Threnody (1 of 3)
Threnody
A Story in Nine Sections of Unequal Length
i.
..atum..
Sam opens his eyes and whispers, “Dean. I’m awake.” His voice is rough, like it hasn’t been used in a while or like he’s been screaming for hours. He’s not sure which is more likely at this point, doesn’t think he cares, not when Dean’s running fingers along Sam’s cheeks, eyes piercing as if Sam might be lying. “Sammy,” Dean breathes, and it’s barely audible, but to Sam, it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. “I’m awake,” Sam says, again, and then he reaches up and tangles one of his hands in one of Dean’s, closes his eyes. “Sam?” Dean says, louder than a whisper this time, and panic threading his voice, and Sam’s eyes blink open, almost lazily, as he says, “I’m so tired, Dean.”
Dean shakes his head, swims in Sam’s vision, says, “You need to stay awake until Missouri gets back,” and Sam hears Dean check himself rather than seeing it, before Dean asks, haltingly, “She will be coming back, Sam. Her and Jeannie will be back. Right?” Sam flinches, tries to bury himself in the blankets, because he knows what he did, came so close to killing them both, and nods, seeing Dean relax a fraction. “Sam,” Dean says, and Sam shakes his head, feeling his entire body throb with pain and ache with loss, and he interrupts his brother, says, “Dean. Talk to me. Tell me something. I’ll stay awake, I promise,” and closes his eyes again. The world here is too bright, too painful, and he feels disconnected, like he doesn’t belong here and can’t understand why, adrift without map or anchor. But then Dean starts speaking, something random from when they were children, and Sam clings to the only thing that makes sense, letting his mind float to the cadence of Dean’s voice.
--
He feels the vibrations later, how much later he’s not sure, but Dean’s been talking the whole time and now Dean’s voice sounds as rough as Sam’s. After the vibrations of two pairs of feet on the steps, there’s silence, and then the door creaks open and Dean stops talking. Sam opens his eyes, sees the world as an ocean of indistinct blurriness, and closes his eyes as a cool hand touches his forehead. He can’t hold back the hiss, it hurts, doesn’t feel right, and he doesn’t so much relax as stop fighting when the hand moves away and another takes it’s place.
This palm is warm, these fingers callused, and the touch makes Sam think of smoke, or the smell of a fire just extinguished, lingering in the air. “Jeannie,” he murmurs, and she coos, low and soft and gentle, running her hand through his hair. “Hush now, Sam,” she says, and Sam can feel that the other people in the room, Missouri and Jeannie and Dean, are talking, silently, about him, but he doesn’t care, he’s exhausted, wrung out and lost. “You get some rest, now that you’re back with us.” Sam tries to nod but the motion hurts, so he stops with a choked-off whimper, and just gives in.
--
His fire’s restless, searching for something, as Sam sinks into it. No, he realises, after a moment or an hour of thought, not something, someone. Liz. His complement, his fault that he can’t find her anymore. He killed her, killed his friend; the person he thought of as a little sister is gone and it’s all his fault.
Sam wakes out of sleep already gagging and Dean’s there with a bucket, waiting. Sam heaves but nothing comes up, just air, and soon Dean’s pushing him back down, wearing a worried expression that makes the circles under Dean’s eyes look like bruises. “Can you get back to sleep?” Dean asks, putting the bucket on the floor, leaning forward to study Sam, who shakes his head. How can he want to sleep, how can he still be alive, after sentencing Liz to death, and he’s almost back to hyperventilating when Dean takes a hold of Sam’s wrist, pressing his thumb in the groove between Sam’s bones until it hurts.
Sam looks at Dean with wild eyes, he knows, but all Dean says is “You need rest, Sam. Once you’re a little more with it, we’ll talk. Until then, Jeannie left a cup of tea for you. She said it’ll help.” Sam doesn’t fight when Dean lifts the mug to Sam’s lips and holds it there while Sam swallows, and he lets Dean push him down, tuck him in, reaches for Dean. “Sleep, Sammy,” Dean says, letting Sam hold his hand, and so Sam does.
--
He wakes up slowly this time, numb and groggy, his eyes crusted shut and his skin feeling as if it’s stretched too tight over his body. Sam blinks, rubs his eyes and takes in the room for the first time since he came out of his psychic trance. It’s not a room he recognises, wide and airy, decorated in reds and golds. He’s in a single bed near the window, which is open, and Dean’s in another bed on the other side of the night-table and closer to the door. Except for a basket filled with angelica leaves, a desk and chair, and a wardrobe, the room’s empty. No, nearly empty, Sam thinks, as he studies the walls. All of the paintings on the walls are of fire, flames, and three dream-catchers, one each in red, orange, and yellow, are hanging on the wall above the headboard. The orange and yellow ones are burned out, the outer frames singed, the inner threads frayed and disintegrating. The red one looks fine, though, and Sam’s a little disoriented because he feels so at home here, like he belongs in a way that makes him think of Liz.
He can’t stop the sharp breath he inhales after that thought, then wants to kick himself when Dean opens his eyes, instantly focused on Sam. “You sleep?” Dean asks, question punctuated by a yawn, pulling his hand out from under the pillow, and Sam nods, asks, “Where are we?” Dean sits up, swings his legs over the edge of his bed, facing Sam, as he replies, “I called Missouri when we left. She told me to meet her here. It’s some sort of place for psychics; Jeannie runs it. Wyoming,” Dean adds. “Closer than Kansas. She’s gone back home, now that you’re awake.”
Sam nods, trying to focus, but all he can think of is Liz, leaving her to die, leaving her for Karta, killing her, and he rubs his eyes again, hair falling over his face. He should have offered himself instead of Liz, he should been able to find a way around that contract, he’s an awful human being who doesn’t deserve to live. He can’t stop the tears from springing up, but he holds them back, won’t let them spill. He’ll never go back to Palo Alto again, he promises himself this, never again, because people there, people he loves, they die, again and again, and if he has to watch another one be taken right in front of his eyes, he’s going to lose it for good. “Hey, Sam,” Dean says, snapping his fingers right in front of Sam’s eyes, and since when can Dean move that quietly around him? “Sam, talk to me,” Dean says, and Sam shakes his head and doesn’t talk for the next four days.
--
He spends a lot of time sleeping; he spent three days in the psychic plane, but a trance-state isn’t the same thing as rest. Every time he wakes up, he thinks the dream-catchers have been changed along with the basket of angelica but he’s not sure. Sam doesn’t want to eat, he’s not hungry at all, but Dean, usually, or Jeannie, occasionally, forces soup down his throat, and it finally stays down on the third day. He passes a lot of the time he’s conscious in thought, replaying his conversation with Karta, trying to think of a way around the contract and her insistence, and comes up with a few things that may have worked, he’ll never know.
Sometimes Dean leaves, and Sam can’t stop himself from worrying, from letting panic seep into his thoughts, as if something might happen and Dean might leave him. Dean always comes back, though, and Sam can’t help needing to touch his brother, needing physical confirmation that he’s not seeing things, that Dean’s there and safe. Other times, he rubs his chest, feeling the thread-edges of the scar from Adam, which is still terrifying but somehow paling in comparison to what he himself has just done. Maybe Adam was right, maybe Sam is a monster, something that needs to be put down before he can hurt anything or anyone else. If he can surrender one of his best friends in the world to the first so-called goddess that comes around, if he’s willing and halfway to destroying two mentors, what else is he capable of?
On the fourth day, after Jeannie’s poured another bowl of broth down Sam’s throat and left without a backwards glance, Dean stands at the foot of the bed and starts talking. “This needs to stop, Sam,” Dean says, and when Sam just looks at Dean, the expression, Are you crazy? written on his face, Dean sighs, then says, “Fine. At least tell me what happened, because I still can’t figure it all out. I know she pulled you into the astral and you two talked or whatever it is a psychic and goddess do there, and I know that the ice and the cats were related to that bitch, but Sam, what happened?” Sam looks away, closes his eyes, and shakes his head. “Don’t do that, Sam,” Dean says, voice a tone of warning, and Sam sees movement out of the corner of his eyes.
He turns in time to see Dean pull the covers off of the bed and feels Dean grab his ankles and yank. Sam slides off the bed and hits the floor, is up and trying to defend himself an instant later, Dean attacking him with fists and feet. They bang around the room, kicking and punching, not sparring but actually fighting, and after a minute, Sam’s not sure who he’s fighting or what, just that he can’t do this anymore. Dean tackles him and they both go down, the back of Sam’s head hitting the floor with enough force to knock one of the dream-catchers off the wall. It thumps behind him, falling between the wall and the bed, and Dean’s straddling him, pinning Sam’s wrists to the floor. It hurts, his head, his heart, the way Dean’s looking at him, and he can’t stop the words bubbling up out of his throat, all the things he’s been thinking and dreaming of the past few days. “It’s my fault,” he says. “She’s dead because of me, you almost died because of me, I didn’t think fast enough and I fucked everything up,” and that breaks a dam holding back words and prayers and tears.
Sam’s not sure when Dean lets go of his wrists, but the fingers stroking his cheek help, calm the mad tumble of speech, and when he shudders, drawing a breath wracked with guilt and self-recrimination, Dean finally gets off of him and pushes Sam to sit up. “Jeannie said there’s a priest around here who knows about,” Dean trails off, then says, “He’ll come here if you want him to.” Sam thinks about that, then says, “I’d rather go to him. I just, I need to get out of here.” Dean doesn’t argue, just helps Sam out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. When he’s alone, Sam looks at his reflection in the mirror, gingerly touching the sore spots that’ll be blossoms of blue and purple by tonight, and wonders if the face he’s looking at is the face of a murderer.
--
The drive to the church doesn’t take long and Sam’s too wrapped up in his thoughts to take any notice of the scenery flashing past them. Dean’s quiet as well, the radio off, and the silence only serves to heighten Sam’s sense of self-loathing, makes him more sensitive to the palpable sense of worry that’s emanating from Dean’s direction. It’s eerily similar to the drive to the mission in San Xavier, and when Dean pulls up in front of this church, here in Wyoming, Sam sees desert and old Franciscan stucco for the span of a blink. He’s almost ready to tell Dean to leave him, that Dean’s only in more danger being around Sam, but Dean turns the car off. “I’ll be here when you’re done,” Dean says, and then pulls out a couple of old magazines, settling into the seat. The set of Dean’s jaw dares Sam to protest, so Sam gets out of the Impala with a pained nod and walks into the church.
He crosses himself with Holy Water, the droplets hissing in steam when they touch his skin, and he finds a pew to the side of the church, pulling out the kneeler and settling, shifting his weight onto his heels as he closes his eyes. He skips his normal litany of prayers and begins immediately with the Prex Manasse, the Latin slipping out soft and fearful, as if he thinks that God will turn away despite perfect forgiveness. “Peccavi, Domine, peccavi,” he murmurs, when the Prex has been recited three times; “peccavi, remitte mihi, Domine.” He’s rocking back and forth, hands clasped together so tightly that they’ve lost feeling, eyes clenched shut and head turned down, and even as he moves on to the seven penitential psalms, it runs like a heartbeat in his head. Remitte mihi, remitte mihi.
Sam recites the Confiteor out loud as well, words falling into some great abyss he can’t see but knows is right in front of him, sliding into the preparatory prayers before he goes into Confession. When he does, finally, stand up, he sways, dizzy, and makes his way to the small confessional, dropping to his knees on the prie-dieu inside. He breathes in silence and calm, eyes fixed on the crucifix hanging above, and when he’s gathered his resolve and made the Sign of the Cross, he says, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three weeks since my last confession. I have missed Mass the last three weeks, and,” he pauses, clasps his hands tighter, continues on, “I have committed murder, both in my thoughts and in my actions. I have lied and taken the Lord’s name in vain, and given in to pride and anger. All these I have done with full knowledge and deliberate consent, and I am sorry for these and all of my sins.”
The father is silent for a long moment, one which stretches out, and Sam’s heart misses a beat when the priest clears his throat. “I’ve not heard a confession like this in some time, my child,” he says, before asking gently, “These murders. Tell me about them.” Sam doesn’t know how to describe it, how to get across the terror of what happened and how he feels now, so he starts talking. This is different than talking to Dean, has a different purpose behind it, and Sam’s mindful of that even as he tells the priest about Liz, about the choice he made. “And when I realised she was gone, when my gift realised,” he says then, stumbling over words, “I went to the psychic plane. Fled, really. I couldn’t, couldn’t deal with it.” Sam looks down and the priest makes an encouraging noise, so Sam inhales deeply and carries on. “I have power, a lot of it, and when I was in the plane, I let it spread out. Some of the others, they tried to stop me, to help, and I just, I wasn’t thinking,” he says, struck again by the horror of what he’d done. “What happened?” the priest asks, and Sam’s choking on the words. “I swatted at them with my power, as if they were flies. I burnt out their gifts, all the ones who tried to help, and some of them lost their minds. A couple died,” he says in a whispered mixture of grief and anger.
--
Sam emerges from the church two hours later, feeling steadier but not by much. He’s been absolved, shriven, but it doesn’t help much, for the first time that he can remember in a long time. Instead, he feels scarred, like the evidence of Adam’s spell on his chest has a similar echo on his gift, a wound from having killed Liz. He shivers, though it’s not exactly cold, and walks to the Impala. Dean’s slumped inside, shades on and magazines forgotten, leaning against the window with his lips parted and snoring. It’s so Dean that Sam can’t help but smile, feeling like he’s just taken three steps away from a cliff’s edge, as he walks around to the driver’s side and taps on the window. Dean wakes up instantly, looking at Sam, watching as Sam walks back to the passenger side and slips in, and once the door’s closed and Sam’s buckled up, Dean asks, cautiously, “Better?” Sam says, “Enough for now. Can we not go back to the house yet?” and Dean’s definitely giving Sam a look, but he just turns the car on and says, “Yeah, sure. There’s a diner downtown. They say the coffee’s halfway decent.”
ii.
..shu..
They’re in a small town called Reliance, just north of Rock Springs on 17, and this time Sam studies the landscape on the ride, taking in the specks of trees, the desert plateau, the clear blue sky. Dean keeps looking at him but Sam doesn’t say anything, not until they sit down and get their coffees, as well as two pieces of the day’s pie. The waitress is older, maybe grandmother-age, and tells them to enjoy the snack before going into the kitchen, out of sight, leaving them alone. Dean takes a bite of his pie and then pins Sam with a look that says, So we’re here. Talk. Sam’s been trying to gather his thoughts, figure out where and how to start, and he almost wishes he could just write an essay instead of talking about this, but he knows that’s not the Winchester way, so he takes a sip of the coffee and wraps his hands around the cup.
“I’m sorry,” Sam says, and Dean immediately asks, “For what?” Sam shakes his head, says, “Please, just let me,” and Dean nods, leans back and gestures with his fork for Sam to continue. “I should have listened to you back there. The invocation might’ve been enough to pull Karta out of the plane, and then. I should’ve thought harder. The second time, in the astral, I should’ve tried harder,” and when Dean leans forward, Sam says, with more feeling he’s had about nearly anything since he woke, “I know, Dean. No second guesses, right? Go with what we can, what we have to, to stay alive, right? Dad’s rule, and yeah, Dean, I did. But Liz is dead now, because of me. Just listen,” he says, stopping Dean again.
His brother’s the slightest bit amused, Sam can tell, and maybe he’ll be able to see the humour in this later, but now, he just feels empty. “Liz’s ancestors, back in Latvia, they made a deal with Karta-and she was a witch, not a goddess. Any girl born with necromantic abilities from that village belongs to her. Somehow she transfers the life force of the child to herself and, in return, she protects the village. There was a contract, done in the old style, and you know we haven’t found a way ‘round those yet, but when it took her mother, the demon somehow suppressed Liz’s power, so Karta didn’t know. Else she would have come for Liz before that, probably around the same time the demon did.”
He stops, can’t say anymore, and Dean raises an eyebrow, silently asking if it’s all right to speak now. Sam nods, and then wishes he hadn’t; people underestimate Dean, assume he’s a gung-ho soldier and nothing more, without a mind of his own, and sometimes, always in the worst times, Sam falls into that trap, too. “You talked to Karta in the astral. She offered to take me instead of Liz.” When Sam stares, as if his world has bottomed out, Dean snorts and says, “Give me some credit, Sam. The ice didn’t start coming for me until after you went back in, and as soon as you woke up, you looked at me and her, then the ice took her. You chose the contract, not the bargain.” Sam looks down, shakes his head, and says, “I chose who would die. It’s my fault Liz is dead.”
“Yeah, well it’s your fault I’m alive. Can’t say I’m too upset with that,” Dean says. “Don’t get me wrong, Sam: for a necromancer, Liz was all right, but you have to focus on the living, on what you still have. Who’s still here.” Sam sighs after a moment, hearing an echo of the talks Dean gave him after Jess died, nods and looks away, eyes tracing the pattern on the bar across the room. “Sam,” Dean says sharply, and Sam jumps, the mug in his hands tilting and then falling, coffee spilling everywhere, burning him. The waitress comes out, clucks her tongue, and sops up the mess, pouring Sam another cup of coffee and saying, “Y’look like a few hours sleep might do you some good.” Sam smiles wanly, replies, “Believe me, I agree.”
--
He sleeps and floats on fire, gently tossed by the ebbs and flows and waves of flame heating his skin. He sighs, burrows into the warmth, and his eyes here open wide when he falls through, keeps falling, doesn’t stop until-
Ice, ice everywhere, ice and snow and he’s buried in it, frozen, numb. It isn’t so bad, feels like how things should be, cold and dying, lost and alone, but then he hears the howls, hears paws scrabbling over the snow, and a voice asking, “Who will you bargain with now, hmm?” The voice holds echoes of Karta, echoes of Adam, and it’s connected to a body drawing frozen fingers down his chest, nails catching on his skin and scratching out blood. The coyotes are there a moment later, fighting over the blood steaming in the icy air, then ripping into him, tearing him apart, and all he feels is pain and relief and cold, numb to everything else as he screams and screams and-
He blinks, turning in confusion, seeing fire and nothing else. He frowns, then shrugs and relaxes, settling into the flames, resting while he can, trying to thaw the feeling back into his heart.
--
Sam wakes up with a twitch, his nose itching, and he bats at the air, hearing a snicker as he does. The itch stops for a second or two, but then comes back, and Sam scrunches his nose and frowns, batting again. The snicker is louder this time, and when the itch returns for a third time, Sam opens his eyes and sees Dean tickling his face with one of the angelica leaves. “Not fair,” he groans, and pulls the pillow out from under his head, planting it over his face. “If you don’t get up, Sam, swear to God I have a bucket of water and I’m going to use it if you’re not glaring at me by the time I count to five.” Sam’s not too sure about this, whether Dean has a bucket or not, and whether Dean would actually use it or not, but if there’s one thing Sam’s never forgotten, it’s that Dean can make waking up absolutely hellish. By the time Dean says, “Four, Sam, and it might be summer, but there’s a lot of ice in this,” Sam peeks out from under the pillow, dry and bloodshot eyes glaring at his brother. “Morning, sunshine,” Dean says, and snaps a picture.
That gets Sam moving and he stalks through his morning routine with a kind of wounded grace. His body aches, he has hazy memories of a dream, and he’s not as warm as he usually is, turning the hot water in the shower up even warmer than normal. He feels jittery and anxious like something might be coming, and he catches himself looking over his shoulder more than once as he makes his way down two flights of stairs and through wide hallways to the kitchen, pausing in the doorstep.
It’s almost a familiar scene, two people sitting at the table, waiting for him, red candle lit and flickering, but instead of Missouri and Jeannie, its Jeannie and Dean, and there’s a box on the table as well. Sam walks in, wary shivers running up and down his spine, and sits down across from his mentor and his brother, eyes darting to the box as if he expects the lid to fly off at any moment. He waits for one of them to speak first, and Jeannie caves before Dean does.
She pushes the box over to Sam and says, “Open it,” tone curiously, forcedly, empty. He looks at Dean, who’s still just sitting there, arms folded, silent, completely opposite from the laughing brother who woke him up earlier, and then takes the lid off, eyes glancing over burnt pieces of wood, shattered ceramic, singed nylon thread, misshapen lumps of metal. He’s obviously missing something, so he looks back up at Jeannie, who licks her lips, a nervous habit he remembers from Lawrence, before saying, “They’re dream-catchers, Sam, the ones we’ve had in your room the past week.” She pauses, looks at Dean, who hasn’t taken his eyes off of Sam, then goes on. “You’re burning up three a night. Last night we had to replace them while you slept. It isn’t a manifestation of your gift and it’s not something supernatural, it’s your nightmares being strong enough to fight the charms and overpower the spells. Your dreams, Sam, aren’t something you’re going to be able to ignore much longer, not without repercussions.”
Sam wonders what Dean’s told Jeannie, if he said anything about the times Sam didn’t use the dream-catcher after San Xavier and woke up screaming, thrashing, everything in the room spinning in mid-air, or if Dean told her that Sam can’t sleep with weapons in arm’s reach for fear of using knives or guns in a dream-induced panic, or if Dean mentioned the time Sam clawed a rune of protection into his own chest, in his sleep, and woke up with fingers slippery and crimson. Sam gives Jeannie a look that might mean, Okay, so? just as much as it might mean Please, help me, and she sighs, fingers tracing out grooves gouged into the table. “I wish I could just have someone come and talk to you about them, but it’s past that now. You’ve ignored them for too long. You have a choice, Sam: either you talk to us about them, and what’s caused them, in complete honesty, or you let someone share your dreams until they even out a little.”
Sam can’t stop his lip from curling, just like he can’t quite hide the hurt he knows is in his eyes, because both of those options suck and they know it. He took Intro to Psych, he knows that dreams are the subconscious’ way of sorting things out, and he’s about ready to protest their limited options when he realises that he can’t work out any issues through his dreams if they’re getting caught in the dream-catchers. Well, fuck. “Let me sleep without the catchers,” Sam says, “see if they’ll work themselves out.” Jeannie and Dean exchange a glance, and Sam can’t decide whether to be offended that they’re treating him like a child, giving him ultimatums, or inordinately touched that they’re this concerned.
“Fine,” Dean says, the first word he’s spoken since Sam entered the kitchen. “We’ll see how it goes. If not, you’ll have to decide, got it?” Sam nods, says, “Got it,” and Dean stands up, smiles. “Come on, geekboy. You need to get in shape, spent too much time lying around,” and as Sam follows Dean out of the kitchen, arguing with his brother, he sees Jeannine blow out the candle, hovering over it with a pinched, worried look on her face.
iii.
..tefnut..
Sam’s never been so relieved to sit down for a meal before, though the smell of meat makes his stomach start gurgling in protest. Thankfully, Jeannie places a large bowl of salad in front of him, various greens mixed with fruits and nuts, and he doesn’t have to look all that much at Dean’s steak. After Dean’s started eating and told Jeannie that he’d gladly marry her for her cooking. Jeannie asks, “Was it a productive day for you two?” Sam snorts and then takes a bite of lettuce and arugula when Dean looks at him, raising an eyebrow in innocent protest. Dean rolls his eyes and says, “We’re getting Sam back into shape. Went for a run, worked on the forms, did some sparring,” and Sam can’t believe that his brother is just as good at making physical torture sound reasonable as their father was.
He hasn’t fought as hard since the werewolves, before they went to Tucson, and he can still feel the pull on his new scar, across his chest, new bruises littering his body and mixing with the old. It’ll take time to get used to it, four weeks of recovering from the blood loss and getting back into good enough physical condition wasn’t much of an allowance, not when he’d been so close to death, to burning out his power and body both, and then a week and a half practically without moving really didn’t help. He knows Dean’s only trying to help, to keep him, them, both alive, but he thought he saw panicked urgency in Dean’s eyes, in the grass behind Jeannie’s house, and still doesn’t know the reason for it or even if he imagined it.
Jeannie looks between them and decides not to press the issue, merely takes a sip of her water and says, “Ellen called today.” Dean and Sam look at each other, then Dean says, “Oh?” inviting Jeannie to expand. Sam thinks for a moment that she won’t, but then she says, “Apparently she has a lead, if either of you ever thought about answering your phones.” Sam looks at Dean again, who raises an eyebrow and then asks, “Did she say anything about,” stopping when Jeannie starts shaking her head. “Us psychics are a close-lipped group. Until Sam tells us it’s all right, we aren’t saying a thing about, well, anything.” Sam feels a rush of gratitude that doesn’t dissipate, not even when Dean shovels the rest of his dinner into his mouth and excuses himself, disappearing in the direction of the stairs.
--
It does, however, give way to apprehension when Sam goes up to bed a few hours later, after the words of an ancient Greek text have started to blur in his vision. He was ready for sleep before that, but put it off for as long as possible; now, standing in the doorway, Dean looking up from a set of maps and Dad’s journal, Sam thinks maybe he can put it off longer with all of the sudden adrenaline flooding his system. “Hermetics still boring as hell?” Dean asks, startling Sam out of his thoughts, and Sam walks over to the bed, gets his pyjamas, and says, “Fascinating actually. It’s the damn Greek giving me a headache,” eyes fixed on the blank wall above the bed, the cracked and discoloured paint. “I’ll put this stuff away,” Dean says as Sam’s heading for the bathroom, and Sam’s grateful he’s getting ready to brush his teeth, because his mouth has gone dry.
After flushing the toilet and washing his hands, Sam looks in the mirror, pokes and prods the bruises on his face, his chest. The scar from Adam stands out in stark relief against his tan, pulled white threads fading into him, becoming a part of him, and as one finger goes up to trace the biggest, roughest line, he stops, forces his hand to the sink, turns away from the mirror and the vivid memory of the stench of death. His hand shakes as he squeezes toothpaste onto the brush, shakes as he cleans his teeth, shakes as he washes his face, and he really, really doesn’t want to go to bed.
When he can’t hide in the bathroom any longer, he pads back to the bedroom. Dean’s in his bed, checking the gun’s safety before sliding it under the pillow, and once Sam’s slipped under the blankets of his own bed, Dean turns the light off. “Sweet dreams,” Dean says after a minute, and Sam snorts. “Yeah. Right. You too,” he mutters, and turns on his side, stares out the window. Sleep doesn’t come quickly, but it does come hard.
--
In the desert, alone, empty but for sand and snow falling like crystal from the sky. When he looks down, he sees his feet frozen in a block of ice carved into a pile of cats, their teeth digging into his ankles, ready to bite off his toes. Sand blows in the wind though the snow falls straight down, and faces form in both, shifting too fast to make out until they embody Adam’s face and Adam leers, steps out of the breeze, holding a pair of matreshki. “Hurt you,” Adam says, and the cats come alive, swarming him, toppling him, taking little bites out of his skin as Adam leans over and whispers, “Hunt you.” The wind brings the sound of coyotes, and then they’re there as well, ripping him apart, coyotes and cats eating him and all he can do is let them, scream and lay there. It’s so painful, but Adam says, “Kill you. It’s nothing more than you deserve,” and Adam’s right, so he doesn’t beg, just screams and sobs as he’s eaten and torn, looked at and laughed at, caught in the rips and tears and his blood’s staining sand and snow alike, thick, viscous red.
--
“-Sam, wake the fuck up! Now!” He obeys with a gasp, muscles locking in place, eyes opening, letting everything stop. “Sam?” he hears, and then Dean steps into his line of vision, slow and cautious, and Sam nods once, just as slowly, feeling like he might throw up. “Dhambala save,” someone else says, and Dean motions at them, whoever it is, without taking his eyes off of Sam. “Sammy, I need you to focus now, all right?” Dean asks, and Sam nods again, body loosening with a conscious command. There’s a ringing echo on the floor and Sam looks down, sees his knife and gives it a puzzled look, which deepens when his eyes pick out drops and smears of red, the latter on the knife, the former on the floor. “Sam, look at me,” Dean orders, and Sam looks up, focusing on his brother, who gives Sam an approving nod. “Good. Now, I need you to focus. Try and bring your power back under control. Can you do that for me, Sam?” Sam stares at Dean for a long moment before he blinks slowly and then nods. His skull is humming and as he stands there, motionless save for the rise and fall of his chest, he starts pulling his power back into him, locking it up tight. It doesn’t need to be out, not with Dean there, here, but when he goes to shut up the last speck, he hears a howl and loses it, loses time, loses himself.
His body is heavy and weightless, floating and sinking at the same time, and his power is spread through the room, everything floating and spinning. He’s inhabiting his power, sees things happen as if he’s outside of his body, watching as he picks up the knife, as Dean backs away, as Jeannie shakes her head. “I’m so sorry, Sam,” she says, looking at his power like it’s a tangible thing, and then she murmurs some Creole and he’s jammed back into his body, bound to the physical. He screams, it hurts, hurts so much, too much, and he’s so caught in the pain that he doesn’t see the blow that turns his world black and knocks him unconscious.
Part Two