Blue Skies From Rain Part 6 - Chapter 26 cont.

[lovesrain44]

 

*

The second Dean’s feet hit Stillwater, OK, and shifted his backpack on his shoulder, he knew it was different than Bentonville. The young couple who had given him a lift lived in a new development on the edge of town, so they dropped him off at someplace they called The Strip and waved goodbye. Dean stood watching them go, not really sure why they’d given him a lift. He would have thought that people like that wouldn’t be helping drifters. Especially ones who had been pretty much wearing the same clothes for about two weeks now. He’d tried to wash what he wasn’t wearing at a truck stop one night, but hadn’t had enough change for soap, and just hadn’t been up to scamming for it. The result of which, everything was just as dirty as everything else.

But The Strip was pretty nice, one of those downtown areas that was being done up new, and Dean didn’t know what day it was, but there were a few college age students walking around. And bars, there were seven bars from where he was standing, and all of them looked promising. Then there was the diner at the end of the street, which might have real food. Which Dean realized, his mouth watering, was what he wanted. Which he would get, once he scammed someone out of their pool money. Surely one of the bars had pool tables. Surely.

Turned out they all did, and Dean was able to rake in a few hundred bucks. Which meant he’d be sleeping in a motel tonight, and then next night after that. There were pool tables strung from coast to coast, and all of them with players who had no idea how good Dean was. He didn’t need the Impala. He didn’t even need Sam. And Sam certainly didn’t need him.

But the meal at the diner made him feel lonely, the longing for Sam a deep empty spot that no food could fill. There was no one to look at and smirk at while he chewed with his mouth open on purpose. There was no one to fight over bits of the paper with or to nudge when his eyes spotted something in the Town and Home section of the Stillwater NewsPress. Where Mrs. Lundy reported how well her flowers were growing, only she suspected that someone was planting mushrooms in circles on her lawn, and how sad it was that young vandals had nothing better to do than bother an old woman. Plus, she wished they’d find somewhere else to dance, weren’t there dances at the college to go to?

Dean read the article again and realized that Mrs. Lundy was in grave danger of being danced into fairy land. It was lucky that she was too much a lady to go out and demand that the dancing be stopped, else she would have found herself face to face with a fairy dance. Maybe it was pixies. Either way, he could break the curse easy. Just get some salt and some marjoram and some thyme, maybe some holy water for good measure, and throw it all in there.

Wiping his hands on a paper napkin, he shoveled in the last of his biscuits and gravy. He loved places that served breakfast all day without asking questions and that didn’t try to steer him towards something more lunchlike. Breakfast was best because you could have toast and jam and coffee till you were going to burst and no one said anything about vegetables. Well. Sam would, if he were here. But he wasn’t. And he wasn’t going to be.

Dean ducked his chin and fished out a ten, thinking that helping Mrs. Lundy would be a good distraction from the sudden hot sear that lanced down the middle of his heart. The muddle in his brain. He would do the work, and then he could head west again.

*

Sam hit highway 70 and went west, across the rolling green hills and dips that made up the state of Missouri. It wasn’t till the rain hit hard enough and he was forced to stop just outside of GrainCity that he realized he had no idea where he was going. Or really, why.

He checked into a Travel Lodge that promised great rates, and once he got into his room, it was easy to understand. There was a coffee maker, as promised, but no coffee pot or packets of coffee. The light bulbs were all the energy efficient kind that gave off weak light that was still hard on the eyes. The smell of mold crept out of the bedding and the carpet. The TV predated cable by about five years and when Sam turned it on, it took it about that long to warm up. There was nothing on he needed to watch, he just needed the sound to keep him company.

He brought in only what he needed to get going in the morning, and ignored the menus for local eateries. Instead, he spread his map on the bed, and sat next to it, one knee cocked up, one booted foot on the floor, and looked at the map in the glinting, hard light.

While he’d been driving he’d thought about Dean. About the time when he’d bent close and asked Sam to stop taking his meds. Sam remembered that conversation, the way his heart had chittered in his chest at the thought of deceiving Dr. Logan, about being without the safety net of the pills that kept him calm. What if he’d tried to bite someone again, what if he’d tried to strangle someone?

But Dean had been so convincing, like he always was, so intent and focused on Sam that Sam had been easily able to shift his trust, if not all the way, then enough. Enough to stop taking his pills, a little less each day, becoming, under Dean’s guidance, a little less muddled, a little more aware. Dean had been there, every second, monitoring Sam’s progress with eyes sharper than any orderly. And those had been some good orderlies.

It hadn’t been Dean’s fault that Sam had flipped out when Dean had said we’re leaving and no more fooling around. The hospital had put Sam back on a full dose of pills and who knew what else they’d shot him full of. It had taken four days for him to get off the meds the second time around. Which had left them vulnerable to Henriksen finding them.

But why had it taken long? Sam didn’t know, but he imagined that if you just stopped taking something as powerful as the drugs they’d been given, then it might be hard on the body, or even dangerous. So the answer as to why it had taken so long, maybe that made sense now. You had to go slow. Dean’s convincing argument hadn’t been that, though. Rather, it had been that the drugs weren’t helping him not think about monsters, and zombies and the blue man. And if the drugs weren’t helping, then why take them?

Sam had to smile at that, at the thought of him rambling on about things that he thought and felt, about creatures he’d been told was imaginary. And all the while, Dean listened and nodded, not laughing, not mocking him. Not filling him in either, because Sam’s memories had to come back on their own. That’s what Dean had said. So he’d been patient, knowing what Sam had needed better than the doctors did. Better than Sam had. Dean had been forced to play both sides of the fence, knowing and pretending not to know.

And Sam, looking back, realized that with his amnesia, he’d been like a kid, inexperienced as one, that was for sure. Seeing only what was obvious, and wanting what he wanted. But, it had been Dean, back from Treatment, who had pulled Sam on top of him, his voice thick, You come’ere, his body shivering. And when Sam had asked him if he wanted more kisses, Dean had not said no.

That had led to so many things. Not all at once, no, but little by little, going in the opposite direction from where the meds should have taken them. Not calm and serene like he supposed the hospital wanted the patients to be. But alert and aware. And sharing such a small space, they almost couldn’t help themselves. Whose whacked out idea had that been? Dr. Logan’s.

Sam realized he was rubbing the scar on his arm where the orderly had dug out the needle tip, remembering how shaken up he’d been, how much he’d wanted Dean. And after, in the Day room, with his head on Dean’s lap, and Dean had stroked his hair, and leaned close to kiss him. And how he’d said what he felt then, that he loved Dean. And how Dean hadn’t said anything to that, not really. But that he’d not turned away either.

Sam shifted on the bed, and the map slipped into the valley created by his thigh. He started unlacing his boots, almost absently, needing to lie down, needing to think. He stood up and stripped down to his boxers and t-shirt, which felt more comfortable in the stuffy room, and thought about taking a shower in the morning. He arranged the pillows in a pile, and lay back down and tried to look at the map by holding it up, but the atlas was too unwieldy and wagged between his hands like a sheet in a high wind. So he rested it splayed out on his chest and let his eyes drift to the TV where they settled, unfocused.

It was the news station, with the weatherman blathering on about this front and that occlusion. Sam could barely hear him, but he recognized the isobars, and knew what the numbers and the cloud icons and the sun icons meant. More rainy weather where he was, more sunny weather elsewhere. Wasn’t that always the way?

His mind clicked backwards, thinking of the Day room and him and Dean watching TV together, watching whatever was on the TV because the channel selection was controlled by the orderlies. Dean’s knee bumping into his, both of them warm in the cool room because their sides touched, all up and down. The smell of the air, medicinal and tart, the distant smell of old pee and mouse droppings. The closer smell of Dean’s sweat, familiar and comforting. Dean turning his head to look at Sam, watchful and careful, smiling, his eyes as warm as a home fire. And Sam’s response to Dean’s attention. Can I tell you a story? Before I was big I was little. I can’t touch the soap, so will you give me a bath?

What had he been doing, acting like a five year old, letting Dean take care of him like that?

Maybe the way he’d been had something to do with it, a combination of the amnesia and the trauma Dr. Logan kept insisting he suffered. If so, then what the hell had Dean been doing, touching him and kissing him, and arching against him, and all in the dark like a deep, terrible secret?

Because it had been. No one had ever known what they were doing. Or if they had, no one had said anything. And why should they bother? In the hospital’s collective mind, Sam and Dean were unrelated. If they had known the truth, then they would have separated the two of them because brothers didn’t do that.

He threw the map down on the floor, not really caring if the pages ripped or the spine broke, even though the map was really Dean’s and Dean liked to keep the maps nice, with crisp edges, and folded where they should be folded. He might have tears in his jeans, but by God, the maps were kept tidy. Like his car. Everything else could go to hell but that. What he loved, he cared for at the same time as he controlled. And in the hospital, all the years of learning and experience that told the doctors what meds to give Sam and Dean, or that they needed this kind of therapy or that kind of structure, all of that, Dean had thrown out the window. Deciding for himself what he and Sam needed. Especially what Sam needed.

He understood about the meds, Dean had taken them both off slowly and that was why they’d needed to hang out in the loony bin. About Dean listening and being watchful and letting Sam simply be who he needed to be. It wasn’t anything Dean wouldn’t have done under normal circumstances: taking care of Sam was Dean’s number one job. Okay, about that, fine. But everything else, it just didn’t make sense. And Dean had been in charge, so the fault lay with Dean. Even though, beyond that, Sam knew that he’d pulled and pushed and cajoled and there was nothing in the world that could help Dean resist a Sam who wanted something. Even if that something was him. But Dean had started it. Hadn’t he?

Sam knew he needed to find out. He got up to turn off the TV, smelling the spark of burnt wire in the air, listening to the hiss of the tubes as they cooled. He might not know exactly where Dean was going, but he could make a plan and track him down. Hell, he’d been raised to hunt scary monsters, he sure as hell could hunt Dean. And find him. And then ask him why.

*

San Jon was a bend in the road, nothing more than a collection of gas stations and chain motels along the interstate; the first major stop inside the New Mexico state line. Dean stepped out of someone’s truck into the warm, bright air, and waved to say thank you. It was almost hot. Under the silver blue skies, he shucked his jacket and looped it through the straps of his backpack, which hung from one shoulder.

The couple hundred bucks in his pocket had dwindled to a hundred and fifty, but that would keep him till Albuquerque, where he thought he might head. And then, from there, north. There was a highway there that crossed between New Mexico and Utah that he’d seen in pictures for forever. It was someplace in Monument Valley, with stacks of bright red rocks and pointy sandy ones that jutted into the sky, where all the John Wayne pictures had been filmed, all those good westerns that Sam professed to hate so much but ended up watching with Dean anyway. Maybe he would just head up there and start walking into the desert and not look back.

But first he needed something to eat. There wasn’t a non-chain diner at hand, but there was Sonic, which had the best damn onion rings on the planet. Dean headed over to it, checking his wallet. He didn’t have a car, but he could stand at the window and buy the onion rings. And a coke. And a double cheeseburger. Sometimes, fast food joints came in handy.

*

In the morning, Sam packed up and put the plastic card key on the table near the window. He wasn’t sorry to be leaving, even if it was raining. The sky looked a little brighter to the west, but he needed a plan before he got going. Otherwise, he’d just be chasing his own tail. He filled the Impala up with gas and continued driving on I-70, going west, winding his way through Kansas City, which was never as flat as it ought to be. Seriously. Kansas was flat, or at least mostly. Kansas City, however, was uneven and stacked like it was built on cliffs, overlooking the Missouri river, with the feel of an east coast town, and the sprawl of a city on the plains.

When he got into Overland Park, he realized he had to stop. Kansas just felt wrong, and he was too close to Lawrence, and if he was looking for Dean, then he had to know Dean would never go there. Not again, not ever. So he pulled into a Perkins that looked fairly new, and though it smelled like paint and plaster, it was a damn sight better than it smelling like mold. He asked for a big table so he could spread out his map. Then he ordered French toast and coffee, with sausage on the side, and thought about Dean. Looking at the map was only to distract him; he had no idea which way to head next.

The waitress kept his coffee filled and took away his plate, sticky with butter and sugar, when it was empty. The French toast had been edible, but nothing he could have crowed to Dean about, in the never ending I-ordered-something-better-than-you contest between them. In a place like this, Dean would have ordered the pancakes, nothing fancy, just the regular ones. And with Dean’s unerring ability to know about things like that, the pancakes would have beat out the French toast by a mile. And Dean would have started talking about getting a little scoreboard because it was important to keep track of these things. His mouth quirking as he tried not to smile.

Sam missed Dean so much, so suddenly, his throat closed up, and his stomach lurched upwards.

The waitress came by with some newspapers in her arms, and pretended not to notice the dampness of Sam’s eyes or the way he couldn’t look at her.

“You want a newspaper, there?”

“Sure,” said Sam. He swallowed. “Sure, what do you have?”

“Capital Journal, the Star, the Wichita Paper, and of course, the Tulsa World.”

Sam held his arms wide, and made believe he was smiling. The newspapers would make him feel less weird and alone. “I’ll take ‘em all,” he said.

She laid the papers down in a stack. He wiped his hands on his jeans, took a huge swallow of coffee, and started ruffling through them. He tossed away the classifieds and the business sections, and flipped through the local news of the Journal and the Star, taking in the ads for men’s clothing and sports equipment. He scanned the articles about golf tournaments and flower shows. Then, when the waitress had filled his coffee cup again and he doctored it up the way he liked it, he dug into the Paper.

He didn’t know what he was looking for, but then, he and Dean never did. Going through the newspaper was as straightforward as breathing, and had the feel of something he knew and made him feel like he was doing something. Rather than sitting in a still too new Perkins along I-70 in the middle of nowhere. Not that Overland Park was nowhere to the people who lived there, but still. He looked up at the empty seat across from him; Dean would have known what he meant.

He looked at the Tulsa World next. It was a sharp little paper, well organized with clear type that was easy to read. After years of reading papers, Sam knew quality when he saw it. Perhaps there was a college in Tulsa, he didn’t remember, but often college towns had better papers, almost as good as the ones in the big cities. He turned to the Community section and started scanning, sipping his coffee as he went, thinking about how maybe he should order some toast and slather it with jam. And then his eyes saw it.

It was just a little piece, an article about four or so paragraphs long, taking up space because the article before it had ended and there wasn’t enough room for a real ad. The title said Angels Unaware. There was almost nothing supernatural or odd about it. It told the story of a missing little girl, and the stranger who’d come to town and found her. The local sheriff had questioned the man, but then the woman who’d given him a lift as far as Tulsa who could attest to the fact that the man couldn’t have been the one who’d taken the little girl because he’d been with her. It had all been cleared up, apparently, and the man had said his name was Kris Warren. But no one could locate him and there was a reward going uncollected. The mother of the little girl had said he was an angel and angels didn’t need money and God bless him, wherever he was.

Obviously he was not in Kansas, that’s for sure. Kris Warren had been the name Dean’d used when they’d gotten a motel room, when they’d taken down the shtriga in Fitchburg. When he and Dean had been regular brothers. Before.

He looked at the article and read it again, trying to keep calm in the busy Perkins, though his insides started spinning. There was no way he could be wrong. It also showed him what he’d not known, and that was the fact that Dean was leaving a trail. Dean had helped out some folks who needed him when he’d happened to come across them. He’d come to town, a stranger, and left beloved, an angel, unrewarded perhaps, but an angel just the same. It was so typically Dean, that impulse.

Sam sucked the remains of syrup from the edge of his finger and realized that if there was this little notice in the paper, then there would be others. Sam didn’t have to figure out where his brother had gone. All he had to do was follow the trail of black and white breadcrumbs, even if Dean didn’t realize he was leaving them.

Sam picked up the bill that the waitress had left and stuck a ten down on the table. He didn’t want to mess with waiting for the credit card to be run. He had some research to do.

*

In Moriarty, as Dean stood at the check-in desk at the Flying J motel, he listened to the clerk talking on the phone while she handed him his keys.

“Rachel, there are no such things, okay? No-no, your grandma, I don’t care what she says, it’s a legend. She’s drunk, is what she is. No, I’m not saying-but look. It’s a legend. A freaking legend from the old country, all the dogs are well behaved around here, my dad says the last wolf got trapped or shot at years ago.”

The clerk took a huge breath and shook her head and rolled her eyes at Dean as if to include him in the conversation about how weird the person on the other end of the line was. “I looked it up. I googled it already. Black dogs are a legend, a made up story. Your grandma is going senile if she thinks that’s what’s sneaking around your house. And it certainly didn’t walk into the church-”

Dean looked down at the key. It was a regular, metal key with a yellow diamond shaped plastic tag that had the room number on it. He curled and uncurled his fingers around it, feeling the edges cut into his palm.

The clerk was trying to convince her friend that black dogs were not real. Dean could tell her that they were real, but she probably wouldn’t believe him. What he couldn’t explain was the way he kept running into this, into people who needed his help with little jobs. There’d not even been any big monsters, just black dogs, boy ghosts, the zombie in Enid, the poltergeist in Woodward. A string of them, like they were following him around. Or like he was following their path. Either way, here he was, and here was a black dog, apparently, and it was beyond his capacity to resist the challenge. Even without Sam, Dean could take care of this.

He walked away and out the door while the clerk was still talking. He figured he’d take a shower and get something to eat and then check it out. He couldn’t ignore the black dog, and he wouldn’t. That’s not the way he’d been raised.

*

Sam drove in the warm air with the windows rolled down, going west in I-70 and then took the Kansas turnpike to Wichita and then Wellington. The land along the highway was as flat as it ought to be, with slight rises and falls that the road went over, the green prairie grasses spreading out from it, and the spray of yellow and purple flowers, bright from the rain.

He had the Tulsa World on the seat next to him, but it was a week old. He figured on driving until he got to Tulsa and then he’d find a motel and crack open his laptop and start poking around the internet, which he was very good at.

Dean had once told him that Sam was so good at finding that he could find a mouse’s fart in a high wind if he wanted to. If that were so, he’d have little trouble finding Dean. Really, very little. Especially if Dean was being Dean, and how could he be anything but? Saving people, and hunting things left a trail a mile wide. Oh, Sam would be able to find him. Easy.

The question was, what would he say to him when he did?

Chapter 27

Blue Skies From Rain Master Fic Post