ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2010-09-06 04:59 pm
ratherastory) wrote2010-09-06 04:59 pm
Entry tags:
Not the Demons You're Looking For (11/24)
Part 10
Part 11
Over the past few years Sam had grown accustomed to not sleeping well. He'd had nightmares ever since he was a little kid, as far back as he could remember, although they'd only started getting really bad in his last year at Stanford, right before Jess... right before everything in his carefully-crafted new life had come tumbling down in a burning pile of rubble. Since then the nightmares had been pretty much a constant in his life, waking him up shaking with terror and bathed in sweat, and most of the time he avoided sleep until he was close to passing out from exhaustion. Not the healthiest way to cope, but it was the best he could do. Being kept up by Dean's coughing was almost a refreshing change, and at least it gave him something other than his own problems on which to focus. Eventually, though, exhaustion caught up with both of them, and Sam was able to snatch a few hours of sleep, untroubled by dreams.
Waking up first in the morning was nothing new to him, either. In their family, Dean was the only morning person, usually up with the sun and utterly obnoxious until Sam had gotten his hands on a cup of coffee. Just because he was already awake didn't mean Sam had to be happy about it. This morning, though, Dean was still out like a light, his breath crackling audibly in his lungs. Sam brushed his fingers as lightly as he could over his forehead, checking surreptitiously for fever, wasn't sure that his brother wasn't a little too warm. Without a thermometer it was impossible to tell for sure. If it was a fever, it was low enough not to be an immediate cause for concern.
A glance at the clock told him they'd slept later than usual. A lot later, in fact. He put it down to exhaustion, a poor night's sleep, and the fact that they were sleeping on the most comfortable bed they'd had in years. Between motels and the Impala, the beds they usually had ranged from lumpy to barely acceptable, but almost never qualified as comfortable. He found Andy in the kitchen, staring gloomily at a carton of eggs on the counter. He looked up at Sam's approach, and smiled sheepishly.
“Uh, hey. I mean, g'morning. I thought it would maybe be better if I let you guys sleep a bit. You looked like you could use it.”
“You weren't far wrong,” Sam agreed, eyeing the eggs. “That bed's really comfortable. More comfortable than anything I've slept on recently, anyway. So what's all this?”
“I figured I ought to get groceries. We can't eat out all the time. Not cheap, you know. Except I suck at cooking, to be honest.”
Sam grinned. “Well, I can cook eggs, in spite of what Dean says. They're not really exciting, but it's hard to wreck scrambled eggs. Got a pan?”
It felt nice to go about the ritual of making breakfast. Even in an unfamiliar kitchen, the small gestures came back to him, the scent of real coffee brewing instead of instant stuff made on the run, or cheap cups grabbed in gas stations, the sound of eggs and bacon sizzling in a pan. When he'd been at Stanford he'd made a point of making breakfast for Jess on Sunday mornings, with her watching him from her spot, half-sitting on the kitchen windowsill, mug of coffee cradled in both hands. Sometimes she'd help, chopping onions for an omelette, and she'd give him a playful hip-check, teasing him about being in her way, all arms and legs, and then breakfast would be forgotten for a while. The thought made his heart skip a few painful beats in his chest, but the memory was a good one, and he couldn't quite bring himself to banish it.
“You okay?”
He looked up, surprised, hadn't realized how much he'd been telegraphing his emotions. “Yeah, sorry. I was thinking about something else. My girlfriend,” he clarified, wondering why he suddenly felt the need to explain himself.
“I didn't know you had a girlfriend. Thought it was just you and your brother,” Andy was busy setting the table, looking oddly domestic in his stocking feet.
“It is. She died last year.”
“Oh, man, I'm sorry. That really sucks,” the sincerity was unmistakeable, even if the delivery was awkward. “Uh, how...?”
“It was a fire,” Sam said shortly, then relented when he saw the look on Andy's face. “The demon killed her. Same way it killed my mother.”
Andy paled. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to tell him. He was probably worried about Tracy, now, and with good reason. The yellow-eyed demon wasn't exactly pulling its punches lately. Sam was saved from having to try to fix what he'd just done by the sound of Dean thumping his way down the stairs and poking his head into the kitchen. He looked like death warmed over, deep circles under his eyes, his skin pale, hair still mussed, clad in the sweats and wife-beater that Sam had coaxed him into the night before. He obviously hadn't bothered to shower yet, or even to brush his teeth.
“Bordig,” he padded into the kitchen in bare feet, his voice barely audible above a croak, and painful-sounding.
“Jesus, Dean,” Sam blurted before he could think about it, and was rewarded with a glare. Dealing with a sick Dean was fifty percent science, fifty percent complex performance art, and Sam wasn't exactly on top of his game these days. Clearing his throat, he changed tactics. “There's fresh coffee and orange juice, and if you're willing to wait a couple more minutes, there'll be scrambled eggs and bacon.”
Dean just looked at him and nodded his thanks.
“I'm guessing you're not going to be doing a lot of talking today?”
Dean shook his head, buried his nose in his elbow. “HHEIISHH!” He kept his arm up over his face, coughing painfully.
“Gesundheit.” Sam felt his face crease into an expression of sympathy. He left the eggs to cook, poured coffee into a mug and handed it to his brother before rummaging in the fridge for the orange juice. “You think you could stand to eat something?” he slid the eggs and the bacon onto separate plates as he spoke, laid them out on the table. “See? I promise I didn't burn anything.”
Dean gave him a weak smile, then turned a dubious look on the food. He swallowed his coffee with an obvious effort, stared at the food for a while longer as though he might just be able to intimidate it into consuming itself, then shook his head minutely and stood up again. “Goig to tagke a shower,” he said, his look daring Sam to say anything about the way his voice broke on most of the words, faded before the sentence was even finished.
Sam simply nodded. “Don't use up all the hot water.”
Dean rolled his eyes, turned his back to sneeze into his cupped hands. “HEPKTSCH! HEIISHHUH! HEPKCHUH!”
“I mean it, Dean.”
His brother made a very distinctive “whatever” motion in the air with one hand, disappeared back up the stairs. Sam heard him coughing even from the second floor, and bit his tongue, trying not to worry too much. Dean rarely got sick. Banged around, sure: he spent most of his time being tossed around by various supernatural nasties, and Sam had splinted and bandaged and stitched him up more times than he cared to count. Getting outright sick, though, that was rare. He couldn't remember the last time Dean had come down with a virus, and this one seemed like it was kicking his ass. He found himself wondering if everything that had happened —the djinn, the demon threat perpetually hanging over them, Dad— if maybe that hadn't all come together and wrecked Dean's immune system. Whatever it was, he was sick now, and getting visibly sicker as time went on.
“You guys have the most dysfunctional relationship ever,” Andy remarked, making Sam jump. He'd forgotten he was there, sitting quietly at the table, sipping at his coffee.
Sam gave a small huff of laughter. “We make it work.”
“The mind-to-mind communication thing you've got going is pretty cool, though.”
Sam shrugged. “There's nothing special about it. We just... know each other.”
“Uh-huh. I can tell. It's still pretty cool. I'm an only child, never had that.” Andy tucked into his portion of eggs with enthusiasm. “I think he's worried about you.”
“Dean's always worried about me. It's like his default mode.”
Andy arched an eyebrow at his tone. “No, I get that. I mean really worried. Like, making himself sick worried.”
With a sigh Sam plunked himself down in a chair, reached for his own coffee. “I know. I just... there's not much I can do to make him stop worrying, you know? It's not like there's a switch in his head that I can just flick on and off.”
“I guess. You think he's going to be okay to, uh, keep looking into this?”
“The problem will be trying to convince him not to keep going. Dean subscribes to the 'walk it off' philosophy of sickness. A trait he got from our Dad.”
Andy surprised him by laughing. “Oh, 'cause you're so reasonable about it? Come on, man, you passed out in the street yesterday. I mean, you were practically convulsing. We had to carry you back here, and now you're telling me that you can pop a couple of Tylenol and it's all cool?”
Sam ducked his head with a small smile. “Touché.”
“Oh, man,” Andy was still chuckling. “No matter how badly this whole situation sucks, I gotta say my life has never been as interesting since I met you guys. It's all so freaking messed up,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief, “but it's kind of fun, too, in its own weird, messed-up way.”
“I know what you mean,” Sam surprised himself by agreeing. It was fun, in a weird way. He'd never thought of hunting that way before, but it was undoubtedly satisfying to piece things together, help people, to know he'd made a measurable difference in the world. And it was actually fun, too: exhilarating in a way that the normal life he always thought he'd wanted could never be.
“So, uh, that woman in your vision? Think you could recognize her now?”
“Maybe,” he scrunched up his nose, got up to fetch his laptop and the papers from the living room where Dean had left them the day before. He spread them on the kitchen table, shoving the dishes to the side, and looked at the photographs again. He immediately eliminated three of the women, then re-read the birth notices. —“You can't have him!”— echoed in his mind, and he discarded the women who'd given birth to girls. “Well, that narrows it down more,” he said, staring at the remaining three women. “Not sure it was worth the potential ruptured blood vessel, but yeah. It's one of these three. This one, I think, but I can't be sure. Lesley Barnes. D'you have internet access?”
“No, but the neighbours have wireless. Why?”
By way of answer Sam pulled out his laptop, flipped it open, and hooked into the network. “If we're going to interview this woman, we have to know where she lives, right?” A few keystrokes found him an address. The good thing about people who otherwise had nothing to hide was that they were ridiculously easy to find. “She lives on South 14th Street. Know where that is?”
“Yeah. It's right next to Noble Park, right on the banks of Cottonwood Creek. It's not that far.”
“Right. As soon as Dean's ready, we'll figure out just how we're going to get Lesley to talk to us. FBI is probably a bit of a stretch,” Sam tapped a finger against his laptop, thinking out loud.
“I could always... you know...”
“If she's one of the demon's kids, or whatever, that might not work,” Sam pointed out.
“Oh. Right. I forgot.”
Yeah, well, I didn't, Sam thought, a little bitterly. Sometimes it felt like he'd never be allowed to forget any of it.
Part 12
Part 11
Over the past few years Sam had grown accustomed to not sleeping well. He'd had nightmares ever since he was a little kid, as far back as he could remember, although they'd only started getting really bad in his last year at Stanford, right before Jess... right before everything in his carefully-crafted new life had come tumbling down in a burning pile of rubble. Since then the nightmares had been pretty much a constant in his life, waking him up shaking with terror and bathed in sweat, and most of the time he avoided sleep until he was close to passing out from exhaustion. Not the healthiest way to cope, but it was the best he could do. Being kept up by Dean's coughing was almost a refreshing change, and at least it gave him something other than his own problems on which to focus. Eventually, though, exhaustion caught up with both of them, and Sam was able to snatch a few hours of sleep, untroubled by dreams.
Waking up first in the morning was nothing new to him, either. In their family, Dean was the only morning person, usually up with the sun and utterly obnoxious until Sam had gotten his hands on a cup of coffee. Just because he was already awake didn't mean Sam had to be happy about it. This morning, though, Dean was still out like a light, his breath crackling audibly in his lungs. Sam brushed his fingers as lightly as he could over his forehead, checking surreptitiously for fever, wasn't sure that his brother wasn't a little too warm. Without a thermometer it was impossible to tell for sure. If it was a fever, it was low enough not to be an immediate cause for concern.
A glance at the clock told him they'd slept later than usual. A lot later, in fact. He put it down to exhaustion, a poor night's sleep, and the fact that they were sleeping on the most comfortable bed they'd had in years. Between motels and the Impala, the beds they usually had ranged from lumpy to barely acceptable, but almost never qualified as comfortable. He found Andy in the kitchen, staring gloomily at a carton of eggs on the counter. He looked up at Sam's approach, and smiled sheepishly.
“Uh, hey. I mean, g'morning. I thought it would maybe be better if I let you guys sleep a bit. You looked like you could use it.”
“You weren't far wrong,” Sam agreed, eyeing the eggs. “That bed's really comfortable. More comfortable than anything I've slept on recently, anyway. So what's all this?”
“I figured I ought to get groceries. We can't eat out all the time. Not cheap, you know. Except I suck at cooking, to be honest.”
Sam grinned. “Well, I can cook eggs, in spite of what Dean says. They're not really exciting, but it's hard to wreck scrambled eggs. Got a pan?”
It felt nice to go about the ritual of making breakfast. Even in an unfamiliar kitchen, the small gestures came back to him, the scent of real coffee brewing instead of instant stuff made on the run, or cheap cups grabbed in gas stations, the sound of eggs and bacon sizzling in a pan. When he'd been at Stanford he'd made a point of making breakfast for Jess on Sunday mornings, with her watching him from her spot, half-sitting on the kitchen windowsill, mug of coffee cradled in both hands. Sometimes she'd help, chopping onions for an omelette, and she'd give him a playful hip-check, teasing him about being in her way, all arms and legs, and then breakfast would be forgotten for a while. The thought made his heart skip a few painful beats in his chest, but the memory was a good one, and he couldn't quite bring himself to banish it.
“You okay?”
He looked up, surprised, hadn't realized how much he'd been telegraphing his emotions. “Yeah, sorry. I was thinking about something else. My girlfriend,” he clarified, wondering why he suddenly felt the need to explain himself.
“I didn't know you had a girlfriend. Thought it was just you and your brother,” Andy was busy setting the table, looking oddly domestic in his stocking feet.
“It is. She died last year.”
“Oh, man, I'm sorry. That really sucks,” the sincerity was unmistakeable, even if the delivery was awkward. “Uh, how...?”
“It was a fire,” Sam said shortly, then relented when he saw the look on Andy's face. “The demon killed her. Same way it killed my mother.”
Andy paled. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to tell him. He was probably worried about Tracy, now, and with good reason. The yellow-eyed demon wasn't exactly pulling its punches lately. Sam was saved from having to try to fix what he'd just done by the sound of Dean thumping his way down the stairs and poking his head into the kitchen. He looked like death warmed over, deep circles under his eyes, his skin pale, hair still mussed, clad in the sweats and wife-beater that Sam had coaxed him into the night before. He obviously hadn't bothered to shower yet, or even to brush his teeth.
“Bordig,” he padded into the kitchen in bare feet, his voice barely audible above a croak, and painful-sounding.
“Jesus, Dean,” Sam blurted before he could think about it, and was rewarded with a glare. Dealing with a sick Dean was fifty percent science, fifty percent complex performance art, and Sam wasn't exactly on top of his game these days. Clearing his throat, he changed tactics. “There's fresh coffee and orange juice, and if you're willing to wait a couple more minutes, there'll be scrambled eggs and bacon.”
Dean just looked at him and nodded his thanks.
“I'm guessing you're not going to be doing a lot of talking today?”
Dean shook his head, buried his nose in his elbow. “HHEIISHH!” He kept his arm up over his face, coughing painfully.
“Gesundheit.” Sam felt his face crease into an expression of sympathy. He left the eggs to cook, poured coffee into a mug and handed it to his brother before rummaging in the fridge for the orange juice. “You think you could stand to eat something?” he slid the eggs and the bacon onto separate plates as he spoke, laid them out on the table. “See? I promise I didn't burn anything.”
Dean gave him a weak smile, then turned a dubious look on the food. He swallowed his coffee with an obvious effort, stared at the food for a while longer as though he might just be able to intimidate it into consuming itself, then shook his head minutely and stood up again. “Goig to tagke a shower,” he said, his look daring Sam to say anything about the way his voice broke on most of the words, faded before the sentence was even finished.
Sam simply nodded. “Don't use up all the hot water.”
Dean rolled his eyes, turned his back to sneeze into his cupped hands. “HEPKTSCH! HEIISHHUH! HEPKCHUH!”
“I mean it, Dean.”
His brother made a very distinctive “whatever” motion in the air with one hand, disappeared back up the stairs. Sam heard him coughing even from the second floor, and bit his tongue, trying not to worry too much. Dean rarely got sick. Banged around, sure: he spent most of his time being tossed around by various supernatural nasties, and Sam had splinted and bandaged and stitched him up more times than he cared to count. Getting outright sick, though, that was rare. He couldn't remember the last time Dean had come down with a virus, and this one seemed like it was kicking his ass. He found himself wondering if everything that had happened —the djinn, the demon threat perpetually hanging over them, Dad— if maybe that hadn't all come together and wrecked Dean's immune system. Whatever it was, he was sick now, and getting visibly sicker as time went on.
“You guys have the most dysfunctional relationship ever,” Andy remarked, making Sam jump. He'd forgotten he was there, sitting quietly at the table, sipping at his coffee.
Sam gave a small huff of laughter. “We make it work.”
“The mind-to-mind communication thing you've got going is pretty cool, though.”
Sam shrugged. “There's nothing special about it. We just... know each other.”
“Uh-huh. I can tell. It's still pretty cool. I'm an only child, never had that.” Andy tucked into his portion of eggs with enthusiasm. “I think he's worried about you.”
“Dean's always worried about me. It's like his default mode.”
Andy arched an eyebrow at his tone. “No, I get that. I mean really worried. Like, making himself sick worried.”
With a sigh Sam plunked himself down in a chair, reached for his own coffee. “I know. I just... there's not much I can do to make him stop worrying, you know? It's not like there's a switch in his head that I can just flick on and off.”
“I guess. You think he's going to be okay to, uh, keep looking into this?”
“The problem will be trying to convince him not to keep going. Dean subscribes to the 'walk it off' philosophy of sickness. A trait he got from our Dad.”
Andy surprised him by laughing. “Oh, 'cause you're so reasonable about it? Come on, man, you passed out in the street yesterday. I mean, you were practically convulsing. We had to carry you back here, and now you're telling me that you can pop a couple of Tylenol and it's all cool?”
Sam ducked his head with a small smile. “Touché.”
“Oh, man,” Andy was still chuckling. “No matter how badly this whole situation sucks, I gotta say my life has never been as interesting since I met you guys. It's all so freaking messed up,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief, “but it's kind of fun, too, in its own weird, messed-up way.”
“I know what you mean,” Sam surprised himself by agreeing. It was fun, in a weird way. He'd never thought of hunting that way before, but it was undoubtedly satisfying to piece things together, help people, to know he'd made a measurable difference in the world. And it was actually fun, too: exhilarating in a way that the normal life he always thought he'd wanted could never be.
“So, uh, that woman in your vision? Think you could recognize her now?”
“Maybe,” he scrunched up his nose, got up to fetch his laptop and the papers from the living room where Dean had left them the day before. He spread them on the kitchen table, shoving the dishes to the side, and looked at the photographs again. He immediately eliminated three of the women, then re-read the birth notices. —“You can't have him!”— echoed in his mind, and he discarded the women who'd given birth to girls. “Well, that narrows it down more,” he said, staring at the remaining three women. “Not sure it was worth the potential ruptured blood vessel, but yeah. It's one of these three. This one, I think, but I can't be sure. Lesley Barnes. D'you have internet access?”
“No, but the neighbours have wireless. Why?”
By way of answer Sam pulled out his laptop, flipped it open, and hooked into the network. “If we're going to interview this woman, we have to know where she lives, right?” A few keystrokes found him an address. The good thing about people who otherwise had nothing to hide was that they were ridiculously easy to find. “She lives on South 14th Street. Know where that is?”
“Yeah. It's right next to Noble Park, right on the banks of Cottonwood Creek. It's not that far.”
“Right. As soon as Dean's ready, we'll figure out just how we're going to get Lesley to talk to us. FBI is probably a bit of a stretch,” Sam tapped a finger against his laptop, thinking out loud.
“I could always... you know...”
“If she's one of the demon's kids, or whatever, that might not work,” Sam pointed out.
“Oh. Right. I forgot.”
Yeah, well, I didn't, Sam thought, a little bitterly. Sometimes it felt like he'd never be allowed to forget any of it.
Part 12
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BTW, the link from chapter 10 to chapter 11 is broken, and some chapters don't have lj-cuts.
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