ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2010-07-09 12:31 am
ratherastory) wrote2010-07-09 12:31 am
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Nihil Inherit, Chapter 4: Break On Through To The Other Side
Chapter 3
Master Post
Chapter 4: Break On Through To The Other Side
“What the hell happened back there?”
They've been driving most of the night, too keyed up to want to stop even though they really should. Dean makes a helpless gesture with his hands.
“The hell if I know. The demon started spouting off about how it was her fault their kids died, and Tamara lost it. Went after it and tried to tear out its throat with her teeth before we even knew what she was up to. Never had a chance,” he adds, unable to keep the regret from his voice.
“Shit.”
“You said it.”
“You think Isaac's going to be okay?”
“Not a chance.”
“Yeah.”
Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “And then that Ruby chick showing up with the knife? What the fuck, man? I feel like we've just stepped into the Twilight Zone. What kind of knife can kill a demon, anyway?”
“I didn't think anything like that even existed before today,” Sam says, and it almost doesn't feel like a lie. “We should ask Bobby, maybe he'll know... but he probably would have said something by now if he had. I mean... we could've used something like that before, you know? It's not something he would've kept from us.”
“No, it isn't” Dean agrees, looking at the sign post flashing by. He bites his lip, changes the subject. “We're not far, but even I know it's not polite to knock on someone's door at one o'clock in the morning.”
“You want to stop somewhere? Get a drink?” Sam keeps his tone carefully neutral.
“We don't have to,” his brother doesn't even bother to mask the reluctance in his voice.
“No, it's cool. You can even make fun of me to the bartender for not drinking. You get one freebie,” Sam offers, “and then all bets are off. Especially if it's a cute girl.”
Dean just nods, but Sam can see some of the tension bleed out of him. Going out to a bar has always been Dean's way of unwinding after a hunt, and it seems needlessly mean to deny him his means of blowing off steam just because some doctor told Sam he couldn't drink. The thing with the visions sucks enough as it is, no reason to punish Dean in the process, Sam reasons. He watches Dean saunter into the bar, all swagger and charm, shoving the latest round of horrors into the dark recesses of his mind, and feels an unexpected surge of warmth in his chest. Dean glances back at him, and his eyes widen. Then his mouth twists into a smirk.
“What?”
“What 'what'?” Sam rejoins, feeling suddenly stupid and awkward.
“You were giving me one of those sappy, doe-eyed looks you get when you're thinking too much.”
“I was not.”
“Was too,” Dean slides easily onto a bar stool, turns to the bartender, who is, disappointingly, an older man in a white t-shirt. “I'll have a PBR, or failing that, whatever you have on tap.” He jerks a thumb at Sam. “He'll have the girliest drink you've got, and make it a virgin.”
The bartender doesn't bat an eye. “Orange juice it is.”
Sam shakes his head. “Make it a Coke, please?”
“No problem.”
“So what's going through that freakish head of yours that's making you go all gooey?” Dean's like a dog with a bone, and Sam ducks his head, embarrassed, but he smiles in spite of himself.
“I dunno. I was just thinking it's been a while since we did this, is all. You, me, drinks, no research. Just us.”
“Really?” Dean's eyebrows shoot to his hairline as he considers the question. “That long?”
Sam shrugs. “Maybe not that long, but long enough.” Years. “I kind of missed it.”
“All right, Francis,” Dean grins, and Sam can tell he's pleased and trying not to show it. “Have your girl moment.” He clinks the neck of his beer bottle against Sam's can of Coke, and Sam returns the gesture as best he can.
“Thanks.”
“Don't mention it. Now, you nurse your five-dollar Coke. That pool table's looking mighty inviting. I'm going to make us some easy cash, and then we're going to find the closest motel.”
Sam easily catches the Impala's keys as Dean tosses them, tucks them in his pocket, then turns on his stool to lean against the bar and watch as his brother saunters over to the pool table, all easy smiles, and grabs a cue. He takes a sip of his drink, feels some of his own tension drain away, and settles in to watch, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Tells himself he just imagined the guy in a trench coat in his peripheral vision.
*
The sky is a piercing blue above Sam's head, white clouds reflected in the pristine surface of the lake at his feet. He's standing on a dock, the reddish brown wood standing out starkly against the green of the trees on the shore, and all he can hear in the still hush of the morning is the sound of birds, the whisper of a light breeze among the branches, the faraway call of a loon. He sinks slowly to sit cross-legged on the dock, stares out over the water, lets his eyes fall shut. It's peaceful here, he thinks. He's dressed in nothing but a t-shirt and swim trunks, the morning air cool against his skin.
A moment later he's aware of a presence next to him. He looks up, unsurprised to see the man from the diner standing there, hands clasped behind his back, staring out over the water.
“I'm dreaming, aren't I?”
“Yes.”
“Where is this place?”
“It's somewhere I once found your brother. He seemed to find the memory enjoyable, and so I thought perhaps you would, too.”
Sam huffs with silent laughter. “I remember this place. Dad rented a cabin for the summer. Dean and I spent the summer swimming in the lake, chasing each other through the woods. Dean tried to teach me to fish, and I cried when he speared one of those poor worms on the hook and refused to have anything to do with the process. He never caught anything, anyway. There aren't any fish in this lake.”
“I think it may have been the principle of the thing.”
“Sure,” Sam agrees easily. “So why are we here?”
“We need to talk.”
“Uh-huh. So talk.”
“Not here.”
“Why not? Seems like if there was any place we could talk unimpeded, it would be in my dreams.”
The man shakes his head. “Someone might be listening.”
Sam feels a vague pang of discomfort, as though somewhere far away, his body is rebelling against contradictory knowledge again. “This happened before.”
“Not exactly. The last time, I was in your brother's dream.”
“And someone overheard?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing you ever want to know.”
Sam uncrosses his legs, lets his bare feet dangle in the water, watching the surface ripple, distorting his reflection and that of the man standing next to him.
“Are you ever going to tell me what's going on?” he asks finally.
“Eventually. I am still hoping you will remember on your own. It will make things easier for both of us.”
“It's more than the fact that I was dead, isn't it?” he kicks his feet gently in the water, gripping the edge of the dock with both hands to keep from falling in. “All these weird feelings... like I've lived through it all before, or through a slightly different version. Like I stepped through the looking-glass.”
“I fail to see the relevance of mirrors to your situation.”
Sam scrunches up his face, decides he really doesn't want to explain Lewis Carroll to this guy. “I just mean that this is some weird, alternate version of something I feel like I'm supposed to know anyway. I've already lived through all this, haven't I?”
“In a way, you have.”
“Is that why I'm sick all the time? Having seizures? I mean, I wasn't like this before. Something has to be causing it. Is it because I'm reliving all this?”
“In a way. You're correct in assuming there is a temporal component to the dissonance you're experiencing.”
Sam looks up. “And what does that mean?”
“I can't tell you,” the man says simply, and Sam pinches the bridge of his nose.
“You're very frustrating to talk to.”
“So you and your brother have said.”
“When did you speak to Dean?”
“At a different time.”
“Well, that wasn't vague at all,” Sam doesn't bother to mask the sarcasm in his voice. “Are you at least going to tell me your name?”
“I think you will find it out on your own soon enough. When you do, we will talk again. There is a great deal we need to discuss.”
“But not here.”
“Not here,” the guy agrees, and hands him a small piece of paper, neatly folded in half. “Go to this location. If I can, I will be there.”
“What do you mean, if you can?”
“I will do my best to be there, in one form or another.”
Sam takes the paper, glances down to see what's written on it, and isn't surprised when he finds the man has disappeared by the time he looks up again. He puts the paper down on the dock, confident it will stay where he puts it, and lets himself slip into the water. He swims out into the lake with slow, sure strokes, flips onto his back once he's reached what he thinks is the centre, closes his eyes, and simply lets himself float.
*
Sam cracks open one eye to find the room still plunged in darkness. The clock tells him it's still way too stupidly early to even think of getting up, and given the amount of beer Dean consumed earlier, there's no way they're going to be going anytime soon. He looks over at Dean's bed, is startled to see it empty. There's no light coming from under the bathroom door, but all their gear is where they left it when they stumbled in two hours ago.
He reaches for his cell phone, fumbles with it for a moment before hitting the speed dial with Dean's number. His brother answers after two rings.
“Sam? What's wrong?”
He can't help snapping. “Where are you?”
“Not far,” Dean's tone is defensive. “Just went to get some air. You okay?”
“Fine, except for waking up and finding you gone without so much as a goddamned note.”
“Jeez, Dad. I didn't realize I had to account for my every move to you. I just went for a walk. You were asleep, and it's not like I planned to be gone long. Next time I'll wake your sorry ass up at four thirty in the morning, and you don't get to bitch at me.”
“Right, okay, fine. And since when do you go for walks, anyway?”
“Bite me.”
“Love you too.”
“Bitch.”
“Jerk.”
“Go back to sleep, Sam. I'll be back in twenty minutes, tops.”
Sam flips his phone closed, pulls the thin blanket back over himself before settling back onto his bed. It's weird, having this sort of conversation, when he's almost entirely certain the roles should have been reversed.
*
Bobby calls far too early the next morning with more bad news.
“You know, if we didn't know the guy from when we were little kids, I'd swear he was some sort of supernatural harbinger of doom,” Dean complains as they head out for breakfast, tossing their gear in the car. “It's like he doesn't know how to deliver good news. There's got to be something wrong with the fact that he never ever tells us anything we want to hear.”
“More signs of demon activity?”
Dean nods. “Yep. Some sort of cult committing mass-suicide out in Utah. At least, that's what the police are saying. Except, of course, it wasn't a cult. It was just some tiny church in a small town, and because no one can explain why all those people suddenly died they've decided 'cult' is the best explanation for it. The couple of witnesses they left behind are out of their minds, according to reports, talking about black smoke and that everyone's eyes turned black before they started killing each other.”
Sam shakes his pills out into his hand and washes them down with a swallow of coffee, can't think of anything to say that'll erase that particular horror from his mind. Dean raises an eyebrow at the coffee cup, but doesn't comment, probably deciding that the minimal risks associated with caffeine are preferable to having a coffee-deprived little brother around. Sam makes a face, takes another sip of his coffee. He's not sure the pills are working at all, but the side effects are already starting, complete with dry mouth and extra nausea as a bonus.
“You feeling okay?”
“Yeah. Just a little fed up with this crap, but I'm feeling fine enough.”
“You sure? 'Cause if you need a bit of time...”
“Dean, seriously, I'm okay,” Sam rolls his eyes. “I slept fine, my head doesn't hurt for the first time in days, and for once I think I might be able to stomach breakfast without puking. I'm fine,” he injects as much certainty and reassurance into his tone has he can muster, and finally Dean nods.
“Okay, then. You'll forgive me if I'm a little worried.”
Sam huffs, smiling in spite of himself. “What, about your kid brother who came back from the dead with some weird supernatural form of epilepsy? What's there to worry about?”
“Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking,” Dean makes a face. “That's not funny, by the way. And no, don't say it's kind of funny, because it's really not,” he stabs viciously at a sausage on his plate.
“The pig's been dead for a while, Dean. No need to go for a kill shot there.”
“Bite me.”
“Anyway, we should check on those hunters, see what's going on with that. Any of 'em live nearby?”
“There's a couple not too far, but I figure these guys can handle themselves for an extra twenty-four hours. I'm more concerned about the fact that our mysterious friend in the trench coat has an all-access pass to your freaky head. What's up with that?”
“You make him sound like a skeevy flasher.”
“If it walks like a duck...”
“Dean.”
“What? The guy follows you around, passes notes like a lovesick eighth grader, and obviously knows what's going on around here, even if he's not sharing with the class. It's creepy, is what it is.”
“I'm pretty sure he's on our side, for what it's worth.”
“It's not worth much,” Dean mutters darkly. “Anyway, I'm not walking into anything blind. Bobby says this Pamela chick knows her stuff, so if she can give us a lead on who or what this guy is, then I say let's go with that plan, rather than your meet-the-sketchy-guy-we-know-nothing-about-in-a-place-of-his-choosing plan. Because, let me tell you, your plan sucks.”
“All right, fine. I kind of want to know what's going on with him, too.”
“And that Ruby chick, for that matter,” Dean says.
“Yeah, sure. Because one mystery person in our lives isn't enough.”
“And they're all hanging around you. You're like a freak-magnet.”
“Shut up.”
“All right, then,” Dean shoves the last of his toast into his mouth, muffling his next words. “Let's get this show on the road, shall we?”
*
The few reputable psychics that Sam knows all seem to have one thing in common, apart from the psychic thing: they all seem to live perfectly ordinary, white-bread lifestyles, in small two-storey houses planted solidly on small lots with well-tended lawns. It's only the frauds who seem to gravitate toward motor homes and seedy downtown apartments, and in the hunting world, it's weird to him to find an entire sub-category of people who manage not to live on the outskirts of the regular world.
Pamela Barnes' house looks like it could just as easily belong to a dentist or an accountant. Small and neat, with blue-trimmed windows contrasting brightly with the freshly-painted white clapboard. In the early afternoon sun, it all feels so normal that for a moment Sam considers turning away, leaving with this perfect picture still clear and crisp in his mind. Dean bounces up the stairs to the front porch, nipping that idea in the bud; he stands in front of the screen door and leans on the doorbell until Sam smacks his hand away.
“Dude, quit that!”
“What?”
“For one, she's not deaf. Also, it's rude.”
“Lighten up. I just don't want to have to come back later just because she missed the doorbell.”
“God, it's like you were born in a box.”
The door opens, and an attractive woman with shoulder-length black hair and pretty grey eyes rimmed with thick lashes steps out onto the porch. She's older than they are, but not by much, Sam guesses, maybe in her mid-thirties, dressed in form-fitting blue jeans and a striped shirt hanging open over a grey camisole and knotted at the waist. Pamela Barnes gives them both an appreciative once-over, shifting her weight so that she's standing with one hip jutting out in a deliberately provocative gesture. Sam swallows hard, closes his eyes briefly as his mind imposes a brief flash of her screaming and writhing on the floor of her living room, light pouring from her eyes and mouth.
“Mm-mm-mmm,” she murmurs, oblivious to his inner turmoil. She saunters around them in a move that's so predatory that Sam finds himself cringing a bit, and even Dean turns on the spot, not quite turning his back on her. “People said you were a good-looking duo, but I always thought the stories were exaggerated. You know how hunters like to talk.”
“Uh,” Sam finds himself stammering. “You must be Pamela?”
She grins, stretches her arms out to the sides. “Live and in the flesh. And you must be Sam Winchester. Out of the fire and back in the frying pan, huh? Makes you a rare individual. You look good, for a dead guy,” she says, and Sam becomes acutely aware that he's gawking, trying to reconcile the horrific images in his mind with the vibrant woman in front of him. “You going to come in, or are you waiting for a written invitation?”
Without waiting for an answer she turns back into the house, making sure they get a very good view of her ass and hips. Dean shoots Sam a look that says he's died and gone to heaven, then follows Pamela inside, grinning like a little kid whose been given the run of an entire candy factory. She leads them into the kitchen, pulls open the fridge.
“Too early for a beer for you boys?”
Dean shrugs and turns his thousand-watt smile on her. “It's five o'clock somewhere.”
She catches her bottom lip in her teeth. “Oh, I like you,” she purrs, and tosses him a bottle, which he cracks open with his ring.
“I'm good, thanks anyway,” Sam holds up a hand when she looks his way.
“Suit yourself,” she pops the cap off another bottle, tilts the contents into her mouth. “So why don't you boys fill me in on what it is you're looking for, exactly? Bobby gave me an idea of what to expect, but I believe in getting my information from the source, when I can.”
“Sammy here can probably fill you in better than I can,” Dean says, leaning on his elbows against her counter and crossing one leg over the other.
She looks at Sam, and for the first time he sees a flicker of uncertainty in her expression. “Penny for your thoughts,” she says, and he flushes, can't quite meet her gaze.
“Yeah, you probably don't want to go there,” he mutters, staring at the blue and white tiles of the kitchen floor, trying to get his stomach to settle from where its been performing cartwheels ever since they set foot in the house. “But I can tell you about the guy... or creature, or whatever, that we're trying to find out about.”
“Suit yourself, Grumpy,” she says again, but her grey eyes are boring into him, and he's almost certain she caught a glimpse of the horrific vision that's been haunting him ever since Dean first mentioned her name. Missouri was able to read surface thoughts, and if Pamela is anywhere near as good as she was, then there's no reason she wouldn't pick up on a vivid image like that. She takes another sip of beer.
“Let's go to my work room.”
*
Most of the main floor of the house is a working space, as it turns out. Pamela keeps her living room looking welcoming, but form follows function, and Sam quickly notes that all the furniture is carefully arranged so that it can be easily moved aside or brought closer together as needed. Candles are tastefully spread out over various surfaces in precise patterns, and the Ouija board on the coffee table has obviously seen a great deal of use. It's a séance room masquerading as a living room.
Pamela bends over to rummage in a cabinet, pulling out a black cloth, and her shirt rides up, revealing a faded tattoo that reads 'Jesse Forever.' Sam isn't the only one to notice, but of course Dean is the one to bring it up.
“So who's Jesse?” he asks.
She laughs, looking over her shoulder. “Well, it wasn't forever.”
“His loss,” Dean flashes her another one of his thousand-watt smiles, and she straightens, moves to stand right in Dean's personal space.
“Might be your gain,” she says, then moves away to spread the altar cloth over the table, moving aside the Ouija board. Dean's expression tells Sam that he's just won the lottery.
“Dude, I am so there,” he whispers to Sam, none too subtly, and Sam just snorts.
“Yeah, she's gonna eat you alive,” he whispers back.
“God, I hope so.”
Pamela glances up at Sam and winks. “You're invited too, Grumpy,” she says, and he feels himself flush crimson as Dean digs an elbow into his ribs.
“You are not invited!”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Sort it out later between the two of you.”
Pamela is all business now, sitting cross-legged in front of the small table, arranging six pillar candles in the center and lighting them. “I Ouija'd my way through a bunch of spirits earlier, trying to get a read on your mystery guy, but no one knows who or what he is, or how he managed to spring you out of the afterlife. So now we're going to pull out the big guns.”
“You're not going to try to summon... him, are you?” Sam asks, suddenly anxious.
“Oh, God no. I'm not summoning anything I don't know into my living room. Bad for insurance claims. No, we're going to have ourselves a little séance, try and get a sneak peek at what this cat really looks like under his human costume.”
“Cat?” Dean smirks.
“Dude, shut up and let her finish.”
Pamela smirks at them both. “Think of it like a crystal ball, only without the actual crystal ball part. Sit, and join hands.”
Sam eases himself onto the floor, wishing that this sort of thing could, just for once, involve sitting in a comfortable chair instead of requiring him to fold himself into a pretzel. He puts one hand in Dean's, waits for Pamela to grasp his other hand.
“I'm going to need something the mystery man touched,” she says, sliding a hand up his thigh, and he jumps, reddening again. At least the blood is going to his head, he tells himself.
“Uh... I don't think he touched me.”
“My mistake.”
Sam pulls the note out of his pocket. “Here. He gave me this.”
“Right.” Pamela grasps his hand, the paper pressed between their palms, closes her eyes, begins to chant. “I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle. I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle...”
Sam feels the table begin to tremble as she repeats the invocation a third time, and her television flickers to life, broadcasting snow and static at ear-splitting levels.
“Pamela...”
She's not listening to him. “Castiel? No, sorry, Castiel, I don't scare easy.”
Dean is holding onto his hand so tightly that his fingernails are digging into Sam's skin. “Castiel?”
“Its name. It's warning me to turn back.”
The table is shaking now, and white-hot pain flashes through Sam's skull. “Pamela, stop! We need to stop this.”
“No, no, I almost got it,” she says, keeps going. “I conjure and command you, show me your face. I conjure and command you, show me your face...”
The pain grows, explodes outward in a blaze of light.
*
Pamela is chanting, her voice barely audible above the noise filling the room. “I conjure and command you, show me your face. I conjure and command you, show me your face. I conjure and command you, show me your face!”
“Maybe we should stop,” Bobby's voice betrays his anxiety and fear, his eyes wide as every single light in the house begins to flicker, and the radio and television burst with static.
“I almost got. I command you, show me your face. Show me your face now!”
The candles flare, flames shooting upward to lick at the ceiling, and Pamela is shrieking in agony, her eyes filled with white-hot flame. She collapses in Bobby's arms, and when her eyelids open again, there's nothing left beneath but empty sockets, red and accusing, blood trickling from her tear ducts.
“I can't see! I can't see!” she sobs. “Oh God!”
There's a flash of light, and this time Sam is holding Pamela on a bed, cradling her in his arms as she chokes on her own blood. Dark glasses have slipped from her face, revealing grey, sightless eyes.
“I know what you did to that demon, Sam,” she whispers in his ear. “I can feel what's inside of you. If you think you have good intentions, think again. I know you think you're doing the right thing, but you're wrong. You're not going to find out until it's too late, how high the price is that you're paying.”
Another flash of light, and Pamela is chanting again, her hand squeezing his fingers. “I almost got it... I conjure and command you, show me your face, now!”
Sam pulls his hand free of hers, lunges across the table at her and pulls her to him in a gesture that instinctively he knows is right, sheltering her with his body, his hand clamped over her eyes, just as the feedback from the television swells to a deafening squeal, the candles flaring impossibly high, the lamp on the nearby table exploding in a shower of sparks.
Silence falls like a curtain.
*
“Sam? Sam!”
He blinks, grateful that the room is dark. The candles are extinguished, and no one's bothered to switch on the lights yet. He's lying on the floor, one leg twisted awkwardly beneath the table, his head pounding. He swallows, tastes copper on his tongue, makes a face. Dean is kneeling over him, his expression pinched and worried, glancing back and forth between him and Pamela, who's still sitting cross-legged by the table, staring at him, her face drained of colour.
“What happened?”
“I think you should be telling us that,” Pamela says, her voice shaking. “What the hell did you do?”
“I didn't ―I don't know,” he tries to sit up, only to set off another jackhammer in his skull, and Dean grabs his elbow to steady him. He looks up at Dean. “Did I―?”
“Have a seizure? No,” Dean says curtly, his voice tight with fear and anger. “You just passed out. What the fuck was that, Sammy?”
“What was what?” God, his head hurts.
“The freaky supernatural slide show we just got. Pamela says it wasn't her, and since you were front and centre, that leaves you. Here,” he reaches in a pocket, pulls out a crumpled tissue and holds it to Sam's face. “Your nose is bleeding again.”
“Thanks,” he takes the tissue from Dean, holds it in place.
“I don't know about you, but I'm going to have a drink.” Pamela gets to her feet, makes her way unsteadily back to the kitchen, where Sam hears the clink of glass as she rummages in cupboards.
“You feeling okay? Can you get up?”
Sam nods. “Yeah. Just a headache,” he says, but he lets Dean leverage him onto Pamela's sofa. The tissue he's holding is already getting soaked through with blood.
“What was she talking about? In that... vision, or whatever.”
“I'm not sure. I think... I think it happened before.”
“Before what?” Dean rubs his hand over his forehead, brings it back over his mouth, anger and worry warring in his eyes.
“Before things changed.” Sam closes his eyes as the whole room tilts sickeningly. “This... it's not how it happened. It was all different before. It burned out her eyes, the last time. I remember.”
“You mean you saw it. Like a vision?”
“No,” he shakes his head, swallowing hard to keep from throwing up, drops his head into his hands. “I lived it. I was here, but it was different. I'm supposed to change things.”
Pamela comes back at that moment, hands them each a glass full of something that's strong enough that Sam doesn't even care what it tastes like. If Dean doesn't approve, he says nothing as Sam tilts the contents down his throat. Pamela drains her glass, refills it from the bottle, drains it again.
“You might have mentioned you were psychic,” she says pointedly, curling her legs beneath her as she settles on the opposite end of the sofa. “And remind me to tear Bobby a new one the next time I see him.”
“It's not his fault. We ―I asked him not to tell anyone. It's not exactly something we want broadcasted around the hunting community,” Sam rubs at his temples. “We have enough trouble already.”
“And now you brought that trouble right across my threshold, so you better start explaining yourself.”
“I'm sorry. I didn't know it would do that.”
Dean snorts. “I thought you already lived this,” and Sam bristles, hurt by his tone.
“No, Dean, that's the point,” he snaps, “it's different this time around.”
“So what is is? Precognition?” Pamela prompts.
“I don't know,” he shrugs. “I can't control it, and... I don't know. I don't think that was part of it. The... psychic stuff, it's always linked to this one demon, and it feels different. I don't... did I hurt you? When I grabbed you?”
She shakes her head, takes another drink. “You never touched me.”
“What? But―”
“All in your mind, kiddo. Whatever that thing was, you literally threw yourself ―your spirit, anyway― between me and it. I should probably thank you, but a girl likes a little warning before getting violated like that, even if you do have a cute ass,” Pamela says drily, and he cringes.
“Sorry. I didn't... I thought ―I didn't know. I didn't do it on purpose.”
“Right.”
“Someone want to fill me in?” Dean breaks in. He's still standing, making a visible effort not to pace, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “What just happened?
“What just happened is I got you the name of your mystery creature,” Pamela doesn't look at him, “but that looks like it might be the least of your problems.”
*
He sees Dean collapse amidst the rubble, and from his vantage point Sam can see that his brother looks small and twisted, like a doll on the floor of a child's room. Sam can't move, can't so much as raise his head off the charred asphalt, can't obey his instinct to run after his brother, make sure he's still breathing, after everything. The angels promised Dean would be unharmed, but he's never trusted their promises. Dark grey clouds roil overhead; the air is heavy with the smell of ozone and sulphur.
It's over, and he can't tell who won. He thinks it might not matter.
He can feel blood oozing from his nose and ears, trickling into his hair. His body is broken, shattered into thousands of pieces, and it hurts beyond anything he's ever felt before, as though he's being pulled apart molecule by molecule. He wants to scream, but his voice has deserted him; he finds himself praying for oblivion, and the air around him hums with sudden electricity. He shuts his eyes as lightning arcs through him, searing past his eyelids, and everything goes dark.
He floats.
In the darkness, he feels a hand clasped over his wrist, anchoring him in place, fingers feeling for his pulse.
“Dean?”
“No, it's not Dean. I am sorry.” It's the same voice, familiar and soothing.
“Where is... did he make it? Tell me he made it.”
“I am sorry.”
His eyes must be gone. He can't cry, can't find it in himself to shed a single tear.
“Am I dead?”
“Almost.”
“I couldn't save him.”
“No.”
“Neither could you.”
“No.”
“I tried so hard...”
“I know. We all did. It was too late, Sam.”
“What if it wasn't?”
There's a pause. “What do you mean?”
“What if we could change it? Can you do it?”
“Perhaps.”
*
Dean is silent as they drive, lips pressed together so tightly they've turned white, both hands gripping the wheel tightly. He's switched off the tape deck, and they've been driving in silence ever since leaving Pamela's. The psychic wasn't nearly as understanding as Sam would have liked, but he can't exactly blame her for tossing them out with a flea in their ear and warning them never to darken her doorstep again. She might come around, or she might not, but he can at least sympathize with her reluctance to have anything to do with a guy who ―albeit involuntarily― invaded her mind and imposed his thoughts on her. Because what he really needed right now, he reflects bitterly, is to become the psychic equivalent of a rapist on top of everything else.
He's so lost in his own thoughts that he lets out a surprised yelp when Dean abruptly wrenches the steering wheel to the side, pulls the Impala over to the shoulder of the highway in a cloud of dust and a screech of brakes. He rolls the car right off the road until two of its wheels are resting in the tall grass next to a sagging barbed wire fence, the noise sending a flock of crows flapping away from the cornfield on the other side in a cacophony of indignant cawing.
“What the hell?” Sam sputters, but Dean is already out of the car, slamming the driver's side door. He scrambles out of the car, leaving his door hanging open. “Dean, what?”
“Okay, I've had it!” his brother is suddenly up in his face, so close that Sam can feel the heat of his breath against his jaw and neck. “I've been trying to give you your damned space, let you come clean on your own, and I'm done now.”
“What?”
“I need you to quit lying to me, Sam.”
“What? I'm not ―I haven't lied to you, Dean.”
It was going to be different, this time. I swore I wouldn't lie to you.
“No? Because it sure feels like it. You've been holding back, ever since... I want it to stop. I need you to tell me what's going on, here.”
“I told you I don't know!”
“Yeah, and I don't buy it. Come on, Sam, I know you!” Dean grabs him by his shirt and shakes him once, hard, before letting go again. “What aren't you telling me?”
He barely keeps himself from lashing back out of pure instinct, turns away with a frustrated huff. “I can't explain it.”
“Try me.”
“No!”
“Sam.”
He stalks several paces along the shoulder of the road, turns back, raises his arms. “Look, I don't know, okay? I'm not hiding anything on purpose. I just... it doesn't make any sense. I can't make it make sense, and I can't explain it to you. Not in words. I can't even explain it to myself. I'm not ―I'm not lying. I'm not holding back on purpose, Dean, I swear to God.”
“So what was that back at Pamela's?”
He lets out a mirthless laugh. “Which part?”
“Why don't you start with the part where Bobby was there and her eyes got burned out of their sockets, except that none of it really happened?”
“You saw that? How?”
“Dude, it was like being in a freaking 3-D IMAX show. Live and in Technicolor. I don't think I could have not seen that if I tried. I think it's permanently seared into my brain,” Dean says with a grimace.
Sam's stomach twists. “I told you everything I can.”
“Yeah, but that doesn't mean you told me everything you know. I know you, Sam, and I know your damned word games. I'm not stupid.”
“I never said you were,” he rubs his face with one hand, suddenly tired. “I'll try, if it's what you really want.” Please don't press this. He's definitely going to lose what little lunch he had.
“I do. You knew what was going to happen. You know what that guy... that thing is. Why won't you just tell me?”
Sam leans against the Impala, bracing himself with both hands, tries to keep his head from spinning as two separate threads of memory intertwine in his mind. “Uh... I think he's... I don't know. I remembered the séance. We did one before. Or we were going to― God. I don't have the right verb tenses for this shit.”
He brings up a hand to rub at his forehead as pain starts to throb behind his eyes. Dean hasn't moved from where he's standing off to the side, so he keeps going doggedly, eyes fixed on the ground. “It was later than this, like over a year. It was all different, you were back, and I didn't know then about Castiel, and she tried to see ―except it burned her eyes right out of their sockets, and I didn't want... she died because of me, because of us, and I couldn't―” the pain intensifies, and he doubles over, just barely managing not to throw up on his shoes. “Shit,” he gasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist.
He stays that way for a few minutes, breathing hard, trying not to be sick again. He feels a hand at his back, and without a word Dean presses a water bottle that's maybe a third full into his hand. He uses the first swig to rinse out his mouth, swallows the rest.
“I'm really scared, Dean,” he admits quietly, twisting the bottle in his hands. “I don't know what's happening to me, and every time I try to figure it out, every time I think I'm getting close, it feels like my mind is trying to rip itself apart.”
“Yeah, I'm starting to get that.”
“I'm not trying to freak you out, here.” I'm trying to save you, even if I don't know what from anymore.
“Bang-up job you're doing.” There's no malice in the words, only a sort of tired resignation, and if Sam's stomach wasn't in knots before it certainly would be now, knowing he's the cause of that tone.
“Sorry.”
You've been saying that a lot, lately. Sam flinches as though Dean spoke the words aloud, shrugs off the questioning look his brother throws his way. There's no way he can even begin to explain the sudden certainty he has that he's spent a year lying to his brother about... something. His mind balks, just shy of the knowledge he can feel is there, just out of his reach. He grits his teeth, tries to force his way past the invisible barrier, certain that if he can just piece together the memories that don't fit, it all just might start to make sense again.
“You gonna hurl again, or do you want to get going?”
Sam opens his mouth to answer, ends up doubled over again as the water he just drank makes an unwelcome reappearance. Dean sighs, leans up against the Impala, folds his arm over his chest in an oddly protective gesture.
“I guess we're waiting, then.”
*
The lines of goofer dust are wearing thin, trickling away grain by grain by grain. The hellhounds are baying at the door, the house trembling to its very foundations under the onslaught. The lace curtains billow and flap as the wind whips through the room, and the last of the dust blows away. The dining room doors burst open, the glass panes shattering as they slam against the walls, and the sound of snarling and snapping fills the room.
“No!” Sam is pinned to the wall, helpless, watching as Dean is thrown against the large oak table.
A woman laughs somewhere off to the side, vindictive and gleeful. “Sick 'im, boys!”
He can't see them, can only watch as Dean's leg is ripped open, as Dean is pulled from the top of the table, as screams of agony are torn from his throat. Blood spurts from a dozen different wounds as the hellhounds rip into him, flaying him alive in the middle of this otherwise tame little suburban home.
“Dean! No!”
Sam screams as his brother dies, trapped like an insect in amber. Lilith is going to kill him, but he no longer cares. He doesn't stop screaming even as he's enveloped in the blinding light he knows means his death, simply prays for it to be over fast so that he doesn't have to watch Dean die.
*
“Sam! For fuck's sake!” Dean is shaking him. “It's a nightmare. Come on, wake up. Sam!”
He comes awake with a jolt, startled so badly out of the nightmare that it feels as though electricity has coursed through his every nerve ending. For a moment he can't breathe, finds himself clinging to Dean for all he's worth, so hard that his fingers are probably going to leave bruises on his brother's shoulders, feels tears pouring down his face. Dean pulls him upright on the motel bed, and Sam huddles against him, knowing he should be embarrassed by just how much comfort he finds leaning against his big brother's broad chest, wrapped up in his arms.
“Easy, Sam. Come on, take a breath, you're fine. It's just a nightmare, you're fine. Breathe, now.”
He manages to take a few gulping breaths, his whole body racked with sobs that he can't keep down no matter how much he tries. “You ―you died,” he chokes. “They ripped you apart. You died and ―I had to watch... and I couldn't ―I couldn't...”
“Hey, hey,” Dean's voice is quiet, soothing. “It's okay. I'm right here. No one's dead, okay? Just a bad dream, nothing else, I promise.”
Sam shakes his head, face still buried in Dean's shirt. “It was real. I was there, it was real.”
Dean tenses up, almost imperceptibly, except that he's holding Sam so tightly that it's impossible for him not to notice. He should be pulling himself together, shouldn't be falling apart like this when they've got bigger problems, but he can't banish the images from his mind, the nightmare playing over and over again until he thinks he might go insane. Dean holds onto him like it's nothing, just lets him cry and shake and hiccup like a child, pats his head once or twice, and the gesture is more soothing than it has any right to be.
“Was it a vision?” Dean asks softly, when he's calmer.
“No,” he forces himself to take a deep breath, to quiet the sobs that are still welling up in his chest. “No, it happened before. I can't... it's different, but I was there. I was there and you died... God.”
Dean pulls away, just far enough so he can hold him at arm's length, hands on Sam's shoulders. “Sam, listen to me. No one is dying, okay? Whatever it is you dreamed about, it wasn't real.”
Sam nods, doesn't trust himself to speak until he's sure he can do it without bursting into tears again. He wipes his eyes with the back of his wrist, sniffles miserably as he realizes his nose is running, as if Dean doesn't have enough ammunition against him as it is. Now, with the morning sunlight streaming in through the window and his brother obviously alive and well in front of him, it's a little more difficult to give credence to the dream, or memory, or whatever it was, no matter how much his mind insists that it was real. Dean gets up from where he's perched on the side of the bed, comes back a moment later with the box of tissues from the bathroom, drops it in his lap.
“Here.”
“Thanks,” Sam blows his nose, scrubs at his eyes with another tissue, grateful that Dean is apparently too worried about him right now to take advantage of the opportunity and mock him to within an inch of his life. “Sorry. I... it kind of... sorry I freaked out.”
“Hey, no worries. It could have been worse, you know. You haven't seized or puked, and your nose isn't bleeding. You bursting into tears like a big girl? Hell, I'm chalking this one up as a win.”
Sam can't help but snort shakily at that. “Pretty low standards, dude.”
His brother shrugs. “Working with what I got. Besides, now I have blackmail material that'll last me for months. Probably even years.”
Sam lets out a huff of irritation, can't quite prevent his lips from quirking into a smile. “Too much to hope that you would let that slide, I guess.”
Dean thumps him on the shoulder. “Are you kidding me? This is gold. Come on, clean yourself up, there, Francis, and I'll buy you breakfast. I'll even let you drink coffee, meds or no, 'cause you've been awfully cranky lately.”
“Gee, thanks,” Sam rolls his eyes.
“You're welcome. Anyway, while you were getting your beauty sleep, I did some thinking about our mysterious friend from the cemetery. I don't know about you, but I'm really tired of all this guessing game and mysterious riddles crap. I'm about ready for some real answers.”
Sam frowns. “What are you getting at?”
Dean grins, his eyes flashing with ill-concealed glee. “I've come up with a plan.”
*
“For the record, I still think this is a terrible plan.”
“Yeah, Sam, I heard you the first ten times. Now shut up and make with the spray-painting. Make Picasso proud.”
They’re in an abandoned warehouse. It's damp and dark, and the dim evening light filtering in through the tiny, grime-encrusted windows casts long, grotesquely twisted shadows along the floor. Water drips from a pipe, collects in dirty puddles at the foot of the walls. The walls are filthy, too, which makes Sam's job of spray-painting them with sigils and symbols that much harder. It's a damp, nasty, forgotten place, not good for much other than breeding rats and summoning mysterious and probably dangerous supernatural entities: pretty typical of Dean's plans, if Sam bothers to think about it. It's not the first time Sam has disagreed with a planned course of action ―that's par for the course with them, really― but it's the first time he's disagreed with Dean's reasoning.
“Seriously, Dean, I don't think trying to trap this guy ―Castiel, whatever― I don't think it's a good idea. We've never dealt with something this powerful before, and I for one don't really want to piss him off, especially since he seems to be on our side.”
“How do you know he is?”
“I don't,” Sam admits, carefully tracing a sigil on the corrugated metal covering the walls with the silver-white spray paint. “Not for sure. It's just a feeling.”
“Yeah, well, your feelings aren't exactly reliable. No offense.”
“Right.”
“You gonna hurl again?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Sam rolls his eyes. He's queasy from the spray paint fumes, but it's nothing compared to the gut-wrenching nausea from before. “There's nothing left to throw up, anyway.”
“Yeah, 'cause that's healthy.”
Dean unzips the duffel bag he brought in with them, begins meticulously arranging every weapon they have on a large trestle table before him. Sam bites his tongue, keeps up the steady motion of his wrist, trying not to let the spray paint bleed too much. Months of tracing devil's traps has given him a lot of practice, but spray-painting a wall isn't the same thing as spray-painting the ground , and these things generally don't work well if the execution is sloppy. They work in silence for several minutes, until finally Sam's impatience gets the best of him.
“Do we really have to wait for him with an entire arsenal? Every time you bring a weapon to this sort of situation, it always escalates. Ever notice that?”
“Name one time that happened.”
“Max Miller.”
“That doesn't count. He was a psychopath.”
“Who was mostly under control until he saw your gun and lost his shit.”
“Okay, that was one time. Exception that proves the rule.”
“The bank in Milwaukee.”
“Okay, but that situation was already jacked. It would have escalated no matter what.”
“Whatever, I'm not arguing about this with you,” Sam pauses in his work to pinch the bridge of his nose, trying to will away the headache that's building up behind his eyes.
“All right, then. Shut up and let me set this up, then.”
It takes another couple of hours before they're ready, and two entire cans of spray paint. By the time they're done, the walls of the warehouse are covered every arcane symbol and sigil Sam knows, and a number of others he's never heard of and which must have taken Dean hours of researching online to figure out ―or maybe Dean just called Bobby, which would make more sense than the thought of Dean staying up all night to research without looking any the worse for wear. The evening has turned into night, the last red tendrils of sunlight long faded over the horizon, and the air has turned unseasonably cool, making Sam shiver and shove his hands deeper into the pockets of his hoodie to stave off the chill.
For all the prep work that went into it, the ritual itself is disarmingly simple. Sam holds very still while his brother performs the summoning ―this aspect of the job has never been Dean's strong suit, and the last thing Sam wants is to wreck his concentration at a crucial juncture― and it occurs to him that it's probably precisely because the prep work was so complex that the rest of the ritual is a simple chant, barely lasting a minute, if that long. The more solid the groundwork, the easier the rest of it, same as everything else in life. His heart feels as though it's trying to make a getaway through his throat, and he swallows convulsively, mouth even drier than usual.
Nothing happens.
Sam glances over at Dean. “You sure you did the ritual right?” Dean just glares, and he shrugs. “Fine, sorry. Touchy.”
It starts as a low humming that Sam can feel coiling in his gut, a tingling in his extremities, then rises in pitch to a keening whine, higher and shriller until he has to clap his hands over his ears, eyes screwed shut against the mounting pressure. For a moment the pressure becomes unbearable, and he feels himself losing his grip on consciousness, and just as suddenly it eases up as the great heavy doors at the far end of the warehouse burst open. The huge industrial lights overhead burst in a shower of sparks, one by one, as a solitary figure walks toward them, trench coat fluttering around his calves.
Out of the corner of his eye Sam sees Dean bring up his shotgun to bear on the man ―a reaction born of fear and surprise more than anything― and before he can do much more than put out a hand in a warning to stop, Dean has emptied the gun into the man's chest. Sam flinches, but the buckshot has no visible effect except to tear some sizeable holes in the man's shirt. The man stops, looks down with an expression that looks like mild surprise, perhaps tinged with disapproval, then lifts his head once more and continues his advance. Dean backs up involuntarily, just one step, but it's enough to show Sam that his brother is seriously rattled.
The man stops just short of Dean, takes his shotgun away with an effortless flick of his wrist, and splinters the weapon between his hands. Dean swallows, stays perfectly still, while the remains of his weapon clatter to the floor. The man spares a glance for Sam, turns back, tilting his head to the side in a gesture that's oddly familiar.
“Hello, Dean.”
*
For a moment, there's silence. Dean is the first to find his voice.
“Who are you?”
“Castiel.”
Sam is more than a little impressed with Dean for keeping his cool. For his part, he's just about ready to pass out, although he's doing his level best to stay upright and conscious.
“Yeah, we figured that much,” Dean rolls his eyes. “I mean, what are you?”
Castiel turns to Sam, but Sam is sure he's not really speaking to him when he replies. “I am the one who saved you from perdition.”
Dean is practically quivering with impatience. “Are you going to quit jerking around and answer the question? Who. Are. You?”
The reply is quiet, and sends a thrill through Sam. “I am an angel of the Lord.”
Dean snorts. “Get the hell out of here. There's no such thing.”
“This is your problem, Dean,” Castiel's voice cuts through the silence. “You have no faith.”
There's a flash of light whose source Sam can't pinpoint, and he swallows hard as the shadow of two enormous wings unfurls slowly across the walls, the span so great that it dwarfs the figure beneath them, hinting at a power beyond human understanding.
Dean manages, somehow, not to look cowed, although his Adam's apple bobs slightly as he swallows. “Neat light show. You don't look much like an angel.”
“Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. For the rest, it is too overwhelming.”
“That's why you warned Pamela away,” Sam finds his voice again, can barely bring himself to speak above a whisper.
“So, what, uh, visage are you in now?” Dean smirks. “Holy tax accountant?”
Sam chokes, but Castiel seems unperturbed. He looks down, gestures to his body. “This? This is... a vessel.”
“You're possessing some poor bastard?” Dean is shocked, and Sam knows they're both thinking of Meg Masters, choking on her own blood on the floor of Bobby's study.
“I don't think it's like that, Dean...”
“Shut up, Sam.”
“He's a devout man. He prayed for this. Gave his consent to serve Heaven.”
“Yeah, well,” Dean steps away, deliberately turns his back and begins packing away their gear. Pure bravado, but it's served him in the past. “We're not buying what you're selling. What are you really?”
The angel frowns, perplexed. “I told you.”
“Right. And you expect us to believe that an angel showed up just in time to bring Sam back from the dead? Why would you do that? It's not like God has shown any interest in the goings-on down here before. Why save Sam now?”
Suddenly Sam gets it, the revelation hitting him so hard it feels like a physical blow. The warehouse swims before him, and he feels his legs turn to water, has to concentrate hard to keep his knees from buckling.
“Dean...”
“Sam, come on. Is it too much to want a straight answer?”
“No, Dean... it's not ―it's not me he was trying to save.”
That gets Dean's attention. “What the hell are you talking about?”
It's the same sickening feeling of being torn in two, of watching two separate sets of events take place at the same time. He feels a trickle of something wet and warm over his lip, tastes copper on his tongue, and when he gingerly touches his fingertips to his upper lip he's not at all surprised when they come away crimson. He looks at Castiel, finds the angel's bright blue eyes boring into his.
“That's what this is, right? I'm not... this isn't how this happened.”
“Yes,” the angel jerks his head once in agreement.
“Someone in here had better start making sense, or so help me I'm gonna start throwing punches!”
Blood is seeping over his fingers, trickling into his mouth and threatening to gag him. “They changed things. The angels. I'm the one with the demon blood ―tainted. It's because of me it all went wrong...”
“Demon blood?” Dean interrupts, but Sam holds up a hand, pleading with his brother to let him finish.
“I'm not the one who was supposed to be saved,” he presses his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose as his headache throbs with renewed vigour, making dark spots dance before his eyes. “It was you.”
*
It's dark, and there's a hand wrapped around Sam's wrist, strong fingers searching for a pulse. He thinks he ought to be in a lot more pain than he is
“Dean?”
“No, it's not Dean. I am sorry.” Castiel's grip is firm, but it still feels weaker than it should be.
“Where is... did he make it? Tell me he made it.”
“I am sorry.”
Sam opens his eyes. “I can't see.”
“You were directly in the archangels' path. Your body is broken.”
“I'm dying, aren't I?”
“Yes.”
“Michael promised he'd spare him. He promised.”
Castiel doesn't answer, and Sam feels his fingers shift ever so slightly, and the pressure is comforting.
“He died because of me,” he finds it surprisingly easy to talk, until he realizes that they're not communicating aloud. “So many times. It was supposed to be me, Cas, back at Cold Oak. If he'd let me... none of this would have happened.”
“It is too late, now. There is no use regretting what cannot be changed. You can rest now, Sam.”
“Cas... tell me the truth. If he'd let me die ―stay dead― he wouldn't have...”
“The Seals would still have broken. Destiny cannot be changed.”
“But Dean wouldn't have died. He wouldn't have gone to Hell for me,” Sam clings to the thought as though it might save him from drowning.
“I can't say for certain. But no, I don't think so.”
“Cas... can we change it?”
“It is too late,” Castiel repeats.
“What if it wasn't?”
There's a pause. The angel's voice is hesitant when he speaks again. “Do you understand what you are asking?”
“I do, Cas. I understand. Can you do it?”
“I can't send you back. Not like before. My powers are all but gone, here.”
“Can you do anything?” Sam feels himself slipping, concentrates as hard as he can on the angel's voice.
“I can send you back to your body as it was then, but... I can't guarantee that your mind will remain intact. Angels are not temporal beings, but you are. The human mind can't encompass this kind of paradox. There will be... damage.”
“But it might work.”
“It might. It might not change anything, and you will likely still find yourself here, in the end. I don't think your destiny can be altered Sam.”
“But Dean's can.”
“Perhaps.”
“It's worth trying. I know how you feel about him, Cas. Tell me you don't want this as much as I do.”
“You are sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, then. I will try.”
*
“Sammy, what did you do?”
*
Chapter 5
Master Post
Chapter 4: Break On Through To The Other Side
“What the hell happened back there?”
They've been driving most of the night, too keyed up to want to stop even though they really should. Dean makes a helpless gesture with his hands.
“The hell if I know. The demon started spouting off about how it was her fault their kids died, and Tamara lost it. Went after it and tried to tear out its throat with her teeth before we even knew what she was up to. Never had a chance,” he adds, unable to keep the regret from his voice.
“Shit.”
“You said it.”
“You think Isaac's going to be okay?”
“Not a chance.”
“Yeah.”
Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “And then that Ruby chick showing up with the knife? What the fuck, man? I feel like we've just stepped into the Twilight Zone. What kind of knife can kill a demon, anyway?”
“I didn't think anything like that even existed before today,” Sam says, and it almost doesn't feel like a lie. “We should ask Bobby, maybe he'll know... but he probably would have said something by now if he had. I mean... we could've used something like that before, you know? It's not something he would've kept from us.”
“No, it isn't” Dean agrees, looking at the sign post flashing by. He bites his lip, changes the subject. “We're not far, but even I know it's not polite to knock on someone's door at one o'clock in the morning.”
“You want to stop somewhere? Get a drink?” Sam keeps his tone carefully neutral.
“We don't have to,” his brother doesn't even bother to mask the reluctance in his voice.
“No, it's cool. You can even make fun of me to the bartender for not drinking. You get one freebie,” Sam offers, “and then all bets are off. Especially if it's a cute girl.”
Dean just nods, but Sam can see some of the tension bleed out of him. Going out to a bar has always been Dean's way of unwinding after a hunt, and it seems needlessly mean to deny him his means of blowing off steam just because some doctor told Sam he couldn't drink. The thing with the visions sucks enough as it is, no reason to punish Dean in the process, Sam reasons. He watches Dean saunter into the bar, all swagger and charm, shoving the latest round of horrors into the dark recesses of his mind, and feels an unexpected surge of warmth in his chest. Dean glances back at him, and his eyes widen. Then his mouth twists into a smirk.
“What?”
“What 'what'?” Sam rejoins, feeling suddenly stupid and awkward.
“You were giving me one of those sappy, doe-eyed looks you get when you're thinking too much.”
“I was not.”
“Was too,” Dean slides easily onto a bar stool, turns to the bartender, who is, disappointingly, an older man in a white t-shirt. “I'll have a PBR, or failing that, whatever you have on tap.” He jerks a thumb at Sam. “He'll have the girliest drink you've got, and make it a virgin.”
The bartender doesn't bat an eye. “Orange juice it is.”
Sam shakes his head. “Make it a Coke, please?”
“No problem.”
“So what's going through that freakish head of yours that's making you go all gooey?” Dean's like a dog with a bone, and Sam ducks his head, embarrassed, but he smiles in spite of himself.
“I dunno. I was just thinking it's been a while since we did this, is all. You, me, drinks, no research. Just us.”
“Really?” Dean's eyebrows shoot to his hairline as he considers the question. “That long?”
Sam shrugs. “Maybe not that long, but long enough.” Years. “I kind of missed it.”
“All right, Francis,” Dean grins, and Sam can tell he's pleased and trying not to show it. “Have your girl moment.” He clinks the neck of his beer bottle against Sam's can of Coke, and Sam returns the gesture as best he can.
“Thanks.”
“Don't mention it. Now, you nurse your five-dollar Coke. That pool table's looking mighty inviting. I'm going to make us some easy cash, and then we're going to find the closest motel.”
Sam easily catches the Impala's keys as Dean tosses them, tucks them in his pocket, then turns on his stool to lean against the bar and watch as his brother saunters over to the pool table, all easy smiles, and grabs a cue. He takes a sip of his drink, feels some of his own tension drain away, and settles in to watch, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Tells himself he just imagined the guy in a trench coat in his peripheral vision.
*
The sky is a piercing blue above Sam's head, white clouds reflected in the pristine surface of the lake at his feet. He's standing on a dock, the reddish brown wood standing out starkly against the green of the trees on the shore, and all he can hear in the still hush of the morning is the sound of birds, the whisper of a light breeze among the branches, the faraway call of a loon. He sinks slowly to sit cross-legged on the dock, stares out over the water, lets his eyes fall shut. It's peaceful here, he thinks. He's dressed in nothing but a t-shirt and swim trunks, the morning air cool against his skin.
A moment later he's aware of a presence next to him. He looks up, unsurprised to see the man from the diner standing there, hands clasped behind his back, staring out over the water.
“I'm dreaming, aren't I?”
“Yes.”
“Where is this place?”
“It's somewhere I once found your brother. He seemed to find the memory enjoyable, and so I thought perhaps you would, too.”
Sam huffs with silent laughter. “I remember this place. Dad rented a cabin for the summer. Dean and I spent the summer swimming in the lake, chasing each other through the woods. Dean tried to teach me to fish, and I cried when he speared one of those poor worms on the hook and refused to have anything to do with the process. He never caught anything, anyway. There aren't any fish in this lake.”
“I think it may have been the principle of the thing.”
“Sure,” Sam agrees easily. “So why are we here?”
“We need to talk.”
“Uh-huh. So talk.”
“Not here.”
“Why not? Seems like if there was any place we could talk unimpeded, it would be in my dreams.”
The man shakes his head. “Someone might be listening.”
Sam feels a vague pang of discomfort, as though somewhere far away, his body is rebelling against contradictory knowledge again. “This happened before.”
“Not exactly. The last time, I was in your brother's dream.”
“And someone overheard?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing you ever want to know.”
Sam uncrosses his legs, lets his bare feet dangle in the water, watching the surface ripple, distorting his reflection and that of the man standing next to him.
“Are you ever going to tell me what's going on?” he asks finally.
“Eventually. I am still hoping you will remember on your own. It will make things easier for both of us.”
“It's more than the fact that I was dead, isn't it?” he kicks his feet gently in the water, gripping the edge of the dock with both hands to keep from falling in. “All these weird feelings... like I've lived through it all before, or through a slightly different version. Like I stepped through the looking-glass.”
“I fail to see the relevance of mirrors to your situation.”
Sam scrunches up his face, decides he really doesn't want to explain Lewis Carroll to this guy. “I just mean that this is some weird, alternate version of something I feel like I'm supposed to know anyway. I've already lived through all this, haven't I?”
“In a way, you have.”
“Is that why I'm sick all the time? Having seizures? I mean, I wasn't like this before. Something has to be causing it. Is it because I'm reliving all this?”
“In a way. You're correct in assuming there is a temporal component to the dissonance you're experiencing.”
Sam looks up. “And what does that mean?”
“I can't tell you,” the man says simply, and Sam pinches the bridge of his nose.
“You're very frustrating to talk to.”
“So you and your brother have said.”
“When did you speak to Dean?”
“At a different time.”
“Well, that wasn't vague at all,” Sam doesn't bother to mask the sarcasm in his voice. “Are you at least going to tell me your name?”
“I think you will find it out on your own soon enough. When you do, we will talk again. There is a great deal we need to discuss.”
“But not here.”
“Not here,” the guy agrees, and hands him a small piece of paper, neatly folded in half. “Go to this location. If I can, I will be there.”
“What do you mean, if you can?”
“I will do my best to be there, in one form or another.”
Sam takes the paper, glances down to see what's written on it, and isn't surprised when he finds the man has disappeared by the time he looks up again. He puts the paper down on the dock, confident it will stay where he puts it, and lets himself slip into the water. He swims out into the lake with slow, sure strokes, flips onto his back once he's reached what he thinks is the centre, closes his eyes, and simply lets himself float.
*
Sam cracks open one eye to find the room still plunged in darkness. The clock tells him it's still way too stupidly early to even think of getting up, and given the amount of beer Dean consumed earlier, there's no way they're going to be going anytime soon. He looks over at Dean's bed, is startled to see it empty. There's no light coming from under the bathroom door, but all their gear is where they left it when they stumbled in two hours ago.
He reaches for his cell phone, fumbles with it for a moment before hitting the speed dial with Dean's number. His brother answers after two rings.
“Sam? What's wrong?”
He can't help snapping. “Where are you?”
“Not far,” Dean's tone is defensive. “Just went to get some air. You okay?”
“Fine, except for waking up and finding you gone without so much as a goddamned note.”
“Jeez, Dad. I didn't realize I had to account for my every move to you. I just went for a walk. You were asleep, and it's not like I planned to be gone long. Next time I'll wake your sorry ass up at four thirty in the morning, and you don't get to bitch at me.”
“Right, okay, fine. And since when do you go for walks, anyway?”
“Bite me.”
“Love you too.”
“Bitch.”
“Jerk.”
“Go back to sleep, Sam. I'll be back in twenty minutes, tops.”
Sam flips his phone closed, pulls the thin blanket back over himself before settling back onto his bed. It's weird, having this sort of conversation, when he's almost entirely certain the roles should have been reversed.
*
Bobby calls far too early the next morning with more bad news.
“You know, if we didn't know the guy from when we were little kids, I'd swear he was some sort of supernatural harbinger of doom,” Dean complains as they head out for breakfast, tossing their gear in the car. “It's like he doesn't know how to deliver good news. There's got to be something wrong with the fact that he never ever tells us anything we want to hear.”
“More signs of demon activity?”
Dean nods. “Yep. Some sort of cult committing mass-suicide out in Utah. At least, that's what the police are saying. Except, of course, it wasn't a cult. It was just some tiny church in a small town, and because no one can explain why all those people suddenly died they've decided 'cult' is the best explanation for it. The couple of witnesses they left behind are out of their minds, according to reports, talking about black smoke and that everyone's eyes turned black before they started killing each other.”
Sam shakes his pills out into his hand and washes them down with a swallow of coffee, can't think of anything to say that'll erase that particular horror from his mind. Dean raises an eyebrow at the coffee cup, but doesn't comment, probably deciding that the minimal risks associated with caffeine are preferable to having a coffee-deprived little brother around. Sam makes a face, takes another sip of his coffee. He's not sure the pills are working at all, but the side effects are already starting, complete with dry mouth and extra nausea as a bonus.
“You feeling okay?”
“Yeah. Just a little fed up with this crap, but I'm feeling fine enough.”
“You sure? 'Cause if you need a bit of time...”
“Dean, seriously, I'm okay,” Sam rolls his eyes. “I slept fine, my head doesn't hurt for the first time in days, and for once I think I might be able to stomach breakfast without puking. I'm fine,” he injects as much certainty and reassurance into his tone has he can muster, and finally Dean nods.
“Okay, then. You'll forgive me if I'm a little worried.”
Sam huffs, smiling in spite of himself. “What, about your kid brother who came back from the dead with some weird supernatural form of epilepsy? What's there to worry about?”
“Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking,” Dean makes a face. “That's not funny, by the way. And no, don't say it's kind of funny, because it's really not,” he stabs viciously at a sausage on his plate.
“The pig's been dead for a while, Dean. No need to go for a kill shot there.”
“Bite me.”
“Anyway, we should check on those hunters, see what's going on with that. Any of 'em live nearby?”
“There's a couple not too far, but I figure these guys can handle themselves for an extra twenty-four hours. I'm more concerned about the fact that our mysterious friend in the trench coat has an all-access pass to your freaky head. What's up with that?”
“You make him sound like a skeevy flasher.”
“If it walks like a duck...”
“Dean.”
“What? The guy follows you around, passes notes like a lovesick eighth grader, and obviously knows what's going on around here, even if he's not sharing with the class. It's creepy, is what it is.”
“I'm pretty sure he's on our side, for what it's worth.”
“It's not worth much,” Dean mutters darkly. “Anyway, I'm not walking into anything blind. Bobby says this Pamela chick knows her stuff, so if she can give us a lead on who or what this guy is, then I say let's go with that plan, rather than your meet-the-sketchy-guy-we-know-nothing-about-in-a-place-of-his-choosing plan. Because, let me tell you, your plan sucks.”
“All right, fine. I kind of want to know what's going on with him, too.”
“And that Ruby chick, for that matter,” Dean says.
“Yeah, sure. Because one mystery person in our lives isn't enough.”
“And they're all hanging around you. You're like a freak-magnet.”
“Shut up.”
“All right, then,” Dean shoves the last of his toast into his mouth, muffling his next words. “Let's get this show on the road, shall we?”
*
The few reputable psychics that Sam knows all seem to have one thing in common, apart from the psychic thing: they all seem to live perfectly ordinary, white-bread lifestyles, in small two-storey houses planted solidly on small lots with well-tended lawns. It's only the frauds who seem to gravitate toward motor homes and seedy downtown apartments, and in the hunting world, it's weird to him to find an entire sub-category of people who manage not to live on the outskirts of the regular world.
Pamela Barnes' house looks like it could just as easily belong to a dentist or an accountant. Small and neat, with blue-trimmed windows contrasting brightly with the freshly-painted white clapboard. In the early afternoon sun, it all feels so normal that for a moment Sam considers turning away, leaving with this perfect picture still clear and crisp in his mind. Dean bounces up the stairs to the front porch, nipping that idea in the bud; he stands in front of the screen door and leans on the doorbell until Sam smacks his hand away.
“Dude, quit that!”
“What?”
“For one, she's not deaf. Also, it's rude.”
“Lighten up. I just don't want to have to come back later just because she missed the doorbell.”
“God, it's like you were born in a box.”
The door opens, and an attractive woman with shoulder-length black hair and pretty grey eyes rimmed with thick lashes steps out onto the porch. She's older than they are, but not by much, Sam guesses, maybe in her mid-thirties, dressed in form-fitting blue jeans and a striped shirt hanging open over a grey camisole and knotted at the waist. Pamela Barnes gives them both an appreciative once-over, shifting her weight so that she's standing with one hip jutting out in a deliberately provocative gesture. Sam swallows hard, closes his eyes briefly as his mind imposes a brief flash of her screaming and writhing on the floor of her living room, light pouring from her eyes and mouth.
“Mm-mm-mmm,” she murmurs, oblivious to his inner turmoil. She saunters around them in a move that's so predatory that Sam finds himself cringing a bit, and even Dean turns on the spot, not quite turning his back on her. “People said you were a good-looking duo, but I always thought the stories were exaggerated. You know how hunters like to talk.”
“Uh,” Sam finds himself stammering. “You must be Pamela?”
She grins, stretches her arms out to the sides. “Live and in the flesh. And you must be Sam Winchester. Out of the fire and back in the frying pan, huh? Makes you a rare individual. You look good, for a dead guy,” she says, and Sam becomes acutely aware that he's gawking, trying to reconcile the horrific images in his mind with the vibrant woman in front of him. “You going to come in, or are you waiting for a written invitation?”
Without waiting for an answer she turns back into the house, making sure they get a very good view of her ass and hips. Dean shoots Sam a look that says he's died and gone to heaven, then follows Pamela inside, grinning like a little kid whose been given the run of an entire candy factory. She leads them into the kitchen, pulls open the fridge.
“Too early for a beer for you boys?”
Dean shrugs and turns his thousand-watt smile on her. “It's five o'clock somewhere.”
She catches her bottom lip in her teeth. “Oh, I like you,” she purrs, and tosses him a bottle, which he cracks open with his ring.
“I'm good, thanks anyway,” Sam holds up a hand when she looks his way.
“Suit yourself,” she pops the cap off another bottle, tilts the contents into her mouth. “So why don't you boys fill me in on what it is you're looking for, exactly? Bobby gave me an idea of what to expect, but I believe in getting my information from the source, when I can.”
“Sammy here can probably fill you in better than I can,” Dean says, leaning on his elbows against her counter and crossing one leg over the other.
She looks at Sam, and for the first time he sees a flicker of uncertainty in her expression. “Penny for your thoughts,” she says, and he flushes, can't quite meet her gaze.
“Yeah, you probably don't want to go there,” he mutters, staring at the blue and white tiles of the kitchen floor, trying to get his stomach to settle from where its been performing cartwheels ever since they set foot in the house. “But I can tell you about the guy... or creature, or whatever, that we're trying to find out about.”
“Suit yourself, Grumpy,” she says again, but her grey eyes are boring into him, and he's almost certain she caught a glimpse of the horrific vision that's been haunting him ever since Dean first mentioned her name. Missouri was able to read surface thoughts, and if Pamela is anywhere near as good as she was, then there's no reason she wouldn't pick up on a vivid image like that. She takes another sip of beer.
“Let's go to my work room.”
*
Most of the main floor of the house is a working space, as it turns out. Pamela keeps her living room looking welcoming, but form follows function, and Sam quickly notes that all the furniture is carefully arranged so that it can be easily moved aside or brought closer together as needed. Candles are tastefully spread out over various surfaces in precise patterns, and the Ouija board on the coffee table has obviously seen a great deal of use. It's a séance room masquerading as a living room.
Pamela bends over to rummage in a cabinet, pulling out a black cloth, and her shirt rides up, revealing a faded tattoo that reads 'Jesse Forever.' Sam isn't the only one to notice, but of course Dean is the one to bring it up.
“So who's Jesse?” he asks.
She laughs, looking over her shoulder. “Well, it wasn't forever.”
“His loss,” Dean flashes her another one of his thousand-watt smiles, and she straightens, moves to stand right in Dean's personal space.
“Might be your gain,” she says, then moves away to spread the altar cloth over the table, moving aside the Ouija board. Dean's expression tells Sam that he's just won the lottery.
“Dude, I am so there,” he whispers to Sam, none too subtly, and Sam just snorts.
“Yeah, she's gonna eat you alive,” he whispers back.
“God, I hope so.”
Pamela glances up at Sam and winks. “You're invited too, Grumpy,” she says, and he feels himself flush crimson as Dean digs an elbow into his ribs.
“You are not invited!”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Sort it out later between the two of you.”
Pamela is all business now, sitting cross-legged in front of the small table, arranging six pillar candles in the center and lighting them. “I Ouija'd my way through a bunch of spirits earlier, trying to get a read on your mystery guy, but no one knows who or what he is, or how he managed to spring you out of the afterlife. So now we're going to pull out the big guns.”
“You're not going to try to summon... him, are you?” Sam asks, suddenly anxious.
“Oh, God no. I'm not summoning anything I don't know into my living room. Bad for insurance claims. No, we're going to have ourselves a little séance, try and get a sneak peek at what this cat really looks like under his human costume.”
“Cat?” Dean smirks.
“Dude, shut up and let her finish.”
Pamela smirks at them both. “Think of it like a crystal ball, only without the actual crystal ball part. Sit, and join hands.”
Sam eases himself onto the floor, wishing that this sort of thing could, just for once, involve sitting in a comfortable chair instead of requiring him to fold himself into a pretzel. He puts one hand in Dean's, waits for Pamela to grasp his other hand.
“I'm going to need something the mystery man touched,” she says, sliding a hand up his thigh, and he jumps, reddening again. At least the blood is going to his head, he tells himself.
“Uh... I don't think he touched me.”
“My mistake.”
Sam pulls the note out of his pocket. “Here. He gave me this.”
“Right.” Pamela grasps his hand, the paper pressed between their palms, closes her eyes, begins to chant. “I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle. I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle...”
Sam feels the table begin to tremble as she repeats the invocation a third time, and her television flickers to life, broadcasting snow and static at ear-splitting levels.
“Pamela...”
She's not listening to him. “Castiel? No, sorry, Castiel, I don't scare easy.”
Dean is holding onto his hand so tightly that his fingernails are digging into Sam's skin. “Castiel?”
“Its name. It's warning me to turn back.”
The table is shaking now, and white-hot pain flashes through Sam's skull. “Pamela, stop! We need to stop this.”
“No, no, I almost got it,” she says, keeps going. “I conjure and command you, show me your face. I conjure and command you, show me your face...”
The pain grows, explodes outward in a blaze of light.
*
Pamela is chanting, her voice barely audible above the noise filling the room. “I conjure and command you, show me your face. I conjure and command you, show me your face. I conjure and command you, show me your face!”
“Maybe we should stop,” Bobby's voice betrays his anxiety and fear, his eyes wide as every single light in the house begins to flicker, and the radio and television burst with static.
“I almost got. I command you, show me your face. Show me your face now!”
The candles flare, flames shooting upward to lick at the ceiling, and Pamela is shrieking in agony, her eyes filled with white-hot flame. She collapses in Bobby's arms, and when her eyelids open again, there's nothing left beneath but empty sockets, red and accusing, blood trickling from her tear ducts.
“I can't see! I can't see!” she sobs. “Oh God!”
There's a flash of light, and this time Sam is holding Pamela on a bed, cradling her in his arms as she chokes on her own blood. Dark glasses have slipped from her face, revealing grey, sightless eyes.
“I know what you did to that demon, Sam,” she whispers in his ear. “I can feel what's inside of you. If you think you have good intentions, think again. I know you think you're doing the right thing, but you're wrong. You're not going to find out until it's too late, how high the price is that you're paying.”
Another flash of light, and Pamela is chanting again, her hand squeezing his fingers. “I almost got it... I conjure and command you, show me your face, now!”
Sam pulls his hand free of hers, lunges across the table at her and pulls her to him in a gesture that instinctively he knows is right, sheltering her with his body, his hand clamped over her eyes, just as the feedback from the television swells to a deafening squeal, the candles flaring impossibly high, the lamp on the nearby table exploding in a shower of sparks.
Silence falls like a curtain.
*
“Sam? Sam!”
He blinks, grateful that the room is dark. The candles are extinguished, and no one's bothered to switch on the lights yet. He's lying on the floor, one leg twisted awkwardly beneath the table, his head pounding. He swallows, tastes copper on his tongue, makes a face. Dean is kneeling over him, his expression pinched and worried, glancing back and forth between him and Pamela, who's still sitting cross-legged by the table, staring at him, her face drained of colour.
“What happened?”
“I think you should be telling us that,” Pamela says, her voice shaking. “What the hell did you do?”
“I didn't ―I don't know,” he tries to sit up, only to set off another jackhammer in his skull, and Dean grabs his elbow to steady him. He looks up at Dean. “Did I―?”
“Have a seizure? No,” Dean says curtly, his voice tight with fear and anger. “You just passed out. What the fuck was that, Sammy?”
“What was what?” God, his head hurts.
“The freaky supernatural slide show we just got. Pamela says it wasn't her, and since you were front and centre, that leaves you. Here,” he reaches in a pocket, pulls out a crumpled tissue and holds it to Sam's face. “Your nose is bleeding again.”
“Thanks,” he takes the tissue from Dean, holds it in place.
“I don't know about you, but I'm going to have a drink.” Pamela gets to her feet, makes her way unsteadily back to the kitchen, where Sam hears the clink of glass as she rummages in cupboards.
“You feeling okay? Can you get up?”
Sam nods. “Yeah. Just a headache,” he says, but he lets Dean leverage him onto Pamela's sofa. The tissue he's holding is already getting soaked through with blood.
“What was she talking about? In that... vision, or whatever.”
“I'm not sure. I think... I think it happened before.”
“Before what?” Dean rubs his hand over his forehead, brings it back over his mouth, anger and worry warring in his eyes.
“Before things changed.” Sam closes his eyes as the whole room tilts sickeningly. “This... it's not how it happened. It was all different before. It burned out her eyes, the last time. I remember.”
“You mean you saw it. Like a vision?”
“No,” he shakes his head, swallowing hard to keep from throwing up, drops his head into his hands. “I lived it. I was here, but it was different. I'm supposed to change things.”
Pamela comes back at that moment, hands them each a glass full of something that's strong enough that Sam doesn't even care what it tastes like. If Dean doesn't approve, he says nothing as Sam tilts the contents down his throat. Pamela drains her glass, refills it from the bottle, drains it again.
“You might have mentioned you were psychic,” she says pointedly, curling her legs beneath her as she settles on the opposite end of the sofa. “And remind me to tear Bobby a new one the next time I see him.”
“It's not his fault. We ―I asked him not to tell anyone. It's not exactly something we want broadcasted around the hunting community,” Sam rubs at his temples. “We have enough trouble already.”
“And now you brought that trouble right across my threshold, so you better start explaining yourself.”
“I'm sorry. I didn't know it would do that.”
Dean snorts. “I thought you already lived this,” and Sam bristles, hurt by his tone.
“No, Dean, that's the point,” he snaps, “it's different this time around.”
“So what is is? Precognition?” Pamela prompts.
“I don't know,” he shrugs. “I can't control it, and... I don't know. I don't think that was part of it. The... psychic stuff, it's always linked to this one demon, and it feels different. I don't... did I hurt you? When I grabbed you?”
She shakes her head, takes another drink. “You never touched me.”
“What? But―”
“All in your mind, kiddo. Whatever that thing was, you literally threw yourself ―your spirit, anyway― between me and it. I should probably thank you, but a girl likes a little warning before getting violated like that, even if you do have a cute ass,” Pamela says drily, and he cringes.
“Sorry. I didn't... I thought ―I didn't know. I didn't do it on purpose.”
“Right.”
“Someone want to fill me in?” Dean breaks in. He's still standing, making a visible effort not to pace, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “What just happened?
“What just happened is I got you the name of your mystery creature,” Pamela doesn't look at him, “but that looks like it might be the least of your problems.”
*
He sees Dean collapse amidst the rubble, and from his vantage point Sam can see that his brother looks small and twisted, like a doll on the floor of a child's room. Sam can't move, can't so much as raise his head off the charred asphalt, can't obey his instinct to run after his brother, make sure he's still breathing, after everything. The angels promised Dean would be unharmed, but he's never trusted their promises. Dark grey clouds roil overhead; the air is heavy with the smell of ozone and sulphur.
It's over, and he can't tell who won. He thinks it might not matter.
He can feel blood oozing from his nose and ears, trickling into his hair. His body is broken, shattered into thousands of pieces, and it hurts beyond anything he's ever felt before, as though he's being pulled apart molecule by molecule. He wants to scream, but his voice has deserted him; he finds himself praying for oblivion, and the air around him hums with sudden electricity. He shuts his eyes as lightning arcs through him, searing past his eyelids, and everything goes dark.
He floats.
In the darkness, he feels a hand clasped over his wrist, anchoring him in place, fingers feeling for his pulse.
“Dean?”
“No, it's not Dean. I am sorry.” It's the same voice, familiar and soothing.
“Where is... did he make it? Tell me he made it.”
“I am sorry.”
His eyes must be gone. He can't cry, can't find it in himself to shed a single tear.
“Am I dead?”
“Almost.”
“I couldn't save him.”
“No.”
“Neither could you.”
“No.”
“I tried so hard...”
“I know. We all did. It was too late, Sam.”
“What if it wasn't?”
There's a pause. “What do you mean?”
“What if we could change it? Can you do it?”
“Perhaps.”
*
Dean is silent as they drive, lips pressed together so tightly they've turned white, both hands gripping the wheel tightly. He's switched off the tape deck, and they've been driving in silence ever since leaving Pamela's. The psychic wasn't nearly as understanding as Sam would have liked, but he can't exactly blame her for tossing them out with a flea in their ear and warning them never to darken her doorstep again. She might come around, or she might not, but he can at least sympathize with her reluctance to have anything to do with a guy who ―albeit involuntarily― invaded her mind and imposed his thoughts on her. Because what he really needed right now, he reflects bitterly, is to become the psychic equivalent of a rapist on top of everything else.
He's so lost in his own thoughts that he lets out a surprised yelp when Dean abruptly wrenches the steering wheel to the side, pulls the Impala over to the shoulder of the highway in a cloud of dust and a screech of brakes. He rolls the car right off the road until two of its wheels are resting in the tall grass next to a sagging barbed wire fence, the noise sending a flock of crows flapping away from the cornfield on the other side in a cacophony of indignant cawing.
“What the hell?” Sam sputters, but Dean is already out of the car, slamming the driver's side door. He scrambles out of the car, leaving his door hanging open. “Dean, what?”
“Okay, I've had it!” his brother is suddenly up in his face, so close that Sam can feel the heat of his breath against his jaw and neck. “I've been trying to give you your damned space, let you come clean on your own, and I'm done now.”
“What?”
“I need you to quit lying to me, Sam.”
“What? I'm not ―I haven't lied to you, Dean.”
It was going to be different, this time. I swore I wouldn't lie to you.
“No? Because it sure feels like it. You've been holding back, ever since... I want it to stop. I need you to tell me what's going on, here.”
“I told you I don't know!”
“Yeah, and I don't buy it. Come on, Sam, I know you!” Dean grabs him by his shirt and shakes him once, hard, before letting go again. “What aren't you telling me?”
He barely keeps himself from lashing back out of pure instinct, turns away with a frustrated huff. “I can't explain it.”
“Try me.”
“No!”
“Sam.”
He stalks several paces along the shoulder of the road, turns back, raises his arms. “Look, I don't know, okay? I'm not hiding anything on purpose. I just... it doesn't make any sense. I can't make it make sense, and I can't explain it to you. Not in words. I can't even explain it to myself. I'm not ―I'm not lying. I'm not holding back on purpose, Dean, I swear to God.”
“So what was that back at Pamela's?”
He lets out a mirthless laugh. “Which part?”
“Why don't you start with the part where Bobby was there and her eyes got burned out of their sockets, except that none of it really happened?”
“You saw that? How?”
“Dude, it was like being in a freaking 3-D IMAX show. Live and in Technicolor. I don't think I could have not seen that if I tried. I think it's permanently seared into my brain,” Dean says with a grimace.
Sam's stomach twists. “I told you everything I can.”
“Yeah, but that doesn't mean you told me everything you know. I know you, Sam, and I know your damned word games. I'm not stupid.”
“I never said you were,” he rubs his face with one hand, suddenly tired. “I'll try, if it's what you really want.” Please don't press this. He's definitely going to lose what little lunch he had.
“I do. You knew what was going to happen. You know what that guy... that thing is. Why won't you just tell me?”
Sam leans against the Impala, bracing himself with both hands, tries to keep his head from spinning as two separate threads of memory intertwine in his mind. “Uh... I think he's... I don't know. I remembered the séance. We did one before. Or we were going to― God. I don't have the right verb tenses for this shit.”
He brings up a hand to rub at his forehead as pain starts to throb behind his eyes. Dean hasn't moved from where he's standing off to the side, so he keeps going doggedly, eyes fixed on the ground. “It was later than this, like over a year. It was all different, you were back, and I didn't know then about Castiel, and she tried to see ―except it burned her eyes right out of their sockets, and I didn't want... she died because of me, because of us, and I couldn't―” the pain intensifies, and he doubles over, just barely managing not to throw up on his shoes. “Shit,” he gasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist.
He stays that way for a few minutes, breathing hard, trying not to be sick again. He feels a hand at his back, and without a word Dean presses a water bottle that's maybe a third full into his hand. He uses the first swig to rinse out his mouth, swallows the rest.
“I'm really scared, Dean,” he admits quietly, twisting the bottle in his hands. “I don't know what's happening to me, and every time I try to figure it out, every time I think I'm getting close, it feels like my mind is trying to rip itself apart.”
“Yeah, I'm starting to get that.”
“I'm not trying to freak you out, here.” I'm trying to save you, even if I don't know what from anymore.
“Bang-up job you're doing.” There's no malice in the words, only a sort of tired resignation, and if Sam's stomach wasn't in knots before it certainly would be now, knowing he's the cause of that tone.
“Sorry.”
You've been saying that a lot, lately. Sam flinches as though Dean spoke the words aloud, shrugs off the questioning look his brother throws his way. There's no way he can even begin to explain the sudden certainty he has that he's spent a year lying to his brother about... something. His mind balks, just shy of the knowledge he can feel is there, just out of his reach. He grits his teeth, tries to force his way past the invisible barrier, certain that if he can just piece together the memories that don't fit, it all just might start to make sense again.
“You gonna hurl again, or do you want to get going?”
Sam opens his mouth to answer, ends up doubled over again as the water he just drank makes an unwelcome reappearance. Dean sighs, leans up against the Impala, folds his arm over his chest in an oddly protective gesture.
“I guess we're waiting, then.”
*
The lines of goofer dust are wearing thin, trickling away grain by grain by grain. The hellhounds are baying at the door, the house trembling to its very foundations under the onslaught. The lace curtains billow and flap as the wind whips through the room, and the last of the dust blows away. The dining room doors burst open, the glass panes shattering as they slam against the walls, and the sound of snarling and snapping fills the room.
“No!” Sam is pinned to the wall, helpless, watching as Dean is thrown against the large oak table.
A woman laughs somewhere off to the side, vindictive and gleeful. “Sick 'im, boys!”
He can't see them, can only watch as Dean's leg is ripped open, as Dean is pulled from the top of the table, as screams of agony are torn from his throat. Blood spurts from a dozen different wounds as the hellhounds rip into him, flaying him alive in the middle of this otherwise tame little suburban home.
“Dean! No!”
Sam screams as his brother dies, trapped like an insect in amber. Lilith is going to kill him, but he no longer cares. He doesn't stop screaming even as he's enveloped in the blinding light he knows means his death, simply prays for it to be over fast so that he doesn't have to watch Dean die.
*
“Sam! For fuck's sake!” Dean is shaking him. “It's a nightmare. Come on, wake up. Sam!”
He comes awake with a jolt, startled so badly out of the nightmare that it feels as though electricity has coursed through his every nerve ending. For a moment he can't breathe, finds himself clinging to Dean for all he's worth, so hard that his fingers are probably going to leave bruises on his brother's shoulders, feels tears pouring down his face. Dean pulls him upright on the motel bed, and Sam huddles against him, knowing he should be embarrassed by just how much comfort he finds leaning against his big brother's broad chest, wrapped up in his arms.
“Easy, Sam. Come on, take a breath, you're fine. It's just a nightmare, you're fine. Breathe, now.”
He manages to take a few gulping breaths, his whole body racked with sobs that he can't keep down no matter how much he tries. “You ―you died,” he chokes. “They ripped you apart. You died and ―I had to watch... and I couldn't ―I couldn't...”
“Hey, hey,” Dean's voice is quiet, soothing. “It's okay. I'm right here. No one's dead, okay? Just a bad dream, nothing else, I promise.”
Sam shakes his head, face still buried in Dean's shirt. “It was real. I was there, it was real.”
Dean tenses up, almost imperceptibly, except that he's holding Sam so tightly that it's impossible for him not to notice. He should be pulling himself together, shouldn't be falling apart like this when they've got bigger problems, but he can't banish the images from his mind, the nightmare playing over and over again until he thinks he might go insane. Dean holds onto him like it's nothing, just lets him cry and shake and hiccup like a child, pats his head once or twice, and the gesture is more soothing than it has any right to be.
“Was it a vision?” Dean asks softly, when he's calmer.
“No,” he forces himself to take a deep breath, to quiet the sobs that are still welling up in his chest. “No, it happened before. I can't... it's different, but I was there. I was there and you died... God.”
Dean pulls away, just far enough so he can hold him at arm's length, hands on Sam's shoulders. “Sam, listen to me. No one is dying, okay? Whatever it is you dreamed about, it wasn't real.”
Sam nods, doesn't trust himself to speak until he's sure he can do it without bursting into tears again. He wipes his eyes with the back of his wrist, sniffles miserably as he realizes his nose is running, as if Dean doesn't have enough ammunition against him as it is. Now, with the morning sunlight streaming in through the window and his brother obviously alive and well in front of him, it's a little more difficult to give credence to the dream, or memory, or whatever it was, no matter how much his mind insists that it was real. Dean gets up from where he's perched on the side of the bed, comes back a moment later with the box of tissues from the bathroom, drops it in his lap.
“Here.”
“Thanks,” Sam blows his nose, scrubs at his eyes with another tissue, grateful that Dean is apparently too worried about him right now to take advantage of the opportunity and mock him to within an inch of his life. “Sorry. I... it kind of... sorry I freaked out.”
“Hey, no worries. It could have been worse, you know. You haven't seized or puked, and your nose isn't bleeding. You bursting into tears like a big girl? Hell, I'm chalking this one up as a win.”
Sam can't help but snort shakily at that. “Pretty low standards, dude.”
His brother shrugs. “Working with what I got. Besides, now I have blackmail material that'll last me for months. Probably even years.”
Sam lets out a huff of irritation, can't quite prevent his lips from quirking into a smile. “Too much to hope that you would let that slide, I guess.”
Dean thumps him on the shoulder. “Are you kidding me? This is gold. Come on, clean yourself up, there, Francis, and I'll buy you breakfast. I'll even let you drink coffee, meds or no, 'cause you've been awfully cranky lately.”
“Gee, thanks,” Sam rolls his eyes.
“You're welcome. Anyway, while you were getting your beauty sleep, I did some thinking about our mysterious friend from the cemetery. I don't know about you, but I'm really tired of all this guessing game and mysterious riddles crap. I'm about ready for some real answers.”
Sam frowns. “What are you getting at?”
Dean grins, his eyes flashing with ill-concealed glee. “I've come up with a plan.”
*
“For the record, I still think this is a terrible plan.”
“Yeah, Sam, I heard you the first ten times. Now shut up and make with the spray-painting. Make Picasso proud.”
They’re in an abandoned warehouse. It's damp and dark, and the dim evening light filtering in through the tiny, grime-encrusted windows casts long, grotesquely twisted shadows along the floor. Water drips from a pipe, collects in dirty puddles at the foot of the walls. The walls are filthy, too, which makes Sam's job of spray-painting them with sigils and symbols that much harder. It's a damp, nasty, forgotten place, not good for much other than breeding rats and summoning mysterious and probably dangerous supernatural entities: pretty typical of Dean's plans, if Sam bothers to think about it. It's not the first time Sam has disagreed with a planned course of action ―that's par for the course with them, really― but it's the first time he's disagreed with Dean's reasoning.
“Seriously, Dean, I don't think trying to trap this guy ―Castiel, whatever― I don't think it's a good idea. We've never dealt with something this powerful before, and I for one don't really want to piss him off, especially since he seems to be on our side.”
“How do you know he is?”
“I don't,” Sam admits, carefully tracing a sigil on the corrugated metal covering the walls with the silver-white spray paint. “Not for sure. It's just a feeling.”
“Yeah, well, your feelings aren't exactly reliable. No offense.”
“Right.”
“You gonna hurl again?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Sam rolls his eyes. He's queasy from the spray paint fumes, but it's nothing compared to the gut-wrenching nausea from before. “There's nothing left to throw up, anyway.”
“Yeah, 'cause that's healthy.”
Dean unzips the duffel bag he brought in with them, begins meticulously arranging every weapon they have on a large trestle table before him. Sam bites his tongue, keeps up the steady motion of his wrist, trying not to let the spray paint bleed too much. Months of tracing devil's traps has given him a lot of practice, but spray-painting a wall isn't the same thing as spray-painting the ground , and these things generally don't work well if the execution is sloppy. They work in silence for several minutes, until finally Sam's impatience gets the best of him.
“Do we really have to wait for him with an entire arsenal? Every time you bring a weapon to this sort of situation, it always escalates. Ever notice that?”
“Name one time that happened.”
“Max Miller.”
“That doesn't count. He was a psychopath.”
“Who was mostly under control until he saw your gun and lost his shit.”
“Okay, that was one time. Exception that proves the rule.”
“The bank in Milwaukee.”
“Okay, but that situation was already jacked. It would have escalated no matter what.”
“Whatever, I'm not arguing about this with you,” Sam pauses in his work to pinch the bridge of his nose, trying to will away the headache that's building up behind his eyes.
“All right, then. Shut up and let me set this up, then.”
It takes another couple of hours before they're ready, and two entire cans of spray paint. By the time they're done, the walls of the warehouse are covered every arcane symbol and sigil Sam knows, and a number of others he's never heard of and which must have taken Dean hours of researching online to figure out ―or maybe Dean just called Bobby, which would make more sense than the thought of Dean staying up all night to research without looking any the worse for wear. The evening has turned into night, the last red tendrils of sunlight long faded over the horizon, and the air has turned unseasonably cool, making Sam shiver and shove his hands deeper into the pockets of his hoodie to stave off the chill.
For all the prep work that went into it, the ritual itself is disarmingly simple. Sam holds very still while his brother performs the summoning ―this aspect of the job has never been Dean's strong suit, and the last thing Sam wants is to wreck his concentration at a crucial juncture― and it occurs to him that it's probably precisely because the prep work was so complex that the rest of the ritual is a simple chant, barely lasting a minute, if that long. The more solid the groundwork, the easier the rest of it, same as everything else in life. His heart feels as though it's trying to make a getaway through his throat, and he swallows convulsively, mouth even drier than usual.
Nothing happens.
Sam glances over at Dean. “You sure you did the ritual right?” Dean just glares, and he shrugs. “Fine, sorry. Touchy.”
It starts as a low humming that Sam can feel coiling in his gut, a tingling in his extremities, then rises in pitch to a keening whine, higher and shriller until he has to clap his hands over his ears, eyes screwed shut against the mounting pressure. For a moment the pressure becomes unbearable, and he feels himself losing his grip on consciousness, and just as suddenly it eases up as the great heavy doors at the far end of the warehouse burst open. The huge industrial lights overhead burst in a shower of sparks, one by one, as a solitary figure walks toward them, trench coat fluttering around his calves.
Out of the corner of his eye Sam sees Dean bring up his shotgun to bear on the man ―a reaction born of fear and surprise more than anything― and before he can do much more than put out a hand in a warning to stop, Dean has emptied the gun into the man's chest. Sam flinches, but the buckshot has no visible effect except to tear some sizeable holes in the man's shirt. The man stops, looks down with an expression that looks like mild surprise, perhaps tinged with disapproval, then lifts his head once more and continues his advance. Dean backs up involuntarily, just one step, but it's enough to show Sam that his brother is seriously rattled.
The man stops just short of Dean, takes his shotgun away with an effortless flick of his wrist, and splinters the weapon between his hands. Dean swallows, stays perfectly still, while the remains of his weapon clatter to the floor. The man spares a glance for Sam, turns back, tilting his head to the side in a gesture that's oddly familiar.
“Hello, Dean.”
*
For a moment, there's silence. Dean is the first to find his voice.
“Who are you?”
“Castiel.”
Sam is more than a little impressed with Dean for keeping his cool. For his part, he's just about ready to pass out, although he's doing his level best to stay upright and conscious.
“Yeah, we figured that much,” Dean rolls his eyes. “I mean, what are you?”
Castiel turns to Sam, but Sam is sure he's not really speaking to him when he replies. “I am the one who saved you from perdition.”
Dean is practically quivering with impatience. “Are you going to quit jerking around and answer the question? Who. Are. You?”
The reply is quiet, and sends a thrill through Sam. “I am an angel of the Lord.”
Dean snorts. “Get the hell out of here. There's no such thing.”
“This is your problem, Dean,” Castiel's voice cuts through the silence. “You have no faith.”
There's a flash of light whose source Sam can't pinpoint, and he swallows hard as the shadow of two enormous wings unfurls slowly across the walls, the span so great that it dwarfs the figure beneath them, hinting at a power beyond human understanding.
Dean manages, somehow, not to look cowed, although his Adam's apple bobs slightly as he swallows. “Neat light show. You don't look much like an angel.”
“Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. For the rest, it is too overwhelming.”
“That's why you warned Pamela away,” Sam finds his voice again, can barely bring himself to speak above a whisper.
“So, what, uh, visage are you in now?” Dean smirks. “Holy tax accountant?”
Sam chokes, but Castiel seems unperturbed. He looks down, gestures to his body. “This? This is... a vessel.”
“You're possessing some poor bastard?” Dean is shocked, and Sam knows they're both thinking of Meg Masters, choking on her own blood on the floor of Bobby's study.
“I don't think it's like that, Dean...”
“Shut up, Sam.”
“He's a devout man. He prayed for this. Gave his consent to serve Heaven.”
“Yeah, well,” Dean steps away, deliberately turns his back and begins packing away their gear. Pure bravado, but it's served him in the past. “We're not buying what you're selling. What are you really?”
The angel frowns, perplexed. “I told you.”
“Right. And you expect us to believe that an angel showed up just in time to bring Sam back from the dead? Why would you do that? It's not like God has shown any interest in the goings-on down here before. Why save Sam now?”
Suddenly Sam gets it, the revelation hitting him so hard it feels like a physical blow. The warehouse swims before him, and he feels his legs turn to water, has to concentrate hard to keep his knees from buckling.
“Dean...”
“Sam, come on. Is it too much to want a straight answer?”
“No, Dean... it's not ―it's not me he was trying to save.”
That gets Dean's attention. “What the hell are you talking about?”
It's the same sickening feeling of being torn in two, of watching two separate sets of events take place at the same time. He feels a trickle of something wet and warm over his lip, tastes copper on his tongue, and when he gingerly touches his fingertips to his upper lip he's not at all surprised when they come away crimson. He looks at Castiel, finds the angel's bright blue eyes boring into his.
“That's what this is, right? I'm not... this isn't how this happened.”
“Yes,” the angel jerks his head once in agreement.
“Someone in here had better start making sense, or so help me I'm gonna start throwing punches!”
Blood is seeping over his fingers, trickling into his mouth and threatening to gag him. “They changed things. The angels. I'm the one with the demon blood ―tainted. It's because of me it all went wrong...”
“Demon blood?” Dean interrupts, but Sam holds up a hand, pleading with his brother to let him finish.
“I'm not the one who was supposed to be saved,” he presses his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose as his headache throbs with renewed vigour, making dark spots dance before his eyes. “It was you.”
*
It's dark, and there's a hand wrapped around Sam's wrist, strong fingers searching for a pulse. He thinks he ought to be in a lot more pain than he is
“Dean?”
“No, it's not Dean. I am sorry.” Castiel's grip is firm, but it still feels weaker than it should be.
“Where is... did he make it? Tell me he made it.”
“I am sorry.”
Sam opens his eyes. “I can't see.”
“You were directly in the archangels' path. Your body is broken.”
“I'm dying, aren't I?”
“Yes.”
“Michael promised he'd spare him. He promised.”
Castiel doesn't answer, and Sam feels his fingers shift ever so slightly, and the pressure is comforting.
“He died because of me,” he finds it surprisingly easy to talk, until he realizes that they're not communicating aloud. “So many times. It was supposed to be me, Cas, back at Cold Oak. If he'd let me... none of this would have happened.”
“It is too late, now. There is no use regretting what cannot be changed. You can rest now, Sam.”
“Cas... tell me the truth. If he'd let me die ―stay dead― he wouldn't have...”
“The Seals would still have broken. Destiny cannot be changed.”
“But Dean wouldn't have died. He wouldn't have gone to Hell for me,” Sam clings to the thought as though it might save him from drowning.
“I can't say for certain. But no, I don't think so.”
“Cas... can we change it?”
“It is too late,” Castiel repeats.
“What if it wasn't?”
There's a pause. The angel's voice is hesitant when he speaks again. “Do you understand what you are asking?”
“I do, Cas. I understand. Can you do it?”
“I can't send you back. Not like before. My powers are all but gone, here.”
“Can you do anything?” Sam feels himself slipping, concentrates as hard as he can on the angel's voice.
“I can send you back to your body as it was then, but... I can't guarantee that your mind will remain intact. Angels are not temporal beings, but you are. The human mind can't encompass this kind of paradox. There will be... damage.”
“But it might work.”
“It might. It might not change anything, and you will likely still find yourself here, in the end. I don't think your destiny can be altered Sam.”
“But Dean's can.”
“Perhaps.”
“It's worth trying. I know how you feel about him, Cas. Tell me you don't want this as much as I do.”
“You are sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, then. I will try.”
*
“Sammy, what did you do?”
*
Chapter 5