Day 53: Lunch

[buryyourdemons]

There was little to be said of the daily business that went on. He allowed himself to be shuffled, mind embedded too deeply in things he shouldn't be dwelling on. The night was over, the shadows had vanished, and there was little more than bad memories to be left in their stead. This was logic, pure and simple, and should have been reassuring but

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[allroadslead]

Dean was easy to spot coming a mile away and Sam wasn't sure what he was bracing himself for, but it was something. The sad truth was, he was really kind of used to Dean being pissed at him; when you spent that much time together, it tended to happen. Frequently. But this was a hell of a lot more complicated than their usual arguments. This was all on Sam to fix because he'd started it in the first place. Even if Dean had no idea that that was the case.

His best bet was probably just to put something out there before Dean had the chance to interrupt.

"Well, if you wanna know about this morning, I thought she'd been killed. Two nights ago. That's why I headed for her, I wasn't avoiding you." Much. Avoidance had been secondary. That was the truth, at least. "If you want to know about last night-" He sighed. "I don't know. What do you want me to say? That I think I'm not a freak? 'Cause we both know better than that, Dean."

Except for Dean, it hadn't been that long ago, had it? The whole thing with the special kids was still pretty fresh. Fresher than it was for Sam. But he knew, too, that even two or three years after he'd displayed the first inklings of his abilities, Dean still acted like it was coming out of nowhere, like this wasn't supposed to happen. And it wasn't, but lots of things weren't supposed to happen. There was a logical part of him that knew he couldn't hold it against his brother for reacting the way he did, but most of him was simply frustrated. It wasn't as if he'd asked for this.

Maybe he was just tired of justifying himself to everyone.

[theroadsofar]

Dean almost stuttered to a stop at the news Ruby had apparently been killed - or almost killed, which right now he wasn't even sure which was which since Sam wasn't exactly being real helpful on that front. And it wasn't just last night, it'd been two nights ago? Why hadn't Sam told him? Dude, this was kinda important to know. He wasn't even sure how he was supposed to react to the new that by the way, that chick Sam thought was dead? Totally wasn't dead anymore. He had to scrub at his face before he really launched into his brother, trying to keep it cool. Well, fine. Half-assing the cool. It was really hard not to demand what else Sam was keeping from him. What was next? Dad from the grave too?

"Okay." Dean said, dropping his hand. He repeated himself, "Okay. First of all, it’d be nice to know this kinda stuff when it’s not after the fact.” He held up his hand before Sam started getting defensive on him. “So what’s the deal with her if she’s not dead?”

Dean gave Sam a Look - just ‘cause he wanted to make sure Ruby was still a human without any resurrection strings attached didn’t mean he wasn’t two seconds away from steering this back to last night. This was first of all about Sam and only Sam. Right now, asking about Ruby was just covering some bases. As much as he thought Ruby seemed like a cool chick, his first priority was his brother. Maybe he should’ve crashed Sam’s breakfast anyway. All Dean knew was he was tired of stuff coming up or how it seemed like if it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Whatever last night had been about, he wasn’t going to let Sam turn into…

Well, into whatever the hell had been going on last night. The track record might be pretty crappy with the whole special kids thing. Didn’t mean Sam had to be another one.

Maybe it was a new abilitiy? But that wasn’t what that thing out there had been digging at. Sam would’ve told him about anything new hitting him in psychic ball-dropping, right? Had to be something else. It’d said Sam wasn’t human. This was more than just some freaky powers and vibes.

[allroadslead]

Sam frowned, despite the hand Dean shoved in his face, but his reply was a little more neutral than it might've been otherwise. "I know, I'm sorry. I spent most of yesterday trying to figure out what the hell even happened out there and we got caught up with the whole shadow deal before I could tell you last night."

What was with Ruby, good question. What was the deal with anyone popping back in? It was hard to get worked up about these things anymore when it was all so goddamn insane.

He shrugged. "I wish I knew. I mean, you heard Yuffie, people come and go. Hell, I died and I showed up the next day. Who knows what's real anymore? All I know is, she doesn't remember having been here. Someone's hit the reset button."

A problem, yeah, but not the biggest. Ruby hadn't been here very long, not enough to make an impression or leave any loose ends. There wasn't a whole lot of ground to cover with her, and he'd told her most of what he knew this morning.

He didn't comment further, but he did watch his brother patiently-waiting. He knew Dean wanted to keep talking about last night, but if he did, he was gonna have to throw out the questions because Lord knew Sam had no idea where to even start. He wasn't gonna dodge it, though, at least. Not this time. They needed to clear it up, one way or another, and he was starting to realize that the only way to do that was to offer Dean the truth on this one.

Most of the truth. Maybe.

[theroadsofar]

It sounded so easy, calling it a giant reset button; at least on paper, anyway. People didn't just come back, not without strings attached. He should know.

Dean chewed his bottom lip, frowning. This couldn't just be about the job, however tempting it was to retreat back to just talking job stuff with Sam and not just cutting the crap. There was a brief second where he was really tempted to do just that. Maybe he didn't want to know what was up with Sam, 'cause knowing the truth was going to scare the living crap outta him and there was that little voice saying he really, really wasn't going to handle it well. But instead he kept chugging through and instead of throwing out more theories, he steered it right back to the real topic here.

"And what's the deal with last night? What'd that thing mean, you weren't human?" Dean asked. It was hard not to stare at his brother suspiciously. For starters, hell yeah he was suspicious. It'd been hard to shake the feeling Sam was keeping stuff from him practically from day one here, and then that whole business with Sam already running into the Trickster.

There was always the possibility that illusion or whatever they'd run into was lying. But most of the really evil shit out there had some truth seeded in, just to go that extra mile, and considering Sam's kinda weirdo abilities...yeah. Excuse him if Dean was having some serious doubts here. He just wished Sam would be up front with him about this. What'd he think he was gonna do, gank him?

Okay, maybe that was a little close to home, with Dad's bullshit last orders. But they didn't count if Dean had no plans on carrying them out, right? Sam had to know he couldn't ever pull the trigger on his own brother like that, so he might as well tell him if there was anything else going on there.

[allroadslead]

Sam bit his lip. Dean was giving him that look and Christ if he didn't know that one way too well, the same look Dean had kept giving him over that godawful year he'd spent chasing down dead end after dead end trying to break the damn deal.

So here they were again.

He pushed his tray out of the way. "Well, it was meant to be an extension of our subconscious. Shadow metaphor's...not too subtle." God, he was stalling, wasn't he?

Though it did raise the question of where Dean's shadow got to. Piecing it together now, Dean had one, definitely, or he wouldn't have been feeling so tripped out the way he had earlier in the night. Maybe it just hadn't had the time to manifest. Of the four of them, Sam couldn't say he was surprised that his and the Trickster's came out at full force. They were...the least normal of the group. The least human.

After a second, he shook it off. He leaned forward. There was a distinct sense of desperation that he struggled to quash because it seriously wasn't helping right now.

"Look, Dean, if I tell you, you can't-freak out on me, okay? Promise me you won't. It's not like-I didn't want you to know, I just. I didn't know how to tell you after Dad and this and-"

Everything. He hadn't told Dean after the deal because it hadn't seemed important in the face of the freaking doors of hell bursting wide open and Dean about to die in a year. It was just too much to dump his own issues on top of Dean's. And his powers had been dormant at the time. He hadn't known it would turn out the way it did.

Excuses, excuses.

Of which he realized he had none left.

[theroadsofar]

Dean already knew he wasn't going to like this, especially with how Sam was already trying to get him to calm down when he actually hadn't gotten to the real meaty stuff yet.

"I promise," Dean said, already getting that sinking feeling in his gut. He already knew he was going to break it - did freaking inside your head count? 'Cause he was totally prepped to do a mental freak out - but it was either nutting up and having Sam tell him face to face or the kid sneak around him like he was some bigass ninja. Dean paused. If they were both going to be telling the truth, then he had to be upfront too. "I'll try. Can't promise I'll take it in a stride, Sam."

This wasn't the same level as finding out that some of Sam's hunches - okay, maybe more than just some - had a bad habit of turning out true. Scary true. Dean couldn't lie and say none of this freaked him out. But then again...well, he had about a year(ish) left, he didn't want to spend the majority of it paranoid Sam was up to something behind his back, just for purely selfish reasons. And it wasn't like he wanted Sam's last months with him to be with them at each other's throats, either. Least he could do was try to listen.

Still, he suspected that it wasn't gonna be that easy. Telling Sam he'd try to be understanding didn't make that ugly shiver up his back suddenly go away.

Dean realized his knee was still jogging nervously. He forced it to stop, trying to play this cool.

[allroadslead]

That was...maybe not as reassuring as he'd hoped for, but honestly, Sam couldn't say he expected any more. God, was he being serious about this?

This was a bad idea. Crap, he knew it was a bad idea, there'd been a reason why he'd buried it for over a year. And after so long, he felt even less okay about divulging it out of the blue. Well, sort of out of the blue, like, yeah, Dean had asked to hear it, but Dean had no idea what he was asking for. He couldn't know.

"Yellow-Eyes visited for a reason," he said finally, rushed, as though he didn't even want to stop to hear what he was saying. "The kids, at six months, when I was at Cold Oak, I-that was what I found out. Before the whole thing with Jake happened, he came and he showed me. Why we could do the things we did."

It wasn't the clearest explanation ever, but shit, he didn't want to have to spell it out. He was hoping Dean would just piece it together, realize it himself and-do something. What was he even expecting from this? There was no way this was gonna end well for either of them. Dad's warning alone had freaked Dean out. How was he gonna feel with actual confirmation?

This should've been over. It had been over, after Dean had...died. It'd be over, and now it was suddenly getting dragged to the surface again. Dean was right; he could promise all he wanted, it wouldn't matter a damn thing in the end. There were some things that were just ingrained into them. Anything close to demonic equaling bad news was one of those things.

[theroadsofar]

So basically, what Sam was saying was when he'd asked if anything else had gone down at Cold Oak, Sam hadn't been telling the exact God's honest truth.

Dean bit his lip, making a real effort not to get too up in arms about it. Time and place, man. He’d told Sam he’d really make an effort here to try to be understanding and if that wasn’t even the sucky part, then he was going to have to do a lot better than that.

“Okay, so Yellow-Eyes got chatty with you,” Dean repeated slowly. It didn’t sound any better out loud like that. “What’d he say?”

It felt like pulling friggen teeth. Dean could think of a whole bunch of worst case scenarios here. It was one thing to get tagged by a lucky shot on the job and maybe he would’ve been fine with that. But this idea that Yellow-Eyes was stalking Sam since he was a baby all that time just creeped the hell out of him. He wasn’t sure how to fix this. Maybe he couldn’t even fix it; he’d be damned if he didn’t at least try. How much of this had Dad even figured out? Dean had been totally fine with following his orders but now that he thought about this, the more he was starting to side with Sam getting all bitchy about wanting to know more. What if Dad had figured out all this BS? Dean was starting to frown at Sam without meaning to, bordering on a glare as he wished he hadn’t froze up on that hospital bed a year ago.

Should’ve said something. Hell, Dad should've been here for this and - yeah, well. Dad was gone, he'd saved him when he shouldn't have and Dean was flying solo on this. If there was a way to help Sam out here, it was up to him and that was all the backup he'd have.

[allroadslead]

Sam eyed his brother, though he knew there was really no way to tell what the hell was going through Dean's head at the moment. There were times when he could read Dean like a book and then there were times like this where it was a shot in the dark at best.

At least Dean hadn't, you know, totally called him out on lying (well, mildly omitting) about Cold Oak earlier. Weeks ago now. God, had it been that long? Apparently.

And he was stalling.

He hesitated, trying to find the proper words, but there wasn't exactly a handbook set of rules for these things. If there'd been a way to do this over the phone or send an email or something, Sam thought he might've taken that option instead.

"I have demon blood. In me." He didn't qualify it with he said because this wasn't about what Azazel had said. It just was. Simple fact. And he didn't feel like thinking about what this meant for him and Dean now that it was out. Maybe Dean would surprise him, but something told him no. Dean would take it just as badly as he expected, if not worse, and though he was well aware of how ridiculous it would be to blame his brother for that, a part of him almost wanted to.

Still, this was better than Dean finding out from someone else. Wasn't it?

Yeah, that thought didn't help.

[theroadsofar]

"Come again?" Dean froze, going still just staring at Sam, even when he had this instinctive urge to recoil. "How?"

And now there was all kinds of questions cropping up and he didn't even know where to start: how was the obvious one, why was the next (why Sam?), how come the holy water and devil's traps didn't have any effect on him, and the list went on. Was this what Dad meant about that fucked up warning he gave him? Dean was starting to get pissed all over again and not all of it was aimed at his brother. Goddamit, something this big, Dad should've told him. What if this got worse? Hell, those powers hadn’t kicked in until recently, so what else was coming down the line? Was the blood thing going to get more intense? The lore on demons was all over the place and some of it wasn’t true, or they were talking about the other freaks out there. He couldn’t say for sure. Bobby could’ve probably helped, except he wasn’t here right now.

Come to think of it, he might not even know where they took off to. Last time he saw the guy, Bobby knew he’d been in a crap spot, and he wasn’t sure exactly how much Sam told him, either. It wasn’t like there was a map to Landels anyone could pick up.

Dean chewed on his lip, furiously thinking, and he might’ve stabbed at his lunch with the fork more roughly than he intended, as if he could take it out on that. At this point, he wasn’t even hungry, but it kept him busy. So Sam had found out about this demon blood thing since Cold Oak, right? This hadn’t been from earlier. Sam hadn’t held out on this for months or anything. At least there was that.

It was kind of sad when you had to be grateful that if Sam lied, at least it was a new lie.

[allroadslead]

The reaction was as volatile as he'd been afraid of, but Sam couldn't help but look away, gaze flicking over the food that he hadn't touched. He might cram something down on the way out the door, if he could manage it, but there was no way he could bring himself to eat in the middle of this conversation.

Because he still wasn't entirely sure Dean wouldn't disown him by the end of this whole thing. And a part of him thought maybe he wasn't being fair; for God's sake, Dean was his brother, no matter what, and of course he knew that Dean felt the same way. Dean wasn't Dad; he'd always known that. If there had ever been one thing that had made him hesitate, for a moment, about leaving for California, it'd been Dean.

Even if, you know. It hadn't been enough to make him stay.

"We were all fed his blood at six months," he explained quietly. "That's what...Mom walked in on that night. She recognized him, you know. I don't know how, but-" He fiddled with his fork. Now that it was out, it was somehow easier to spill it all than hold anything back. "Look, I'm not saying you shouldn't freak out 'cause this has been freaking me out for awhile, too, but I'm not-actually a demon." He lifted his eyes. "You know that, right?"

[theroadsofar]

Dean couldn't stop himself before he blurted, "You sure about that?"

It hit him just a second too late, and he had plenty of time to see that look on Sam's face, like he'd kicked him when he was down. Dean sighed, rubbing at his eyes and wishing it hadn't come out so douchey; it wasn't like he'd meant it to, but it'd been pretty douchey and he should've worded it better.

"Sorry. Sam, I didn't mean it like that," Dean tried again, trying very hard not to just peer at his brother for any signs of those black eyes. Suddenly it felt like it made sense, those eyes on that shadow from last night. Things were just starting to click into place: that freak telekinesis a few months ago, Yellow-Eye's hard-on for his brother, to name a few.

He fished around for something to say. Nothing came to mind right off the bat, Dean averting his eyes and clearing his throat, feeling this nauseated tightness setting in. Sam was right. They both had good reason to freak out and what the Hell was this about Mom recognizing Yellow-Eyes?

Dean wanted to latch onto that. It's a job - or closer to one - but even that felt kinda weak. Still was family. Unlike Sam, he remembered Mom and this was raising a lot of questions he didn't like. But Mom was gone; Sam wasn't and his first priority was Sam. He had to man the fuck up and get this thing figured out. Dean finally looked back at his brother, jaw working a little as he tried to think of something to say that wasn't going to come out like he wanted to start swinging. Around them the general buzz of conversation around the patients was at about the same level. Kinda felt weird to be having a conversation like this like it was just another day.

"So you're like...a half-demon or what?" Dean said, visibly struggling. "So is there anything I shouldn't do around you now? I figure you're safe from the traps and the holy water."

For now went unsaid. He didn't like the fact that the "yet" in there was still a real possibility.

[allroadslead]

Yeah, you did. Sam bit back the words in time, though a part of him wanted to say it, anyway, because it was the truth if anything. But that wasn't fair, and he wasn't trying to make Dean feel like shit right now. At least one of them should be-

All right, happy wasn't the right word here. He didn't think that would ever apply to either one of them anymore. Like it'd ever had.

He shook off the thought, forcing himself to focus on Dean's questions. Not that those were much better; they weren't exactly questions he wanted to answer at the moment. Or at any point in his life, actually. He'd asked them himself plenty of times. How long before his eyes turned black? How much of him was even human? Was there a percentage to this, an exact quantifiable statistic that could be measured in a test tube and a petri dish? He knew he couldn't literally become a demon; all logic said otherwise from what he knew about Hell through months of research and through Ruby. But there wasn't-it was more than that, it was-

There were more ways to become a monster than just turning into a pile of smoke.

"Um." He rubbed the corner of his eye. "Jesus, dude. I don't know. I mean, it's not like there's a precedent for this in a case file we can flip through." The edge in his voice was unintentional, but there. He took a deep breath and tried again. "I doubt there's anything. I think the whole point was that we would, you know, have...all of the advantages and none of the weaknesses."

Jake had crossed through the giant devil's trap that had kept even Yellow-Eyes out, and Jake had been pretty freaking far gone when he'd done that. As uncertain as Sam was about what he was doing with his abilities and Ruby, he did know he was nowhere near to falling off the edge. Not even close. And he never would be. He wouldn't let it get that far.

He wouldn't.