Fic: Fear No More (2/13)

[jedisapphire]

Chapter I: How It All Began

Chapter II: How Big Brothers Are Weird

The ghost boy, whoever he was, didn't look like he planned to hurt me. He just looked like he wanted to say something.

"What?" I asked.

His eyes widened in surprise. Clearly, nobody had ever tried to talk to him before.

He tried to answer, but I think he was too far gone - maybe he'd been dead too long - to speak. Instead, I heard a weird buzz behind me, and turned again just in time to see the wordKiller flicker on the laptop screen.

I looked back at the boy, who gave me another pleading look before he vanished.

Just on the off-chance that he'd been telling me his name (I know, but I had to work every angle), I checked the school's past records for a student whose name was 'Killer', and then went through the yearbooks that they'd managed to get online. I drew a blank. Then I tried going through all the old class photos to try to locate the boy, but there were too many and the older ones were too blurred and grainy for me to be sure.

It looked like the simple hunt wasn't going to be so simple after all.

I gave up and used the time I had left to do the Math homework I'd forgotten about the day before. I finished just in time to shove the papers into a binder and hurry down to Ms. Gomez's classroom.

I liked Math and Ms. Gomez was a good enough teacher to keep me thoroughly engaged. By the time she dismissed us for lunch, I'd completely forgotten about Adam Jefferson and the mysterious ghost child. (Yes, Dean, only geeks let math distract them from mysterious ghost children. Will you stop harping on that if I stipulate to it?)

Memory came screaming back as soon as I stepped out of the classroom. I'd barely taken a few steps down the corridor when I felt a sudden chill, and then I saw him, in the middle of the hallway, ignoring the students streaming by on either side and through him and looking at me with wide, sad eyes.

I felt like I'd betrayed him.

That was sort of ridiculous - I mean, he was a ghost - but I couldn't help the apologetic smile on my face. He met my eyes (I know he met my eyes, Dean; I wasn't imagining it) and nodded.

He vanished.

Nobody else had seen him.

I thought hard, not really listening to Tom's chatter about casting for the Christmas play as we made our way to the cafeteria.

Dean was already sitting at the Senior table with the previous day's cheerleader (captain of the squad, Dennis muttered in my ear enviously - fortunately they didn't know Dean was my brother or I'd never have heard the end of it). He was wearing the grin he usually does when he's trying to get a girl, broad and bright and so fake I've never understood how girls fall for it. Nobody who's ever seen Dean smile for real could possibly mistake his flirting grin for the genuine article.

He had his game face on, I realized as I watched him. I'd always known that nobody but me ever got to see Dean's soft side, but right then he looked so brash and so carefree that if I hadn't known him, I wouldn't even have believed he was the same person who snuck into my room in the middle of the night to check on me because he heard a rumour that I was sick.

Dean saw me looking, but the girl had her eyes on him so he didn't show any sign of recognition.

That didn't bother me. (No, it didn't, Dean. No, I didn't flinch! What the hell do you remember about it, anyway? It was years ago and you have a mind like a colander for anything that isn't women's phone numbers.)

I couldn't imagine who the boy could be, if not Adam Jefferson. In all the records I'd been through, he was the only student who'd ever died on campus. (Kind of weird, actually, when you considered how long the school had been running, but I didn't think too much of it. Ellison Prep had always been an upper-class school. Healthy kids came there and received the best possible medical attention if they so much as stubbed a toe; it wasn't totally ridiculous that they had a low fatality rate.)

That was logical, but it left me with a problem.

Who was the boy?

Someone who'd died off campus, maybe, but had left one of his possessions lying around to hold him back? Someone who'd failed to come back from his winter ski trip with his family?

Tracking that information down would take forever. There had to be an easier way.

We had Drama after lunch (yeah, I know, it was the kind of school where they don't have Drama Club, they have Drama as a subject). The play was The Importance of Being Earnestand normally I would've enjoyed the lesson, but I was too worried about the kid.

The kid. He'd had a name. He deserved to be known by his name, except that I had no idea what it was.

Drama was a double class. After that Dennis, Tom and Katy went to the Biology lab while Melinda and I had English Lit.

Fortunately that was the last lesson.

When it was over I hurried back to my room, stopping only to grab an apple from the cafeteria. I had a few hours before dinner and I wanted to spend them usefully. The urge to help the ghost child was getting stronger by the minute. I didn't know why, but I had a feeling that it was very important for me to understand what he was trying to say.

After two hours of searching the school's records, I knew one thing. (And I didn't hack them, Dean. Summers gave me the passwords. What do you mean why? He did it because he wanted me to figure out what the hell was going on and I told him I needed them as a prerequisite.)

Something was very wrong.

The school's history was too neat. Too perfect. It was nearly a hundred years old, and the only serious illness ever recorded on campus was the pneumonia that had claimed the life of Adam Jefferson.

A freaking school.

I mean, not even an outbreak of measles or chicken pox. Freaking nothing.

What were the odds of that?

I had to talk to Dean.

I went to his room. The door was open a crack, and I could hear voices from inside.

Crap. Dean wasn't alone.

I stood outside, wondering what to do, half-expecting the door to open and Dean to come out because of big brother radar or whatever the hell. (And you notice how it didn't work that time, Dean? The one time it would actually have been useful to - crap. No. No, I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. God.)

Anyway, the door did open, but it wasn't Dean.

(Yes, you're still an awesome brother.)

It was a guy -

(Yes, I trust you to take care of me.)

- in Dean's class. He was -

(No, I'm not still mad. Now shut up and let me finish a freaking sentence.)

- tall. Or at least, I thought he was tall then. Looking back on it now, he was even shorter than Dean. Chest like a barrel and arms to match. I had a feeling his name was Mark.

"Hey," Mark said. He didn't exactly sound unfriendly, but something in his tone warned me not to stick around. "What are you doing here? Freshman, aren't you?"

"Um," I said, thinking desperately. Where the hell was Dean when I needed him?

As though in answer, Dean came out, too. I felt my heart lift -

But Dean looked at me uncomprehendingly. "Davis, isn't it? What are you doing here?"

Despite my nervousness, I was impressed. I hadn't realized Dean was that good an actor.

"I got lost," I made up. (Seriously, what other explanation could I possibly have given? And I was a new kid. It was plausible.)

"Uh-huh. You need directions, shrimp?"

"No," I said slowly. "I can find my way back."

"Maybe one of us should walk you back," sniggered the guy whose name might have been Mark. "Wouldn't want the baby to lose his way again."

"Yeah, maybe," Dean agreed, with an unpleasant grin. "I'll do it."

My relief was short-lived. We'd barely turned the corner when Dean grabbed me, lifted me (this was in that very brief span of time when Dean was several inches taller than I was) and shoved me against the wall.

"Christo," I said automatically.

Dean smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "It's me, Sam. Not a demon. What do you think you're doing?" His hands tightened on my upper arms. "You're going to give the game away. First making the puppy-eyes at me in the cafeteria -"

"I wasn't -"

"And now this. You're lucky they bought it. You might have blown our cover."

"I just wanted to -"

"What?" Dean growled.

"To talk. I needed to talk to you - about the case!" I added when Dean rolled his eyes. "Dean, I think there's something wrong. I saw the ghost and it's not Adam Jefferson -"

"Yeah? How do you know?"

"It doesn't look like his picture -"

"Kid died in the fifties, Sam. Cameras sucked."

"But -"

"No buts. We went through the records. You went through the records. Any other mysterious deaths?"

"No, but -"

"Any other deaths at all?"

"No, but, Dean -"

"Accidents? Kids blowing up the Chem lab? Anything?"

"Dean -"

"See? The Jefferson kid is the only option, and he probably looks different from his picture because they would've made him dress up to pose for the photo and he would've hated it. Just figure out what the kid left here and burn it so we can go. Or is that too hard for you?"

I gave up. Dean obviously wasn't going to listen. "Fine," I muttered.

He let me go. "Good."

Then he walked away, leaving me to go to the Freshman dining room.

We had a quiz scheduled for the next day, so there were no after-hours pool visits that night. It was Geography, and I hadn't been to a single one of those classes yet. After dinner we all went up to Melinda's room to study together. Curfew was ten, but the warden was understanding the night before a big test, so he only smiled indulgently when Dennis, Tom and I passed him on our way back to our rooms around twelve.

I knew as soon as I opened my door that there was someone else in the room.

I sighed as I went in. "What are you doing here?"

"Where the hell were you?" Dean demanded, not answering my question. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Since when do you care about rules?"

"Since when do you ignore them?"

"What are you doing here?"

Dean sighed. "I thought you might want to show me the picture of the kid - Adam Jefferson."

"What, the one that's useless because it was taken with a camera that sucked while he was fighting desperately to get away from the photographer?"

"Sammy."

I shrugged. "Fine." I shut the door, turned on the laptop, and changed into my PJs (oh, for - I was fourteen) while I waited for it to boot.

I was standing in my pyjama bottoms, unfolding the top, when Dean said, in a tiny, tiny voice, "Sammy?"

I turned. I really wasn't in the mood for crap just because Dean had randomly decided in the middle of the night that maybe I wasn't insane after all. "What?"

"Your…" He gestured in my general direction. "You should have stopped me." He looked a little sick as he gestured again, at my arm this time. "Why didn't you stop me?"

I looked down and saw that my arm was bruised - they were both bruised, actually, and I was pretty sure the purple marks would match Dean's fingers.

Huh.

I remembered him grabbing me earlier. I hadn't thought he'd gripped that hard. Neither had he, obviously.

"Dean -"

By the time I got the second word out, Dean was in front of me, touching, like he needed to measure his fingers against the bruises and be certain the marks came from his hands.

"I wasn't holding you that tight," Dean said, soft, pleading. "I would've known."

I shrugged. We'd given each other worse during training. I said as much, but Dean shook his head as he helped me into the shirt. "That's training. This is me hurting you because I was in a bad mood. That doesn't happen, Sammy."

"OK," I said slowly. "Dean, it's OK."

"I'll get you ice."

"It's already bruised, that's not going to -" The expression on Dean's face stopped me short. I sighed. "OK. Get me ice."

Dean went out and came back in under a minute (literally) with a towel full of ice. (No idea where he got the towel, but it looked clean, so I didn't ask.) I told him everything I'd found while he iced the bruises, and then I showed him the picture of Adam Jefferson.

Dean looked doubtful. "And you're sure this ghost you saw is a different kid?"

"I'm sure, Dean."

"I don't like the sound of this. It's like - what's wrong?" It was only when Dean asked the question that I realized I had a headache again. I told him so. He scowled. "Last night, and now again? You must be coming down with something." Ignoring my protests that I was fine, he palmed my cheek and then my forehead. "Temperature's normal. Maybe you should get some sleep instead of skulking around all night."

"I wasn't skulking -"

"That's enough talking. We can discuss this in the morning. You should get some sleep."

Dean must still have been feeling guilty about the bruises, because he sat on the bed and stroked his hand through my hair until I fell asleep.

Chapter III: Sam's a Horrible Storyteller. I'm Taking Over.