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maygraTitle: Don’t Pay the Ferryman
Author: Maygra
Status: WIP
Ratings: All Audiences
Pairing: None Applicable
Warnings: Blatant Abuse of Mythology & Judeo-Christian Theology. Not a crossover. Language. So, for anyone who saw Dogma and was totally offended, you may want to bail. Same thing for The Life of Brian. Really. I'm not trying to offend...much.
Summary: Like everything else, dying well, requires practice.
See Prologue: Head of a Pin
The characters and situations portrayed here are not mine, they belong to the WB. This is a fan authored work and no profit is being made. Please do not link to this story without appropriate warnings. Please do not archive this story without my permission.
Don’t Pay the Ferryman
By Maygra
Dean had spent a lot of time and a lot of miles over the past year trying to figure out what he’d say to his father once he saw him again, and somewhere along the way, the conversations in his head had mutated from being able to see it and hear it in his head like they caught up to their father at some diner or motel or on some job, to being not so distinct or clear, like he might not get to say what he wanted to say until either his father was dead or he was, or maybe both.
And he’d thought about what his father had said on a tape Dean had made the day before he had headed for Stanford and Sam and he didn’t even need to play it anymore to remember his father warning him that something was starting, something was coming, Run, Dean, run! Take your brother and get out!.
But whatever he’d wanted to say or meant to say, whatever questions he wanted answers to, or apologies he thought maybe he deserved, all faded and crumbled in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere Idaho, with his father right in front of him and Sam’s smile that went lax and disappeared and it took both Dean and his father to hold him up because he was barely breathing and the pulse Dean could feel under his fingers was too fast and too wild and all he wanted to know or to ask his father or even Sam, was, Why? If you knew this was coming, that it was happening, why didn’t you stop it? There has to be a way to stop it!
Which had pretty much Dean’s approach to everything bad that had he’d ever seen in his life, be they vengeful ghosts, or restless spirits, demons or possessed people, and for most of his life, he’d been right – there was a way to stop it, to end it, and if not fix it entirely, at least fix it enough that people could recover and rebuild and go on and so could he.
The first time he hadn’t been right about that had been those twenty odd years ago, when his father had told him to run and he’d done it without knowing why only that his father had said so and it hadn’t occurred to him that his mommy wasn’t there or even to ask, until his father had come out again and picked up him and Sam and Dean had waited but his mother hadn’t come out or come back. And even days later, when he was still waiting and Sammy was crying all the time even though Dean couldn’t, and he knew Sammy was afraid and maybe he should be too, Dean had waited, thinking his father could make Sam stop being afraid or maybe his mom but neither happened.
And so Dean had climbed into his brother’s crib and Sam had stopped crying and not been as afraid, and that felt a thousand times better than the empty, scary, hollow feeling Dean had, and maybe he couldn’t fix his mom not coming back, or his daddy crying or being sad and scared, but he could fix it for Sammy and it was the first time he realized that yes, he could fix some things. Maybe not all, but some, and that fixing them was better than them being broken and afraid.
But now he was faced with something he couldn’t fix, wasn’t even sure where to start, and he could feel it when he went down to his knees with Sam, like something was trying to tear itself free, that same fluttery, panicked, bird-trapped-in-a-cage feeling, that he’d felt almost too long ago to remember, and maybe he should have been willing to let go, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t actually know how.
And the flapping and straining inside him eased off a little when his father told him again to run, this time for help, and maybe it was stupid or foolish or selfish because Sam was dying but he’d looked at his father and defied him as he had few times in his life.
“I’m not leaving him.”
His father hadn’t been angry or even surprised, he’d only gotten to his feet. “I’ll be right back,” he’d promised and Dean believed him but he also knew it wouldn’t matter. That it didn’t matter even when he returned with a doctor and nurses and orderlies and a gurney, and they were doing things to Sam that Dean had seen all too often before, keeping his body alive when the rest had fled.
He was dry eyed as his father wasn’t when they entered the center, and calmer, and he listened to the doctor tell them that they were running tests and that Sam was still breathing (with a little help) but that his heart was working too hard and his blood pressure was dropping and they didn’t know, yet, what they could do except keep trying.
And Dean was fine with that, because he’d take what time he could get now that he was face to face with Sam’s choices, and maybe he could even admire Sam a little, but not that much, because Dean wasn’t done yet, because no one had been able to tell him why.
And Sam was still here however weak or fading or willing to give up – so maybe there was something to those testimonials on Oprah or those Hallmark movies, where the dying were waiting for their loved ones to release them.
Dean wasn’t ready to let go yet, and he felt not one pang of guilt at Sam being on a ventilator for awhile until he could explore every avenue and maybe see if he couldn’t work a few deals of his own.
So, he sat by his father in the waiting room, and sometimes he could see past the quickly moving people and sometimes not, and the too fast beating of his own heart told him it wasn’t over yet, but that it was getting close.
“You knew,” Dean said finally to his father, without looking at him and he didn’t have the strength or really the will to be angry with his father and disappointment was so much easier, except not because, knowing or not, he didn’t actually believe his father wanted Sam to die, and there had to be a reason why he was letting it happen.
His father hadn’t denied it, had met Dean’s a gaze steadily through red-rimmed eyes and a runny nose and kept his voice low. “I knew what needed to happen. What would be asked. It’s why I’m here.”
And Dean hadn’t understood, but had only glanced at Sam when his father got up and led him down a hallway and around a corner and it took Dean a moment to realize they were in the maternity wing and stopped, and Dean didn’t want to look except he knew now why and how Sam had been so sure, and it had little to do with what might or might not have happened two thousand years ago and everything to do with what had happened only a couple of days ago and why things had happened so quickly.
“Her name is Jerusha Maria Fast Horse,” his father said and Dean could only look and wonder a little. She had a mop of coal black hair and her nose was kind of flat and her eyes were bright blue like most babies were, and she was tiny and fragile and looked nothing like Sam had, or even, he supposed like a baby born a couple of thousand years ago because she was neither of those people and hopefully all herself.
She looked at him the same way she looked at the play of shadows and light on the ceiling and turned her head to sounds behind the glass, and yawned and spit and fussed and Dean remembered two things which might be true: the first he’d heard over and over again until he thought everyone had and hadn’t really put much stock in it and maybe still didn’t.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and Dean was okay with the idea that in this case, it was a daughter, because the only son he’d ever paid much attention to had been the other son of his father.
And the second thing he’d heard more recently but had probably known before; that sometimes infants and children died for no reason at all…
And sometimes they did, but not this child, and not for any reason that he or his father and obviously not Sam could justify and he turned away and put his back to the glass observation window and asked his father who exactly he’d come here to save.
“I thought your brother, maybe you. But...I think the only one I saved is myself,” his father said in a voice broken and tired, and Dean made himself turn around and look at the baby again.
Because this was where the line got drawn, and Sam had known it and Dean did too and so did their father – that there was huge difference between sacrificing a life to save someone you loved and sacrificing your own life to save someone you love, and Sam had known it the same way his mother had.
And maybe this child would grow up to save the world, or save souls, or redeem the wicked, or maybe she’d just grow up and worry about her looks, or dream about kissing her first boyfriend, or save her money to take a cruise to the Bahamas when she turned thirty or settle in and have babies of her own and the truth was it didn’t matter what her fate or purpose was because it wasn’t up to Dean or his father to determine.
The story went that the Son of God had been made man and lived as one, and all in all that had been the real miracle and the gift, and the whole reason a sacrifice had been offered and accepted. And Dean was inclined to think maybe that account wasn’t horribly far off because the Ferryman had never said exactly when it had misplaced that particular soul. Which made Dean wonder how much of that was accident and how much was design, since if any of it was true, it’s likely it all was and well, man, they were talking Child of God here, so who the hell knew if this wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen all along? Because in Dean’s sketchy faith it made a certain sense that maybe you should know the people you were trying to save.
He’d turned away from the infant without an ill thought toward her or her fate and headed back to the emergency room because while he now understood that part and what Sam had done, he still didn’t know why it was necessary, because Sam could have just stayed as he was and let the Ferryman hang out and be annoyed since that knack he had for resurrecting the dead had kind of come in handy.
His father got stopped by the doctor and they’d moved Sam to a quieter part of the emergency room and for some reason Dean hadn't expected to see him on machines and people moving around him but there was an IV in his arm and a tube in his throat and some kind of monitor on his chest and the room gave off muted chirps and beeps and hisses like an orchestra that couldn't quite get its act together, but even as he got closer, Dean knew that, yes it was all true, and it was no weirder than anything else he’d seen or done, that Sam would be waiting for him to let go, to sever that last link that held him bound here.
It didn’t help to know that some part of Sam would be always and forever his because the moment he let go, that part of Sam that had been part of him so long would be wholly his and not Sam at all and it wasn’t going to be something he could call back or do over.
He knew when his father came up behind him and he didn’t mind the big hand that rested on his shoulder or the other that came back and pushed Sam’s hair back off his face but what he did mind was when his father leaned down to kiss Sam’s forehead, because his father was already letting go and Dean…Dean wasn’t ready yet.
Fear very often becomes anger and Dean knew it better than most, pushing back and past his father, because this was wrong, and that it might be inevitable didn’t make it right and it was fucked up that his brother was dying because some careless, inhuman asshole had misplaced a soul the way Dean sometimes misplaced his car keys.
He wanted his pound of flesh and he wanted his eye for an eye, and mostly, since he already knew there were far too many things out beyond the beyond paying attention, he wanted a deal and at the moment he didn’t really care who he made it with. So, he ignored his father when he called him back, and he ignored the renewed sensation of something trapped inside him that wanted its freedom, and he ignored the fact that he couldn’t see very clearly even when he pushed through the doors and into the sunlight – since it all looked bleak and grey anyway.
But he wasn’t so far gone as to want to make some monkey-paw kind of deal that would give him back Sam, but a Sam without a soul, or the ability to laugh, or roll his eyes at Dean’s bad jokes. He’d go for an out and out trade, his life for Sam’s, his soul for Sam’s, because if Sam could be stupid and brave, Dean wasn’t going to be outdone by his geeky baby brother, even if his real reason for wanting the trade had nothing to do with stupidity or bravery at all. .
He had no number in his cell phone to dial, and somehow he thought this might be beyond the abilities of the Ghostbuster’s to fix or even Oprah, and he only barely acknowledged when he slipped past anger and grief and into a kind of manic hysteria that was a lot like being drunk only there was no forgetting or oblivion waiting at the bottom.
Which only pissed him off more, and barring a literal deal with the devil, all he could do was curse the name of the thing that had brought them to this and wonder if there was any way to summon the ghost of something that had never really lived, just so he could consign it to darkness and shadows all over again, or maybe do a little tearing and rending of his own.
“There’s no power in a name that means nothing any longer.”
Someone spoke behind him and Dean turned to face a middle aged man, who had all the features of a Native American, was dressed in jeans and denim and maybe he worked here, or lived here.
Or was something else entirely.
“I tend to go with what I’ve got,” Dean said carefully, flatly because he really wasn't in the mood to be jerked around.
The man nodded. “That’s a wise course. Do you know what the people of this land call themselves?” he asked.
“Not a clue…” Dean said and felt a creep of disappointment
“They call themselves ‘Schitsu'umsh’," he said but Dean noticed he said, they and not we. “It means ‘the discovered people’ or ‘those who are found here’.”
“It’s always good to know where you come from and who you are,” Dean said and his attention was caught by his father coming out the door again, and even from this far away, Dean could see it in the slump of his shoulders, in the way he waited for Dean to come to him. “I’ve got to go,” he said.
The man stepped in front of him, and Dean swore he felt the earth tremble under him, and the fast beating in his chest and his heart went still, and the air that had been sunny and bright turned brittle and cold.
Those features shimmered and slid and for a brief moment Dean swore he saw, not yet another version of the Ferryman, but something long and pale and snakish, coil around the man in front of him, only to have it vanish and settle and then to see it flare so brightly that for a moment Dean wanted to turn away for fear he’d be turned to a pillar of salt.
The man held up a coin, kind of dull and small, worn at the edges and familiar. “This…cannot buy back your brother’s soul, nor repair it, or restore it, but it was taken from him without his permission and offered to you. No man can refuse for another to pay the price of passage,” he said. “Nor can I promise your brother will still not refuse. This…” He held up another, brighter and less worn but still familiar coin, “is the coin of your life which you cannot offer up for him, but which you can use to buy the time he needs to let his soul heal…”
“Yes.”
The man gave him a wry smile. “If your brother refuses, you will have paid the price for no reason.”
“I don’t need one.” Or maybe he had all the reason he needed, the same way Sam had.
“So be it. But you should know, once joined, they cannot be parted. If your brother makes the journey again, you will as well.”
“And if I…if I die? Will Sam be forced to follow?”
“Not so quick to say yes, after all,” it said with a sly smile.
Dean set his jaw. “I think Sam’s paid enough for what one of your kind did – or failed to do,” he said and his father was running toward him. “Just tell me.”
“If you die…the choice will be his.”
That was all Dean needed to know because over-thinking always got him in trouble. “Do it.”
And it smiled at him and held the coins in either hand and tossed both in the air, "Then let go of that which is not yours and claim what is."
Dean saw his father stop running and he called out something but the sound was lost in thunder and squealing and Dean suddenly remembered that if something sounded too good to be true it probably was, and hard on the heels of that was what the Ferryman had said about always getting his due.
Because what this creature had not said was exactly who or what Dean would be buying that time from. Or how much time it would take.
And letting go of what wasn't his meant claiming what was, and he could see it in his father's face when he stopped and knew why Sam hadn't chosen to stay as he was.
There was still a gap to be filled and it had to come from somewhere.
He could almost hear his father say "Do it," the same way Dean had.
Like any good bet, the minute the coins hit the ground the calling of it was over, and there was no way to make that choice because while his father would probably be grateful, Sam would never be able to live with the idea that he'd been the cause for both his parents dying and he'd refuse and it wouldn't matter anyway.
And Dean thought all this while he leapt to grab the coins before they hit but he could only catch one.
He closed his fist around it and dropped, hitting his knees almost the same moment his father did and across a dirty parking lot he met his father's eyes for a brief moment before hearing the other coin hit the ground and ping and roll, and opened his hand to look at the now dull, worn circle that he actually didn't have the right to claim at all.
And this ferryman bent down and picked up the shinier one and regarded him solemnly. "Every journey has its price," it said and turned away and walked toward the medical center, becoming less substantial with every step until it was completely gone by the time it reached the doors.
And the day was still sunny and bright but the coin in Dean's hand was chill and dark.
He couldn't move or think, even when his father got up and moved beside him, and maybe he'd be angry that Dean had made the wrong choice, but that would come later. For now, the feeling of something trapped inside him had gone still and the ache wasn't from something being torn free but because something was already gone, and yet still his.
"Dean…we need to go," his father said and Dean could only wish his father meant get in their cars and drive, but of course he didn't, because dead or not they weren't leaving Sam behind.
He tried to remind himself that it wasn't like he hadn't seen Sam dead before and he should be used to it, but the last couple of times Sam had come back and Dean gave half a thought to just waiting, just in case, but he didn't actually think it would happen.
And then the nurses were moving in to remove the tubes and slide the needles out from under Sam's skin, and watching them treat him so carefully, like he could still feel anything was more than Dean could take. "Dad…I need to …I gotta…" and his father had only nodded and he looked older than he was and Dean wasn't sure if his father would recover from this one, or if it would matter since they'd done at least part of what John Winchester had set out to do so many years ago, to find out why and how his wife had died, and somehow Dean didn't think even his father could take on the Holy Host and win but maybe he'd take them on just to finish it once and for all.
Dean had no destination really and no sense of what to do next, although he was sure they'd need to make arrangements because if nothing else he was pretty sure Sam belonged next to their mother and that meant going back to Kansas.
So he found himself in the main lobby and there were vending machines and he dug through his pocket for change and then stared at the dull and tarnished coin in his hand and there was something just kind of funny and very Sam about Dean using that coin to buy a cup of coffee.
But he didn't and had to wonder why he still had it and why the ferryman hadn't taken it back along with Dean's, but as they said, the journey was paid for.
So he got his coffee and drank it and thought maybe he should get one for his dad and while he waited for the cup to fill, he saw a couple moving across the lobby and didn't pay that much attention, finally ready to head back himself.
But the mother stopped and fussed with blankets and the baby she carried gurgled and the proud new dad shifted a truly obnoxiously pink diaper bag onto his shoulder so he could carry his wife's purse. Any other time Dean might have rolled his eyes and just taken a wide path around them, but the baby had her head on her mother's shoulder and the blue eyes blinked sleepily at him when she yawned.
And for a long moment Dean tried to find some sense of resentment or anger or even maybe some kind of satisfaction in the idea that maybe this child would get the normal life Sam had always wanted.
Which was what finally broke through the numbness and opened him up to one of those moments that he hated with everything in him, but he gave into it anyway because what kind of man was he if he couldn't even cry when his brother died?
And maybe he made some kind of noise or just a sob or maybe it was the thunder he heard rattle the skies and the building because then the baby started crying and her mother tried to soothe her.
The thunder rumbled again and this time it came with rain when the skies that had been so blue and clear before went dark and opened up and Dean could see the rain beyond the glass doors, coming down in sheets.
The lights flickered and then came back up, and Dean felt the flutter in his chest and the creeping hair up his arms and the back of his neck, and the baby and her parents were moving toward the doors so the father could dash out and get the car. And the announcements started, calling some doctor back to the emergency room for a code and Dean didn't even stop to think about the fact that hospitals generally called codes when someone was dying, not after they were already dead.
He didn't see his father immediately and the cubicle where Sam had been was empty, and he had to stop a nurse to ask and she gave him a wide-eyed look. "Uhm…they took him to surgery."
Which registered not at all but she pointed him down another hallway and he could see the signs on the wall and he found his father there looking both like he was possibly three sheets to the wind and insanely hopeful.
"Dad…?"
"There was…the doctor went to check for final vitals and…there was fluid and they didn't know but Sam…took a breath and they…and Sam…"
…or someone, something had held him together body and soul until modern medicine could do its thing only Dean didn't believe that for a second.
And maybe it was because a baby cried, or maybe it was because every journey had its price, and maybe there was still a price to be paid in a world where giant worms hunted rabbits and people and gave shamans visions of the future.
And maybe Sam still only had part of a soul or all of it but all Dean knew was that an hour later, when they still weren't sure if Sam was going to pull through and his father asked him if he had change for coffee, Dean couldn't find the small tarnished coin in his pocket.
And when he took a break from the waiting and stepped outside, he couldn't even tell it had rained.
Author: Maygra
Status: WIP
Ratings: All Audiences
Pairing: None Applicable
Warnings: Blatant Abuse of Mythology & Judeo-Christian Theology. Not a crossover. Language. So, for anyone who saw Dogma and was totally offended, you may want to bail. Same thing for The Life of Brian. Really. I'm not trying to offend...much.
Summary: Like everything else, dying well, requires practice.
See Prologue: Head of a Pin
The characters and situations portrayed here are not mine, they belong to the WB. This is a fan authored work and no profit is being made. Please do not link to this story without appropriate warnings. Please do not archive this story without my permission.
Don’t Pay the Ferryman
By Maygra
Dean had spent a lot of time and a lot of miles over the past year trying to figure out what he’d say to his father once he saw him again, and somewhere along the way, the conversations in his head had mutated from being able to see it and hear it in his head like they caught up to their father at some diner or motel or on some job, to being not so distinct or clear, like he might not get to say what he wanted to say until either his father was dead or he was, or maybe both.
And he’d thought about what his father had said on a tape Dean had made the day before he had headed for Stanford and Sam and he didn’t even need to play it anymore to remember his father warning him that something was starting, something was coming, Run, Dean, run! Take your brother and get out!.
But whatever he’d wanted to say or meant to say, whatever questions he wanted answers to, or apologies he thought maybe he deserved, all faded and crumbled in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere Idaho, with his father right in front of him and Sam’s smile that went lax and disappeared and it took both Dean and his father to hold him up because he was barely breathing and the pulse Dean could feel under his fingers was too fast and too wild and all he wanted to know or to ask his father or even Sam, was, Why? If you knew this was coming, that it was happening, why didn’t you stop it? There has to be a way to stop it!
Which had pretty much Dean’s approach to everything bad that had he’d ever seen in his life, be they vengeful ghosts, or restless spirits, demons or possessed people, and for most of his life, he’d been right – there was a way to stop it, to end it, and if not fix it entirely, at least fix it enough that people could recover and rebuild and go on and so could he.
The first time he hadn’t been right about that had been those twenty odd years ago, when his father had told him to run and he’d done it without knowing why only that his father had said so and it hadn’t occurred to him that his mommy wasn’t there or even to ask, until his father had come out again and picked up him and Sam and Dean had waited but his mother hadn’t come out or come back. And even days later, when he was still waiting and Sammy was crying all the time even though Dean couldn’t, and he knew Sammy was afraid and maybe he should be too, Dean had waited, thinking his father could make Sam stop being afraid or maybe his mom but neither happened.
And so Dean had climbed into his brother’s crib and Sam had stopped crying and not been as afraid, and that felt a thousand times better than the empty, scary, hollow feeling Dean had, and maybe he couldn’t fix his mom not coming back, or his daddy crying or being sad and scared, but he could fix it for Sammy and it was the first time he realized that yes, he could fix some things. Maybe not all, but some, and that fixing them was better than them being broken and afraid.
But now he was faced with something he couldn’t fix, wasn’t even sure where to start, and he could feel it when he went down to his knees with Sam, like something was trying to tear itself free, that same fluttery, panicked, bird-trapped-in-a-cage feeling, that he’d felt almost too long ago to remember, and maybe he should have been willing to let go, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t actually know how.
And the flapping and straining inside him eased off a little when his father told him again to run, this time for help, and maybe it was stupid or foolish or selfish because Sam was dying but he’d looked at his father and defied him as he had few times in his life.
“I’m not leaving him.”
His father hadn’t been angry or even surprised, he’d only gotten to his feet. “I’ll be right back,” he’d promised and Dean believed him but he also knew it wouldn’t matter. That it didn’t matter even when he returned with a doctor and nurses and orderlies and a gurney, and they were doing things to Sam that Dean had seen all too often before, keeping his body alive when the rest had fled.
He was dry eyed as his father wasn’t when they entered the center, and calmer, and he listened to the doctor tell them that they were running tests and that Sam was still breathing (with a little help) but that his heart was working too hard and his blood pressure was dropping and they didn’t know, yet, what they could do except keep trying.
And Dean was fine with that, because he’d take what time he could get now that he was face to face with Sam’s choices, and maybe he could even admire Sam a little, but not that much, because Dean wasn’t done yet, because no one had been able to tell him why.
And Sam was still here however weak or fading or willing to give up – so maybe there was something to those testimonials on Oprah or those Hallmark movies, where the dying were waiting for their loved ones to release them.
Dean wasn’t ready to let go yet, and he felt not one pang of guilt at Sam being on a ventilator for awhile until he could explore every avenue and maybe see if he couldn’t work a few deals of his own.
So, he sat by his father in the waiting room, and sometimes he could see past the quickly moving people and sometimes not, and the too fast beating of his own heart told him it wasn’t over yet, but that it was getting close.
“You knew,” Dean said finally to his father, without looking at him and he didn’t have the strength or really the will to be angry with his father and disappointment was so much easier, except not because, knowing or not, he didn’t actually believe his father wanted Sam to die, and there had to be a reason why he was letting it happen.
His father hadn’t denied it, had met Dean’s a gaze steadily through red-rimmed eyes and a runny nose and kept his voice low. “I knew what needed to happen. What would be asked. It’s why I’m here.”
And Dean hadn’t understood, but had only glanced at Sam when his father got up and led him down a hallway and around a corner and it took Dean a moment to realize they were in the maternity wing and stopped, and Dean didn’t want to look except he knew now why and how Sam had been so sure, and it had little to do with what might or might not have happened two thousand years ago and everything to do with what had happened only a couple of days ago and why things had happened so quickly.
“Her name is Jerusha Maria Fast Horse,” his father said and Dean could only look and wonder a little. She had a mop of coal black hair and her nose was kind of flat and her eyes were bright blue like most babies were, and she was tiny and fragile and looked nothing like Sam had, or even, he supposed like a baby born a couple of thousand years ago because she was neither of those people and hopefully all herself.
She looked at him the same way she looked at the play of shadows and light on the ceiling and turned her head to sounds behind the glass, and yawned and spit and fussed and Dean remembered two things which might be true: the first he’d heard over and over again until he thought everyone had and hadn’t really put much stock in it and maybe still didn’t.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and Dean was okay with the idea that in this case, it was a daughter, because the only son he’d ever paid much attention to had been the other son of his father.
And the second thing he’d heard more recently but had probably known before; that sometimes infants and children died for no reason at all…
And sometimes they did, but not this child, and not for any reason that he or his father and obviously not Sam could justify and he turned away and put his back to the glass observation window and asked his father who exactly he’d come here to save.
“I thought your brother, maybe you. But...I think the only one I saved is myself,” his father said in a voice broken and tired, and Dean made himself turn around and look at the baby again.
Because this was where the line got drawn, and Sam had known it and Dean did too and so did their father – that there was huge difference between sacrificing a life to save someone you loved and sacrificing your own life to save someone you love, and Sam had known it the same way his mother had.
And maybe this child would grow up to save the world, or save souls, or redeem the wicked, or maybe she’d just grow up and worry about her looks, or dream about kissing her first boyfriend, or save her money to take a cruise to the Bahamas when she turned thirty or settle in and have babies of her own and the truth was it didn’t matter what her fate or purpose was because it wasn’t up to Dean or his father to determine.
The story went that the Son of God had been made man and lived as one, and all in all that had been the real miracle and the gift, and the whole reason a sacrifice had been offered and accepted. And Dean was inclined to think maybe that account wasn’t horribly far off because the Ferryman had never said exactly when it had misplaced that particular soul. Which made Dean wonder how much of that was accident and how much was design, since if any of it was true, it’s likely it all was and well, man, they were talking Child of God here, so who the hell knew if this wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen all along? Because in Dean’s sketchy faith it made a certain sense that maybe you should know the people you were trying to save.
He’d turned away from the infant without an ill thought toward her or her fate and headed back to the emergency room because while he now understood that part and what Sam had done, he still didn’t know why it was necessary, because Sam could have just stayed as he was and let the Ferryman hang out and be annoyed since that knack he had for resurrecting the dead had kind of come in handy.
His father got stopped by the doctor and they’d moved Sam to a quieter part of the emergency room and for some reason Dean hadn't expected to see him on machines and people moving around him but there was an IV in his arm and a tube in his throat and some kind of monitor on his chest and the room gave off muted chirps and beeps and hisses like an orchestra that couldn't quite get its act together, but even as he got closer, Dean knew that, yes it was all true, and it was no weirder than anything else he’d seen or done, that Sam would be waiting for him to let go, to sever that last link that held him bound here.
It didn’t help to know that some part of Sam would be always and forever his because the moment he let go, that part of Sam that had been part of him so long would be wholly his and not Sam at all and it wasn’t going to be something he could call back or do over.
He knew when his father came up behind him and he didn’t mind the big hand that rested on his shoulder or the other that came back and pushed Sam’s hair back off his face but what he did mind was when his father leaned down to kiss Sam’s forehead, because his father was already letting go and Dean…Dean wasn’t ready yet.
Fear very often becomes anger and Dean knew it better than most, pushing back and past his father, because this was wrong, and that it might be inevitable didn’t make it right and it was fucked up that his brother was dying because some careless, inhuman asshole had misplaced a soul the way Dean sometimes misplaced his car keys.
He wanted his pound of flesh and he wanted his eye for an eye, and mostly, since he already knew there were far too many things out beyond the beyond paying attention, he wanted a deal and at the moment he didn’t really care who he made it with. So, he ignored his father when he called him back, and he ignored the renewed sensation of something trapped inside him that wanted its freedom, and he ignored the fact that he couldn’t see very clearly even when he pushed through the doors and into the sunlight – since it all looked bleak and grey anyway.
But he wasn’t so far gone as to want to make some monkey-paw kind of deal that would give him back Sam, but a Sam without a soul, or the ability to laugh, or roll his eyes at Dean’s bad jokes. He’d go for an out and out trade, his life for Sam’s, his soul for Sam’s, because if Sam could be stupid and brave, Dean wasn’t going to be outdone by his geeky baby brother, even if his real reason for wanting the trade had nothing to do with stupidity or bravery at all. .
He had no number in his cell phone to dial, and somehow he thought this might be beyond the abilities of the Ghostbuster’s to fix or even Oprah, and he only barely acknowledged when he slipped past anger and grief and into a kind of manic hysteria that was a lot like being drunk only there was no forgetting or oblivion waiting at the bottom.
Which only pissed him off more, and barring a literal deal with the devil, all he could do was curse the name of the thing that had brought them to this and wonder if there was any way to summon the ghost of something that had never really lived, just so he could consign it to darkness and shadows all over again, or maybe do a little tearing and rending of his own.
“There’s no power in a name that means nothing any longer.”
Someone spoke behind him and Dean turned to face a middle aged man, who had all the features of a Native American, was dressed in jeans and denim and maybe he worked here, or lived here.
Or was something else entirely.
“I tend to go with what I’ve got,” Dean said carefully, flatly because he really wasn't in the mood to be jerked around.
The man nodded. “That’s a wise course. Do you know what the people of this land call themselves?” he asked.
“Not a clue…” Dean said and felt a creep of disappointment
“They call themselves ‘Schitsu'umsh’," he said but Dean noticed he said, they and not we. “It means ‘the discovered people’ or ‘those who are found here’.”
“It’s always good to know where you come from and who you are,” Dean said and his attention was caught by his father coming out the door again, and even from this far away, Dean could see it in the slump of his shoulders, in the way he waited for Dean to come to him. “I’ve got to go,” he said.
The man stepped in front of him, and Dean swore he felt the earth tremble under him, and the fast beating in his chest and his heart went still, and the air that had been sunny and bright turned brittle and cold.
Those features shimmered and slid and for a brief moment Dean swore he saw, not yet another version of the Ferryman, but something long and pale and snakish, coil around the man in front of him, only to have it vanish and settle and then to see it flare so brightly that for a moment Dean wanted to turn away for fear he’d be turned to a pillar of salt.
The man held up a coin, kind of dull and small, worn at the edges and familiar. “This…cannot buy back your brother’s soul, nor repair it, or restore it, but it was taken from him without his permission and offered to you. No man can refuse for another to pay the price of passage,” he said. “Nor can I promise your brother will still not refuse. This…” He held up another, brighter and less worn but still familiar coin, “is the coin of your life which you cannot offer up for him, but which you can use to buy the time he needs to let his soul heal…”
“Yes.”
The man gave him a wry smile. “If your brother refuses, you will have paid the price for no reason.”
“I don’t need one.” Or maybe he had all the reason he needed, the same way Sam had.
“So be it. But you should know, once joined, they cannot be parted. If your brother makes the journey again, you will as well.”
“And if I…if I die? Will Sam be forced to follow?”
“Not so quick to say yes, after all,” it said with a sly smile.
Dean set his jaw. “I think Sam’s paid enough for what one of your kind did – or failed to do,” he said and his father was running toward him. “Just tell me.”
“If you die…the choice will be his.”
That was all Dean needed to know because over-thinking always got him in trouble. “Do it.”
And it smiled at him and held the coins in either hand and tossed both in the air, "Then let go of that which is not yours and claim what is."
Dean saw his father stop running and he called out something but the sound was lost in thunder and squealing and Dean suddenly remembered that if something sounded too good to be true it probably was, and hard on the heels of that was what the Ferryman had said about always getting his due.
Because what this creature had not said was exactly who or what Dean would be buying that time from. Or how much time it would take.
And letting go of what wasn't his meant claiming what was, and he could see it in his father's face when he stopped and knew why Sam hadn't chosen to stay as he was.
There was still a gap to be filled and it had to come from somewhere.
He could almost hear his father say "Do it," the same way Dean had.
Like any good bet, the minute the coins hit the ground the calling of it was over, and there was no way to make that choice because while his father would probably be grateful, Sam would never be able to live with the idea that he'd been the cause for both his parents dying and he'd refuse and it wouldn't matter anyway.
And Dean thought all this while he leapt to grab the coins before they hit but he could only catch one.
He closed his fist around it and dropped, hitting his knees almost the same moment his father did and across a dirty parking lot he met his father's eyes for a brief moment before hearing the other coin hit the ground and ping and roll, and opened his hand to look at the now dull, worn circle that he actually didn't have the right to claim at all.
And this ferryman bent down and picked up the shinier one and regarded him solemnly. "Every journey has its price," it said and turned away and walked toward the medical center, becoming less substantial with every step until it was completely gone by the time it reached the doors.
And the day was still sunny and bright but the coin in Dean's hand was chill and dark.
He couldn't move or think, even when his father got up and moved beside him, and maybe he'd be angry that Dean had made the wrong choice, but that would come later. For now, the feeling of something trapped inside him had gone still and the ache wasn't from something being torn free but because something was already gone, and yet still his.
"Dean…we need to go," his father said and Dean could only wish his father meant get in their cars and drive, but of course he didn't, because dead or not they weren't leaving Sam behind.
He tried to remind himself that it wasn't like he hadn't seen Sam dead before and he should be used to it, but the last couple of times Sam had come back and Dean gave half a thought to just waiting, just in case, but he didn't actually think it would happen.
And then the nurses were moving in to remove the tubes and slide the needles out from under Sam's skin, and watching them treat him so carefully, like he could still feel anything was more than Dean could take. "Dad…I need to …I gotta…" and his father had only nodded and he looked older than he was and Dean wasn't sure if his father would recover from this one, or if it would matter since they'd done at least part of what John Winchester had set out to do so many years ago, to find out why and how his wife had died, and somehow Dean didn't think even his father could take on the Holy Host and win but maybe he'd take them on just to finish it once and for all.
Dean had no destination really and no sense of what to do next, although he was sure they'd need to make arrangements because if nothing else he was pretty sure Sam belonged next to their mother and that meant going back to Kansas.
So he found himself in the main lobby and there were vending machines and he dug through his pocket for change and then stared at the dull and tarnished coin in his hand and there was something just kind of funny and very Sam about Dean using that coin to buy a cup of coffee.
But he didn't and had to wonder why he still had it and why the ferryman hadn't taken it back along with Dean's, but as they said, the journey was paid for.
So he got his coffee and drank it and thought maybe he should get one for his dad and while he waited for the cup to fill, he saw a couple moving across the lobby and didn't pay that much attention, finally ready to head back himself.
But the mother stopped and fussed with blankets and the baby she carried gurgled and the proud new dad shifted a truly obnoxiously pink diaper bag onto his shoulder so he could carry his wife's purse. Any other time Dean might have rolled his eyes and just taken a wide path around them, but the baby had her head on her mother's shoulder and the blue eyes blinked sleepily at him when she yawned.
And for a long moment Dean tried to find some sense of resentment or anger or even maybe some kind of satisfaction in the idea that maybe this child would get the normal life Sam had always wanted.
Which was what finally broke through the numbness and opened him up to one of those moments that he hated with everything in him, but he gave into it anyway because what kind of man was he if he couldn't even cry when his brother died?
And maybe he made some kind of noise or just a sob or maybe it was the thunder he heard rattle the skies and the building because then the baby started crying and her mother tried to soothe her.
The thunder rumbled again and this time it came with rain when the skies that had been so blue and clear before went dark and opened up and Dean could see the rain beyond the glass doors, coming down in sheets.
The lights flickered and then came back up, and Dean felt the flutter in his chest and the creeping hair up his arms and the back of his neck, and the baby and her parents were moving toward the doors so the father could dash out and get the car. And the announcements started, calling some doctor back to the emergency room for a code and Dean didn't even stop to think about the fact that hospitals generally called codes when someone was dying, not after they were already dead.
He didn't see his father immediately and the cubicle where Sam had been was empty, and he had to stop a nurse to ask and she gave him a wide-eyed look. "Uhm…they took him to surgery."
Which registered not at all but she pointed him down another hallway and he could see the signs on the wall and he found his father there looking both like he was possibly three sheets to the wind and insanely hopeful.
"Dad…?"
"There was…the doctor went to check for final vitals and…there was fluid and they didn't know but Sam…took a breath and they…and Sam…"
…or someone, something had held him together body and soul until modern medicine could do its thing only Dean didn't believe that for a second.
And maybe it was because a baby cried, or maybe it was because every journey had its price, and maybe there was still a price to be paid in a world where giant worms hunted rabbits and people and gave shamans visions of the future.
And maybe Sam still only had part of a soul or all of it but all Dean knew was that an hour later, when they still weren't sure if Sam was going to pull through and his father asked him if he had change for coffee, Dean couldn't find the small tarnished coin in his pocket.
And when he took a break from the waiting and stepped outside, he couldn't even tell it had rained.
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Date: 2005-12-28 03:26 am (UTC)