One night in March, 2/4, [R] Dean, Sam (Gen)
One night in March
Title: One night in March (chapter 2)
Author: Shellsanne
Rating: R
Pairing: Sam and Dean (with a side of Lucifer)
Genre: heavy on the angst, hurt/comfort/craziness, NO SLASH
Spoilers: This takes place after season 7, episode 15; no spoilers
Note: Comments welcome! Please comment!!
Summary: As Sam struggles to face his impending breakdown, it’s Dean who is spiraling out of control.
He found himself checking his cellphone before he even knew he was doing it. Checking for messages since he and Dean parted ways had become a mindless, habitual exercise in frustration. As usual, there were no voice messages. Not even a text message this time. He briefly considered texting Dean, then discarded the thought as a particularly pathetic-not to mention absurdly ironic-craving for human contact. Besides, he had texted Dean that morning and was still waiting for a response.
Should he be worried? Should he try phoning? Should he be leaping into the rental and heading off into the night to his brother's last known coordinates?
Sam tossed the phone on his unmade bed and pulled a beer from the fridge. He thought about ordering a pizza. He couldn't really remember when he'd eaten last, but it was late, and he felt vaguely hungry. The luxuries of simple routine-eating, showering, sleeping-had become disordered, blurred and overlapping, over the span of time he'd spent sequestered in this room. Five days bordering on five years. Disjointed memories of what he'd been doing, how he'd spent those five soul-destroyingly, mind-numbingly interminable days and nights, filtered through an overall haze of unreality. Like he hadn't been completely awake for it. Like maybe he'd been sleep-walking.
If not for the journal he'd been keeping, recording his actions, his reactions, and what he perceived to be happening around him, he wouldn't be certain of any of his experiences. He certainly couldn't trust his perception of reality any more.
He sat at the small dinette table, pulled out a pen and opened the notebook that served as his record-keeper. On the page labeled 'Monday', he wrote:
Killed Lucifer.
His pen hovered for a moment. He added:
Again.
He'd have to flip back through the pages to confirm, but he was pretty sure he'd shot Lucifer through the head last Friday.
It had seemed like such a good idea at first, such a reasonable course of action. Most importantly, it had felt like he was finally doing something about his steadily advancing mental meltdown, rather than standing helplessly on the sidelines as he'd been doing for months now. The plan was to choose a chunk of time, during which he wouldn't be hunting, wouldn't be distracted, wouldn't be disturbed by anything of an ordinary nature (ordinary, at least, by Winchester standards), and during that period of quiet, focused stillness, he would literally face his demons. That is, his own particular demon, the Prince of Darkness himself, who'd been taunting and haunting the edges of Sam's world, threatening to burst through the tenuous borders of his reality, ever since The Wall came down.
On the page labeled 'Sunday', he'd written Room set ablaze. He remembered waking up that morning to the fires of Hell all around him, flames licking at his mattress, dancing across the carpet, smoke choking the air from the room. He remembered the smell of burning flesh as the hairs on his forearms singed and the skin beneath began blistering and liquifying. And when the room service maid knocked at the door, it all vanished.
Sam tossed aside the journal, picked up the TV remote control and began scrolling through channels.
Even Dean thought it was a good idea. Or maybe he'd just run out of ideas and thought it was a good excuse to extricate himself from the detached, uncommunicative, awkward apathy that their relationship had slipped into over the past weeks. They hardly talked any more. While Dean sunk ever deeper into what he increasingly regarded as his own private hunt of Dick Roman, rarely sharing his thoughts about it, Sam's hallucinations started up again. They made him progressively more distrustful of his own judgment, until he realized he couldn't rely any more on his instincts, he couldn't have Dean's back as he once did, he could no longer be the hunter he once was; his mere presence posed a risk that Dean couldn't go on ignoring.
Meanwhile, as Sam's confidence in himself diminished, his dependence on his brother steadily grew. It made both of them uncomfortable. It was like they didn't quite know what to do in each other's company these days. And so their conversations would easily evaporate and they'd fall into silence, taking cold comfort in distance. Whether it was out of fear or simple hopelessness, it was as if they'd jointly, wordlessly, decided to pull away and close off from one another.
Sam would never admit it, but he felt heartbroken when Dean so casually agreed to head off on his own to track the lead Frank had provided him, while Sam set up camp on his own, in this fleabag motel, to deal with his…problem. "Nice gig," Dean said. "Kicking back, reading trash novels, watching TV. Checking out the pay-per-view stations," he winked.
It was like Dean had entirely missed the point.
Or he just didn't want to see it any more.
Sam didn't know. Dean didn't really talk to him anymore.
Half the stations were out. The satellite dish was apparently on the blink, and the terrestrial stations rolled in on fuzzy waves. Sam clicked through a handful of clear offerings-a hockey game, a cheesy looking sitcom, a Dirty Harry movie (Dean might've come back if he knew that was on), an episode of Buffy. He stopped on the local news, watched a scantily clad weathergirl point to rainclouds on an oversized map.
In fairness to Dean, Sam hadn't been entirely forthcoming about the purpose of his motel room stay. He hadn't been entirely clear on it himself. He knew only that he planned to finally stop shrinking from the craziness inside his head that wore Satan's face. Open the door, roll out the welcome mat, and invite Lucy in. And stand the fuck up to him.
Of course where that would lead he didn't have a clue. And he sure as hell wasn't going to confess to Dean just how risky it might be. Or just how unstable he was becoming.
Dean didn't know. Sam didn't really talk to him anymore.
It's getting worse, Sam had texted his brother that morning, but I'm okay. He flashed on the Bowie knife gripped wrong-way-around in his own hand, blade poised over his sternum, and found himself regretting that he'd cancelled out the most honest thing he'd said to Dean in weeks with an abject lie.
He stared at the weathergirl's plastic smile, heard the perky recitation of her report (a high pressure system and rain on the way), and let the realization sink in that, not twenty minutes ago, he'd nearly offed himself. He felt a small shiver.
The weathergirl stopped in mid-sentence, turned to the camera with a widening grin, and said, "But you have to admit it was fun, Sam."
Sam blinked at the TV screen.
"Impaling me like that? You know you loved that part." She winked at him. "And I always enjoy feeling your blade thrusting deep inside of me…" Her head tilted back, her eyes rolling up in mock pleasure, and she moaned softly. Then she turned to her right and glanced off-screen. "And that wraps the weather. Back to you, Bob."
"Thanks for that, Deena," said the smartly quaffed suit behind the anchor's desk. Lucifer looked elegant in a dark Armani jacket, white shirt, and blue pinstriped tie. He wore that smile of his-always so pleased to see Sam-as he said, "You know, the news team have got this little bet running, about how you'll eventually be leaving that room-whether it'll be in a straitjacket or a body bag." He leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I shouldn't be telling you this, in case it influences the outcome, but the odds-on favorite is the body bag." Then he sighed. "Personally, I'm hoping it's the jacket. I just think that would be more fun, don't you? And it would mean you and I can hang out together a little longer. Maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months..." His face positively lit up, his eyes glowing. "Maybe years, Sammy."
"Don't call me that." Sam's voice was so low it was barely audible, but the intensity, the threat it carried, caught Lucifer's attention.
"Oh, I know. That little pet name is property of your big brother, isn't it. It just seems a shame that no one gets to use it now that he's off the scene."
"He'll be back."
"Well of course he will, Sammy. He'll have to come back to ID the body, won't he? Or sign the committal papers. One of the two."
Sam leveled the remote at the old Toshiba and pushed the off button. Not that he expected it to work.
"You know what your problem is, Sam? You take everything too seriously. You've got to lighten up a little, learn to relax. Follow Dean's lead."
All you have to do is follow, flashed dismally in Sam's head. What the Dean-thing had coaxed him with. It seemed to be a theme night.
"My guess is he's either getting himself tanked or getting himself laid right now. Probably both."
Sam aimed at the TV again and started switching channels. Panels of blue light flickered across the room with each channel change, but every network seemed to be carrying the same broadcast. "Monday night TV really sucks," he said.
Lucifer leaned close to the camera again, his face filling the screen. "Be honest with me, Sam. There in the bathroom, you knew it was me all along, I know that. But even knowing it was me, when you plunged that knife into my chest, into Dean's chest, just for an instant, for a sliver of a second, killing Dean felt good, didn't it…" His lips spread further, baring teeth that looked chiseled and abnormally white. "Felt like you were finally in control. Finally standing the fuck up to him, didn't it. Oh wait-" His smile slipped and his eyes grew wide. "That was your plan for me, wasn't it!" Lucifer began cackling. "Hey, Sammy…" trying to catch his breath as his eyes teared with giggles, "How's that working out for you?" And he crowed with laughter.
It occurred to Sam that if he couldn't shut Lucifer up, he really would go crazy. (And the absurdity of that thought actually made him smile.)
Sam stood, crossed to the little TV set, grabbed its power cord and ripped it out of the wall, yanking it with such force that it dislodged the electrical outlet cover plate. Sparks flew from the exposed wires in the wall. The television blinked out, but so did all the electricity, all the lights, in the room. A shower of electrical sparks pinpricked the darkness from floor to ceiling, shimmering like glitter, as if every electrical circuit and device in the room had just been tasered. And then the lights began erratically flickering on and off.
"Oh crap," said Sam.
That's when the front door of his dingy hotel room exploded open. And things got weird.
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