Because of Houdini Part 11/?
Sam dreams he's clinging to a buoy in the middle of the ocean and Dean is somehow beating him on the chest with cupped hands, over and over but he's still gasping gasping gasping until his head sinks beneath the water and it's all so ham-fistedly symbolic that even in his sleep he wants to scold his brain for conceiving it.
He gasps awake to Jess shaking him, her nails half digging into his biceps. For a moment he's too startled and pleased by her near-nakedness to concentrate on the frantic words her mouth is forming, but soon enough it pierces his grog.
"Sam, wake the fuck up. Look at this, look!" She runs out of the bedroom, poking her head back in moments later. "Hurry up! It’s Dean. They’re talking about Dean."
Speaking of Dean, he should call his brother. He looks at the clock on the nightstand. It's almost nine. Dean probably refused to have his PT from anyone else this morning, he's probably--
"SAM goddamn it, get up."
Groaning in the affirmative he gathers himself up, bringing along a sheet to clutch around his waist.
Jess is perched on the edge of the sofa, pulling one of his shirts over her head. "My god, Sam. Jesus," she says, stabbing a finger at the TV.
She's got the news on. There's a reporter standing in front of the hospital.
"...a hospital source says the assailant went missing from his room around six this morning. Dean Winchester, twenty-six years old, suffers from cystic fibrosis, a progressive and fatal illness of the lungs and pancreas--"
Oh, God.
"What the hell happened?" Sam says, plopping down on the coffee table so his face is just inches from the screen.
"They found someone dead in his room," Jess says. Her eyes are wild, her hair poofing in statically curling waves around her shoulders. "They found some male nurse dead in his room and Dean's missing."
Sam stares at the blurred shapes on the television. His whole body pounds with adrenaline as he tries to arrange the pieces. Dean gone. Some guy dead.
"They think Dean killed him," Jess says, "They think Dean strangled him."
"Shit," Sam says. "Shit."
He stumbles back into the bedroom, fumbling in a pile of dirty jeans until he finds his phone. Ten missed calls from Dean.
Thank god.
He dials back, counting the seconds, counting the rings until Dean finally answers.
"Sam," he says. "Fuck, Sammy."
"Where are you?"
"You remember Derek Castle, from that town in central Washington? He had CF?"
Of course Sam remembers. The party. Dean in the bath tub. Spending all night cleaning up Dean's mess. Flunking a test. "What about him?"
"He's latched onto me, somehow. I think might be ghost possession."
"Dean you're all over the fucking news. They think you killed someone."
"I had to leave, Sammy. I am killing people."
"No. This-- where are you? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"Dean."
"He roughed me up a little but I'm fine. Don't worry. I'll take care of this myself. I already came and got my car, so you just... don't worry about me. I'll call you in a coupla months, okay?"
"Dean. No. Tell me where you are."
"This is my shit. This is my responsibility."
"Dean let me help."
"Later, Sammy."
"Dean goddamn it--"
The line goes dead. Sam tosses his phone on the bed and wrestles his legs into a pair of jeans, a shirt that still smells like hospital.
"Sam," Jess says behind him. "Did you talk to him? What the hell is going on?"
"Nothing." He turns his back to her. "Nothing."
"Sam. If he hurt somebody, if he needs help, you're not the one to--"
"--he didn't hurt anybody. He would never hurt anybody."
Sam closes his eyes and takes a long breath. This is the moment he's been dreading. He turns, watches her studying him, sees her face change as she reads his expression.
"You're leaving me," she says.
"I'm sorry."
Sam buttons and zips his fly. He looks around and tries to think about what he needs to pack, besides some of Dean's treatment stuff. But there's really only one thing he's going to need. He dives into the closet, flinging boxes of winter clothes and Christmas ornaments until he finds his mini-safe.
"Why?" Jess says. "At least tell me why."
"Cops'll be here soon. Don't lie for me, don't try to protect me. Just tell them the truth and eventually they'll leave you alone."
"What? Sam what the hell are you...?"
"I was stupid to think I could have"--he gestures vaguely with a sweep of his arms-- "this. With you. I let this go on a lot longer than I should have. And I am sorry."
"Sam." She bends into the closet where he's fiddling with the combination to his safe. "Just tell me the truth."
"Jess, please. I gotta go, my brother's alone, he's barely got any medication, I--"
"He's not as helpless as you tell yourself he is," she says, her voice rising, "He can take care of himself. You... I don't understand what's wrong with you. Ever since he got here, you haven't been to class, you haven't gone to work, it's just him him him all fucking day and I don't..." She tosses her hands up. "I don't understand. Help me understand and I'll understand, Sam. Please."
Sam's fingers slip, losing the combination. Jess's nails dig into his shoulder. "Sam, please."
He turns to her, and reaches for her hands, just for a moment before he thinks better of it.
"Ghosts are real," he says. "Dean and I are hunting one. That's what we do. What our dad raised us to do."
Her eyebrows raise, her forehead wrinkles."Like Ghosthunters?"
"No. Like hunting real ghosts. Real demons. Real monsters. Things that want us dead. Dangerous, horrible things."
There, he's said it, and now it's over. The last year and a half of his life.
Jess's face is like stone. She keeps her voice low and calm. "Sam. Why are you doing this? Why are you saying this shit to me?"
Sam had expected tears. Lots of them. From them both. But he feels just as numb as she looks.
"I'm telling you the truth," he says, "For once, I'm telling you the truth. You don't have to believe me. In fact I'd rather you didn't."
He turns back to the safe. He enters the combination in three quick turns. He moves the stack of porn mags he put there just in case she ever got nosy. There's a shoebox underneath. Inside the shoe box is his gun, the only one he kept, one that used to belong to Dean. He knows it's already loaded but he checks anyway, pulling it from the box.
Jess sees it and falls away from him with gasp. He stands upright and stuffs it into the back of his pants. He takes a couple of steps toward her, his hands in the air as if surrendering.
"Who are you?" She says. She keeps stepping back. She trips over the post of the bed and nearly falls. "Who the fuck are you?"
"I'm a hunter."
She sits down hard as if something pushed her. "Sam."
"I hope you always think I'm a liar," he says, "I hope you don't ever know the truth. I love you. Believe that much, Jess. I love you so fucking much. But I can't run from my brother again. I can't run from this anymore. I can't do it."
He starts to reach out to her. She shrinks away.
He gathers all the clothes he can stuff in a duffle bag, whatever will fit with what's left of Dean's medications, and he doesn't look back.
***
A lot of people have never heard of cystic fibrosis. When Dean tells them they stare blankly and say "oh," then go home and google it and freak out when the internet tells them he's dying.
So Dean has his favorite stories. Severe asthma if he likes a girl and wants to stay with her again somewhere down the road, because it isn't a lie, he's just omitting the CF part.
Sometimes he says he's a retired firefighter and that his lungs were damaged in a four-alarmer. Sometimes he just makes up a story on the fly-- one time he actually convinced a chick that he'd damaged his lungs saving a disabled kid from drowning (that wasn't an all-the-way lie, either-- he'd saved plenty of kids. Just not disabled drowning ones).
His favorite story is that he has a nasty chest cold, because it's not romantically sad or heroic. Nobody gives a crap about a chest cold. People's eyes glaze over. They get bored. They change the subject.
That's what he tells the woman who runs the motel. He stops in the doorway and stands there coughing until he almost blacks out, clinging to the doorknob because his back is about to break right fucking in two-- wouldn't that be the epitome of comedy, an asthmatic ghost-hunting paraplegic with CF.
He's got a tee-shirt in one hand to catch all the lung guck because the blood's begun to flow again, not too awful, but because fate's always knocking his ass around, he's pretty sure he's on the verge of a massive bleed.
When he's finally able to look up at the motel clerk, her face is frozen in cartoonish shock, she's still got a cup of coffee tipped halfway to her mouth.
"Rooms," he gasps, "I need rooms."
He throws down the last of his cash for three rooms-- one on the end and the two next to it, to make sure he keeps a good distance from anyone else-- and snatches the keys from her hand.
By the time he opens the motel door he's pretty sure his chest is caving in, maybe his ribs have magically transformed into a big squeezing fist. He falls on the bed, fumbles with the concentrator which is dead, of course, which means wrestling with the cord and finding an outlet and by the time that's all over he's pretty sure this is the end of Dean Winchester.
"Is this what you want, you bastard?" He calls out to his empty motel room, because he's pretty sure Derek's around somewhere, listening. And he swears that his lungs open up, just a little.
Then he spits blood all over the nightstand.
***
It's like the night Dean ran off after their fight. Sam knows almost instinctively where Dean will go. Back towards central Washington, in case he needs to dig up Derek's body. Factoring in that he's hurt in some way, Sam knows exactly where Dean would have gotten too tired to keep driving. He knows which motel Dean would pick-- something off the freeway so that his car couldn't be spotted. Somewhere cheap but not too cheap-- nothing crawling with anything potentially deadly to CF lungs.
Sam spots the Impala in a dark corner of the parking lot of a motel called Sleep 4 Cheap. He drives a couple of miles beyond it to ditch the stolen car. Then he walks and walks, and the longer he walks the more pissed off he gets.
Dean trying to do this by himself. Running off. Leaving he and Jess to deal with the cops. While injured and probably still coughing blood, Sam knows he is. His brother's constant fucking suicide missions.
By the time he reaches the door of Dean's motel he has to stop himself from just kicking it in. Instead he punches the air, walks away from the door a second, comes back and knocks.
"It's your brother," he calls before Dean can freak out.
"Come in," Dean calls from inside.
Dean's shirtless and lying on his side on the single queen bed. Wearing oxygen, dragging gooey breaths in and out. He's got a bloody tee-shirt in one hand. The other is clicking away at his laptop.
"What did he do to you?" Sam says without fanfare, walking around the bed to inspect his brother's wounds. His back is blackened with handprints, edged with green and purple. Sam gently fingers the bruises, snapping his hand back when Dean hisses in pain.
"Jesus, Dean. You should be in a hospital."
"Not happening. Not until this bastard is dead." He takes a breath. "Thought I told you not to follow me."
"Well I followed you. What have you found out?"
"What did you tell Jess?"
Sam barely contains a flinch. "Doesn't matter. How are we killing Derek?"
Dean can't really look him in the eye, he can't twist around enough, but he gets as close as he can. "I read Derek's obituary years ago. It says that he died at home with his family from 'complications of CF.' But that's bullshit. I found the police report. He was accepted to Stanford. He was driving himself down here, summer after he graduated. Decided to take the scenic route. Stopped on the side of the road, walked into the brush to take a piss. Died of massive hemoptysis."
With a grimace Dean lifts the laptop over his shoulder for Sam to take. Sam scans the screen.
"Lung bleed," Sam says.
Dean nods. "Before the cell phone age. No one around to call for help. He bled out."
"Fuck."
Sam can't stop the mental image; Dean in Derek's place, clinging to the door of the Impala, vomiting blood until there's nothing left. Fainting, dying, lying there rotting for a week. It prickles the hair on the back of his neck.
"He was cremated, of course," Dean continues. "Not that it matters. He decomposed in the woods for over a week before someone came to tow the car and found the body. We'd have to start a goddamn forest fire to get all of him."
Dean sits up, pinching the skin between his eyes. He coughs, hard and wet. Spits more bloody mucus into the shirt. Sam scoots closer. "Easy, bro," he mutters.
"Think it's Derek," Dean wheezes, "think he's making me sick."
"Christ, Dean. We gotta do something."
"I think I figured out the pattern." Dean arranges himself stiffly on the bed, moving his limbs, twisting, leaning backward and forward, but he can't seem to find a position that doesn't hurt, or compromise his breathing, or both.
"Here," Sam says, shoving the two bed pillows into Dean's lap. "Lean forward and hug them like we're doing PT."
The pillows are a little flat and don't quite give Dean the support he needs, but he's at least slightly more comfortable, can breathe a little easier.
"There's two connections between all the victims," he continues. "King was an ex-football player and well-known on campus because of the coke dealing. Brand Weaver was crazy about cycling, but also a king of the local karaoke circuit. I couldn't find out much about the guy at In and Out Burger except that he was big on eating competitions and crazy about snowboarding."
"I don't see much of a connection here, Dean."
"They were all athletic. They were all big fish in small ponds. Derek's picking people who remind him of himself. People he might have wanted to be."
"What about you? Why not possess you?"
Dean shrugs. "Doesn't want me. I'm a Sick Person. Derek... Derek didn't think of himself that way. Didn't have to."
There's something off about the statement, some kind of bitter, passive-aggressive subtext. But they don't have time for that right now, so Sam ignores it. "You think you picked him up somewhere on your way down here, and he was able to latch on just because you were familiar?"
"I guess. Either way I'm just his own personal rickshaw driver. He's riding me around looking for a new body."
Dean swallows hard and closes his eyes. He goes white as a sheet, looks almost close to fainting. "Damn it," he says under his breath, removing the cannula as calm as can be. "I'm gonna puke."
"Bathroom or ice bucket?"
"Bathroom."
Sam hauls his brother to his feet and helps him stumble to the two or three feet to the tiny bathroom. He sits on the edge of the bathtub, twiddling his thumbs for lack of anything better to do with his hands. Dean heaves, nothing much but blood and bile. His ribs look almost like they're writhing beneath his blackened skin.
Maybe it's not the time or place, but the baffling unfairness of it all washes over Sam anyway. It's just such senseless, cruel bullshit. All of it. By the time Dean is done getting sick, Sam's hands are cramped from how hard he's gripping the edge of the tub.
Breathless, Dean just kind of twists and falls forward, his forehead coming to rest on Sam's kneecap. His hand closes hard around Sam's ankle.
"Fuck," he says as part of a long, indulged groan. "We gotta kill this fuck, Sam. Like yesterday."
Sam drops a hand in Dean's sweaty hair, pretending to brush it out of his face so that he can check for fever. He's clammy, almost cool to the touch. Sam doesn't know whether to be relieved or scared shitless.
He forces himself to focus. "So he wants a new body? That's it?"
"No. He said he wanted to talk. Like maybe he's something he wants to tell me. But none of the host bodies can handle the CF. He keeps killing them before he can say what he wants to say."
Sam rakes his hand through his hair, thinking. "I have an idea. But you can't get pissed."
"Right."
"I mean it, Dean. This could work."
"What?"
He swallows down the ache in his chest. "I was gonna ask Jess to marry me."
Dean raises his head, a big goofy smile on his face made eerie by the blood clinging to his lips and between his teeth. "That's awesome, Sammy, but a little off topic."
"Before I did, I got tested. To see if I carry the gene."
"What gene?"
"The CF gene."
Dean's face falls. "And?"
"And I'm a carrier."
There's no missing his brother's flinch. He scoots away, against the bathroom wall, careful not to let anything touch his back. "Sam... that doesn't mean anything."
"Means our kids could have CF."
"It takes two parents with the mutated gene to make a CF kid."
"So. She could be a carrier."
"That's unlikely."
"Maybe not. Mom and Dad managed to find each other, didn't they?"
"That's stupid, Sam. You shouldn't let that keep you from getting married."
"Doesn't matter. Not worth the risk. That's not my point, anyway. My point is, maybe I could handle Derek because I have the mutated gene. Maybe I could be his host."
"Fuck no."
"Dean. If you find out what he wants, maybe he'll be able to move on. Maybe you can convince him to move on."
"No." Dean gets shakily to his feet, "That's a stupid fucking idea."
"You got any other ideas? You said it yourself-- we'll never find the spot he died and even if we could, we'll never be able to burn all the remains. It's been years. By now he's in the flowers and in the soil and in the fucking tree bark."
"No."
"He's stayed in each body longer. Maybe he's learning how to possess without killing."
Dean leaves the bathroom and Sam follows, close on his heels. He helps his brother lower himself down on the bed and arranges the cannula back around his face without a word.
"Absolutely fucking not," Dean says. "He can possess me and you can talk to him."
"Goddamn it, Dean. I'm healthy. If I offer myself he'll take me. You already said he doesn't want you."
"Then we'll make him want me."
Anger flares up so fast in Sam's chest that it almost feels alive, something that might jump right out of him and smack the shit out of his stupid brother. "Look at you. You're fucking spewing blood. Think about this, Dean. Maybe he's not making you sick. Maybe he's just killing you more slowly because your body already knows the disease. The gene is in my body, too, Dean. I can do this. You're already weak. You could die."
"Which one do you want, Sam?" Dean pulls himself up sitting so that he's facing Sam on the bed.
Sam shakes his head. "What?"
"Which one do you want?" Dean repeats. "Tell me. You want me alive or dead? I want you to make up your fucking mind. Decide, right now. Cause you can't have both."
Sam swallows. Goddamn it, not this. Not right now. "What in the hell are you--"
"You know the easiest way for this to go down. I try to figure out a way to get rid of Derek by myself, and if I don't succeed, I die. Then his spirit's got nothing to attach to and it's released. And then you go on with your life."
I just gave up everything for you, Sam wants to scream. Everything.
"I don't want you to die," he says. "Of course I don't want you to die."
"You were pretty goddamned comfortable with the idea a week ago."
"I was just a kid, Dean. I made a mistake."
"So now what? This is how you're gonna make yourself feel better? Offer your body up to some obnoxious ghost?"
"That's not what this--"
"Yes it is. It is, Sam. This really has nothing to do with me. You wanna be to able to tell yourself 'oh well, I did everything could.' This is about you making sure you don't have to live with some kind of guilt after I'm dead. Well I don't need a nurse, Sam. I don't need your help and I sure as hell don't need you around twenty-four hours a goddamn day reminding me I have one foot in the grave."
It's not as if Sam didn't know that something like this was coming. But he's rendered speechless for a moment anyway, frozen beneath the weight of his brother's glare. His mouth opens in preparation to do what he always does-- we don't have time for this. Later, Dean. Later. We've got other things to worry about.
But truth is, one or both of them will probably be dead by morning.
"Maybe you don't need my help," Sam says. "Maybe you're right, maybe I'm overbearing and paranoid and I worry too much and treat you like you're made of glass and I hover and I don't want you to do shit that puts your life at risk."
"Well praise the lord," Dean says, looking unduly pleased with himself. "Finally, he sees."
"Maybe you don't need it. But you want it. You want me to take care of you."
Dean scoffs, rolls his eyes viciously toward the ceiling. "You're fucking delusional."
"Am I? Then why did you come to Stanford, Dean? To check on me? Really? And if my help got so goddamn annoying then why didn't you just leave in the middle of the night? Why'd you announce your departure like a goddamn cruise ship?"
"Doesn't matter. You woulda come after me either way."
"Why make a big show of kicking my ass and drugging me? Why'd you decide to hustle less than 50 feet from my doorstep with one of my girlfriend's best friends, huh? Why not just take off?"
Dean tries to get off the bed; Sam grips him hard him by the elbow, ignoring his pained wince.
"You just woulda come after me, " Dean says, "You know you woulda found me."
"And that's exactly what you wanted."
Dean makes another attempt at escape. Sam takes his other elbow and he can't help but shake him a little.
"I want you to answer me honestly. Answer yourself honestly. When I fell asleep before I could do your PT, did you go out to the car and get your vest to do it yourself? Have you ever done anything but bitch when I'm doing your treatments? When have you ever really tried to help yourself when I'm around? When in your entire goddamn life?"
"Fuck you." Dean shakes himself free and gets up from the bed, knocking the cannula free of his face. He stops just short of the door, lowers his face into his hand. "That's not... you don't want me to live, Sam. You just want to make sure I still have a pulse. There's a fucking difference."
"Living doesn't mean going down in some bullshit blaze of glory with dad. Revenge isn't going to make your life feel more meaningful. It's not."
"Then what is, huh? Tell me."
Sam shakes his head, shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe not being so goddamned selfish."
Dean's eyes grow two sizes. "Selfish?"
"Yeah. Selfish. Always trying to die heroically so you can feel like you're worth something. What about the people in your life who need you?"
Dean smiles a miserable smile. "When have you ever needed me for anything?"
"You're my big brother," Sam says simply.
Dean lowers his gaze to the floor, his bloody tee shirt still balled in his fist. His eyes go glassy and Sam fears he's just shutting down again, like he always does. Like they always do.
Then he looks up at Sam and licks his lips. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
Sam's not entirely sure what Dean is agreeing to. "So you're gonna let me do this?"
Dean shakes his head. "Fuck no. Absolutely not."
"Think about what you're going to say to him, Dean. Quick."
"No. Sam... no."
Sam stands up, raises his face toward the ceiling and spreads his arms, totally aware of how crazed he looks and goddamned if he cares. "I'm right here for you, Derek."
"Sam shut up." Dean charges him, trying to pin his arms to his sides. "Don't."
"Come on," Sam calls again, batting Dean away. "You got something you wanna talk about? He's ready to talk. So come on. Take--"
Dean's hand closes around Sam's mouth. "Sam you shut the fuck --"
But it's too late. The last thing Sam feels is a rush of frozen air.
::::
PART TWELVE
He gasps awake to Jess shaking him, her nails half digging into his biceps. For a moment he's too startled and pleased by her near-nakedness to concentrate on the frantic words her mouth is forming, but soon enough it pierces his grog.
"Sam, wake the fuck up. Look at this, look!" She runs out of the bedroom, poking her head back in moments later. "Hurry up! It’s Dean. They’re talking about Dean."
Speaking of Dean, he should call his brother. He looks at the clock on the nightstand. It's almost nine. Dean probably refused to have his PT from anyone else this morning, he's probably--
"SAM goddamn it, get up."
Groaning in the affirmative he gathers himself up, bringing along a sheet to clutch around his waist.
Jess is perched on the edge of the sofa, pulling one of his shirts over her head. "My god, Sam. Jesus," she says, stabbing a finger at the TV.
She's got the news on. There's a reporter standing in front of the hospital.
"...a hospital source says the assailant went missing from his room around six this morning. Dean Winchester, twenty-six years old, suffers from cystic fibrosis, a progressive and fatal illness of the lungs and pancreas--"
Oh, God.
"What the hell happened?" Sam says, plopping down on the coffee table so his face is just inches from the screen.
"They found someone dead in his room," Jess says. Her eyes are wild, her hair poofing in statically curling waves around her shoulders. "They found some male nurse dead in his room and Dean's missing."
Sam stares at the blurred shapes on the television. His whole body pounds with adrenaline as he tries to arrange the pieces. Dean gone. Some guy dead.
"They think Dean killed him," Jess says, "They think Dean strangled him."
"Shit," Sam says. "Shit."
He stumbles back into the bedroom, fumbling in a pile of dirty jeans until he finds his phone. Ten missed calls from Dean.
Thank god.
He dials back, counting the seconds, counting the rings until Dean finally answers.
"Sam," he says. "Fuck, Sammy."
"Where are you?"
"You remember Derek Castle, from that town in central Washington? He had CF?"
Of course Sam remembers. The party. Dean in the bath tub. Spending all night cleaning up Dean's mess. Flunking a test. "What about him?"
"He's latched onto me, somehow. I think might be ghost possession."
"Dean you're all over the fucking news. They think you killed someone."
"I had to leave, Sammy. I am killing people."
"No. This-- where are you? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"Dean."
"He roughed me up a little but I'm fine. Don't worry. I'll take care of this myself. I already came and got my car, so you just... don't worry about me. I'll call you in a coupla months, okay?"
"Dean. No. Tell me where you are."
"This is my shit. This is my responsibility."
"Dean let me help."
"Later, Sammy."
"Dean goddamn it--"
The line goes dead. Sam tosses his phone on the bed and wrestles his legs into a pair of jeans, a shirt that still smells like hospital.
"Sam," Jess says behind him. "Did you talk to him? What the hell is going on?"
"Nothing." He turns his back to her. "Nothing."
"Sam. If he hurt somebody, if he needs help, you're not the one to--"
"--he didn't hurt anybody. He would never hurt anybody."
Sam closes his eyes and takes a long breath. This is the moment he's been dreading. He turns, watches her studying him, sees her face change as she reads his expression.
"You're leaving me," she says.
"I'm sorry."
Sam buttons and zips his fly. He looks around and tries to think about what he needs to pack, besides some of Dean's treatment stuff. But there's really only one thing he's going to need. He dives into the closet, flinging boxes of winter clothes and Christmas ornaments until he finds his mini-safe.
"Why?" Jess says. "At least tell me why."
"Cops'll be here soon. Don't lie for me, don't try to protect me. Just tell them the truth and eventually they'll leave you alone."
"What? Sam what the hell are you...?"
"I was stupid to think I could have"--he gestures vaguely with a sweep of his arms-- "this. With you. I let this go on a lot longer than I should have. And I am sorry."
"Sam." She bends into the closet where he's fiddling with the combination to his safe. "Just tell me the truth."
"Jess, please. I gotta go, my brother's alone, he's barely got any medication, I--"
"He's not as helpless as you tell yourself he is," she says, her voice rising, "He can take care of himself. You... I don't understand what's wrong with you. Ever since he got here, you haven't been to class, you haven't gone to work, it's just him him him all fucking day and I don't..." She tosses her hands up. "I don't understand. Help me understand and I'll understand, Sam. Please."
Sam's fingers slip, losing the combination. Jess's nails dig into his shoulder. "Sam, please."
He turns to her, and reaches for her hands, just for a moment before he thinks better of it.
"Ghosts are real," he says. "Dean and I are hunting one. That's what we do. What our dad raised us to do."
Her eyebrows raise, her forehead wrinkles."Like Ghosthunters?"
"No. Like hunting real ghosts. Real demons. Real monsters. Things that want us dead. Dangerous, horrible things."
There, he's said it, and now it's over. The last year and a half of his life.
Jess's face is like stone. She keeps her voice low and calm. "Sam. Why are you doing this? Why are you saying this shit to me?"
Sam had expected tears. Lots of them. From them both. But he feels just as numb as she looks.
"I'm telling you the truth," he says, "For once, I'm telling you the truth. You don't have to believe me. In fact I'd rather you didn't."
He turns back to the safe. He enters the combination in three quick turns. He moves the stack of porn mags he put there just in case she ever got nosy. There's a shoebox underneath. Inside the shoe box is his gun, the only one he kept, one that used to belong to Dean. He knows it's already loaded but he checks anyway, pulling it from the box.
Jess sees it and falls away from him with gasp. He stands upright and stuffs it into the back of his pants. He takes a couple of steps toward her, his hands in the air as if surrendering.
"Who are you?" She says. She keeps stepping back. She trips over the post of the bed and nearly falls. "Who the fuck are you?"
"I'm a hunter."
She sits down hard as if something pushed her. "Sam."
"I hope you always think I'm a liar," he says, "I hope you don't ever know the truth. I love you. Believe that much, Jess. I love you so fucking much. But I can't run from my brother again. I can't run from this anymore. I can't do it."
He starts to reach out to her. She shrinks away.
He gathers all the clothes he can stuff in a duffle bag, whatever will fit with what's left of Dean's medications, and he doesn't look back.
***
A lot of people have never heard of cystic fibrosis. When Dean tells them they stare blankly and say "oh," then go home and google it and freak out when the internet tells them he's dying.
So Dean has his favorite stories. Severe asthma if he likes a girl and wants to stay with her again somewhere down the road, because it isn't a lie, he's just omitting the CF part.
Sometimes he says he's a retired firefighter and that his lungs were damaged in a four-alarmer. Sometimes he just makes up a story on the fly-- one time he actually convinced a chick that he'd damaged his lungs saving a disabled kid from drowning (that wasn't an all-the-way lie, either-- he'd saved plenty of kids. Just not disabled drowning ones).
His favorite story is that he has a nasty chest cold, because it's not romantically sad or heroic. Nobody gives a crap about a chest cold. People's eyes glaze over. They get bored. They change the subject.
That's what he tells the woman who runs the motel. He stops in the doorway and stands there coughing until he almost blacks out, clinging to the doorknob because his back is about to break right fucking in two-- wouldn't that be the epitome of comedy, an asthmatic ghost-hunting paraplegic with CF.
He's got a tee-shirt in one hand to catch all the lung guck because the blood's begun to flow again, not too awful, but because fate's always knocking his ass around, he's pretty sure he's on the verge of a massive bleed.
When he's finally able to look up at the motel clerk, her face is frozen in cartoonish shock, she's still got a cup of coffee tipped halfway to her mouth.
"Rooms," he gasps, "I need rooms."
He throws down the last of his cash for three rooms-- one on the end and the two next to it, to make sure he keeps a good distance from anyone else-- and snatches the keys from her hand.
By the time he opens the motel door he's pretty sure his chest is caving in, maybe his ribs have magically transformed into a big squeezing fist. He falls on the bed, fumbles with the concentrator which is dead, of course, which means wrestling with the cord and finding an outlet and by the time that's all over he's pretty sure this is the end of Dean Winchester.
"Is this what you want, you bastard?" He calls out to his empty motel room, because he's pretty sure Derek's around somewhere, listening. And he swears that his lungs open up, just a little.
Then he spits blood all over the nightstand.
***
It's like the night Dean ran off after their fight. Sam knows almost instinctively where Dean will go. Back towards central Washington, in case he needs to dig up Derek's body. Factoring in that he's hurt in some way, Sam knows exactly where Dean would have gotten too tired to keep driving. He knows which motel Dean would pick-- something off the freeway so that his car couldn't be spotted. Somewhere cheap but not too cheap-- nothing crawling with anything potentially deadly to CF lungs.
Sam spots the Impala in a dark corner of the parking lot of a motel called Sleep 4 Cheap. He drives a couple of miles beyond it to ditch the stolen car. Then he walks and walks, and the longer he walks the more pissed off he gets.
Dean trying to do this by himself. Running off. Leaving he and Jess to deal with the cops. While injured and probably still coughing blood, Sam knows he is. His brother's constant fucking suicide missions.
By the time he reaches the door of Dean's motel he has to stop himself from just kicking it in. Instead he punches the air, walks away from the door a second, comes back and knocks.
"It's your brother," he calls before Dean can freak out.
"Come in," Dean calls from inside.
Dean's shirtless and lying on his side on the single queen bed. Wearing oxygen, dragging gooey breaths in and out. He's got a bloody tee-shirt in one hand. The other is clicking away at his laptop.
"What did he do to you?" Sam says without fanfare, walking around the bed to inspect his brother's wounds. His back is blackened with handprints, edged with green and purple. Sam gently fingers the bruises, snapping his hand back when Dean hisses in pain.
"Jesus, Dean. You should be in a hospital."
"Not happening. Not until this bastard is dead." He takes a breath. "Thought I told you not to follow me."
"Well I followed you. What have you found out?"
"What did you tell Jess?"
Sam barely contains a flinch. "Doesn't matter. How are we killing Derek?"
Dean can't really look him in the eye, he can't twist around enough, but he gets as close as he can. "I read Derek's obituary years ago. It says that he died at home with his family from 'complications of CF.' But that's bullshit. I found the police report. He was accepted to Stanford. He was driving himself down here, summer after he graduated. Decided to take the scenic route. Stopped on the side of the road, walked into the brush to take a piss. Died of massive hemoptysis."
With a grimace Dean lifts the laptop over his shoulder for Sam to take. Sam scans the screen.
"Lung bleed," Sam says.
Dean nods. "Before the cell phone age. No one around to call for help. He bled out."
"Fuck."
Sam can't stop the mental image; Dean in Derek's place, clinging to the door of the Impala, vomiting blood until there's nothing left. Fainting, dying, lying there rotting for a week. It prickles the hair on the back of his neck.
"He was cremated, of course," Dean continues. "Not that it matters. He decomposed in the woods for over a week before someone came to tow the car and found the body. We'd have to start a goddamn forest fire to get all of him."
Dean sits up, pinching the skin between his eyes. He coughs, hard and wet. Spits more bloody mucus into the shirt. Sam scoots closer. "Easy, bro," he mutters.
"Think it's Derek," Dean wheezes, "think he's making me sick."
"Christ, Dean. We gotta do something."
"I think I figured out the pattern." Dean arranges himself stiffly on the bed, moving his limbs, twisting, leaning backward and forward, but he can't seem to find a position that doesn't hurt, or compromise his breathing, or both.
"Here," Sam says, shoving the two bed pillows into Dean's lap. "Lean forward and hug them like we're doing PT."
The pillows are a little flat and don't quite give Dean the support he needs, but he's at least slightly more comfortable, can breathe a little easier.
"There's two connections between all the victims," he continues. "King was an ex-football player and well-known on campus because of the coke dealing. Brand Weaver was crazy about cycling, but also a king of the local karaoke circuit. I couldn't find out much about the guy at In and Out Burger except that he was big on eating competitions and crazy about snowboarding."
"I don't see much of a connection here, Dean."
"They were all athletic. They were all big fish in small ponds. Derek's picking people who remind him of himself. People he might have wanted to be."
"What about you? Why not possess you?"
Dean shrugs. "Doesn't want me. I'm a Sick Person. Derek... Derek didn't think of himself that way. Didn't have to."
There's something off about the statement, some kind of bitter, passive-aggressive subtext. But they don't have time for that right now, so Sam ignores it. "You think you picked him up somewhere on your way down here, and he was able to latch on just because you were familiar?"
"I guess. Either way I'm just his own personal rickshaw driver. He's riding me around looking for a new body."
Dean swallows hard and closes his eyes. He goes white as a sheet, looks almost close to fainting. "Damn it," he says under his breath, removing the cannula as calm as can be. "I'm gonna puke."
"Bathroom or ice bucket?"
"Bathroom."
Sam hauls his brother to his feet and helps him stumble to the two or three feet to the tiny bathroom. He sits on the edge of the bathtub, twiddling his thumbs for lack of anything better to do with his hands. Dean heaves, nothing much but blood and bile. His ribs look almost like they're writhing beneath his blackened skin.
Maybe it's not the time or place, but the baffling unfairness of it all washes over Sam anyway. It's just such senseless, cruel bullshit. All of it. By the time Dean is done getting sick, Sam's hands are cramped from how hard he's gripping the edge of the tub.
Breathless, Dean just kind of twists and falls forward, his forehead coming to rest on Sam's kneecap. His hand closes hard around Sam's ankle.
"Fuck," he says as part of a long, indulged groan. "We gotta kill this fuck, Sam. Like yesterday."
Sam drops a hand in Dean's sweaty hair, pretending to brush it out of his face so that he can check for fever. He's clammy, almost cool to the touch. Sam doesn't know whether to be relieved or scared shitless.
He forces himself to focus. "So he wants a new body? That's it?"
"No. He said he wanted to talk. Like maybe he's something he wants to tell me. But none of the host bodies can handle the CF. He keeps killing them before he can say what he wants to say."
Sam rakes his hand through his hair, thinking. "I have an idea. But you can't get pissed."
"Right."
"I mean it, Dean. This could work."
"What?"
He swallows down the ache in his chest. "I was gonna ask Jess to marry me."
Dean raises his head, a big goofy smile on his face made eerie by the blood clinging to his lips and between his teeth. "That's awesome, Sammy, but a little off topic."
"Before I did, I got tested. To see if I carry the gene."
"What gene?"
"The CF gene."
Dean's face falls. "And?"
"And I'm a carrier."
There's no missing his brother's flinch. He scoots away, against the bathroom wall, careful not to let anything touch his back. "Sam... that doesn't mean anything."
"Means our kids could have CF."
"It takes two parents with the mutated gene to make a CF kid."
"So. She could be a carrier."
"That's unlikely."
"Maybe not. Mom and Dad managed to find each other, didn't they?"
"That's stupid, Sam. You shouldn't let that keep you from getting married."
"Doesn't matter. Not worth the risk. That's not my point, anyway. My point is, maybe I could handle Derek because I have the mutated gene. Maybe I could be his host."
"Fuck no."
"Dean. If you find out what he wants, maybe he'll be able to move on. Maybe you can convince him to move on."
"No." Dean gets shakily to his feet, "That's a stupid fucking idea."
"You got any other ideas? You said it yourself-- we'll never find the spot he died and even if we could, we'll never be able to burn all the remains. It's been years. By now he's in the flowers and in the soil and in the fucking tree bark."
"No."
"He's stayed in each body longer. Maybe he's learning how to possess without killing."
Dean leaves the bathroom and Sam follows, close on his heels. He helps his brother lower himself down on the bed and arranges the cannula back around his face without a word.
"Absolutely fucking not," Dean says. "He can possess me and you can talk to him."
"Goddamn it, Dean. I'm healthy. If I offer myself he'll take me. You already said he doesn't want you."
"Then we'll make him want me."
Anger flares up so fast in Sam's chest that it almost feels alive, something that might jump right out of him and smack the shit out of his stupid brother. "Look at you. You're fucking spewing blood. Think about this, Dean. Maybe he's not making you sick. Maybe he's just killing you more slowly because your body already knows the disease. The gene is in my body, too, Dean. I can do this. You're already weak. You could die."
"Which one do you want, Sam?" Dean pulls himself up sitting so that he's facing Sam on the bed.
Sam shakes his head. "What?"
"Which one do you want?" Dean repeats. "Tell me. You want me alive or dead? I want you to make up your fucking mind. Decide, right now. Cause you can't have both."
Sam swallows. Goddamn it, not this. Not right now. "What in the hell are you--"
"You know the easiest way for this to go down. I try to figure out a way to get rid of Derek by myself, and if I don't succeed, I die. Then his spirit's got nothing to attach to and it's released. And then you go on with your life."
I just gave up everything for you, Sam wants to scream. Everything.
"I don't want you to die," he says. "Of course I don't want you to die."
"You were pretty goddamned comfortable with the idea a week ago."
"I was just a kid, Dean. I made a mistake."
"So now what? This is how you're gonna make yourself feel better? Offer your body up to some obnoxious ghost?"
"That's not what this--"
"Yes it is. It is, Sam. This really has nothing to do with me. You wanna be to able to tell yourself 'oh well, I did everything could.' This is about you making sure you don't have to live with some kind of guilt after I'm dead. Well I don't need a nurse, Sam. I don't need your help and I sure as hell don't need you around twenty-four hours a goddamn day reminding me I have one foot in the grave."
It's not as if Sam didn't know that something like this was coming. But he's rendered speechless for a moment anyway, frozen beneath the weight of his brother's glare. His mouth opens in preparation to do what he always does-- we don't have time for this. Later, Dean. Later. We've got other things to worry about.
But truth is, one or both of them will probably be dead by morning.
"Maybe you don't need my help," Sam says. "Maybe you're right, maybe I'm overbearing and paranoid and I worry too much and treat you like you're made of glass and I hover and I don't want you to do shit that puts your life at risk."
"Well praise the lord," Dean says, looking unduly pleased with himself. "Finally, he sees."
"Maybe you don't need it. But you want it. You want me to take care of you."
Dean scoffs, rolls his eyes viciously toward the ceiling. "You're fucking delusional."
"Am I? Then why did you come to Stanford, Dean? To check on me? Really? And if my help got so goddamn annoying then why didn't you just leave in the middle of the night? Why'd you announce your departure like a goddamn cruise ship?"
"Doesn't matter. You woulda come after me either way."
"Why make a big show of kicking my ass and drugging me? Why'd you decide to hustle less than 50 feet from my doorstep with one of my girlfriend's best friends, huh? Why not just take off?"
Dean tries to get off the bed; Sam grips him hard him by the elbow, ignoring his pained wince.
"You just woulda come after me, " Dean says, "You know you woulda found me."
"And that's exactly what you wanted."
Dean makes another attempt at escape. Sam takes his other elbow and he can't help but shake him a little.
"I want you to answer me honestly. Answer yourself honestly. When I fell asleep before I could do your PT, did you go out to the car and get your vest to do it yourself? Have you ever done anything but bitch when I'm doing your treatments? When have you ever really tried to help yourself when I'm around? When in your entire goddamn life?"
"Fuck you." Dean shakes himself free and gets up from the bed, knocking the cannula free of his face. He stops just short of the door, lowers his face into his hand. "That's not... you don't want me to live, Sam. You just want to make sure I still have a pulse. There's a fucking difference."
"Living doesn't mean going down in some bullshit blaze of glory with dad. Revenge isn't going to make your life feel more meaningful. It's not."
"Then what is, huh? Tell me."
Sam shakes his head, shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe not being so goddamned selfish."
Dean's eyes grow two sizes. "Selfish?"
"Yeah. Selfish. Always trying to die heroically so you can feel like you're worth something. What about the people in your life who need you?"
Dean smiles a miserable smile. "When have you ever needed me for anything?"
"You're my big brother," Sam says simply.
Dean lowers his gaze to the floor, his bloody tee shirt still balled in his fist. His eyes go glassy and Sam fears he's just shutting down again, like he always does. Like they always do.
Then he looks up at Sam and licks his lips. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
Sam's not entirely sure what Dean is agreeing to. "So you're gonna let me do this?"
Dean shakes his head. "Fuck no. Absolutely not."
"Think about what you're going to say to him, Dean. Quick."
"No. Sam... no."
Sam stands up, raises his face toward the ceiling and spreads his arms, totally aware of how crazed he looks and goddamned if he cares. "I'm right here for you, Derek."
"Sam shut up." Dean charges him, trying to pin his arms to his sides. "Don't."
"Come on," Sam calls again, batting Dean away. "You got something you wanna talk about? He's ready to talk. So come on. Take--"
Dean's hand closes around Sam's mouth. "Sam you shut the fuck --"
But it's too late. The last thing Sam feels is a rush of frozen air.
::::
PART TWELVE