storyteller.
Supernatural. Gen. R. Spoilers through 1x16, "Shadow". Beta by frappygoddess.



hey—hey, you, kid. c’mere. wanna hear a story? listen—listen.



At a rest stop somewhere near enough Death Valley, a drifter with a knife manages to sneak up behind Sam while he’s poring over the wrinkled and worn map spread out on the hood of the Chevy. It’s been two weeks since Saginaw, and he feels the blade a split second before he’s hit with the scent of dirt, liquor, smoke. He wonders vaguely why he didn’t dream this, why he didn’t hear anyone coming.

He hears his brother, though, boots heavy on the gravel and glass littering the parking lot, coming toward them and taking matters into his own hands before Sam can even think about a way to fight back.

He hears Dean shouting, swearing, Get away from him, swear to fucking God, and without looking, he knows there’s a 9 mm in Dean’s hand and that it’s pointed right at that guy’s head. I’ll shoot, Dean threatens, and his voice doesn’t waver. Sam knows his arm won’t, either.

He feels hot, dry breath on the back of his neck and by his ear when the guy laughs, maniac, and he stiffens when the blade jabs, just a little, just enough to rise a few drops of blood. Yeah, yeah, fuckin’ go ahead, kid, like you’ve got—

He feels the dead weight of the guy falling back away before he actually registers the gunshot, and even after two bullets to the head, Dean shoots twice more.

The only thing Sam says is, Don’t waste the silver, and then he refuses to speak to his brother for almost a week.

In a diner eight days later, Dean picks at the peeling formica tabletop and says, “Hey, Sammy, listen—listen to me. I wasn’t gonna let him hurt you.”

Sam counts the tater tots left on his plate.

“If you’re leaving at all, you’re going back to school, man. Not six feet under.”

Five. Five left, one of them burnt, too much ketchup alongside them.

Dean reaches across him and takes one, pops it in his mouth dry. “You hear me?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “I hear you.”

Four. Four left.



i’m not s’posed to talk to strangers.

aw, c’mon, just listen to the story.

what kind of story?

the best kind, kid. heroes, action, everything.

okay, sure. yeah. but i gotta be home for dinner.



In middle America, they drive past nothing and ranches and barrel through towns in three minutes flat. Flat, like everything around them.

They make a pit stop to exorcise a bored ghost haunting cattle of all things (and how pathetic does that leave it on spirit scale, really?) and then turn east and go south.

Three days later, Sam wakes up on an unfamiliar roadway and squints at the rain-grey sky and muddy hillsides against what he takes too long to realize is a perfectly normal headache.

“Where d’you think we are?” says Dean, frustrated, when Sam asks. “Listen—” He punches the radio to life and after the crackle of choppy, mountain static, an abused guitar and a banjo fill the speakers. Dean stands it for about five seconds before turning it off.

“West Virginia?”

“I hate this state. There was a scenic railroad an hour back.”

“So what’s here?”

Dean sighs, accelerates around a twist in the road, annoyed. “Miners. Ghosts of miners. Fifteen different bluegrass stations.” He tightens his hands on the steering wheel.

Sam groans. “Just tell me when we get there.”



so there’s this princess, right? only not with the castle and rolling hills and all that fairytale stuff. she lives in a city apartment with her sisters. six sisters, plus her. seven of ‘em. got it?

right, got it.

seven princesses in a city apartment. do each others’ hair and nails and all that, right? and one day one of ‘em dies. just doesn’t wake up. weird, right?

right. weird.

so they’re all worried and weepy and then her ghost comes up, just floats through the wall. tells ‘em she was killed by something bad, killed by a monster. ghosts ’n monsters, they’re real, you know that?

yeah. yeah, i know.



So there was this one time when—God, he was barely fourteen, if that, and it’s been way too long since then, really—when they rented this tiny shack-house-place by the beach in one of the Carolinas, Sam doesn’t even remember which, but he remembers there was a selkie and a killer shark or two and that the beach was always empty ‘cause everyone was too scared to go by the water.

There was one bath and three other rooms, one for dad, one for them, one kitchen-slash-living room and they stayed there practically the whole summer. He remembers that he actually got a tan that year, once the sunburn went away, and he remembers that it was almost like being normal, on vacation with his family. Like the Winchesters were a normal family, one that went on vacations and got sunburned and tossed a football back and forth in the sand, because they did do that, too, once.

The place was small and the rent was low and they stayed all summer in a house paneled in planks turned grey by the sun with walls bleached white where they met the sand.

Anyway, so. There was this one night when he couldn’t sleep, not because of nightmare or anything but just couldn’t sleep, and he remembers rolling over, saying, “Dean, you awake?”

“I am now.”

“Can’t sleep.”

“C’mere, Sammy.” He moved, shifted over to make room in his bed, pulling the blankets back, and Sam was already too tall at that point, so they were cramped, but it felt like a good fit at the time.

“Listen—”

“What’m I listening to?”

“The waves, man.” He nodded his head to the open window with a line of salt stretched across the sill. “Listen. It’ll help you sleep.” Dean kissed the top of his head and wrapped an arm loosely around Sammy’s torso and said, “Get some rest. We’ve got demon fishing to do tomorrow.”

“Okay. G’night.”

“Night, bro’.”



so the dead princess, her sisters get the phonebook. they’re not fairytale girls, remember?

i remember.

good. so they get the phonebook and find a hero to help find the monster.

in the phonebook?

yeah, in the phonebook. heroes are real. real as you’n me. you know any real heroes?

yeah, i do.

good. that’s good.



So the summer after that, they mostly lived in the desert, not hunting—hiding. John didn’t deal well with that and neither did Dean, living out of the car and truck and getting sunburned, windburned, cursing the heat at regular intervals whenever they didn’t feel like real conversation, which is say that it happened a lot.

You don’t stop a curse, son. You get out of its way.

The hoodoo witch by the gulf had been pretty pissed, and it was probably a good idea to stay away from any sizable bodies of water just now. Desert’s their best bet.

In early August, they sit around a campfire and poke at each other with sticks, ‘cause there really isn’t much else to do.

“Hey, hey—Dad. D’you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“I hear it too. Sounds like... a river.”

“Running water, yeah. Dad?”

“Yeah, boys. I hear it too.”

They put out the fire and go, kicking up dust in their wake and not sticking around to see if it settles. It doesn’t.



so they find this hero in the phonebook, and he comes right over. only by the time he gets there, three more princesses are dead. just not breathing any more, and their ghosts are sayin’ a monster did it. the others know it did, but they didn’t see a monster. they didn’t see anything.

were they there?

hold it, i’m gettin’ there. just listen.

okay, i’m listening.



“You’re not hearing me, Sammy, dad’s missing.”

I’m listening.

Not close enough.

Fuck. “What was he hunting?”



hero gets there, right? cool guy – nice car, leather jacket type, y’know?

yeah.

so he does some lookin’ around, and he finds this random guy hiding in their closet.

what?

you hear me or what, kid?

i hear you. keep going.



The daevas did a good job on them. This’ll scar.

“Shit, you all right?”

“Might look like Frankenstein’s monster when these heal, but... Yeah, I’m good.”

No motel would let them in like this. Apart from the marks across his cheek, Sam’s less bloodied up, so Dean pulls a quick fix by the side of the road and lets his brother get them a room.

“Twelve,” says Sam and shuts the car door, and Dean drives around the corner and parks in front of the door.

“Jesus, you look worse than you did back in Chicago.”

“Fuck you,” he replies, almost good-naturedly, and it takes him three tries to get the key into the lock and turn it. The room smells like dust and an overuse of air freshener intended to avoid having to actually clean it. “There’s gauze in my bag.”

“So what was that? Telling him to—”

“That was taking care of the people I love,” Dean grinds out with a finality to his tone that makes it clear that shit, they’re not going to talk about this now, maybe not ever. “Damnit, I think they got my side, too, here—” He tugs up his shirt and winces. “Son of a bitch.”

Sam swears, too, and checks for broken ribs.



this guy’s, like, barely hundred and fifty pounds, right? kinda small for a killer. but he fits in their closet. then again, they’re princesses—got a lot of closet space. anyway, so hero pulls him out of the closet and says, was it you who killed them?

what’s the guy say?

kid, lemme tell the story. guy says, yeah, it was me. i killed ‘em. hero says, why? guy says, they were there. i dunno. starts laughing. guy’s not all there, y’know?

figured, yeah.

don’t smart off, kid. story’s not over yet. listen.



They go west and chase the sun through a few states. Shadows aren’t safe, nothing and nobody’s safe. But they already knew that, so. Doesn’t really matter, does it? Doesn’t make a difference.

A few days later, they meet Meg again. Kill her, kill the demon, happy ending.

No? Yeah, okay. It was worth a shot.

A few days later, there’s still no sign. They don’t hear from their father, and none of their shadows move like they shouldn’t.

Better? Good, thought so.

They meet a vampire near the coast and shove a bit of wood through his chest before turning toward the border, ‘cause hell if Dean’s going to remind Sammy he could go if he wanted, even though it’s not finished. Never will be, he says coldly one evening walking back to the car, and somehow it escalates after that.

It’s a free-for-all shouting match before Sam finally throws a punch and Dean hits back, and later, they patch each other up and don’t talk, and Sam spits blood into the sink.

Dean listens to the shower running and rereads the journal because the only other option is the motel Bible and yeah, like that’s gonna happen.



so hero ties this kid to a chair, and he doesn’t even struggle, and the princesses go out of the room ‘cause they’re weak-hearted, you know? so the hero talks to this guy, asks him why he did it, and the guy just laughs some more.

he ever find out?

kid, come on. i told you to be quiet, okay? so hero talks, guy laughs, hero talks, guy laughs. hero hits him and the guy laughs, and that goes on for a while. the princesses all fall asleep, ‘cept for one of them. she’s worried the blood’ll stain the carpet. white carpet in this place, bitch to take care of.

so hero pulls out a gun, tells the guy he’ll blow him away if he doesn’t speak up soon. guy keeps laughing, but he talks. you know what he says?

you’re telling the story, i’m just here to listen.

cute, kid, real cute. guy says, i’ll tell you why. i’ll tell you the moral of the story. hero waits for him to talk. hero waits.



When they meet her again, Sam surprises his brother and his father by firing a few rounds at Meg’s head and chest on-sight. He doesn’t have to use silver bullets – she is almost human, after all – but maybe that’s why he does. To help feel better about it.

Dean remembers arguments in Nebraska and Michigan, and he stares at Sam, mouth open.

“Don’t,” Sam says as he shoves the gun back into his jeans.

“Didn’t say anything,” Dean answers.

“You thought it.”

“Didn’t think anything,” he insists, defensive, and it’s their father who laughs first.

“Yeah,” John says, “we’ve noticed that about you, son.” Sam joins him then, and it’s the first time they’ve laughed together in—fuck, is it autumn already? Nearly, anyway—five years. Yeah, almost that.

“Nice,” Dean says, rolling his eyes. “I thought I was the immature one.”

And then the indignation passes, and he laughs with them ‘til his side aches even more than it did before and until he almost cries, not because it hurts but because this is what he wanted. All he ever wanted, really, give or take a few pints of split blood. Preferably less than more, but at this point, he’ll take whatever he can get.



so, you figure out the moral yet?

hero doesn’t know it yet, either.

you’re not too bright, are you? all right, here. so the guy says, i’ll tell you the moral of the story. hero waits. guy laughs, crazier than before. he says, moral is, not all monsters are demons, ghosts. hero frowns, ‘cause he’s kind of confused now. they didn’t teach him that in hero school, see? guy says, some monsters are like me. some of ‘em are human.

huh.

you hear me kid? some monsters are human, like me.

storyteller laughs, crazier than before. kid does the smart thing, runs away.

he’s careful to remember.