Frayed Ends Of Sanity 6/? (R, Gen)
Title: Frayed Ends Of Sanity
Chapters: 6/?
Warnings: R, Gen. Only s2 spec--no spoilers.
Summary: AU. Post Devil's Trap. Everything has an aftermath...
Previous Chapters: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
The wait is my fault, and I'm so very sorry guys. And massive thank you to Pixel_0 for her beta work :D
Part Six
Sam comes back two hours later. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, and he welcomes the added warmth of the motel room. He frowns at Dean who’s on the floor, picking up shards of glass from the television screen.
It’s in pieces scattered across the stained motel carpet.
“What happened?” Sam asks, his face a picture of confusion.
“I was hoping you could tell me, psychic boy,” Dean quips, flinching at a particular sharp piece of glass that nicks his finger and leaves a quick blossom of red in its place.
“What?” Sam asks again, trying to find his voice and stare at anything but his brother’s blood.
Dean doesn’t clarify; Sam doesn’t need him to do. Or want him to. Dean just kneels there, holding his bleeding finger in his palm and flashing Sam with a smirk that looks more like a grimace.
“I don’t...I-I...”
“Its okay, Sammy.”
“No, Dean, it isn’t.”
*-*-*
While Sam hears nursery rhymes as he desperately tries to sleep, Dean hears the sing-song voice of his father edging closer and closer.
“They don’t need you, not like you need them,” he sneers, and Dean swallows the bile in his throat.
“Sam, he’s clearly John’s favourite, even when they fight it’s more concern than he’s ever shown you.”
He wakes up screaming when the bleeding starts. He bucks and arches his back up off bed as though he can still feel his tender flesh ripping at the seams. When he pulls back the covers with shaking hands, he sees a tiny crimson line on his stomach.
“Shit,” he mutters. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Dean?” Sam calls in the dark, his voice slurred and groggy from sleep.
“I’m fine, go back to sleep Sammy.”
And the little brother complies, secure in the knowledge that the demon isn’t there and his brother isn’t bleeding to death.
Well, he isn’t. Not technically-just a little bit where the stitches ripped. That’s all.
He’s lived through worse, hell, he’s sewn himself up after worse. This is nothing. Nothing that needs more attention than what he’ll give it in the bathroom while Sam sleeps. Nothing worth talking over or agonizing about. They’re just dreams-nightmares, they’re not visions. They won’t save lives. They’re not worth the hassle.
And that’s all.
*-*-*
There’s a ghost calling out to them. Yet another haunted house in California, and they go, they listen, they salt and they burn. The re-bury bones, content that they’ve done all they needed to do, and when they get no thanks, they don’t even mind.
They don’t care when they get into the fourth rental car that month.
The things just don’t work.
Dean drives them to hell and back, and they cough, splutter die.
Sam’s pretty sure Dean’s doing it on purpose. Dean’s too busy sticking his head out the window and screaming classic rock lyrics to each and every car they pass.
*-*-*
Sam frowns when he sees how stiffly Dean drives and the frown lines in Sam’s face only etch deeper into his skin when he sees the spots of blood on one of Dean’s dirty shirts. It’s recent, Sam’s sure, but when he calls his brother on it he’s brushed away like every other stranger that stride into their lives.
Not deemed important enough to deserve that level of trust.
Sam would be lying if he’d said it hadn’t hurt.
*-*-*
They’re walking past a pre-school when Sam hears it, and the windows there explode, showering the toys in glass.
He stares open-mouthed while the children inside cry.
No one is hurt, but Sam will let the guilt weigh him down all the same. Dean never makes the connection, or rather, he never says anything. He mutters later on about how dangerous it could have been, about how the builders were to blame-should be sued. The wind had been strong after all...
Mary had a little lamb...
Sam clenches his fists tightly until his nails bite into his palms, and he’s biting his tongue to stop from crying out.
It’s getting ridiculous, and he knows it.
*-*-*
They passed the “Welcome to Illinois” sign five miles back. They’ve been driving across a derelict road for that long, favouring the abandoned dirt roads to the populated areas.
They’re ghost hunters after all, and their prey isn’t the type to join in with the crowd.
They know everything they can. She’s a tortured soul. Her body never recovered after-
Seventeen year old, Ellen Kerry went missing two weeks ago today. Her parents Paul and Melinda are still desperately appealing to anyone who might have been around the area of Nara’s Cross on the twelfth of December 2006.
It’s an old article, but five cars have gone missing since.
Five.
In such a small time span, it’s a wonder the whole place isn’t cordoned off-but they can’t do that. The road’s too long, and it’s been scoured time and time again for months on end. There’s nothing to be found. It’s pointless to even look anymore.
Dean grips the steering wheel.
Not that he really cares if this rent-a-Honda gets misplaced.
Either way they need the ride, and he doesn’t stop for the apparitions by the side of the road that make his hair stand on end, and he keeps his eyes peeled for possessed drivers behind the wheels of a semi trucks.
Can never be too careful after all.
He wonders if he should be scared. He’s always favoured an empty road, but after nine cars go missing without a trace he’s more than a little edgy about driving straight through.
They pass only a few signs, one of which says park off pavement, as all Dean sees is gravel, road, gravel...nothing.
There are mountains in the distance; silhouettes unfazed by the desert chills standing tall against a darkening night sky.
Sam’s been quiet for over an hour now. Longer if you don’t count the small talk that emphasised the sheer tension. Dean doesn’t know where the tension has come from. He didn’t say a word about the window, when he knows exactly what happened and who did it but maybe Sam knows all the same.
*-*-*
It takes several hours and nearly all of their gas to pass those looming mountains, but once they’re on the other side not only are there three gas stations to choose from but there are also one or two stop offs.
They’ve been running on black coffee and cold pastry for god knows how long, and Dean stops the car outside of the backwards diner that’s better than nothing. It’s far from full there but there’s enough, and they decide on a booth closest to the window. At least then they can see the car and plan their getaway should the food not deserve their payment.
This job might take a while-most of them do-so it makes sense to get a decent meal in them before they start their day-to-day questioning as soon as they hit town.
Sam’s been as quiet as Dean, and his gaze has been unfocused and hazy since Dean shook him awake long after lunchtime. Sam cricks his neck and can’t remember the last time he slept for so long. He wonders if the headache that won’t leave him alone is some kind of side effect, as though it is impossible for him to go that long without a nightmare or a vision. Or a lullaby in his ear.
As he sits opposite his brother in the diner booth, he barely registers Dean’s order of a cooked breakfast for them both.
“We stop serving breakfast after eleven,” the waitress explains as she chews her gum and twirls the pen in her fingers. She nods over to the clock that reads six p.m. Dean grins, and Sam doesn’t need to open his eyes to know his brother’s turning on the charm.
“Sorry, I don’t make the rules,” she says finally, pursing her cherry lips, and Dean turns back to the menu.
“Okay, what’s the afternoon special?”
“Sausage, bacon, egg, beans-”
“So it’s the cooked breakfast?” He cuts her off.
“No, this we serve until nine.”
“Two please.”
She takes the menus away and brings their fresh coffees back five minutes later. All the while Sam has sat stoic, slumped in his seat, and Dean has been prowling the local newspapers scattered in front of him around the ketchup and salt shakers.
When Sam looks around his vision jolts for a second, but it’s long enough and he fights to stop from swallowing his own tongue. He looks up again, and sees the colours mesh; he blinks and sees the images cross. One minute Dean’s sitting, the next he’s lying on the bed and the demon is standing above him.
Their father.
He looks at Sam with his yellow eyes, cocks his head to the side, and sits across from him. The bastard sits in Dean’s seat and pretends to care about the articles on the table; he even picks up a red pen and circles a few as though he knows what he’s looking for. He does all of this until he looks back at Sam and starts.
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb; Mary had a little lamb that knew this day would come. He tried to shut the image out, image out, image out; he tried to shut the image out, but still his brother BLED.
The last word is so loud that it echoes and bounces off the walls of Sam’s psyche. It’s so strong that the vision shakes with the lasting echoes of the letters, and he’s clutching at his forehead, teeth bared. He’s growling low at the searing pain of the vision before he reacts.
“Stop singing!” Sam screams, shooting to his feet and lunging across the table to attack what his mind says is the demon.
“Sam,” Dean says as calmly as he can when his brother’s pocket knife is millimetres away from his own jugular, pressing closer with each ragged breath Sam takes. Eyes wild like an abused animal, hissing just as similar to one.
He tried to shut the image out, image out, image out...
“Stop!”
The grip on the knife increases, and Dean dares not swallow the lump in his throat. He’d rather not have his Adam’s apple sliced away, thank you very much.
The diner’s gone silent, and Dean can feel the hushed fear inside with them. It won’t be long before someone decides to play hero, and Dean has to get them out of there before anyone has a chance to even think it.
“Sam,” he says quietly, never breaking eye contact. “It’s me, it’s Dean.”
Sam doesn’t react and Dean feels the pit in his stomach start to roll around and morph into horrible notions of what if?
“Sam-” Dean tries again, but Sam shushes him with a single purposeful movement of pushing the knife closer. The skin is about to break, Dean knows.
“I said, shut up.”
The image scares Dean, but as much as he hates to be on the receiving end of Sam’s weapon-wielding mood-swings (damn it, wasn’t once enough?) he’s disturbingly proud of how furious Sam can get. It might come in handy after all.
Supposing they both step out of the diner alive that is.
“Sammy,” Dean whispers still watching Sam so carefully, while letting his ears spy on the gawking civilians inside with them.
After what seems like a millennia in which Sam stays steady, patrons stare and a waitress has already run off in search of the manager-finally Dean sees his brother blink. He watches the grip on the knife falter and as it drops, he lets his own expert reflexes catch it before it is plunged into his skin.
Sam is holding his head in his hands, shaking it and muttering. Dean swallows back the indecision and quickly steps over to Sam’s side and leads him out. He tries to give the elderly couple by the exit a reassuring smile, but it’s worth nothing.
The bell on the door is on its last chime when the manager comes thundering in, and the hustle and bustle finally resumes as the customers eat their food.
Sam and Dean drive in complete silence until they reach the motel parking-lot and Dean brakes a little more abruptly than was necessary.
“You wanna tell me what the hell just happened?”
The tone makes Sam flinch, and he stares up-worried.
“I don’t know...I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
Compassion is fleeting when the ghost of a blade is still teetering so close to his neck.
“How can you not know? You had a knife at my neck, Sam. Were you pissed or is there a little supernatural influencing going on?”
“No, despite what you might think I don’t like venting my anger by pointing weapons at you.”
“Then what happened? You were freaked, man.” Dean runs a hand through his hair as he unwillingly feels the need to pace as he waits for Sam’s explanation.
And when Dean hears it-the explanation-he can’t help feel a little put down.
“That’s all?” He asks. “Singing?” That’s what made you pull a knife on me?
“You don’t understand...it’s twisted and it’s been following me for weeks, months.”
“But only now you’re saying something?”
“Only now you’re asking!”
“Because you nearly slit my throat, Sammy. I mean breaking TVs is one thing but this?” Another sigh escapes his lips and to anyone else it might be misconstrued as disappointment but to Sam’s trained eyes, he recognises it as barely concealed terror.
“What if it had been the waitress, Sam? You could have gotten arrested.”
Dean’s careful not to mention the broken glass-already well aware of Sam’s brooding guilt in that respect.
“I didn’t-” But Sam stops himself. There’s nothing worse than replying with nothing more than I didn’t mean to, because that’s no apology and it explains nothing. Gives reason to nothing.
Truth is, he did mean to. He saw the demon sitting across from him, and he wanted more than anything to have its blood spilled across his own blade, his hands. He blinks away thoughts of Dean’s blood doing just that and swallows the sick he feels creeping up his throat.
“We need to leave,” Dean explains carefully in a tone that’s not quite cold. “That scene at the diner didn’t go unnoticed; we can’t risk that much attention. We’re leaving in ten.”
The order is reminiscent of days under their father’s command, but Sam says nothing. He only starts checking the duffels to make sure everything is accounted for while Dean grabs the last of their stuff from the bathroom.
They’re checked out in five.
*-*-*
They’ve been quiet for twenty-seven minutes. Not that Sam’s counting because all he can do is stare at the clock for fear of his brother’s stare. For fear of Dean’s imploring eyes. For fear of a glare hidden in his hazel green depths...
They’ve been quiet for twenty-seven minutes when they finally spot the faint light past the first few trees on the road’s third turning. They’ve reached the town and now they’ve got somewhere to set up base.
They’ve been quiet for twenty-seven minutes when Dean says they should take stock for the night, and Sam can do nothing but agree with a yawn and drag his hand across his eyes and start counting again from the start.
One, two, three...
*-*-*
They’re staying in a freakishly cosy bed and breakfast with a nosy receptionist who can’t take a hint and every guest is twice their elders. It’s a little off the side of the road, not so close that they can be on their way in less than five minutes, but closer than any motel they’ve seen.
The beds are comfortable but the sheets-and indeed anything with a surface-are floral. They’re not intending on staying for breakfast. An early start means they can get to work on their most recent case that took the backburner when Sam pulled a weapon on his brother. Again.
“Missing cars, no sign of forced anything. Just gone, out of the blue,” Dean mutters to himself and to Sam as they walk along the landing on their way out. “I know it’s our gig, I just...I don’t know how.”
Sam turns. He’s about to answer his brother when the headache comes without warning. Sharp, blinding pain erupting at the base of his skull and rushing forward like crashing waves on the shore until it reaches his eyes, until all he can see is the red blood he knows is oozing from his nose. The agony comes fast in a white flash like a supernova in his cornea.
He screams.
Dean watches him fall. He takes too long to process that Sam’s holding his head, that Sam’s falling and when he jumps forward, it’s too late. Sam’s already falling down the stairs, all arms and legs until he’s at the bottom and Dean’s jumping down, four at a time.
He runs over Sam’s body with his eyes, no jutting bones, no awkward limbs. No indication of extensive injury. A bloody nose is all that’s seen-but Dean’s pretty sure that was there before the harsh tumble. He cradles his brother’s head in his lap and ignores the receptionist who looks so concerned.
“Oh my,” she gasps, but stares instead of doing much else.
“What happened?” someone asks, exiting from the nearby downstairs bathroom and there’s suspicion beneath the words, as if the poor young man was pushed.
Dean ignores them.
“Sammy?”
His brother’s eyelids are rushing back and forth frantically.
“…ambulance?”
Dean hears the word and his head shoots up. “No he’s fine,” says the man with a myriad of cuts and scars across his face-because when glass smashes, it smashes good and when a truck ploughs into an Impala, you’re lucky to get out alive-
“It’s on the way,” someone else answers, and Dean steels his jaw. He will not start a fight, he will not start a fight, he will not start a fight.
“Sammy? Come on man, wake up. It’s Dean.”
Nothing. And the nothing drags on until there are sirens in the air and Dean feels that fear at his back creep that little bit closer to him and his brother.
TBC
.
Chapters: 6/?
Warnings: R, Gen. Only s2 spec--no spoilers.
Summary: AU. Post Devil's Trap. Everything has an aftermath...
Previous Chapters: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
The wait is my fault, and I'm so very sorry guys. And massive thank you to Pixel_0 for her beta work :D
Part Six
Sam comes back two hours later. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, and he welcomes the added warmth of the motel room. He frowns at Dean who’s on the floor, picking up shards of glass from the television screen.
It’s in pieces scattered across the stained motel carpet.
“What happened?” Sam asks, his face a picture of confusion.
“I was hoping you could tell me, psychic boy,” Dean quips, flinching at a particular sharp piece of glass that nicks his finger and leaves a quick blossom of red in its place.
“What?” Sam asks again, trying to find his voice and stare at anything but his brother’s blood.
Dean doesn’t clarify; Sam doesn’t need him to do. Or want him to. Dean just kneels there, holding his bleeding finger in his palm and flashing Sam with a smirk that looks more like a grimace.
“I don’t...I-I...”
“Its okay, Sammy.”
“No, Dean, it isn’t.”
*-*-*
While Sam hears nursery rhymes as he desperately tries to sleep, Dean hears the sing-song voice of his father edging closer and closer.
“They don’t need you, not like you need them,” he sneers, and Dean swallows the bile in his throat.
“Sam, he’s clearly John’s favourite, even when they fight it’s more concern than he’s ever shown you.”
He wakes up screaming when the bleeding starts. He bucks and arches his back up off bed as though he can still feel his tender flesh ripping at the seams. When he pulls back the covers with shaking hands, he sees a tiny crimson line on his stomach.
“Shit,” he mutters. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Dean?” Sam calls in the dark, his voice slurred and groggy from sleep.
“I’m fine, go back to sleep Sammy.”
And the little brother complies, secure in the knowledge that the demon isn’t there and his brother isn’t bleeding to death.
Well, he isn’t. Not technically-just a little bit where the stitches ripped. That’s all.
He’s lived through worse, hell, he’s sewn himself up after worse. This is nothing. Nothing that needs more attention than what he’ll give it in the bathroom while Sam sleeps. Nothing worth talking over or agonizing about. They’re just dreams-nightmares, they’re not visions. They won’t save lives. They’re not worth the hassle.
And that’s all.
*-*-*
There’s a ghost calling out to them. Yet another haunted house in California, and they go, they listen, they salt and they burn. The re-bury bones, content that they’ve done all they needed to do, and when they get no thanks, they don’t even mind.
They don’t care when they get into the fourth rental car that month.
The things just don’t work.
Dean drives them to hell and back, and they cough, splutter die.
Sam’s pretty sure Dean’s doing it on purpose. Dean’s too busy sticking his head out the window and screaming classic rock lyrics to each and every car they pass.
*-*-*
Sam frowns when he sees how stiffly Dean drives and the frown lines in Sam’s face only etch deeper into his skin when he sees the spots of blood on one of Dean’s dirty shirts. It’s recent, Sam’s sure, but when he calls his brother on it he’s brushed away like every other stranger that stride into their lives.
Not deemed important enough to deserve that level of trust.
Sam would be lying if he’d said it hadn’t hurt.
*-*-*
They’re walking past a pre-school when Sam hears it, and the windows there explode, showering the toys in glass.
He stares open-mouthed while the children inside cry.
No one is hurt, but Sam will let the guilt weigh him down all the same. Dean never makes the connection, or rather, he never says anything. He mutters later on about how dangerous it could have been, about how the builders were to blame-should be sued. The wind had been strong after all...
Mary had a little lamb...
Sam clenches his fists tightly until his nails bite into his palms, and he’s biting his tongue to stop from crying out.
It’s getting ridiculous, and he knows it.
*-*-*
They passed the “Welcome to Illinois” sign five miles back. They’ve been driving across a derelict road for that long, favouring the abandoned dirt roads to the populated areas.
They’re ghost hunters after all, and their prey isn’t the type to join in with the crowd.
They know everything they can. She’s a tortured soul. Her body never recovered after-
Seventeen year old, Ellen Kerry went missing two weeks ago today. Her parents Paul and Melinda are still desperately appealing to anyone who might have been around the area of Nara’s Cross on the twelfth of December 2006.
It’s an old article, but five cars have gone missing since.
Five.
In such a small time span, it’s a wonder the whole place isn’t cordoned off-but they can’t do that. The road’s too long, and it’s been scoured time and time again for months on end. There’s nothing to be found. It’s pointless to even look anymore.
Dean grips the steering wheel.
Not that he really cares if this rent-a-Honda gets misplaced.
Either way they need the ride, and he doesn’t stop for the apparitions by the side of the road that make his hair stand on end, and he keeps his eyes peeled for possessed drivers behind the wheels of a semi trucks.
Can never be too careful after all.
He wonders if he should be scared. He’s always favoured an empty road, but after nine cars go missing without a trace he’s more than a little edgy about driving straight through.
They pass only a few signs, one of which says park off pavement, as all Dean sees is gravel, road, gravel...nothing.
There are mountains in the distance; silhouettes unfazed by the desert chills standing tall against a darkening night sky.
Sam’s been quiet for over an hour now. Longer if you don’t count the small talk that emphasised the sheer tension. Dean doesn’t know where the tension has come from. He didn’t say a word about the window, when he knows exactly what happened and who did it but maybe Sam knows all the same.
*-*-*
It takes several hours and nearly all of their gas to pass those looming mountains, but once they’re on the other side not only are there three gas stations to choose from but there are also one or two stop offs.
They’ve been running on black coffee and cold pastry for god knows how long, and Dean stops the car outside of the backwards diner that’s better than nothing. It’s far from full there but there’s enough, and they decide on a booth closest to the window. At least then they can see the car and plan their getaway should the food not deserve their payment.
This job might take a while-most of them do-so it makes sense to get a decent meal in them before they start their day-to-day questioning as soon as they hit town.
Sam’s been as quiet as Dean, and his gaze has been unfocused and hazy since Dean shook him awake long after lunchtime. Sam cricks his neck and can’t remember the last time he slept for so long. He wonders if the headache that won’t leave him alone is some kind of side effect, as though it is impossible for him to go that long without a nightmare or a vision. Or a lullaby in his ear.
As he sits opposite his brother in the diner booth, he barely registers Dean’s order of a cooked breakfast for them both.
“We stop serving breakfast after eleven,” the waitress explains as she chews her gum and twirls the pen in her fingers. She nods over to the clock that reads six p.m. Dean grins, and Sam doesn’t need to open his eyes to know his brother’s turning on the charm.
“Sorry, I don’t make the rules,” she says finally, pursing her cherry lips, and Dean turns back to the menu.
“Okay, what’s the afternoon special?”
“Sausage, bacon, egg, beans-”
“So it’s the cooked breakfast?” He cuts her off.
“No, this we serve until nine.”
“Two please.”
She takes the menus away and brings their fresh coffees back five minutes later. All the while Sam has sat stoic, slumped in his seat, and Dean has been prowling the local newspapers scattered in front of him around the ketchup and salt shakers.
When Sam looks around his vision jolts for a second, but it’s long enough and he fights to stop from swallowing his own tongue. He looks up again, and sees the colours mesh; he blinks and sees the images cross. One minute Dean’s sitting, the next he’s lying on the bed and the demon is standing above him.
Their father.
He looks at Sam with his yellow eyes, cocks his head to the side, and sits across from him. The bastard sits in Dean’s seat and pretends to care about the articles on the table; he even picks up a red pen and circles a few as though he knows what he’s looking for. He does all of this until he looks back at Sam and starts.
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb; Mary had a little lamb that knew this day would come. He tried to shut the image out, image out, image out; he tried to shut the image out, but still his brother BLED.
The last word is so loud that it echoes and bounces off the walls of Sam’s psyche. It’s so strong that the vision shakes with the lasting echoes of the letters, and he’s clutching at his forehead, teeth bared. He’s growling low at the searing pain of the vision before he reacts.
“Stop singing!” Sam screams, shooting to his feet and lunging across the table to attack what his mind says is the demon.
“Sam,” Dean says as calmly as he can when his brother’s pocket knife is millimetres away from his own jugular, pressing closer with each ragged breath Sam takes. Eyes wild like an abused animal, hissing just as similar to one.
He tried to shut the image out, image out, image out...
“Stop!”
The grip on the knife increases, and Dean dares not swallow the lump in his throat. He’d rather not have his Adam’s apple sliced away, thank you very much.
The diner’s gone silent, and Dean can feel the hushed fear inside with them. It won’t be long before someone decides to play hero, and Dean has to get them out of there before anyone has a chance to even think it.
“Sam,” he says quietly, never breaking eye contact. “It’s me, it’s Dean.”
Sam doesn’t react and Dean feels the pit in his stomach start to roll around and morph into horrible notions of what if?
“Sam-” Dean tries again, but Sam shushes him with a single purposeful movement of pushing the knife closer. The skin is about to break, Dean knows.
“I said, shut up.”
The image scares Dean, but as much as he hates to be on the receiving end of Sam’s weapon-wielding mood-swings (damn it, wasn’t once enough?) he’s disturbingly proud of how furious Sam can get. It might come in handy after all.
Supposing they both step out of the diner alive that is.
“Sammy,” Dean whispers still watching Sam so carefully, while letting his ears spy on the gawking civilians inside with them.
After what seems like a millennia in which Sam stays steady, patrons stare and a waitress has already run off in search of the manager-finally Dean sees his brother blink. He watches the grip on the knife falter and as it drops, he lets his own expert reflexes catch it before it is plunged into his skin.
Sam is holding his head in his hands, shaking it and muttering. Dean swallows back the indecision and quickly steps over to Sam’s side and leads him out. He tries to give the elderly couple by the exit a reassuring smile, but it’s worth nothing.
The bell on the door is on its last chime when the manager comes thundering in, and the hustle and bustle finally resumes as the customers eat their food.
Sam and Dean drive in complete silence until they reach the motel parking-lot and Dean brakes a little more abruptly than was necessary.
“You wanna tell me what the hell just happened?”
The tone makes Sam flinch, and he stares up-worried.
“I don’t know...I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
Compassion is fleeting when the ghost of a blade is still teetering so close to his neck.
“How can you not know? You had a knife at my neck, Sam. Were you pissed or is there a little supernatural influencing going on?”
“No, despite what you might think I don’t like venting my anger by pointing weapons at you.”
“Then what happened? You were freaked, man.” Dean runs a hand through his hair as he unwillingly feels the need to pace as he waits for Sam’s explanation.
And when Dean hears it-the explanation-he can’t help feel a little put down.
“That’s all?” He asks. “Singing?” That’s what made you pull a knife on me?
“You don’t understand...it’s twisted and it’s been following me for weeks, months.”
“But only now you’re saying something?”
“Only now you’re asking!”
“Because you nearly slit my throat, Sammy. I mean breaking TVs is one thing but this?” Another sigh escapes his lips and to anyone else it might be misconstrued as disappointment but to Sam’s trained eyes, he recognises it as barely concealed terror.
“What if it had been the waitress, Sam? You could have gotten arrested.”
Dean’s careful not to mention the broken glass-already well aware of Sam’s brooding guilt in that respect.
“I didn’t-” But Sam stops himself. There’s nothing worse than replying with nothing more than I didn’t mean to, because that’s no apology and it explains nothing. Gives reason to nothing.
Truth is, he did mean to. He saw the demon sitting across from him, and he wanted more than anything to have its blood spilled across his own blade, his hands. He blinks away thoughts of Dean’s blood doing just that and swallows the sick he feels creeping up his throat.
“We need to leave,” Dean explains carefully in a tone that’s not quite cold. “That scene at the diner didn’t go unnoticed; we can’t risk that much attention. We’re leaving in ten.”
The order is reminiscent of days under their father’s command, but Sam says nothing. He only starts checking the duffels to make sure everything is accounted for while Dean grabs the last of their stuff from the bathroom.
They’re checked out in five.
*-*-*
They’ve been quiet for twenty-seven minutes. Not that Sam’s counting because all he can do is stare at the clock for fear of his brother’s stare. For fear of Dean’s imploring eyes. For fear of a glare hidden in his hazel green depths...
They’ve been quiet for twenty-seven minutes when they finally spot the faint light past the first few trees on the road’s third turning. They’ve reached the town and now they’ve got somewhere to set up base.
They’ve been quiet for twenty-seven minutes when Dean says they should take stock for the night, and Sam can do nothing but agree with a yawn and drag his hand across his eyes and start counting again from the start.
One, two, three...
*-*-*
They’re staying in a freakishly cosy bed and breakfast with a nosy receptionist who can’t take a hint and every guest is twice their elders. It’s a little off the side of the road, not so close that they can be on their way in less than five minutes, but closer than any motel they’ve seen.
The beds are comfortable but the sheets-and indeed anything with a surface-are floral. They’re not intending on staying for breakfast. An early start means they can get to work on their most recent case that took the backburner when Sam pulled a weapon on his brother. Again.
“Missing cars, no sign of forced anything. Just gone, out of the blue,” Dean mutters to himself and to Sam as they walk along the landing on their way out. “I know it’s our gig, I just...I don’t know how.”
Sam turns. He’s about to answer his brother when the headache comes without warning. Sharp, blinding pain erupting at the base of his skull and rushing forward like crashing waves on the shore until it reaches his eyes, until all he can see is the red blood he knows is oozing from his nose. The agony comes fast in a white flash like a supernova in his cornea.
He screams.
Dean watches him fall. He takes too long to process that Sam’s holding his head, that Sam’s falling and when he jumps forward, it’s too late. Sam’s already falling down the stairs, all arms and legs until he’s at the bottom and Dean’s jumping down, four at a time.
He runs over Sam’s body with his eyes, no jutting bones, no awkward limbs. No indication of extensive injury. A bloody nose is all that’s seen-but Dean’s pretty sure that was there before the harsh tumble. He cradles his brother’s head in his lap and ignores the receptionist who looks so concerned.
“Oh my,” she gasps, but stares instead of doing much else.
“What happened?” someone asks, exiting from the nearby downstairs bathroom and there’s suspicion beneath the words, as if the poor young man was pushed.
Dean ignores them.
“Sammy?”
His brother’s eyelids are rushing back and forth frantically.
“…ambulance?”
Dean hears the word and his head shoots up. “No he’s fine,” says the man with a myriad of cuts and scars across his face-because when glass smashes, it smashes good and when a truck ploughs into an Impala, you’re lucky to get out alive-
“It’s on the way,” someone else answers, and Dean steels his jaw. He will not start a fight, he will not start a fight, he will not start a fight.
“Sammy? Come on man, wake up. It’s Dean.”
Nothing. And the nothing drags on until there are sirens in the air and Dean feels that fear at his back creep that little bit closer to him and his brother.
TBC
.