The Cabin In The Woods (Sam/Dean), Part 1/3

[runedgirl]

Title: The Cabin In The Woods
Author: runedgirl
Artist: sarasaurussex
Rating: R
Warnings/Spoilers: Outsider pov
Summary: Essa has been coming to the cabin since she was a little girl; she’s made it her home for many years now, far away from prying eyes and camping vacationers. The men she knows as Sam and Dean have been coming to the cabin down the road that used to be Rufus Turner’s for almost that long, since they were shaggy-haired, lanky young men. Little by little, Essa understands.

Art: Tumblr Art Post | Tumblr |





Essa first came to the tidy little split-log home at the end of a long, winding, mostly gravel road deep in the Pennsylvania woods when she was a child.

Her grandparents built the house, which everyone in the family has always called “the cabin,” back in the early ’50s, when the Pocono Mountains were the popular place to vacation. Her Grampa Lester didn’t want one by the lake, though, where “everyone and their brother will be there lookin’ in your windows.” Instead, he and his brother-in-law Curtis built their little getaway halfway up the western slope of some no-name mountain, far from potential spying neighbors. The road to the cabin was half-heartedly paved at one time, but most of the paving has since cracked apart, transforming into a gravel road that discourages any curious tourists.

Most of the year, Essa grew up in Fishtown—this was before it became a trendy part of Philly—but every summer her mother and brothers and Essa would escape the heat and humidity and hole up in the cabin. Daddy would come up on weekends and for his two weeks off in July, and then they’d put the rowboat in the lake and do a lot of fishing. The rest of the summer was quieter, building tree forts and whittling sticks for spears and pretending to take down invading bears or imaginary “bad guys” while the aroma of their mother’s cooking wafted out the always-open windows.

Many years later, when Essa retired, there was no question where she would go. She scoffed at friends who worried she wouldn’t be okay “up there all alone,” as though a university education had made her forget where and how she grew up. She knew how to fix things well enough, and there was plenty of cell service up there now to call someone if she didn’t. The old stove still worked just as well as when her mama taught her to make blueberry pies and fry up one of her famous Spam recipes.

There are a few other houses on the western slope now, but none of them is near enough to cause Essa concern. She inherited some of her father’s love of solitude, but not all of his mistrust, so she doesn’t mind that one other cabin is close enough to see a bit through the trees. The woods are thick, so she has plenty of privacy, but if you know where to look, there are enough gaps to keep an eye on what’s going on in that other cabin forty yards away. Especially if Essa happens to be bored.

She remembers when the other cabin was built, back when her daddy was still alive and feisty enough to be pissed about it. Essa and Toby and Chip were all at the cabin that summer, sitting on the front porch arguing about whose fault it was that year someone burnt the tarts on Christmas morning, when they heard yelling a ways off; it was their dad and another guy, taking turns raising their voices. Their daddy didn’t usually lose an argument, but when he stomped back up the path he was still breathing fire. Ranting about someone called Rufus Turner and how he shouldn’t have been able to build so close by and who did he think he was and what the hell kind of hunter was he anyway, something didn’t fit right.

Rufus Turner came and went every so often for the next decade or more, and it never failed to make their dad cranky, but Essa never saw him go down there and confront the guy again. A couple times another guy came with him, just as scruffy and disheveled, and looking around with that same haunted look that said he was accustomed to people being after him.

“C’mon inside, Bobby, ya damn fool,” Essa heard Rufus yell the first time he wasn’t alone, and the other guy—Bobby—stared right at Essa through the trees where she was peering out an open upstairs window curious about the new visitor. He squinted his eyes with a steely gaze for a second before he nodded and turned to go inside. Essa remembers freezing like it was instinct when Bobby’s eyes caught on hers. Whoever he was, she didn’t want to tangle with him, that was for sure.

A few months after Essa comes to the cabin for good, ready for retirement and the peace and quiet the mountain will bring, she hears a vehicle coming up the gravel road. She stops to listen, easily tracking its progress as it comes closer. At the fork in the road, it turns left, toward the old Turner cabin, instead of to the right, where there are a couple newer vacation homes too far away for her to see or hear their owners. Nobody’s been in the Turner cabin since she moved back, so she’s curious about who it might be. Maybe Rufus himself, come up there to retire?

The little cabin her daddy built has a pitched roof that’s high enough for an attic room. It’s been Essa’s since she was a kid, and her dad built a little porch for her outside the oversize dormer window. She used to love to clamber out and sit there, feeling as high up as the treetops, with a view of the birds that nested high and the squirrels’ homes of leaves and twigs. She could see the Turner cabin clearly from there.

Essa laughs a little at herself, at her own curiosity, as she climbs the stairs to her attic bedroom and goes outside on the porch. There’s a rocker out there so she can sit and sip an iced tea and enjoy the woods, and she waits, eyes easily finding the gap in the trees and making out the front porch of the Turner place. The rumbling gets louder; she wonders what the hell Rufus might be driving. Or is it a truck, making a delivery? Bringing furniture? Its engine is loud, reverberating in the quiet of the woods.

She can only see part of it when it stops, but it’s easy to see it’s not a truck. It’s a car, the kind of car her daddy would’ve whistled about. Black and shiny, well loved and cared for and clearly been around a while. She guesses it’s a sixty-something, American made if she’s not mistaken.




It seems like something Rufus would drive, but the man who gets out of the driver’s side isn’t Rufus Turner. This guy is much younger, looks to be nearly a teenager with his shaggy brown hair and slightly baggy jeans. Maybe twenties, but no more.

He looks up, eyes searching the trees and the sky in the same way Rufus and Bobby always used to, like he can’t quite believe there’s nothing nefarious out there looking for him. The passenger side door creaks open, and the shaggy-haired guy jumps and curses. “Damn it, Dean, I’m coming; can’t you wait for like one second so I can help you? Jesus!”

Another young man—Dean, apparently—climbs out of the passenger side as shaggy guy runs around to grab him under one arm and hoist him to his feet.

Dean bats at him in annoyance. “Get off me, Sam. I can walk on my own, for chrissakes, stop treating me like I’m a damn invalid.”

Sam, then, not Shaggy.

Dean tries again to push Sam off him, but Sam isn’t having it. He’s tall, taller than most men, and lanky, so he looks even taller. He must be strong too, because Dean can’t loosen Sam’s grip on him, despite his best efforts.

“Come on, Dean, please?” Sam says, sounding exasperated.

Dean pauses, and their eyes catch. “Please?” Sam asks again, and Essa watches as Dean’s expression softens. A moment later, he sighs.

“Okay, Sammy,” he says. Essa can read it in his expression and body language more than hear it.

Sam’s face breaks into a smile that’s sudden and unexpected, and it lights up his whole face. He’s handsome, white teeth and sparkling hazel eyes under that unruly fringe of hair.

“Thanks,” Sam says, and Dean tries to give him a frown back but fails miserably, his own lips curling up in a reluctant grin in return.

Dean leans on Sam as they take the porch steps slowly, and Sam opens the door with a key from his pocket. Dean is limping, and Essa thinks there might be blood on his left leg as it drags a little.

That used to happen with Rufus too. Whatever he was hunting, it was dangerous. Maybe these young men are hunting it too.

It’s early spring and still cool in the mountains. Sam and Dean get a fire going in the cabin, adding to the familiar scent of woodsmoke from her own cabin wafting through the trees. Essa sits and watches the dim glow that lights up the cabin’s windows. It’s nice to have neighbors again, at least for a little while.

She walks over the next day and knocks on the door. She hears some kind of scuffle inside, then silence.

“Hello?” Essa calls out, tapping again. Her daddy forbade them ever to go visiting when Rufus and Bobby were there, but Essa is a grown woman now, and these two look like boys young enough to be her sons.

The cabin seems to attract odd people. Or maybe it’s that side of the mountain, always home to the ones who don’t want too much company.

“I’m Essa, your neighbor up the road a ways, just thought I’d bring you a pie, since I was baking. Used to know Rufus,” she adds as an afterthought, though it’s not really true. None of them ever really knew Rufus at all.

“She’s got pie!” she hears through the door, a harsh whisper.

“You don’t know that.” That’s Sam’s voice, she can tell.

“Sammy, c’mon, it’s piiiiiiiiiie.”

He draws it out until it’s a plaintive whine, and Essa hears Sam sigh. Then footsteps.

The door comes open just a crack, and Sam peers out cautiously.

“Uh, hi. I’m Essa.”

Sam looks around her, behind her, above her. He swings the door open a few inches more. “Oh, hi. I’m Sam.”

“Is there pie?” comes Dean’s voice from behind him. With another sigh, Sam swings the door open wide.

Dean is lying on the couch, one leg of his jeans cut off and a white bandage around his thigh. His eyes light up when he sees what Essa is holding, and damn, he’s just as handsome as Sam.

“Yes,” Sam says, long-suffering. “There’s pie. This is my brother, Dean.”

Brothers. That explains a lot. Both the bickering with an undercurrent of affection and the physical comfort they clearly have with one another.

“Blueberry,” Essa offers. “Kinda the family recipe.”

“Thanks so much,” Sam says, and takes the proffered pie. “Do you, uh, want to come in?”

It’s so clear to Essa that he’s praying she’ll say no, she almost laughs out loud. She’s good at reading people; it’s what she did for a living, after all, before she came up the mountain to retire.

“Oh, no, thanks. You boys don’t need me gettin’ in your way as you’re trying to settle in. Will you be up here long? Are you friends of Rufus?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dean interjects, pulling himself up to sitting on the couch, his eyes ravenous on the pie. “He offered to let us use his cabin to rest up a little. After an… accident.”

It’s not the 100% truth, Essa is pretty sure, but it’s none of her business, really. “I didn’t know him well, but he was a good neighbor when he was up here. Kept to himself, him and his friend Bobby.”

Something passes over the boys’ faces when she says Bobby’s name, but Essa can’t tell exactly what. Neither of them says a word.

“Well, enjoy the pie. I’ll stop back in a few days and pick up the plate. If you need anything, my cabin’s up that way.”

She points, and Sam follows the line of her hand, squints to make out the upper-floor window there, and nods.

“Thanks,” he says. “We will.”

“Gimme the pie, bitch,” she hears Dean say as Sam is closing the door.

“Keep your pants on, jerk,” Sam retorts, and Essa smiles.

She doesn’t see much of them for the next week, just the glow of their fireplace on cool nights and Sam making a couple trips out to the car—an Impala, she was right—to get supplies.

She makes a return trip down to their cabin on Sunday morning to pick up the pie plate and bring them some corn muffins and jam. This time Sam answers the door pretty quickly. He’s sleep tousled in a wrinkled, threadbare tee shirt and sweatpants, his hair in his face.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, did I wake you?”

Sam grins sheepishly. “Should’ve been up hours ago—no, I was awake, just… trying to be quiet so Dean could sleep in. His leg’s been bothering him; he needs to get more rest.”

“Stop talkin’ about me like I’m not even here,” Dean says from behind him. He’s making his way down the stairs slowly, wincing a little every time he lands on his left leg.

“I told you to stay upstairs, Dean; you’re supposed to be resting!”

Sam sounds for all the world like Essa’s mother, who loved to fuss over her children long beyond the point when they actually needed it.

“I know you did, Mom, but I’m bored up there, Sammy! C’mon, I need some excitement.”

Dean is similarly sleep rumpled, his spiky hair standing up in wildly different directions. He’s wearing a tee shirt and boxers, and he’s sort of bowlegged… and there’s something oddly attractive about that.

“Dean,” Sam admonishes, the “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you” unsaid but clearly heard.

“Corn muffins?” Dean asks hopefully. He stands behind Sam and puts his chin on his brother’s shoulder, leaning in to see what Essa is holding.

“And blackberry jam, homemade.”

Dean rolls his eyes like he’s having an unexpected orgasm from just the thought and then moans to complete the picture.

“Dean!” Sam hisses, and his cheeks get pink.

Oh, Essa thinks, he’s adorable when he’s embarrassed. But if he thinks Essa hasn’t seen it all and done half of it, he’s just plain wrong.

“You boys enjoy,” she says, and turns to go.

Sam calls a thank you after her, and she hears Dean give an exaggerated moan again as he’s closing the door.

“Dean, for godsakes, she’s an old lady,” Sam hisses, and Essa giggles. Old lady, my ass.

“Whatsa matter, Sammy, gettin’ a little excited there yourself?” she thinks she hears Dean say as she starts down the gravel road.

Sam’s laugh follows her up the path.

Essa sees them once more that visit before she hears the rumble of the big black Impala heading back down the mountain. It’s late, a bout of insomnia keeping her awake, and she catches the soft sound of a laugh floating through the night air so she comes out onto the porch and settles into the rocker on the little deck. The brothers have a fire going on the gravel walkway in front of the cabin, and she can just see them in its glow. Several times they laugh, the sound carrying on the breeze. It’s comforting, affection and amusement in their tones, and she smiles, listening. After a while it’s quiet, but the fire’s still burning and they haven’t gotten up. In the darkness, Essa can just make out the two of them, sitting together on the stairs.

Sam’s behind Dean, legs spread wide enough that his brother can sit between them. Dean leans back, tilting his head up, and Sam leans down. Essa wonders why they need to whisper when there’s no one there, but can’t quite work it out, and they’re still for long moments. She catches the movement of Sam’s hand cupping Dean’s face, Dean’s hand moving up to lay over Sam’s as he twists around.

She ponders it for a long time. What could be so secret that you need to be that close to speak it, with no one anywhere near enough to hear?

There’s something about the way they were sitting, so entangled in each other, that makes Essa’s skin itch, but she shrugs it off. She inherited a little of her daddy’s paranoia for sure.




They leave the next day, Dean still limping and Sam still trying to support him as they lock the door and make their way to the car. There’s a bit of a tiff over who’s driving, and a little half-hearted wrestling over the car keys, but Dean has his way in the end and Sam’s smiling as he gets in the passenger side.



The next time Essa hears the rumble of the Impala it’s years later, maybe three. She takes the stairs to the attic as quickly as she can and takes a seat on the rocker, not as fast as she was but still pretty damn spry for her age, she thinks.

This time Dean is driving. The brothers get out of the car and don’t look at each other, keeping a distance between them as they walk up the stairs. Sam opens the door, and Dean pauses on the porch. It’s a quiet afternoon, and Essa can hear them just fine.

“Think I’ll go for a walk,” he says, and Sam stops but doesn’t turn around.

“Yeah, sure.”

Oh, Essa thinks, something is very wrong. That closeness she saw between them before—all that care and consideration and obvious affection—it’s all covered up by anger that she can feel even from this distance.

She watches Dean as he picks his way through the woods. They must be hunters like Rufus and Bobby were, because Dean barely makes a sound as he walks, knows how not to snap a twig or make a branch snap back. He stops just short of Essa’s cabin and suddenly leans against a big oak tree as though his strings were cut and he’s about to collapse. One of his fists comes up and pounds against the thick trunk, so hard it must hurt, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Damn it, Sammy,” he says to no one, forehead against the solid old oak. “Why can’t you see what she’s doing to you? Why can’t you trust me? Me….” He trails off, sounding forlorn. Hurt.

Sounds like a woman has come between them. Essa finds herself surprised; didn’t seem like anything could come between them. She supposes if anything could, it’d be a girl. She knows how that goes.

Dean heads back after a while, pausing on the steps to the cabin as if to steel himself.

She hears them yelling later that night, makes out the girl’s name. Ruby. Old-fashioned name, and she must be some kind of woman to make Dean say those kind of things about her. Essa’s surprised that it’s Sam who’s taken up with the wild one; Dean seems more like the type. Then again, it’s always the quiet ones. She knows that better than anyone.

“You were gone, Dean! What was I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do now—let Lilith just get away with it?”

Sam sounds anguished, his raised voice raw and torn. He sounds like he’s been through hell. Essa wonders where Dean was and for how long and why, and what it had to do with another woman. Lilith. Whoever she is, wherever Dean was, it sounds like it broke Sam’s heart. Somehow that doesn’t surprise Essa.

In the morning, Sam is sitting on the porch steps of their cabin. He scrapes his hands through his long hair, puts his head in his hands. He’s the picture of despair, a mirror image of his brother at the oak tree the night before. Essa wants to go down there and tell them to cut out this foolishness, that a woman—even a wild one like this Ruby girl—isn’t worth sacrificing their family bond. That closeness she saw in them, you don’t find that every day.

The door creaks open and Dean appears, two mugs of steaming coffee in his hands. He offers one to Sam without a word, and Sam takes it, his giant hands wrapping all the way around it as he sips. Almost imperceptibly, Sam scoots over. Dean pauses, then sinks down beside him, close enough that their hips touch on the narrow steps.

Dean knocks his shoulder against his brother’s, just enough to make his coffee almost spill and a curse escape from Sam’s frowning mouth.

“Jerk,” Sam grumbles, but his frown isn’t quite so obvious now.

“Bitch,” Dean replies, quick, like he can’t help himself.

They don’t say anything else, but Essa has the feeling that something got said between them anyway.

The next day, Essa nearly runs into Sam on her way down to their cabin to drop off some baked goods. He starts so hard he unexpectedly draws a gun, and she drops the biscuits.

“Ohmygod I’m so sorry,” he says, shoving the gun into the back of his jeans, and then, to the cell phone in his hand, “Gotta go, Ruby.”

Essa wants to admonish him, both for scaring the shit out of her and for sneaking around. It shouldn’t seem like that—you should be able to talk to your lady around your own brother without it being sneaking—but somehow it feels wrong.

He helps her pick up the biscuits and brush off the bits of grass, still apologizing. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh, I know, you clearly had your mind on other things.”

Sam looks up, surprised. Like he’s wondering how much she knows, but she just smiles like she’s innocent. She hasn’t been innocent for a long time, but Sam doesn’t need to know that.

“Sam!” comes Dean’s shout through the trees, and both of them jump.

“He sounds pissed,” Essa notes.

“Yeah, he is,” Sam says, shaking his head. “My fault, probably.”

They start walking back toward the Turner cabin as Dean yells his brother’s name again.

“I’m coming,” Sam yells back, and then Dean is barreling through the trees like an enraged bull moose Essa encountered once, bellowing for his mate and not happy about a little girl getting in his way.

“I swear to god, Sam, if you were talking to—”

He cuts himself off abruptly when he sees Essa beside his brother.

“Sorry,” Essa says, smiling to try to defuse the tension. “Ran into Sam and dropped the biscuits I made for you guys, so he was helping me get them back in the basket.”

She doesn’t say he was in the woods making a phone call, though that’s clear enough to all of them.

Dean glares at Sam but takes the basket Essa holds out. “Thanks.”

Essa can’t see Sam behind her, but she has no doubt he’s glaring back from the way Dean’s frown intensifies.

“Well, I’d best be getting back home. I’ve got dinner on the stove.”

“Uh, nice to see you,” Dean tries.

“Yeah, sorry again,” Sam adds.

She nods, turns to go, and then pauses and turns back. “Whatever it is, it’s not worth the way you’re sending stink eyes to each other right now, you know.”

Their eyebrows go up, instantly suspicious of what she knows and how she knows it, but she can’t help but try. She remembers the tenderness on their first visit, and it would be a goddamn shame to give up on something rare like that.

“Even if it’s a young lady,” she continues, and Dean snorts. Sam huffs, and Dean rolls his eyes. “Not worth comin’ between you two,” Essa insists, and that stops both their annoyed antics. “You have something special, right? Don’t let this tear you apart.”

She leaves them silent; she likes to think, speechless.

They leave abruptly that time, in the middle of the night. In the quiet, she can hear the big black car’s engine rumble almost all the way down the mountain.



Part Two