Noesis (2 of 2)
Noesis
A Story in Six Sections of Unequal Length
iv.
..inexplicable oration..
When he’s done, Sam bandages his hand, ignoring the wave of irritated half-pain as the cotton gauze grazes the cuts, presses against the bruised skin. It makes him think of all the times he’s touched something like Holy Water and felt it sting his fingertips, held a crucifix and passed off the sharp, stabbing pain as adrenaline, every time he’s stumbled in the middle of an exorcism for more reasons than whatever the demon’s saying or doing. He thinks of how angry he is all the time, how desperately he longs to leave this life behind him, and now he’s wondering if his sheer utter need for normality is really his, really normal, and he wants to hurt something, wants to empty eight clips and track a deer and maybe put a fucking stake through a vampire’s heart, if vampires were real or whatever.
He walks down to the kitchen and finds it empty, so he goes out into the back garden and practices his forms, motions choppy and disconnected thanks to this urge to scream and cry that’s boiling up through his veins like fire, and he wants to ignore everything, especially the pain in his hand, ignore it and curl into a ball and die because he can’t deal with this, not at all, and so he leaves, runs out of the garden, out of the neighbourhood, out of the town like man possessed, and the irony of that apparently being true just makes him run more, run harder, trying to exorcise himself through the pounding of his feet on cement, the burn in his muscles, the sweat rolling off of him like rainwater.
He runs, he doesn’t know for how long or where to, until he’s gasping for breath and crying, bent over with his back to a tree as he screams once, twice. “Such a loud voice for such a little mortal,” some woman says, and Sam snaps his head up, eyes widening for a flicker of infinity before they narrow and he spits at the fae’s feet in answer. “And rude, as well,” she says, “but refreshing nonetheless. What’s your name, child?” and even if Sam hadn’t listened to a two-hour lecture yesterday, he still knows enough to answer, “Something you’ll never find out,” answering like Dean would, trying to be brave like Dean, when he’s terrified and tired and trying to deal with things way beyond his capability. She laughs, that same pealing laughter he’s heard before, and then glimmers away into nothing, ‘til Sam’s alone, but not lost, because there’s a dolmen in the field across the road, the same one that started this whole mess, which is eerily convenient because he knows the way back now but thought he’d run farther than that. Sam’s not about to turn a gift like that down, though, so he starts a slow jog back to Blue Earth, wiping tears off of his face while he runs.
--
Jim’s waiting when Sam gets back to the rectory, sitting on the porch and looking worried, which is just fine with Sam because usually his dad looks pissed when Sam leaves for any length of time without telling anyone and then it’s more running, sparring, training. Jim just asks, “Better?” and Sam shrugs a reply, following Jim inside to the kitchen and dinner. They eat in silence, until Jim finally says, “I’m sorry, Sam,” and it sounds like a death sentence. Sam puts his fork down, suddenly not the slightest bit hungry, and Jim goes on. “I should have made you stay. We’re going to talk about this. I, you need to know, Sam, to understand some of the choices your father’s made to keep you safe,” and Sam’s suddenly angry, just full of pained rage, because it can’t ever be about him when it should be; it’s always his father, always, ‘Sam, don’t be so selfish,’ always ‘Why can’t you understand?’ and it’s pissing him off. “So tell me,” Sam says, tone and gesture fuck-you dare, and Jim raises one eyebrow but soon looks away, and Sam wants to glory in that little triumph, but Jim’s talking, then, and the pieces of this mystery, this puzzle, are clicking together almost too fast to keep up with.
His mother died above him, while he was in his crib and her blood dripped down, didn’t touch him but still covered him, a demon’s sacrifice to evil, to the darkness, and an answer from that evil, back to the demon. The lamb is pure, Sam thinks, his mother a perfect sacrifice, so the fire came and swallowed her, while he laid next to her blood. She was the sacrifice and he was the recipient, and he had been baptised with her blood, covered by her blood, changed by her blood. But Jim had baptised him in church, here, in Blue Earth, when he was a week old, and Sam isn’t evil, is human, not possessed, but is living too close to the supernatural to not have both aspects of his nature, both baptisms, exert their own toll on him. He can say the exorcisms, but not without issue in the presence of evil, he can walk into church and cross himself with Holy Water, but not without a sting, he can recite the Lord’s Prayer and mean it, but not, apparently, without a rosary attacking what isn’t pure.
It makes Sam’s head spin to think of it, makes him sit there in silence until the only thing he can think to say is, “Dad knows?” Jim sighs, and his eyes don’t move from the empty mug in between his hands. “He wonders, sometimes. It’s never been an issue, I don’t, he wonders. Especially lately, with the exorcisms. Since you haven’t been able to finish one. It was so random, we don’t know why the demon came after your family, and we’ve watched you, Sam. But there’s no difference between you and any other fifteen-year-old. There was never any sign, and we thought that maybe being baptised in the church first made a difference, might make you more aware of evil but not a part of it, just increase your sensitivity. We just don’t know.” Sam thinks about that, and then, very deliberately, asks, “If I hadn’t been baptised before, what would have happened?” and Jim looks up at him and says, “Maybe nothing. But that kind of mark, it means something. Things will be interested in you,” and Sam immediately says, “The fae.” Jim frowns, asks, “Again?” and Sam can only nod and say, “She talked to me, asked me my name. I didn’t tell her,” he adds before Jim can ask. “She called me a, a little mortal, then just left. Disappeared into thin air.” Jim sighs again, rubs his forehead and looks old and tired, and Sam, yeah, Sam gets that, too.
--
Jim gives him a book after dinner, a little one, bigger than pocket-sized but not by much, takes it from one of the drawers in the kitchen and lays it down in front of Sam, stands over Sam’s shoulder while Sam opens it, says, “This isn’t Latin,” and Jim says, “No, it’s French.” Sam waits a beat, then two, three, for the punch line or some sort of explanation, but nothing comes, so he looks over his shoulder and says, “I don’t speak French.” Jim nods, says, “But you have a good head for language and you’ll appreciate Pascal. We’ve got time for me to teach you what you need to know and I’ve got a spare dictionary lying around somewhere.” Sam thinks that over, then turns to look back at the book, and Jim adds, “You’ll like Pascal, Sam. He was a precocious child, much like yourself, and an avid source of information for hunters in his day, helping them with the rites of blessing, protection, and exorcism. Section cent quatre-vingt-dix trois,” and Jim’s hands cover Sam’s to turn to the right section.
Sam’s eyes skitter over the page, the French, and he thinks that maybe it won’t be so hard to learn the language, if the Latin carries over, listening to Jim as the priest reads and then translates to English, and Sam’s not too far off in his guesses. “’…without knowing to which of these states I shall be forever assigned. Such is my state, full of weakness and uncertainty,’” and Sam thinks about that, how absolutely hopeless it is, until Jim’s saying, “For the Christian faith goes mainly to establish these two facts: the corruption of nature, and redemption by Jesus Christ,” and Sam, after all that he’s been punched in the face with today, thinks Yes, and vows to read the entire book as soon as he can.
Jim’s hands linger on Sam’s, not threatening or unwanted, more like the comforting touch of a father, something that Sam thinks his dad might have done with Dean before his mother died, and he blurts out, “Jim? I’m, I want this to stop. To be over,” and Jim’s hold tightens for a moment before he squeezes and then Jim backs away. “We’ll finish it,” Jim says, and Sam ignores the doubt, pretends that Jim’s soft tone is a promise and not a prayer. “Tomorrow, go for your run when you wake up, and we’ll spend the rest of the day in our books.” Jim ruffles Sam’s hair, and as he walks out of the kitchens, he adds, “Don’t leave town tomorrow,” and then Sam’s alone.
He stares off into space for a while, trying to organise his thoughts, but soon realises that’s a hopeless cause, so he picks up Pascal and starts slogging through the first ten points, guessing at the meanings of each word. It’s a better way to spend the next hour, and once he’s had enough, he goes upstairs, washes off, and goes to bed.
--
His dream starts off like it always does, nothing but fire, cool burnt burgundy and warm ice-yellow flames licking at him, at the edges of his dream-vision, filling all the space between, and these dreams are like the Mass, like the sound of his feet hitting concrete, like Dean and Dad, one of the few constants in his life. Sometimes, when he’s awake, he wonders why he always dreams of fire, if he should be worried that it comforts him, this entity, this thing that took his mother away, that puts spirits and creatures to rest, and tomorrow he’ll think that maybe he should tell Jim about the dreams, see if it’s a side-effect of the blood baptism, but tonight he relaxes and lets the fire flood over him, warm and comforting.
Then the dream changes. There’s movement within the fire, flames darting out in patterns he’s never seen here before and they form into the shape of a woman. When they coalesce and shift colour, glimmering through the spectrum, he tenses and tries to move away. The fae laughs, a high noise that makes his skin crawl, and says, “Well, now,” and Sam hisses at her when she steps forward. “A surprise, but not much of one,” she continues, and then, “I could take it all away, child. Give you back to normality.” That makes Sam freeze, and before he can stop himself, he’s asking, “How?” She smiles and says, “Come find me tomorrow, and don’t bother with your little protections. They have no effect on my clan and they only end up hurting you. Come find me, little one,” she says, and then leans down and kisses his forehead before exploding in a burst of flame, and Sam wakes up, heart racing, a knife clutched in his hand and no idea how it got there.
The window’s open, he doesn’t remember opening it before he went to bed, thought it was locked, and as he gets up to close it, he hears laughter outside, floating up in the still air. He shivers, latches the window and layers the sill with consecrated iron, and gets back into bed. It takes a while before he can close his eyes for more than a panic-filled minute, even longer before he’s relaxed enough to sleep. When he dreams, there’s fire and a fae’s laughter, and when he wakes again, time after time after time in a night that seems never-ending, the laughter follows.
--
He wakes up, every muscle tense, sure for a moment that he smells smoke, but there’s nothing else in the room, save the sunlight streaming in through the open window. He calms down, smelling the morning air, hints of rain, but then he remembers his dream, remembers closing the window in the middle of the night, remembers the fae and her laughing command, Come find me. As Sam gets dressed, pulling on sweats and sneakers, a t-shirt, he weighs the choice, to find the fae or ignore her at all costs, to do what Jim said and stay in town or disobey and leave, and he still hasn’t made up his mind when he’s outside, stretching and warming up.
There are a few people out when he starts his run and they smile at him, watch him, and Sam’s skin is crawling, wondering if each person here can see what he is, if they know what’s been done to him. He runs faster, through the subdivisions, up and down the grid of streets, and stops when he’s back at the west edge of town, the church one block south, the field with the dolmen one mile straight ahead. Sam looks in the direction of the church, then starts jogging out of Blue Earth, laughter spurring him on, feeling the press of dreamed lips lingering on his forehead.
He slows down three times on the way to the field, looking over his shoulder and debating if he should go back, but each time he shakes his head, squares his shoulders, and keeps going. The corn brushes his calves as he steps lightly into and through the field, approaching the mound of rocks and the woman-the fae-leaning against them. She’s watching him like the people were, but her gaze is more predatory, deeper and hungrier, like a wendigo or a vengeful spirit, as if he’s food, and that makes him stop, still in the field, and watch her, wary and sure now that he shouldn’t have done this, but it’s too late now, and damn, his dad’s going to kill him.
“You really want to fit in, little one?” the fae asks, blonde hair blowing over her face in a breeze Sam can’t feel as he nods, and she sighs, “Oh, child,” as if he’s hurt her, but that’s ridiculous, because he’s the one who feels numb, cracked and splintered. “I can help, somewhat, for now, but little one, it will never leave you. I can make it a warning, for when you are close to breaking, but two such powerful hands on you,” she trails off, and he’s got to be imagining those tears gleaming in her eyes, because she’s fae and he’s mortal and she’s been haunting him, in a way, ever since he woke up in Blue Earth. “Child, I might be from the clan of the taisch, but I am not more powerful than the One God, not when you believe in Him so strongly.”
Sam wants to cry but won’t let himself, so he says, voice thankfully even, “You said you could help,” and the distress is gone from her body, or perhaps hidden, as she pushes off of the dolmen and stalks toward him, around him, and eventually faces him. “And I will,” she purrs, “for a price.” Sam doesn’t step back, but he leans away from her, crosses his arms on his chest, and asks, wary, “Which is?” She smiles, says, “Three drops of your blood and five minutes of your breath,” and Sam’s trying to think, to remember, but he can’t; it’s something that Jim had mentioned in that conversation over dinner two days ago, talking about the fae. Before he can say anything, though, she’s stepping back, away from him, and there are other legs brushing through the corn. Sam turns to look and thinks, Busted, because Jim’s there and looking angrier than Sam’s ever seen him look before.
Jim spits out something in a language Sam doesn’t recognise and the fae hisses, backing up, though this time in pain, and Sam’s not sure of anything except that everyone needs to calm down so he can think. “Jim,” he says, “please,” and Jim shakes his head, eyes still on the fae. “Get out of the way, Sam,” and Sam doesn’t move, asks, instead, “Three drops of blood and five minutes of breath. What does that mean?” and that, as out of place as it seems, makes Jim pause and look at him. “We’re bargaining,” Sam says, “and that’s what she wants. What does it mean?” and Jim looks confused, looks at the fae who’s standing there, waiting. At the priest’s glance, she sneers delicately and says, “What, priest? Some of us would rather not surround ourselves with the blind,” and Jim nods, as if that makes sense, and Sam’s ready to scream if someone doesn’t explain things to him in the next ten seconds, but all Jim says is, “And his will work?” like he’s finally listening, and Sam growls.
The fae looks at him and smiles, as if she’s holding back laughter. “Oh, little one. I just want to go home,” and Sam can feel the weight of her longing like a physical presence, words washing over him like a flood and leaving him drenched in the ache of a homesickness he’s only scratched the surface of. Sam says, “All right,” before he can think about it, before the feeling of loneliness stains him completely, and Jim says, exasperated, “Sam,” at the same time the fae says, “Deal, and done.”
With Jim standing there, the fae faces Sam and cradles his cheeks in her hands, looking into his eyes. “The power of your faith, child, will hold you safe until you are close to breaking, for the demons chasing you wait for your distress like a traveller waits for a door to open in the rain. Then there shall be a sign, a reaction to the tools of your belief and craft.” Her eyes grow distant for a moment, then, as if she’s looking years beyond him, and in a low whisper he has to strain to hear, she adds, “One day, child, it will boil out of your very bones and burn through you, and you will learn to accept the burdens of your gifts and curses.” Sam frowns, opens his mouth to ask what’s going on, but she breathes on him, over him, and he closes his eyes and shudders at the feeling of being scrubbed clean deep into his heart and soul and mind, and he sways on his feet, only the pressure of her fingers against his cheekbones and the feeling of Jim’s hand at the small of his back keeping him upright.
“You know what to do, priest of the One God?” she asks, and Jim nods, steps back, says, “When should Sam,” trailing off as the fae smiles. “When will you send me home, child?” she asks Sam, and Sam doesn’t want her to go, doesn’t want to lose the way she makes him feel now that he’s been changed or cleansed, all long-limbed and heavy blooded, but he thinks, Misericordia, and says, “Now, if you’d like.” Her smile grows wider and she reaches out to run a finger down the line of his jaw. “Accepted and done,” she murmurs, and her fingernail digs in on the side of his neck, spilling three drops of blood to the air.
Sam drops to his knees and screams, and the dolmen shakes, a little hint of movement at first, but he keeps screaming and the tremors increase in length and power, until the fae turns insubstantial and melts into the rocks. ‘I am taische fae,’ he hears in his head, over and under the sound of his screams. ‘If you ever meet one of my clan again, tell them about me and they will help you, because you are honourable and kind, child. My name, my name,’ he hears as the rocks fall and turn to dust, ‘is Eilidh, and I thank you.’ Wind carries the powdered remains of the dolmen away as Sam stops screaming, tilting face-first into the ground and unable to move. He feels, he’s not sure how he feels, especially when Jim kneels next to him and asks. Sam can only smile and murmur, “In nomine, Iesu,” before he passes out.
v.
..virtue and devotion..
He wakes up in bed, the king-size bed in the rectory’s guest room, and Jim’s sitting on a chair next to the bed, reading. The room’s bright and the glare makes him groan; he’s got a blinding headache and his neck itches. Jim puts the book down, hands Sam two aspirin and a glass of water, and after Sam’s swallowed both, Jim asks, “How do you feel?” Sam sits up, runs over the aches and pains he feels, cataloguing them like Dad taught him and Dean years ago. “Headache, pretty bad but not awful,” he says, “and my neck itches,” and he lifts a hand in order to scratch his neck but then pauses, studies the palm that he remembers wrapping in gauze, looks at the clear, unblemished skin. “What did she tell you?” Jim asks, and it takes Sam a moment to process the question and word a response. “She said the power of my faith will hold me,” he says, voice filled with wonder and sadness, because he’s never had a prayer answered like this, though it takes him one more step away from normal, doesn’t it, to be given the chance of normality by a fae? No one else has to know, he thinks, and he has to ask Jim to repeat the question Jim just asked. “What else did she say?” and Sam doesn’t know what Jim means, frowns, confused, and Jim sighs but drops it, says, “Go back to sleep, Sam. When you feel better, we’ll test what she did. And, just for the record? That was a very stupid, very irresponsible thing to do.”
After Jim leaves and Sam settles back into the pillows, burrowing in the big pile of quilts, he thinks that, yes, it was very stupid, but it’s also given him a chance, taken away the things inside of him that made him different, that made him dangerous. As he’s half-asleep and falling fast, he thinks that maybe he’s forgetting something she said, that the name of her clan is important for some reason, but then he soars into dreams of flame and the thread of almost-there-memory burns to ash.
--
It’s still light when Sam wakes up again and walks unsteadily to the window. The sun’s almost directly overhead and still bright enough to make him wince, but his headache’s settled a little and he stops in the bathroom before going downstairs. When he’s washing his hands, he looks into the mirror above the sink and stops, because the face looking back at him doesn’t feel like his anymore. He lifts one hand and touches fingertips to his cheekbone, watching as his reflection does the same, water running down both mirrored and real arms and dripping onto his shirt and the sink. He feels heavier, like his bones have somehow gained density, but he feels lighter as well, as if a weight he’s been carrying is gone, but most of all, he feels right in a way he can’t ever remember feeling before, comfortable in his skin like everything fits.
It makes him smile at Jim when he goes downstairs and downs a glass of orange in five gulps, both of his hands unblemished and whole, makes him grin at the world in general in a way he hasn’t for a long time, and everything is good, like he could go out and do anything he wanted, like he can be himself. He eats three pieces of toast and his throat stings a little, but he’s fine, he’s flying, and when Jim asks, dryly, “I take it you’re feeling better?” Sam laughs and says, “Yes, sir.”
They make their way into the church shortly after and Jim puts Sam through every test he can think of and then some, everything from Holy Water and the Host to complicated rituals from the Greater Key of King Solomon, and Sam passes them all. Nothing hurts him, nothing fazes him, he can recite every prayer without reaction, and when Jim can’t think of anything else, he gathers Sam up in his arms and sobs, clinging to Sam so hard, so tightly, that Sam has trouble breathing. That night, after sandwiches for dinner, Jim renews Sam’s baptism and the water sprinkled on Sam’s forehead feels like cleansing, like celebration, like second chances and a hope for the future.
--
It’s hard for Sam, the next morning, to think that it’s only Friday, that he’s only really been in Blue Earth for three days and that so much has happened, his life ruined one day and put back to rights the next. He goes for a run and nothing happens except that he returns to the rectory drenched in sweat and aching, and when he practices his kata in the back garden, Jim watching and offering advice, his movements are all rhythmic and flow from one pose to the next, from one form to the next, his eyes closed and his mind quiet. They’re inside city limits, so they can’t practice with the guns, but Jim sets up a target and Sam throws knives and uses one of Jim’s old flatbows, following the drills Dad uses. When he’s done, he sits down and sharpens and polishes the knives, replaces the arrowheads and smoothes the fletching on the arrows, and he and Jim talk about what Sam’s read in the Ars Notoria, debate questions and philosophy and dogma for an hour.
Lunch is light and quick, after Sam showers, and then he and Jim move to the office and read for the rest of the afternoon and the early part of the evening, Sam devouring the Ars Notoria and Jim picking through texts, looking for something Sam doesn’t know about and doesn’t want to know about. A late dinner, early to bed, and that becomes the routine for the next week, interrupted only by the Masses Jim leads, one trip out into the county for target practice with a few of the semiautomatic pistols, Mrs McCarthy cleaning on Tuesday, and a phone call from Dean on Wednesday.
The phone in the office rings when Sam and Jim are putting away their books for the night, Jim’s a treatise on holy sigils, Sam’s a copy of the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, and Jim answers. He smiles at first, then frowns and gives the phone to Sam, who says, “Hello?” a little hesitantly, but grins widely when Dean says, “Hey, Sammy,” and replies, “It’s Sam, you jerkface.” Dean must be tired, because he lets that go, doesn’t say anything, and Sam’s smile falters as he asks, “Dean? What’s wrong?” Sam can hear murmuring on the other end, says, “Dean?” and Dean says, “Dad got a little banged up, Sammy. We’re gonna be stopping at Caleb’s on the way up to Blue Earth, just to make sure I’ve got everything patched up, but we’re going to try and be there Saturday or Sunday, okay?”
Sam feels like he’s having trouble breathing, “How bad is it?” he asks, because they only ever stop at Caleb’s when it’s bad news and Sam’s better at sewing Dad up than Dean, but Dean says, “Just a few stitches, but we need more ammo too, and we’ve called Caleb, he’s got some extra he can sell us cheap,” and Sam breathes out through his noise and nods before he realises that Dean can’t see him. “Okay. Just, drive safe,” and Dean’s all right, has to be, because he laughs and says, “Yes, grandma,” and hangs up. Sam holds the phone to his ear until the dial tone comes back, and then gives it to Jim, who asks with a raised eyebrow what’s going on. Sam tells him and Jim nods, sends Sam to the kitchen to get dinner started, and as Sam leaves, he sees Jim pick up the phone and start dialling.
Sam has trouble falling asleep that night. He gives up around eleven and creeps downstairs, sits on the front porch with his knives and a whetstone for company, slowly sharpening the blades but more often just staring out across the street, thinking about everything, nothing, and what, if anything, he should tell Dean and Dad about what’s happened here in Blue Earth while they’ve been getting their asses handed to them by mud men. The moon’s bright, low and ripe in the sky, two days until it’s full and more than enough light to see by, even without the streetlamps and the few houses with their outdoor lights left on overnight. He’ll leave it to Jim to talk to Dad, Sam has no idea what they’ve said to each other over the years and even less of an idea what he could say to Dad that wouldn’t end up with Dad trying to exorcise him or something. Dean, Sam doesn’t know how to deal with, if Dad’s said anything about this to his brother or if Dean’s somehow guessed that things aren’t right, because he knows Dean isn’t as stupid as he tries to play off as being.
He’s pulled from his thoughts when one of the lamps down the street flickers and then goes out in a buzz of electricity that he can hear clearly, and his hands still, watching the street in that direction. When the next light burns out, Sam puts the whetstone down and holds two of the longer knives, one in each hand, and stands up slowly, eyes searching for whatever’s causing this. Lights across the street from each other, five houses down, die out, and the door behind Sam opens, Jim coming out and holding a shotgun.
“You seen it?” he asks, voice as quiet as a soft breeze, and Sam shakes his head as the tricycle parked in the driveway four houses down tips over on its side, wheels spinning in the still air. Jim tenses, hefts up the shotgun and holds it ready to aim and Sam crouches, knives tucked against his body and ready to attack. Sam’s eyes are on the next light, the next flowerboxes, waiting; they both wait, and it feels like an eternity later when the lights flicker back on, the tricycle wheels stop spinning. The atmosphere of the street lightens and the back of Sam’s neck stops prickling, stops trying to warn him that someone’s watching. Jim exhales and sits down, careful of the knives and the whetstone, the shotgun lying across his legs, and asks, “What’re you doing up?” Sam sits as well, shrugs and replies, “Couldn’t sleep,” and then, “You?” Jim laughs a little and says, “Sam, you don’t get to be my age in this business without developing a sense that’ll wake you up when the lights start going out,” and Sam laughs as well, says, “Yeah, guess so.”
vi.
..the art of memory..
Neither of them talk about it the next day, just try and stick to their routine as much as possible. Sam can’t really focus, not with an hour of sleep and Dean and Dad coming back maybe-tomorrow, so Jim coaxes a discussion out of Sam on the integration of naturalistic pagan practices into pre-Augustinian Christianity, and Sam gives in after half an hour of fidgeting to argue about whether the Christian holidays are really pagan with extra glossing-over. It takes them through a rambling debate of everything Sam’s learned the past week and when he’s finished a ten-minute harangue and leaned back in his chair, Jim smiles. “The Order will want to kidnap you any day now,” he says, and Sam feels proud and depressed, that he can so obviously impress this man who’s practically an uncle and that his future will be tied up in old Latin and things-that-go-bump instead of getting away.
Sam’s getting restless again, ready to move, like he can’t sit here any longer, and Jim must see it because he calls an early night and they go out for dinner to a local place where most of the people are ordering off the senior menu and pretty much everyone says hello when they walk in and seat themselves. The people here in Blue Earth are used to seeing Sam around, most believe he’s Jim’s nephew and has a travelling salesman father, an idea Jim’s subtly encouraged, and as Sam orders the chicken dinner with mashed potatoes instead of fries, he looks around and bleeds envy. None of these people believe in the things that govern his life; they wouldn’t know how to kill a black dog, they don’t believe the church really needs exorcists these days, if ever, and they’d lock him up in a heartbeat if he said he’d met a fae a week ago and destroyed a gate to the Otherworld using nothing but his blood and screams.
“This is what she meant, isn’t it?” Sam asks, and his voice sounds old, tired, lost. Jim shakes his head in confusion and Sam adds, “The fae. This is what she meant about living among the blind,” and Jim gets it, face clearing and clouding simultaneously. Their waitress comes by and tops off Jim’s coffee, lays down a basket of bread, and wanders off again, and Jim takes a sip before he speaks. “In a war,” he says, quietly, with a half-distant look of recollection, “those on the front lines protect everyone else from seeing the depravity and devastation that humanity is capable of. They sacrifice their innocence for others, long before they’re called upon to sacrifice sleep and safety and their lives. Your father never wanted you and your brother to grow up on the front lines of this war, Sam, but it happened.”
Sam draws lines in the condensation on his glass of water and rips a piece of bread apart, and then says, “If he didn’t want us to, how did it happen?” and Jim says, eyes watching Sam tear the bread into tiny shreds and then ball them up, “He loves you.” Sam wants to say that if this is love, he doesn’t want to see hate, but he feels bruised inside and the waitress is coming their way carrying two plates and another glass of water. He tears the chicken apart, much like the bread, moves the potatoes around on his plate, and ends up taking his dinner back to the rectory in a white Styrofoam box.
--
Friday and Saturday pass in drawn-out minutes and blazing hours, times when the seconds seem to last hours followed by hours that last seconds, and Sam wakes up in the early hours of Sunday, eyes adjusting to the darkness as he hears the rumble of a familiar engine stop outside of the rectory. He gets up, creeps to the window, sees Dean and Dad walk towards the door, and Dad’s limping, favouring his right side, while it looks as if Dean’s whole face is one large bruise. Sam goes out into the hallway and tip-toes halfway down the stairs, sitting out of sight but where he can still hear everything. Dad sends Dean straight to bed and Dean doesn’t argue, which makes Sam wonder if maybe Dean’s hurt in more places than just his face.
Dad goes into the kitchen and muted conversation drifts up to where Sam’s sitting breath held. He zones out a little, listening to Dad and Jim talk about the drive, the mud men, Caleb’s new weapons cache, but when Dad asks, “And Sam?” he wakes up, cranes his neck to hear Jim say, “We’ve done a lot of research, worked on his rituals and aim. He’s been good.” There’s silence for a moment, Sam imagines Dad chugging down coffee or aspirin or both, and then, even quieter, Dad asks, “Nothing out of the ordinary?” Sam’s mouth is dry, and he gets light-headed when Jim says, “I don’t think we’ll have anything to worry about, John,” and he sits there for a few more minutes, listening to them talk before he goes back to bed and sleeps.
--
They leave the next morning, before Jim has to celebrate the early Mass, Dad driving, Dean half-asleep in the front passenger seat, and Sam gives Jim a hug before jumping in the back, waving Pascal at Jim as they drive away. They’re out of Minnesota before Dad says, eyes on Sam in the rear-view mirror, “You had a good time?” Sam smiles, actually smiles at his Dad, thinking of the fae, the near-ruin of his life, the quasi-visitation from something demonic that night, all of the books and headaches and arguments, and says, “Jim taught me French.” Dad groans, turns his eyes back to the road, and that’s that.
--
Sam’s at school on Monday morning, Dean and Dad having driven all day Sunday and half the night, and his friends act as if he’s been gone for years, but they still tease him between classes, complain about the teachers during lunch, and try to copy his work in math. He’s got a crapload of homework to catch up on before finals next week, but there’s no hassle about it, because Dad apparently did call, and he can still bring his science project in tomorrow for full credit.
When he gets home and tells Dean and Dad, Dean calls him a dork and ruffles his head. Sam gets him back later by rigging a trip-wire in the obstacle course Dad has them run, and then gets extra miles from Dad for it, but as he’s out running, feet keeping one-two rhythm on the asphalt, he doesn’t really mind. Tomorrow, he’ll turn in his science project, next week he’ll take his finals, and next year he’ll start looking at colleges, figure out what he’s going to need to do to make sure he’s alive long enough to torment his brother when Dean turns twenty, then thirty, then forty.