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A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed (and who will review :D ) I appreciate any and all comments (except flames, but hey, even those at least I know people are reading and care enough to say something. Plus I love roasting marshmallows…) Anyhoo, on with it.

Oh yeah. Disclaimer: Alas, they’re not mine. Not making a cent from them. Will return them in reasonable condition when I’m done.

Dancing Down in Red Moon
One
(Sam)


I stared at the map, my jaw clenching and unclenching as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. There had to be some sort of mistake. I checked and double-checked the coordinates. Then checked them again.

Son of a bitch.

“We’re not going,” I informed Dean. To emphasize my point, I shoved the table back as I got up, my temper rising in direct proportion of the fear that was trying to grip me. ‘A stupid mark on a map should not instill fear,’ I tried to reason with myself in an attempt to calm down before Dean noticed it. And yet my body remembered things my mind refused to acknowledge, tensing almost to the point of trembling.

Dean’s eyebrows rose as he looked across the table at me with a guarded expression, waiting patiently for me to explain myself and then come around to his way of thinking. I tossed the map and pencil at him. Let him come around to my way of thinking once he figured out where Dad was trying to send us.

“We should be going after Dad,” I groused. “We should be there when he goes after it, Dean.” I knew I wouldn’t have to elaborate on what “it” was--the thing that killed our mother.

Dean rolled his eyes as he popped another bite of his Wonder Burger into his mouth. He made a show of casually dabbing at his mouth with his napkin before reaching over to gather the map and pencil I’d thrown his way. “We’re not following Dad. He’ll let us know when it’s time for us to be there,” he countered. “You heard him; we’re all going to have a part to play in that fight.”

I shook my head, scowling. Of course Dean just accepted Dad’s word without question. I’d gone along with it, but…I wasn’t so sure that we’d done the right thing.

Dean frowned as he located where I’d marked the map. “You sure about these coordinates?” he asked, snatching up the post-it that I’d jotted them on and double-checking them before I even responded. I crossed my arms across my chest and waited for him to come to the same conclusion I had. “Son of a bitch.”

I smiled slightly as he echoed my thoughts. “See? We’re not going.”

Dean sighed and peered at me over the top of the map. I could see it in his eyes before he even said the words. “We have to, Sammy.”

“No,” I replied firmly. “We don’t.” I stared at him, challenging him to argue with me about it. “And my name is Sam,” I added, though I knew that declaration would fall on deaf ears.

“He wouldn’t send us there unless it was important.”

Right. And Dad always had our best interests at heart. I shook my head again. “I’m not going.” Dean simply stared at me over the top of the map. “What?” He stared so hard I swore I could actually feel his thoughts. Don’t be such a spoiled brat, Sam-my. I looked away, feeling guilty. But I wasn’t going to cave. Not on this.

“Why not?” he asked, though I was pretty sure he knew exactly why not.

“I…” I looked away, scowling. Some secrets were meant to be kept. “I just have a feeling.” Which was true, I did. I just also had a hell of a memory that I wanted to keep as far away from me as I could. I couldn’t go back there. I couldn’t face…I just couldn’t.

“A feeling,” Dean repeated, his voice cynical. In that moment I hated him. He was trying to make me admit it. Trying to make me spell everything out to him about why I couldn’t go back there. If anyone knew what happened to me there, he did. Though he didn’t even know the half of it. The worst of it. He only saw what happened to me…after. I glared at him, refusing to play into his mind game.

“Yeah, a feeling,” I shot back, not relenting. I didn’t want to talk about what happened there. I didn’t want to talk about it then, and I sure as hell didn’t want to talk about it now. That secret was buried deep, and there was no way I was going to go dredging it up again. Not now, not ever. “If we go back there…” we’re going to die “something bad is going to happen.”

“Something bad is going to happen if we don’t go,” Dean argued, glaring right back at me in a battle of wills. He sighed in exasperation when I refused to back down. He shook his head, rolling his eyes slightly. And then he let out a calming breath and nodded slightly, relenting. “Okay. I tell you what. We’ll do the research here. If we don’t find anything, we’ll…walk away. If we do…I can drop you off in Dalton and go take a look myself. Happy?”

I wanted to say yes. I wanted that to make me feel a whole lot better. But if anything, it just made my feeling get worse. The idea of Dean going there alone terrified me almost more than the idea of going with him. I started to shake my head and Dean let out another exasperated groan. “Look, Sam. I get that you don’t want to go back there. And I really don’t blame you. But we can’t just ignore this thing. Hell, it might even be the same thing that…” he trailed off, his lips pursed in a thin frown.

“The same thing that what?” I prompted sharply, though I already knew the answer. I needed him to say it. I needed him to recognize why I couldn’t go there. Why he shouldn’t even ask me to go there. At the same time, though, I felt a panic seizing me. What if he was right? What if it was the same thing that attacked me? We never went back to take care of it. It was still out there. Waiting for me.

Dean’s expression softened a little and I recognized the look of guilt that was appearing at the edges of his eyes. I thought that would make me feel better, but it didn’t. Not even a little bit. I felt my temper rapidly cooling off, leaving only fear and guilt in its wake.

“What if it’s been out there for 10 years, Sammy?” Dean asked quietly, twisting the knife in my gut just a little bit more. I nervously licked my lips as my heart sped up. I shook my head, though I knew he was right. Still, I couldn’t…I just couldn’t.

Selfish little prick. I blinked rapidly to stop the tears that were threatening to start welling. He was right. I knew he was.

“We’re not kids anymore,” Dean continued his argument, the words said in an encouraging tone but I played the words back in my head in a condescending one. We weren’t kids. It was okay to be afraid when we were kids…well, okay according to Dad it wasn’t, but at least it was understandable. “We can beat it this time,” Dean persisted. “We’re stronger now. You are stronger now. And damn, Sammy, you won last time. Didn’t you,” he reminded me. I looked at him warily, smiling weakly at his proud look. The thing was, though, that I didn’t win last time. Not even close. I just survived. Barely. He got up and came over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know what you went through,” Dean admitted, “but I do know it tried to kill you. But you’re still here. That was all your doing; you didn’t even need my help on that one.” He was getting dangerously close to one of his dreaded ‘moments’. “You’re stronger now, and I’ll be right there, too. We can beat…we can kill this thing.”

I swallowed nervously. I heard what he was saying, and it made sense. It really did. But the idea of going back there made my entire body ache. I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of facing…it. I couldn’t.

But if we didn’t, how many others would suffer because I was too cowardly to do anything to stop it. How many had already in the ten years I’d avoided it? Dean was right. I was being selfish. Not that he’d said the words, but he had to be thinking them. I know I was. I felt my mouth start to water and a cold sweat broke out on my brow. I wiped my suddenly clammy palms on my jeans. My stomach was churning, but I forced myself to look over at Dean and nod my head. “Okay,” I agreed, knowing it was the right thing to do but

Before he could say anything, I turned and headed for the restroom. I barely made it there before the lunch I’d just eaten spewed forth.

We were going back to Red Moon.