SPN Fic: Words Like Violence (1/1) AU
Title: Words Like Violence
Author: Bella Temple
Category: SPN, AU, Het, drama
Rating: Teen
Warnings: AU, some language, character death
Spoilers: Nothing past the pilot
Characters: Sam/Jess, Dean
Disclaimer: The characters and basic premise within are property of Warner Bros, Eric Kripke, etc. No money is being made off this work of fiction.
Author's note:This AU has been living in my head for several months now. It's likely to become a series (tentatively titled "But Deadly"), but so far, this is the only part that's fleshed itself out into a complete story. The whole universe I'm building is terribly interesting to me. Hopefully, you'll enjoy it, too.
Summary: Jess thought, when she met Sam, that the two of them would grow up, get married, have kids, and have a life. Then she met Dean, and everything spiraled away.
ETA Now available as a podfic, read by diane_mckay.
The first time Sam brought Jess home, he paused with his key hovering hovering in front of the lock and his jaw working like he had something to say but didn't know how.
Jess had gotten used to this sort of behavior from him on their other dates. It was part of what had drawn her to him, the way he was always so careful with words, so mysterious with what he chose to hold back and what he revealed. So she waited just behind him, her arms tucked into the sleeves of the jacket he'd loaned her, all awkward when they'd first left the club and started walking through the rain, like he couldn't decide if he was being tacky or romantic. When he didn't speak or move for what she thought must be a full minute, she finally opened her mouth.
"What is it, Sam?"
He frowned, slipped the key in the lock, then stopped again.
"I think my brother's home."
He'd talked about his brother, along with the rest of his family, on their first date. Older by four years. Worked as some kind of consultant in the classic car industry. They lived together in an apartment off campus. Dean hadn't gone to college. Bare bones, really.
"You have separate rooms, right?"
Sam nodded, a slight blush coloring his cheeks.
"Then what's the problem?"
"He's going to want to meet you."
Jess wanted to meet him. Brothers weren't nearly as intimidating as parents, and she liked Sam enough to even want to meet them, eventually. "I don't mind."
"He's." Sam put a full stop on the end of the word, like the rest of the sentence had escaped him. "He's a little."
"Is he dangerous?"
Sam shook his head sharply. "No. That's not it. It's just."
She put her hand on his, guiding it to turn the key. "Then it's okay. Really." She flashed him a smile and watched his shoulders lower and relax. "I want to meet him."
He let out a slow breath, then smiled in return. "Okay." And he opened the door.
The front door opened directly onto the living room, giving a profile view of the couch. A man -- Dean, clearly, in his mid-twenties and casually dressed -- slumped there with a glossy magazine, but had his face turned towards the door. He looked curious, alert, and when he spotted her over Sam's shoulder, he broke into a wide grin and lifted one hand from the magazine in a wave.
"Dean," Sam said, stepping to one side and lifting his hand as though to try and take the jacket, then lowering it after a moment. Jacket taking, apparently, fell under the "tacky" category. Jess didn't mind -- the jacket was warm and smelled of leather, cologne, and books. Like Sam. "This is Jess. Jess, my brother Dean."
Dean stood then, setting the magazine on the steamer-trunk-turned-coffee-table, already littered with car magazines, newspapers, and textbooks. He lifted his hand again in a wave, then turned his eyes to Sam, his hands fluttering about midway up his chest in quick, precise movements. Jess recognized it as sign language, but the movements were quick, and she was a good four years from the single class she'd taken. She felt her eyes widen slightly in surprise, then quickly schooled her expression and brought the smile out again.
"He says it's nice to meet you," Sam offered, an apology in his voice, and she nodded, making sure her face was turned straight towards Dean even as her eyes slid sideways to Sam's.
"It's nice to meet you, too."
They stood there like that for a moment, while Jess tried desperately not to stare, awkwardness hanging from all three of them the way Sam's jacket hung from her shoulders. Then Dean's hands moved again, and Jess recognized the gesture for "coffee". She hurried to speak before Sam translated, desperate to show that she wasn't completely overwhelmed or weirded out.
"Coffee would be great. Decaf?"
She felt Sam relax as Dean nodded, hands flickering in a few more gestures that she assumed translated to something like "one lump or two?"
"Two sugars. With cream."
Another nod from Dean, and a shutterflash of a smile, and then Dean was heading through the rounded arch that separated the living room from the kitchen and Jess let herself relax fully. She turned to Sam.
"Sorry," he said quickly. "I should've." And he fullstopped again, his hands coming up the way Dean's had, but fluttering idly, without purpose. She shook her head and laughed gently, putting her hands over his.
"It's okay, Sam. But. you could've told me Dean was deaf."
A clattering of ceramic came from the kitchen, and Sam coughed. "He's not. Just mute."
She felt her cheeks warm. "Oh." She wrinkled her nose. "Sorry. I shouldn't have assumed."
Sam shrugged, taking her hand and pulling her towards the couch. "It's okay. Everyone does."
She took one end of the couch and Sam sat down in a small, overstuffed arm chair just next to her. When Dean returned, three cups held easily in one hand, he took the middle of the couch, next to Jess, and she tried not to shift away from him. The proximity made sense a moment later, when Dean pulled a reporter's notebook and a pen from under one of the newspapers and set it on his knee between them, scribbling out a quick note.
4 stuff Sam won't translate
He grinned a little wickedly, and she heard Sam huff, and she relaxed, letting out a little laugh of her own. "You going to say something mean?"
not about U Another wicked grin accompanied the note, along with a wink. His handwriting was loose but somehow structured, clear and easy to read but quick to write, each letter separated from the next. Sam's, she knew, was far messier, half-cursive, tight, and hurried.
"Dean," Sam said warningly, and Dean gestured without dropping the pen, a single movement that Jess, along with every other American over the age of ten, could recognize immediately. Sam scowled and Jess laughed again.
"That's not nice. He's your brother."
Ur out of his league
"But I like him, anyway."
They stayed there for about half an hour, the tension of the first meeting well and truly broken, as Dean flirted easily in text and facial expression with Jess, fitting his writing and signs into the conversation seamlessly. Jess liked him. He was the perfect counter-balance to Sam, goofy and casual where Sam was serious and proper, teasing harmlessly and getting smile after smile from his brother in a way no other person Jess had met could. When the conversation started to turn to classes, though, Dean set the notebook back on the coffee table, picked up the empty cups, and stood. Jess didn't need Sam's translation to figure out what he was doing.
"He, uh." Sam flushed. "Says he wants to give us some space." Dean's wicked grin-and-wink returned, and Jess knew that the actual words being signed had been far dirtier than what Sam was reporting. Sam lowered his chin and glared without rancor at his brother. "Good night, Dean."
Dean nodded, then held his hand out to Jess. She took it and smiled. "It was nice meeting you, Dean." Another nod, and he bent to brush his lips against her knuckles, none of Sam's awkwardness around old-fashioned gentlemanliness in his actions. Then he let her go, stepped around the coffee table, and clapped a hand to Sam's shoulder, hands flickering. Sam blushed again, and Dean's shoulders shook in a silent laugh as he went back into the kitchen.
Jess raised an eyebrow at Sam, resting her elbows on her knees. "What'd he say?"
"He asked if I had condoms."
Jess laughed and reached out to pat him on the knee. "Don't worry, I've got some in my purse."
Sam colored again, and Jess decided that his blush was the cutest, hottest thing she'd ever seen.
* * *
Jess and Sam dated for six more months, through the end of their sophomore year, and Jess met Dean several more times, usually on his way in or out of the apartment on some job or another, before Sam asked her to move in.
"You don't have to worry about rent. We've got some money. Dean doesn't even really have to work, he just likes it."
Jess had known that Sam was on a scholarship, but the money she hadn't heard about, until now. "I never would have pegged you for a trust fund kid."
Sam shrugged. "Our mom and dad set them up when we were little. Our birth mom and dad. That and the life insurance, and most of the money from selling the house. . . ."
Sam had mentioned early on in their relationship that he and Dean were adopted. He never spoke much about what had happened to his real parents, just that they'd died in a fire when he was a baby and that Dean's godparents, both professors at the University of Kansas, had taken them in.
"You don't have to explain," Jess said. "I'm just surprised, that's all." She was surprised a lot, by Sam, but only by the details he revealed. His actions never shocked her. She'd felt, when they'd first met in their Introduction to Literature class, like she'd known him all her life. Sam nodded, dropping his chin and hiding for a moment behind his long bangs. He looked young when he did that, like the gangly and awkward teenager he must have been in high school.
"So, do you want to?"
She reached out and put her fingers just under his chin, pushing up so she could catch his eyes, then smiled. "Of course I do."
His smile was bright, all teeth. When he grinned like that, Jess saw shades of the wild sense of humor he usually kept so carefully under wraps, and she fell in love with him all over again. She dreamed, sometimes, of seeing that smile on her children's faces. Along, maybe, with a wink or two picked up from their uncle.
"Dean owes me ten bucks."
She laughed. "I know he didn't think I'd say no."
Sam shook his head. "I didn't think I'd have the guts to ask."
Jess decided that she and his brother knew Sam far better than Sam himself did.
* * *
Dean could actually speak, Jess learned one evening, a little while after she first moved in. Not actual words, perhaps, but his vocal chords worked. She found out when Sam was trying to make a sauce for pasta, and sliced his finger open while chopping zucchini. His curse had been drowned out by a short, choked off howl from Dean, a feral sound of pure frustration and fear that made Jess shiver, and Dean had been at Sam's side in a moment, taking the knife from him and holding it with almost professional confidence in the few short moments before he dropped it in the sink. Sam flinched, probably more from the sound Dean made than the actual cut, which while deep, surely wasn't that threatening, and pulled his hand close to his chest.
"It's okay, Dean." He said it low and hurried, casting glances at Jess, who sat frozen at the kitchen table. "It's not bad."
Dean's teeth appeared in a grimace rather than a grin, and he held his hand out sharply for Sam's.
Jess stood. "I'll go get some band aids."
Sam flashed her a grateful look, even as he gave in and let Dean examine his finger. "Thanks."
Jess rushed out, the sound of Sam continuing to reassure his brother drifting after her. She went straight to the apartment's only bathroom and closed the door behind her, flattening her back against it and taking two quick, deep breaths. She liked Dean, he and Sam made her feel safe, but she couldn't get the sound of that howl out of her mind. She spent a few moments composing herself before she opened the medicine cabinet to grab the band aids and a tube of antibiotic cream. Dean had been more wounded by Sam's cut than Sam had. She'd come to realize, in the months since she'd met him, that his teasing and brash attitude hid a protectiveness of his younger brother, one that had probably led him to follow Sam out to California instead of staying in Kansas with their parents, but to see it demonstrated in such a basic, animal way had been a little frightening.
It made her feel like she was throwing herself into the middle of something old, like an anthropologist trying to slip into the culture of a primitive tribe.
She shook her shoulders like she could shake the feeling away, took another quick breath, and headed back into the kitchen. Sam was holding his finger under the faucet, and Dean was finishing chopping the vegetables, and Jess wrapped the cut and they went on with dinner, as though none of it had ever happened.
She didn't bring it up until that night in bed, her back pressed against Sam's chest, his breath hissing softly in her ear.
"Sam."
"Hmm."
"Why doesn't Dean talk?" He shifted against her, but didn't pull away, and she thought she could almost hear him thinking it over, weighing what to tell her. She twisted her head, then rolled to her back, her shoulder pressing gently into his sternum, and caught his eyes. "Tell me. I won't get upset. I just want to know."
He watched the ceiling for a moment before he spoke. "He used to talk. Aunt Carrie and Uncle Dan say he wouldn't shut up." Aunt Carrie and Uncle Dan were his adoptive parents, she knew, Dean's godparents. "Mom" and "Dad" were always reserved for his birth parents. "That was before Mom and Dad died."
Jess nodded, a thousand questions springing to mind. She rolled again instead of asking them, facing him and resting her hand on his hip in silent support.
"I've never heard him say anything. Just -- just what you heard, tonight. He's not -- he was hurt, that night. We're not sure how, but he hit his head, inhaled a lot of smoke. They thought it was PTSD at first. A lot of kids get quiet when something bad happens." He swallowed, eyes still on the ceiling, like the words he wanted were hidden there somewhere, underneath the paint. "Therapy got him out of his shell, but nothing they did could get him to talk. The doctors finally decided it was physical. Some kind of brain damage."
Jess let him fall silent, then, letting the new information sink in and wrap itself around the picture she had of Dean in her mind. She'd never thought much about what it must've been like for Dean, old enough to realize that something bad had happened to his family, but not old enough to completely understand. And to be that hurt at the same time. No wonder he had his moments. No wonder he clung to Sam the way he did. Sam shifted, wrapping his arm tighter around her waist. "Jess?"
"It's okay." It came out absently, and she forced herself to focus and repeated it with more conviction. "It's okay, Sam. You can tell me these things. It doesn't make me love you any less."
He smiled softly, leaning in to give her a brief, closed-lipped kiss. "I know. I do. Just. Not everyone gets it."
"I do," she said, closing her eyes.
"He's just a normal guy. Who doesn't speak."
She nodded. "I know, Sam. And you're just an extraordinary guy, who takes care of him."
She felt his breath whisper across her forehead in an almost silent chuckle. "Don't let him hear you say that. He thinks he takes care of me."
She smiled. "You take care of each other, then." She opened her eyes to look up at him. "Just make sure there's room for me in there too, okay?"
He tugged her closer, his jaw against her cheek bone. "Always."
* * *
After that night, Jess found herself in the library, often, going through books on psychology and the anatomy of the brain. She looked up everything she could find on muteness, aphasia, and the Broca and Wernicke areas, and how physical damage could affect a person's speech. She wasn't sure why -- it was about twenty years too late for a cure for Dean -- except that she could picture Sam doing the same thing as he grew up. It made her feel closer to him, somehow. Like if she could fully understand Dean, she could cement herself into Sam's life. At the start of their junior year, as Sam threw himself fully into the pre-law track, she signed up for psychology classes, and soon found herself looking at a double major, anthro and psych. She'd long dreamed of being an archaeologist, digging up the past like a female Indiana Jones, but now found herself more interested in the present. She knew she was being a little crazy, herself. She was changing her life and her future plans not even just for her boyfriend, but for her boyfriend's brother. If she'd heard that any of her friends were doing such a thing, she'd have freaked.
But she couldn't help but feel, the more time she spent with Sam, that he was her future. She loved him, the way he stressed out over his classes, the way he seemed to always know a little something about everything, the way he was so protective of his odd little family and their dark history. And she liked Dean, already thought of him as a sort of brother. She liked the way he seemed to fit seamlessly into social situations, despite his speech impairment. She even liked how obsessive he was about his car, a classic Chevy he'd apparently rebuilt when he was a teenager. She also, she had to admit, liked the fact that he was often absent from the apartment for up to a week at a time on his business trips. She was pretty sure she'd have gone insane, if he were home all of the time.
Needless to say, it surprised the hell out of her when, in the middle of one of those week-long trips out of town, she found him curled up in the corner of the school library, a laptop on his lap and a book of American folklore on the table next to him. She was so startled she dropped her books. His head snapped up and his eyes widened, and she could do no more than gape at him for several moments.
He lifted his hands from the keyboard defensively, eyes casting to either side, and she knew that this was more than him getting back earlier than planned. She hurried over.
"Dean," she hissed, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb any of the other students. It was getting close to finals, and she knew how crazy they could be if their studying was interrupted.
His hands dropped back to the keyboard and he typed rapidly. A mechanical voice sounded from the laptop's speakers. I can explain.
"I thought you were in Oklahoma this week."
Finished early. The computer's voice was completely flat, and for once, Dean's face was expressionless.
"Don't lie to me." She stepped in close, leaning to peer at his screen, and though he alt-tabbed quickly out of the web browser he'd had open, she caught sight of what looked like an obituary before the word processing program took up the entire screen. "What are you doing?"
He sighed and took his hands off the keyboard. Research, he signed. She'd been getting better with ASL since moving in with them, but still could only do single words or simple phrases at a time.
"That didn't look like a classic car, to me."
He closed his eyes, reaching up to rub his nose, then started typing. It's not. Just a hobby. Got back early, didn't want to go back to the apartment yet. A pause, then: Don't tell Sam.
"Why not?"
He looked up at her, his eyes pleading. He doesn't like it.
"Well, it is pretty morbid."
That got a sardonic grin and a half-shrug.
"Did you know them? The person in the article."
He shook his head. Just a hobby.
"Your hobby is looking up deaths." Another shrug. Jess sighed. "Are you coming home, tonight?" He paused, then nodded.
Just got back. Will call Sam, later.
She shook her head. She knew he was hiding something -- who looked up obituaries for a hobby? -- but so long as he didn't bring whatever it was home with him or drag Sam into it, she figured it was none of her business. "We're going out, tonight. It's Brian's birthday."
He nodded. See you late or tomorrow, then.
"Yeah. I'll see you."
* * *
Jess started noticing things, after that, things that she'd always just shrugged off before. Like the fact that Dean's bookcase had a lot of folklore and religious texts in it for a guy mostly interested in cars and girls. She noticed that when Dean did the grocery shopping, he always put the bags on the backseat of his car, rather than in the trunk. She noticed that his luggage, when he left on one of his trips, tended to clank, though she supposed that that could be car parts. She noticed that while Kansas and Palo Alto newspapers always ended up on the steamer trunk in the living room, Dean would occasionally take another paper, one that didn't quite resemble the Palo Alto Daily News or the Lawrence Journal World, into his room. She noticed that, sometimes, when he thought she and Sam weren't home, he'd watch the History Channel or Ghost Chasers, his notebook poised on his knee.
She never told Sam, though. She didn't like keeping secrets from him, but Dean's business was Dean's business, and she didn't want to cause any trouble between the brothers.
Dean's phone beeped, occasionally, in the middle of the night. He couldn't take phone calls, of course, but he was an avid text-messager, and once or twice, as her and Sam's junior year drew to a close, he'd check his messages at midnight and be gone from the apartment the next morning.
Dean's "hobby", it seemed, took up more of his life than he was willing to admit to anyone.
Still, Jess thought, it was none of her business. Sam was gearing up for the LSATs and law school interviews, and she had enough schoolwork of her own, with her double major, to keep her busy.
In October of their senior year, Dean left town for the entire month, claiming a job in Jericho had gone pear-shaped. He texted or emailed daily, mostly to demand updates on Sam's test scores and plans, but never said much about what he was up to. Then on Halloween, as Jess was getting her costume together, the apartment phone rang, and whoever was on the other end left Sam silent and fuming.
She stepped up behind him, nurse's uniform left open across her chest in her worry, and put her arms around his waist as he hung up the phone.
"Sam, what is it?"
"That was Dean's work." He spoke through gritted teeth and didn't relax against her the way he usually would. "They're asking where he is. He hasn't been in all week."
Jess frowned. "He's in Jericho."
Sam nodded once, his hands clenching. "Yeah, well. Apparently he isn't there for them." He broke away from her sharply, storming into his room. She hurried after him.
"Sam --" She froze when she saw him packing. "Where are you going?"
"Jericho."
"Sam, come on. Try texting him. I'm sure there's a reasonable --"
Sam shook his head. "He's done this before."
Jess frowned. "What?"
"In high school." He stopped his frantic packing for a moment, his head dropping forward. "Right after he finished fixing up his car. His junior year. He went missing for two months."
"People do stupid things in high school, Sam. I'm sure this isn't --"
"It's the same thing." Sam started packing again, throwing handfuls of clothes into his bag without checking what they were or if they matched. "He told us it was a school trip. Going to DC for a week. He'd page or email every day to check in, but then the school called. He'd managed to get them to think he was sick, but they were concerned about how long he'd been absent. And we couldn't find him."
Jess opened her mouth to speak, but had no idea what to say.
"When he came back, he had a broken arm and stitches in his back. He wouldn't tell anyone where he went or what he was doing. Aunt Carrie and Uncle Dan put him back in therapy."
Jess knew what to say to that. "You told me he wasn't dangerous."
"He isn't." Sam zipped his duffel bag up harder than was necessary. "Not to anyone except himself."
"You're telling me your brother's crazy." She wondered if she should be more surprised than she was.
"Guess so."
"And you're going after him."
"Yeah."
"Sam, you have an interview on Monday. If he's really missing or in trouble, we should call the police."
"They won't help him." Sam sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Look, I just need to check. I can probably catch a bus down to Jericho, see if he's really there, and if he is, bring him home. If I can't find him, I'll call the authorities."
Jess sighed and reminded herself that Sam's love and worry for his brother was one of the things she loved about him. "Promise you'll be back by Monday."
"I promise."
"And be careful. Don't let him --"
"I won't." He picked up his duffel bag and turned to look at her, his face falling. "I'm sorry. I know you were really looking forward to this party."
"It's okay," she said, though she wasn't sure if it was. "You need to take care of Dean."
He bent down, catching her lips with his own in a quick, passionate kiss. "I love you."
She smiled slightly. "I love you, too. I'll miss you."
He pulled her into a quick hug, then before she knew it, was out the door.
* * *
She went to the party without him, and had a terrible time. She spent the rest of the weekend leaving messages on his cellphone and searching through the apartment, looking for some clue Dean might've left that he was going nuts. She found his old newspapers and print outs of missing persons cases and obituaries from several places around the country -- many of them in towns he'd said he had business in -- but nothing on Jericho. She wondered if he was some kind of criminal. She wondered if he was some kind of undercover FBI agent. She wondered if she was going as crazy as he apparently had.
By Sunday night, Sam still wasn't home, and she started to wonder if she'd wasted the last two years of her life on a case of hopeless romanticism. She turned on the shower and stared at herself in the mirror over her dresser, touching at the bags forming under her eyes and trying not to cry.
The lights flickered, and a man appeared so suddenly in the reflection that she shrieked, jumping back and spinning around.
There was no one there.
She closed her eyes and rubbed at them with her fingers. She was definitely going mad.
A breath whispered in her ear. Jessica. The lights went out and suddenly she was being pushed back by nothing at all, pressed against the wall in her white nightgown like a flower between the pages of a book.
The man stood in the center of the bedroom, at the foot of the bed, dressed in shadow, his eyes glinting an eerie yellow. She tried to take a breath to scream, but couldn't get enough air.
"Pretty little Jess," the man said. He lifted one hand, and the pressure holding her to the wall increased until she saw stars. "You know, he was going to ask you to marry him?"
What?
"That's right, Sammy's all love-struck. Can't have that."
She strained her senses, trying to hear if the voice was familiar. The build was almost right for Dean, but Dean didn't speak, and he couldn't -- no one could just pin someone to a wall like this. It was impossible. She had to be dreaming. Or crazy. The pressure increased, rolling upwards from her feet to her head, squeezing her hard against the wall, and she realized with a start that she was moving. Her feet weren't on the floor any more, and the man was standing below her, hand still raised.
"What?" It was little more than a wheeze. The man laughed.
"Don't bother that pretty little head of yours. This'll all be over soon."
Her head hit the ceiling, and still the pressure pushed her upwards. Her neck bent, and then her shoulders, and then she was sliding along until she hung, suspended over the bed. In the back of her mind, she registered a door opening.
"Sam," she whispered. The man clucked his tongue.
"Shhh," the man said. "Not quite yet."
Footsteps crossed the living room to the kitchen, then to the bathroom, where the shower was still running. A pause, then a knock on the bedroom door.
"What do you say," the man said, seemingly directly into her ear. "Should we let him in?"
Someone help me, Jess thought. Please, God, someone help me.
"Could be fun," the man said. And the door opened, and Dean walked in. He froze two steps into the room, staring at the man, and for a moment, Jess could have cheered. He saw him. She wasn't completely insane.
"You." It was a hoarse whisper, roughened and battered by years of ill-use, but she recognized the voice that had cried out like an animal that day in the kitchen. She wanted to shout, or whimper, or do anything but stick to the ceiling and struggle to breathe. Dean was shaking, she realized. The man was laughing.
"Hello, Dean. Been awhile."
The sound Dean made next wasn't a word in any language Jess knew, just an inarticulate cry of rage as he barreled forward, then flew back, smacking hard into the wall. The man had barely moved.
"Now now, Dean. That's no way to greet an old friend." The man looked up at her, and Dean looked up as well, his eyes going wide and round, his mouth working soundlessly. The man laughed again. "That's right, Dean. Just like Daddy." The man winked at Jess. "Didn't know that, did you, girl. Didn't know that this is how Daddy Winchester met his end, stuck fast to a ceiling in little Sammy's nursery. Dean did." Dean was struggling to his feet, his face twisted into a grimace, and the man gestured casually, throwing Dean back into the wall. Jess found herself imagining him as a small boy, long ago and far away, struggling to stop this man the way he was now, and she wanted to scream. "We're missing some details though, aren't we, Dean. Like this." The man made a slicing motion with his hand, and pain streaked across Jess's stomach and she found the breath to cry out.
"No," Dean said, his voice as broken and hoarse as it was before. He kept talking, mixed up syllables clashing and stuttering against each other.
"Is that Latin?" The man sounded amused. "Oh, Dean. Too little, too late." Dean smacked back into the wall again and stayed there, the tendons in his neck standing out as he strained as though against some unnatural grip. "Is that any way to mind your mother?"
Jess's mind was spinning as she tried desperately to connect the dots. But the pain in her stomach made her want to throw up and vertigo threatened to overwhelm her and spots were building up in her vision and she couldn't make one and one equal two, much less figure out this bizarre equation. The man seemed to be ignoring her, now, though the force holding her to the ceiling was as strong as ever. He stepped up close to Dean, who flinched away as best he could, still stuttering out badly pronounced Latin phrases.
"And you'd been doing so well. What was it she said, that night, when she dropped you off with 'Aunt Carrie'?" The man's voice changed, suddenly, taking on the higher tone of a grown woman. "'I have to go, Dean. You take care of Sam. And don't tell anyone about what you saw. Don't. Say. A word.'" The man reached out to run his fingers over Dean's cheek, and Jess heard Dean whimper. "How long did you keep that up, huh Dean? Only to ruin it now with your Latin." The man suddenly stepped back, stretching his arms out to either side. "But, it's almost show time. Shame, I'd love to take the time to kill you properly. Still, someone's gotta take care of Sammy, right?"
And the man vanished, but Jess still couldn't move. Dean stayed against the wall, chest heaving in silent sobs, and Sam's voice rang out from the living room.
"Jess?"
Sam, help me, get me down, help us, please, Sam, help me,
"Dean?"
I'm going to die, I'm going to die, Sam, helpmeplease,
The door to the room opened, blocking Dean from sight as Sam walked in. "Jess?"
Please, Sam, please, I'm going to die,
Sam sighed and sat down on the bed. He flopped over backwards, his eyes closed. He looked exhausted.
SampleasehelpI'mgoingtodieplease
A drop of blood hit his forehead, then another, and he opened his eyes, staring straight up into Jess's. Her vision tunneled to his face as his mouth fell open. "No!"
SampleaseI'mgoingtodiehelpSamhelpplease
Pain and light erupted around Jess. The last thing she heard was a muffled roar from Dean as he finally broke away from the wall and the door. The last thing she saw was Sam's terrified face and Dean's arms reaching for him.
HelpSampleaseDEANHELPSAM
And then there was nothing.
Continued in Second Skin
Author: Bella Temple
Category: SPN, AU, Het, drama
Rating: Teen
Warnings: AU, some language, character death
Spoilers: Nothing past the pilot
Characters: Sam/Jess, Dean
Disclaimer: The characters and basic premise within are property of Warner Bros, Eric Kripke, etc. No money is being made off this work of fiction.
Author's note:This AU has been living in my head for several months now. It's likely to become a series (tentatively titled "But Deadly"), but so far, this is the only part that's fleshed itself out into a complete story. The whole universe I'm building is terribly interesting to me. Hopefully, you'll enjoy it, too.
Summary: Jess thought, when she met Sam, that the two of them would grow up, get married, have kids, and have a life. Then she met Dean, and everything spiraled away.
ETA Now available as a podfic, read by diane_mckay.
The first time Sam brought Jess home, he paused with his key hovering hovering in front of the lock and his jaw working like he had something to say but didn't know how.
Jess had gotten used to this sort of behavior from him on their other dates. It was part of what had drawn her to him, the way he was always so careful with words, so mysterious with what he chose to hold back and what he revealed. So she waited just behind him, her arms tucked into the sleeves of the jacket he'd loaned her, all awkward when they'd first left the club and started walking through the rain, like he couldn't decide if he was being tacky or romantic. When he didn't speak or move for what she thought must be a full minute, she finally opened her mouth.
"What is it, Sam?"
He frowned, slipped the key in the lock, then stopped again.
"I think my brother's home."
He'd talked about his brother, along with the rest of his family, on their first date. Older by four years. Worked as some kind of consultant in the classic car industry. They lived together in an apartment off campus. Dean hadn't gone to college. Bare bones, really.
"You have separate rooms, right?"
Sam nodded, a slight blush coloring his cheeks.
"Then what's the problem?"
"He's going to want to meet you."
Jess wanted to meet him. Brothers weren't nearly as intimidating as parents, and she liked Sam enough to even want to meet them, eventually. "I don't mind."
"He's." Sam put a full stop on the end of the word, like the rest of the sentence had escaped him. "He's a little."
"Is he dangerous?"
Sam shook his head sharply. "No. That's not it. It's just."
She put her hand on his, guiding it to turn the key. "Then it's okay. Really." She flashed him a smile and watched his shoulders lower and relax. "I want to meet him."
He let out a slow breath, then smiled in return. "Okay." And he opened the door.
The front door opened directly onto the living room, giving a profile view of the couch. A man -- Dean, clearly, in his mid-twenties and casually dressed -- slumped there with a glossy magazine, but had his face turned towards the door. He looked curious, alert, and when he spotted her over Sam's shoulder, he broke into a wide grin and lifted one hand from the magazine in a wave.
"Dean," Sam said, stepping to one side and lifting his hand as though to try and take the jacket, then lowering it after a moment. Jacket taking, apparently, fell under the "tacky" category. Jess didn't mind -- the jacket was warm and smelled of leather, cologne, and books. Like Sam. "This is Jess. Jess, my brother Dean."
Dean stood then, setting the magazine on the steamer-trunk-turned-coffee-table, already littered with car magazines, newspapers, and textbooks. He lifted his hand again in a wave, then turned his eyes to Sam, his hands fluttering about midway up his chest in quick, precise movements. Jess recognized it as sign language, but the movements were quick, and she was a good four years from the single class she'd taken. She felt her eyes widen slightly in surprise, then quickly schooled her expression and brought the smile out again.
"He says it's nice to meet you," Sam offered, an apology in his voice, and she nodded, making sure her face was turned straight towards Dean even as her eyes slid sideways to Sam's.
"It's nice to meet you, too."
They stood there like that for a moment, while Jess tried desperately not to stare, awkwardness hanging from all three of them the way Sam's jacket hung from her shoulders. Then Dean's hands moved again, and Jess recognized the gesture for "coffee". She hurried to speak before Sam translated, desperate to show that she wasn't completely overwhelmed or weirded out.
"Coffee would be great. Decaf?"
She felt Sam relax as Dean nodded, hands flickering in a few more gestures that she assumed translated to something like "one lump or two?"
"Two sugars. With cream."
Another nod from Dean, and a shutterflash of a smile, and then Dean was heading through the rounded arch that separated the living room from the kitchen and Jess let herself relax fully. She turned to Sam.
"Sorry," he said quickly. "I should've." And he fullstopped again, his hands coming up the way Dean's had, but fluttering idly, without purpose. She shook her head and laughed gently, putting her hands over his.
"It's okay, Sam. But. you could've told me Dean was deaf."
A clattering of ceramic came from the kitchen, and Sam coughed. "He's not. Just mute."
She felt her cheeks warm. "Oh." She wrinkled her nose. "Sorry. I shouldn't have assumed."
Sam shrugged, taking her hand and pulling her towards the couch. "It's okay. Everyone does."
She took one end of the couch and Sam sat down in a small, overstuffed arm chair just next to her. When Dean returned, three cups held easily in one hand, he took the middle of the couch, next to Jess, and she tried not to shift away from him. The proximity made sense a moment later, when Dean pulled a reporter's notebook and a pen from under one of the newspapers and set it on his knee between them, scribbling out a quick note.
4 stuff Sam won't translate
He grinned a little wickedly, and she heard Sam huff, and she relaxed, letting out a little laugh of her own. "You going to say something mean?"
not about U Another wicked grin accompanied the note, along with a wink. His handwriting was loose but somehow structured, clear and easy to read but quick to write, each letter separated from the next. Sam's, she knew, was far messier, half-cursive, tight, and hurried.
"Dean," Sam said warningly, and Dean gestured without dropping the pen, a single movement that Jess, along with every other American over the age of ten, could recognize immediately. Sam scowled and Jess laughed again.
"That's not nice. He's your brother."
Ur out of his league
"But I like him, anyway."
They stayed there for about half an hour, the tension of the first meeting well and truly broken, as Dean flirted easily in text and facial expression with Jess, fitting his writing and signs into the conversation seamlessly. Jess liked him. He was the perfect counter-balance to Sam, goofy and casual where Sam was serious and proper, teasing harmlessly and getting smile after smile from his brother in a way no other person Jess had met could. When the conversation started to turn to classes, though, Dean set the notebook back on the coffee table, picked up the empty cups, and stood. Jess didn't need Sam's translation to figure out what he was doing.
"He, uh." Sam flushed. "Says he wants to give us some space." Dean's wicked grin-and-wink returned, and Jess knew that the actual words being signed had been far dirtier than what Sam was reporting. Sam lowered his chin and glared without rancor at his brother. "Good night, Dean."
Dean nodded, then held his hand out to Jess. She took it and smiled. "It was nice meeting you, Dean." Another nod, and he bent to brush his lips against her knuckles, none of Sam's awkwardness around old-fashioned gentlemanliness in his actions. Then he let her go, stepped around the coffee table, and clapped a hand to Sam's shoulder, hands flickering. Sam blushed again, and Dean's shoulders shook in a silent laugh as he went back into the kitchen.
Jess raised an eyebrow at Sam, resting her elbows on her knees. "What'd he say?"
"He asked if I had condoms."
Jess laughed and reached out to pat him on the knee. "Don't worry, I've got some in my purse."
Sam colored again, and Jess decided that his blush was the cutest, hottest thing she'd ever seen.
* * *
Jess and Sam dated for six more months, through the end of their sophomore year, and Jess met Dean several more times, usually on his way in or out of the apartment on some job or another, before Sam asked her to move in.
"You don't have to worry about rent. We've got some money. Dean doesn't even really have to work, he just likes it."
Jess had known that Sam was on a scholarship, but the money she hadn't heard about, until now. "I never would have pegged you for a trust fund kid."
Sam shrugged. "Our mom and dad set them up when we were little. Our birth mom and dad. That and the life insurance, and most of the money from selling the house. . . ."
Sam had mentioned early on in their relationship that he and Dean were adopted. He never spoke much about what had happened to his real parents, just that they'd died in a fire when he was a baby and that Dean's godparents, both professors at the University of Kansas, had taken them in.
"You don't have to explain," Jess said. "I'm just surprised, that's all." She was surprised a lot, by Sam, but only by the details he revealed. His actions never shocked her. She'd felt, when they'd first met in their Introduction to Literature class, like she'd known him all her life. Sam nodded, dropping his chin and hiding for a moment behind his long bangs. He looked young when he did that, like the gangly and awkward teenager he must have been in high school.
"So, do you want to?"
She reached out and put her fingers just under his chin, pushing up so she could catch his eyes, then smiled. "Of course I do."
His smile was bright, all teeth. When he grinned like that, Jess saw shades of the wild sense of humor he usually kept so carefully under wraps, and she fell in love with him all over again. She dreamed, sometimes, of seeing that smile on her children's faces. Along, maybe, with a wink or two picked up from their uncle.
"Dean owes me ten bucks."
She laughed. "I know he didn't think I'd say no."
Sam shook his head. "I didn't think I'd have the guts to ask."
Jess decided that she and his brother knew Sam far better than Sam himself did.
* * *
Dean could actually speak, Jess learned one evening, a little while after she first moved in. Not actual words, perhaps, but his vocal chords worked. She found out when Sam was trying to make a sauce for pasta, and sliced his finger open while chopping zucchini. His curse had been drowned out by a short, choked off howl from Dean, a feral sound of pure frustration and fear that made Jess shiver, and Dean had been at Sam's side in a moment, taking the knife from him and holding it with almost professional confidence in the few short moments before he dropped it in the sink. Sam flinched, probably more from the sound Dean made than the actual cut, which while deep, surely wasn't that threatening, and pulled his hand close to his chest.
"It's okay, Dean." He said it low and hurried, casting glances at Jess, who sat frozen at the kitchen table. "It's not bad."
Dean's teeth appeared in a grimace rather than a grin, and he held his hand out sharply for Sam's.
Jess stood. "I'll go get some band aids."
Sam flashed her a grateful look, even as he gave in and let Dean examine his finger. "Thanks."
Jess rushed out, the sound of Sam continuing to reassure his brother drifting after her. She went straight to the apartment's only bathroom and closed the door behind her, flattening her back against it and taking two quick, deep breaths. She liked Dean, he and Sam made her feel safe, but she couldn't get the sound of that howl out of her mind. She spent a few moments composing herself before she opened the medicine cabinet to grab the band aids and a tube of antibiotic cream. Dean had been more wounded by Sam's cut than Sam had. She'd come to realize, in the months since she'd met him, that his teasing and brash attitude hid a protectiveness of his younger brother, one that had probably led him to follow Sam out to California instead of staying in Kansas with their parents, but to see it demonstrated in such a basic, animal way had been a little frightening.
It made her feel like she was throwing herself into the middle of something old, like an anthropologist trying to slip into the culture of a primitive tribe.
She shook her shoulders like she could shake the feeling away, took another quick breath, and headed back into the kitchen. Sam was holding his finger under the faucet, and Dean was finishing chopping the vegetables, and Jess wrapped the cut and they went on with dinner, as though none of it had ever happened.
She didn't bring it up until that night in bed, her back pressed against Sam's chest, his breath hissing softly in her ear.
"Sam."
"Hmm."
"Why doesn't Dean talk?" He shifted against her, but didn't pull away, and she thought she could almost hear him thinking it over, weighing what to tell her. She twisted her head, then rolled to her back, her shoulder pressing gently into his sternum, and caught his eyes. "Tell me. I won't get upset. I just want to know."
He watched the ceiling for a moment before he spoke. "He used to talk. Aunt Carrie and Uncle Dan say he wouldn't shut up." Aunt Carrie and Uncle Dan were his adoptive parents, she knew, Dean's godparents. "Mom" and "Dad" were always reserved for his birth parents. "That was before Mom and Dad died."
Jess nodded, a thousand questions springing to mind. She rolled again instead of asking them, facing him and resting her hand on his hip in silent support.
"I've never heard him say anything. Just -- just what you heard, tonight. He's not -- he was hurt, that night. We're not sure how, but he hit his head, inhaled a lot of smoke. They thought it was PTSD at first. A lot of kids get quiet when something bad happens." He swallowed, eyes still on the ceiling, like the words he wanted were hidden there somewhere, underneath the paint. "Therapy got him out of his shell, but nothing they did could get him to talk. The doctors finally decided it was physical. Some kind of brain damage."
Jess let him fall silent, then, letting the new information sink in and wrap itself around the picture she had of Dean in her mind. She'd never thought much about what it must've been like for Dean, old enough to realize that something bad had happened to his family, but not old enough to completely understand. And to be that hurt at the same time. No wonder he had his moments. No wonder he clung to Sam the way he did. Sam shifted, wrapping his arm tighter around her waist. "Jess?"
"It's okay." It came out absently, and she forced herself to focus and repeated it with more conviction. "It's okay, Sam. You can tell me these things. It doesn't make me love you any less."
He smiled softly, leaning in to give her a brief, closed-lipped kiss. "I know. I do. Just. Not everyone gets it."
"I do," she said, closing her eyes.
"He's just a normal guy. Who doesn't speak."
She nodded. "I know, Sam. And you're just an extraordinary guy, who takes care of him."
She felt his breath whisper across her forehead in an almost silent chuckle. "Don't let him hear you say that. He thinks he takes care of me."
She smiled. "You take care of each other, then." She opened her eyes to look up at him. "Just make sure there's room for me in there too, okay?"
He tugged her closer, his jaw against her cheek bone. "Always."
* * *
After that night, Jess found herself in the library, often, going through books on psychology and the anatomy of the brain. She looked up everything she could find on muteness, aphasia, and the Broca and Wernicke areas, and how physical damage could affect a person's speech. She wasn't sure why -- it was about twenty years too late for a cure for Dean -- except that she could picture Sam doing the same thing as he grew up. It made her feel closer to him, somehow. Like if she could fully understand Dean, she could cement herself into Sam's life. At the start of their junior year, as Sam threw himself fully into the pre-law track, she signed up for psychology classes, and soon found herself looking at a double major, anthro and psych. She'd long dreamed of being an archaeologist, digging up the past like a female Indiana Jones, but now found herself more interested in the present. She knew she was being a little crazy, herself. She was changing her life and her future plans not even just for her boyfriend, but for her boyfriend's brother. If she'd heard that any of her friends were doing such a thing, she'd have freaked.
But she couldn't help but feel, the more time she spent with Sam, that he was her future. She loved him, the way he stressed out over his classes, the way he seemed to always know a little something about everything, the way he was so protective of his odd little family and their dark history. And she liked Dean, already thought of him as a sort of brother. She liked the way he seemed to fit seamlessly into social situations, despite his speech impairment. She even liked how obsessive he was about his car, a classic Chevy he'd apparently rebuilt when he was a teenager. She also, she had to admit, liked the fact that he was often absent from the apartment for up to a week at a time on his business trips. She was pretty sure she'd have gone insane, if he were home all of the time.
Needless to say, it surprised the hell out of her when, in the middle of one of those week-long trips out of town, she found him curled up in the corner of the school library, a laptop on his lap and a book of American folklore on the table next to him. She was so startled she dropped her books. His head snapped up and his eyes widened, and she could do no more than gape at him for several moments.
He lifted his hands from the keyboard defensively, eyes casting to either side, and she knew that this was more than him getting back earlier than planned. She hurried over.
"Dean," she hissed, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb any of the other students. It was getting close to finals, and she knew how crazy they could be if their studying was interrupted.
His hands dropped back to the keyboard and he typed rapidly. A mechanical voice sounded from the laptop's speakers. I can explain.
"I thought you were in Oklahoma this week."
Finished early. The computer's voice was completely flat, and for once, Dean's face was expressionless.
"Don't lie to me." She stepped in close, leaning to peer at his screen, and though he alt-tabbed quickly out of the web browser he'd had open, she caught sight of what looked like an obituary before the word processing program took up the entire screen. "What are you doing?"
He sighed and took his hands off the keyboard. Research, he signed. She'd been getting better with ASL since moving in with them, but still could only do single words or simple phrases at a time.
"That didn't look like a classic car, to me."
He closed his eyes, reaching up to rub his nose, then started typing. It's not. Just a hobby. Got back early, didn't want to go back to the apartment yet. A pause, then: Don't tell Sam.
"Why not?"
He looked up at her, his eyes pleading. He doesn't like it.
"Well, it is pretty morbid."
That got a sardonic grin and a half-shrug.
"Did you know them? The person in the article."
He shook his head. Just a hobby.
"Your hobby is looking up deaths." Another shrug. Jess sighed. "Are you coming home, tonight?" He paused, then nodded.
Just got back. Will call Sam, later.
She shook her head. She knew he was hiding something -- who looked up obituaries for a hobby? -- but so long as he didn't bring whatever it was home with him or drag Sam into it, she figured it was none of her business. "We're going out, tonight. It's Brian's birthday."
He nodded. See you late or tomorrow, then.
"Yeah. I'll see you."
* * *
Jess started noticing things, after that, things that she'd always just shrugged off before. Like the fact that Dean's bookcase had a lot of folklore and religious texts in it for a guy mostly interested in cars and girls. She noticed that when Dean did the grocery shopping, he always put the bags on the backseat of his car, rather than in the trunk. She noticed that his luggage, when he left on one of his trips, tended to clank, though she supposed that that could be car parts. She noticed that while Kansas and Palo Alto newspapers always ended up on the steamer trunk in the living room, Dean would occasionally take another paper, one that didn't quite resemble the Palo Alto Daily News or the Lawrence Journal World, into his room. She noticed that, sometimes, when he thought she and Sam weren't home, he'd watch the History Channel or Ghost Chasers, his notebook poised on his knee.
She never told Sam, though. She didn't like keeping secrets from him, but Dean's business was Dean's business, and she didn't want to cause any trouble between the brothers.
Dean's phone beeped, occasionally, in the middle of the night. He couldn't take phone calls, of course, but he was an avid text-messager, and once or twice, as her and Sam's junior year drew to a close, he'd check his messages at midnight and be gone from the apartment the next morning.
Dean's "hobby", it seemed, took up more of his life than he was willing to admit to anyone.
Still, Jess thought, it was none of her business. Sam was gearing up for the LSATs and law school interviews, and she had enough schoolwork of her own, with her double major, to keep her busy.
In October of their senior year, Dean left town for the entire month, claiming a job in Jericho had gone pear-shaped. He texted or emailed daily, mostly to demand updates on Sam's test scores and plans, but never said much about what he was up to. Then on Halloween, as Jess was getting her costume together, the apartment phone rang, and whoever was on the other end left Sam silent and fuming.
She stepped up behind him, nurse's uniform left open across her chest in her worry, and put her arms around his waist as he hung up the phone.
"Sam, what is it?"
"That was Dean's work." He spoke through gritted teeth and didn't relax against her the way he usually would. "They're asking where he is. He hasn't been in all week."
Jess frowned. "He's in Jericho."
Sam nodded once, his hands clenching. "Yeah, well. Apparently he isn't there for them." He broke away from her sharply, storming into his room. She hurried after him.
"Sam --" She froze when she saw him packing. "Where are you going?"
"Jericho."
"Sam, come on. Try texting him. I'm sure there's a reasonable --"
Sam shook his head. "He's done this before."
Jess frowned. "What?"
"In high school." He stopped his frantic packing for a moment, his head dropping forward. "Right after he finished fixing up his car. His junior year. He went missing for two months."
"People do stupid things in high school, Sam. I'm sure this isn't --"
"It's the same thing." Sam started packing again, throwing handfuls of clothes into his bag without checking what they were or if they matched. "He told us it was a school trip. Going to DC for a week. He'd page or email every day to check in, but then the school called. He'd managed to get them to think he was sick, but they were concerned about how long he'd been absent. And we couldn't find him."
Jess opened her mouth to speak, but had no idea what to say.
"When he came back, he had a broken arm and stitches in his back. He wouldn't tell anyone where he went or what he was doing. Aunt Carrie and Uncle Dan put him back in therapy."
Jess knew what to say to that. "You told me he wasn't dangerous."
"He isn't." Sam zipped his duffel bag up harder than was necessary. "Not to anyone except himself."
"You're telling me your brother's crazy." She wondered if she should be more surprised than she was.
"Guess so."
"And you're going after him."
"Yeah."
"Sam, you have an interview on Monday. If he's really missing or in trouble, we should call the police."
"They won't help him." Sam sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Look, I just need to check. I can probably catch a bus down to Jericho, see if he's really there, and if he is, bring him home. If I can't find him, I'll call the authorities."
Jess sighed and reminded herself that Sam's love and worry for his brother was one of the things she loved about him. "Promise you'll be back by Monday."
"I promise."
"And be careful. Don't let him --"
"I won't." He picked up his duffel bag and turned to look at her, his face falling. "I'm sorry. I know you were really looking forward to this party."
"It's okay," she said, though she wasn't sure if it was. "You need to take care of Dean."
He bent down, catching her lips with his own in a quick, passionate kiss. "I love you."
She smiled slightly. "I love you, too. I'll miss you."
He pulled her into a quick hug, then before she knew it, was out the door.
* * *
She went to the party without him, and had a terrible time. She spent the rest of the weekend leaving messages on his cellphone and searching through the apartment, looking for some clue Dean might've left that he was going nuts. She found his old newspapers and print outs of missing persons cases and obituaries from several places around the country -- many of them in towns he'd said he had business in -- but nothing on Jericho. She wondered if he was some kind of criminal. She wondered if he was some kind of undercover FBI agent. She wondered if she was going as crazy as he apparently had.
By Sunday night, Sam still wasn't home, and she started to wonder if she'd wasted the last two years of her life on a case of hopeless romanticism. She turned on the shower and stared at herself in the mirror over her dresser, touching at the bags forming under her eyes and trying not to cry.
The lights flickered, and a man appeared so suddenly in the reflection that she shrieked, jumping back and spinning around.
There was no one there.
She closed her eyes and rubbed at them with her fingers. She was definitely going mad.
A breath whispered in her ear. Jessica. The lights went out and suddenly she was being pushed back by nothing at all, pressed against the wall in her white nightgown like a flower between the pages of a book.
The man stood in the center of the bedroom, at the foot of the bed, dressed in shadow, his eyes glinting an eerie yellow. She tried to take a breath to scream, but couldn't get enough air.
"Pretty little Jess," the man said. He lifted one hand, and the pressure holding her to the wall increased until she saw stars. "You know, he was going to ask you to marry him?"
What?
"That's right, Sammy's all love-struck. Can't have that."
She strained her senses, trying to hear if the voice was familiar. The build was almost right for Dean, but Dean didn't speak, and he couldn't -- no one could just pin someone to a wall like this. It was impossible. She had to be dreaming. Or crazy. The pressure increased, rolling upwards from her feet to her head, squeezing her hard against the wall, and she realized with a start that she was moving. Her feet weren't on the floor any more, and the man was standing below her, hand still raised.
"What?" It was little more than a wheeze. The man laughed.
"Don't bother that pretty little head of yours. This'll all be over soon."
Her head hit the ceiling, and still the pressure pushed her upwards. Her neck bent, and then her shoulders, and then she was sliding along until she hung, suspended over the bed. In the back of her mind, she registered a door opening.
"Sam," she whispered. The man clucked his tongue.
"Shhh," the man said. "Not quite yet."
Footsteps crossed the living room to the kitchen, then to the bathroom, where the shower was still running. A pause, then a knock on the bedroom door.
"What do you say," the man said, seemingly directly into her ear. "Should we let him in?"
Someone help me, Jess thought. Please, God, someone help me.
"Could be fun," the man said. And the door opened, and Dean walked in. He froze two steps into the room, staring at the man, and for a moment, Jess could have cheered. He saw him. She wasn't completely insane.
"You." It was a hoarse whisper, roughened and battered by years of ill-use, but she recognized the voice that had cried out like an animal that day in the kitchen. She wanted to shout, or whimper, or do anything but stick to the ceiling and struggle to breathe. Dean was shaking, she realized. The man was laughing.
"Hello, Dean. Been awhile."
The sound Dean made next wasn't a word in any language Jess knew, just an inarticulate cry of rage as he barreled forward, then flew back, smacking hard into the wall. The man had barely moved.
"Now now, Dean. That's no way to greet an old friend." The man looked up at her, and Dean looked up as well, his eyes going wide and round, his mouth working soundlessly. The man laughed again. "That's right, Dean. Just like Daddy." The man winked at Jess. "Didn't know that, did you, girl. Didn't know that this is how Daddy Winchester met his end, stuck fast to a ceiling in little Sammy's nursery. Dean did." Dean was struggling to his feet, his face twisted into a grimace, and the man gestured casually, throwing Dean back into the wall. Jess found herself imagining him as a small boy, long ago and far away, struggling to stop this man the way he was now, and she wanted to scream. "We're missing some details though, aren't we, Dean. Like this." The man made a slicing motion with his hand, and pain streaked across Jess's stomach and she found the breath to cry out.
"No," Dean said, his voice as broken and hoarse as it was before. He kept talking, mixed up syllables clashing and stuttering against each other.
"Is that Latin?" The man sounded amused. "Oh, Dean. Too little, too late." Dean smacked back into the wall again and stayed there, the tendons in his neck standing out as he strained as though against some unnatural grip. "Is that any way to mind your mother?"
Jess's mind was spinning as she tried desperately to connect the dots. But the pain in her stomach made her want to throw up and vertigo threatened to overwhelm her and spots were building up in her vision and she couldn't make one and one equal two, much less figure out this bizarre equation. The man seemed to be ignoring her, now, though the force holding her to the ceiling was as strong as ever. He stepped up close to Dean, who flinched away as best he could, still stuttering out badly pronounced Latin phrases.
"And you'd been doing so well. What was it she said, that night, when she dropped you off with 'Aunt Carrie'?" The man's voice changed, suddenly, taking on the higher tone of a grown woman. "'I have to go, Dean. You take care of Sam. And don't tell anyone about what you saw. Don't. Say. A word.'" The man reached out to run his fingers over Dean's cheek, and Jess heard Dean whimper. "How long did you keep that up, huh Dean? Only to ruin it now with your Latin." The man suddenly stepped back, stretching his arms out to either side. "But, it's almost show time. Shame, I'd love to take the time to kill you properly. Still, someone's gotta take care of Sammy, right?"
And the man vanished, but Jess still couldn't move. Dean stayed against the wall, chest heaving in silent sobs, and Sam's voice rang out from the living room.
"Jess?"
Sam, help me, get me down, help us, please, Sam, help me,
"Dean?"
I'm going to die, I'm going to die, Sam, helpmeplease,
The door to the room opened, blocking Dean from sight as Sam walked in. "Jess?"
Please, Sam, please, I'm going to die,
Sam sighed and sat down on the bed. He flopped over backwards, his eyes closed. He looked exhausted.
SampleasehelpI'mgoingtodieplease
A drop of blood hit his forehead, then another, and he opened his eyes, staring straight up into Jess's. Her vision tunneled to his face as his mouth fell open. "No!"
SampleaseI'mgoingtodiehelpSamhelpplease
Pain and light erupted around Jess. The last thing she heard was a muffled roar from Dean as he finally broke away from the wall and the door. The last thing she saw was Sam's terrified face and Dean's arms reaching for him.
HelpSampleaseDEANHELPSAM
And then there was nothing.
Continued in Second Skin