Falling Slow, for Lennelle, 1/5
Title: Falling Slow
Recipient: Lennelle
Rating: T
Word Count: 37,595
Warnings: show-level violence; magic shenanigans; general spoilers for season 15, with specific spoilers for episodes 7-9
Author’s Note: Ok, first, this story wouldn’t exist without Lennelle, who prompted it. Lennelle, I’m really pretty sure this isn’t what you expected when you wrote that prompt, but I hope you enjoy it, anyway. I know I enjoyed writing parts of it a little bit too much. Second, a great big thanks to the mods, without whom this challenge would not exist, and who graciously granted me more writing time than I think they were really comfortable allowing. In my defense, the story ended up about 7k words longer than my high estimate, so I definitely needed the time.
The title is from Needtobreathe’s song, Wasteland. Any dialogue or descriptions you recognize from the episodes listed above are from their respective episodes and do not belong to me. And-that’s it, I think. I really hope that’s it because I can’t think of anything else.
Summary: Turned out, being connected to God came with some complications.
Bouncing back into his body felt like breaking the surface of a lake after swimming forty feet down to the bottom in jeans and two shirts, kicking with water-logged boots with his brother dead weight in his arms. He gasped when he broke the surface. The air burned dragging through his lungs.
Sam lifted his head. For a second, he didn’t see just Eileen and Castiel, but also Chuck and Amara in some hotel room and Stull cemetery and Chuck’s old house, Chuck in glasses at his computer, all over-laid on top of each other. He’d scrambled to sitting and started to gain his feet before the images blinked away.
Eileen put a hand on his shoulder, encouraging him to stop. Which was when he realized he’d been shifted up on the bed to lay on it properly. Last he remembered, he’d been at the foot of the bed, Castiel in front of him and Eileen between the bed and the door. Now Eileen was next to him, Castiel was between him and the door, and a stranger-not a stranger, also not Dean, and not worried, not a friend-Sergei, that was it; the faith healer who’d almost killed Jack (his chest panged with loss)-stood vigil on the other side of his bed.
Chuck’s face flashed before his eyes, brows drawn, eyes dark with frustration. Smaller, somehow.
Eileen perched on the end of the bed. If he pushed passed her, she’d end up sprawled full length on the floor. “Sam, you ok?”
Was he? Sam shifted, testing the clench and release of various muscle groups. His back felt stiff, tight, the way it got when some monster slammed him into walls. His head ached, too, but not bad. He was a little tired, under the rush of adrenaline, and undertow that plucked consistently at his feet. But his breath came easier, now. There were no sharp stabs through his head or back or lungs. “I think,” he said, only realizing he’d signed the words, too, when his finger touched his temple.
Chuck, shirt pulled down in front of a mirror, touched a wound that matched Sam’s. On that street in Harlan, Sam twitched away from the touch.
Sam blinked away the image that wasn’t there and looked to Castiel to explain what was going on. He didn’t remember what had happened, not beyond agreeing to let Castiel probe the wound, and then pain. But something had obviously happened. Something that had scared Castiel and Eileen.
“You’re not complete.”
Cas didn’t explain, though. He didn’t abandon his Angel-keeping-guard stance at the foot of Sam’s bed. He didn't even, as far as Sam could tell, remove the majority of attention from Sergei, even as he directed his words to Sam. “What about your wound?”
There was something there Sam wasn’t thinking clearly enough to parse.
Had Sergei fixed it?
"I used to be able to see Sam and Dean in my head."
It didn’t feel like it, but he wasn’t certain he could pick out the subtle throb past the ache in the rest of his body. He hooked his fingers in the collar of his shirt to pull it down.
“Still there,” Sergei said, even before Sam’s shirt cleared the wound, which didn’t seem to please or surprise Castiel. It also didn’t stop either Castiel or Eileen from studying the wound when he exposed it, and Sam followed their gaze. It was perfectly circular, the edges blackened. No redness or irritation. No signs of infection. “But he’s back.”-Back? Sam wondered.- “So we good?”
“For now.”
Castiel didn’t move as Sergei started for the door, didn’t relax his posture or his expression. It was an unsettling return of the Angel of the Lord who’d despised Sam as an abomination when they’d first met. But this time, the animosity seemed reserved for Sergei.
The faith healer stopped behind Castiel, apparently unconcerned, and even knowing the angel could protect himself better than Sam could protect him at this moment, Sam tensed, expecting to lash out. He didn’t expect the attack to be verbal, though. “I like this you, Castiel,” he said. “It’s very . . . Russian.”
Then Sergei made his exit, and Sam didn’t know what to do. Eileen hadn’t moved. Castiel hadn’t moved, though he’d seen Sergei’s words strike a cord. Something-but trying to put his finger on it ramped up the pain in his head.
He rubbed at his temple. “Shouldn’t someone go with him?”
Eileen squeezed his shoulder, eyes brighter than her closed-mouth smile. “I’ll go.”
“No,” Castiel interrupted before she could push to her feet, already turning on his heel, his voice dark and hard. “I’ll go.”
Sam watched until he couldn’t hear the quiet click of Castiel’s dress shoes on the tile, peripherally aware of Eileen shifting her attention to his face, then shifted so the distance between them was more comfortable and turned to face her. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said as she signed. “There was this light, almost an explosion, and then you hit the wall. It knocked you out and you wouldn’t wake up. Cas tried calling Dean, but Dean didn’t answer.”
“Dean didn’t answer?” Sam slapped his pockets, but he couldn’t feel his phone. He couldn’t remember where he left it.
“You’re not at full strength. You need me.”
“Is he ok?” he asked, even as he checked the nightstands. No phone on either.
“He hasn’t returned Castiel’s call.”
Which probably meant he was in trouble. Sam ignored the slight dizziness when he scooted forward, getting both feet on the ground and under him before pushing off. His vision greyed out.
You still think Dean and Cas are going to fly through those doors just in the nick of time.”
Sam hit the bed with a grimace, the jolt felt in his head, but he didn’t fight Eileen’s hold. He had an idea her tugging him back was the only reason he hadn’t face-planted on the floor.
“You flew off the bed and hit the wall, Sam.” Her fingers tightened around his wrist. “Hard. You wouldn’t wake up. Nothing we did helped. You were out forty-eight hours, Sam. You almost died.”
“I didn’t,” he countered immediately. He couldn’t have, could he? Castiel hadn’t-But Eileen’s haunted expression said he could have. “What happened?”
Her lips pinched. “That man said when Cas probed you, he forced part of your soul somewhere else. He said if you stretched too far, too long, it would snap. He said you would die.”
And Eileen said he almost had. So Castiel’s probe had done something that wouldn’t let him wake up. Unable to get hold of Dean, he’d called the person he thought might be able to help. But Sergei was greedy and an opportunist. Sam wouldn’t put it past the man to make things worse to extort them-and Castiel had bested him at his own game, Sam realized, remembering Sergei’s parting shot.
“I didn’t,” he assured her and covered her hand with his instead of going to find Castiel. Or demanding they activate the GPS on Dean’s phone. Or-”You can’t leave this world. Not without my help.”
Sam sat up straight as he realized-“I saw Chuck’s memories.”
“What?”
“While I was unconscious-when more of my soul was forced out of my body or whatever-I think it went into Chuck’s. I saw things. Things he’d seen. I saw him and Amara talking.” This meant-
“Who’s Amara?”
He needed to find Castiel. They had to go find Dean.
“God’s sister,” Castiel answered, stalking without pause to Sam’s bedside, blue-blue eyes pinning Sam in place. “Sergei is no longer in the Bunker. He didn’t take anything, and he can’t get back in.”
“Great. Thanks. But-”
Eileen frowned at Sam, then Castiel. “God has a sister?”
Castiel sighed, which removed the air of Angel of God, but also left him looking tired and worn, and reminded Sam that he was still grieving. “The Darkness,” Castiel said. “God’s opposite. She . . . balances him, as all things in nature are balanced.” His gaze lasered back to Sam. “You should be resting.”
“I’m fine.” Or, at least, fine enough. He scrubbed his hands dry against his thighs, then used the pressure to help leverage his body out of bed despite Eileen’s wordless protest and gained his feet.
The head rush threatened to stagger him, blood rushing loud through his ears and ramping his headache up to pound behind his eyes. His vision greyed and blackened, worse than his previous failed attempt, and Sam closed his eyes against the vertigo.
He couldn’t feel his hands or feet. He felt Castiel’s hands clasp his elbows.
“Your soul was just manipulated, Sam, however indirectly. You’re not going to just bounce back from that without consequence. Even if you feel fine-” Sam didn’t need to open his eyes to see the frankly dubious expression on Castiel’s face, but he did. “-you still need the rest.”
Honestly? Sam didn’t disagree. The aches and pains from hitting the wall and subsequently being stretched and bounced back into his body had made themselves know while he sat still, but-“And I will,” he agreed. “After we find Dean.”
“I will find Dean,” Castiel declared before Sam had figured out how to find his feet. “He’s probably fine, just not answering his phone for whatever reason. And I will let you know when I find him. I promise.” Castiel’s grip tightened to seal it. “But until then, you need to rest. This injury isn’t something I can heal, Sam.”
If you want to be able to help Dean later, Castiel’s eyes seemed to say, boring into his, you need to take care of yourself now.
It grated, not being the one to take care of his brother. But Castiel was not above putting him to sleep, perforce, he knew, so he gave into the inevitable. “Fine.”
He let Castiel guide him the couple feet back to the bed, but he sat of his own volition, Eileen’s worried eyes watching him like a hawk from beside the bed. When Sam lifted his feet onto the bed, Castiel retreated and Eileen took his place.
“We need to talk,” he called to the angel’s retreating back, craning to see around Eileen, “once we find Dean. About what I saw.”
“That’s fine.” Castiel exchanged a glance with Eileen, then slipped out the door.
“Lie back,” Eileen ordered. She had the end of a quilt gathered in her hands.
“I really am okay,” he promised. He laid back under her watchful glare. A wave of fatigue washed over him, almost immediately fuzzing his thoughts and weighing down his limbs.
Eileen pulled the blanket up to his shoulders and carefully smoothed it flat over his chest. “Rest,” she answered. She pressed her hands against his chest for emphasis. She might as well have pushed him into dreamland. His awareness dragged down, sucked-
*
-into a hotel room. The suite was large, the air breezing through the open windows flavored with salt and something floral He knew that hovered on the tip of his tongue. Not that it mattered. The flower arrangements weren’t why He’d popped in.
The massage table had been set up in the middle of the sitting room, the girl leaning over it, massaging His sister’s temples, was slight with dark skin. He didn’t snap her out of existence-He’d didn’t need to. Snapping was theatric, meant for an audience. This was a surprise. He willed, and stepped into the space she’d occupied. Put His hands where hers had been.
Amara’s brow furrowed at the firmer touch of His fingers. “Oh, oh, maybe not that deep!” She squirmed free.
He grinned. “Hi, sis.”
Amara had moved onto yoga the next time he’d blinked, pulled her hair back into a ponytail and donned a purple tank-top over ankle-length black leggings. The TV was in the bedroom, though, opposite the foot of the bed, so that’s where He was. On the bench, flipping channels on TV looking for entertainment. Stuck.
Amara frowned, tilting her head with a frown, her eyes keen. “You need me,” she said, like that was somehow important. “Something happened. You’re not complete. You’re not at full strength. And you’re afraid.”
Which wasn’t anything He wanted to hear or her to know.
“Going somewhere?”
Amara’s heels clicked to a stop. Her hair down, it draped over the shoulders of the yellow blazer that went with the yellow slacks she wore. Hideous. She had a handbag hooked on her arm and sunglasses over her eyes, and neither hid the smug turn of her lips. “Yes.”
“Great!” He bounced up. “Where’re we headed?”
“Alone. I’m going alone.”
“Amara, we’ve been all through this. We belong together.”
“Yes, yes. Yin-yang, balance of nature. I am willing to coexist with you, brother, in the universe. Just not, you know, anywhere near you.”
Which wasn’t the last thing he wanted to hear, but it was pretty far up there. And he’d had such high hopes for this visit.
“Even on your best day,” she said, “you couldn’t force my hand. And this is not your best day. In fact, I don’t think you can do much of anything. A few parlor tricks, perhaps, but you can’t leave this world, not without my help. And me? I’m done, Chuck.”
Even that wasn’t the worst thing she’d said.
“I’m leaving you here.”
That was.
*
Sam flinched awake, blurrier from the brief nap than he’d been from having his soul stretched. He looked around the room, disoriented by the size of the room, the ambient light, the white concrete walls. It took a minute for his brain to come back online enough to realize he’d heard the door closing, that it had woken him, and that Dean was hovering by the door.
Sam blinked at him, trying to figure out if he looked okay. He rubbed the back of his thumb over his eye, hoping to clear it. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Dean pushed into motion like he’d suddenly realized there was room in front of him. He sat gingerly at the foot of Sam’s borrowed bed. Because he was in the Infirmary. Because Castiel was a worrywart. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine.” He wasn’t bleeding or missing limbs, on fire or freezing or drowning. That pretty much meant he was fine, right? He twisted half onto his side so he didn’t have to crane his neck to see Dean. He’d sit up in a minute. His feet jutted up under the blanket. He moved them just to be sure they were still attached.
“You sure?” Dean asked. “I haven’t seen you this out of it since you completed the second Trial, dude.”
Yeah, that had sucked. Like someone had stuck a tap in him. Only, instead of draining blood, they’d drained his energy. This wasn’t that, though, he didn’t think. He slapped a hand to his face, dragged it down to his chin, then back through his hair like the action might jumpstart his brain. “Yeah, no, I’m sure.”
Dean watched him with an expression Sam couldn’t parse. “Well,” he said finally, “as long as you’re sure.”
He was. Hadn’t he just said so? He blinked, had to drag his eyes back open when they tried to stay closed. How could he still be so tired?
A muscle in Dean’s jaw twitched. “So you want to tell me what happened, Sam? Far as I know, you never left the Bunker. You shouldn’t be-” His hand swept, drawing Sam’s gaze down past his feet.
You’re not complete.
Sam shot up. “Cas!” He wobbled as he looked around the room, his equilibrium still set for someone two feet shorter. He slapped his hand down on the bed. “Where’s Cas?”
“Cas is fine,” Dean bit out-angry, Sam realized, Dean was angry. “But he won’t be if you don’t tell me what happened to you. Did Cas do this?”
“Do what?” Sam pressed both hands to his face, dragged them to his ears, because he definitely needed to be fully awake for this conversation. “When did you get back?”
“Did you hit your head?”
Dean had shifted closer and wrapped his hands around Sam’s head before Sam could lean away or bat them aside. “Dean,” he protested, then winced when Dean’s fingers pressed a tender spot. He chopped his arm down on Dean’s, breaking his brother’s grip. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
“You want to tell me how you got hurt in the Bunker?”
“You want to tell me how you did?” Sam growled right back, and poke a finger into the cut on Dean’s temple. “You’re bleeding.”
“Ow! Stop that!” He batted Sam’s hand away. “I’m fine.”
“So am I.”
“Cas said you were hurt.”
“No one could get you for forty-eight hours, Dean.”
Dean glared, and Sam glared right back. Sam wasn’t a little kid that needed his brother to ride in, riled and growling, to take care of the school bully. Especially when there was no bully. Or school.
Dean softened first, prompting Sam to relax. Which was when Dean scooped his legs up and in, blanket and all, and pinned them at Sam’s waist. Sam squawked, not least because that hurt. He tried to twist out of the hold, but Dean had too good a grip, barely moving when Sam tried to kick out. Sam growled. “Let go. Dean!”
“Not until you tell me what happened.”
“Nothing-” Another kicked proved just as futile and spiked pain up his back. Sam dropped his head against the pillow and pushed both hands over his face, through his hair, and exhaled through his nose. Staring at the ceiling, he said, “We thought we might be able to find God, so Cas did his magical angel thing and-” Sam went somewhere else. Saw memories or something that weren’t his. Woke up with Sergei by his bedside, Castiel doing a fair imitation of a sphinx, and Eileen freaked out. “I don’t know. Apparently, it stretched my soul or something.”
“Stretched your soul,” Dean repeated, voice painfully even.
“Cas couldn’t get hold of you, so he called Sergei, who was his usual bastard self, and Cas out maneuvered him. I’m fine.” Sam dragged his gaze down to Dean, lingering pointedly on the cut by his left eye. But now that Dean was closer, and Sam more awake, he also noticed the knuckles on his right hand were red and abraded, the skin over the middle knuckle broken. He raised his brows. “Fresh air?”
For a moment, Sam thought Dean was going to push for more explanation, his expression still hard, his weight still compressing Sam’s lungs. Then Dean sat back, even if he didn’t let go, and almost relaxed. “I caught a hunt in Texas.”
“And you didn’t call?”
“I had it handled.”
Sam dragged his gaze conspicuously over Dean’s injuries, assuming there was bruising he couldn’t see on Dean’s torso and legs, and widened his eyes. You call this handled?
It earned him a quelling glare. Yes, and also screw you, in not so many words. It was good to see, even if it came with bruises of unknown provenance. “It was a garden variety hunt, Sam,” Dean explained, “no angels or demons or-or gods-in sight. Just a simple marid. Ok, Samantha?”
“Yeah, ok,” Sam agreed easily, even if it obviously hadn’t been that simple. Something about the hunt had restored Dean’s purpose. “Now can you get off me? I’ll call you if I’m in danger of dropping dead.”
“That’s not funny.” Dean pointed a finger at him, but he also moved away and pushed to his feet, easily enough to ease Sam’s worry, but also careful enough to confirm his brother had taken a few body shots. Sam stretched his legs out gratefully and kicked off the blanket. “So the God-tracking was a bust, then?”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam said, mentally scrambling to pick up the previous topic. “No. I mean-” He closed his eyes in frustration. Honestly, he was starting to think Dean wasn’t too far off, comparing this to the aftermath from the second Trial. As soon as he hadn’t had to focus on breathing, his brain shut down. He really didn’t understand why this was hitting him so hard. “I don’t think Cas had any luck pinning down Chuck’s current location, but we did get something.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You wanna go get Cas and Eileen? They haven’t heard this bit, either.”
“What? You can’t go?”
Sam lifted his head, eyebrows raised. “You trust me to walk without falling over?”
“Yeah,” Dean drawled, “maybe not today.” He clapped a hand on Sam’s foot, which jarred a little painfully, and headed for the door. “Sit tight. I’ll round up the calvary.”
Sam didn’t remember dropping off after Dean left. Then again, he didn’t remember Dean actually leaving, either. The lights had dimmed and, at some point, Sam had rolled onto his stomach, his head tucked into the crook of his arm.
Sam lifted his head, listening. The Bunker was too quiet.
It’d been that way since the Apocalypse world hunters died, since Michael, and he hadn’t gotten used to that yet. But this was different. This was the utter, profound stillness of an empty building-no hum of electronics, no working pumps, no running water, no footsteps, nothing. And that shouldn’t have been possible.
Alert for movement, Sam pushed up, pivoted on his hip, and swung his feet to the floor. Nothing moved. Nothing had changed. But Sam couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him.
There wasn’t a gun or knife under the pillow, not in a bed that wasn’t his. And he didn’t make a habit of wearing weaponry in the Bunker.
Still watching the shadows for movement, he moved until he could pull open first one nightstand drawer, then the other. He blessed Dean’s paranoia when he found a Glock 22 at the bottom of the deep drawer.
The space between him and the door was clear, but Sam swept through it as he stood, anyway. There wasn’t much in the room-three beds and a desk, plus two open-faced shelving units deep enough to hide a person from the right angle. Sam couldn’t clear them without stepping over the beds against the wall, so he rounded the bed on soft feet, knees bent, skirting close to the wall so he could see behind the desk, then under it.
Clear.
He kept moving. Staying close to the wall, Sam approached the first unit blind-hopefully keeping anyone hiding behind it ignorant of his location, as well. He slowed as the distance closed, silently counted to three in his head, then took two quick steps and lunged low around the first unit.
Clear.
He half expected the unknown assailant to step out from behind the second unit, cap him while his momentum had him facing the wrong way.
It hadn’t happened by the time he got the barrel of the Glock realigned.
He moved steady this time, drifting back towards the beds as he went. Every step he took made it less and less likely that there would be a person on the other side of the slim partition until he cleared the edge and could see the wall straight-on, the space clear. It didn’t do anything to lessen or shift the crawling itch on the back of his neck.
Movement out of the corner of his eye spun him toward the door, Glock tracking his eyeline. Then a scrape behind him provided a split-second warning before something hard, with a relatively small surface area, impacted the back of his head.
Sam garbled a startled curse. His feet went out from under him, and he hit the ground hard on his hands and knees, dangerously close to knocking his head against the bedframe. Not that he registered more than a blur of white before his hands and knees lit up with pain, supernova bright, and he hoped he hadn’t broken his right hand.
He heard a hiss by his ear, had a second to think vampire, felt something or someone crowd up behind him, and threw an elbow. He connected with something fleshy and yielding, heard it stumble back, and kicked out where he thought it was.
His foot glanced off something solid. He turned the kick into a spin, landed on his ass, and brought the Glock to bear. He saw pale skin, short hair, a burgundy overshirt topping a familiar silhouette.
Familiar enough that he hesitated before pulling the trigger. And kept hesitating, because those were Dean’s eyes, and Dean’s nose, and Dean’s mouth-Dean’s face, and Dean’s body-something that looked like Dean-standing over him, frozen, with a bullet pointed at his heart.
Sam had killed Dean before, in his visions-while hopped up on demon blood, while the devil-but never while just himself. He didn’t think he could do it, not even if Dean was a monster. If this even was Dean. Dean was-where had Dean gone?
His hands wavered as he tried to remember. The Dean thing hissed, drawing its arms wide like a cat fluffing its fur, and barred a mouthful of thin, needle-like vampire fangs. Vampire shape-shifter? Sam thought vaguely. When would Dean have had time to get turned? How long had Sam been asleep?
Or-hadn’t Dean just returned from a hunt? A hunt he’d done solo, and hadn’t really talked about. Sam’s finger tightened reflexively on the trigger.
The Dean thing ran.
*
Sam blinked at the empty space before him-did it running instead of ripping Sam’s throat out make the creature more likely to be Dean or less?-then rolled to his feet and gave chase. He stumbled as his head tried to keep rolling, slamming his hand down on the bedframe to keep from face-planting on the floor. He didn’t stop, though, and had to grab at the next bedframe to keep from falling over when his equilibrium swung back the other way, but he was more or less steady when he reached the door.
He braced his hand against the doorframe-the better to avoid crashing into it-and yanked the door open with only a little fumbling around the Glock still gripped tight in his right hand. So probably not broken, he had time to think before enough space had opened up to charge through.
Right into a solid mass that would’ve knocked him on his ass if hands hadn’t seized his arms.
“Whoa, man! What’s the rush?” And then, with concern, “Sam?”
Possibly because Sam had seized his shirt collar with both hands, without losing the gun, after charging out of the Infirmary like a madman. “Dean?” he asked, trying to blink past the confusion of an empty, silent Bunker with a vampire Dean running away from him turning into an occupied Bunker and a-Dean-Dean?-coming to him, Castiel and Eileen visible in his periphery.
“Sam, what’s going on, man?” Dean frowned, rearing back a little when Sam’s hand reached for his face, but he didn’t disengage, and he didn’t look away from Sam’s face, didn’t bat Sam’s hand away when shaky fingers pried his upper lip away from his gum. Which pretty much proved he wasn’t a vampire, but Sam couldn’t release the tension until he’d seen the fang-free gums for himself.
When he did, his whole body sagged, and Dean’s grip shifted from holding him steady to holding him up.
“Ok, hey. Sam, you with me? Sam?” He stumbled a little under their combined weight until Castiel stepped in to help, then craned his head to look into Sam’s face. “Sam, hey. Look at me.”
He didn’t want to. His head ached, pounding along with his heartbeat, and the world kept threatening to spin away from him. He pried his eyes open, anyway, long enough to meet worried hazel, then he squeezed them shut and tried to burrow his head through Dean’s shoulder.
It didn’t really help. It also made him feel about five, which was humiliating.
“Ok,” Dean said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Could he? “I don’t know.” It’d been clear, or at least, clear-ish just a moment ago, but there was no way a vampire look-alike ran out of the Infirmary seconds before Sam had and Dean hadn’t seen him. And he could clearly hear the hum of the Bunker’s systems. So what had Sam seen, really?
“Right.”
Sam went with it when Dean turned them, bracing some of his weight against the wall, and didn’t protest when Dean’s hand pressed, cool and comforting, to his forehead, then moved gently through his hair, over his skull. He wasn’t sure what his brother was looking for until he reached the spot where Sam’d been struck and the gentle pressure felt like being hit all over again.
Sam hissed and yanked his head back-into the wall.
Dean steadied him before he could do any more damage. “Yeah, man, maybe don’t do that. You ready to get back in bed?”
“Sure.”
“You’re going to need to actually use those long legs. Come on. I got you.” He pulled Sam up and kept an arm around him. Sam, for his part, kept his eyes closed and his legs moving and let Dean worry about the logistics. Because if he’d dreamed the vampire Dean in the Infirmary, where or how had he hit his head? “Ok, here we are.”
Sam sat when Dean pressed him to sit, but balked when Dean tried to lay him down. They still had to talk about Sam’s-vision, the one he’d had when Castiel probed his wound. No way was he doing that laying down.
“Sam,” Dean growled.
“Later.”
“You’re burning up, man. You need rest. This can wait.”
“I’m not sick,” Sam protested, and looked to Castiel for support.
The angel frowned at him, then sighed and approached. He touched Sam’s forehead with two fingers-two blessedly cool fingers. His headache faded under the touch. After a moment, Castiel stepped back. “He’s not sick,” Castiel agreed, “but I can’t tell what’s causing his fever. It’s possible it’s a reaction to whatever Sergei did, either when he tried to force Sam’s soul to stretch further along his connection to God or when he reversed it.”
“Maybe Sam’s soul is trying to reject the connection,” Eileen offered.
Dean didn’t say anything. He folded his arms and frowned past Sam’s shoulder with his jaw clenched, like if he kept it bottled up enough, no one would know he was still mad at Castiel-this time for Sam getting hurt at Castiel’s hands for Castiel’s idea.
Sam rolled his eyes. “Okay, sure, maybe it’s a side-effect from Sergei’s magic or I’m having an allergic reaction to God. Either way, it’s not important.”
Dean abruptly refocused. “Not important.”
“No.” Sam pushed to his feet and approached Dean on legs that felt shakier than he appreciated. But at least his head barely throbbed. “What’s important is what I saw. What I felt.”
“Pain?” Dean quirked a sarcastic eyebrow. Or, well, if eyebrows could be sarcastic, it would’ve been. The point was, it conveyed sarcasm. Because Dean was certain he’d experienced pain as a result of Castiel’s experiment-and, ok, maybe he did. Sam couldn’t remember. After the initial discomfort, once he’d started seeing things, he couldn’t remember there being any pain. Until he woke up.
But that still wasn’t the point. “No-”
“Sam, sit down.” If Sam had been anywhere near at his best, it wouldn’t have taken a one-handed push to sit Sam down on the foot of the bed. He was getting really tired of being pushed around, even if he was injured or sick or whatever. It didn’t matter. “Before you fall down,” Dean added in response to whatever he saw on Sam’s face.
He was not going to lose his temper.
He inhaled through his nose, exhaled for a count of four. Silently, Eileen came and sat down beside him. “Dean, will you just listen to me?”
“I’m listening.”
“Ok. Ok, so, when we were trying to get a read on where Chuck is, something happened. Something weird, but c’mon, man, this is us. And, uh, I don’t know exactly what it was, but I feel like, um-” He huffed, not sure why this was so hard to say. It wasn’t like Dean could get more angry-probably-or wouldn’t believe him. “I feel like I was in his head.”
“You were in Chuck’s head,” Dean restated flatly, a cross between incredulity and suppressed anger that had Sam checking Castiel was out of arm’s reach.
“I think so. And I think I-I saw his memories.” Dean didn’t so much as twitch. “Dean, Chuck is weak. I saw it. I think I might have felt it. I think we can beat him. I think we can beat God.”
Dean nodded. “Just like that.”
“Well, obviously, we’d still have to figure something out, but-Dean, he’s weak. He’s not all-powerful right now. We just have to find something that can hurt him. We’ve done it before. I mean, Amara said he can’t even leave our universe. That makes him just another run-of-the-mill god, right?”
“Sure,” Dean agreed (sarcastically), but he dropped his arms out of their defensive fold. “One we can’t kill.”
But that was Dean-speak for acceptance. Dean was on-board. That was about as close to a miracle as Sam ever expected to see again. He smiled hesitantly. “It’s a start.”
“It’s a start,” Dean agreed. He nodded, thoughtfully, first, then with purpose, took a deep breath and clapped his hands. “All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. Me, Cas, and Eileen are going to hit the books. Sam, you’re going to stay here and catch some z’s.”
“What-no.”
“Yep.” Dean caught his shoulder and pushed him flat on the bed. He spared a brief glance for Eileen as she as stood, then followed Castiel out. Traitors, all of them. “This thing has taken a lot out of you. And maybe that’s because it was God, or maybe it was just because they were manipulating your soul, I don’t know. But I do know that you need rest.”
“I can rest in my room.”
“Right. Where we both know you’ve relocated half of the library. No, Sam,” Dean continued before he could protest. “You’re going to stay here. Sleep. And I mean, actually sleep, because there is no way I’m doing all the research for this shindig, so you need to get better and reclaim your geek throne. Got it?”
Dean patted Sam’s chest twice. Sam fought it, for a moment, considered forcing the issue and pushing past Dean to join everyone else upstairs, but-there was something fragile in Dean’s eyes, something that needed his brother at his back, and this was something Sam could do. For Dean. He exhaled, letting his breath take the fight with it, and sank into the bed.
“Atta boy,” Dean praised.
“Just for a few hours,” Sam cautioned even as he elbow-crawled backwards up to the pillow. But Dean waved him away. Sam watched him go with some combination of consternation and fondness, then he rolled onto his stomach, shoved his arm under the pillow, and his face into lemon-scented cotton.
He slept and, at least this time, he didn’t dream.
*
Sam’s first priority upon waking was to shower. His head was clear, the Bunker didn’t feel like a mausoleum, no one was watching him, and all the aches and pains that had plagued him had disappeared. Which let him focus on how disgusting he felt tumbling around in the same shirts and pants he’d been wearing for-way too many hours, regardless of how many had actually passed.
So as guilty as he felt for skipping out on research when he’d already slept through unknown hours of it, he made a pit stop in his room for a change of clothes, then went to shower.
The showers in the Bunker had more in common with high school locker rooms than with the hotel bathrooms they’d grown up with. They never ran out of hot water. The spigots were mounted high enough Sam only had to duck his head to rinse his hair. All the water drained to a central grate. And nothing except a series of curtains separated one stall from the next.
The curtains had been a Winchester addition. Apparently, the Men of Letters hadn’t bothered too much with much personal privacy. Granted, Sam and Dean hadn’t had much privacy growing up with a former Marine on the road, but there was a difference between necessary and voluntary exposure. The fangirls would’ve loved it, no doubt. Sam and Dean put up curtains.
It still felt weird and indulgent, and not just a little vulnerable, standing naked in such a large room, curtains or not.
The itchy feeling that he was being watched crept back in while he was rinsing the conditioner from his hair, crawling between his shoulder blades and up his neck.
There hadn’t been anyone in the showers when he came in. And it was a large rectangle of a room, with the curtains on any stalls not in use pushed back to the wall, no nooks or crannies to the place to lose a bar of soap in, never mind a person, so he couldn’t have overlooked them. Not to mention, he hadn’t heard anyone enter after him. He hadn’t seen any shadows pass the drawn curtains.
That didn’t stop him from swiping hair and water off his face and pulling the curtain back so he could check the room. It never hurt to be too watchful.
But there was nothing and no one he could see.
Frowning, he resettled the curtain and finished quick. The feeling didn’t follow him once he’d dressed and left the showers, but still felt unsettled. Maybe they’d missed something and a monster had gotten into the Bunker? It didn’t sound likely, but no more plausible explanations presented themselves except the one that recommended a swanky white jacket with arms that buckle in the back.
Sam headed for the Library instead of the kitchen, hoping to catch Dean-and maybe settle his nerves with some good, old-fashioned safety in numbers. For given values of safety.
Dean wasn’t there, though, and neither was Eileen. Castiel glanced at him about the same time Sam’s momentum stalled out. “Sam,” he greeted, fatigue dropping his voice into grave, gravely tones that recalled demon blood and a brother newly out of Hell and spiraling.
“Hey, Cas.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Better.” That was true enough. Two dozen books waited on the table, so Sam continued forward and claimed the chair perpendicular to the angel’s.
“No further-” Castiel hesitated, tilting his head as he considered the most accurate term. “-side effects?”
Sam’s thoughts went back to the empty shower. Could paranoia be a side effect? He shook the notion away, folded his hands on the table, and leaned in so he and Castiel were on a level. “What happened wasn’t your fault, you know.”
“I know,” Castiel agreed without hesitation. “But-even if it had been, even if I had known the consequences going in, I would have had to suggest we attempt to study the wound, regardless. If we could have used it to find Chuck-”
“It would’ve been worth the discomfort,” Sam finished, so Castiel didn’t have to. The decision was pragmatic, as befitted a soldier, but that didn’t negate the emotional toll, and Castiel didn’t deserve to carry that alone when Sam would’ve made the same choice. “Hell, it was still worth the discomfort. We never would have known Chuck was weak, otherwise.”
Castiel inclined his head, and refocused on open page before him. “I am glad you didn’t come to any permanent harm.”
Sam huffed. “Yeah, me, too.” Though the jury might have still been out on that one. After a minute, he grabbed one of the tomes from the stack and started reading.
He woke-nearly jolting from the chair-when Dean dropped a book by his head. For a moment, just a moment, the sense-memory of Dean’s neck under his hand lingered.
Then Dean, the jackass, clapped his shoulder with a sunny grin and “Morning, sunshine!” on his way to Castiel’s chair. “How’re you feeling?”
Sam’s neck and back ached from sleeping hunched over the table, and his head felt gummy, his body humming with the phantom memory of demon’s blood. He grimaced as he tried to rub some of the stiffness out of his neck. “How do you think?” he grumbled. “Where’s Cas?”
“Down in the Archives. And before you ask, pretty sure Eileen is still sleeping.”
Sam nodded, but he didn’t know what to say. Part of him, the part pushing words up his throat, wanted to apologize. For drinking demon blood. For strangling his brother. And he could remember doing both those things, shame coiling hot in his belly, but not last night-not here-not with Dean shoved back over the table, unable to get leverage, and Sam straddling his chest.
Dean pulled the book Castiel had been studying closer to read its cover, then shoved it to the middle of the table and refocused on Sam. Sam wasn’t looking at him to see, but he could feel the weight of his regard, see the pale of his face out of the corner of his eye.
But Dean wouldn’t know what he was talking about if he apologized, and Sam didn’t want to explain. He was almost relieved when Dean spoke up, until his brain registered what Dean had asked.
“So, you ready to tell me what happened last night?”
He almost choked. “What?”
Dean’s eyebrows winged toward his hairline. “Last night? The gun. You flying out of the Infirmary like a bat out of hell. Any of this ringing a bell?”
Sam grimaced. That topic wasn’t much better. He shrugged. “Sleepwalking?”
“I’ve seen you when you sleepwalk, Sam. That wasn’t sleepwalking.”
“It wasn’t . . . not sleepwalking.” When he met Dean’s gaze, Dean lifted his eyebrows expectantly. “I don’t-It was weird, all right? I woke up and the Bunker felt abandoned, dead. And it felt like something was watching me. So, I went looking for it. When I found it, it looked like you, like a vampire you, and it ran. I followed it.”
Dean took a second to digest that. “That doesn’t sound like sleepwalking, Sam.”
Sam shrugged again, dodged his gaze. “So maybe something about the situation blurred the lines between reality and my dream.”
“Hallucinations,” Dean summarized adroitly.
Sam pulled a face, but couldn’t protest the classification.
“You had any more?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to mention the bathroom, because that’s what he’d initially come up to the Library to do. But what did he really have to report? He’d been paranoid? Let the open space get to him? There’d been nothing and no one there, and he hadn’t seen anyone or anything that shouldn’t have been there. “No.”
“All right. Let me know if that changes.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
“Great.” Dean stood up and chucked him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go get some sleep?”
“Dean, you don’t need to keep sending me to bed.”
“Hey,” his brother protested, hands raised in innocence, “you’re the one who fell asleep at the table. I’m just looking out for your comfort, man. Far be it for me to come between you and your love.” Dean waggled his eyes salaciously.
“Jerk,” Sam murmured, rubbing tiredly at his head because Dean was exasperating and not because he was somehow, impossibly, tired again. Hadn’t he slept enough? It seemed like that was all he’d been doing.
“Bitch. You eat yet? I’m gonna make pancakes.”
“Omelet?” he countered hopefully.
“Can do.”
“With spinach. And avocado!” Sam called.
Dean’s laugh drifted in from the hallway. “Freak.”
It was good to hear Dean laugh.
Satisfied, Sam went back to reading. Or tried to. Just-the visions he’d had since shooting Chuck, they’d all been just that: things he saw. He’d watched demon-blood-junkie Sam snap Dean’s neck telepathically. He’d watched Lucifer in Sam burn Dean to death. He’d watched Mark-of-Cain-demon Dean beat Sam and stab him with the First Blade. But none of those versions of Sam had felt like him. He’d just been a spectator.
He hadn’t felt like a spectator this time. He could remember the feel of Dean’s body trapped between his legs, the thrum of the demon blood, hot and powerful, through his veins. He could remember the hard press of the table against his kneecaps. He could even remember the determination to not let Dean take this from him, too, that he needed to take Dean out first.
The bright side, in as much as there could be one when he’d just dreamed he’d killed his brother, was that the Sam who’d killed Dean also hadn’t felt like him. It’d felt more like a memory, or an echo. Something filtered to him rather than something he’d generated.
He just wasn’t sure he could count on it staying that way.
“Change of plans.”
The slap of Dean’s hand against the Library’s doorjamb registered after Dean’s voice, but both made him jump. He twisted around to look at him.
“How do you feel about a supply run?”
*
On to PART TWO...
Recipient: Lennelle
Rating: T
Word Count: 37,595
Warnings: show-level violence; magic shenanigans; general spoilers for season 15, with specific spoilers for episodes 7-9
Author’s Note: Ok, first, this story wouldn’t exist without Lennelle, who prompted it. Lennelle, I’m really pretty sure this isn’t what you expected when you wrote that prompt, but I hope you enjoy it, anyway. I know I enjoyed writing parts of it a little bit too much. Second, a great big thanks to the mods, without whom this challenge would not exist, and who graciously granted me more writing time than I think they were really comfortable allowing. In my defense, the story ended up about 7k words longer than my high estimate, so I definitely needed the time.
The title is from Needtobreathe’s song, Wasteland. Any dialogue or descriptions you recognize from the episodes listed above are from their respective episodes and do not belong to me. And-that’s it, I think. I really hope that’s it because I can’t think of anything else.
Summary: Turned out, being connected to God came with some complications.
Bouncing back into his body felt like breaking the surface of a lake after swimming forty feet down to the bottom in jeans and two shirts, kicking with water-logged boots with his brother dead weight in his arms. He gasped when he broke the surface. The air burned dragging through his lungs.
Sam lifted his head. For a second, he didn’t see just Eileen and Castiel, but also Chuck and Amara in some hotel room and Stull cemetery and Chuck’s old house, Chuck in glasses at his computer, all over-laid on top of each other. He’d scrambled to sitting and started to gain his feet before the images blinked away.
Eileen put a hand on his shoulder, encouraging him to stop. Which was when he realized he’d been shifted up on the bed to lay on it properly. Last he remembered, he’d been at the foot of the bed, Castiel in front of him and Eileen between the bed and the door. Now Eileen was next to him, Castiel was between him and the door, and a stranger-not a stranger, also not Dean, and not worried, not a friend-Sergei, that was it; the faith healer who’d almost killed Jack (his chest panged with loss)-stood vigil on the other side of his bed.
Chuck’s face flashed before his eyes, brows drawn, eyes dark with frustration. Smaller, somehow.
Eileen perched on the end of the bed. If he pushed passed her, she’d end up sprawled full length on the floor. “Sam, you ok?”
Was he? Sam shifted, testing the clench and release of various muscle groups. His back felt stiff, tight, the way it got when some monster slammed him into walls. His head ached, too, but not bad. He was a little tired, under the rush of adrenaline, and undertow that plucked consistently at his feet. But his breath came easier, now. There were no sharp stabs through his head or back or lungs. “I think,” he said, only realizing he’d signed the words, too, when his finger touched his temple.
Chuck, shirt pulled down in front of a mirror, touched a wound that matched Sam’s. On that street in Harlan, Sam twitched away from the touch.
Sam blinked away the image that wasn’t there and looked to Castiel to explain what was going on. He didn’t remember what had happened, not beyond agreeing to let Castiel probe the wound, and then pain. But something had obviously happened. Something that had scared Castiel and Eileen.
“You’re not complete.”
Cas didn’t explain, though. He didn’t abandon his Angel-keeping-guard stance at the foot of Sam’s bed. He didn't even, as far as Sam could tell, remove the majority of attention from Sergei, even as he directed his words to Sam. “What about your wound?”
There was something there Sam wasn’t thinking clearly enough to parse.
Had Sergei fixed it?
"I used to be able to see Sam and Dean in my head."
It didn’t feel like it, but he wasn’t certain he could pick out the subtle throb past the ache in the rest of his body. He hooked his fingers in the collar of his shirt to pull it down.
“Still there,” Sergei said, even before Sam’s shirt cleared the wound, which didn’t seem to please or surprise Castiel. It also didn’t stop either Castiel or Eileen from studying the wound when he exposed it, and Sam followed their gaze. It was perfectly circular, the edges blackened. No redness or irritation. No signs of infection. “But he’s back.”-Back? Sam wondered.- “So we good?”
“For now.”
Castiel didn’t move as Sergei started for the door, didn’t relax his posture or his expression. It was an unsettling return of the Angel of the Lord who’d despised Sam as an abomination when they’d first met. But this time, the animosity seemed reserved for Sergei.
The faith healer stopped behind Castiel, apparently unconcerned, and even knowing the angel could protect himself better than Sam could protect him at this moment, Sam tensed, expecting to lash out. He didn’t expect the attack to be verbal, though. “I like this you, Castiel,” he said. “It’s very . . . Russian.”
Then Sergei made his exit, and Sam didn’t know what to do. Eileen hadn’t moved. Castiel hadn’t moved, though he’d seen Sergei’s words strike a cord. Something-but trying to put his finger on it ramped up the pain in his head.
He rubbed at his temple. “Shouldn’t someone go with him?”
Eileen squeezed his shoulder, eyes brighter than her closed-mouth smile. “I’ll go.”
“No,” Castiel interrupted before she could push to her feet, already turning on his heel, his voice dark and hard. “I’ll go.”
Sam watched until he couldn’t hear the quiet click of Castiel’s dress shoes on the tile, peripherally aware of Eileen shifting her attention to his face, then shifted so the distance between them was more comfortable and turned to face her. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said as she signed. “There was this light, almost an explosion, and then you hit the wall. It knocked you out and you wouldn’t wake up. Cas tried calling Dean, but Dean didn’t answer.”
“Dean didn’t answer?” Sam slapped his pockets, but he couldn’t feel his phone. He couldn’t remember where he left it.
“You’re not at full strength. You need me.”
“Is he ok?” he asked, even as he checked the nightstands. No phone on either.
“He hasn’t returned Castiel’s call.”
Which probably meant he was in trouble. Sam ignored the slight dizziness when he scooted forward, getting both feet on the ground and under him before pushing off. His vision greyed out.
You still think Dean and Cas are going to fly through those doors just in the nick of time.”
Sam hit the bed with a grimace, the jolt felt in his head, but he didn’t fight Eileen’s hold. He had an idea her tugging him back was the only reason he hadn’t face-planted on the floor.
“You flew off the bed and hit the wall, Sam.” Her fingers tightened around his wrist. “Hard. You wouldn’t wake up. Nothing we did helped. You were out forty-eight hours, Sam. You almost died.”
“I didn’t,” he countered immediately. He couldn’t have, could he? Castiel hadn’t-But Eileen’s haunted expression said he could have. “What happened?”
Her lips pinched. “That man said when Cas probed you, he forced part of your soul somewhere else. He said if you stretched too far, too long, it would snap. He said you would die.”
And Eileen said he almost had. So Castiel’s probe had done something that wouldn’t let him wake up. Unable to get hold of Dean, he’d called the person he thought might be able to help. But Sergei was greedy and an opportunist. Sam wouldn’t put it past the man to make things worse to extort them-and Castiel had bested him at his own game, Sam realized, remembering Sergei’s parting shot.
“I didn’t,” he assured her and covered her hand with his instead of going to find Castiel. Or demanding they activate the GPS on Dean’s phone. Or-”You can’t leave this world. Not without my help.”
Sam sat up straight as he realized-“I saw Chuck’s memories.”
“What?”
“While I was unconscious-when more of my soul was forced out of my body or whatever-I think it went into Chuck’s. I saw things. Things he’d seen. I saw him and Amara talking.” This meant-
“Who’s Amara?”
He needed to find Castiel. They had to go find Dean.
“God’s sister,” Castiel answered, stalking without pause to Sam’s bedside, blue-blue eyes pinning Sam in place. “Sergei is no longer in the Bunker. He didn’t take anything, and he can’t get back in.”
“Great. Thanks. But-”
Eileen frowned at Sam, then Castiel. “God has a sister?”
Castiel sighed, which removed the air of Angel of God, but also left him looking tired and worn, and reminded Sam that he was still grieving. “The Darkness,” Castiel said. “God’s opposite. She . . . balances him, as all things in nature are balanced.” His gaze lasered back to Sam. “You should be resting.”
“I’m fine.” Or, at least, fine enough. He scrubbed his hands dry against his thighs, then used the pressure to help leverage his body out of bed despite Eileen’s wordless protest and gained his feet.
The head rush threatened to stagger him, blood rushing loud through his ears and ramping his headache up to pound behind his eyes. His vision greyed and blackened, worse than his previous failed attempt, and Sam closed his eyes against the vertigo.
He couldn’t feel his hands or feet. He felt Castiel’s hands clasp his elbows.
“Your soul was just manipulated, Sam, however indirectly. You’re not going to just bounce back from that without consequence. Even if you feel fine-” Sam didn’t need to open his eyes to see the frankly dubious expression on Castiel’s face, but he did. “-you still need the rest.”
Honestly? Sam didn’t disagree. The aches and pains from hitting the wall and subsequently being stretched and bounced back into his body had made themselves know while he sat still, but-“And I will,” he agreed. “After we find Dean.”
“I will find Dean,” Castiel declared before Sam had figured out how to find his feet. “He’s probably fine, just not answering his phone for whatever reason. And I will let you know when I find him. I promise.” Castiel’s grip tightened to seal it. “But until then, you need to rest. This injury isn’t something I can heal, Sam.”
If you want to be able to help Dean later, Castiel’s eyes seemed to say, boring into his, you need to take care of yourself now.
It grated, not being the one to take care of his brother. But Castiel was not above putting him to sleep, perforce, he knew, so he gave into the inevitable. “Fine.”
He let Castiel guide him the couple feet back to the bed, but he sat of his own volition, Eileen’s worried eyes watching him like a hawk from beside the bed. When Sam lifted his feet onto the bed, Castiel retreated and Eileen took his place.
“We need to talk,” he called to the angel’s retreating back, craning to see around Eileen, “once we find Dean. About what I saw.”
“That’s fine.” Castiel exchanged a glance with Eileen, then slipped out the door.
“Lie back,” Eileen ordered. She had the end of a quilt gathered in her hands.
“I really am okay,” he promised. He laid back under her watchful glare. A wave of fatigue washed over him, almost immediately fuzzing his thoughts and weighing down his limbs.
Eileen pulled the blanket up to his shoulders and carefully smoothed it flat over his chest. “Rest,” she answered. She pressed her hands against his chest for emphasis. She might as well have pushed him into dreamland. His awareness dragged down, sucked-
*
-into a hotel room. The suite was large, the air breezing through the open windows flavored with salt and something floral He knew that hovered on the tip of his tongue. Not that it mattered. The flower arrangements weren’t why He’d popped in.
The massage table had been set up in the middle of the sitting room, the girl leaning over it, massaging His sister’s temples, was slight with dark skin. He didn’t snap her out of existence-He’d didn’t need to. Snapping was theatric, meant for an audience. This was a surprise. He willed, and stepped into the space she’d occupied. Put His hands where hers had been.
Amara’s brow furrowed at the firmer touch of His fingers. “Oh, oh, maybe not that deep!” She squirmed free.
He grinned. “Hi, sis.”
Amara had moved onto yoga the next time he’d blinked, pulled her hair back into a ponytail and donned a purple tank-top over ankle-length black leggings. The TV was in the bedroom, though, opposite the foot of the bed, so that’s where He was. On the bench, flipping channels on TV looking for entertainment. Stuck.
Amara frowned, tilting her head with a frown, her eyes keen. “You need me,” she said, like that was somehow important. “Something happened. You’re not complete. You’re not at full strength. And you’re afraid.”
Which wasn’t anything He wanted to hear or her to know.
“Going somewhere?”
Amara’s heels clicked to a stop. Her hair down, it draped over the shoulders of the yellow blazer that went with the yellow slacks she wore. Hideous. She had a handbag hooked on her arm and sunglasses over her eyes, and neither hid the smug turn of her lips. “Yes.”
“Great!” He bounced up. “Where’re we headed?”
“Alone. I’m going alone.”
“Amara, we’ve been all through this. We belong together.”
“Yes, yes. Yin-yang, balance of nature. I am willing to coexist with you, brother, in the universe. Just not, you know, anywhere near you.”
Which wasn’t the last thing he wanted to hear, but it was pretty far up there. And he’d had such high hopes for this visit.
“Even on your best day,” she said, “you couldn’t force my hand. And this is not your best day. In fact, I don’t think you can do much of anything. A few parlor tricks, perhaps, but you can’t leave this world, not without my help. And me? I’m done, Chuck.”
Even that wasn’t the worst thing she’d said.
“I’m leaving you here.”
That was.
*
Sam flinched awake, blurrier from the brief nap than he’d been from having his soul stretched. He looked around the room, disoriented by the size of the room, the ambient light, the white concrete walls. It took a minute for his brain to come back online enough to realize he’d heard the door closing, that it had woken him, and that Dean was hovering by the door.
Sam blinked at him, trying to figure out if he looked okay. He rubbed the back of his thumb over his eye, hoping to clear it. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Dean pushed into motion like he’d suddenly realized there was room in front of him. He sat gingerly at the foot of Sam’s borrowed bed. Because he was in the Infirmary. Because Castiel was a worrywart. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine.” He wasn’t bleeding or missing limbs, on fire or freezing or drowning. That pretty much meant he was fine, right? He twisted half onto his side so he didn’t have to crane his neck to see Dean. He’d sit up in a minute. His feet jutted up under the blanket. He moved them just to be sure they were still attached.
“You sure?” Dean asked. “I haven’t seen you this out of it since you completed the second Trial, dude.”
Yeah, that had sucked. Like someone had stuck a tap in him. Only, instead of draining blood, they’d drained his energy. This wasn’t that, though, he didn’t think. He slapped a hand to his face, dragged it down to his chin, then back through his hair like the action might jumpstart his brain. “Yeah, no, I’m sure.”
Dean watched him with an expression Sam couldn’t parse. “Well,” he said finally, “as long as you’re sure.”
He was. Hadn’t he just said so? He blinked, had to drag his eyes back open when they tried to stay closed. How could he still be so tired?
A muscle in Dean’s jaw twitched. “So you want to tell me what happened, Sam? Far as I know, you never left the Bunker. You shouldn’t be-” His hand swept, drawing Sam’s gaze down past his feet.
You’re not complete.
Sam shot up. “Cas!” He wobbled as he looked around the room, his equilibrium still set for someone two feet shorter. He slapped his hand down on the bed. “Where’s Cas?”
“Cas is fine,” Dean bit out-angry, Sam realized, Dean was angry. “But he won’t be if you don’t tell me what happened to you. Did Cas do this?”
“Do what?” Sam pressed both hands to his face, dragged them to his ears, because he definitely needed to be fully awake for this conversation. “When did you get back?”
“Did you hit your head?”
Dean had shifted closer and wrapped his hands around Sam’s head before Sam could lean away or bat them aside. “Dean,” he protested, then winced when Dean’s fingers pressed a tender spot. He chopped his arm down on Dean’s, breaking his brother’s grip. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
“You want to tell me how you got hurt in the Bunker?”
“You want to tell me how you did?” Sam growled right back, and poke a finger into the cut on Dean’s temple. “You’re bleeding.”
“Ow! Stop that!” He batted Sam’s hand away. “I’m fine.”
“So am I.”
“Cas said you were hurt.”
“No one could get you for forty-eight hours, Dean.”
Dean glared, and Sam glared right back. Sam wasn’t a little kid that needed his brother to ride in, riled and growling, to take care of the school bully. Especially when there was no bully. Or school.
Dean softened first, prompting Sam to relax. Which was when Dean scooped his legs up and in, blanket and all, and pinned them at Sam’s waist. Sam squawked, not least because that hurt. He tried to twist out of the hold, but Dean had too good a grip, barely moving when Sam tried to kick out. Sam growled. “Let go. Dean!”
“Not until you tell me what happened.”
“Nothing-” Another kicked proved just as futile and spiked pain up his back. Sam dropped his head against the pillow and pushed both hands over his face, through his hair, and exhaled through his nose. Staring at the ceiling, he said, “We thought we might be able to find God, so Cas did his magical angel thing and-” Sam went somewhere else. Saw memories or something that weren’t his. Woke up with Sergei by his bedside, Castiel doing a fair imitation of a sphinx, and Eileen freaked out. “I don’t know. Apparently, it stretched my soul or something.”
“Stretched your soul,” Dean repeated, voice painfully even.
“Cas couldn’t get hold of you, so he called Sergei, who was his usual bastard self, and Cas out maneuvered him. I’m fine.” Sam dragged his gaze down to Dean, lingering pointedly on the cut by his left eye. But now that Dean was closer, and Sam more awake, he also noticed the knuckles on his right hand were red and abraded, the skin over the middle knuckle broken. He raised his brows. “Fresh air?”
For a moment, Sam thought Dean was going to push for more explanation, his expression still hard, his weight still compressing Sam’s lungs. Then Dean sat back, even if he didn’t let go, and almost relaxed. “I caught a hunt in Texas.”
“And you didn’t call?”
“I had it handled.”
Sam dragged his gaze conspicuously over Dean’s injuries, assuming there was bruising he couldn’t see on Dean’s torso and legs, and widened his eyes. You call this handled?
It earned him a quelling glare. Yes, and also screw you, in not so many words. It was good to see, even if it came with bruises of unknown provenance. “It was a garden variety hunt, Sam,” Dean explained, “no angels or demons or-or gods-in sight. Just a simple marid. Ok, Samantha?”
“Yeah, ok,” Sam agreed easily, even if it obviously hadn’t been that simple. Something about the hunt had restored Dean’s purpose. “Now can you get off me? I’ll call you if I’m in danger of dropping dead.”
“That’s not funny.” Dean pointed a finger at him, but he also moved away and pushed to his feet, easily enough to ease Sam’s worry, but also careful enough to confirm his brother had taken a few body shots. Sam stretched his legs out gratefully and kicked off the blanket. “So the God-tracking was a bust, then?”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam said, mentally scrambling to pick up the previous topic. “No. I mean-” He closed his eyes in frustration. Honestly, he was starting to think Dean wasn’t too far off, comparing this to the aftermath from the second Trial. As soon as he hadn’t had to focus on breathing, his brain shut down. He really didn’t understand why this was hitting him so hard. “I don’t think Cas had any luck pinning down Chuck’s current location, but we did get something.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You wanna go get Cas and Eileen? They haven’t heard this bit, either.”
“What? You can’t go?”
Sam lifted his head, eyebrows raised. “You trust me to walk without falling over?”
“Yeah,” Dean drawled, “maybe not today.” He clapped a hand on Sam’s foot, which jarred a little painfully, and headed for the door. “Sit tight. I’ll round up the calvary.”
Sam didn’t remember dropping off after Dean left. Then again, he didn’t remember Dean actually leaving, either. The lights had dimmed and, at some point, Sam had rolled onto his stomach, his head tucked into the crook of his arm.
Sam lifted his head, listening. The Bunker was too quiet.
It’d been that way since the Apocalypse world hunters died, since Michael, and he hadn’t gotten used to that yet. But this was different. This was the utter, profound stillness of an empty building-no hum of electronics, no working pumps, no running water, no footsteps, nothing. And that shouldn’t have been possible.
Alert for movement, Sam pushed up, pivoted on his hip, and swung his feet to the floor. Nothing moved. Nothing had changed. But Sam couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him.
There wasn’t a gun or knife under the pillow, not in a bed that wasn’t his. And he didn’t make a habit of wearing weaponry in the Bunker.
Still watching the shadows for movement, he moved until he could pull open first one nightstand drawer, then the other. He blessed Dean’s paranoia when he found a Glock 22 at the bottom of the deep drawer.
The space between him and the door was clear, but Sam swept through it as he stood, anyway. There wasn’t much in the room-three beds and a desk, plus two open-faced shelving units deep enough to hide a person from the right angle. Sam couldn’t clear them without stepping over the beds against the wall, so he rounded the bed on soft feet, knees bent, skirting close to the wall so he could see behind the desk, then under it.
Clear.
He kept moving. Staying close to the wall, Sam approached the first unit blind-hopefully keeping anyone hiding behind it ignorant of his location, as well. He slowed as the distance closed, silently counted to three in his head, then took two quick steps and lunged low around the first unit.
Clear.
He half expected the unknown assailant to step out from behind the second unit, cap him while his momentum had him facing the wrong way.
It hadn’t happened by the time he got the barrel of the Glock realigned.
He moved steady this time, drifting back towards the beds as he went. Every step he took made it less and less likely that there would be a person on the other side of the slim partition until he cleared the edge and could see the wall straight-on, the space clear. It didn’t do anything to lessen or shift the crawling itch on the back of his neck.
Movement out of the corner of his eye spun him toward the door, Glock tracking his eyeline. Then a scrape behind him provided a split-second warning before something hard, with a relatively small surface area, impacted the back of his head.
Sam garbled a startled curse. His feet went out from under him, and he hit the ground hard on his hands and knees, dangerously close to knocking his head against the bedframe. Not that he registered more than a blur of white before his hands and knees lit up with pain, supernova bright, and he hoped he hadn’t broken his right hand.
He heard a hiss by his ear, had a second to think vampire, felt something or someone crowd up behind him, and threw an elbow. He connected with something fleshy and yielding, heard it stumble back, and kicked out where he thought it was.
His foot glanced off something solid. He turned the kick into a spin, landed on his ass, and brought the Glock to bear. He saw pale skin, short hair, a burgundy overshirt topping a familiar silhouette.
Familiar enough that he hesitated before pulling the trigger. And kept hesitating, because those were Dean’s eyes, and Dean’s nose, and Dean’s mouth-Dean’s face, and Dean’s body-something that looked like Dean-standing over him, frozen, with a bullet pointed at his heart.
Sam had killed Dean before, in his visions-while hopped up on demon blood, while the devil-but never while just himself. He didn’t think he could do it, not even if Dean was a monster. If this even was Dean. Dean was-where had Dean gone?
His hands wavered as he tried to remember. The Dean thing hissed, drawing its arms wide like a cat fluffing its fur, and barred a mouthful of thin, needle-like vampire fangs. Vampire shape-shifter? Sam thought vaguely. When would Dean have had time to get turned? How long had Sam been asleep?
Or-hadn’t Dean just returned from a hunt? A hunt he’d done solo, and hadn’t really talked about. Sam’s finger tightened reflexively on the trigger.
The Dean thing ran.
*
Sam blinked at the empty space before him-did it running instead of ripping Sam’s throat out make the creature more likely to be Dean or less?-then rolled to his feet and gave chase. He stumbled as his head tried to keep rolling, slamming his hand down on the bedframe to keep from face-planting on the floor. He didn’t stop, though, and had to grab at the next bedframe to keep from falling over when his equilibrium swung back the other way, but he was more or less steady when he reached the door.
He braced his hand against the doorframe-the better to avoid crashing into it-and yanked the door open with only a little fumbling around the Glock still gripped tight in his right hand. So probably not broken, he had time to think before enough space had opened up to charge through.
Right into a solid mass that would’ve knocked him on his ass if hands hadn’t seized his arms.
“Whoa, man! What’s the rush?” And then, with concern, “Sam?”
Possibly because Sam had seized his shirt collar with both hands, without losing the gun, after charging out of the Infirmary like a madman. “Dean?” he asked, trying to blink past the confusion of an empty, silent Bunker with a vampire Dean running away from him turning into an occupied Bunker and a-Dean-Dean?-coming to him, Castiel and Eileen visible in his periphery.
“Sam, what’s going on, man?” Dean frowned, rearing back a little when Sam’s hand reached for his face, but he didn’t disengage, and he didn’t look away from Sam’s face, didn’t bat Sam’s hand away when shaky fingers pried his upper lip away from his gum. Which pretty much proved he wasn’t a vampire, but Sam couldn’t release the tension until he’d seen the fang-free gums for himself.
When he did, his whole body sagged, and Dean’s grip shifted from holding him steady to holding him up.
“Ok, hey. Sam, you with me? Sam?” He stumbled a little under their combined weight until Castiel stepped in to help, then craned his head to look into Sam’s face. “Sam, hey. Look at me.”
He didn’t want to. His head ached, pounding along with his heartbeat, and the world kept threatening to spin away from him. He pried his eyes open, anyway, long enough to meet worried hazel, then he squeezed them shut and tried to burrow his head through Dean’s shoulder.
It didn’t really help. It also made him feel about five, which was humiliating.
“Ok,” Dean said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Could he? “I don’t know.” It’d been clear, or at least, clear-ish just a moment ago, but there was no way a vampire look-alike ran out of the Infirmary seconds before Sam had and Dean hadn’t seen him. And he could clearly hear the hum of the Bunker’s systems. So what had Sam seen, really?
“Right.”
Sam went with it when Dean turned them, bracing some of his weight against the wall, and didn’t protest when Dean’s hand pressed, cool and comforting, to his forehead, then moved gently through his hair, over his skull. He wasn’t sure what his brother was looking for until he reached the spot where Sam’d been struck and the gentle pressure felt like being hit all over again.
Sam hissed and yanked his head back-into the wall.
Dean steadied him before he could do any more damage. “Yeah, man, maybe don’t do that. You ready to get back in bed?”
“Sure.”
“You’re going to need to actually use those long legs. Come on. I got you.” He pulled Sam up and kept an arm around him. Sam, for his part, kept his eyes closed and his legs moving and let Dean worry about the logistics. Because if he’d dreamed the vampire Dean in the Infirmary, where or how had he hit his head? “Ok, here we are.”
Sam sat when Dean pressed him to sit, but balked when Dean tried to lay him down. They still had to talk about Sam’s-vision, the one he’d had when Castiel probed his wound. No way was he doing that laying down.
“Sam,” Dean growled.
“Later.”
“You’re burning up, man. You need rest. This can wait.”
“I’m not sick,” Sam protested, and looked to Castiel for support.
The angel frowned at him, then sighed and approached. He touched Sam’s forehead with two fingers-two blessedly cool fingers. His headache faded under the touch. After a moment, Castiel stepped back. “He’s not sick,” Castiel agreed, “but I can’t tell what’s causing his fever. It’s possible it’s a reaction to whatever Sergei did, either when he tried to force Sam’s soul to stretch further along his connection to God or when he reversed it.”
“Maybe Sam’s soul is trying to reject the connection,” Eileen offered.
Dean didn’t say anything. He folded his arms and frowned past Sam’s shoulder with his jaw clenched, like if he kept it bottled up enough, no one would know he was still mad at Castiel-this time for Sam getting hurt at Castiel’s hands for Castiel’s idea.
Sam rolled his eyes. “Okay, sure, maybe it’s a side-effect from Sergei’s magic or I’m having an allergic reaction to God. Either way, it’s not important.”
Dean abruptly refocused. “Not important.”
“No.” Sam pushed to his feet and approached Dean on legs that felt shakier than he appreciated. But at least his head barely throbbed. “What’s important is what I saw. What I felt.”
“Pain?” Dean quirked a sarcastic eyebrow. Or, well, if eyebrows could be sarcastic, it would’ve been. The point was, it conveyed sarcasm. Because Dean was certain he’d experienced pain as a result of Castiel’s experiment-and, ok, maybe he did. Sam couldn’t remember. After the initial discomfort, once he’d started seeing things, he couldn’t remember there being any pain. Until he woke up.
But that still wasn’t the point. “No-”
“Sam, sit down.” If Sam had been anywhere near at his best, it wouldn’t have taken a one-handed push to sit Sam down on the foot of the bed. He was getting really tired of being pushed around, even if he was injured or sick or whatever. It didn’t matter. “Before you fall down,” Dean added in response to whatever he saw on Sam’s face.
He was not going to lose his temper.
He inhaled through his nose, exhaled for a count of four. Silently, Eileen came and sat down beside him. “Dean, will you just listen to me?”
“I’m listening.”
“Ok. Ok, so, when we were trying to get a read on where Chuck is, something happened. Something weird, but c’mon, man, this is us. And, uh, I don’t know exactly what it was, but I feel like, um-” He huffed, not sure why this was so hard to say. It wasn’t like Dean could get more angry-probably-or wouldn’t believe him. “I feel like I was in his head.”
“You were in Chuck’s head,” Dean restated flatly, a cross between incredulity and suppressed anger that had Sam checking Castiel was out of arm’s reach.
“I think so. And I think I-I saw his memories.” Dean didn’t so much as twitch. “Dean, Chuck is weak. I saw it. I think I might have felt it. I think we can beat him. I think we can beat God.”
Dean nodded. “Just like that.”
“Well, obviously, we’d still have to figure something out, but-Dean, he’s weak. He’s not all-powerful right now. We just have to find something that can hurt him. We’ve done it before. I mean, Amara said he can’t even leave our universe. That makes him just another run-of-the-mill god, right?”
“Sure,” Dean agreed (sarcastically), but he dropped his arms out of their defensive fold. “One we can’t kill.”
But that was Dean-speak for acceptance. Dean was on-board. That was about as close to a miracle as Sam ever expected to see again. He smiled hesitantly. “It’s a start.”
“It’s a start,” Dean agreed. He nodded, thoughtfully, first, then with purpose, took a deep breath and clapped his hands. “All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. Me, Cas, and Eileen are going to hit the books. Sam, you’re going to stay here and catch some z’s.”
“What-no.”
“Yep.” Dean caught his shoulder and pushed him flat on the bed. He spared a brief glance for Eileen as she as stood, then followed Castiel out. Traitors, all of them. “This thing has taken a lot out of you. And maybe that’s because it was God, or maybe it was just because they were manipulating your soul, I don’t know. But I do know that you need rest.”
“I can rest in my room.”
“Right. Where we both know you’ve relocated half of the library. No, Sam,” Dean continued before he could protest. “You’re going to stay here. Sleep. And I mean, actually sleep, because there is no way I’m doing all the research for this shindig, so you need to get better and reclaim your geek throne. Got it?”
Dean patted Sam’s chest twice. Sam fought it, for a moment, considered forcing the issue and pushing past Dean to join everyone else upstairs, but-there was something fragile in Dean’s eyes, something that needed his brother at his back, and this was something Sam could do. For Dean. He exhaled, letting his breath take the fight with it, and sank into the bed.
“Atta boy,” Dean praised.
“Just for a few hours,” Sam cautioned even as he elbow-crawled backwards up to the pillow. But Dean waved him away. Sam watched him go with some combination of consternation and fondness, then he rolled onto his stomach, shoved his arm under the pillow, and his face into lemon-scented cotton.
He slept and, at least this time, he didn’t dream.
*
Sam’s first priority upon waking was to shower. His head was clear, the Bunker didn’t feel like a mausoleum, no one was watching him, and all the aches and pains that had plagued him had disappeared. Which let him focus on how disgusting he felt tumbling around in the same shirts and pants he’d been wearing for-way too many hours, regardless of how many had actually passed.
So as guilty as he felt for skipping out on research when he’d already slept through unknown hours of it, he made a pit stop in his room for a change of clothes, then went to shower.
The showers in the Bunker had more in common with high school locker rooms than with the hotel bathrooms they’d grown up with. They never ran out of hot water. The spigots were mounted high enough Sam only had to duck his head to rinse his hair. All the water drained to a central grate. And nothing except a series of curtains separated one stall from the next.
The curtains had been a Winchester addition. Apparently, the Men of Letters hadn’t bothered too much with much personal privacy. Granted, Sam and Dean hadn’t had much privacy growing up with a former Marine on the road, but there was a difference between necessary and voluntary exposure. The fangirls would’ve loved it, no doubt. Sam and Dean put up curtains.
It still felt weird and indulgent, and not just a little vulnerable, standing naked in such a large room, curtains or not.
The itchy feeling that he was being watched crept back in while he was rinsing the conditioner from his hair, crawling between his shoulder blades and up his neck.
There hadn’t been anyone in the showers when he came in. And it was a large rectangle of a room, with the curtains on any stalls not in use pushed back to the wall, no nooks or crannies to the place to lose a bar of soap in, never mind a person, so he couldn’t have overlooked them. Not to mention, he hadn’t heard anyone enter after him. He hadn’t seen any shadows pass the drawn curtains.
That didn’t stop him from swiping hair and water off his face and pulling the curtain back so he could check the room. It never hurt to be too watchful.
But there was nothing and no one he could see.
Frowning, he resettled the curtain and finished quick. The feeling didn’t follow him once he’d dressed and left the showers, but still felt unsettled. Maybe they’d missed something and a monster had gotten into the Bunker? It didn’t sound likely, but no more plausible explanations presented themselves except the one that recommended a swanky white jacket with arms that buckle in the back.
Sam headed for the Library instead of the kitchen, hoping to catch Dean-and maybe settle his nerves with some good, old-fashioned safety in numbers. For given values of safety.
Dean wasn’t there, though, and neither was Eileen. Castiel glanced at him about the same time Sam’s momentum stalled out. “Sam,” he greeted, fatigue dropping his voice into grave, gravely tones that recalled demon blood and a brother newly out of Hell and spiraling.
“Hey, Cas.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Better.” That was true enough. Two dozen books waited on the table, so Sam continued forward and claimed the chair perpendicular to the angel’s.
“No further-” Castiel hesitated, tilting his head as he considered the most accurate term. “-side effects?”
Sam’s thoughts went back to the empty shower. Could paranoia be a side effect? He shook the notion away, folded his hands on the table, and leaned in so he and Castiel were on a level. “What happened wasn’t your fault, you know.”
“I know,” Castiel agreed without hesitation. “But-even if it had been, even if I had known the consequences going in, I would have had to suggest we attempt to study the wound, regardless. If we could have used it to find Chuck-”
“It would’ve been worth the discomfort,” Sam finished, so Castiel didn’t have to. The decision was pragmatic, as befitted a soldier, but that didn’t negate the emotional toll, and Castiel didn’t deserve to carry that alone when Sam would’ve made the same choice. “Hell, it was still worth the discomfort. We never would have known Chuck was weak, otherwise.”
Castiel inclined his head, and refocused on open page before him. “I am glad you didn’t come to any permanent harm.”
Sam huffed. “Yeah, me, too.” Though the jury might have still been out on that one. After a minute, he grabbed one of the tomes from the stack and started reading.
He woke-nearly jolting from the chair-when Dean dropped a book by his head. For a moment, just a moment, the sense-memory of Dean’s neck under his hand lingered.
Then Dean, the jackass, clapped his shoulder with a sunny grin and “Morning, sunshine!” on his way to Castiel’s chair. “How’re you feeling?”
Sam’s neck and back ached from sleeping hunched over the table, and his head felt gummy, his body humming with the phantom memory of demon’s blood. He grimaced as he tried to rub some of the stiffness out of his neck. “How do you think?” he grumbled. “Where’s Cas?”
“Down in the Archives. And before you ask, pretty sure Eileen is still sleeping.”
Sam nodded, but he didn’t know what to say. Part of him, the part pushing words up his throat, wanted to apologize. For drinking demon blood. For strangling his brother. And he could remember doing both those things, shame coiling hot in his belly, but not last night-not here-not with Dean shoved back over the table, unable to get leverage, and Sam straddling his chest.
Dean pulled the book Castiel had been studying closer to read its cover, then shoved it to the middle of the table and refocused on Sam. Sam wasn’t looking at him to see, but he could feel the weight of his regard, see the pale of his face out of the corner of his eye.
But Dean wouldn’t know what he was talking about if he apologized, and Sam didn’t want to explain. He was almost relieved when Dean spoke up, until his brain registered what Dean had asked.
“So, you ready to tell me what happened last night?”
He almost choked. “What?”
Dean’s eyebrows winged toward his hairline. “Last night? The gun. You flying out of the Infirmary like a bat out of hell. Any of this ringing a bell?”
Sam grimaced. That topic wasn’t much better. He shrugged. “Sleepwalking?”
“I’ve seen you when you sleepwalk, Sam. That wasn’t sleepwalking.”
“It wasn’t . . . not sleepwalking.” When he met Dean’s gaze, Dean lifted his eyebrows expectantly. “I don’t-It was weird, all right? I woke up and the Bunker felt abandoned, dead. And it felt like something was watching me. So, I went looking for it. When I found it, it looked like you, like a vampire you, and it ran. I followed it.”
Dean took a second to digest that. “That doesn’t sound like sleepwalking, Sam.”
Sam shrugged again, dodged his gaze. “So maybe something about the situation blurred the lines between reality and my dream.”
“Hallucinations,” Dean summarized adroitly.
Sam pulled a face, but couldn’t protest the classification.
“You had any more?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to mention the bathroom, because that’s what he’d initially come up to the Library to do. But what did he really have to report? He’d been paranoid? Let the open space get to him? There’d been nothing and no one there, and he hadn’t seen anyone or anything that shouldn’t have been there. “No.”
“All right. Let me know if that changes.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
“Great.” Dean stood up and chucked him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go get some sleep?”
“Dean, you don’t need to keep sending me to bed.”
“Hey,” his brother protested, hands raised in innocence, “you’re the one who fell asleep at the table. I’m just looking out for your comfort, man. Far be it for me to come between you and your love.” Dean waggled his eyes salaciously.
“Jerk,” Sam murmured, rubbing tiredly at his head because Dean was exasperating and not because he was somehow, impossibly, tired again. Hadn’t he slept enough? It seemed like that was all he’d been doing.
“Bitch. You eat yet? I’m gonna make pancakes.”
“Omelet?” he countered hopefully.
“Can do.”
“With spinach. And avocado!” Sam called.
Dean’s laugh drifted in from the hallway. “Freak.”
It was good to hear Dean laugh.
Satisfied, Sam went back to reading. Or tried to. Just-the visions he’d had since shooting Chuck, they’d all been just that: things he saw. He’d watched demon-blood-junkie Sam snap Dean’s neck telepathically. He’d watched Lucifer in Sam burn Dean to death. He’d watched Mark-of-Cain-demon Dean beat Sam and stab him with the First Blade. But none of those versions of Sam had felt like him. He’d just been a spectator.
He hadn’t felt like a spectator this time. He could remember the feel of Dean’s body trapped between his legs, the thrum of the demon blood, hot and powerful, through his veins. He could remember the hard press of the table against his kneecaps. He could even remember the determination to not let Dean take this from him, too, that he needed to take Dean out first.
The bright side, in as much as there could be one when he’d just dreamed he’d killed his brother, was that the Sam who’d killed Dean also hadn’t felt like him. It’d felt more like a memory, or an echo. Something filtered to him rather than something he’d generated.
He just wasn’t sure he could count on it staying that way.
“Change of plans.”
The slap of Dean’s hand against the Library’s doorjamb registered after Dean’s voice, but both made him jump. He twisted around to look at him.
“How do you feel about a supply run?”
*
On to PART TWO...