aware of it. Once he asks about the dog attack, old Eugenia is off. "Those woods," she says. "That clearing. You just never know what you're gonna get there next."

She tells him a story about a missing girl who was found there a couple weeks after Mr. Baylor and his friend died, the girl not harmed at all but too young to say where she'd been.

"Funny thing," Miss Parsons says. "She was taken a week, maybe less, after her mama's brother came to stay. And they found her the same day the cops took that nasty man away for having dirty pictures on one'a them lap computers business-type people carry around these days."

"That is interesting," John agrees, though he has no idea what it would have to do with what happened to the men with the dogs.

After pouring herself some more tea, she launches into a story about someone she doesn't sound to like much, called Miles, who went into the woods with his gun, and came out without a stitch on. "He's still up t'the loony bin in Roanoke, eatin' shrubbery or some such nonsense." She shakes her head.

That seems to be it, and John's about to slurp down the rest of his tea and make his excuses to go and give Dean the third degree, when she goes on. Apparently when she was a girl there were other funny happenings in the woods that never made the papers. Two men found a stash of gold in a hollow tree and took it, hid it on one of their farms, but they never could find it again, and a man who hadn't left his house for a year after his wife and daughter died in a fire at the school house went into the woods and the next week married a widow from the next county. "Nothing about any dogs, though."

"Anything else?" John asks.

"You a researcher like that Conrad?" She looks at him with a beady eye.

"Sure am," John says, deciding it's definitely getting to be time to go. "And I'd better get back to it. Thank you for the tea."

"Least I could do, asking you to haul that chair all over the porch here."

John takes his leave and heads back to the motel, hoping Dean's gotten over his sulk and out of his car.

But when he gets there, the Impala's not in the lot and when he tries calling, he can hear Dean's phone ringing on the other side of the room's door. "Kid had better just be getting breakfast," John mutters to himself as he shoves the key in the lock. "He knows better than to keep secrets about a hunt."

on to Part II