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When they finally find one, it’s as big as Sam’s thumb.
The dirt around the thing doesn’t shift as its legs struggle for purchase, flailing fast enough to make a shhshhskhk sound as Sam hovers over it. He can hardly believe how loud it is.
It takes on a shape that is both so disgusting but so fascinating it’s hard to look away—almost shaped like a flea, but with a nose like a fox. He can almost make out the color of its pinprick eyes, maybe yellow—Sam isn’t sure. It’s so small, and Sam’s head flinches back when it manages to bounce off the ground a centimeter, fighting for its life. It falls onto what could be its back. Something is gushing from its side. Sam looks at his brother.
The dark makesDean look purplish, the white of his teeth reflecting the stars, mouth contorted in a grimace. The branches of the nearest Joshua tree frame Dean’s head in such a way that they look like antlers from this angle. Sam hears his brother’s gulp echo.
“Do it,” Dean’s voice reverberates, like everything does here.
The last thing they heard— really heard—was a plane . . . Sam thinks so, at least.
The sun had been on its way down when a commercial jet soared by above them. Sam followed Dean’s finger to the sky, listening as he talked about how it didn’t have any chemtrails, whatever that means. The hum of the engine reflected off the small ravine they were hiking through. Dad was on a hunt nearby and the boys were free to explore the park. They didn’t think twice.
They were immersed in brushing their hands against the stone walls. Sam remembers thinking that there must’ve been water here, before—a footnote in their day of sweaty clothes and too-soon finished snacks.
Night fell over the park when they were stumbling down one of the smaller peaks of Black Rock Canyon. Sam wasn’t an outdoorsman, and neither was Dean, as much as he thought he was. Still, his brother was a liar when he needed to be—dragging them both out here only to forget you aren"t really supposed to be out in the desert that late.
“A trucker is hauling penguins when a police officer pulls him over and says, ‘What are you doing?’” Sam started and Dean rolled his eyes. Kicked at rocks as they go by. “‘You need need to take those penguins to the zoo. Here are some directions.’ The next day, the officer sees the same trucker in the same truck hauling more penguins. The officer pulls him over and says, ‘Didn’t I tell you to take those penguins to the zoo?’”
“I taught you this joke,” Dean said.
Sam tongued his cheek, ready for it – “The trucker says, ‘I did, and it was fun! Today I’m taking them to the movies.’”
Dean said stop it, and Sam kept going, even thinking to reference that inside joke that makes Dean bark in a tone that’s so alien. Still, Sam likes to make Dean laugh.
Sam didn’t stop, repeating the best parts until Dean was waving desperately at him, trying to catch his breath, before doubling over. In that moment, Dean lost his footing and slipped right over the edge of the trail like a goddamn cartoon.
It was the opposite of funny in the moment, the steep rocky slope making him slide about twenty feet down. When Sam shouted, the desert shouted back at him—Dean, at the bottom, half-cradled and half-attacked by leafless bushes—and when Sam tried to scramble on all fours down the terrain to get him, his grip failed. He slid down and avoided bodyslamming his brother by a fraction.
“Too much hair,” Dean rasped, swiping Sam’s out of his own face.
The air in Sam’s lungs was pushed out on impact. As soon as he regained it, he shouted —the large gash that the boulders and bushes had torn into Dean’s side was at Sam’s eye level.
His brother’s lips pressed into a thin line as he cranked his neck sideways to see his wound, near surgical in the otherwise markless flesh of his ribs.
Dean winced as he wrestled off the jacket that was tied around his waist, blood streaking down to the dirt, before pressing the fabric to it taut. When the gash was out of sight, Sam realized he was still yelling—curses, worries—not because of their fall anymore, no, but because it’s echoing right back at him like he’s in a cathedral, gaining volume in octaves until Dean grabbed him and dragged him in, squeezing the last of it out of him, shoved Sam’s face into his neck until he shut up.
It didn’t take them long to piece together what was off. A breeze would snake its way through their clothes, but the moving branches wouldn’t swish, a loose pebble rolling down a hill would hit a deadend with no thunk, but every kick of their boots that broke up soil echoed around them like they were in a chamber, a soundstage. So when Sam’s stomach rumbled one sleep into that trap, Dean’s jaw set in determination to feed his brother.
They heard the squirms of the creature they cornered from what could’ve been miles away. In a blink, Sam was at the mercy of Dean’s clammy grasp as he stomped them in the direction of the noise, muttering, “ Finally .”
Sam now watches as the thing twitches, its black body pulsing quickly with what could be air or blood or the devil—making a sound like eet, eet, eet, and Sam gags when his mind is assaulted with the image of a baby bird fallen from a nest.
“Now,” Dean wheezes, which happens when he tries to raise his voice since the accident.
Sam looks at him. He doesn’t know what his face is doing, but whatever it is pisses Dean off.
“Jesus, Sam, NOW!”
Eyes snap back to the creature and Sam grabs before he can think about it— trying not to think about it, but for a startling second, he halts. The bug is thrashing and throbbing in his grip. Sam forces himself to crank open his mouth and shove it in. Bile fights up Sam’s throat, and he crushes his eyes shut before biting, biting, and the thing bursts like a gusher and assaults his mouth with what tastes like the color brown. He wants nothing more than to open up, cough it out, and maybe cough out his skeleton, too, but he’s so, so hungry. Dean tried to hide how he ate leaves a few days back, the damn martyr, and would probably offer himself as a meal before giving Sam the mercy of starving to death. Damned to survive off these… bugs . In his mouth, now.
There’s a hand on his back, gentle, but Sam would really like to not feel sensations at the moment. The beads of sweat forming at his temple are already too much. He wills his throat to open and remember how this works, mechanically swallowing down the chunks, the goo.
The spark that vibrates in the middle of Sam’s chest makes his eyes pop open. Tt fizzles like a firework into his arms, fingertips, branching down his legs. He clenches his fists, and it"s so constant that he’s sure he must be glowing, but when he looks down he’s disproven. It stops as soon as it started.
His ragged gasp of an inhale bounces around the desert and he hears it come back. Sam staggers a couple of uneven steps and regains his footing before he can faceplant. Dean swoops into his vision and his face. He goes stiff, his eyes dropping to Sam’s mouth before his body jolts in a gag. Sam’s gasps convulce through him as Dean grabs the dangling sleeve of the hoodie still pressed to his own side, raising to swipe it across Sam’s face. Even in the dark, he can tell it comes away black.
Dean pulls in a sharp breath. “You did it. You did it, okay?” His hands pull at Sam’s arms, straightening him up from the slouched position he didn’t even realize he was in. His back aches, and the trees dance against the starred sky. “How do you feel?”
Like his insides are boiling. Like he’s covered in muck that’s never going to be cleaned. Disgusting, horrible, gross, but Sam checks in with his stomach and—
“Better?”
Sam nods.
A ghost of a smile skates across Dean’s face. “Good.” Then quieter, “Good.”
After Sam hacks, clears his throat, and spits, he shudders, then points at Dean. “You. Something for you now.”
Dean really grins at that, nods his head, and the boys slog in a new direction. They stay on the flatter parts of the desert now, their earlier accident making steep hills extremely unappealing. The next bug is harder to find. Sam wishes there was a way to tell time, but it’s only ever dark, and quiet. So fucking quiet. His hands stopped shaking two sleeps in. The question of “why” faded not too long after – whether from getting used to the place or fatigue, you pick.
When it came to research, they didn’t have much to go off of. Sam thinks about the horror stories about Joshua Tree. In the palace they were staying, he was bored enough to read up on those, some of them detailed enough to make his heart feel like lead. Cults, aliens. None of them this. None of them this. The trees stand scattered, tall and crooked, around them. The desert is a city populated, and the brothers are strangers, while residents reach out to them and make funny silhouettes from the light. Sam remembers the signs reminding them not to climb the trees at the front of the park when they first came in. He wonders who’s gonna stop them now.
His legs start throbbing by the time they hear something else, and Dean spots it climbing up one of the trees. He stands ready as his brother plucks it off the trunk and tenses when Dean gives it a testing squeeze before trapping it in both of his hands. His arms jerk and the thing snaps in two, the sound sending a shockwave through Sam that nearly rattles his teeth. The bottom half’s legs are still kicking when Dean forces it into his mouth. Watching someone else eat it is worse, Sam decides, so much worse, as he hears the crunches., Even the drops of goo hitting the ground resonate like a bass drum. He watches Dean shiver with the same feeling Sam had before.
“Hey,” Dean says, and Sam realizes his own mouth is hanging open. He snaps it shut. Dean holds the other oozing half of the creature towards him. “Here.”
They stumble further along after that, pointing themselves in the general way of the least familiar terrain. Sam tries to entertain them by judging the trees by which is the funniest looking, and Dean’s knee slaps are like a gunshot. The moon lights the ground, coating their path in cheap silver, but whenever Sam looks up, it’s never there. Wouldn’t it be funny if they were just tripping, imagining all of this and that they were actually walking all the way to Vegas. Or Area 51, Sam muses, laughs through his nose, and Dean snickers like he read his brother’s mind.
The conclusion is that the critters come from the ground. There are quarter-sized dimples in the dirt that the bugs must’ve burrowed out of, which tend to be very close to the trees. Dean pokes at them with his boot, and if they’re lucky, one will scurry out.
The third time around, Dean stomps on it before picking its corpse up. He brushes off the sand that’s sticking to its blood. He snaps off a part and holds it in the palm closest to Sam, otherwise preoccupied with wiping off his shoe on the dirt.
Sam’s hand itches to take the thing. He must’ve taken a second too long, because Dean bobs his hand.“Come on, eat.”
The strokes of lightning that occupied Sam every time he swallowed one flash into memory, and it’s good. It’s better than being hungry, but it makes him feel so ill in retrospect, sitting so ill in the timeline of all these things and all this crazy shit, that for some reason this, this is the feather that is breaking his back.
Dean must’ve seen something in his expression, because his face softens. “I know,” he starts, looks down at his feet before craning his neck back at the sky. His outstretched hand doesn’t waver. “I know, okay? But there’s nothing else. You hear me? There’s nothing else, and we’re not going hungry. It’s not that bad, right? Look.”
His brother doesn’t break eye contact as he gnaws off the creature’s legs on his half, munches into it with no sign of discomfort at all. Sam can’t rip his eyes away, and his body goes cold when he can’t make himself take a step back. He watches Dean eat, his throat working it down when he’s done.
“I can’t,” Sam hears himself croak, surprises himself so much that he wonders who said that, but it’s quickly confirmed when the words echo back to him. Dean’s eyebrow spasms, his mouth shaping around the word what, but Sam shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Now Dean’s face twists into something ugly. The darkness doesn’t compliment him as he shakes his half-open fist, holding the thing. “Sam,” his tone is skating on the edge of dangerous, “You have to eat.”
Sam gets some steps between them this time.The whole desert is their arena, the trees watching them. “No.” He hasn’t seen daylight in so long. Out of all things, he would like to see his brother’s necklace shine gold in full throttle, or maybe anything else but Dean at this point. wants to stop eating bugs and pretending it’s their only means of survival while they have to hear every noise they make on volume fifty.
Joshua Tree was on their bucket list for the year, and when Dad caught the case nearby—people disappearing with only limbs found scattered in the desert—they thought this was their chance to explore the areas not-so-close towhere their dad was working. and be something near safe. Safe. When were they ever safe.
They were going to scrap together enough money for a tour, and had six hours of peace as they drove down before deciding to go on their own and explore the valleys. To Sam, it was an excursion. To Dean, it had been the perfect place to corner Sam.
“Dean had said, falsely casual as they stomped and sweated. He found a letter to Sam in the trash, torn to pieces. Fragments. “”
Sam was going to try. Luckily for him, Dean got distracted easily. Great, because Sam wanted World War Sam-Goes-To-College staved off for as long as possible. So goddammit if he didn’t want to just enjoy the park, get the clear view of stars the tourist sites promised—look where that got him. Sue him if he doesn’t want to eat bugs anymore because every bite makes him feel like he’s going feral.
“I’m sorry,” Sam tries to make it sound like he means it and swallows hard because Dean is looking at him with an intensity that he hasn’t seen since he found the letter in the first place. “I’ll – I’ll just find something else.”
This isn’t clicking with him. Dean’s jaw is now slack open kind of stupid, and he just blinks before scoffing and looking away—at what, God knows, nothing to stare at besides sand and tree.
“It’s changing us,” Sam pleads, and his vision starts to blur and oh, he didn’t expect this to be like that.
Dean comes forward so quickly that Sam doesn’t register his movement until he’s got him by the hand. “But it’s a good change,” Dean affirms. “Can’t you feel it?”
Sam felt it alright—ever since he sampled that bug, his senses have been amplified. There’s a tingle under his skin, and his heart beats scarily steady. He’s too scared to think about what it really is, and he doesn’t think his mind can handle that on top of everything else. Disbelief sits uncomfortably in his lungs. He glances down at Dean’s grip. “Dean,” is all he says, and immediately the constraint loosens. “I’m not hungry. Please.”
He prays his stomach doesn’t betray him in this quiet. It takes a moment before Dean nods slowly, even longer before Sam convinces him to eat the other half instead of holding onto it for him later.
Over the rest of the day, they push on, because that’s all they can do at this point.
Sam can’t help but notice Dean grimacing more as they walk on, holding his sideSam tries to un-notice because pointing it out will do nothing up against Dean’s stubbornness. This is all just too much, and Sam wants to sit down, says so and they look for any bit of desert that seems more comfortable than the miles they’ve already conquered.
The formation of Joshua trees they stumble across resemble an animal. Sam can count four imaginary legs and a branch curled into a tail. He can’t really place what animal it’s most similar to, but it’s something that he would rather eat than bugs.
They sit up against the trees, and for a while it seems like this all could’ve been what they planned—staring at the star clusters, Dean warm and breathing next to him. At some point, he might’ve fallen asleep. It’s hard to tell because this whole thing feels like a dream nonstop, but he doesn’t really want to get that pass-out comfort because his brother is in pain. Sam shifts against his jacket that he bunched up behind him as a pillow realizes that he’s heard of people freezing in the desert at night… but knows that’s clearly not the case here, noting the same dry unrelenting atmosphere.
His legs are stretched out in front of him, boots gone ashy with the amount of sand they’ve pushed through, the dark horizon framed by his feet. Sam tries to convince himself this can be nice. This is nice, this can still be nice. For a second he thinks he hears a breeze, but then Dean hisses on an inhale and that echos, too. Sam risks a glance and sure enough, his brother’s hand is nearly white, pressing the hoodie to his wound. Dean notices him sidelong, draws up one of his legs and leans forward to press his forehead against it.
“Still don’t want to eat them?” he asks.
Sam knocks his head back against the tree, rolls against it to look away from Dean. He doesn’t give him the pleasure of responding to that.
They’re there long enough for Sam to get accustomed to Dean’s developing wheeze when his brother clutches hard at his shoulder, making a strangled sound with a closed mouth as he pushes up into a standing slouch. “Alright,” Dean gasps, and Sam doesn’t realize he was half-asleep until then. “Stay here.”
Sam kneads his wrists into his eyes. “What?”
“I’m going to find you some food.”
Sam doesn’t know how he gets on his feet so fast, but he holds out an arm to block Dean from going anywhere even though he hasn’t really budged. “Dean, no.”
“It’s fine,” Dean says, half doubled-over, and this angle makes it easy to note the sweat matting his bangs to his forehead. Dean smiles, a real one, because he’s a piece of shit. “Sit down.”
“No,” Sam repeats, the sounds of his boots ricocheting as he stomps closer to get in his brother’s face, making sure he can see his eyes. “I will. I will go, please.”
Dean winces and adjusts his grip on the sweater clasped to his side. He watches Sam carefully before taking out half of a bug from his pocket.
The deal is their names—as Sam ventures further out to look for new food, he will call out to Dean so that he knows he’s okay, and vice versa. Neither of them will need to yell, considering the echo chamber of an environment. The sound of their movements goes on for miles. It will sound like Dean is next to him.
“Dean,” Sam starts, walking off while Dean stays slumped against the trees.
Immediately – “Sam.”
“Dean.” “Sam.”
They keep at that, but still Sam grows goosebumps when he peers over his shoulder and realizes he’s far enough to have lost sight of his brother. He doesn’t really know what he’s looking for—the creature from before, they were easily able to zero in on because they heard its struggles. So he listens.
“Sam?”
“Dean,” he assures. The bug half that Dean gave him before leaving sits in his back pocket. Sam makes it several steps before sighing and fishing it out. Sam’s going to eat it because he’s starving, but decides not to let Dean know out of spite.
There’s that flicker of energy again when he takes a nibble. He does his best to ignore it and instead hopes that when he calls back to Dean, he can’t tell Sam’s mouth is full.
He wipes goo from his lips, pushes aside his ratty hair before putting the rest of the bug back in his pocket. “Sam,” “Dean,” Sam,” Dean,” becomes a steady beat that coincides with Sam’s steps, numbing his mind enough that he wishes there was a placehe could scream without his brother knowing.
If they ever get out of here—this shitty whatever this is— they’re never going to hippy towns ever again, with or without Dad. Or maybe he should stifle his hopes early on. Sam thinks about this while keeping his eyes on the trees for a new animal, also sparing the occasional glance to the ground for bugs for Dean.
Sam can swear he’s been hunting for fifteen minutes max when Dean stops saying his name. The silence becomes heavy quick. Sam’s heart feels like a fist just rammed through it. “Dean?”
Nothing, of course, and you’re kidding, you’re actually kidding—
Sam nearly breaks a limb spinning around, taking off back towards where he left his brother, and it’s so quiet besides his running and panting. Why is it quiet?! His footsteps boom and surround him, “Dean?!” Closer, now, he must be—
It locks eyes with him. Where most have white, its eyes are yellow. The eyes are wide with surprise. Sam’s brother’s body dangles dangerously and loosly from its maw, got him by unmistakable broken ankles, and they both stand there, stone still. Dean’s eyes aren’t open.
It feels like the atoms that make up Sam are separating, and that’s when it suddenly jerks its neck back, swallowing Dean up to his knees. Sam flinches with his whole body when he anticipates a crunch, but there is nothing, and now, again, it forces Dean’s thighs down its gullet, fast like a dog caught with a slice of pizza, faster now it’s in trouble. Sam sees the muscle of its throat ripple under jet black skin, muzzle and throat working, flea shaped with a snout. Its jaw goes wild, and it hasn’t made a sound. It hasn’t made a sound at all.
Sam doesn’t know what comes to life in him, but it’s like his skin has been hit with a live wire when it begins swallowing Dean up faster, looking like it wants to gothe bellow that escapes Sam’s mouth makes his feet feel like they came off the ground. Sam rushes it, and he’s two bounds away when it drops Dean and scuttles back, fast, fast. It could eat them both right now, but it dashes backwards silently. silent as ever. There’s nowhere to hide, so it keeps going until it’s a blob on the horizon.
If he had any sense to pay attention, Sam would’ve heard it groan a low eet, but when Sam looks down at his brother, his mind takes on a type of blank he thought wasn’t possible, mind piecing together an imageof a Dean with everything below his thighs all gone and oh God. Oh God, no.
His own face is wet with sweat and probably something else but he doesn’t care. He dumps himself onto his knees next to his brother. One would think movies exaggerate the amount of blood that comes out when it’s like this, but it takes Sam two attempts to yank his own jacket off and press it against Dean. It turns damp fast—too fast—so Sam pulls off his shirt and adds that, too. He’s doing a horrible job at keeping his hands still. Metal, Sam’s mind goes, and he understands it’s because of the waft of his brother’s blood enclosing him, making his palms sticky, the sand saturated. He tries to will his lip to stop trembling, so that when Dean wakes up, he doesn’t see Sam looking so pathetic. Now Sam’s shaking him almost gently, but Dean’s limbs stay lax, even with his chest still rising.
Dean’s skin is wet when Sam palms his pulse, and he’s avoiding his eyes because he can’t stand to look at them half-open like that, only white visible. Sam hasn’t even gotten a real good look at Dean’s legs yet. It’s selfish of him, but he won’t—he won’t look at them.He just blindly holds the stubs with his clothes and prays, prays, prays.
It takes him too long to come to terms that his brother is dying from this injury. It doesn’t feel like he’s breathing when Sam lays him sideways into his lap, but his pulse is still there.
Sam’s hands hover over Dean’s head, and the world goes fuzzy when he’s faced with the choice to wake his brother or not. He really, really, wants to talk to him—the opposite of the Cain instinct, the younger sibling itch for attention. He needs to hear him say all the things he knows he will. For the love of God, he needs to hear him—but if he wakes up, he’s going to see the damage, the blood, and feel it. God, Dean will feel it.
Every part of Sam is chanting wake him up, wake him up,. He knows it’ll be horrible, but for a manic moment, he thinks I don’t care, he just needs Dean. And with that thought, Sam wails, attempts and fails to get a solid breath in. On the other hand, he could leave him like this and just lethim go.
He’s still sobbing when Dean makes the decision for him. Sam jumps and shuts up when Dean’s eyes open. He feels Dea’s body expand as he drags in a ragged breath, feels it when he exhales in staccato.
“What,” Dean says,
“Shhh.” Sam holds his arms and bites back cries as Dean reaches up and holds Sam’s shoulders. Sam hushes him again, the sight of his brother blurring and clearing every time he blinks. Dean is a color he’s only seen when he was thirteen and sick. Sam watched from the bathroom threshold. Now he watches Dean’s throat work, mouth struggling to form around words.
“Are you okay?” he mumbles, adjusting his clutch on Sam.
“What?” Sam blubbers.
“Are you okay” Dean repeats, licks his lips and searches Sam’s face. “Did you . . . find . . . food?”
Sam wants to shake him, “Shut up. Shut up. Just relax. Please.”
The corners of Dean’s mouth lift before turning all the way down, and then he tilts down his chin, looks. “Oh.”
Sam says his brother’s name and bends so that his head is tucked where Dean’s neck meets his shoulder. He feels Dean’s hand move to his back.
“It’s okay,” Dean says hush near his ear, followed by something that could’ve been a laugh. “I didn’t need those anyway.”
Sam can’t suppress the shudder that goes through him. Someone needs tell him what he did to deserve this right now, right now—
“Sammy,” Dean says, and Sam breaks out in a cold sweat, the years-trained gut reaction that racks through him every time he’s called by that name resurfacing, and hears it as the echo of all the times Dean has sparred with him growing up. He feels a pressure against his chest and it’s Dean’s hands pushing at him. “Sit up, sit up.”
Sam straightens quickly and stares at Dean, whose eyes are closed, until his face tenses and he forces them open. “Just. Stay there.” Dean doesn’t flinch from the fat tears falling on his face. Sam calls his name again like he’s leaving.
“Stay there,” Dean says again. His breath is picking up, and Sam knows his body can’t afford this.
“Dean, breathe.” Holy shit, Sam realizes, I’m a hypocrite.
“Stop. Stay there.” Dean swallows hard, his eyebrows furrowing like he’s in focus. “Did you eat it?”
Sam doesn’t know what he’s talking about at first, but then remembers the presence of the half-bitten creature in his pocket. Sam sniffles roughly, nods, and he’s so stiff it hurts. “Yes.”
A smile skates across Dean’s face. “Good.”
“Please let me –”
“No.”
They remain there, Dean gathered in Sam’s lap while every sound echoes back to them.
It’s still not quiet when Dean dies.
Sam sits there for a day, he thinks. His mouth is dry, which really solidifies the desert experience. The body on his isn’t warm anymore, but the air here never cools.
“Dean,” Sam says. He waits for his brother to respond. Funny what happens to the mind.
Then he walks off to hunt a certain bigger meal.