quillscribe (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
quillscribe) wrote2006-11-28 08:02 am
quillscribe) wrote2006-11-28 08:02 am
Entry tags:
- fanfiction,
- mir,
- spn
Make It Right - Chapter 4
Fandom: SPN
Rating: PG-16 (language/adult themes)
Category: Dean,Sam (gen)
Words: 5321
Disclaimer: Don't I wish! :-D
Summary: Sometimes there is nothing that can be said that can make it right. All the Winchester brothers can do is keep going forward, and try to be there for each other. Will it be enough?
Spoilers: Set after at least 2.05 (but is still on track even post-Crossroad Blues)
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
Author's Note: So, being the OCD person that I am, I've learned up on how the boys could feasibly do the whole credit card thing and not got caught for so many years. The mentions I make of it in the first chapter will need to be tweaked just a little, because our boys don't just randomly steal stuff like that. They have a method, and typically do it in such a way that it really is pretty much a victimless crime (except to the credit card company). So bear with me. I know the early chapter or two has been wobbly, but we're rolling now. Really! *g*
It was just a little after six the next morning, and for once, Sam had gotten more than two hours of sleep in a row. His vision headache still throbbed dully, but it was more bearable than it had been in a while, and if asked, Sam could have honestly answered that he felt somewhat human. Not that anyone was asking, he thought with amusement.
“Mmmmmph,” Dean murmured as he buried his face further into his pillow, and even though Sam was anxious to get moving, he’d already decided a few minutes more wouldn’t hurt. He wasn’t the only one having a hard time sleeping.
He glanced over at Dean, just to check that he was still out, and had to stifle the urge not to go hunting for a plastic spoon to stick in his brother’s slightly open mouth. He knew, though, as soon as he started to stir, Dean would wake up immediately. Resolving himself to just be patient, Sam resumed staring at the water stains on the motel room’s ceiling. He’d been entertaining himself with trying to decide what the shapes looked like, Rorschach-style.
Dean’s breathing was still deep and even and his cheek was smooshed against the pillow. He lay sprawled on top of the covers, one hand hanging off the side of the bed and the other tucked underneath his pillow – undoubtedly just inches from the handle of his knife. He’d insisted on driving the whole time, nearly twelve hours, and had even kept the music low to try to help Sam get some rest.
As Sam resumed his scrutiny of the water stains, he thought it ironic just how horribly hypocritical he was being with Dean regarding Dad. His brother would kill him if he knew, too, which was why Sam had no intention of ever telling him the truth… But that didn’t mean he wasn’t honest with himself. It was a character flaw.
Sam had gotten aggressive with his brother to try to get him to deal with their dad’s death. He’d gotten pushy, and touchy feely, and all those other things Dean loathed, but he’d had to try something, because whatever the hell Dean was doing still wasn’t working. His brother seemed bent on a path of self-destruction, and Sam didn’t know how else he could help. He was terrified. He’d already lost too much, and now he was a close to losing Dean, too.
So Sam had approached things as if he himself were trying to deal, because he knew that took a lot of the wind out of Dean’s sails. He couldn’t begrudge Sam his grief, after all. But Sam wasn’t grieving. Not really. There was too much baggage, and he hadn’t even gotten over Jessica yet to begin to face Dad’s death. He just felt permanently sucker punched, like he couldn’t ever get enough air in his lungs. The only thing that gave him focus, really, was trying to watch out for Dean.
But he guessed it had been inevitable that all that pushing on Dean would eventually come back on him as well. Ironically, it was Dean’s brutal honestly as Sam had tried to reach him that was the cause of his current reflective mood. He’d held so tightly to his anger for so long; to keep him going when he’d thought he’d lost both his dad and Dean for good after leaving for college, and then afterwards, that he’d suppressed a lot of his memories of the good times.
There was a lot more to his childhood than dumpster diving for discarded credit card pre-approvals (thank God they’d developed a better system since then) and late nights in the car with the doors locked. He still had nightmares of sitting, huddled up in blankets on the floor of the back seat of the Impala, listening to unnatural screams and shotgun blasts off in the distance as he waited, hidden, praying it would be Dean or Dad that came knocking on the window to give him the ‘all clear’, and not what they’d been hunting.
Yes, there had been too many times where Sam could vividly recall sitting on the floor of dingy motel bathrooms, watching his father’s blood slide down his body. How pale Dad had always looked, grey, and too old underneath the unkind fluorescent lights while Sam had stitched him up because Dean was too hurt to do it, or worse, unconscious. Tired and sad. As if steel will alone was all that carried Dad forward.
But that wasn’t *all* of his childhood. There had been so much more than that, and it was as if Dean’s angry words were opening those memories up like a floodgate, leaving Sam breathless and heartbroken at the things he’d never said to his father, and now he never could.
He remembered a time, when he had just turned 13, and his dad had realized Sam was finally tall enough to reach the car pedals. He’d sent both he and Dean off to school as usual, but at the end of the day, instead of Dean waiting for him in the parking lot to drive him home, there stood Dad, not Dean, leaning against the Impala, tall and imposing with a smirk on his face that Sam rarely ever got to see.
“So, you want to learn something cool today?” his dad had casually asked in that rumbling voice of his, and Sam, torn as usual between the fear of just what his dad wanted to teach and his own ever present curiosity, had nodded his head, feeling nervous and excited all at once.
That day, his dad took him out on the back roads and taught him how to drive. Not the steering part – he’d known how to do that since he was eight. *Had* done that, in fact, more than once, sitting on his father’s bloodied lap, guiding the Impala home with soft prompts of ‘slow down, Dad, there’s a stop sign coming up’ or ‘we’re going need to speed up a little before someone thinks we’re drunk’ that his dad, even barely conscious, obeyed, with Dean lying injured in the back seat.
This day had been different. This was Dad teaching Sam how to take the Impala to her limit, teaching him to feel how far he could take the corners, and when she would start to lose her grip. How to control skids and slips, and just how far he could push.
He still remembers vividly how he’d glanced at his dad out of the corner of his eye while he’d kept control during a spin. The look on his father’s face was utterly unafraid. There’d been a fierce smile on his lips and a fire in his eye. His dad had been having fun. This, Sam had thought at the time, was what being a Winchester was about. This legacy, so unique to them. He’d never been prouder to be his father’s son. He’d never had so much fun himself.
Dean had always appreciated that. Reveled in that uniqueness, and wore it like a badge of honor. The gifts Sam got for Christmas that year weren’t just a Winchester thing, but a right of passage; one he hadn’t understood at the time, but Dean had. His brother had been so proud, but Sam could also see the fear, carefully cloaked, in Dean’s eyes each time as he’d shoot a glance towards their dad after each present Sam opened; as if silently asking, Are you sure? Do you really think it’s time?
His very own Browning semi-automatic, the basic lock-picking set and Slim Jim, and even the custom knives that he got later that year for his birthday… All of those gifts were symbolic; his dad’s way of announcing that Sam was no longer just the youngest, the one his dad and Dean both protected, but also capable of his own means of escape, his own self protection, and able to hold his own on a hunt. He’d hunted before, yes, many many times, and had trained with Dean since he was ten, but never as a ‘hunter’. Only backup. Support.
From that day forward, his father began to shed the skin of Dad layer by layer, leaving only the Marine behind. Gone was the man who still occasionally hugged Sam when he was upset; who looked both bemused and proud all at once when Sam brought home straight A’s from school, even with having moved twelve times in a single year.
All those tender parts of John Winchester, the parts he’d mostly buried anyway, were discarded when Sam’s full-on training began in earnest, until only the boot camp drill instructor remained. Dad was gone, leaving a gruff, forbidding man who was never satisfied and never pleased, who always compared Sam’s failings to the accomplishments of his brother. Never strong enough, fast enough, quick enough.
Truthfully, he might have become that perfect soldier, too, if he hadn’t started growing so fast Dean couldn’t seem to keep him in clothes that fit more than a month or so. His center of gravity changed, and his motor coordination became completely skewed, and he’d had to practically start all over. At fifteen and sixteen, he’d been all legs and arms and nothing was ever good enough.
He’d tried so hard. He’d given everything he had, and while, no, he wasn’t Dean, he didn’t think he was anything to be ashamed of either. He was damned good at hand to hand. He was a dead shot, and surprisingly adept with knives. He was fast, surprisingly so for someone his height, and spoke Latin more fluently than either Dean or his dad.
But none of that seemed to matter to Dad, and all of Dean’s quiet reassurances that he’d done just fine got drowned out by Dad’s harsh barks of criticism. He came to realize he would never measure up. Ever. Eventually, it stopped mattering. He finally got comfortable in his body, but he never became comfortable in his skin.
And then, one day, a school counselor had given him the means to dare to dream of something different for himself. He’d felt like a liability to his family for a long time, and it hurt that the things Sam thought he *did* bring to the table were viewed as useless in his dad’s eyes. No matter how he failed as a Winchester, there were some things he knew he could do, and do well.
“Oh my God, I can hear you thinking from here,” Dean groaned, voice muffled in his pillow. Sam started, then huffed a laugh and couldn’t help but smile when Dean lobbed a pillow at him without even looking to aim.
“Shut up. I’m just trying to be nice and give my lazy ass brother a few minutes extra to sleep in, since he’s a growing boy… Oh, that’s right. This is as tall as you’re going to get,” Sam teased in a mock conciliatory voice, and firmly shelved his meandering thoughts back into their box. No matter how estranged he’d felt with his father, he’d never felt more at home than with his brother.
Dean pulled his head up off the pillow and eyed Sam blearily yet critically, a slight frown on his face. “Any weird dreams? Visions? Headaches?”
Sam scowled at his brother for a moment, but then shook his head in response. “I don’t think so.”
“Really?” Dean asked, surprised. Sam rolled his eyes.
“Shuddup,” Sam protested. “You’re making me sound high maintenance, here.”
Dean snorted heartily at that one, rolling over and heaving himself up in bed. “That’s because you are, Samantha,” he replied predictably. Sometimes Sam threw his brother softballs simply because of how much enjoyment Dean got hitting them out of the park.
“Bite me,” Sam said as he sat up, then quickly jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. “I was going to offer you first dibs on a shower, dude, but since I’m so high maintenance, I guess you can damn well wait,” he called out, but without real heat, and slammed the door shut behind him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Excuse me? Waitress? Am I ever going to get another cup of coffee? Fresh coffee?” the man two booths down from theirs asked the poor waitress who was walking by. She wasn’t even working the guy’s table.
Dean’s eyes were flinty as he glanced up at Sam, but seemed to settle at Sam’s frown and the subtle shake of the head. “They’re handling him,” he reassured his brother quietly, and really, the waitresses were. Far more patiently than he ever could.
They were just a couple of hours out of Chicago, and had arrived at the small diner just in time for the morning rush. It was a cute place, actually. It didn’t take much to imagine high school girls in poodle skirts and boys with greased back hair and James Dean style t-shirts trying to look cool in the fifties style booths. The portions were generous and the prices reasonable. No wonder the place was busy.
While clearly understaffed, the waitresses were doing remarkably well keeping the plates coming and the coffee mugs full. Except for the one guy, who’d sent his cup back because it had tasted ‘old’. ‘Old’ in Sam’s book meant strong.
Personally, he’d been sorry to see them toss it out to start fresh. But for as obnoxious as the guy was, no one’s feathers seemed to be getting ruffled, and he quieted down, satisfied with the special handling he was getting, thank God. There was always one.
Dean, too, seemed aggrieved at the loss of the strong coffee. He sat hunched forward, both hands wrapped around the mug, and had drunk half of it in two gulps, apparently uncaring that it was still scalding hot, and had looked slightly scandalized as the older woman behind the counter had poured it out into the sink.
“So are we ever going to talk about who the hell that woman was at the end of the vision? The one who told you to wake up?” Dean asked out of the blue.
Sam hated it when Dean did that. He’d kind of hoped his brother had missed the ramifications of that part of his vision, but really, he should have known better. Dean would have made a great police interrogator. He knew just when to ask his questions to catch Sam unawares – to keep his reactions unguarded. The bastard.
Dean was watching Sam intently, and he couldn’t help but squirm. How did his brother do that, anyway? Make him feel eleven with just one question? Dean’s eyebrow raised, and Sam knew he was cataloguing each fidget and nervous adjustment of his silverware. Well, there was nothing for it now.
“What about her?” Sam asked.
“She was clear, right? Not fuzzy?”
“She was clear,” Sam agreed.
“Was she telling Pam to wake up?” Dean asked, automatically shortening the girl’s name. It sounded odd to Sam, like they already knew her.
“I don’t think so,” Sam finally said after a long pause. Dean stilled completely.
“You don’t think so? You think she was talking to you?” Dean asked nonchalantly. Yep. He was going to kill Sam for not discussing this sooner, but really, Sam himself still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it, dammit.
“I do,” Sam replied reluctantly. “I think that’s why she wasn’t distorted like everything else was. I think only I could see her.”
“Okay, so getting these details is like pulling teeth with you, Sam. Quit stalling and tell me what the hell you think happened, and what it might mean, because I know you’ve been analyzing it from every possible angle like you always do, and I think I’ve been pretty patient here.”
Sam hated that he could feel his cheeks blush. He sighed, and tossed the knife he’d been fidgeting with on his now empty plate. The French toast had been really good, and while he’d noticed Dean’s look of relief as Sam had cleaned his plate, he’d been grateful his brother hadn’t said anything. He knew it had been a while since he’d had much of an appetite, as evidenced by the new wholes he’d had to punch in his belt.
“I think she might have been a ghost,” Sam said.
“A ghost? Who saw *you* in Pam’s head?” Dean asked, frowning.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Sam said, and automatically began to explain his theory. “If I were seeing her through Pamela’s eyes, she should have been blurry and distorted like everything else was. And who else *would* she tell to wake up? Pamela was already. Well, sort of.”
“You’ve never seen her before?” Dean asked, absently nibbling on the inside of his bottom lip. Sam shook his head. “What kind of an accent was it?”
“I’m not really sure. I mean, she only said two words to me. European, I think. Not French,” Sam said.
“And nothing obvious about a cause of death? If she was a ghost?” Dean prompted.
“She was actually pretty mousy looking. She looked dead, but not… No slit throat or anything. Just gaunt and, well, dead.”
“You think she helped sever the connection between you and Pam in the vision, don’t you?” Dean asked. Sam nodded. “Well, that’s good, then. Whoever she is, she seems to be on our side,” Dean said after a moment’s thought, and let the subject drop as he finished up his coffee and the last of his bacon.
They were already paid up and heading out the door when Sam let his eyes slide down to the receipt at the obnoxious guy’s table, with his credit card resting on top. He didn’t make eye contact with the man or his companion, who looked a bit harassed himself, and walked out the door without a second glance.
It didn’t stop Dean from practically wheezing with laughter, though, as they got in the Impala. “Sam! You old dog! You are so busted! I didn’t think you had it in you!” Dean crowed in glee, and Sam felt himself blushing all the way to his ears. His brother was entirely too observant.
“So you think ol’ Walter’s got good credit, do you?” Dean asked casually as he started up the car, and Sam couldn’t help but laugh. His brother had done it too.
It was a game he and Dean used to play as kids. Dad was always teaching them memory tricks. Instead of the normal license plate game most kids did when driving cross country, Sam and Dean memorized people’s plates, the year, color and the make of their cars. They never knew when Dad would prompt them for the details of a car they’d passed, or even what a customer in a diner had been wearing, and what they had looked like.
Sam had witnessed a hit and run with Jessica, once, just a few blocks off of campus, and the silent, contemplative look she’d given him as he’d rattled off the details of not only the car and license plate but the driver as well to the cops had kept him on his guard for weeks afterward as he deftly avoided her probing questions.
A near photographic memory was essential to hunting, when they might only get a glimpse of something with which to try to determine what they were dealing with. It was also highly useful when memorizing names and credit card numbers in seconds flat. He and Dean used to do it with people who were especially rude or obnoxious. They didn’t do it often, because it was a lot riskier than their normal credit card fraud methods, but it was still highly gratifying.
“You have officially made my day, Sammy,” Dean said contentedly, and cranked up AC/DC on the stereo as they hit the interstate, thankfully later than the normal morning commute. There were thirty-four Lyons in the phone book, so they had some searching to do, and not much time to do it in.
~*~*~*~
“So we’ve got a match?” Dean asked as he walked next to Sam towards the car.
He’d gotten another nosebleed in the Cook County Clerk’s office, but thankfully it was *after* he’d found what he was looking for. Pamela Elizabeth Lyon, nineteen. Daughter to Edward and Patricia. Mother deceased. One half brother, just a year and a half old, by Pamela’s step-mother, Deborah.
“Yeah, I found her. She lives in Berwyn,” Sam replied, and eased into the Impala with his head tilted up.
“Am I going to have to strip search you?” Dean demanded as he turned the key in the ignition. Sam eyed him in surprise, still holding the Kleenex against his nose.
“For what?” Sam asked. It annoyed him that Dean could make him feel guilty, even when he didn’t do anything wrong. That he knew of.
“More Benedryl, you lightweight. You’re not still trying to suppress the visions, are you?”
“Dude, it’s just been a little over a day,” Sam protested nasally.
“You’re not, right?” Dean persisted as he began to drive.
He kept shooting concerned sidelong glances, his eyes lingering on Sam’s bloodied tissue, but it was clear he was trying hard not to stare. Sam pretended to ignore him as he looked over the street maps to direct him to Pamela’s house.
“I’m not,” Sam said after figuring out the quickest route to get there. They were less than a half an hour away.
Even though it was brisk out, it wasn’t miserable like Chicago was capable of getting. Instead, it was crisp. There were small clusters of leaves still left in the trees, but they’d long since lost their fall splendor.
Although it was cool out, and getting towards late afternoon, there were a lot more people walking about than Sam had expected. They seemed to be mostly suits, both men and women, who clearly worked in the business district, and college age kids, with back packs full of books and bundled up in trendy, logo emblazoned sweatshirts or baggy ‘not trying’ clothes that only the professionally unemployed could get away with.
“So how do we go about this? I mean, the parents aren’t going to be too forthcoming with us, considering they’re the ones who drugged their little girl and all,” Dean asked as Sam watched one small cluster of college students standing just outside a Starbucks, both hands wrapped around their warm cups to help stave off the chill. It made him nearly smile, but also a little sad, that he thought of them as kids in his mind.
Then he saw her. Standing in the center of the group. Still in that damn white dress of hers. Staring right at him. So beautiful. He liked her hair like this, soft and flowing. She looked ethereal, and had her arms wrapped around her torso, as if she felt the cold a little. It took everything in Sam not to tell Dean to stop the car, to get out and try to go to her, to see if she was real. He fought off the familiar tugs of grief as he regretfully let his eyes slide past her and tried to focus on what street they were coming up to when he was suddenly slammed against his seatbelt.
“That’s it!” Dean snarled.
Alarmed, Sam looked around to see what had caused his brother to practically slam on the brakes and pull over to the side of the street. “Dean?” he asked, bewildered. “What’s going on? Did you think of something?”
“What the hell was that look?” Dean asked his brother, who’d finally pulled the tissue away to find no fresh blood.
“What look?” Sam asked, frowning.
“You think I don’t know your facial ticks? That I don’t see when you tense up so tight I think you might snap in half? What are you seeing out there when you do that, Sam? Talk to me,” he practically begged.
If it weren’t for the fact that Dean looked terrified, Sam knows he’d probably lose his temper with his brother at his hypocrisy. It wasn’t that long ago that it was Sam begging, and damn if Dean hadn’t shut him down but good. But Dean didn’t beg, not like this, and Sam felt the anger leave as quickly as it had come. When Dean asked like *this*, Sam couldn’t help but want to do everything in his power to ease the look of distress on his brother’s face.
“Dean…” Sam began, but realized he had no idea what to say.
“What are you seeing, Sam?” Dean asked again, his voice thick with emotion. Sam closed his eyes.
“I see Jess,” he admitted, his voice breaking.
“What?” Dean asked.
“I mean… Just for a second. I see Jess,” Sam confessed.
“As in, a ghost?” Dean asked, frowning and automatically turning to look back over his shoulder at the students who’d since dispersed, heading in the opposite direction from the Impala.
“I don’t know,” Sam said, his voice still deep with suppressed emotions.
“Does she ever say anything to you? Approach you?” Dean hesitantly asked. Sam shook his head.
“No, never. And when I try to take a closer look, she’s always gone.”
“Do you think…” Dean began, then stopped. Clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to ask. Sam helped him out.
“That I’m hallucinating? That it’s all in my head? That she’s not really there? Hell yeah, I’ve wondered about it. Is that it? I have no idea. It started happening around the same time I started actively trying to suppress the visions, so I’m kind of hoping that it’ll eventually stop. Just like I’m hoping these nosebleeds quit,” Sam admitted.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Dean asked, looking hurt.
“What was I supposed to say? Hey, Dean, I think I’m seeing Jess! But really, I’m fine! It’s just one more freaky thing to add to my repertoire,” Sam said bitterly and scrubbed at his face in frustration.
Dean sat next to him, letting the engine idle, and Sam watched him warily as a myriad of expressions flashed across his brother’s face, before settling on a gentle look Sam hadn’t seen in a long time. It was the expression Dean used to get a lot when Sam was little. Dean in full big brother mode. There’d been times when he’d been a teenager that it had driven him nuts. Now it just made his heart hurt. God he’d missed his brother.
“I’ve been a shit head. I admit that. Yeah, Sam, I hate this Shining thing of yours, but that’s because there’s nothing I can do to help you with it. You think I like to see you in pain? Seeing people dying?” Dean asked.
“Dean…” Sam began, frowning, but Dean put up a hand.
“No. Let me finish. I’m sorry I called you a freak, Sam. I was trying to lighten things up, but knew as soon as I said it, that it hit home. I don’t think that. Not really. Am I terrified? Hell yeah. I have no idea what to do to help, and you know me, Sam. Being helpless is not something I do well.”
“I know, Dean,” Sam began, but Dean shook his head. He wasn’t done.
“I know I’ve been shutting you out, and I’m sorry. I know you probably want to punch me when I keep making you talk about this stuff. I can see how uncomfortable it makes you feel, and I know I’m the reason you’re reluctant. Some brother I am, huh?” Dean’s face tensed up in self recrimination, his tone bitter. Sam opened his mouth to protest, but snapped it back shut again at his brother’s expression.
“It freaks me out, and I’m not the one with the damn visions. So what must it be doing for you?”
Sam wanted to say something, but had no idea what would help ease his brother’s guilt. Dean was right. Sam was freaked out, and had been spending the past month practically trying to wish it away. Which, when Sam thought about it, made him feel about five years old.
“But you’re not now,” Sam finally said, and hated how small his voice sounded. Dean flinched.
“Yeah, Sam. I’m not now. I’ve been watching you quietly fade away for over a month now, and I’m done with that shit. You’re too skinny, and how much blood have you lost anyway?” Dean asked, pointing to the tissue still in Sam’s hand. Sam went to say something, but Dean interrupted.
“Don’t answer. It was rhetorical. My point is that it isn’t going away. Like it or not, it’s a part of you, and right now, it’s messing you up. And part of the reason why is because I’ve been not dealing. With this. With you. With dad. But that stops now. Well, some of it,” he quickly amended, then went on. “You’re not in this alone, Sam. We’re all we’ve got, and we’re going to figure this out, okay?”
Sam took a long, shuddering sigh, and looked over at Dean. “What if it’s something evil? What if it’s not me at all?” Sam asked quietly. “I only have visions that are somehow tied to the Demon or other people like me. That’s pretty specific. If it was a gift, wouldn’t it be a bit more global, like Missouri? And wouldn’t it have shown up a lot sooner?” He didn’t know what the expression was on his face, but Dean was wide eyed with emotion.
“Evil doesn’t give, Sam, it takes. Even when people think they’re getting something for nothing, they’re not. Whatever that demon wants… I don’t think it gave those abilities to you. It *wants* them, to use or corrupt, or whatever, but I think you would have had them anyway, even if the Demon had never showed,” Dean said with quiet conviction. “It just messed with them, somehow.”
Sam leaned his head back and took a deep breath, then tilted his head to the side, feeling exhausted and yet oddly lighter as well. “Jesus, is this what you feel like when I do this shit?” he asked. Dean snorted.
“Sucks, don’t it?” he asked, a small smile beginning to light up his face.
“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “It does.”
“I don’t know about you, but I feel better knowing what’s going on with your Shining thing. I thought you had a brain tumor or something, what with all those nose bleeds,” he said, and Sam frowned.
“Yikes.”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed sarcastically. “So no more secrets, okay? No matter how weird.” He looked so earnest, and Sam realized he had the power to make Sam cave on things just as easily as he could with Dean.
“What about Jess?” Sam asked, and watched as Dean chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully.
“You don’t see her now, right?” Dean asked. Sam shook his head.
“No, I only see her for a second before she disappears.”
“Honestly?” Dean asked after a moment’s thought, and continued at Sam’s nod. “I think you’re right. Give your body time to get back to normal before worrying about it. Hopefully it’s a psychic fatigue thing or something.”
“Psychic fatigue thing?” Sam repeated, his lips curving in a smile.
“That’s a technical term, bitch,” Dean said seriously, then laughed. “So, done with the touchy feely stuff for now?”
“God yes,” Sam moaned.
“Let’s go see what life is like for the Lyons now that they’ve turned their daughter over to evil. Maybe it’s meatloaf night. And later, if we’re lucky, a little breaking and entering?” Dean asked, like he was planning the menu of a tantalizing dinner. Sam smiled wide, and Dean’s answering grin felt just as bright.
“Hell yeah,” Sam agreed.
“That’s the spirit,” Dean teased, and pulled the Impala back into traffic, and had the nerve to snicker as Sam groaned at the joke.
Rating: PG-16 (language/adult themes)
Category: Dean,Sam (gen)
Words: 5321
Disclaimer: Don't I wish! :-D
Summary: Sometimes there is nothing that can be said that can make it right. All the Winchester brothers can do is keep going forward, and try to be there for each other. Will it be enough?
Spoilers: Set after at least 2.05 (but is still on track even post-Crossroad Blues)
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
Author's Note: So, being the OCD person that I am, I've learned up on how the boys could feasibly do the whole credit card thing and not got caught for so many years. The mentions I make of it in the first chapter will need to be tweaked just a little, because our boys don't just randomly steal stuff like that. They have a method, and typically do it in such a way that it really is pretty much a victimless crime (except to the credit card company). So bear with me. I know the early chapter or two has been wobbly, but we're rolling now. Really! *g*
Make It Right
Chapter 4
Chapter 4
It was just a little after six the next morning, and for once, Sam had gotten more than two hours of sleep in a row. His vision headache still throbbed dully, but it was more bearable than it had been in a while, and if asked, Sam could have honestly answered that he felt somewhat human. Not that anyone was asking, he thought with amusement.
“Mmmmmph,” Dean murmured as he buried his face further into his pillow, and even though Sam was anxious to get moving, he’d already decided a few minutes more wouldn’t hurt. He wasn’t the only one having a hard time sleeping.
He glanced over at Dean, just to check that he was still out, and had to stifle the urge not to go hunting for a plastic spoon to stick in his brother’s slightly open mouth. He knew, though, as soon as he started to stir, Dean would wake up immediately. Resolving himself to just be patient, Sam resumed staring at the water stains on the motel room’s ceiling. He’d been entertaining himself with trying to decide what the shapes looked like, Rorschach-style.
Dean’s breathing was still deep and even and his cheek was smooshed against the pillow. He lay sprawled on top of the covers, one hand hanging off the side of the bed and the other tucked underneath his pillow – undoubtedly just inches from the handle of his knife. He’d insisted on driving the whole time, nearly twelve hours, and had even kept the music low to try to help Sam get some rest.
As Sam resumed his scrutiny of the water stains, he thought it ironic just how horribly hypocritical he was being with Dean regarding Dad. His brother would kill him if he knew, too, which was why Sam had no intention of ever telling him the truth… But that didn’t mean he wasn’t honest with himself. It was a character flaw.
Sam had gotten aggressive with his brother to try to get him to deal with their dad’s death. He’d gotten pushy, and touchy feely, and all those other things Dean loathed, but he’d had to try something, because whatever the hell Dean was doing still wasn’t working. His brother seemed bent on a path of self-destruction, and Sam didn’t know how else he could help. He was terrified. He’d already lost too much, and now he was a close to losing Dean, too.
So Sam had approached things as if he himself were trying to deal, because he knew that took a lot of the wind out of Dean’s sails. He couldn’t begrudge Sam his grief, after all. But Sam wasn’t grieving. Not really. There was too much baggage, and he hadn’t even gotten over Jessica yet to begin to face Dad’s death. He just felt permanently sucker punched, like he couldn’t ever get enough air in his lungs. The only thing that gave him focus, really, was trying to watch out for Dean.
But he guessed it had been inevitable that all that pushing on Dean would eventually come back on him as well. Ironically, it was Dean’s brutal honestly as Sam had tried to reach him that was the cause of his current reflective mood. He’d held so tightly to his anger for so long; to keep him going when he’d thought he’d lost both his dad and Dean for good after leaving for college, and then afterwards, that he’d suppressed a lot of his memories of the good times.
There was a lot more to his childhood than dumpster diving for discarded credit card pre-approvals (thank God they’d developed a better system since then) and late nights in the car with the doors locked. He still had nightmares of sitting, huddled up in blankets on the floor of the back seat of the Impala, listening to unnatural screams and shotgun blasts off in the distance as he waited, hidden, praying it would be Dean or Dad that came knocking on the window to give him the ‘all clear’, and not what they’d been hunting.
Yes, there had been too many times where Sam could vividly recall sitting on the floor of dingy motel bathrooms, watching his father’s blood slide down his body. How pale Dad had always looked, grey, and too old underneath the unkind fluorescent lights while Sam had stitched him up because Dean was too hurt to do it, or worse, unconscious. Tired and sad. As if steel will alone was all that carried Dad forward.
But that wasn’t *all* of his childhood. There had been so much more than that, and it was as if Dean’s angry words were opening those memories up like a floodgate, leaving Sam breathless and heartbroken at the things he’d never said to his father, and now he never could.
He remembered a time, when he had just turned 13, and his dad had realized Sam was finally tall enough to reach the car pedals. He’d sent both he and Dean off to school as usual, but at the end of the day, instead of Dean waiting for him in the parking lot to drive him home, there stood Dad, not Dean, leaning against the Impala, tall and imposing with a smirk on his face that Sam rarely ever got to see.
“So, you want to learn something cool today?” his dad had casually asked in that rumbling voice of his, and Sam, torn as usual between the fear of just what his dad wanted to teach and his own ever present curiosity, had nodded his head, feeling nervous and excited all at once.
That day, his dad took him out on the back roads and taught him how to drive. Not the steering part – he’d known how to do that since he was eight. *Had* done that, in fact, more than once, sitting on his father’s bloodied lap, guiding the Impala home with soft prompts of ‘slow down, Dad, there’s a stop sign coming up’ or ‘we’re going need to speed up a little before someone thinks we’re drunk’ that his dad, even barely conscious, obeyed, with Dean lying injured in the back seat.
This day had been different. This was Dad teaching Sam how to take the Impala to her limit, teaching him to feel how far he could take the corners, and when she would start to lose her grip. How to control skids and slips, and just how far he could push.
He still remembers vividly how he’d glanced at his dad out of the corner of his eye while he’d kept control during a spin. The look on his father’s face was utterly unafraid. There’d been a fierce smile on his lips and a fire in his eye. His dad had been having fun. This, Sam had thought at the time, was what being a Winchester was about. This legacy, so unique to them. He’d never been prouder to be his father’s son. He’d never had so much fun himself.
Dean had always appreciated that. Reveled in that uniqueness, and wore it like a badge of honor. The gifts Sam got for Christmas that year weren’t just a Winchester thing, but a right of passage; one he hadn’t understood at the time, but Dean had. His brother had been so proud, but Sam could also see the fear, carefully cloaked, in Dean’s eyes each time as he’d shoot a glance towards their dad after each present Sam opened; as if silently asking, Are you sure? Do you really think it’s time?
His very own Browning semi-automatic, the basic lock-picking set and Slim Jim, and even the custom knives that he got later that year for his birthday… All of those gifts were symbolic; his dad’s way of announcing that Sam was no longer just the youngest, the one his dad and Dean both protected, but also capable of his own means of escape, his own self protection, and able to hold his own on a hunt. He’d hunted before, yes, many many times, and had trained with Dean since he was ten, but never as a ‘hunter’. Only backup. Support.
From that day forward, his father began to shed the skin of Dad layer by layer, leaving only the Marine behind. Gone was the man who still occasionally hugged Sam when he was upset; who looked both bemused and proud all at once when Sam brought home straight A’s from school, even with having moved twelve times in a single year.
All those tender parts of John Winchester, the parts he’d mostly buried anyway, were discarded when Sam’s full-on training began in earnest, until only the boot camp drill instructor remained. Dad was gone, leaving a gruff, forbidding man who was never satisfied and never pleased, who always compared Sam’s failings to the accomplishments of his brother. Never strong enough, fast enough, quick enough.
Truthfully, he might have become that perfect soldier, too, if he hadn’t started growing so fast Dean couldn’t seem to keep him in clothes that fit more than a month or so. His center of gravity changed, and his motor coordination became completely skewed, and he’d had to practically start all over. At fifteen and sixteen, he’d been all legs and arms and nothing was ever good enough.
He’d tried so hard. He’d given everything he had, and while, no, he wasn’t Dean, he didn’t think he was anything to be ashamed of either. He was damned good at hand to hand. He was a dead shot, and surprisingly adept with knives. He was fast, surprisingly so for someone his height, and spoke Latin more fluently than either Dean or his dad.
But none of that seemed to matter to Dad, and all of Dean’s quiet reassurances that he’d done just fine got drowned out by Dad’s harsh barks of criticism. He came to realize he would never measure up. Ever. Eventually, it stopped mattering. He finally got comfortable in his body, but he never became comfortable in his skin.
And then, one day, a school counselor had given him the means to dare to dream of something different for himself. He’d felt like a liability to his family for a long time, and it hurt that the things Sam thought he *did* bring to the table were viewed as useless in his dad’s eyes. No matter how he failed as a Winchester, there were some things he knew he could do, and do well.
“Oh my God, I can hear you thinking from here,” Dean groaned, voice muffled in his pillow. Sam started, then huffed a laugh and couldn’t help but smile when Dean lobbed a pillow at him without even looking to aim.
“Shut up. I’m just trying to be nice and give my lazy ass brother a few minutes extra to sleep in, since he’s a growing boy… Oh, that’s right. This is as tall as you’re going to get,” Sam teased in a mock conciliatory voice, and firmly shelved his meandering thoughts back into their box. No matter how estranged he’d felt with his father, he’d never felt more at home than with his brother.
Dean pulled his head up off the pillow and eyed Sam blearily yet critically, a slight frown on his face. “Any weird dreams? Visions? Headaches?”
Sam scowled at his brother for a moment, but then shook his head in response. “I don’t think so.”
“Really?” Dean asked, surprised. Sam rolled his eyes.
“Shuddup,” Sam protested. “You’re making me sound high maintenance, here.”
Dean snorted heartily at that one, rolling over and heaving himself up in bed. “That’s because you are, Samantha,” he replied predictably. Sometimes Sam threw his brother softballs simply because of how much enjoyment Dean got hitting them out of the park.
“Bite me,” Sam said as he sat up, then quickly jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. “I was going to offer you first dibs on a shower, dude, but since I’m so high maintenance, I guess you can damn well wait,” he called out, but without real heat, and slammed the door shut behind him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Excuse me? Waitress? Am I ever going to get another cup of coffee? Fresh coffee?” the man two booths down from theirs asked the poor waitress who was walking by. She wasn’t even working the guy’s table.
Dean’s eyes were flinty as he glanced up at Sam, but seemed to settle at Sam’s frown and the subtle shake of the head. “They’re handling him,” he reassured his brother quietly, and really, the waitresses were. Far more patiently than he ever could.
They were just a couple of hours out of Chicago, and had arrived at the small diner just in time for the morning rush. It was a cute place, actually. It didn’t take much to imagine high school girls in poodle skirts and boys with greased back hair and James Dean style t-shirts trying to look cool in the fifties style booths. The portions were generous and the prices reasonable. No wonder the place was busy.
While clearly understaffed, the waitresses were doing remarkably well keeping the plates coming and the coffee mugs full. Except for the one guy, who’d sent his cup back because it had tasted ‘old’. ‘Old’ in Sam’s book meant strong.
Personally, he’d been sorry to see them toss it out to start fresh. But for as obnoxious as the guy was, no one’s feathers seemed to be getting ruffled, and he quieted down, satisfied with the special handling he was getting, thank God. There was always one.
Dean, too, seemed aggrieved at the loss of the strong coffee. He sat hunched forward, both hands wrapped around the mug, and had drunk half of it in two gulps, apparently uncaring that it was still scalding hot, and had looked slightly scandalized as the older woman behind the counter had poured it out into the sink.
“So are we ever going to talk about who the hell that woman was at the end of the vision? The one who told you to wake up?” Dean asked out of the blue.
Sam hated it when Dean did that. He’d kind of hoped his brother had missed the ramifications of that part of his vision, but really, he should have known better. Dean would have made a great police interrogator. He knew just when to ask his questions to catch Sam unawares – to keep his reactions unguarded. The bastard.
Dean was watching Sam intently, and he couldn’t help but squirm. How did his brother do that, anyway? Make him feel eleven with just one question? Dean’s eyebrow raised, and Sam knew he was cataloguing each fidget and nervous adjustment of his silverware. Well, there was nothing for it now.
“What about her?” Sam asked.
“She was clear, right? Not fuzzy?”
“She was clear,” Sam agreed.
“Was she telling Pam to wake up?” Dean asked, automatically shortening the girl’s name. It sounded odd to Sam, like they already knew her.
“I don’t think so,” Sam finally said after a long pause. Dean stilled completely.
“You don’t think so? You think she was talking to you?” Dean asked nonchalantly. Yep. He was going to kill Sam for not discussing this sooner, but really, Sam himself still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it, dammit.
“I do,” Sam replied reluctantly. “I think that’s why she wasn’t distorted like everything else was. I think only I could see her.”
“Okay, so getting these details is like pulling teeth with you, Sam. Quit stalling and tell me what the hell you think happened, and what it might mean, because I know you’ve been analyzing it from every possible angle like you always do, and I think I’ve been pretty patient here.”
Sam hated that he could feel his cheeks blush. He sighed, and tossed the knife he’d been fidgeting with on his now empty plate. The French toast had been really good, and while he’d noticed Dean’s look of relief as Sam had cleaned his plate, he’d been grateful his brother hadn’t said anything. He knew it had been a while since he’d had much of an appetite, as evidenced by the new wholes he’d had to punch in his belt.
“I think she might have been a ghost,” Sam said.
“A ghost? Who saw *you* in Pam’s head?” Dean asked, frowning.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Sam said, and automatically began to explain his theory. “If I were seeing her through Pamela’s eyes, she should have been blurry and distorted like everything else was. And who else *would* she tell to wake up? Pamela was already. Well, sort of.”
“You’ve never seen her before?” Dean asked, absently nibbling on the inside of his bottom lip. Sam shook his head. “What kind of an accent was it?”
“I’m not really sure. I mean, she only said two words to me. European, I think. Not French,” Sam said.
“And nothing obvious about a cause of death? If she was a ghost?” Dean prompted.
“She was actually pretty mousy looking. She looked dead, but not… No slit throat or anything. Just gaunt and, well, dead.”
“You think she helped sever the connection between you and Pam in the vision, don’t you?” Dean asked. Sam nodded. “Well, that’s good, then. Whoever she is, she seems to be on our side,” Dean said after a moment’s thought, and let the subject drop as he finished up his coffee and the last of his bacon.
They were already paid up and heading out the door when Sam let his eyes slide down to the receipt at the obnoxious guy’s table, with his credit card resting on top. He didn’t make eye contact with the man or his companion, who looked a bit harassed himself, and walked out the door without a second glance.
It didn’t stop Dean from practically wheezing with laughter, though, as they got in the Impala. “Sam! You old dog! You are so busted! I didn’t think you had it in you!” Dean crowed in glee, and Sam felt himself blushing all the way to his ears. His brother was entirely too observant.
“So you think ol’ Walter’s got good credit, do you?” Dean asked casually as he started up the car, and Sam couldn’t help but laugh. His brother had done it too.
It was a game he and Dean used to play as kids. Dad was always teaching them memory tricks. Instead of the normal license plate game most kids did when driving cross country, Sam and Dean memorized people’s plates, the year, color and the make of their cars. They never knew when Dad would prompt them for the details of a car they’d passed, or even what a customer in a diner had been wearing, and what they had looked like.
Sam had witnessed a hit and run with Jessica, once, just a few blocks off of campus, and the silent, contemplative look she’d given him as he’d rattled off the details of not only the car and license plate but the driver as well to the cops had kept him on his guard for weeks afterward as he deftly avoided her probing questions.
A near photographic memory was essential to hunting, when they might only get a glimpse of something with which to try to determine what they were dealing with. It was also highly useful when memorizing names and credit card numbers in seconds flat. He and Dean used to do it with people who were especially rude or obnoxious. They didn’t do it often, because it was a lot riskier than their normal credit card fraud methods, but it was still highly gratifying.
“You have officially made my day, Sammy,” Dean said contentedly, and cranked up AC/DC on the stereo as they hit the interstate, thankfully later than the normal morning commute. There were thirty-four Lyons in the phone book, so they had some searching to do, and not much time to do it in.
~*~*~*~
“So we’ve got a match?” Dean asked as he walked next to Sam towards the car.
He’d gotten another nosebleed in the Cook County Clerk’s office, but thankfully it was *after* he’d found what he was looking for. Pamela Elizabeth Lyon, nineteen. Daughter to Edward and Patricia. Mother deceased. One half brother, just a year and a half old, by Pamela’s step-mother, Deborah.
“Yeah, I found her. She lives in Berwyn,” Sam replied, and eased into the Impala with his head tilted up.
“Am I going to have to strip search you?” Dean demanded as he turned the key in the ignition. Sam eyed him in surprise, still holding the Kleenex against his nose.
“For what?” Sam asked. It annoyed him that Dean could make him feel guilty, even when he didn’t do anything wrong. That he knew of.
“More Benedryl, you lightweight. You’re not still trying to suppress the visions, are you?”
“Dude, it’s just been a little over a day,” Sam protested nasally.
“You’re not, right?” Dean persisted as he began to drive.
He kept shooting concerned sidelong glances, his eyes lingering on Sam’s bloodied tissue, but it was clear he was trying hard not to stare. Sam pretended to ignore him as he looked over the street maps to direct him to Pamela’s house.
“I’m not,” Sam said after figuring out the quickest route to get there. They were less than a half an hour away.
Even though it was brisk out, it wasn’t miserable like Chicago was capable of getting. Instead, it was crisp. There were small clusters of leaves still left in the trees, but they’d long since lost their fall splendor.
Although it was cool out, and getting towards late afternoon, there were a lot more people walking about than Sam had expected. They seemed to be mostly suits, both men and women, who clearly worked in the business district, and college age kids, with back packs full of books and bundled up in trendy, logo emblazoned sweatshirts or baggy ‘not trying’ clothes that only the professionally unemployed could get away with.
“So how do we go about this? I mean, the parents aren’t going to be too forthcoming with us, considering they’re the ones who drugged their little girl and all,” Dean asked as Sam watched one small cluster of college students standing just outside a Starbucks, both hands wrapped around their warm cups to help stave off the chill. It made him nearly smile, but also a little sad, that he thought of them as kids in his mind.
Then he saw her. Standing in the center of the group. Still in that damn white dress of hers. Staring right at him. So beautiful. He liked her hair like this, soft and flowing. She looked ethereal, and had her arms wrapped around her torso, as if she felt the cold a little. It took everything in Sam not to tell Dean to stop the car, to get out and try to go to her, to see if she was real. He fought off the familiar tugs of grief as he regretfully let his eyes slide past her and tried to focus on what street they were coming up to when he was suddenly slammed against his seatbelt.
“That’s it!” Dean snarled.
Alarmed, Sam looked around to see what had caused his brother to practically slam on the brakes and pull over to the side of the street. “Dean?” he asked, bewildered. “What’s going on? Did you think of something?”
“What the hell was that look?” Dean asked his brother, who’d finally pulled the tissue away to find no fresh blood.
“What look?” Sam asked, frowning.
“You think I don’t know your facial ticks? That I don’t see when you tense up so tight I think you might snap in half? What are you seeing out there when you do that, Sam? Talk to me,” he practically begged.
If it weren’t for the fact that Dean looked terrified, Sam knows he’d probably lose his temper with his brother at his hypocrisy. It wasn’t that long ago that it was Sam begging, and damn if Dean hadn’t shut him down but good. But Dean didn’t beg, not like this, and Sam felt the anger leave as quickly as it had come. When Dean asked like *this*, Sam couldn’t help but want to do everything in his power to ease the look of distress on his brother’s face.
“Dean…” Sam began, but realized he had no idea what to say.
“What are you seeing, Sam?” Dean asked again, his voice thick with emotion. Sam closed his eyes.
“I see Jess,” he admitted, his voice breaking.
“What?” Dean asked.
“I mean… Just for a second. I see Jess,” Sam confessed.
“As in, a ghost?” Dean asked, frowning and automatically turning to look back over his shoulder at the students who’d since dispersed, heading in the opposite direction from the Impala.
“I don’t know,” Sam said, his voice still deep with suppressed emotions.
“Does she ever say anything to you? Approach you?” Dean hesitantly asked. Sam shook his head.
“No, never. And when I try to take a closer look, she’s always gone.”
“Do you think…” Dean began, then stopped. Clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to ask. Sam helped him out.
“That I’m hallucinating? That it’s all in my head? That she’s not really there? Hell yeah, I’ve wondered about it. Is that it? I have no idea. It started happening around the same time I started actively trying to suppress the visions, so I’m kind of hoping that it’ll eventually stop. Just like I’m hoping these nosebleeds quit,” Sam admitted.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Dean asked, looking hurt.
“What was I supposed to say? Hey, Dean, I think I’m seeing Jess! But really, I’m fine! It’s just one more freaky thing to add to my repertoire,” Sam said bitterly and scrubbed at his face in frustration.
Dean sat next to him, letting the engine idle, and Sam watched him warily as a myriad of expressions flashed across his brother’s face, before settling on a gentle look Sam hadn’t seen in a long time. It was the expression Dean used to get a lot when Sam was little. Dean in full big brother mode. There’d been times when he’d been a teenager that it had driven him nuts. Now it just made his heart hurt. God he’d missed his brother.
“I’ve been a shit head. I admit that. Yeah, Sam, I hate this Shining thing of yours, but that’s because there’s nothing I can do to help you with it. You think I like to see you in pain? Seeing people dying?” Dean asked.
“Dean…” Sam began, frowning, but Dean put up a hand.
“No. Let me finish. I’m sorry I called you a freak, Sam. I was trying to lighten things up, but knew as soon as I said it, that it hit home. I don’t think that. Not really. Am I terrified? Hell yeah. I have no idea what to do to help, and you know me, Sam. Being helpless is not something I do well.”
“I know, Dean,” Sam began, but Dean shook his head. He wasn’t done.
“I know I’ve been shutting you out, and I’m sorry. I know you probably want to punch me when I keep making you talk about this stuff. I can see how uncomfortable it makes you feel, and I know I’m the reason you’re reluctant. Some brother I am, huh?” Dean’s face tensed up in self recrimination, his tone bitter. Sam opened his mouth to protest, but snapped it back shut again at his brother’s expression.
“It freaks me out, and I’m not the one with the damn visions. So what must it be doing for you?”
Sam wanted to say something, but had no idea what would help ease his brother’s guilt. Dean was right. Sam was freaked out, and had been spending the past month practically trying to wish it away. Which, when Sam thought about it, made him feel about five years old.
“But you’re not now,” Sam finally said, and hated how small his voice sounded. Dean flinched.
“Yeah, Sam. I’m not now. I’ve been watching you quietly fade away for over a month now, and I’m done with that shit. You’re too skinny, and how much blood have you lost anyway?” Dean asked, pointing to the tissue still in Sam’s hand. Sam went to say something, but Dean interrupted.
“Don’t answer. It was rhetorical. My point is that it isn’t going away. Like it or not, it’s a part of you, and right now, it’s messing you up. And part of the reason why is because I’ve been not dealing. With this. With you. With dad. But that stops now. Well, some of it,” he quickly amended, then went on. “You’re not in this alone, Sam. We’re all we’ve got, and we’re going to figure this out, okay?”
Sam took a long, shuddering sigh, and looked over at Dean. “What if it’s something evil? What if it’s not me at all?” Sam asked quietly. “I only have visions that are somehow tied to the Demon or other people like me. That’s pretty specific. If it was a gift, wouldn’t it be a bit more global, like Missouri? And wouldn’t it have shown up a lot sooner?” He didn’t know what the expression was on his face, but Dean was wide eyed with emotion.
“Evil doesn’t give, Sam, it takes. Even when people think they’re getting something for nothing, they’re not. Whatever that demon wants… I don’t think it gave those abilities to you. It *wants* them, to use or corrupt, or whatever, but I think you would have had them anyway, even if the Demon had never showed,” Dean said with quiet conviction. “It just messed with them, somehow.”
Sam leaned his head back and took a deep breath, then tilted his head to the side, feeling exhausted and yet oddly lighter as well. “Jesus, is this what you feel like when I do this shit?” he asked. Dean snorted.
“Sucks, don’t it?” he asked, a small smile beginning to light up his face.
“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “It does.”
“I don’t know about you, but I feel better knowing what’s going on with your Shining thing. I thought you had a brain tumor or something, what with all those nose bleeds,” he said, and Sam frowned.
“Yikes.”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed sarcastically. “So no more secrets, okay? No matter how weird.” He looked so earnest, and Sam realized he had the power to make Sam cave on things just as easily as he could with Dean.
“What about Jess?” Sam asked, and watched as Dean chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully.
“You don’t see her now, right?” Dean asked. Sam shook his head.
“No, I only see her for a second before she disappears.”
“Honestly?” Dean asked after a moment’s thought, and continued at Sam’s nod. “I think you’re right. Give your body time to get back to normal before worrying about it. Hopefully it’s a psychic fatigue thing or something.”
“Psychic fatigue thing?” Sam repeated, his lips curving in a smile.
“That’s a technical term, bitch,” Dean said seriously, then laughed. “So, done with the touchy feely stuff for now?”
“God yes,” Sam moaned.
“Let’s go see what life is like for the Lyons now that they’ve turned their daughter over to evil. Maybe it’s meatloaf night. And later, if we’re lucky, a little breaking and entering?” Dean asked, like he was planning the menu of a tantalizing dinner. Sam smiled wide, and Dean’s answering grin felt just as bright.
“Hell yeah,” Sam agreed.
“That’s the spirit,” Dean teased, and pulled the Impala back into traffic, and had the nerve to snicker as Sam groaned at the joke.