Before Tomorrow 1/3
Before Tomorrow
Summary: Dad's missing, November 2nd is approaching, and now Jess is calling saying that there's something up with Sam. Dean heads to Palo Alto to try to figure out what's going on. EpilepticSam 'verse.
A/N: Epileptic Sam 'verse. This one will have three chapters and is set just before the pilot.
Chapter One
Jess calls late. Dean has to swallow down disappointment when his bleary eyes focus on the Caller ID. He'd been hoping the call was from Dad, not to mention the fact that Jess ringing him usually means something's up with Sam.
“He all right?” Dean answers, dropping down on the bed for what might be his last chance at being horizontal for a while, depending on Jess's answer.
“Something's up with him,” she says, predictable as ever, and not at all put out by the lack of a 'hello'. He always answers calls like this and Jess generally appreciates him getting to the point, especially when it's an emergency. Jess doesn't sound upset so he's guessing this isn't urgent but she is speaking quietly, which means Sam doesn't know she's calling.
Dean scrubs a hand down his face, knuckling sleep out of his eyes. “What kind of something?” he asks, a small twinge of hope fluttering in his gut as it occurs to him that maybe this has something to do with Dad's disappearance.
“I'm not sure exactly.” Jess sounds puzzled under her concern, a lilt of apprehension in her voice. “He's been having seizures at night, big ones, and more than usual. And I think he's having nightmares as well but he won't talk to me about them. He's just acting really weird.”
Damn. For a moment there Dean had thought that Dad might have gone to see Sam for some secret mission Dean wasn't allowed to know about. At this point, he wouldn't even be pissed off about being left out of the loop, just relieved to know that Dad is still...
He's being stupid. Of course Dad's still alive. He just hasn't made contact in a while because of... whatever his reasons are.
“Dean? Are you there?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Dean pushes his thoughts about Dad aside. “So, acting weird, huh? You sure it's not just Sam being Sam? He's always been weird.”
The joke falls flat. It's like he can hear Jess shaking her head. “He's not sleeping, like, at all if he can help it. It's messing with his epilepsy now and he still tries to stay awake all night, but he won't tell me what's going on. Has he talked to you?”
Dean frowns. None of that sounds good. “No, he hasn't said anything. Want me to swing by and talk to him?” It'll mean time off from searching for Dad but he has nothing but dead ends anyway. Maybe a problem he can fix will be good for him.
“Could you?” Jess asks, relief bleeding into her tone. “I mean, if you're too busy I could keep trying to...”
She trails off and it's obvious that she's run out of ideas on how to get Sam to open up.
“It's fine. I'm actually close by anyway.” Somehow, his fruitless search for Dad has found him drifting towards Palo Alto. “I can be there tomorrow. And Jess, try not to worry too much. You know Sam, he's always stressing about something. I'll knock some sense into him.”
XXX
Usually Sam is delighted by surprise visits from his brother but the next evening Dean finds himself at Sam's door watching the kid's face fall at the sight of him.
“You called Dean?” Sam asks incredulously over his shoulder, leaving Dean in the doorway as he spins around and stomps into the kitchen.
“Well, hello to you too,” Dean mutters to empty air, inviting himself in and shutting the door behind him. He drops his bag by the couch and heads to the kitchen.
“I can't believe you,” Sam's saying. “I told you to drop it.”
“You're making yourself sick,” Jess says firmly. “And if you don't want to talk to me about it, that's fine, but you obviously need to talk to someone.”
“There's nothing to talk about,” Sam fumes, which is obviously complete bullshit. Dean's been here all of twenty seconds and he's already taken in Sam's hollow, sleepless eyes and shaking hands, and even if he hadn't, the only time he's heard Sam snap at Jess like this was when the kid was trialling some new medication that sent his mood spiralling all over the place. “Damn it, Jess, you don't need to go running to my brother every time I have a seizure. I'm fine.”
Jess puts her hands on her hips and glares. She looks exhausted too, her usually vibrant eyes dull and dark-ringed, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Dean doesn't doubt that she's spent many of Sam's sleepless nights awake with him. “Don't lie to me, Sam Winchester,” she snaps. “There are enough lies in this relationship already.”
Sam falls back a step as though pushed, the irritation in his eyes switching to guilt. Even Dean averts his gaze - he's done his fair share of dodging Jess's questions himself, after all - and for a moment they all stand in the kitchen with the weight of the accusation silencing them. Jess looks startled by her boldness. Sam shakes his head helplessly, then turns and brushes past Dean on his way to the door.
“Sam!” Jess barks. Her voice is still sharp but there's regret in her face. “Sam, where are you going?”
She goes to follow but Dean stops her with a hand on her shoulder. Who knows? Maybe this is about Dad, or something else Sam can't talk to Jess about. “I'll get him.”
Jess sighs, shoulders dropping, and Dean doesn't miss the way she swipes her hand surreptitiously under her eyes. “I shouldn't have said that. That was dumb. Whatever you guys aren't telling me is none of my business. I'm just so tired and I keep letting him wind me up.”
“Hey,” Dean says gently. “It'll be okay. I'll sort this out.”
He gives her a quick hug before heading back out the door he just came in, feeling a little guilty about leaving Jess alone and upset in the kitchen. She was right though; something's going on with Sam and he needs to talk to the kid if he wants to figure out what. It doesn't take long to find him. Sam's only gone as far as the Impala, parked outside the building. He's perched on the bonnet, elbows on his knees as he presses the palms of his hands into his eyes. He looks exhausted, and tense, and miserable.
Dean strides over and aims a punch at his brother's shoulder. Sam's head jerks up, hands falling away from his face.
“What was that for?”
“Be nice to Jess,” Dean scolds. “She's worried about you.”
“There's nothing to worry about,” Sam mutters, dropping his head again, as if that's going to hide anything.
Dean rolls his eyes, even though Sam can't see him, and hoists himself up onto the car. “Don't be an idiot. You're fucking transparent.”
Sam shrugs.
“So what is it?” Dean asks, bumping Sam's shoulder, softly this time, with his own. “Jess said you were having nightmares.”
“They're not nightmares.” Sam picks at a loose thread in his jeans, avoiding Dean's gaze. “Well, they kind of are, but they're not, not really.”
“Oh, well, that clears that up.”
Sam huffs a laugh but it's short-lived. He's managed to pull the thread from it's weave of denim and he tosses it on the ground despondently. “It's just epilepsy. There's nothing you can do about it.”
Dean raises his eyebrows. “When has there ever been nothing I can do?”
Sam glances at him, indecision flickering in his eyes for a second before he lets his hair fall back in his face. “It's really nothing. I'm just stressed, that's all. I have that interview coming up, and school, and fucking seizures, like always, and it's Mom's anniversary soon...”
Sam trails off, apparently out of excuses, and Dean knows this kid so freaking well, it's so freaking obvious that none of these things are the problem that he doesn't know why Sam bothers trying to lie.
“What happens in your nightmares?”
“They're not nightmares, they're just seizures. People see weird stuff sometimes...” Sam trails off again but this time his eyes slide out of focus (speak of the devil). Instinctively, Dean reaches out to grasp Sam's arm, just in case the kid tries to make out with the pavement, but a moment later he sees the light switch back on and Sam's glancing down at the hand on his bicep in vague surprise, before frustration has him pushing off of the Impala. Dean's tempted to keep a hold of the kid because it looks like he could topple over at any moment but that would just piss Sammy off so he releases his grip and lets Sam steady himself.
“I should apologize to Jess,” Sam mutters, acting like he's forgotten that he hasn't actually told Dean what happens in his not-nightmares.
Dean just nods though because getting Sam inside - and in bed as soon as possible - seems like a good idea. He pushes off of the Impala to follow. No wonder Jess is so worried. Whatever's going on with Sam, no matter what the dumb kid says, it's not just epilepsy.
XXX
Sam falls asleep on the couch after an awkwardly quiet (and delicious, damn, Dean loves Jess's cooking) dinner. Dean had convinced - read: ordered - the kid to just sit the hell down and rest for a minute while he and Jess did the dishes and, as he expected, that was all it took.
“Do you think he needs new meds?” Jess asks, wrist-deep in soapy water and not looking at all convinced by her own question. Sam's been on this lot too long for a bunch of side effects to randomly rear their ugly heads.
“No, I think the nightmares are the problem. Seizures in his sleep aren't anything new but I've never seen him so freaked out by them before.” Dean takes the plate Jess passes him and wipes it down. Jess nods like he's just confirming her suspicions. Sometimes Dean forgets that she knows Sam almost as well as he does.
“Did he tell you what they're about?” Jess looks at him sideways, obviously wondering whether he'd tell her even if Sam had chosen to divulge the details. She was right before; there have been too many lies, too many secrets. But what can they do? There are monsters and then there's this normal life that Sammy's somehow put together. At least Dean can be honest about this.
“No, he said he's just stressed and listed off a bunch of reasons why, then had an absence seizure and pretended to forget that I asked.” Dean puts the plate away in the cupboard and takes the next one. “Or really did forget. It's hard to tell with him.”
Jess sighs. “I love him but, Jesus, he can be stubborn. I don't understand why he won't just tell me what's wrong.”
She pulls the plug out of the sink and watches the water circle the drain. “You don't think it's me, do you?”she asks hesitantly, and Dean almost drops the plate he's putting away.
“You? Why would you think that?”
Jess shrugs uncertainly. “I think I'm in the nightmare,” she says, dropping her voice just in case Sam has woken up. “The way he looks at me afterwards... I've been trying to help but it's like nothing I say or do gets through to him, and now we're both sleep-deprived and stressed and I keep messing up. Like, we had this big fight about a Halloween party a few days ago. It was so stupid. I just thought it might be good for him to do something fun, you know? But maybe I shouldn't have pushed so hard. It's not like we have to go, even if I do have this great costume-”
“Jess, stop.” Dean hold up his hands to halt her rambling. “It's not you, okay? This is something else. I can tell. And I'll figure out what it is. Sammy always spills eventually.”
He smiles at her reassuringly and she manages a small smile back, before the sound of breaking glass wipes it from her face. They're out of the kitchen and in the sitting room fast enough to see the shards bounce across the carpet.
No matter how many times Dean sees Sam in the throes of tonic-clonic seizures (and there have been many, many times) it always feels like a punch to the gut. Automatically, he scans the area but Sam doesn't look like he's in danger of falling off the couch and the broken cup is on the floor on the other side of the coffee table anyway. Sam must have kicked a table leg and knocked it off. Thankfully, the seizure is already slowing, the spasms lessening in intensity until they finally stop completely. Sam slumps over and Dean reaches out to guide him down on the couch. Sam blinks slowly, looking straight through Dean with the usual post-seizure (freaky as shit) blankness.
Jess has gone back to the kitchen, returning quickly with a brush and tray to start sweeping up the glass. Dean stays crouched in front of Sam, waiting for recognition to seep back into his gaze.
“Wha...?” Sam slurs finally. His clouded eyes slide over the room, slow and confused, and settle on Dean.
“Give it a minute, kiddo,” Dean says. “It'll all come back.”
It does, of course, but instead of the relieved clarity or frustration that usually appears once Sam's memory returns after a fit, his eyes widen with renewed panic and he tries to push himself up.
“Whoa,” Dean exclaims, rearing back a little in surprise. “Sammy, calm down.”
“Jess,” Sam gasps, abandoning the fight with his still uncoordinated, and probably aching, limbs, instead looking around the room desperately. “Where...?”
“She's right here,” Dean says quickly, shifting to the side so he's no longer blocking Sam's line of sight. Jess abandons her cleaning and comes to kneel down beside Dean, reaching out to smooth Sam's hair out of his face, her touch tender and worried.
“I'm here, Sam,” Jess says, with a soft smile that doesn't erase the concern in her expression.
Sam reaches up a trembling hand to grasp her wrist. “You're here. I thought...” he trails off, confused, studying her face like he's trying to memorise every detail - Jess's eyes flick towards Dean just long enough for him to understand that this is what she was talking about in the kitchen - before shaking his head a little. “Sorry. I don't know what I thought. That was... Was that a big one?”
“Full on funky chicken,” Dean confirms. “You want help getting to bed?”
Sam blinks at him. “What- no, I'm fine. I don't need...” He struggles to sit up, limbs still slow and uncooperative. “I can sleep later.”
“Uh, no, you can sleep now,” Dean scoffs. “Jesus, Sammy, didn't you hear me? Full funky chicken. You need to get some rest.”
Sam's shaking his head before Dean even finishes speaking so he decides not to give his kid brother the chance to argue. “It's either that or you can explain to us what's going on with you right now. Your decision.”
“That's not fair,” Sam moans, finally managing to drag himself into a sitting position, resting his elbows on his knees so he can press the palms of his hands into his eye sockets.
“Life's not fair,” Dean states dismissively. “Made up your mind yet?”
“You suck, jerk,” Sam pouts belligerently, but he holds out his arm to Jess in a mute invitation to help him to the bedroom so, for now, Dean just counts it as a win.
“And you're a pain in the ass, bitch,” he says lovingly.
Chapter Two