Fic Post: "Leapin' Lizards" (2/4)
Oct. 30th, 2007 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwendolyngraceTitle: Leapin’ Lizards (2/4)
Author: Gwendolyn Grace (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gwendolyngrace)
Rating: PG
Characters: Sam Winchester (age 8), Dean Winchester (age 12), Dr. Sam Beckett, Adm. Al Calavicci, OFC.
Pairings: None
Genre: Gen (Quantum Leap / Supernatural Crossover)
Wordcount: 18,560 give or take
Summary: Happy Birthday,ficwriter1966! This is set sometime within the first year or so of Project Quantum Leap (because the first season of QL is the only one I have on DVD currently!). The Leap Date is July 8, 1991. Dr. Sam Beckett Leaps in to save a life, which is not unusual…what’s unusual is that he’s saving it from an angry spirit.
Author’s Notes: About a month after venturing hardcore into the SPN fandom, I got to reading some fics byficwriter1966. I have tremendous respect for her interpretations, and shortly after beginning to comment on and friending her journal, she answered some questions about writing for TV and being a published author. She revealed that she wrote two of the Quantum Leap tie-in novels. And thus this idea was spawned. I feel a little like I’m putting my head in the lion’s mouth—only because she knows the QL-verse much better than I! I’ve spent the last few months surfing QL sites, trying to jumpstart my memories of the show, and borrowing my mother’s Season 1 DVD set (Season One feels way short!). At the time I thought it would be easy to get this written before her birthday; boy, did I underestimate the rate of plot bunny attack in this fandom! Also other commitments, getting into a show…etc. But here it is, and it’s dedicated to Carol.
Crossover Note: As with most of my crossovers, if you are minimally familiar with either fandom, you will be able to enjoy the fic without needing too much knowledge of the other fandom used herein.
Researcher’s Note: The July 11 eclipse, Minnewaukan, Devil’s Lake, the reservation, the drainage project, and the National Guard training facility are all real. The MotW is not. I don’t speak Lakota; I cobbled together some vocabulary found online to create the name of the creature.
Disclaimer: Quantum Leap was created by Don Bellisario and is owned by NBC TV. Supernatural was created by Eric Kripke and is owned by WB / CWTV. I was created by a rare act of silliness on my parents’ part and am (entirely) owned by my obsessions.
Chapter One
Sam let himself back into the room with some trepidation. The TV was on, volume low, but all the lights except the bathroom were off.
“Dad?” Dean called softly. As Sam walked forward, he caught a glint of something metal in Dean’s hand. Only when Dean shifted, aiming up in relief, did Sam realize it was a gun.
“Jesus!” Sam hissed. “What are you doing? That could have gone off—you could have hurt someone.”
Dean reacted as if Sam had hit him. “The safety’s on,” he offered. “You left your keys,” he continued, though whether to deflect Sam’s rebuke or out of a genuine desire to be helpful, Sam couldn’t tell, “but you were gone a while. Dad? Are you sure you’re okay?”
Sam sat on the bed heavily. He had to use the one closest to the bathroom; the covers of the other bed were arranged over a small lump with a mess of dark curls. He was still getting his breathing back after the shock of seeing a twelve-year-old with a pistol. “Yeah....”
“’Cause if there’s something you don’t want Sammy to know…” Dean jumped in after Sam’s pause.
“No, no, nothing like that, uh, son,” Sam assured him quickly. “I’m okay. Just give me that before someone gets hurt….” He held his hand out for the gun. Dean checked the safety, twisted the grip in his palm, and held it out, hilt-first, expertly. But his eyes gleamed in the bathroom light, and Sam could see the distrust and hurt in them. “Uh…shouldn’t you be getting to bed?” he asked.
Dean nodded solemnly and circled the bed to go into the bathroom. Sam put the gun under his pillow, where it would make him nervous all night, but it was better than leaving it on the bedside table where either of the boys—especially Sammy—could pick it up easily. He added the .45 from his waistband. “Gonna be like the princess and the pea,” he muttered to himself.
A tight stream of cold water hit him on the back of his head. “Hey!” he cried.
“That’s holy water, you demonic son of a bitch!” Dean shouted. “Now, Sammy, quick—get away from him!” Sammy jumped up at his brother’s command.
The room erupted in noise and motion. Sam lurched to his feet, questioning Dean’s actions for the second time in five minutes. Sammy leaped out of bed and hustled around the room to shelter behind Dean. Dean tossed his water gun aside and dove under the pillows for the pistols, all the while shouting for Sammy to get clear. He handed off one of the pistols, clicked the safety off the other, and trained it on Sam over Sam’s protests.
“I don’t know what you are, but you’re not my father,” Dean announced.
“Dean, that’s—” Sam ventured.
“Nu-uh,” Dean said firmly, shaking his head. He gestured to the bed and Sam sank onto it, hands up. “Dad would never have taken the gun. This time of night, and alone with Sammy? He’d have freaked out if I didn’t have the gun primed and ready. That was the last test, and you failed it bigtime. Sammy figured it out way back at the restaurant. But I wasn’t sure until I told you it was his bedtime.”
Sam sighed. It was probably easier to give up than try to play John Winchester a moment longer. As long as Dean didn’t shoot him. “He wouldn’t have let you stay up?”
Dean shook his head, mouth twisting in a wry, sad smile. Sammy spoke up. “He never cares whether we’ve got school or not. He never gives us bedtimes. But it was lotsa things.” He was holding the smaller pistol two-handed. It looked heavy in his hands, but his arms were steady.
“Yeah, like the way you acted when I asked if you wanted me to drive.” Dean picked up from his brother seamlessly.
“And leaving the keys here. And the way you were at dinner,” Sammy continued. He looked up at Dean and smiled. “Dean decided to set the bedtime trap for you when we got in here alone, but then you went out so fast we thought maybe you were running away.”
“But then you left the keys, and you didn’t come back for them,” Dean said.
“So you filled up a water pistol and put it in the bathroom? Why, when you had regular guns?”
“Holy water,” they both said at once. “You stepped over the salt lines—” Sam looked over at the door as Dean explained; he hadn’t even noticed—“but we wanted to be certain you weren’t a demon.”
Sammy screwed his face up at Dean. “Yeah, but Dean, if he’s not a demon, an’ he’s not attacking us….What are you?”
“I’m…not a what,” Sam said wearily. “But you’re right: I’m not John Winchester. My name’s Sam Beckett. I’m a scientist.” He looked back at the two kids, both still aiming their firearms directly at him. “Could you, uh, maybe put the guns down?”
The boys looked at each other. They seemed to be communicating telepathically. Dean shrugged a shoulder at Sammy, who released the hammer on his pistol and tucked it into the back of his pajama pant waistband. Dean put the safety on his gun, but kept it in his hand, crossing his arms. “Your name’s Sam?” Sammy asked.
Sam nodded.
“And you just happen to look exactly like our Dad?” Dean said, full of doubt.
“No. I actually don’t look a thing like your Dad,” Sam explained. “I just…we’ve switched bodies. Temporarily,” he added hastily.
For a moment, he thought they were going to freak out on him, but they surprised him again. “Like in Freaky Friday?” Sammy asked.
“Uh…I don’t know,” Sam told him.
“Temporarily?” Dean asked. “So…he’s in your body? Where?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “I’m not supposed to tell you about it, though. It’s classified.”
“Like an Area 51 thing,” Dean surmised.
“Uh…yeah.”
“But…he’s okay? Right?” Sammy asked.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, he’s perfectly safe. He’s with the people running the experiment.” Sam’s mind was racing to catch up. He couldn’t tell them he was from the future. He couldn’t tell them about the project, or that he went about restoring events in people’s lives. Most of all, he certainly couldn’t tell them that he had no control over the timing of the body-swapping effects of the Leap.
“And you said you could switch back, right?” Dean asked.
Sam nodded. “I always have,” he said.
“Okay, so switch back,” Sammy ordered.
Dean snorted. “Sammy, when in our lives is it that simple?” Sammy made a face at his brother by widening his eyes a bit and puffing out cheeks over lips locked across his teeth. Then, as if conceding defeat, he sighed.
“I don’t get it: Why our Dad? Why switch in the first place?” Dean demanded.
Sam could only shrug. “Yeah… that’s complicated. And I wish I could tell you.” He took a deep breath while making a decision. “The fact is that I’ve been doing this for a while, and usually when I Leap—that’s what we call it—into someone who’s about to…to make a mistake. If I can fix what’s about to go wrong, then I Leap out and the other person…your father, in this case…comes back.”
“What kind of mistake?” Sammy asked, at the same time that Dean said, “What if you don’t fix it right?”
Both very good questions, Sam agreed silently. “The problem is that I never know, coming in, what the mistake is going to be,” he said aloud. “Sometimes it’s that they’re about to do something life-changing, like… like get married.” Both boys wrinkled their noses at this prospect. “But sometimes it’s that they aren’t going to get married and they were supposed t—uh,” he stopped himself quickly. “And sometimes it’s because they’re going to get hurt if someone else doesn’t make them…go a different way. I have a…liaison, of sorts, who helps me figure out the most probable scenarios.”
Sammy looked at Dean. “He’s from the future.”
“What? No, that’s….” Sam protested. But Sammy shot him a baleful glance.
“You said ‘supposed to.’ That means you have to know what they did, which means they already did it. And how do you talk to your liaison, on the phone? Or is he a hologram like on Star Trek?”
Sam grimaced. Sammy was much smarter than he’d initially thought. Dean too, though not in the same way. He’d have to be very, very careful.
“Well, let’s just say it’s classified.”
“Okay,” Dean insisted, returning again to the practical, “So…Dad’s about to do something wrong, because Spaceman Spiff here says so. Like what? He gets busted up pretty good a lot of the time. Like how wrong are we talking here?”
Sam hesitated again. How much should he tell them? The pause was enough for them to put together the pieces, though.
“Bad enough that we don’t stay together?” Dean asked, and Sammy said, overlapping, “Is he going to die?”
Sam sighed. He wished he could keep the confirmation out of his face, but it was no use. “I’m sorry. It’s just that, in your case, I don’t have a lot of information. Apart from your school records, you’re pretty hard to keep track of.”
This made Dean grin. “Our dad’s the best at flying under the radar,” he said proudly.
Sammy was more interested in the probability of their father’s death. “If it’s something that dangerous, then it’s gotta be a hunt. And that’s easy to fix! Just don’t go.”
“He can’t do that, Sammy. If he doesn’t go, other people will die!”
“Wait,” Sam said, holding up a hand. “Hunting…you mean the ghost thing? You actually believe that your father hunts…ghosts?”
“He does,” Dean shot back. “Hunt them, I mean.”
“But…they’re not real,” Sam said gently.
“Yes they are,” Dean insisted. “We’ve seen them.” Sammy was nodding energetically.
“You, too?” Sam asked.
“Last year our dad killed a werewolf,” the little boy told him.
Dean took up the thread again. “And about a year before that, he hunted a wendigo in Seney, with a friend of his. He didn’t take us along on that one, though.”
“Well, technically, he didn’t take us on the werewolf hunt, either, Dean; you said we’d find it quicker if—”
“Okay, Sammy,” Dean interrupted with a bright, false smile and a heavy hand on his brother’s shoulder. “No need to bother the nice man with details.” He fixed the manic smile on Sammy, who returned it with a face full of narrowed eyes and pinched lips. On someone older than eight, it could have either looked quite bitchy, or very quelling. On the youngster, it simply looked petulant. After a moment’s silence, during which Sam was certain the brothers were mind-melding again, Sammy spoke.
“My point is, if what goes wrong is hunting, he could just ask someone else to go, Dean. Like, maybe Uncle Bobby. Or Pastor Jim.”
“Jim–you, uh, I mean, we were on our way there, anyway, right?” Sam offered. Perhaps the kid’s plan would help them all out.
But Dean raked his eyes over Sam, biting his lip, and when he shook his head, he said to his brother with finality: “No. No way. We’re not bringing them in, because then they’ll know something’s wrong. He won’t be able to fool them. They’ll want to exorcise him, or worse. Huh-uh.”
“Come to think of it, Dean, that might not be a bad idea,” Sam said. “I mean, these friends of your father’s…they’re bound to have experience and—”
“No, Dean’s right,” Sammy said, only half-sullen at having to admit it. “They won’t know what to do with something like this.” He crossed his arms in a gesture remarkably like his older brother’s. “Nope, whatever it is,” he said through a sigh, “We’ll just have to hunt it for him.”
~*~*~*~
Sam could feel his jaw thud open. “What?! No! You’re just kids,” he protested.
His bewildered outburst did nothing to deter them. Both boys were talking to each other, paying him no attention. Dean was talking about making sure the weapons were in good order, and stopping to restock their ammo on the way. Sammy, on the other hand, buzzed with ideas about picking up local and regional newspapers to scan them for the job that was most likely to represent the threat which Sam’s presence was meant to forestall. Between the two of them, they seemed prepared to meet the devil himself head-on.
“Wait! Boys!” Sam barked. Both of them stopped talking mid-sentence to swivel their heads toward him.
“Yes, sir?” they said together. Then Dean smirked, and Sammy grinned, and Sam realized why. He must have sounded like their father, at least enough to inspire the reaction. Whatever the reason, he had them focused and pressed his advantage.
“You honestly can’t think that you can just go out and…and…do,” he supplied lamely, “whatever it is that you think your father does on these, um, hunts. You’re going to get hurt.”
“Not if we’re careful,” Dean said confidently. “Can’t you just ask Dad what he was going to hunt next? He must have had some idea. He can tell us where it is and then I’ll go get the thing.”
“We’ll go get the thing,” Sammy corrected.
Dean grimaced, eyes alone sliding sideways. “Sammy will back me up while I go get the thing.” He regarded Sam with some skepticism. “Incidentally, do you even know how to shoot?”
Sam scissored his hands through the air in front of him. “Hold it, okay, just hang on a minute!” he said. “I don’t care what you say, I’m not letting you two go and hunt something that’s apparently bad enough to put your father in serious danger. But,” he continued quickly over Dean’s attempted argument, “I do think you have a good suggestion about seeing what help your dad can offer. For the time being,” he pressed, deflecting Sammy’s question before he could form it, “it’s been a long day, and we should all get some sleep. We can pick this up in the morning. Okay?”
Dean and Sammy agreed, though Sam believed it was grudgingly. Sam could not get them to give up their pistols, but he did at least convince Dean not to sleep with one of the guns under his pillow. Dean and Sammy eventually settled in one of the beds, leaving Sam the second, and they turned out the lights.
The next morning, Sam came awake to find Al puffing holographic smoke into his face. “Sam, are you completely out of your mind?” he demanded.
Sam grunted and swung his legs out of bed. The boys were still asleep – at least, he assumed so. All that appeared of Sammy was a tuft of black hair and a lump under the covers. Dean was curled around the lump, half on his stomach, with one foot sticking out and his mouth half open on the pillow. So if they were faking, they were doing very well at it.
“What did you want me to do, Al?” Sam hissed as he made for the bathroom. “John was right; his kids weren’t fooled. I had to tell them something.”
“Yeah, but now they know you’re from the future!” Unlike Sam, Al was under no obligation to whisper.
“I never confirmed that,” Sam said as forcefully as he could, considering the sleeping kids. “Anyway, the whole family seems pretty receptive to the out-of-the-ordinary. You said yourself, Al, that whether or not these things are real, John Winchester believes they are. He’ll go hunting for them whether they exist or not.”
“Fine,” Al conceded angrily, “but now you’ve got those two kids all revved up to go get themselves killed instead.” He stretched his neck from side to side, as if working out a kink. “Besides…Ziggy’s been running some numbers and…Winchester may have some evidence on his side.”
“What, evidence of ghosts?” Sam queried. “Al, tell me you’re kidding.”
Al smacked his lips. “Wish I were. Winchester gave Gooshie a bunch of dates and places, which he programmed into Ziggy…. Fact is, in every case, before he arrived in the area, people were getting hurt. Dying. After he leaves, the deaths stop.”
Sam sank onto the toilet seat. “I don’t believe it.”
“Yeah, it’s seriously wacko. But Ziggy’s numbers don’t lie, and it looks like there’s a correlation. For whatever reason, whatever this Winchester guy is doing, it works.”
“Okay,” Sam said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “have you got anything more about where he was headed? What he was planning?”
“Interesting you should ask,” Al answered. “He was between jobs, but Gooshie pulled newspapers from this week—well, not this week, where I am—you know—this week, where you are—and let Winchester read them. He picked a couple possible jobs. Ziggy tested them against his probability matrix and….” Al pulled out the handheld and punched its buttons. When it finished its multi-tonal beeping, he squinted at the screen. “Minnewaukan, North Dakota,” he announced.
Sam waited. When it was clear that Al wanted prompting, he said: “What about it?”
Al continued to futz with the handheld. “According to the news article, there had been some disturbing incidents at the Minnewaukan Cemetery just outside of town. The town is on the western edge of Devil’s Lake, and there was some speculation that a drought was causing the soil around the lake to crack.”
“What does that have to do with the cemetery?” Sam asked.
Al skimmed the screen. “Well, even though the cemetery is pretty far from the lake, the ground there is staying dry. Two sinkholes in the past month have opened up, swallowing up the people who happened to be walking by at the time. The groundskeepers are watering it every day, but it’s still drought conditions. Winchester said he thought it sounded like, and I quote, ‘his kind of thing.’”
“And what does Ziggy say?”
“Ziggy says that this job has an 87% probability of resulting in Winchester’s death, Sam. The only other article he found interesting was about a house in Terre Haute that, uh, laughs when its owners have sex.” Al smirked and took a puff of his cigar in a way Sam found altogether discomfiting. “Ziggy gave that one a 40% likelihood of him even getting injured. But it makes you wonder: What kind of sex—”
“Yeah, I can see why he wouldn’t take two kids into a situation like that,” Sam said to cut Al off. In the bathroom mirror, John Winchester’s rugged face darkened with Sam’s blush. Sam bustled around with a toothbrush, angry at himself for letting Al get to him. “Okay, so, does he have any idea what’s going on in Devil’s Lake?”
Al shook his head and shrugged. “He couldn’t say, but we’re giving him what we can to help him figure that out. For now, you’d better head that way; I’ll let you know his recommendations as soon as we’ve got them.” Al watched Sam drag the toothbrush across his teeth. “How are you doing with them, anyway?” he asked, inclining his head toward the closed bathroom door.
Sam spat. “As of last night, I think we’ve established a rapport,” he said stiffly. “I just don’t know how I’m going to keep them out—”
Just then, Dean banged on the bathroom door. “Dr. Beckett? Sammy needs to, uh—”
“Dean! Cut it out, I said I’m fine,” Sammy’s slightly whiney, high-pitched voice interrupted.
Al smirked again, but this time it was full of amused mockery. “Yeah, you’ve really got a handle on them, Sam. I’ll leave you to it. Dad,” he added as the wallpaper shimmered when he stepped through the portal. The bathroom décor seamed itself up a second later as the doorway shut.
Sam got them all dressed and packed – or more accurately, Dean got himself and Sammy dressed and packed – and gave Dean the car keys. “Here, you load up and I’ll check out,” he told the youngster.
He was less than thrilled to find the Impala pulled around to the front of the motel when he left the office, engine running and Dean behind the wheel. Dean sidled across the bench seat to shotgun position as Sam climbed in on the driver’s side. He grinned at Sam as if to challenge him into saying anything.
“Want some music or something?” Dean asked as they pulled out.
“No, thanks,” Sam answered. “And by the way, don’t drive the car anymore. You’re only twelve.”
Dean crossed his arms. “Dude, I’ve been driving on my own since I was nine. Dad started teaching me a couple years before that.”
“Slow learner?” Sam heard himself scoff. Ever since Al’s question, it had struck Sam that Dean really was more-or-less in charge, and it rankled him. He was the adult, after all. Though too late, it occurred to him that verbal sparring was not exactly the most mature way to handle the pre-teen.
To his surprise, though, Dean wilted a bit and leaned against the window. From the back, Sammy crowed, “It’s not that; Dean couldn’t reach the pedals until he was nine.”
Dean flushed deep red. Sam squinted into the morning light as they swung around to a McDonald’s for breakfast.
After what could only loosely be called a meal, Sam got them back on the highway, ignoring Dean’s clear impatience with his driving. Sammy was in the back, absorbed in his book, but Sam could feel the two boys checking on each other. Suddenly he got the distinct impression that Dean’s choice to sit up front was not so much for the privilege as to give him a better vantage point to keep an eye on Sam. The sensation was not unlike the scrutiny he used to receive as Dr. Ang’s lab assistant back in his third doctoral program, and Sam enjoyed it even less.
Still, he trusted the kid to get them to Minnewaukan via the endless supply of maps that seemed to live under the passenger side of the bench. Dean diverted them once, stopping in response to a billboard advertising Bait and Ammo. He wrote out a shopping list, handed it to Sam, and said, “Just act cool about it. Don’t talk too much. Just hand the clerk the list and then pay for it. I’ll answer any questions. Okay?”
Sam accepted the list, but touched Dean lightly on his shoulder to keep him from getting out. He opened with: “Listen, I’m not an idiot. I’m a pretty smart guy, actually,” smiling in what he hoped looked like an approachable way.
Dean grimaced. “Please, please do not smile at me like that when you’re wearing Dad’s face,” he said. “It’s just wrong.”
Sam refused to be deflected. “I’m saying, Dean, that I may be a little out of my element, but you’d be surprised what I’ve done. You don’t need to act like, uh, Indiana James,” he groped for the character’s name.
Dean snorted. “Jones, dude. Indiana Jones. Jeez. You don’t want me to think you’re an alien? This is why I’m handling the lying.” He tried to get out again, but Sam held his jacket.
“Dean. I’m trying to be patient, here. You seem to be living under pretty extraordinary circumstances, and I get that. But you’re still only twelve years old, and I’m the adult. Now, if we are going to work together to bring your dad back, there are some things you’re just going to have to let me do.”
Dean sobered, sighing. He shot a glance back at Sammy, who nodded encouragingly. “Look, Dr. Beckett, I get it,” Dean said, and if possible, he seemed even more mature, even more in charge, than when he’d been acting cocky. “Trust me, when we’re in there?” He pointed to the store. “No one will suspect a thing. And I know you’re a grown-up and you think you’ve seen things in this experiment of yours, maybe even done things most people don’t get to do. But unless you can tell me you’ve done the full Navy Seal training with a little Ghostbusters on the side, you can’t expect to do the kinds of things my dad does before he’s even had his Wheaties.” He sounded so earnest that Sam couldn’t argue. “Heck, most people would have bought themselves a ticket to the cuckoo’s nest over what my dad’s destroyed. And no offense, but even if you’ve got someone telling you stuff about the future, you probably aren’t as prepared to face this stuff as…as we are,” Dean slid his eyes sideways to include his brother.
“Dean,” Sam said in his most reasonable tone, “I agree with you that I’m going to need your help to figure this out, okay?” Sam waited for acknowledgement, trying to remember the tiny amount of mutual gains bargaining theory they’d covered in the Psychology and Negotiation Tactics elective he’d taken years ago. Or maybe years from now. There was something about trust building through…giving in on something to get something in return. If he remembered correctly, which was admittedly touch-and-go with the Leaping. But he must have done something right, because Dean nodded, so Sam continued.
“I’m going to rely on you and Sammy for help, but I don’t think it’s going to serve any of us, or your dad, if either of you get hurt. Am I right?” Step two was giving the other side a sense of control; it was coming back to him.
Dean rubbed his chin with the side of his finger. “Yeah,” he conceded. “I guess he’d be pretty pis--um, ticked off if we went hunting without him. If something happened to us.”
“I know he would,” Sam confirmed. “So. I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll clear any hunt-related plan with you, if you let me handle the normal stuff. Like driving, and talking to other adults, and stuff like that. Okay?”
Dean sighed closed-mouthed, jaw set. His eyes sought Sammy again, who nodded back at him with trusting eyes. “Okay,” he agreed. “But don’t let him talk you into getting anything teflon coated; they’re completely useless to us.”
~*~*~*~
They managed to come away with everything on Dean’s list and for a reasonable price, Sam thought. He had no idea what ammunitions cost in 1991, but he’d made small talk with the shopkeeper to gain a little trust. When he mentioned, subtly and to his mind, rather unaffectedly, how much easier it was to keep the boys fed, now that they’d both taken a genuine interest in buck hunting, he noticed the guy look at Dean’s slim frame. When he rang up the bill, he “accidentally on purpose” left off the two skinning knives Dean had listed.
It was a little difficult not to overdo the performance, what with Dean beaming up at him as if he were Santa Claus and Christmas had come early, but he put a paternal arm around the boy’s shoulder and Dean did not pull away. Sammy came up the aisle and ducked under Sam’s other arm to help carry the boxes of shells while Dean took the bag with the other supplies and Sam stowed the fake credit card and receipt in his wallet. The owner saw them out with a hearty, “Come on back anytime,” and they escaped.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Sam asked on the way back to the car, noting that Dean had shied away from him as soon as they were out the door’s line of sight.
“You’re not too terrible at this,” the young man conceded. Sam began to bristle, but realized before he replied that Dean was hiding a smirk.
“Not too terrible?” Sam asked, with humour instead of the irritation he had been about to unleash. “Careful there, Dean, don’t want to swell my head with praise or anything.”
Sam took care not to look at Dean as he said this, but from the corner of his eye he was rewarded with a slow smile.
“Yeah, well, keep your head in the game, Beckett,” Dean growled. Sam could tell without asking this was a frank imitation of John Winchester. “We’ve got a lot of miles to put in and a job to do on the other end.”
As they drove, Sam discussed what Al had told him, and Sammy found the news articles in the copies of the Grand Forks and Bismarck papers and read them over for anything they could use to begin the investigation. Sam refused to call it a hunt until they knew for sure there was something there to hunt. He asked the boys what they knew about how their father usually operated, and they volunteered what they knew. Surprisingly, it wasn’t much.
“He doesn’t really take us along a lot. We’re in school,” Sammy said evenly.
“Yeah, or he tells us we’re too young,” Dean said, with a little more heat.
“He usually hits the local library,” Sammy continued, ignoring Dean’s complaint, “to see if there’s any obvious history associated with the site where things are happening. He’ll talk to the families or neighbours of the victims and find out if they noticed anything weird before the, um, incidents.”
“So, he just walks up and starts asking questions?”
Dean snorted. “Of course not. Usually he pretends to be an agent, maybe a reporter. Depends on the situation.” He reached forward, in the shotgun seat this time because Sammy wanted to be able to spread out his research in the back, and pulled a box out of the glove compartment. He sifted through a number of plastic-coated ID badges, each one emblazoned with a different agency—and, Sam noticed when he chanced a look down—different names.
“Sammy, does the article say there’d been any construction or anything in the area?” Dean called back.
“Um…” Sammy dipped his head over the newspaper. “No, but the victims were each visiting graves in a single section of the cemetery…. And there’s this.” He flipped to a different section of the paper. “Developers in Devil’s Lake are trying to open up a drainage basin for the military base nearby.”
Dean grinned. “No problem, then.” He withdrew a badge adorned with the “Department of Defense” emblem on it.
Go on to Chapter Three
Author: Gwendolyn Grace (
gwendolyngrace)Rating: PG
Characters: Sam Winchester (age 8), Dean Winchester (age 12), Dr. Sam Beckett, Adm. Al Calavicci, OFC.
Pairings: None
Genre: Gen (Quantum Leap / Supernatural Crossover)
Wordcount: 18,560 give or take
Summary: Happy Birthday,
ficwriter1966! This is set sometime within the first year or so of Project Quantum Leap (because the first season of QL is the only one I have on DVD currently!). The Leap Date is July 8, 1991. Dr. Sam Beckett Leaps in to save a life, which is not unusual…what’s unusual is that he’s saving it from an angry spirit.Author’s Notes: About a month after venturing hardcore into the SPN fandom, I got to reading some fics by
ficwriter1966. I have tremendous respect for her interpretations, and shortly after beginning to comment on and friending her journal, she answered some questions about writing for TV and being a published author. She revealed that she wrote two of the Quantum Leap tie-in novels. And thus this idea was spawned. I feel a little like I’m putting my head in the lion’s mouth—only because she knows the QL-verse much better than I! I’ve spent the last few months surfing QL sites, trying to jumpstart my memories of the show, and borrowing my mother’s Season 1 DVD set (Season One feels way short!). At the time I thought it would be easy to get this written before her birthday; boy, did I underestimate the rate of plot bunny attack in this fandom! Also other commitments, getting into a show…etc. But here it is, and it’s dedicated to Carol. Crossover Note: As with most of my crossovers, if you are minimally familiar with either fandom, you will be able to enjoy the fic without needing too much knowledge of the other fandom used herein.
Researcher’s Note: The July 11 eclipse, Minnewaukan, Devil’s Lake, the reservation, the drainage project, and the National Guard training facility are all real. The MotW is not. I don’t speak Lakota; I cobbled together some vocabulary found online to create the name of the creature.
Disclaimer: Quantum Leap was created by Don Bellisario and is owned by NBC TV. Supernatural was created by Eric Kripke and is owned by WB / CWTV. I was created by a rare act of silliness on my parents’ part and am (entirely) owned by my obsessions.
Chapter One
Sam let himself back into the room with some trepidation. The TV was on, volume low, but all the lights except the bathroom were off.
“Dad?” Dean called softly. As Sam walked forward, he caught a glint of something metal in Dean’s hand. Only when Dean shifted, aiming up in relief, did Sam realize it was a gun.
“Jesus!” Sam hissed. “What are you doing? That could have gone off—you could have hurt someone.”
Dean reacted as if Sam had hit him. “The safety’s on,” he offered. “You left your keys,” he continued, though whether to deflect Sam’s rebuke or out of a genuine desire to be helpful, Sam couldn’t tell, “but you were gone a while. Dad? Are you sure you’re okay?”
Sam sat on the bed heavily. He had to use the one closest to the bathroom; the covers of the other bed were arranged over a small lump with a mess of dark curls. He was still getting his breathing back after the shock of seeing a twelve-year-old with a pistol. “Yeah....”
“’Cause if there’s something you don’t want Sammy to know…” Dean jumped in after Sam’s pause.
“No, no, nothing like that, uh, son,” Sam assured him quickly. “I’m okay. Just give me that before someone gets hurt….” He held his hand out for the gun. Dean checked the safety, twisted the grip in his palm, and held it out, hilt-first, expertly. But his eyes gleamed in the bathroom light, and Sam could see the distrust and hurt in them. “Uh…shouldn’t you be getting to bed?” he asked.
Dean nodded solemnly and circled the bed to go into the bathroom. Sam put the gun under his pillow, where it would make him nervous all night, but it was better than leaving it on the bedside table where either of the boys—especially Sammy—could pick it up easily. He added the .45 from his waistband. “Gonna be like the princess and the pea,” he muttered to himself.
A tight stream of cold water hit him on the back of his head. “Hey!” he cried.
“That’s holy water, you demonic son of a bitch!” Dean shouted. “Now, Sammy, quick—get away from him!” Sammy jumped up at his brother’s command.
The room erupted in noise and motion. Sam lurched to his feet, questioning Dean’s actions for the second time in five minutes. Sammy leaped out of bed and hustled around the room to shelter behind Dean. Dean tossed his water gun aside and dove under the pillows for the pistols, all the while shouting for Sammy to get clear. He handed off one of the pistols, clicked the safety off the other, and trained it on Sam over Sam’s protests.
“I don’t know what you are, but you’re not my father,” Dean announced.
“Dean, that’s—” Sam ventured.
“Nu-uh,” Dean said firmly, shaking his head. He gestured to the bed and Sam sank onto it, hands up. “Dad would never have taken the gun. This time of night, and alone with Sammy? He’d have freaked out if I didn’t have the gun primed and ready. That was the last test, and you failed it bigtime. Sammy figured it out way back at the restaurant. But I wasn’t sure until I told you it was his bedtime.”
Sam sighed. It was probably easier to give up than try to play John Winchester a moment longer. As long as Dean didn’t shoot him. “He wouldn’t have let you stay up?”
Dean shook his head, mouth twisting in a wry, sad smile. Sammy spoke up. “He never cares whether we’ve got school or not. He never gives us bedtimes. But it was lotsa things.” He was holding the smaller pistol two-handed. It looked heavy in his hands, but his arms were steady.
“Yeah, like the way you acted when I asked if you wanted me to drive.” Dean picked up from his brother seamlessly.
“And leaving the keys here. And the way you were at dinner,” Sammy continued. He looked up at Dean and smiled. “Dean decided to set the bedtime trap for you when we got in here alone, but then you went out so fast we thought maybe you were running away.”
“But then you left the keys, and you didn’t come back for them,” Dean said.
“So you filled up a water pistol and put it in the bathroom? Why, when you had regular guns?”
“Holy water,” they both said at once. “You stepped over the salt lines—” Sam looked over at the door as Dean explained; he hadn’t even noticed—“but we wanted to be certain you weren’t a demon.”
Sammy screwed his face up at Dean. “Yeah, but Dean, if he’s not a demon, an’ he’s not attacking us….What are you?”
“I’m…not a what,” Sam said wearily. “But you’re right: I’m not John Winchester. My name’s Sam Beckett. I’m a scientist.” He looked back at the two kids, both still aiming their firearms directly at him. “Could you, uh, maybe put the guns down?”
The boys looked at each other. They seemed to be communicating telepathically. Dean shrugged a shoulder at Sammy, who released the hammer on his pistol and tucked it into the back of his pajama pant waistband. Dean put the safety on his gun, but kept it in his hand, crossing his arms. “Your name’s Sam?” Sammy asked.
Sam nodded.
“And you just happen to look exactly like our Dad?” Dean said, full of doubt.
“No. I actually don’t look a thing like your Dad,” Sam explained. “I just…we’ve switched bodies. Temporarily,” he added hastily.
For a moment, he thought they were going to freak out on him, but they surprised him again. “Like in Freaky Friday?” Sammy asked.
“Uh…I don’t know,” Sam told him.
“Temporarily?” Dean asked. “So…he’s in your body? Where?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “I’m not supposed to tell you about it, though. It’s classified.”
“Like an Area 51 thing,” Dean surmised.
“Uh…yeah.”
“But…he’s okay? Right?” Sammy asked.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, he’s perfectly safe. He’s with the people running the experiment.” Sam’s mind was racing to catch up. He couldn’t tell them he was from the future. He couldn’t tell them about the project, or that he went about restoring events in people’s lives. Most of all, he certainly couldn’t tell them that he had no control over the timing of the body-swapping effects of the Leap.
“And you said you could switch back, right?” Dean asked.
Sam nodded. “I always have,” he said.
“Okay, so switch back,” Sammy ordered.
Dean snorted. “Sammy, when in our lives is it that simple?” Sammy made a face at his brother by widening his eyes a bit and puffing out cheeks over lips locked across his teeth. Then, as if conceding defeat, he sighed.
“I don’t get it: Why our Dad? Why switch in the first place?” Dean demanded.
Sam could only shrug. “Yeah… that’s complicated. And I wish I could tell you.” He took a deep breath while making a decision. “The fact is that I’ve been doing this for a while, and usually when I Leap—that’s what we call it—into someone who’s about to…to make a mistake. If I can fix what’s about to go wrong, then I Leap out and the other person…your father, in this case…comes back.”
“What kind of mistake?” Sammy asked, at the same time that Dean said, “What if you don’t fix it right?”
Both very good questions, Sam agreed silently. “The problem is that I never know, coming in, what the mistake is going to be,” he said aloud. “Sometimes it’s that they’re about to do something life-changing, like… like get married.” Both boys wrinkled their noses at this prospect. “But sometimes it’s that they aren’t going to get married and they were supposed t—uh,” he stopped himself quickly. “And sometimes it’s because they’re going to get hurt if someone else doesn’t make them…go a different way. I have a…liaison, of sorts, who helps me figure out the most probable scenarios.”
Sammy looked at Dean. “He’s from the future.”
“What? No, that’s….” Sam protested. But Sammy shot him a baleful glance.
“You said ‘supposed to.’ That means you have to know what they did, which means they already did it. And how do you talk to your liaison, on the phone? Or is he a hologram like on Star Trek?”
Sam grimaced. Sammy was much smarter than he’d initially thought. Dean too, though not in the same way. He’d have to be very, very careful.
“Well, let’s just say it’s classified.”
“Okay,” Dean insisted, returning again to the practical, “So…Dad’s about to do something wrong, because Spaceman Spiff here says so. Like what? He gets busted up pretty good a lot of the time. Like how wrong are we talking here?”
Sam hesitated again. How much should he tell them? The pause was enough for them to put together the pieces, though.
“Bad enough that we don’t stay together?” Dean asked, and Sammy said, overlapping, “Is he going to die?”
Sam sighed. He wished he could keep the confirmation out of his face, but it was no use. “I’m sorry. It’s just that, in your case, I don’t have a lot of information. Apart from your school records, you’re pretty hard to keep track of.”
This made Dean grin. “Our dad’s the best at flying under the radar,” he said proudly.
Sammy was more interested in the probability of their father’s death. “If it’s something that dangerous, then it’s gotta be a hunt. And that’s easy to fix! Just don’t go.”
“He can’t do that, Sammy. If he doesn’t go, other people will die!”
“Wait,” Sam said, holding up a hand. “Hunting…you mean the ghost thing? You actually believe that your father hunts…ghosts?”
“He does,” Dean shot back. “Hunt them, I mean.”
“But…they’re not real,” Sam said gently.
“Yes they are,” Dean insisted. “We’ve seen them.” Sammy was nodding energetically.
“You, too?” Sam asked.
“Last year our dad killed a werewolf,” the little boy told him.
Dean took up the thread again. “And about a year before that, he hunted a wendigo in Seney, with a friend of his. He didn’t take us along on that one, though.”
“Well, technically, he didn’t take us on the werewolf hunt, either, Dean; you said we’d find it quicker if—”
“Okay, Sammy,” Dean interrupted with a bright, false smile and a heavy hand on his brother’s shoulder. “No need to bother the nice man with details.” He fixed the manic smile on Sammy, who returned it with a face full of narrowed eyes and pinched lips. On someone older than eight, it could have either looked quite bitchy, or very quelling. On the youngster, it simply looked petulant. After a moment’s silence, during which Sam was certain the brothers were mind-melding again, Sammy spoke.
“My point is, if what goes wrong is hunting, he could just ask someone else to go, Dean. Like, maybe Uncle Bobby. Or Pastor Jim.”
“Jim–you, uh, I mean, we were on our way there, anyway, right?” Sam offered. Perhaps the kid’s plan would help them all out.
But Dean raked his eyes over Sam, biting his lip, and when he shook his head, he said to his brother with finality: “No. No way. We’re not bringing them in, because then they’ll know something’s wrong. He won’t be able to fool them. They’ll want to exorcise him, or worse. Huh-uh.”
“Come to think of it, Dean, that might not be a bad idea,” Sam said. “I mean, these friends of your father’s…they’re bound to have experience and—”
“No, Dean’s right,” Sammy said, only half-sullen at having to admit it. “They won’t know what to do with something like this.” He crossed his arms in a gesture remarkably like his older brother’s. “Nope, whatever it is,” he said through a sigh, “We’ll just have to hunt it for him.”
~*~*~*~
Sam could feel his jaw thud open. “What?! No! You’re just kids,” he protested.
His bewildered outburst did nothing to deter them. Both boys were talking to each other, paying him no attention. Dean was talking about making sure the weapons were in good order, and stopping to restock their ammo on the way. Sammy, on the other hand, buzzed with ideas about picking up local and regional newspapers to scan them for the job that was most likely to represent the threat which Sam’s presence was meant to forestall. Between the two of them, they seemed prepared to meet the devil himself head-on.
“Wait! Boys!” Sam barked. Both of them stopped talking mid-sentence to swivel their heads toward him.
“Yes, sir?” they said together. Then Dean smirked, and Sammy grinned, and Sam realized why. He must have sounded like their father, at least enough to inspire the reaction. Whatever the reason, he had them focused and pressed his advantage.
“You honestly can’t think that you can just go out and…and…do,” he supplied lamely, “whatever it is that you think your father does on these, um, hunts. You’re going to get hurt.”
“Not if we’re careful,” Dean said confidently. “Can’t you just ask Dad what he was going to hunt next? He must have had some idea. He can tell us where it is and then I’ll go get the thing.”
“We’ll go get the thing,” Sammy corrected.
Dean grimaced, eyes alone sliding sideways. “Sammy will back me up while I go get the thing.” He regarded Sam with some skepticism. “Incidentally, do you even know how to shoot?”
Sam scissored his hands through the air in front of him. “Hold it, okay, just hang on a minute!” he said. “I don’t care what you say, I’m not letting you two go and hunt something that’s apparently bad enough to put your father in serious danger. But,” he continued quickly over Dean’s attempted argument, “I do think you have a good suggestion about seeing what help your dad can offer. For the time being,” he pressed, deflecting Sammy’s question before he could form it, “it’s been a long day, and we should all get some sleep. We can pick this up in the morning. Okay?”
Dean and Sammy agreed, though Sam believed it was grudgingly. Sam could not get them to give up their pistols, but he did at least convince Dean not to sleep with one of the guns under his pillow. Dean and Sammy eventually settled in one of the beds, leaving Sam the second, and they turned out the lights.
The next morning, Sam came awake to find Al puffing holographic smoke into his face. “Sam, are you completely out of your mind?” he demanded.
Sam grunted and swung his legs out of bed. The boys were still asleep – at least, he assumed so. All that appeared of Sammy was a tuft of black hair and a lump under the covers. Dean was curled around the lump, half on his stomach, with one foot sticking out and his mouth half open on the pillow. So if they were faking, they were doing very well at it.
“What did you want me to do, Al?” Sam hissed as he made for the bathroom. “John was right; his kids weren’t fooled. I had to tell them something.”
“Yeah, but now they know you’re from the future!” Unlike Sam, Al was under no obligation to whisper.
“I never confirmed that,” Sam said as forcefully as he could, considering the sleeping kids. “Anyway, the whole family seems pretty receptive to the out-of-the-ordinary. You said yourself, Al, that whether or not these things are real, John Winchester believes they are. He’ll go hunting for them whether they exist or not.”
“Fine,” Al conceded angrily, “but now you’ve got those two kids all revved up to go get themselves killed instead.” He stretched his neck from side to side, as if working out a kink. “Besides…Ziggy’s been running some numbers and…Winchester may have some evidence on his side.”
“What, evidence of ghosts?” Sam queried. “Al, tell me you’re kidding.”
Al smacked his lips. “Wish I were. Winchester gave Gooshie a bunch of dates and places, which he programmed into Ziggy…. Fact is, in every case, before he arrived in the area, people were getting hurt. Dying. After he leaves, the deaths stop.”
Sam sank onto the toilet seat. “I don’t believe it.”
“Yeah, it’s seriously wacko. But Ziggy’s numbers don’t lie, and it looks like there’s a correlation. For whatever reason, whatever this Winchester guy is doing, it works.”
“Okay,” Sam said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “have you got anything more about where he was headed? What he was planning?”
“Interesting you should ask,” Al answered. “He was between jobs, but Gooshie pulled newspapers from this week—well, not this week, where I am—you know—this week, where you are—and let Winchester read them. He picked a couple possible jobs. Ziggy tested them against his probability matrix and….” Al pulled out the handheld and punched its buttons. When it finished its multi-tonal beeping, he squinted at the screen. “Minnewaukan, North Dakota,” he announced.
Sam waited. When it was clear that Al wanted prompting, he said: “What about it?”
Al continued to futz with the handheld. “According to the news article, there had been some disturbing incidents at the Minnewaukan Cemetery just outside of town. The town is on the western edge of Devil’s Lake, and there was some speculation that a drought was causing the soil around the lake to crack.”
“What does that have to do with the cemetery?” Sam asked.
Al skimmed the screen. “Well, even though the cemetery is pretty far from the lake, the ground there is staying dry. Two sinkholes in the past month have opened up, swallowing up the people who happened to be walking by at the time. The groundskeepers are watering it every day, but it’s still drought conditions. Winchester said he thought it sounded like, and I quote, ‘his kind of thing.’”
“And what does Ziggy say?”
“Ziggy says that this job has an 87% probability of resulting in Winchester’s death, Sam. The only other article he found interesting was about a house in Terre Haute that, uh, laughs when its owners have sex.” Al smirked and took a puff of his cigar in a way Sam found altogether discomfiting. “Ziggy gave that one a 40% likelihood of him even getting injured. But it makes you wonder: What kind of sex—”
“Yeah, I can see why he wouldn’t take two kids into a situation like that,” Sam said to cut Al off. In the bathroom mirror, John Winchester’s rugged face darkened with Sam’s blush. Sam bustled around with a toothbrush, angry at himself for letting Al get to him. “Okay, so, does he have any idea what’s going on in Devil’s Lake?”
Al shook his head and shrugged. “He couldn’t say, but we’re giving him what we can to help him figure that out. For now, you’d better head that way; I’ll let you know his recommendations as soon as we’ve got them.” Al watched Sam drag the toothbrush across his teeth. “How are you doing with them, anyway?” he asked, inclining his head toward the closed bathroom door.
Sam spat. “As of last night, I think we’ve established a rapport,” he said stiffly. “I just don’t know how I’m going to keep them out—”
Just then, Dean banged on the bathroom door. “Dr. Beckett? Sammy needs to, uh—”
“Dean! Cut it out, I said I’m fine,” Sammy’s slightly whiney, high-pitched voice interrupted.
Al smirked again, but this time it was full of amused mockery. “Yeah, you’ve really got a handle on them, Sam. I’ll leave you to it. Dad,” he added as the wallpaper shimmered when he stepped through the portal. The bathroom décor seamed itself up a second later as the doorway shut.
Sam got them all dressed and packed – or more accurately, Dean got himself and Sammy dressed and packed – and gave Dean the car keys. “Here, you load up and I’ll check out,” he told the youngster.
He was less than thrilled to find the Impala pulled around to the front of the motel when he left the office, engine running and Dean behind the wheel. Dean sidled across the bench seat to shotgun position as Sam climbed in on the driver’s side. He grinned at Sam as if to challenge him into saying anything.
“Want some music or something?” Dean asked as they pulled out.
“No, thanks,” Sam answered. “And by the way, don’t drive the car anymore. You’re only twelve.”
Dean crossed his arms. “Dude, I’ve been driving on my own since I was nine. Dad started teaching me a couple years before that.”
“Slow learner?” Sam heard himself scoff. Ever since Al’s question, it had struck Sam that Dean really was more-or-less in charge, and it rankled him. He was the adult, after all. Though too late, it occurred to him that verbal sparring was not exactly the most mature way to handle the pre-teen.
To his surprise, though, Dean wilted a bit and leaned against the window. From the back, Sammy crowed, “It’s not that; Dean couldn’t reach the pedals until he was nine.”
Dean flushed deep red. Sam squinted into the morning light as they swung around to a McDonald’s for breakfast.
After what could only loosely be called a meal, Sam got them back on the highway, ignoring Dean’s clear impatience with his driving. Sammy was in the back, absorbed in his book, but Sam could feel the two boys checking on each other. Suddenly he got the distinct impression that Dean’s choice to sit up front was not so much for the privilege as to give him a better vantage point to keep an eye on Sam. The sensation was not unlike the scrutiny he used to receive as Dr. Ang’s lab assistant back in his third doctoral program, and Sam enjoyed it even less.
Still, he trusted the kid to get them to Minnewaukan via the endless supply of maps that seemed to live under the passenger side of the bench. Dean diverted them once, stopping in response to a billboard advertising Bait and Ammo. He wrote out a shopping list, handed it to Sam, and said, “Just act cool about it. Don’t talk too much. Just hand the clerk the list and then pay for it. I’ll answer any questions. Okay?”
Sam accepted the list, but touched Dean lightly on his shoulder to keep him from getting out. He opened with: “Listen, I’m not an idiot. I’m a pretty smart guy, actually,” smiling in what he hoped looked like an approachable way.
Dean grimaced. “Please, please do not smile at me like that when you’re wearing Dad’s face,” he said. “It’s just wrong.”
Sam refused to be deflected. “I’m saying, Dean, that I may be a little out of my element, but you’d be surprised what I’ve done. You don’t need to act like, uh, Indiana James,” he groped for the character’s name.
Dean snorted. “Jones, dude. Indiana Jones. Jeez. You don’t want me to think you’re an alien? This is why I’m handling the lying.” He tried to get out again, but Sam held his jacket.
“Dean. I’m trying to be patient, here. You seem to be living under pretty extraordinary circumstances, and I get that. But you’re still only twelve years old, and I’m the adult. Now, if we are going to work together to bring your dad back, there are some things you’re just going to have to let me do.”
Dean sobered, sighing. He shot a glance back at Sammy, who nodded encouragingly. “Look, Dr. Beckett, I get it,” Dean said, and if possible, he seemed even more mature, even more in charge, than when he’d been acting cocky. “Trust me, when we’re in there?” He pointed to the store. “No one will suspect a thing. And I know you’re a grown-up and you think you’ve seen things in this experiment of yours, maybe even done things most people don’t get to do. But unless you can tell me you’ve done the full Navy Seal training with a little Ghostbusters on the side, you can’t expect to do the kinds of things my dad does before he’s even had his Wheaties.” He sounded so earnest that Sam couldn’t argue. “Heck, most people would have bought themselves a ticket to the cuckoo’s nest over what my dad’s destroyed. And no offense, but even if you’ve got someone telling you stuff about the future, you probably aren’t as prepared to face this stuff as…as we are,” Dean slid his eyes sideways to include his brother.
“Dean,” Sam said in his most reasonable tone, “I agree with you that I’m going to need your help to figure this out, okay?” Sam waited for acknowledgement, trying to remember the tiny amount of mutual gains bargaining theory they’d covered in the Psychology and Negotiation Tactics elective he’d taken years ago. Or maybe years from now. There was something about trust building through…giving in on something to get something in return. If he remembered correctly, which was admittedly touch-and-go with the Leaping. But he must have done something right, because Dean nodded, so Sam continued.
“I’m going to rely on you and Sammy for help, but I don’t think it’s going to serve any of us, or your dad, if either of you get hurt. Am I right?” Step two was giving the other side a sense of control; it was coming back to him.
Dean rubbed his chin with the side of his finger. “Yeah,” he conceded. “I guess he’d be pretty pis--um, ticked off if we went hunting without him. If something happened to us.”
“I know he would,” Sam confirmed. “So. I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll clear any hunt-related plan with you, if you let me handle the normal stuff. Like driving, and talking to other adults, and stuff like that. Okay?”
Dean sighed closed-mouthed, jaw set. His eyes sought Sammy again, who nodded back at him with trusting eyes. “Okay,” he agreed. “But don’t let him talk you into getting anything teflon coated; they’re completely useless to us.”
~*~*~*~
They managed to come away with everything on Dean’s list and for a reasonable price, Sam thought. He had no idea what ammunitions cost in 1991, but he’d made small talk with the shopkeeper to gain a little trust. When he mentioned, subtly and to his mind, rather unaffectedly, how much easier it was to keep the boys fed, now that they’d both taken a genuine interest in buck hunting, he noticed the guy look at Dean’s slim frame. When he rang up the bill, he “accidentally on purpose” left off the two skinning knives Dean had listed.
It was a little difficult not to overdo the performance, what with Dean beaming up at him as if he were Santa Claus and Christmas had come early, but he put a paternal arm around the boy’s shoulder and Dean did not pull away. Sammy came up the aisle and ducked under Sam’s other arm to help carry the boxes of shells while Dean took the bag with the other supplies and Sam stowed the fake credit card and receipt in his wallet. The owner saw them out with a hearty, “Come on back anytime,” and they escaped.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Sam asked on the way back to the car, noting that Dean had shied away from him as soon as they were out the door’s line of sight.
“You’re not too terrible at this,” the young man conceded. Sam began to bristle, but realized before he replied that Dean was hiding a smirk.
“Not too terrible?” Sam asked, with humour instead of the irritation he had been about to unleash. “Careful there, Dean, don’t want to swell my head with praise or anything.”
Sam took care not to look at Dean as he said this, but from the corner of his eye he was rewarded with a slow smile.
“Yeah, well, keep your head in the game, Beckett,” Dean growled. Sam could tell without asking this was a frank imitation of John Winchester. “We’ve got a lot of miles to put in and a job to do on the other end.”
As they drove, Sam discussed what Al had told him, and Sammy found the news articles in the copies of the Grand Forks and Bismarck papers and read them over for anything they could use to begin the investigation. Sam refused to call it a hunt until they knew for sure there was something there to hunt. He asked the boys what they knew about how their father usually operated, and they volunteered what they knew. Surprisingly, it wasn’t much.
“He doesn’t really take us along a lot. We’re in school,” Sammy said evenly.
“Yeah, or he tells us we’re too young,” Dean said, with a little more heat.
“He usually hits the local library,” Sammy continued, ignoring Dean’s complaint, “to see if there’s any obvious history associated with the site where things are happening. He’ll talk to the families or neighbours of the victims and find out if they noticed anything weird before the, um, incidents.”
“So, he just walks up and starts asking questions?”
Dean snorted. “Of course not. Usually he pretends to be an agent, maybe a reporter. Depends on the situation.” He reached forward, in the shotgun seat this time because Sammy wanted to be able to spread out his research in the back, and pulled a box out of the glove compartment. He sifted through a number of plastic-coated ID badges, each one emblazoned with a different agency—and, Sam noticed when he chanced a look down—different names.
“Sammy, does the article say there’d been any construction or anything in the area?” Dean called back.
“Um…” Sammy dipped his head over the newspaper. “No, but the victims were each visiting graves in a single section of the cemetery…. And there’s this.” He flipped to a different section of the paper. “Developers in Devil’s Lake are trying to open up a drainage basin for the military base nearby.”
Dean grinned. “No problem, then.” He withdrew a badge adorned with the “Department of Defense” emblem on it.
Go on to Chapter Three
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 02:23 pm (UTC)Yeah, for them, the goal is simple: do the job; get Dad back.
Again, not knowing that Sammy was still in the dark at this point, I still had to decide how much they both knew about hunting. I figured that mostly they would be aware of peripheral stuff--the kinds of things that John could have taught them in order to enlist their assistance (and teach at the same time). So how to build a casefile, where to look for information, and in Dean's case, where Dad keeps all the IDs and other goodies, these are all things that help the hunt without putting the boys in any actual danger.