![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brighteyedjillTitle: The Secret’s in the Telling, Part III (A) (Dude, seriously, the post limit is pissing me off)
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Nathan/Peter (Heroes), Dean/Sam (Supernatural), and some cross-pollination.
Warnings: Graphic slash, fictional relatives in lust (consensual incest), violence (really), harsh language
Universe: SPN – vaguely Season 3 (sometime between 3x5 Bedtime Stories and 3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me). Heroes – vaguely post Season 2 (general spoilers)
Author’s note: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redandglenda for the beta and jaunechat for listening to me gripe. I don’t own Heroes or Supernatural.
Part I
Part II (A)
Part II (B)
Dean eased off the gas as they rolled onto the Mueller’s street. The Impala’s rumble dropped to a low purr, and Dean squinted out the window, looking for the right address. “1425. Huh.” Dean eyed the quiet exterior of the house, devoid of crime scene tape.
“I don’t get it,” Peter said from the passenger seat. “It took the twins and it’s leaving the rest of the family alone?”
Dean guided the car over to the curb and put it in park. “Weird. I mean, all the other families the demon’s hit, they’re dead in twenty-four, forty-eight hours maybe.”
“That’s good though, right?” Peter asked slowly. “We’ve got another chance to save them?”
“If she was gonna take these guys out, she’d have done it already. C’mon.” Dean climbed out of the Impala.
Peter scrambled after him. “What are we doing?”
Dean walked right up to the front door and knocked, bold as brass. Peter gave an inarticulate sound of protest, and Dean smirked. Oh little brothers. Always cranky in the morning.
A worn-looking, middle aged woman answered the door. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Mueller?” Dean asked. She nodded. “I’m Alan, this is Chad. We’re with the Children’s Action Network. Could we talk to you about Jesse?”
Her face lit up instantly. “Have you seen him? Is he okay?”
“We don’t know, ma’am, but one of our regulars at the shelter came in last night telling us about his new friend and, well, we thought you had a right to know.” Dean favored her with his best sincere smile, and she melted.
“Come in, please.” She ushered them into the living room. Dean ignored Peter’s sharp elbow in his side. “My husband’s out checking around town, some of Jesse’s old haunts. I wanted to stay here in case he…” Her voice hitched in her throat and died. “Can I get you boys something? A drink?”
They hadn’t stopped for coffee on the way here, and some caffeine would definitely make this situation seem brighter. “I’ll take—.”
“We’re fine.” Peter, speaking at last, cut him off with a glare.
Mrs. Mueller sat nervously, perching on the edge of the couch without taking her eyes from Dean. “You said someone saw him? Where? Is he all right?”
“Ma’am, kids come to our shelter for lots of different reasons,” Dean began. Once he’d started lying, the rest came easily. “One boy told us he’d met another kid, name of Jesse, who’d just run away from home, but he couldn’t get him to come in. Chad and I saw the Amber alert that came out yesterday and thought it might be the same boy.”
“You think it was really him?” she asked eagerly.
“Is Jesse the kind of boy who might run away?” Dean asked.
“All this, with Josh… It’s been so hard on him, but I never once thought…" She trailed off into silence, then shook her head. "They’re good boys. I know they had a rough start in life, and they still don’t talk much about before. They weren’t in the county system for that long, but before that, well, their dad wasn’t good for much.”
“Josh and Jesse were in foster care?” Peter asked.
“Yes. Until two years ago, when we adopted them.”
“That was very good of you,” Peter said. Dean smiled; it was always good to have someone to do the touchy-feely thing with witnesses. Maybe he and Peter didn’t make such a bad team after all.
“No one wants teenage boys, you know, but they deserved a chance. I met their real father once, before we signed the papers to adopt. Alcoholic good-for-nothing. Still lives up there in Youngstown It’s amazing the boys came to any good at all, considering they come from that.” She looked between Dean and Peter hopefully. “What else did he say? About Jesse? Did he say where to look for him?”
“We’ll try to find out everything we can,” Dean said. “We didn’t want to get your hopes up if it wasn’t him, but you deserve to know.”
“Thank you.” She grabbed Dean’s hands and squeezed them warmly. “Thank you. Please, if you hear anything, anything else, call me right away.”
“Yes ma’am,” Dean lied.
Dean and Peter left the house in silence. Dean had more than enough experience with Sam’s moodiness to recognize the beginning of a sulk. At least Peter waited until they were safely back in the Impala before he got his bitch on. “Why did we have to put that poor lady through all that?” he demanded
“Listen. I had a hunch, I followed it. Now we know why the demon didn’t go after the rest of the family.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Peter said huffily.
“Dean, I don’t believe you! Those kids just lost their father!”
“Yeah, and if we don’t salt and burn him quick, they’re gonna lose their mom, too.”
“Maybe, but did you really need to bring up all the bad crap he ever did?”
“We’re sure it’s him now, aren’t we?”
“That’s not the point. How would you feel if someone tried to dig up all the bad shit from our childhood?”
“Our dad isn’t a restless spirit.” At Sam’s accusing eyes, he shrugged. “Well, he’s not out killing people. Let’s go do this.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with giving people hope,” Dean muttered as he started the Impala.
“False hope. Jesse’s gotta be dead by now,” Peter said darkly, slouching in his seat.
“But the demon’s not coming after the family, and now we know why.”
“Yeah. So where does that leave us?”
Dean pulled out onto the road and pointed them toward the interstate. "Driving to Youngstown."
--
Nathan drove them to the interstate in silence. He stopped at the gas station closest to the on ramp, and a couple of twenties netted him a confirmation that yes, a ’67 Impala had gassed up about an hour before, and they’d headed west.
When Nathan reported this back to Sam, he seemed less than enthused. Nathan couldn’t blame him. After what they’d seen in that motel room, the thought of chasing Peter and this Dean character across the northeast made him want to punch something.
“So we just drive north and hope to run into them?” Sam asked.
“Better ideas? Plan on getting another vision?” He was only being snappy with Sam because he was on edge. That was all.
“Library,” Sam said suddenly. “Baltimore has a better library than crappy small town Pennsylvania. Maybe we’ll find something useful.”
“No internet,” Nathan said automatically.
“Nathan, we are running out of options here! Why the hell—?”
“Listen,” Nathan said through gritted teeth. “If I concede to the possibility that demons exist, can you just accept that there’s someone out there who can intercept and read electronic messages, and if she finds Peter or me, she’ll kill us?”
Sam blinked. “Um… Sure. I guess so.”
“Then we’ll go to the library,” Nathan said, and started the car.
“In the morning. It’s after five,” Sam pointed out.
Nathan squinted into the setting sun; he hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. “Right. And we did spend last night getting chased around a cemetery.”
They drove back to the Academy Motel. Nathan explained to the indifferent manager that they were going to need to stake out the room next to the one the suspects had used, in case they came back. Wordlessly, the manager handed over the key.
Maybe it was just déjà vu from having been here this morning, but this place seemed depressingly familiar; just one more in the long line of crappy motels that had become his life.
“Isn’t there an ice machine?” Nathan pulled on his boxers and slid to the edge of the bed to scrounge up his sandals. “Out to the right, under the stairs?”
“No, that was at the last place,” Peter said from where he was sprawled over the pillows.
“Well it’s too damn hot to drink lukewarm tap water without ice. Did I mention how much I hate Texas?”
“Sweaty, huh?” Peter crept up behind Nathan on the bed and ran one finger down Nathan’s naked back, turning sweat to frost. Nathan shivered and pressed back into Peter’s touch. “Still too hot?”
In room 414, Nathan dropped his duffel by the bed furthest from the door, and stood staring at it. Despite the lack of sleep in the past twenty-four hours, he wasn’t tired. He kept seeing Peter’s bloody shirt in his mind, wondering what trouble his brother might have gotten into to get that injured. Wondering whether this Dean guy was likely to get him into that kind of trouble again.
“So… Drink?” Sam asked from the doorway.
Nathan shrugged. Peter wasn’t here to tell him no. “Yes please.”
--
“So help me out here,” Peter said over James Hetfield’s rocking vocals. “What are we supposed to do in Youngstown?”
“If the demon isn’t going after the adopted family, she must be going after the real family,” Dean said. “Maybe we can beat her there.”
Another verse of Whiplash went by, with Peter tapping along absently on the seat before he said, “Can I ask you something?”
Dean sighed. He’d been dreading the moment that Peter wanted to have a heart-to-heart. Is it in the younger brother guidebook somewhere that you have to talk about every feeling you ever had? “What?”
Peter hesitated a moment, blinking at Dean. Then he asked, “Where’d you get this car? It’s really great.”
Dean grinned. That certainly wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. “My dad gave it to me when I turned 18.”
“He knows what you like, at least,” Peter said with a lopsided smirk. “You two must be close.”
“We were, I guess,” Dean said. Funny how he might not have thought so two years ago, but things looked different from where he sat now. “Close as anyone ever got to him. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Peter said. “My Dad and I didn’t get along too well.”
“Maybe it’s a little brother thing. Sam and Dad were always butting heads.”
The road rolled away under them, and the tape flipped over to the B side. Phantom Lord began to bare. “So, your dad was a hunter?” Peter asked during the guitar solo.
“Yep. Taught me everything I know.”
“I wish my dad…” Peter’s mouth quirked up in that little half-smile. “Well, we always wish things could have been different, don’t we?”
Dean spared Peter a sideways glance. “Did he have those freaky power things?”
“I think so. They’re supposed to be genetic, but he and my mom never told us… Anything, really.”
Dean nodded, glad that Peter didn’t seem to mind talking about this stuff. You never know what kind of creature knowledge will come in handy down the road. “It’s genetic? So what about your brother. Does he do that healing thing?”
Peter shook his head. “They’re different for everyone. Mine are actually just borrowed.”
“Huh?”
“I’m an empath. Which just means that I can use other people’s powers.”
“Like Rogue,” Dean said thoughtfully. When Peter blinked at him, he elaborated, “In X-Men.”
“Oh, right,” Peter said. “Except I don’t have to touch them.”
“So there’s somebody else out there who can take a shotgun blast to the chest and walk away?”
“Several someones, actually,” Peter said.
“That’s so cool,” Dean grinned. As freaky psychic powers went, that would be a useful one to have.
“Hey, does…?”
“What?”
“Your brother, you said he has abilities, too.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Dean said quickly. “It’s not a genetic deal. We know where his came from.”
Peter looked at him expectantly.
“And that’s it,” Dean said. He’d said more than he should already; he certainly wasn’t going to start baring his soul about demon blood and destiny and all that crap.
Peter settled back in his seat, a smile playing on his lips.
“What?” Dean asked suspiciously. “You reading my mind again?”
“No,” Peter scowled. “Just thinking about Nathan. He always knows how to end a conversation when he doesn’t want to ‘share his feelings.’” This last he said in a mocking tone that must have been an imitation of his brother. “Used to be a lawyer.” His smile faded.
“Sam wanted to be a lawyer.” Dean wasn’t sure why he said it; Sammy wasn’t something he discussed with anyone, but this was hardly top-secret. Anyway, it was no more than Peter had shared with him. “He’s smart enough, too. Did good in college. Didn’t quite make it to law school, though.”
When Sam came in with burgers, Dean was watching Law and Order SVU. He considered flipping channels and pretending he’d been watching basketball, but finally decided to stand his ground.
“Um… Law and Order?” Sam said incredulously as he handed Dean a wax-paper-wrapped double bacon cheeseburger.
“Dude, Detective Benson is hot.”
“Uh… yeah.” Sam plopped down on the couch and started in on his own burger. After only a few minutes of watching, he pointed accusingly at the screen. “That’s ridiculous. You couldn’t just take that without a warrant. The whole case could get thrown out of court.” Sam laughed through his mouthful of fries, and Dean managed a weak laugh in answer. “I know that and I never even started law school. Don’t these guys have consultants working for them?”
Dean felt a strange, unidentifiable pang in his stomach. “Yeah, this show is crap.”
“Why’d he leave school?” Peter asked.
“I came and got him. I needed his help, and then… He could never go back.” Dean hadn’t thought of it in exactly those terms before, but it was true. Sam wouldn’t ever be able to go back to school. Not with his rap sheet.
“When I needed Nathan’s help, he left everything for me,” Peter said. “His family, his future. I took all that away from him.”
Dean shook his head. “’S not your fault. Can’t make someone give up what they weren’t willing to lose.”
“You believe that?”
Dean let more of the road go by: so much that he wasn’t sure if he planned to respond until his answer slipped out. “No.”
--
Sam remembered a place a few blocks down from the motel, a cheap dive called Swallow at the Hollow. Turned out the place had a fair-sized crowd for a Tuesday night. Sam and Nathan managed to find a slightly sticky table in a dark corner. When the waitress, a skinny woman with dirty-blonde hair and a smoker’s cough, came by, Sam ordered a Miller Lite and Nathan ordered a double whiskey, neat.
Sam raised his eyebrow at that, but didn’t comment. Instead, he said, “If we can’t find anything at the library, we can check the papers for the past couple days. Maybe they found a lead that took them out of town.”
“Yeah.” Nathan had tossed back his drink and was signaling to the waitress to bring him another before he noticed Sam’s look of concern. He grimaced and took only small sips of the second whiskey the waitress brought. Sam took the hint and shut up, content to join Nathan in staring off into space in companionable silence. It was different than all the drinking alone Nathan had done last year, but the buzz of the whisky as it slid down his throat was warm and familiar.
“How are the boys?” Nathan asked. He was gripping the phone so hard his hand shook.
“They’re fine,” Heidi said brightly. Nathan knew the tone—the one that meant she was seething but trying to remain calm. “They miss their dad.”
“How are you?” It was a stupid thing to say, but he had to know.
“How do you think I am, Nathan?” He heard her suck in a breath, trying to hold it together. She always held it together. Nathan wondered if she’d picked that up from Angela. “I’m much better. Things are going really well.”
“I’m glad.” And he was. Heidi deserved so much more than what Nathan had to give nowadays. If she’d stayed… But he didn’t allow himself to think about that.
“You sound better.”
“Thanks.”
“You still drinking?”
Nathan gave a tense laugh. “Peter doesn’t even let me order wine with dinner.”
“Peter.” Her voice was strained. “Well good for him.”
There was silence on the line for a moment. “Heidi…”
“Don’t ask to see the boys. They don’t need the extra stress right now. Getting started in a new school—again… It’s hard.”
And his fault. He’d put them in danger. But Heidi was polite enough not to say so. “They like the new school?”
“Monty’s teacher thinks he might be dyslexic. We’re taking him to see a specialist on Friday.”
Normal things. Family things. And Nathan wasn’t a part of them anymore. “Right. He should see a specialist.”
“I have to go,” Heidi said. “Nathan… Be well.”
“Tell the boys—,” Nathan began, but Heidi was already gone.
He listened to the dial tone a moment before he was able to unwrap his fingers from the receiver. Then he walked across the street to the discount liquor store.
“Seems like you know your way around a bottle of whiskey,” Sam said, and swigged down more of his beer.
“Lifetime of experience.” Nathan leaned back in the rickety chair and took stock of the bar patrons. They were the typical early drinkers: older single men and a few desperate-looking women.
“You and Peter go drinking a lot?” Sam asked.
“No.” Not ever. “Not really.”
“I can’t count how many bars like this I’ve been in with Dean. They all start to look the same after awhile. Cheap beer, old guys, blonde waitresses.” Sam smiled into his beer. “Of course, Dean would probably have the placed scoped by now. Trying to decide whether to hustle the locals or take the waitress home or both.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Hustle?”
“Pool,” Sam said quickly. “Dean’s a passable pool shark. He’s always been good with his hands. I mean, repairing cars and stuff. Kept me in new tennis shoes when we were kids.”
Nathan looked up from swishing the whiskey around in his glass. “You guys did this growing up?”
“Yeah. Me and Dean and Dad on the road hunting.”
“You guys must be close,” Nathan said. He couldn’t help but think of his own dad, taking his secrets to the grave, never mentioning to Nathan anything about abilities, or the Company, or any of it.
“Yeah. Dean practically raised me.” Sam leaned back in the chair that seemed almost too small to hold him. “What about you and Peter? You don’t seem like you grew up on the road.”
“What makes you say that?”
Sam shrugged and took a long pull of his beer.
Nathan knew an evasion when he saw one, but the whisky was starting to work, bringing a pleasant buzz behind Nathan’s eyes. He hadn’t had a drink in a long time (six months, fourteen days), but the dry bitterness of the whiskey felt like home, and quid pro quo didn’t seem to matter as much any more. “Peter and I weren’t that close growing up. I was away at school a lot, then in the service. Mostly our ma raised him.” Though he tried, Nathan couldn’t quite keep the venom out of his words.
Sam seemed to understand, and didn’t pry further. Instead, he offered up a story of one of his first hunts with Dean, when they were teenagers. Nathan wasn’t sure he entirely believed in crap like poltergeists, but Sam told the story well, and Nathan found himself laughing when the tale ended in Dean’s complete failure to score with the daughter of the family who’d been haunted.
Nathan countered with a story of him and Peter chasing a lead in Nevada. He vagued up a few details about the nature of their search, but the punch line went over well enough: they’d been chased out of town after Peter smiled the wrong way at the sheriff’s daughter.
Sam was good company. Nathan hadn’t noticed in the past few days, since he’d been preoccupied by how different it was from traveling with Peter. But Sam was smart, and funny, and Nathan had spent many evenings drinking with people—clients, friends of his parents, campaign supporters—who were much more tiresome and not nearly as handsome. And now that Nathan had a few drinks in him, it didn’t seem so difficult to admit that Sam was handsome. Not pretty like Peter, but a clean, wholesome attractiveness that was suddenly making Nathan ache for something he’d never had.
As they talked, Sam put away three more beers, and Nathan managed to limit himself to three more whiskeys. The place had gotten crowded as the hour grew later. Nathan had just finished the story of Peter running Nathan’s Prius into the Potomac and bringing the Bentley home as a peace offering when a loud cough interrupted him. A group of girls—college age, with sparkly halter-tops and tight jeans—huddled together at the edge of the table.
“There’s nowhere to sit,” one of them explained with a bright smile for Sam. “Can we share your table?”
Sam glanced only briefly at Nathan before answering. “We were actually just leaving. You ladies are welcome to sit here.”
As Sam stood, one of the girls caught hold of his arm. “It’s early yet. Don’t go.”
“Stay and have a drink with us,” another prompted.
Sam opened his mouth to reply, but Nathan spoke first. “It’s okay.” He peeled three twenties from his money clip and tossed them on the table. “You stay. I’ll see you back at the motel.” He stood up to leave, but the ground lurched under him, and he had to grab the edge of the table to steady himself.
“Whoa. Hey, Nathan, you okay?”
“He’s fine,” one of the girls said, wrapping her hand around Sam’s elbow. “Sit down.”
Nathan waited a moment for the dizziness to pass, but it didn’t get any better. Sam reached out for him, but Nathan waved a hand dismissively. “Siddown, Sam.” He lurched away from the table, carefully placing one foot in front of the other in an effort to walk straight.
“Sorry ladies.” Sam was suddenly at Nathan’s side, steadying him with a hand on his elbow. Behind him, the girls gave a collective “awww” of disappointment.
“I can walk two damn blocks, Sam,” Nathan growled.
“So can I. I was ready to go anyway.”
“No you weren’t.” Nathan tried to brush Sam off his arm, but that proved difficult with limbs that weren’t fully operational.
“Let’s go,” Sam said.
Once they were outside, the cold night air sobered Nathan up to a degree. He was suddenly furious—with himself, for miscalculating his tolerance, and with Sam for hauling him out of the bar like some alcoholic old man. He was not about to show that, though. Instead, he shoved down his rage, packing it away inside where even alcohol couldn’t loose it. Gathering the tattered shreds of his dignity, he set off toward the hotel.
Sam fell into step beside him. “Feeling better?”
“Why didn’t you stay?” Nathan asked, deftly deflecting the inquiry. “Those girls wanted you to.”
“That’s not really my thing,” Sam said with a shrug.
Nathan couldn’t resist. “What, women?”
“No—I mean, that’s not the point,” Sam fumbled. “I’m not into picking up people in bars. That’s Dean’s thing.”
Nathan felt a wary tightening in his chest as he thought about Peter. “Sounds like a lucky guy.”
“Well, it used to be someone new in every town, and…” Sam’s words ground to a halt, and Nathan could almost see the light bulb go off over Sam’s head. “And his misspent youth is far behind him,” he concluded quickly. “When he’s working a case, he’s totally professional. Your brother—.”
Nathan cut him off. “Let’s not.”
They covered half a block in awkward silence before Sam asked, “You think we’ll find them tomorrow?”
“I have no idea.” Now that the motel was in sight, Nathan made an effort to quicken his pace, fueled by the desire to put more distance between him and Sam.
Sam had no trouble keeping pace. “Okay, that? Not encouraging. All this time you’ve been telling me they’re fine, yes you’re sure, stop worrying Sam, and now you have no idea? What about the bloody shirt you found in the room this morning? What aren’t you telling me?”
“You saw what I saw,” Nathan said as the arrived at the door. He fumbled with the room keys, trying two others on his key chain before he found the one that worked. He stumbled into the room, and Sam came right behind him, kicking the door shut as soon as they’d cleared it and swinging Nathan around to slam against it.
“What is wrong with you?” Sam demanded.
“Get off me.” Nathan tried to push Sam away, but Sam pushed back, keeping him pinned to the door. He felt a distant flutter of surprise as he realized Sam was stronger than him.
“We’ve lost their trail, and you don’t seem to care,” Sam said. “I just want to know why you’re being so god damn indifferent of all a sudden.”
“You want me to cry?”
“I had a vision—a crazy supernatural vision—that warned me my brother was in danger, but that didn’t seem to bother you. We find your brother’s blood—a lot of it—in a motel room, you barely blink. Same motel room, we find out our brothers…” Sam stopped short before hurrying on. “What does it take to concern you?”
“Get. Off. Me.” This time Nathan didn’t push. He only fixed Sam with the full force of his angry glare. Sam, to his credit, didn’t back down.
“You’re just like Dean. Trying to take on everything by yourself. Scared to show that you actually give a shit about something other than yourself.”
“You don’t know a thing about me.”
“Maybe not. But I know my brother. Dad demanded a lot of him, expected him to be perfect, to always do what he was told. To live up to the family name.”
“That’s your brother.”
“You’re not so different, Nathan Petrelli.”
Nathan’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before he could get out a strained, “What?”
“It was on the back of a picture in the glove box,” Sam said. Unable to think of a comeback that would fully express his anger, Nathan stayed silent. Sam went on. “I bet a quick Google search would tell me what you’re running from.”
“That’s true.” Nathan’s eyes narrowed, and inevitably, the rage he’d shoved down earlier began to ooze out, dark and insidious. “But it doesn’t matter if I know your name, Sam Winchester, because you’re nobody. Dropped out of Stanford, no family, no mark left on the world. Traveling the country with your fake IDs, your Latin dictionary, and your loving brother.”
“Shut up about Dean.”
Nathan couldn't help but go for the weak spot. "What does he think of your visions, anyway? Does he understand? Do you scare him? You never want to talk about your visions. Is he ashamed of you?”
“Are you ashamed of your brother?” Sam countered. “Spreading it for some nobody he met a week ago?”
Nathan shoved Sam off of him, anger giving him strength. “Your brother hasn’t been trying too hard to find you, has he? Seems like he’s almost eager to get rid of you. Maybe if you didn’t hold on so damn tight he wouldn’t be so eager to leave.”
Nathan saw the punch coming too late to dodge. Sam’s big fist slammed into his jaw, sending him reeling back against the door. Nathan brought a hand up to the spot as he regained his footing. The pain bloomed bright and dull on the side of his face, but he didn’t think anything was broken. “You feel better now?”
Before Nathan could finish delivering his witty retort, he caught sight of Sam, turned half away from him, hands tangling limply at his sides, head hung in shame, anger spent.
Nathan sighed. He couldn’t keep arguing if Sam was done. In the Petrelli family, fights tended to last as long as both parties still had a voice. This seemed anticlimactic, somehow. “Sam.” Nathan took a step toward him. Now that the adrenaline was fading, the buzz in his head wasn’t so pleasant. It throbbed, beating out a pulse of guilt guilt guilt. “I shouldn’t have said any of that.” He went to put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, but stumbled and ended up with a hand wrapped around the back of Sam’s neck instead. “We’re just worried about them. It’s got both of us on edge. Forget it.”
Sam turned, pressing back into Nathan’s grip on his neck. His hands went slowly to Nathan’s shoulders. Instead of speaking, he leaned forward, pressing through the thick silence between them to kiss Nathan.
Sam’s tongue pushed against Nathan’s lips, and without thinking Nathan opened for him. Sam was gloriously wet and warm and salty and not at all like Peter. But there was nothing about it Nathan didn’t like. Sam’s grip tightened on Nathan’s shoulders, pulling their bodies closer, their hips bumping together. Maybe it was the whisky talking, but Nathan was getting hard just from this, and as Sam pressed him closer against the door, he could tell Sam was in the same state. He was warm against Nathan, solid and real.
Sam’s bed was only a few feet away. Nathan knew—knew from the way Sam was panting into his mouth, his hips gently rutting against him—that he could lay Sam out on that bed, strip him, explore every part of that body. Sam was strong and solid, wouldn’t need kid gloves. Sam would let Nathan in, let him take whatever he wanted.
Nathan grabbed Sam by the arms and pressed him back a few steps. Sam watched him, lips kiss-swollen and moist, eyes unsure but hopeful. Wanting.
Nathan brushed past him without a word, retreated to the bathroom, and locked the door behind him. He turned on only the cold water in the skuzzy little shower and stripped quickly. He gritted his teeth on as the elastic of his boxer shorts dragged over his cock, standing out red and hard in front of him. He grabbed the edge of the sink tightly so he would not jerk himself off to the thought of Sam writhing and bucking beneath him, Sam on his knees on the floor, Sam panting and groaning.
Nathan tightened his grip on the sink and forced himself to look at the mirror, looking past his disheveled hair and beginning of a scruffy beard, trying to see himself for the monster he was. He saw only his own face.
Climbing under the cold spray, Nathan called up the worst memories he could think of: waiting at his wife’s beside after their car crash, lying in the burn ward in agony that wouldn’t end, seeing Peter lying dead in his mother’s living room. Under the influence of these memories and the cold water, Nathan’s erection began to subside. He stayed in the shower until he was shivering and miserable, and until he was sure he’d regained his self-control.
When he emerged from the bathroom, Sam was a hulking lump in the dark under the duvet on the far bed. Nathan tossed his shoes on the floor and crawled into his own bed fully clothed. He lay still for a minute, trying to relax, but his heart wouldn’t stop pounding. On the other side of the room, Sam stirred.
“I didn’t mean to…” Sam ventured. His voice sounded brittle in the darkness.
Didn’t mean to what? Nathan wanted to know, but he didn’t ask. “Forget about it.”
Nathan held still and listened, but Sam said nothing else. After a while, Nathan heard his breathing even out and knew that Sam had fallen asleep. The peaceful sound of gentle breathing was soothing. In the darkness, he could almost believe it was Peter asleep in the next bed. But Sam wasn’t Peter. Not at all. Nathan lay awake for hours, listening to Sam’s breathing.
--
“What’s that thing do?” Peter asked from over Dean’s shoulder. Everything under the hood of the Impala looked alien and imposing.
Dean sighed and adjusted his grip on the wrench in his right hand. “That’s a spark plug. It… sparks.”
“Is that what’s broken?”
“Nothing’s broken,” Dean said immediately. “Just needs a little love.” He went back to adjusting something with the wrench, and Peter retreated to lounge against the fence that bordered the adjoining field.
Dean’s thoughts were clear and focused as he worked. Come on baby. Something clanked inside the engine. There you go.
Peter smiled. “You really love this car.”
“Well. It’s about the only thing I have that’s all my own.” Dean dragged his arm across his brow, wiping away the sweat. “Hand me my beer.”
“I’m not your bitch,” Peter said, but Dean smirked at him, so he got up to fetch his bottle from where it rested on top of the trunk.
“Bitch,” Dean said when Peter handed it to him.
“Jerk,” Peter responded.
Dean nearly choked on his beer at that, but Peter just smiled innocently. “This usually Sam’s job?”
“You mean annoying me while I try to work on my baby?” Dean said once he’d recovered from inhaling his beer. “Actually, yeah.”
Peter put one knee up on the bumper, staring at the completely unfamiliar assemblage of metal and plastic. “All this time on the road together and you never taught him how to do this?”
“Starting to,” Dean muttered. “Your brother obviously never showed you anything about cars.”
“No,” Peter admitted. “If he knows anything about car repair, he never showed me. I’m a fast learner, though.”
“Yeah, I know,” Dean said under his breath. “Just hang tight. We’ll be back on the road in no time.”
“Peter. Is that really a good place for your feet?”
Guiltily, Peter pulled his legs off the dashboard. “Guess not,” he muttered.
Nathan nodded his satisfaction and returned his eyes to the road. “These GTs are supposed to be able to do over two hundred miles per hour. You think we could get her up to that?” He pressed a little on the accelerator, and the car responded with a smooth swell of power.
“I thought you liked the Prius.” Peter was pretending to pout, but really it was nice to see Nathan so boyishly excited.
“No, you liked the Prius,” Nathan said. “I hope you took into account that I’m going to have to do all the driving from now on.”
“Good,” Peter grinned. “That leaves me more time to think of ways for you to owe me favors.”
“Oh, I don’t owe you for this,” Nathan said. He dropped the pedal again, and the Bentley surged. “You said it was a gift. No payback required.”
“Well… What if I’m extra good?” Peter purred.
Nathan tore his eyes from the road for a moment to share with Peter a smile more genuine than any he’d worn in a long time. “Keep your feet off my dashboard, and I might be feeling generous tonight.”
Peter pried open a beer of his own and went back to lounging against the fence.
“Damn,” Dean muttered under his breath.
“What?”
“I thought that drive belt was going to hang on for another 200 miles at least.” Dean wiped his hands on his jeans before slamming the hood. “You stay here and watch the car. I’m gonna hitch into whatever that town was and pick up a part.”
“Wait, what part?” Peter asked, hopping off the fence.
“A new drive belt.” The image of the part, a long black circle, drifted to the front of Dean’s consciousness, and Peter memorized it.
“That the only part we need?”
“Yeah,” Dean said suspiciously.
“Hold on a second. I want to show you something.” Peter backed up a few steps. “Okay, now don’t worry. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” He closed his eyes and concentrated hard on the town they’d passed fifteen minutes back. When he opened, his eyes, he was standing on the sunny main drag of the town of Boswell.
It was the work of only a few minutes to tell the guy at Chuck’s Garage and Classic Cars what he needed. He paid with the fake credit card Dean had given him, and apparently he managed not to look too guilty, because the guy handed over the part in a paper bag and said, “Have a real nice day.” Peter returned to the street before closing his eyes and concentrating on the lonely stretch of highway where he’d left Dean.
“Dude, what the hell?”
Peter opened his eyes to see Dean staring at him, wrench gripped protectively in front of him. He wished that he could have stopped time and been back instantly, but that was more risk than he was willing to take, even if it would be impressive. He didn’t want to end up trapped in a post-apocalyptic future. “I got the part.” Peter held up the bag, but his self-satisfaction flagged as Dean continued to stare. “What?”
“Uh… What was that?”
“I teleported,’ Peter explained proudly. “You know, folding space and time? I just went to Boswell and got the part.”
“Teleported,” Dean said slowly. “Like Star Trek.”
“Yeah. Kinda.” He held out the bag. Dean took it and lifted out the drive belt. “At least you got the right thing.” He looked from the part to Peter and back to the part.
“Hey, are you… Did I do something wrong?”
“Uh…” Dean shook his head uncertainly. His thoughts were too jumbled to read.
“Dean, I didn’t think this was a big deal. Your brother has abilities, right? I… I thought it was okay.”
“It’s fine.” Dean turned back to the car, letting the empty paper bag flutter to the ground. What else can he do? Holy shit, I’ve never even seen a demon do that.
“Dean, what I can do, it’s not evil, I promise. It’s just genetics. Borrowed genetics, even. Nothing supernatural about it.”
“So you said,” Dean grumbled. “Evolution, yeah. Just like, I dunno, the platypus or something.”
“No, really. I could give you this book, but it’s kind of technical, and really not all that well-written, to tell you the truth.” Peter realized he was rambling. “Hey, seriously. You get this freaked out with your brother’s abilities?”
“That’s different. Sam just has visions. He doesn’t…” Dean waved a hand vaguely toward where Peter had re-appeared. “Teleport.”
“But you’re not afraid of him,” Peter pointed out.
“No, of course not,” Dean snapped. I’m afraid for him.
“Why? You think he’ll go darkside or something?”
“It’s none of your business, so stay out of my head.” Dean stripped the packaging off the part Peter had brought him, and turned back to the engine, tension evident in the bunched muscles of his shoulders.
“Sorry.” Peter watched Dean work for a few silent minutes. “Nathan was worried about the same thing, for awhile. I sort of fell in with some bad people. Or person, really. I could have done something monumentally, unforgivably bad, but Nathan stopped me. He brought me back from that.”
Dean looked at him as if to say, “So what,” and Peter studiously avoided reading his thoughts.
“I’m just saying… as long as Sam has a brother like you, he’s not really in danger.”
“Yeah. As long as he has me.” Dean closed the hood gently. “She’ll hold together.”
Peter took a few hesitant steps closer. “Hey Dean. Are we okay?”
“Peachy.” He opened the passenger door and gestured inside gallantly. “Get in, bitch.”
--
Sam awoke early, which was rare. His head was pounding, and it took a few minutes for memory to come drifting back. As soon as it did, his eyes snapped to the bed beside him. In the night, Nathan had flung off his covers, and lay sprawled over the bed fully clothed, still asleep.
Sam pulled on his clothes as quietly as he could and crept out of the room. Luckily the convenience store on the corner stocked painkillers and coffee. He bought two cups, but realized as he was adding sugar that he’d never paid attention to how Nathan liked his. He figured he’d bring it back black and risk it.
When Sam arrived back at the motel, Nathan was already showered, dressed, and loading their bags into the Bentley. “Uh… Good morning,” Sam said.
“Morning,” Nathan said shortly. He looked no worse for the wear from their little spree last night. Either he had no hangover or he was hiding it well, and either way Sam hated him a little for it.
“Coffee,” Sam said.
Nathan took it with a muttered “thanks,” but Sam noticed he studiously avoided any actual physical contact. No chance of amnesia, then. Damn.
“Central library’s downtown,” Nathan said. He hovered by the doorway of the room as Sam rounded up the meager belongings he’d acquired in the past week, shoving them into a borrowed duffel. “They open at ten.”
“Great,” said Sam. He was determined for this not to be awkward. Last night had been a mistake. A stupid, drunken mistake, and now it was time to pretend it had never happened, pretend he didn’t have ridiculously inappropriate thoughts about Nathan. Pretend he wasn’t sure that Nathan had the same kind of thoughts. “So, breakfast first?”
“Great.” Nathan nodded curtly. Apparently if Sam was going to pretend last night never happened, Nathan didn’t want to be outdone.
Despite Sam’s determination, breakfast was an uncomfortable affair. Over pancakes and bacon at a diner near the library, Sam couldn’t get out any civil words, much less make harmless small talk. He didn’t want to be the first one to admit his discomfort, so although he would much rather read a paper or even go hide in the bathroom, he just sat at the table trading glares with Nathan.
At 9:57, Nathan threw some money on the table and stood up. “Library,” he said. Sam couldn’t have agreed more.
Sam felt a moment of nostalgia for Stanford when they entered the foyer of the huge library; nowadays “research” usually meant the internet or whatever was in the collection of the tiny one-room libraries in the towns he and Dean frequented. This was the real deal.
“I’ll check local articles,” Nathan said. “You handle mythology.”
“Fine.” Sam was content to be as far away from Nathan as possible for the time being. Besides, a chance to get lost in the stacks and find something out about this demon might put him in a better mood.
The reference librarian was able to direct him to a few sections (yes, there was more than one floor in this library!) that might be helpful, and Sam got right to work. He took a break once to walk up to the library gift shop a buy a little blue notebook, which he took back to the stacks and filled with scribbled notes and folded, photo-copied pages that might be useful. When he finally looked at his watch, Sam was surprised to discover it was later in the day than he thought, and his stomach was growling. He went to go share his findings with Nathan.
Sam found him in library basement, combing through local archives on microfilm. Sam dropped a pile of books on the table beside Nathan. Instead of jumping like Dean might have done, Nathan simply glanced up from the microfilm machine and raised an eyebrow at Sam. It seemed suddenly that a few hours apart, both doing the kind of work they liked best, had erased the morning’s awkwardness. Apparently geekboys had funny ways of blowing off steam.
“I found her,” Sam announced.
Nathan cleared a stack of folders off the chair next to him so Sam could sit down. “And?” he prompted.
“They have a great section on Native American mythology here.” Sam patted the stack of books he’d pulled. “There’s a demon—well, not a demon, really. She was the daughter of a god, but he put her brother to death and banished her soul to hell, along with the souls of all her mortal family, her whole clan of descendents, down to the great great grandkids.”
“This is the kind of stuff you deal with, and you wonder why I thought you were crazy at first?” Nathan asked, shaking his head. “If she’s some ancient demon, then why have we only been picking up her pattern for the last few months?”
“She was probably trapped in hell and only just escaped. Somehow. I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Sam said quickly. And he certainly didn’t want to try explaining the Devil’s Gate Great Escape to Nathan.
“So why do you think it’s her?”
Sam pulled a book off the top of the stack, opened it to a page marked with a scrap of paper, and spun it around to face Nathan, pointing to an illustration. “That was the symbol of her clan, before daddy dearest wiped them out.”
“The crime scene photos. That’s what’s carved all over the victims.” Nathan looked from the page up to Sam and gave a satisfied nod. Sam was surprised how much of a thrill that little gesture of satisfaction gave him. “So how’s she choosing her victims?” Nathan asked.
“Well, according to the legend,” Sam flipped past a few pages in the book to find the passage he remembered. “Her father told her he would redeem her and resurrect her clan if she could ‘stomp out the abomination which had been her downfall.’”
“And which abomination is that?”
The word stuck in Sam’s throat. He tried again, and it slithered out of his mouth like thick poison. “Incest.”
Nathan stared silently back at him, and Sam felt the moment stretch between them, precarious and brittle. “Okay,” Nathan said finally. Sam’s stomach did a little flip. They couldn’t possibly be about to have this conversation. Nathan knew the demon had attacked him and Dean, and he knew Sam knew it had attacked him and Peter. Both pairs of brothers were damned by this demon’s attention, but Sam couldn’t believe that Nathan would really admit it. “So the victims—Bryce Kidman, Amy Donahue, Brandon Basden… They were committing incest?”
“I guess so.” Sam’s mouth was dry. They were skirting the issue dangerously. One false word could send them tumbling into oblivion. “I can’t prove it.”
“She takes one person and kills him, just like that god killed her brother,” Nathan said, running his hand over the illustration.
“Right.” Sam pulled another book quickly out of his stack, eager to move on. “There were some accounts from neighboring tribes who had a rash of mysterious murders not long after this demon’s tribe was wiped out. Same sort of thing; one body found with the marks, then the rest of their family dies. The tribes believed that the demon did some sort of a ritual to bind her victim’s blood to her. Then she doesn’t need to physically go after the rest of the family. She just collects their souls from wherever she is.”
“Collects their souls?”
Sam just nodded. It was a testament to how far they’d come in one week that Nathan just nodded his acceptance. “So it’s the shared blood that gives her access.” Nathan said. “That makes sense, in a creepy demon logic sort of way. What are the odds that Dean and Peter have this figured out?”
“Dean won’t go inside a library unless I drag him, so unless this research fell from the sky somehow, it’s a fair bet Dean doesn’t know who exactly she is or how she’s doing her thing.”
“They must have followed the case here. Which means we might be able to retrace their steps.”
“Except they’ve already left town, right? Let me call Dean.”
“No.”
“Nathan. Now that we know she’s targeting… We know who she’s targeting. Aren’t you even a little worried?”
“Should I be?” he asked evenly.
Sam clenched his teeth. He suddenly remembered the agony of dealing with lawyer-speak at Stanford. He was past any thought of skirting the issue with Nathan, and he forced himself to reign in words he wanted to scream. “My brother and your brother are in danger, and they don’t know what they’re up against.”
“You think if you were with them, you could help?” Nathan sounded as if he doubted it.
“Yeah, I do. I don’t understand what it’s going to take for you to do something. I’m going to find my brother. You do whatever you want.”
Sam pushed out of his chair and stalked out of the library, forming and discarding plans as he walked, each scheme more improbable than the next. He stopped at the parking lot, and with a self-satisfied smile pulled out the keys he’d lifted from Nathan’s jacket. Sam half expected Nathan to come running after him, but even as he pealed out, one last glance in the rear view mirror showed him only an empty parking lot.
The Bentley hummed under him as he drove out of town. If he felt at all guilty for stealing Nathan’s car, the feeling was dwarfed by an urgent need to find Dean, to make sure he was safe. If Dean and Peter had followed the case to another town, they might be walking into a trap.
“I do not walk into traps all the time!” Dean protested.
“No?” Sam risked a glance out the curtains to make sure none of the demons had followed them before he threw the deadbolt on the motel door and fastened the chain. “Who’s the one who’s always stuck in the hotel room doing research while Captain Jack Sparrow over there is going off half-cocked?”
“Half-cocked? I never—. Hey, wait.” A slow grin was spreading over Dean’s face. “You think I’m like a pirate?”
“No,” Sam growled.
“Awesome.”
“Dean, no.” He pushed Dean backwards, sending him tumbling onto the bed, where he grabbed Dean’s hands and pinned them to his sides. “It’s not awesome sitting here worrying whether you’ve gotten yourself killed. Not any kind of awesome.”
“If you’d find the fun a little, Sammy—.”
“How did you like sitting home waiting for Dad to get back?”
And that wiped the grin off Dean’s face.
“Because that’s what it feels like, Dean. Wondering if you’re going to come back at all.” He pushed off the bed and went to peek out the window again.
“I’m a jerk,” said Dean from right behind him.
“Yeah, I know.”
Dean wrapped his arms around Sam’s waist and rested his forehead against Sam’s back. “But I’m a little like an awesome pirate jerk, right?”
“Maybe a little.”
He followed I-70 out of the city, the setting sun in his eyes, and pulled off at a gas station with a pay phone out front. It took him several tries to remember Dean’s latest number. When he was sure he finally had it, the line rang only once before going to voice mail. “Hi,” Dean’s voice said. “You’ve reached Eddie Vetter.”
“Damnit!” Sam slammed down the receiver.
“No luck?”
Sam whirled around to see Nathan leaning against the Bentley, arms crossed sternly, hair mussed and wild like he’d been through a tornado. “What?” Sam asked cleverly. ““How did you…? What are you doing here?”
Nathan's grin was smug. “I changed my mind. I think it’s time we found our brothers.”
“Yeah. Any bright ideas how?” Sam gestured to the phone. “Dean’s not picking up. He could be in trouble. We could try activating the GPS in his cell phone. If I can talk my way into--."
“Call this number.” Nathan held out a scrap of paper.
“You’re telling me to make a phone call?” Sam asked skeptically.
“This guy can help us,” Nathan said. “Trust me.” Nathan proceeded to talk him through a script so specific that Sam felt one step closer to legitimate black ops training.
Sam slipped some coins into the gas station’s pay phone and dialed the number with Nathan hovering at his shoulder. The whole stupid script was blown to hell when a little girl answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Uh, hi,” Sam faltered. “Is your Dad home?”
“Which one?”
Nathan mouthed a name. “Parkman?” Sam ventured.
“Hold on. MATT!”
There was a pause, some rustling, and then a new voice came on the line. “Yes?”
“Hi. My name’s Sam. I was working this sort of job, and I was told maybe you could help me locate someone.”
“How did you get this number?” Parkman’s voice was sharp, the kind that brooked no lies.
Luckily Nathan had prepared him for this part. “I work for a cargo jet company.”
The phrase made no sense to Sam, but apparently it held some special significance for Parkman. He chuckled. “Okay then, Sam. Who do you want to find?”
This part of the script had been harder, but Sam had figured out a solution. “Go to the FBI’s most wanted home page.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Give me a second.” More rustling.
“Go to the archives, and click on Mohinder’s birthday month in the year that Ted’s wife died.”
“Tell Nathan you can stop speaking in code. We had Micah wireless-proof our line.”
“Give me that.” Nathan snatched the phone out of Sam’s hand. “Parkman, can you have Molly find Peter?” Sam hovered close to Nathan so he could hear the conversation.
“Hello to you too.” The guy sounded amused.
“Can she do it?” Nathan asked.
“Molly honey?" Parkman raised his voice, maybe calling into another room. "You want to do Uncle Nathan a favor?”
A girl's voice answered from the background. “Am I finding Peter again?”
“Yes.”
“And some most wanted guy, too?” the girl asked.
“Have you been eavesdropping, young lady?”
“Maybe." The girl's voice came closer. "Who’s the other guy?”
“Name's Dean Winchester,” Nathan said. “You find the picture?”
“Yeah. Oh, nice mug shot. Are you sure you want to find this guy?”
“Why?”
“People don’t get on the FBI’s most wanted list by rescuing kittens from trees. It says here fraud, kidnapping, and murder.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow at Sam. “I can explain,” Sam said.
“Yeah, we still want to find him,” Nathan said. “Peter too.”
“Molly?” Parkman said.
“Ohio,” the girl said from the background. “They’re both there.”
“Great. Ohio. And?” Nathan prompted.
“Geez, hold on a sec. Pushy," came the girl's voice, followed by a short pause. "Youngstown.”
“Where?”
There was a rustling and Molly's voice sounded closer, as if Parkman had handed her the phone. “They’re on a street. I think they’re in a car.”
“What’s the street?” Nathan pulled a pen and a scrap of paper out of his back pocket.
“Hold on. It’s…” Molly let out a highly undignified “eep,” then squeaked, “Market and Kenmore.” There was more rustling, and Parkman came on the line again. “Want to tell me what Peter might have been doing that would make my daughter blush like a tomato and run to her room?”
“That’s just Peter,” Nathan said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah.” Matt sounded almost apologetic. “Hey, be careful.”
“Yeah.” Nathan hung up the phone.
Sam looked at him expectantly. “Want to share with me what that was all about?”
“Want to share with me why your brother’s wanted for murder?” Nathan countered.
“I guess you can drive.” Sam tossed Nathan the keys.
---
Part III (B)
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Nathan/Peter (Heroes), Dean/Sam (Supernatural), and some cross-pollination.
Warnings: Graphic slash, fictional relatives in lust (consensual incest), violence (really), harsh language
Universe: SPN – vaguely Season 3 (sometime between 3x5 Bedtime Stories and 3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me). Heroes – vaguely post Season 2 (general spoilers)
Author’s note: Thanks to
redandglenda for the beta and jaunechat for listening to me gripe. I don’t own Heroes or Supernatural.Part I
Part II (A)
Part II (B)
Dean eased off the gas as they rolled onto the Mueller’s street. The Impala’s rumble dropped to a low purr, and Dean squinted out the window, looking for the right address. “1425. Huh.” Dean eyed the quiet exterior of the house, devoid of crime scene tape.
“I don’t get it,” Peter said from the passenger seat. “It took the twins and it’s leaving the rest of the family alone?”
Dean guided the car over to the curb and put it in park. “Weird. I mean, all the other families the demon’s hit, they’re dead in twenty-four, forty-eight hours maybe.”
“That’s good though, right?” Peter asked slowly. “We’ve got another chance to save them?”
“If she was gonna take these guys out, she’d have done it already. C’mon.” Dean climbed out of the Impala.
Peter scrambled after him. “What are we doing?”
Dean walked right up to the front door and knocked, bold as brass. Peter gave an inarticulate sound of protest, and Dean smirked. Oh little brothers. Always cranky in the morning.
A worn-looking, middle aged woman answered the door. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Mueller?” Dean asked. She nodded. “I’m Alan, this is Chad. We’re with the Children’s Action Network. Could we talk to you about Jesse?”
Her face lit up instantly. “Have you seen him? Is he okay?”
“We don’t know, ma’am, but one of our regulars at the shelter came in last night telling us about his new friend and, well, we thought you had a right to know.” Dean favored her with his best sincere smile, and she melted.
“Come in, please.” She ushered them into the living room. Dean ignored Peter’s sharp elbow in his side. “My husband’s out checking around town, some of Jesse’s old haunts. I wanted to stay here in case he…” Her voice hitched in her throat and died. “Can I get you boys something? A drink?”
They hadn’t stopped for coffee on the way here, and some caffeine would definitely make this situation seem brighter. “I’ll take—.”
“We’re fine.” Peter, speaking at last, cut him off with a glare.
Mrs. Mueller sat nervously, perching on the edge of the couch without taking her eyes from Dean. “You said someone saw him? Where? Is he all right?”
“Ma’am, kids come to our shelter for lots of different reasons,” Dean began. Once he’d started lying, the rest came easily. “One boy told us he’d met another kid, name of Jesse, who’d just run away from home, but he couldn’t get him to come in. Chad and I saw the Amber alert that came out yesterday and thought it might be the same boy.”
“You think it was really him?” she asked eagerly.
“Is Jesse the kind of boy who might run away?” Dean asked.
“All this, with Josh… It’s been so hard on him, but I never once thought…" She trailed off into silence, then shook her head. "They’re good boys. I know they had a rough start in life, and they still don’t talk much about before. They weren’t in the county system for that long, but before that, well, their dad wasn’t good for much.”
“Josh and Jesse were in foster care?” Peter asked.
“Yes. Until two years ago, when we adopted them.”
“That was very good of you,” Peter said. Dean smiled; it was always good to have someone to do the touchy-feely thing with witnesses. Maybe he and Peter didn’t make such a bad team after all.
“No one wants teenage boys, you know, but they deserved a chance. I met their real father once, before we signed the papers to adopt. Alcoholic good-for-nothing. Still lives up there in Youngstown It’s amazing the boys came to any good at all, considering they come from that.” She looked between Dean and Peter hopefully. “What else did he say? About Jesse? Did he say where to look for him?”
“We’ll try to find out everything we can,” Dean said. “We didn’t want to get your hopes up if it wasn’t him, but you deserve to know.”
“Thank you.” She grabbed Dean’s hands and squeezed them warmly. “Thank you. Please, if you hear anything, anything else, call me right away.”
“Yes ma’am,” Dean lied.
Dean and Peter left the house in silence. Dean had more than enough experience with Sam’s moodiness to recognize the beginning of a sulk. At least Peter waited until they were safely back in the Impala before he got his bitch on. “Why did we have to put that poor lady through all that?” he demanded
“Listen. I had a hunch, I followed it. Now we know why the demon didn’t go after the rest of the family.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Peter said huffily.
“Dean, I don’t believe you! Those kids just lost their father!”
“Yeah, and if we don’t salt and burn him quick, they’re gonna lose their mom, too.”
“Maybe, but did you really need to bring up all the bad crap he ever did?”
“We’re sure it’s him now, aren’t we?”
“That’s not the point. How would you feel if someone tried to dig up all the bad shit from our childhood?”
“Our dad isn’t a restless spirit.” At Sam’s accusing eyes, he shrugged. “Well, he’s not out killing people. Let’s go do this.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with giving people hope,” Dean muttered as he started the Impala.
“False hope. Jesse’s gotta be dead by now,” Peter said darkly, slouching in his seat.
“But the demon’s not coming after the family, and now we know why.”
“Yeah. So where does that leave us?”
Dean pulled out onto the road and pointed them toward the interstate. "Driving to Youngstown."
--
Nathan drove them to the interstate in silence. He stopped at the gas station closest to the on ramp, and a couple of twenties netted him a confirmation that yes, a ’67 Impala had gassed up about an hour before, and they’d headed west.
When Nathan reported this back to Sam, he seemed less than enthused. Nathan couldn’t blame him. After what they’d seen in that motel room, the thought of chasing Peter and this Dean character across the northeast made him want to punch something.
“So we just drive north and hope to run into them?” Sam asked.
“Better ideas? Plan on getting another vision?” He was only being snappy with Sam because he was on edge. That was all.
“Library,” Sam said suddenly. “Baltimore has a better library than crappy small town Pennsylvania. Maybe we’ll find something useful.”
“No internet,” Nathan said automatically.
“Nathan, we are running out of options here! Why the hell—?”
“Listen,” Nathan said through gritted teeth. “If I concede to the possibility that demons exist, can you just accept that there’s someone out there who can intercept and read electronic messages, and if she finds Peter or me, she’ll kill us?”
Sam blinked. “Um… Sure. I guess so.”
“Then we’ll go to the library,” Nathan said, and started the car.
“In the morning. It’s after five,” Sam pointed out.
Nathan squinted into the setting sun; he hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. “Right. And we did spend last night getting chased around a cemetery.”
They drove back to the Academy Motel. Nathan explained to the indifferent manager that they were going to need to stake out the room next to the one the suspects had used, in case they came back. Wordlessly, the manager handed over the key.
Maybe it was just déjà vu from having been here this morning, but this place seemed depressingly familiar; just one more in the long line of crappy motels that had become his life.
“Isn’t there an ice machine?” Nathan pulled on his boxers and slid to the edge of the bed to scrounge up his sandals. “Out to the right, under the stairs?”
“No, that was at the last place,” Peter said from where he was sprawled over the pillows.
“Well it’s too damn hot to drink lukewarm tap water without ice. Did I mention how much I hate Texas?”
“Sweaty, huh?” Peter crept up behind Nathan on the bed and ran one finger down Nathan’s naked back, turning sweat to frost. Nathan shivered and pressed back into Peter’s touch. “Still too hot?”
In room 414, Nathan dropped his duffel by the bed furthest from the door, and stood staring at it. Despite the lack of sleep in the past twenty-four hours, he wasn’t tired. He kept seeing Peter’s bloody shirt in his mind, wondering what trouble his brother might have gotten into to get that injured. Wondering whether this Dean guy was likely to get him into that kind of trouble again.
“So… Drink?” Sam asked from the doorway.
Nathan shrugged. Peter wasn’t here to tell him no. “Yes please.”
--
“So help me out here,” Peter said over James Hetfield’s rocking vocals. “What are we supposed to do in Youngstown?”
“If the demon isn’t going after the adopted family, she must be going after the real family,” Dean said. “Maybe we can beat her there.”
Another verse of Whiplash went by, with Peter tapping along absently on the seat before he said, “Can I ask you something?”
Dean sighed. He’d been dreading the moment that Peter wanted to have a heart-to-heart. Is it in the younger brother guidebook somewhere that you have to talk about every feeling you ever had? “What?”
Peter hesitated a moment, blinking at Dean. Then he asked, “Where’d you get this car? It’s really great.”
Dean grinned. That certainly wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. “My dad gave it to me when I turned 18.”
“He knows what you like, at least,” Peter said with a lopsided smirk. “You two must be close.”
“We were, I guess,” Dean said. Funny how he might not have thought so two years ago, but things looked different from where he sat now. “Close as anyone ever got to him. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Peter said. “My Dad and I didn’t get along too well.”
“Maybe it’s a little brother thing. Sam and Dad were always butting heads.”
The road rolled away under them, and the tape flipped over to the B side. Phantom Lord began to bare. “So, your dad was a hunter?” Peter asked during the guitar solo.
“Yep. Taught me everything I know.”
“I wish my dad…” Peter’s mouth quirked up in that little half-smile. “Well, we always wish things could have been different, don’t we?”
Dean spared Peter a sideways glance. “Did he have those freaky power things?”
“I think so. They’re supposed to be genetic, but he and my mom never told us… Anything, really.”
Dean nodded, glad that Peter didn’t seem to mind talking about this stuff. You never know what kind of creature knowledge will come in handy down the road. “It’s genetic? So what about your brother. Does he do that healing thing?”
Peter shook his head. “They’re different for everyone. Mine are actually just borrowed.”
“Huh?”
“I’m an empath. Which just means that I can use other people’s powers.”
“Like Rogue,” Dean said thoughtfully. When Peter blinked at him, he elaborated, “In X-Men.”
“Oh, right,” Peter said. “Except I don’t have to touch them.”
“So there’s somebody else out there who can take a shotgun blast to the chest and walk away?”
“Several someones, actually,” Peter said.
“That’s so cool,” Dean grinned. As freaky psychic powers went, that would be a useful one to have.
“Hey, does…?”
“What?”
“Your brother, you said he has abilities, too.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Dean said quickly. “It’s not a genetic deal. We know where his came from.”
Peter looked at him expectantly.
“And that’s it,” Dean said. He’d said more than he should already; he certainly wasn’t going to start baring his soul about demon blood and destiny and all that crap.
Peter settled back in his seat, a smile playing on his lips.
“What?” Dean asked suspiciously. “You reading my mind again?”
“No,” Peter scowled. “Just thinking about Nathan. He always knows how to end a conversation when he doesn’t want to ‘share his feelings.’” This last he said in a mocking tone that must have been an imitation of his brother. “Used to be a lawyer.” His smile faded.
“Sam wanted to be a lawyer.” Dean wasn’t sure why he said it; Sammy wasn’t something he discussed with anyone, but this was hardly top-secret. Anyway, it was no more than Peter had shared with him. “He’s smart enough, too. Did good in college. Didn’t quite make it to law school, though.”
When Sam came in with burgers, Dean was watching Law and Order SVU. He considered flipping channels and pretending he’d been watching basketball, but finally decided to stand his ground.
“Um… Law and Order?” Sam said incredulously as he handed Dean a wax-paper-wrapped double bacon cheeseburger.
“Dude, Detective Benson is hot.”
“Uh… yeah.” Sam plopped down on the couch and started in on his own burger. After only a few minutes of watching, he pointed accusingly at the screen. “That’s ridiculous. You couldn’t just take that without a warrant. The whole case could get thrown out of court.” Sam laughed through his mouthful of fries, and Dean managed a weak laugh in answer. “I know that and I never even started law school. Don’t these guys have consultants working for them?”
Dean felt a strange, unidentifiable pang in his stomach. “Yeah, this show is crap.”
“Why’d he leave school?” Peter asked.
“I came and got him. I needed his help, and then… He could never go back.” Dean hadn’t thought of it in exactly those terms before, but it was true. Sam wouldn’t ever be able to go back to school. Not with his rap sheet.
“When I needed Nathan’s help, he left everything for me,” Peter said. “His family, his future. I took all that away from him.”
Dean shook his head. “’S not your fault. Can’t make someone give up what they weren’t willing to lose.”
“You believe that?”
Dean let more of the road go by: so much that he wasn’t sure if he planned to respond until his answer slipped out. “No.”
--
Sam remembered a place a few blocks down from the motel, a cheap dive called Swallow at the Hollow. Turned out the place had a fair-sized crowd for a Tuesday night. Sam and Nathan managed to find a slightly sticky table in a dark corner. When the waitress, a skinny woman with dirty-blonde hair and a smoker’s cough, came by, Sam ordered a Miller Lite and Nathan ordered a double whiskey, neat.
Sam raised his eyebrow at that, but didn’t comment. Instead, he said, “If we can’t find anything at the library, we can check the papers for the past couple days. Maybe they found a lead that took them out of town.”
“Yeah.” Nathan had tossed back his drink and was signaling to the waitress to bring him another before he noticed Sam’s look of concern. He grimaced and took only small sips of the second whiskey the waitress brought. Sam took the hint and shut up, content to join Nathan in staring off into space in companionable silence. It was different than all the drinking alone Nathan had done last year, but the buzz of the whisky as it slid down his throat was warm and familiar.
“How are the boys?” Nathan asked. He was gripping the phone so hard his hand shook.
“They’re fine,” Heidi said brightly. Nathan knew the tone—the one that meant she was seething but trying to remain calm. “They miss their dad.”
“How are you?” It was a stupid thing to say, but he had to know.
“How do you think I am, Nathan?” He heard her suck in a breath, trying to hold it together. She always held it together. Nathan wondered if she’d picked that up from Angela. “I’m much better. Things are going really well.”
“I’m glad.” And he was. Heidi deserved so much more than what Nathan had to give nowadays. If she’d stayed… But he didn’t allow himself to think about that.
“You sound better.”
“Thanks.”
“You still drinking?”
Nathan gave a tense laugh. “Peter doesn’t even let me order wine with dinner.”
“Peter.” Her voice was strained. “Well good for him.”
There was silence on the line for a moment. “Heidi…”
“Don’t ask to see the boys. They don’t need the extra stress right now. Getting started in a new school—again… It’s hard.”
And his fault. He’d put them in danger. But Heidi was polite enough not to say so. “They like the new school?”
“Monty’s teacher thinks he might be dyslexic. We’re taking him to see a specialist on Friday.”
Normal things. Family things. And Nathan wasn’t a part of them anymore. “Right. He should see a specialist.”
“I have to go,” Heidi said. “Nathan… Be well.”
“Tell the boys—,” Nathan began, but Heidi was already gone.
He listened to the dial tone a moment before he was able to unwrap his fingers from the receiver. Then he walked across the street to the discount liquor store.
“Seems like you know your way around a bottle of whiskey,” Sam said, and swigged down more of his beer.
“Lifetime of experience.” Nathan leaned back in the rickety chair and took stock of the bar patrons. They were the typical early drinkers: older single men and a few desperate-looking women.
“You and Peter go drinking a lot?” Sam asked.
“No.” Not ever. “Not really.”
“I can’t count how many bars like this I’ve been in with Dean. They all start to look the same after awhile. Cheap beer, old guys, blonde waitresses.” Sam smiled into his beer. “Of course, Dean would probably have the placed scoped by now. Trying to decide whether to hustle the locals or take the waitress home or both.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Hustle?”
“Pool,” Sam said quickly. “Dean’s a passable pool shark. He’s always been good with his hands. I mean, repairing cars and stuff. Kept me in new tennis shoes when we were kids.”
Nathan looked up from swishing the whiskey around in his glass. “You guys did this growing up?”
“Yeah. Me and Dean and Dad on the road hunting.”
“You guys must be close,” Nathan said. He couldn’t help but think of his own dad, taking his secrets to the grave, never mentioning to Nathan anything about abilities, or the Company, or any of it.
“Yeah. Dean practically raised me.” Sam leaned back in the chair that seemed almost too small to hold him. “What about you and Peter? You don’t seem like you grew up on the road.”
“What makes you say that?”
Sam shrugged and took a long pull of his beer.
Nathan knew an evasion when he saw one, but the whisky was starting to work, bringing a pleasant buzz behind Nathan’s eyes. He hadn’t had a drink in a long time (six months, fourteen days), but the dry bitterness of the whiskey felt like home, and quid pro quo didn’t seem to matter as much any more. “Peter and I weren’t that close growing up. I was away at school a lot, then in the service. Mostly our ma raised him.” Though he tried, Nathan couldn’t quite keep the venom out of his words.
Sam seemed to understand, and didn’t pry further. Instead, he offered up a story of one of his first hunts with Dean, when they were teenagers. Nathan wasn’t sure he entirely believed in crap like poltergeists, but Sam told the story well, and Nathan found himself laughing when the tale ended in Dean’s complete failure to score with the daughter of the family who’d been haunted.
Nathan countered with a story of him and Peter chasing a lead in Nevada. He vagued up a few details about the nature of their search, but the punch line went over well enough: they’d been chased out of town after Peter smiled the wrong way at the sheriff’s daughter.
Sam was good company. Nathan hadn’t noticed in the past few days, since he’d been preoccupied by how different it was from traveling with Peter. But Sam was smart, and funny, and Nathan had spent many evenings drinking with people—clients, friends of his parents, campaign supporters—who were much more tiresome and not nearly as handsome. And now that Nathan had a few drinks in him, it didn’t seem so difficult to admit that Sam was handsome. Not pretty like Peter, but a clean, wholesome attractiveness that was suddenly making Nathan ache for something he’d never had.
As they talked, Sam put away three more beers, and Nathan managed to limit himself to three more whiskeys. The place had gotten crowded as the hour grew later. Nathan had just finished the story of Peter running Nathan’s Prius into the Potomac and bringing the Bentley home as a peace offering when a loud cough interrupted him. A group of girls—college age, with sparkly halter-tops and tight jeans—huddled together at the edge of the table.
“There’s nowhere to sit,” one of them explained with a bright smile for Sam. “Can we share your table?”
Sam glanced only briefly at Nathan before answering. “We were actually just leaving. You ladies are welcome to sit here.”
As Sam stood, one of the girls caught hold of his arm. “It’s early yet. Don’t go.”
“Stay and have a drink with us,” another prompted.
Sam opened his mouth to reply, but Nathan spoke first. “It’s okay.” He peeled three twenties from his money clip and tossed them on the table. “You stay. I’ll see you back at the motel.” He stood up to leave, but the ground lurched under him, and he had to grab the edge of the table to steady himself.
“Whoa. Hey, Nathan, you okay?”
“He’s fine,” one of the girls said, wrapping her hand around Sam’s elbow. “Sit down.”
Nathan waited a moment for the dizziness to pass, but it didn’t get any better. Sam reached out for him, but Nathan waved a hand dismissively. “Siddown, Sam.” He lurched away from the table, carefully placing one foot in front of the other in an effort to walk straight.
“Sorry ladies.” Sam was suddenly at Nathan’s side, steadying him with a hand on his elbow. Behind him, the girls gave a collective “awww” of disappointment.
“I can walk two damn blocks, Sam,” Nathan growled.
“So can I. I was ready to go anyway.”
“No you weren’t.” Nathan tried to brush Sam off his arm, but that proved difficult with limbs that weren’t fully operational.
“Let’s go,” Sam said.
Once they were outside, the cold night air sobered Nathan up to a degree. He was suddenly furious—with himself, for miscalculating his tolerance, and with Sam for hauling him out of the bar like some alcoholic old man. He was not about to show that, though. Instead, he shoved down his rage, packing it away inside where even alcohol couldn’t loose it. Gathering the tattered shreds of his dignity, he set off toward the hotel.
Sam fell into step beside him. “Feeling better?”
“Why didn’t you stay?” Nathan asked, deftly deflecting the inquiry. “Those girls wanted you to.”
“That’s not really my thing,” Sam said with a shrug.
Nathan couldn’t resist. “What, women?”
“No—I mean, that’s not the point,” Sam fumbled. “I’m not into picking up people in bars. That’s Dean’s thing.”
Nathan felt a wary tightening in his chest as he thought about Peter. “Sounds like a lucky guy.”
“Well, it used to be someone new in every town, and…” Sam’s words ground to a halt, and Nathan could almost see the light bulb go off over Sam’s head. “And his misspent youth is far behind him,” he concluded quickly. “When he’s working a case, he’s totally professional. Your brother—.”
Nathan cut him off. “Let’s not.”
They covered half a block in awkward silence before Sam asked, “You think we’ll find them tomorrow?”
“I have no idea.” Now that the motel was in sight, Nathan made an effort to quicken his pace, fueled by the desire to put more distance between him and Sam.
Sam had no trouble keeping pace. “Okay, that? Not encouraging. All this time you’ve been telling me they’re fine, yes you’re sure, stop worrying Sam, and now you have no idea? What about the bloody shirt you found in the room this morning? What aren’t you telling me?”
“You saw what I saw,” Nathan said as the arrived at the door. He fumbled with the room keys, trying two others on his key chain before he found the one that worked. He stumbled into the room, and Sam came right behind him, kicking the door shut as soon as they’d cleared it and swinging Nathan around to slam against it.
“What is wrong with you?” Sam demanded.
“Get off me.” Nathan tried to push Sam away, but Sam pushed back, keeping him pinned to the door. He felt a distant flutter of surprise as he realized Sam was stronger than him.
“We’ve lost their trail, and you don’t seem to care,” Sam said. “I just want to know why you’re being so god damn indifferent of all a sudden.”
“You want me to cry?”
“I had a vision—a crazy supernatural vision—that warned me my brother was in danger, but that didn’t seem to bother you. We find your brother’s blood—a lot of it—in a motel room, you barely blink. Same motel room, we find out our brothers…” Sam stopped short before hurrying on. “What does it take to concern you?”
“Get. Off. Me.” This time Nathan didn’t push. He only fixed Sam with the full force of his angry glare. Sam, to his credit, didn’t back down.
“You’re just like Dean. Trying to take on everything by yourself. Scared to show that you actually give a shit about something other than yourself.”
“You don’t know a thing about me.”
“Maybe not. But I know my brother. Dad demanded a lot of him, expected him to be perfect, to always do what he was told. To live up to the family name.”
“That’s your brother.”
“You’re not so different, Nathan Petrelli.”
Nathan’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before he could get out a strained, “What?”
“It was on the back of a picture in the glove box,” Sam said. Unable to think of a comeback that would fully express his anger, Nathan stayed silent. Sam went on. “I bet a quick Google search would tell me what you’re running from.”
“That’s true.” Nathan’s eyes narrowed, and inevitably, the rage he’d shoved down earlier began to ooze out, dark and insidious. “But it doesn’t matter if I know your name, Sam Winchester, because you’re nobody. Dropped out of Stanford, no family, no mark left on the world. Traveling the country with your fake IDs, your Latin dictionary, and your loving brother.”
“Shut up about Dean.”
Nathan couldn't help but go for the weak spot. "What does he think of your visions, anyway? Does he understand? Do you scare him? You never want to talk about your visions. Is he ashamed of you?”
“Are you ashamed of your brother?” Sam countered. “Spreading it for some nobody he met a week ago?”
Nathan shoved Sam off of him, anger giving him strength. “Your brother hasn’t been trying too hard to find you, has he? Seems like he’s almost eager to get rid of you. Maybe if you didn’t hold on so damn tight he wouldn’t be so eager to leave.”
Nathan saw the punch coming too late to dodge. Sam’s big fist slammed into his jaw, sending him reeling back against the door. Nathan brought a hand up to the spot as he regained his footing. The pain bloomed bright and dull on the side of his face, but he didn’t think anything was broken. “You feel better now?”
Before Nathan could finish delivering his witty retort, he caught sight of Sam, turned half away from him, hands tangling limply at his sides, head hung in shame, anger spent.
Nathan sighed. He couldn’t keep arguing if Sam was done. In the Petrelli family, fights tended to last as long as both parties still had a voice. This seemed anticlimactic, somehow. “Sam.” Nathan took a step toward him. Now that the adrenaline was fading, the buzz in his head wasn’t so pleasant. It throbbed, beating out a pulse of guilt guilt guilt. “I shouldn’t have said any of that.” He went to put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, but stumbled and ended up with a hand wrapped around the back of Sam’s neck instead. “We’re just worried about them. It’s got both of us on edge. Forget it.”
Sam turned, pressing back into Nathan’s grip on his neck. His hands went slowly to Nathan’s shoulders. Instead of speaking, he leaned forward, pressing through the thick silence between them to kiss Nathan.
Sam’s tongue pushed against Nathan’s lips, and without thinking Nathan opened for him. Sam was gloriously wet and warm and salty and not at all like Peter. But there was nothing about it Nathan didn’t like. Sam’s grip tightened on Nathan’s shoulders, pulling their bodies closer, their hips bumping together. Maybe it was the whisky talking, but Nathan was getting hard just from this, and as Sam pressed him closer against the door, he could tell Sam was in the same state. He was warm against Nathan, solid and real.
Sam’s bed was only a few feet away. Nathan knew—knew from the way Sam was panting into his mouth, his hips gently rutting against him—that he could lay Sam out on that bed, strip him, explore every part of that body. Sam was strong and solid, wouldn’t need kid gloves. Sam would let Nathan in, let him take whatever he wanted.
Nathan grabbed Sam by the arms and pressed him back a few steps. Sam watched him, lips kiss-swollen and moist, eyes unsure but hopeful. Wanting.
Nathan brushed past him without a word, retreated to the bathroom, and locked the door behind him. He turned on only the cold water in the skuzzy little shower and stripped quickly. He gritted his teeth on as the elastic of his boxer shorts dragged over his cock, standing out red and hard in front of him. He grabbed the edge of the sink tightly so he would not jerk himself off to the thought of Sam writhing and bucking beneath him, Sam on his knees on the floor, Sam panting and groaning.
Nathan tightened his grip on the sink and forced himself to look at the mirror, looking past his disheveled hair and beginning of a scruffy beard, trying to see himself for the monster he was. He saw only his own face.
Climbing under the cold spray, Nathan called up the worst memories he could think of: waiting at his wife’s beside after their car crash, lying in the burn ward in agony that wouldn’t end, seeing Peter lying dead in his mother’s living room. Under the influence of these memories and the cold water, Nathan’s erection began to subside. He stayed in the shower until he was shivering and miserable, and until he was sure he’d regained his self-control.
When he emerged from the bathroom, Sam was a hulking lump in the dark under the duvet on the far bed. Nathan tossed his shoes on the floor and crawled into his own bed fully clothed. He lay still for a minute, trying to relax, but his heart wouldn’t stop pounding. On the other side of the room, Sam stirred.
“I didn’t mean to…” Sam ventured. His voice sounded brittle in the darkness.
Didn’t mean to what? Nathan wanted to know, but he didn’t ask. “Forget about it.”
Nathan held still and listened, but Sam said nothing else. After a while, Nathan heard his breathing even out and knew that Sam had fallen asleep. The peaceful sound of gentle breathing was soothing. In the darkness, he could almost believe it was Peter asleep in the next bed. But Sam wasn’t Peter. Not at all. Nathan lay awake for hours, listening to Sam’s breathing.
--
“What’s that thing do?” Peter asked from over Dean’s shoulder. Everything under the hood of the Impala looked alien and imposing.
Dean sighed and adjusted his grip on the wrench in his right hand. “That’s a spark plug. It… sparks.”
“Is that what’s broken?”
“Nothing’s broken,” Dean said immediately. “Just needs a little love.” He went back to adjusting something with the wrench, and Peter retreated to lounge against the fence that bordered the adjoining field.
Dean’s thoughts were clear and focused as he worked. Come on baby. Something clanked inside the engine. There you go.
Peter smiled. “You really love this car.”
“Well. It’s about the only thing I have that’s all my own.” Dean dragged his arm across his brow, wiping away the sweat. “Hand me my beer.”
“I’m not your bitch,” Peter said, but Dean smirked at him, so he got up to fetch his bottle from where it rested on top of the trunk.
“Bitch,” Dean said when Peter handed it to him.
“Jerk,” Peter responded.
Dean nearly choked on his beer at that, but Peter just smiled innocently. “This usually Sam’s job?”
“You mean annoying me while I try to work on my baby?” Dean said once he’d recovered from inhaling his beer. “Actually, yeah.”
Peter put one knee up on the bumper, staring at the completely unfamiliar assemblage of metal and plastic. “All this time on the road together and you never taught him how to do this?”
“Starting to,” Dean muttered. “Your brother obviously never showed you anything about cars.”
“No,” Peter admitted. “If he knows anything about car repair, he never showed me. I’m a fast learner, though.”
“Yeah, I know,” Dean said under his breath. “Just hang tight. We’ll be back on the road in no time.”
“Peter. Is that really a good place for your feet?”
Guiltily, Peter pulled his legs off the dashboard. “Guess not,” he muttered.
Nathan nodded his satisfaction and returned his eyes to the road. “These GTs are supposed to be able to do over two hundred miles per hour. You think we could get her up to that?” He pressed a little on the accelerator, and the car responded with a smooth swell of power.
“I thought you liked the Prius.” Peter was pretending to pout, but really it was nice to see Nathan so boyishly excited.
“No, you liked the Prius,” Nathan said. “I hope you took into account that I’m going to have to do all the driving from now on.”
“Good,” Peter grinned. “That leaves me more time to think of ways for you to owe me favors.”
“Oh, I don’t owe you for this,” Nathan said. He dropped the pedal again, and the Bentley surged. “You said it was a gift. No payback required.”
“Well… What if I’m extra good?” Peter purred.
Nathan tore his eyes from the road for a moment to share with Peter a smile more genuine than any he’d worn in a long time. “Keep your feet off my dashboard, and I might be feeling generous tonight.”
Peter pried open a beer of his own and went back to lounging against the fence.
“Damn,” Dean muttered under his breath.
“What?”
“I thought that drive belt was going to hang on for another 200 miles at least.” Dean wiped his hands on his jeans before slamming the hood. “You stay here and watch the car. I’m gonna hitch into whatever that town was and pick up a part.”
“Wait, what part?” Peter asked, hopping off the fence.
“A new drive belt.” The image of the part, a long black circle, drifted to the front of Dean’s consciousness, and Peter memorized it.
“That the only part we need?”
“Yeah,” Dean said suspiciously.
“Hold on a second. I want to show you something.” Peter backed up a few steps. “Okay, now don’t worry. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” He closed his eyes and concentrated hard on the town they’d passed fifteen minutes back. When he opened, his eyes, he was standing on the sunny main drag of the town of Boswell.
It was the work of only a few minutes to tell the guy at Chuck’s Garage and Classic Cars what he needed. He paid with the fake credit card Dean had given him, and apparently he managed not to look too guilty, because the guy handed over the part in a paper bag and said, “Have a real nice day.” Peter returned to the street before closing his eyes and concentrating on the lonely stretch of highway where he’d left Dean.
“Dude, what the hell?”
Peter opened his eyes to see Dean staring at him, wrench gripped protectively in front of him. He wished that he could have stopped time and been back instantly, but that was more risk than he was willing to take, even if it would be impressive. He didn’t want to end up trapped in a post-apocalyptic future. “I got the part.” Peter held up the bag, but his self-satisfaction flagged as Dean continued to stare. “What?”
“Uh… What was that?”
“I teleported,’ Peter explained proudly. “You know, folding space and time? I just went to Boswell and got the part.”
“Teleported,” Dean said slowly. “Like Star Trek.”
“Yeah. Kinda.” He held out the bag. Dean took it and lifted out the drive belt. “At least you got the right thing.” He looked from the part to Peter and back to the part.
“Hey, are you… Did I do something wrong?”
“Uh…” Dean shook his head uncertainly. His thoughts were too jumbled to read.
“Dean, I didn’t think this was a big deal. Your brother has abilities, right? I… I thought it was okay.”
“It’s fine.” Dean turned back to the car, letting the empty paper bag flutter to the ground. What else can he do? Holy shit, I’ve never even seen a demon do that.
“Dean, what I can do, it’s not evil, I promise. It’s just genetics. Borrowed genetics, even. Nothing supernatural about it.”
“So you said,” Dean grumbled. “Evolution, yeah. Just like, I dunno, the platypus or something.”
“No, really. I could give you this book, but it’s kind of technical, and really not all that well-written, to tell you the truth.” Peter realized he was rambling. “Hey, seriously. You get this freaked out with your brother’s abilities?”
“That’s different. Sam just has visions. He doesn’t…” Dean waved a hand vaguely toward where Peter had re-appeared. “Teleport.”
“But you’re not afraid of him,” Peter pointed out.
“No, of course not,” Dean snapped. I’m afraid for him.
“Why? You think he’ll go darkside or something?”
“It’s none of your business, so stay out of my head.” Dean stripped the packaging off the part Peter had brought him, and turned back to the engine, tension evident in the bunched muscles of his shoulders.
“Sorry.” Peter watched Dean work for a few silent minutes. “Nathan was worried about the same thing, for awhile. I sort of fell in with some bad people. Or person, really. I could have done something monumentally, unforgivably bad, but Nathan stopped me. He brought me back from that.”
Dean looked at him as if to say, “So what,” and Peter studiously avoided reading his thoughts.
“I’m just saying… as long as Sam has a brother like you, he’s not really in danger.”
“Yeah. As long as he has me.” Dean closed the hood gently. “She’ll hold together.”
Peter took a few hesitant steps closer. “Hey Dean. Are we okay?”
“Peachy.” He opened the passenger door and gestured inside gallantly. “Get in, bitch.”
--
Sam awoke early, which was rare. His head was pounding, and it took a few minutes for memory to come drifting back. As soon as it did, his eyes snapped to the bed beside him. In the night, Nathan had flung off his covers, and lay sprawled over the bed fully clothed, still asleep.
Sam pulled on his clothes as quietly as he could and crept out of the room. Luckily the convenience store on the corner stocked painkillers and coffee. He bought two cups, but realized as he was adding sugar that he’d never paid attention to how Nathan liked his. He figured he’d bring it back black and risk it.
When Sam arrived back at the motel, Nathan was already showered, dressed, and loading their bags into the Bentley. “Uh… Good morning,” Sam said.
“Morning,” Nathan said shortly. He looked no worse for the wear from their little spree last night. Either he had no hangover or he was hiding it well, and either way Sam hated him a little for it.
“Coffee,” Sam said.
Nathan took it with a muttered “thanks,” but Sam noticed he studiously avoided any actual physical contact. No chance of amnesia, then. Damn.
“Central library’s downtown,” Nathan said. He hovered by the doorway of the room as Sam rounded up the meager belongings he’d acquired in the past week, shoving them into a borrowed duffel. “They open at ten.”
“Great,” said Sam. He was determined for this not to be awkward. Last night had been a mistake. A stupid, drunken mistake, and now it was time to pretend it had never happened, pretend he didn’t have ridiculously inappropriate thoughts about Nathan. Pretend he wasn’t sure that Nathan had the same kind of thoughts. “So, breakfast first?”
“Great.” Nathan nodded curtly. Apparently if Sam was going to pretend last night never happened, Nathan didn’t want to be outdone.
Despite Sam’s determination, breakfast was an uncomfortable affair. Over pancakes and bacon at a diner near the library, Sam couldn’t get out any civil words, much less make harmless small talk. He didn’t want to be the first one to admit his discomfort, so although he would much rather read a paper or even go hide in the bathroom, he just sat at the table trading glares with Nathan.
At 9:57, Nathan threw some money on the table and stood up. “Library,” he said. Sam couldn’t have agreed more.
Sam felt a moment of nostalgia for Stanford when they entered the foyer of the huge library; nowadays “research” usually meant the internet or whatever was in the collection of the tiny one-room libraries in the towns he and Dean frequented. This was the real deal.
“I’ll check local articles,” Nathan said. “You handle mythology.”
“Fine.” Sam was content to be as far away from Nathan as possible for the time being. Besides, a chance to get lost in the stacks and find something out about this demon might put him in a better mood.
The reference librarian was able to direct him to a few sections (yes, there was more than one floor in this library!) that might be helpful, and Sam got right to work. He took a break once to walk up to the library gift shop a buy a little blue notebook, which he took back to the stacks and filled with scribbled notes and folded, photo-copied pages that might be useful. When he finally looked at his watch, Sam was surprised to discover it was later in the day than he thought, and his stomach was growling. He went to go share his findings with Nathan.
Sam found him in library basement, combing through local archives on microfilm. Sam dropped a pile of books on the table beside Nathan. Instead of jumping like Dean might have done, Nathan simply glanced up from the microfilm machine and raised an eyebrow at Sam. It seemed suddenly that a few hours apart, both doing the kind of work they liked best, had erased the morning’s awkwardness. Apparently geekboys had funny ways of blowing off steam.
“I found her,” Sam announced.
Nathan cleared a stack of folders off the chair next to him so Sam could sit down. “And?” he prompted.
“They have a great section on Native American mythology here.” Sam patted the stack of books he’d pulled. “There’s a demon—well, not a demon, really. She was the daughter of a god, but he put her brother to death and banished her soul to hell, along with the souls of all her mortal family, her whole clan of descendents, down to the great great grandkids.”
“This is the kind of stuff you deal with, and you wonder why I thought you were crazy at first?” Nathan asked, shaking his head. “If she’s some ancient demon, then why have we only been picking up her pattern for the last few months?”
“She was probably trapped in hell and only just escaped. Somehow. I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Sam said quickly. And he certainly didn’t want to try explaining the Devil’s Gate Great Escape to Nathan.
“So why do you think it’s her?”
Sam pulled a book off the top of the stack, opened it to a page marked with a scrap of paper, and spun it around to face Nathan, pointing to an illustration. “That was the symbol of her clan, before daddy dearest wiped them out.”
“The crime scene photos. That’s what’s carved all over the victims.” Nathan looked from the page up to Sam and gave a satisfied nod. Sam was surprised how much of a thrill that little gesture of satisfaction gave him. “So how’s she choosing her victims?” Nathan asked.
“Well, according to the legend,” Sam flipped past a few pages in the book to find the passage he remembered. “Her father told her he would redeem her and resurrect her clan if she could ‘stomp out the abomination which had been her downfall.’”
“And which abomination is that?”
The word stuck in Sam’s throat. He tried again, and it slithered out of his mouth like thick poison. “Incest.”
Nathan stared silently back at him, and Sam felt the moment stretch between them, precarious and brittle. “Okay,” Nathan said finally. Sam’s stomach did a little flip. They couldn’t possibly be about to have this conversation. Nathan knew the demon had attacked him and Dean, and he knew Sam knew it had attacked him and Peter. Both pairs of brothers were damned by this demon’s attention, but Sam couldn’t believe that Nathan would really admit it. “So the victims—Bryce Kidman, Amy Donahue, Brandon Basden… They were committing incest?”
“I guess so.” Sam’s mouth was dry. They were skirting the issue dangerously. One false word could send them tumbling into oblivion. “I can’t prove it.”
“She takes one person and kills him, just like that god killed her brother,” Nathan said, running his hand over the illustration.
“Right.” Sam pulled another book quickly out of his stack, eager to move on. “There were some accounts from neighboring tribes who had a rash of mysterious murders not long after this demon’s tribe was wiped out. Same sort of thing; one body found with the marks, then the rest of their family dies. The tribes believed that the demon did some sort of a ritual to bind her victim’s blood to her. Then she doesn’t need to physically go after the rest of the family. She just collects their souls from wherever she is.”
“Collects their souls?”
Sam just nodded. It was a testament to how far they’d come in one week that Nathan just nodded his acceptance. “So it’s the shared blood that gives her access.” Nathan said. “That makes sense, in a creepy demon logic sort of way. What are the odds that Dean and Peter have this figured out?”
“Dean won’t go inside a library unless I drag him, so unless this research fell from the sky somehow, it’s a fair bet Dean doesn’t know who exactly she is or how she’s doing her thing.”
“They must have followed the case here. Which means we might be able to retrace their steps.”
“Except they’ve already left town, right? Let me call Dean.”
“No.”
“Nathan. Now that we know she’s targeting… We know who she’s targeting. Aren’t you even a little worried?”
“Should I be?” he asked evenly.
Sam clenched his teeth. He suddenly remembered the agony of dealing with lawyer-speak at Stanford. He was past any thought of skirting the issue with Nathan, and he forced himself to reign in words he wanted to scream. “My brother and your brother are in danger, and they don’t know what they’re up against.”
“You think if you were with them, you could help?” Nathan sounded as if he doubted it.
“Yeah, I do. I don’t understand what it’s going to take for you to do something. I’m going to find my brother. You do whatever you want.”
Sam pushed out of his chair and stalked out of the library, forming and discarding plans as he walked, each scheme more improbable than the next. He stopped at the parking lot, and with a self-satisfied smile pulled out the keys he’d lifted from Nathan’s jacket. Sam half expected Nathan to come running after him, but even as he pealed out, one last glance in the rear view mirror showed him only an empty parking lot.
The Bentley hummed under him as he drove out of town. If he felt at all guilty for stealing Nathan’s car, the feeling was dwarfed by an urgent need to find Dean, to make sure he was safe. If Dean and Peter had followed the case to another town, they might be walking into a trap.
“I do not walk into traps all the time!” Dean protested.
“No?” Sam risked a glance out the curtains to make sure none of the demons had followed them before he threw the deadbolt on the motel door and fastened the chain. “Who’s the one who’s always stuck in the hotel room doing research while Captain Jack Sparrow over there is going off half-cocked?”
“Half-cocked? I never—. Hey, wait.” A slow grin was spreading over Dean’s face. “You think I’m like a pirate?”
“No,” Sam growled.
“Awesome.”
“Dean, no.” He pushed Dean backwards, sending him tumbling onto the bed, where he grabbed Dean’s hands and pinned them to his sides. “It’s not awesome sitting here worrying whether you’ve gotten yourself killed. Not any kind of awesome.”
“If you’d find the fun a little, Sammy—.”
“How did you like sitting home waiting for Dad to get back?”
And that wiped the grin off Dean’s face.
“Because that’s what it feels like, Dean. Wondering if you’re going to come back at all.” He pushed off the bed and went to peek out the window again.
“I’m a jerk,” said Dean from right behind him.
“Yeah, I know.”
Dean wrapped his arms around Sam’s waist and rested his forehead against Sam’s back. “But I’m a little like an awesome pirate jerk, right?”
“Maybe a little.”
He followed I-70 out of the city, the setting sun in his eyes, and pulled off at a gas station with a pay phone out front. It took him several tries to remember Dean’s latest number. When he was sure he finally had it, the line rang only once before going to voice mail. “Hi,” Dean’s voice said. “You’ve reached Eddie Vetter.”
“Damnit!” Sam slammed down the receiver.
“No luck?”
Sam whirled around to see Nathan leaning against the Bentley, arms crossed sternly, hair mussed and wild like he’d been through a tornado. “What?” Sam asked cleverly. ““How did you…? What are you doing here?”
Nathan's grin was smug. “I changed my mind. I think it’s time we found our brothers.”
“Yeah. Any bright ideas how?” Sam gestured to the phone. “Dean’s not picking up. He could be in trouble. We could try activating the GPS in his cell phone. If I can talk my way into--."
“Call this number.” Nathan held out a scrap of paper.
“You’re telling me to make a phone call?” Sam asked skeptically.
“This guy can help us,” Nathan said. “Trust me.” Nathan proceeded to talk him through a script so specific that Sam felt one step closer to legitimate black ops training.
Sam slipped some coins into the gas station’s pay phone and dialed the number with Nathan hovering at his shoulder. The whole stupid script was blown to hell when a little girl answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Uh, hi,” Sam faltered. “Is your Dad home?”
“Which one?”
Nathan mouthed a name. “Parkman?” Sam ventured.
“Hold on. MATT!”
There was a pause, some rustling, and then a new voice came on the line. “Yes?”
“Hi. My name’s Sam. I was working this sort of job, and I was told maybe you could help me locate someone.”
“How did you get this number?” Parkman’s voice was sharp, the kind that brooked no lies.
Luckily Nathan had prepared him for this part. “I work for a cargo jet company.”
The phrase made no sense to Sam, but apparently it held some special significance for Parkman. He chuckled. “Okay then, Sam. Who do you want to find?”
This part of the script had been harder, but Sam had figured out a solution. “Go to the FBI’s most wanted home page.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Give me a second.” More rustling.
“Go to the archives, and click on Mohinder’s birthday month in the year that Ted’s wife died.”
“Tell Nathan you can stop speaking in code. We had Micah wireless-proof our line.”
“Give me that.” Nathan snatched the phone out of Sam’s hand. “Parkman, can you have Molly find Peter?” Sam hovered close to Nathan so he could hear the conversation.
“Hello to you too.” The guy sounded amused.
“Can she do it?” Nathan asked.
“Molly honey?" Parkman raised his voice, maybe calling into another room. "You want to do Uncle Nathan a favor?”
A girl's voice answered from the background. “Am I finding Peter again?”
“Yes.”
“And some most wanted guy, too?” the girl asked.
“Have you been eavesdropping, young lady?”
“Maybe." The girl's voice came closer. "Who’s the other guy?”
“Name's Dean Winchester,” Nathan said. “You find the picture?”
“Yeah. Oh, nice mug shot. Are you sure you want to find this guy?”
“Why?”
“People don’t get on the FBI’s most wanted list by rescuing kittens from trees. It says here fraud, kidnapping, and murder.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow at Sam. “I can explain,” Sam said.
“Yeah, we still want to find him,” Nathan said. “Peter too.”
“Molly?” Parkman said.
“Ohio,” the girl said from the background. “They’re both there.”
“Great. Ohio. And?” Nathan prompted.
“Geez, hold on a sec. Pushy," came the girl's voice, followed by a short pause. "Youngstown.”
“Where?”
There was a rustling and Molly's voice sounded closer, as if Parkman had handed her the phone. “They’re on a street. I think they’re in a car.”
“What’s the street?” Nathan pulled a pen and a scrap of paper out of his back pocket.
“Hold on. It’s…” Molly let out a highly undignified “eep,” then squeaked, “Market and Kenmore.” There was more rustling, and Parkman came on the line again. “Want to tell me what Peter might have been doing that would make my daughter blush like a tomato and run to her room?”
“That’s just Peter,” Nathan said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah.” Matt sounded almost apologetic. “Hey, be careful.”
“Yeah.” Nathan hung up the phone.
Sam looked at him expectantly. “Want to share with me what that was all about?”
“Want to share with me why your brother’s wanted for murder?” Nathan countered.
“I guess you can drive.” Sam tossed Nathan the keys.
---
Part III (B)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-02 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-06 08:44 pm (UTC)Hee!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-06 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-04 10:31 pm (UTC)hee, absolutely dean, thats in the book!
"I came and got him. I needed his help, and then… He could never go back." Dean hadn't thought of it in exactly those terms before, but it was true. Sam wouldn't ever be able to go back to school. Not with his rap sheet.
"When I needed Nathan's help, he left everything for me," Peter said. "His family, his future. I took all that away from him."
yeah, damn, I felt so sorry for them both, both must be at times, eaten by guilt, coz they took away a life that their brothers could have, if they had never needed their help.
"That's not really my thing," Sam said with a shrug.
Nathan couldn't resist. "What, women?"
nope, only brothers will do *g*!
"Are you ashamed of your brother?" Sam countered. "Spreading it for some nobody he met a week ago?"
Nathan shoved Sam off of him, anger giving him strength. "Your brother hasn't been trying too hard to find you, has he? Seems like he's almost eager to get rid of you. Maybe if you didn't hold on so damn tight he wouldn't be so eager to leave."
damn, they both had been worried to death for their brothers, no wonder they knew how to spit out words that hurt most.
“No, of course not,” Dean snapped. I’m afraid for him.
“Why? You think he’ll go darkside or something?”
well uhh yeah, with the new Season, might as well!
god, I am so looking forward to the next ep, and see if we get to see what castiel was hinting at!
It seemed suddenly that a few hours apart, both doing the kind of work they liked best, had erased the morning's awkwardness. Apparently geekboys had funny ways of blowing off steam.
that was cute, both venting off their anger and guilt, into research :D
“Hold on. It’s…” Molly let out a highly undignified “eep,” then squeaked, “Market and Kenmore.” There was more rustling, and Parkman came on the line again. “Want to tell me what Peter might have been doing that would make my daughter blush like a tomato and run to her room?”
hee!LOL, that was a fun, I am kind of envious what Molly saw :D
damn, again way after midnight!
will return tomorrow!
no subject
Date: 2008-10-05 03:44 am (UTC)But Nathan and Sam are alike in so many ways, what with their smarts and their geekery. It takes a nerd to know one.
I'm glad you like Molly's little guest appearance. She really got more than she bargained for when she went looking for Peter! Oh dear... Probably scarred for life...
Sorry to be keeping you up past your bedtime :D