Occam's Razor Part 9
A note in John's journal as decoded by Sam:
October 1992. No reaction to Shinto daggers and altars.
*
A note in John's journal as decoded by Sam:
December 1992. Highly agitated by Dean's "caroling."
***
Sam was dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt, lying on his back with his head propped on thick, fluffy pillows. Dean was next to him, a hand resting on his brother's shoulder as Missouri took a seat in the chair she'd planted beside them.
"All right now," she said, smiling. "Let me tell you both what happened and what we're gonna do about it."
Sam shuddered. Dean squeezed his shoulder.
"To certain psychics, the unconscious and the conscious can be visible. The way the bottom of a swimming pool is when you're standing on the side of it. Not every psychic can push past the bottom, and the majority of us know better than to try." She lay a reassuring hand over Sam's. "Now, those who can, and want access, often put people under hypnosis for two reasons. First off, it helps them see the gateways clearer--say you turned the lights on in that pool at night. And it lets the subject open the doors naturally, without any hurt."
"A human subject?" Sam asked.
"Sammy, I told you--" Dean began.
"What, you think you're not human because there's wards on your mind?" Missouri demanded. Both brothers tensed. "Honey, I've got them, and my mama had them, and her mama before her. Nothing's getting in that I don't want and nothing's getting out. Nothin' wrong or evil about it. Now, if whatever was in your nursery that night locked up those memories? I say bless it."
"Who locked yours?" Sam asked.
"My grandma. As her mama locked hers. Don't make us any less human. Just means we're not gonna let the hurts of the past get in the way of the present."
Sam's eyes filled. "But...a monster locked mine."
"Doesn't make you one." She lifted his hand and held it tight, letting his fear flood into her. "Baby, we all got things buried in there that we don't ever want to know. Wards are just an extra way to keep those memories out."
"When Julian couldn't get in, he basically kicked his way," Dean supplied.
"Right. And when he did, he left a great big gap where a door should be. And that door is growing bigger. I'm gonna shut it up again, honey. But I'm gonna need you to trust me. And to let me put you under again so I can see what I'm doing."
Sam was breathing hard, his face careful and composed though his breathing was closer to panic.
"It won't be anything like before, sugar," Missouri soothed. "Promise. And if I'm wrong, if I start hurting you, your brother here can wake you."
Sam turned to Dean, who smiled gently and squeezed his brother's shoulder, thumb moving in slow circles. "She's gonna give me control over the whole 3-2-1 Houdini thing," Dean reassured. "So if I don't like where it's going, like last time, I can call it off."
"Dean--" Sam's voice cracked.
"No worries, dude. Missouri may be loud and bossy and nosy and--ow!" he yelped as the psychic reached out and whacked him good and hard across the head, "--and a child abuser," he ducked a second swing, "but she knows her stuff. And she wants to help. She will help. Promise."
Sam's eyes met Dean's. Missouri watched as the brothers had a silent, swift conversation before the younger Winchester turned back to her, squared his shoulders, and put on a brave face. Dean smiled and patted his brother's shoulder, a silent attaboy. She marveled at the strength of their connection, at an age where most people were the most self-absorbed. Sam desperately wanted to make Dean proud, trusted his brother unconditionally, while Dean would move heaven, hell, and everything in between to protect his younger brother. Their bond was powerful, thick, and old: it had been planted long before they were born. She could sense it.
"And your brother may be stupid, hedonistic, arrogant and ignorant," she said, causing Sam to smile and Dean to bark an indignant "Hey!", and she continued, "but he's crazy protective of you, honey. He's not gonna let me do a thing he doesn't think is right."
Sam's amused smile changed to a warm, happy glow, even as Dean flushed slightly.
"Close your eyes," Missouri soothed. Sam's hands clenched at the covers. His jaw set, but his lashes began to flutter, and his breathing picked up, rising in harsh, desperate pants. Recognizing the symptoms, Dean quickly slipped an arm beneath his brother's head, sitting him up.
"Easy, easy," he coaxed, letting Sam rest against him. "Breathe through it, Sammy."
Sam couldn't move. He couldn't roll over. He couldn't speak. He could only lie flat, looking at the world around him. Kick and flail and cry, but not fight, not run. Words didn't make sense. He wanted someone to hold him, to run with him, to clear the burn in his throat and the yellow out of the man's eyes. He was cold. He wanted his mother.
"Sammy."
Night, Sam!
"C'mon buddy. C'mon back."
Goodniiiiiiight, looooove.
"Sam!"
Sam gasped and opened his eyes. He still couldn't move, couldn't speak. Dean had him, had an arm around his back and a warm, strong hand on his shoulder. Missouri cupped his chin and met his gaze with a gentle, sweet, reassuring smile.
"I'm going to make it right, Sam," she said gently. "But you've got to trust me. Trust us."
Sam nodded, though he clearly didn't. She could feel the current of memory yanking him backward into the pit of his unconscious, tearing open larger portions of his conscious mind. Could feel Sam struggling against the physical symptoms even as he succumbed to the emotional ones.
Dean moved his hand to Sam's hair and let it rest. "I gotcha," he whispered, just enough for Sam to hear. Some of the tense lines around the younger boy's face relaxed.
"Now," Missouri said, laying a gentle hand against his forehead and guiding him back to the pillow. "I'm gonna put you to sleep, like that lousy bastard did, only I know what I'm doin'. And your brother here is going to help me explain what I'm doin’. You answer both of us, and if you start to feel like before, you tell us and I'll pull back right away. Got it?"
Sam nodded. Dean adjusted his position on the bed so he could clearly see his brother's face, then squeezed his shoulder.
"When I count backwards from ten," Missouri began, "you're going to be in a deep sleep. Completely relaxed, breathing slow." Sam's breath hitched. "No panic. Nothing like before. You and Dean have the reins. Deep sleep, sugar. Relax." She began to count. Sam's fingers twitched, his breathing sped up once more, but Dean's hand settled over his chest and he breathed a soft, "shhhh," and Sam stilled and slowly succumbed to her count.
"Three...two...one." Missouri nodded to Dean.
"Sammy? Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"Who is it?"
"Dean."
"Right. You know where you are?"
"Lawrence."
"Attaboy. With me and Missouri. Remember her?"
"Yes."
"Know why we're here?"
"Fix the hole."
"That's right. Can I let Missouri do her thing?"
Sam paused. "He says yes."
Dean stiffened. "Who says yes?"
"He does."
"Who's 'he,' Sam?"
"He--" Sam frowned and flinched slightly. "He says...no."
"No?"
"Secret."
"What he is?"
"Secret." Sam whimpered. "Shhh. Don't cry. They'll hear you."
Dean grew pale. Missouri leaned forward and took the boy's hand--a flash of gold light pierced her mind. She stood strong before it.
"Sam," she said, "will he let me work?"
"Yes."
"He wants the door repaired?"
"Shut. Closed. His."
"No, Sam. It's your mind."
"His."
"Your memories."
"His. His door. His--" He gasped. "Shhh. Secret."
"I'm going to push against your mind, Sam. I don't want you to resist." She pressed his hand slightly tighter and allowed her vision to dim, the warm dark of the boy's mind growing as she settled in his sleeping conscious. "Does that hurt?"
"No."
"I'm going to go deeper. Toward your unconscious. Tell me if you feel any pain."
"No pain."
"Good boy." She moved deeper, the familiar ripple in the dark signaling her approach toward the bottom of his conscious, a low, unfamiliar gold flashing at her briefly before winking out. She paused again, letting Sam's mind adjust around her, ensuring her own was holding strong. "Any hurt?"
"No."
"I'm going to your unconscious, Sam. Toward the hole. It might sting a bit."
"No worse than peroxide," Dean said, and she thought, good boy. Anxiety was pouring off him in waves, but he remembered everything they discussed and kept his voice steady and calm as he recited his lines. She drew a long, slow breath and gave her vision over completely to the wall before her.
She’d seen others, of course: her grandma, while she was teaching her how to do these “psychic night-dives,” as she’d refer to them: her mama’s, who was frequently the guinea pig for practice sessions: the rare client’s, while investigating a childhood trauma or two. And of course, her own. It wasn’t abnormal for the wall to pulse with color now and then, swelling up from the deep and giving off a dark impression before vanishing back within. And, of course, any wards stood out, glowing low and soft, but hard as steel.
This was a horse of a different color. Sam’s wards glared in a brilliant, shimmering yellow, half-blinding her when she attempted to view them directly. Those closest to the hole had been scalded and were now coated with a faint look of black dust. The area around the hole was raw and blacker than black, churning and squealing as the horror of that night escaped and chewed away at the healthy mind behind it.
It was releasing hell.
It was seeing into hell.
It was the work of evil, the deepest, darkest, kind. The kind even her grandma had told her never to tangle with. “There’s the evil from man and the evil from God, Missy,” she’d told her, before she’d even begun to encourage and practice with her granddaughters’ inherited gifts, “and believe me, the evil of the Lord doesn’t appreciate interruption. It’s not our place. Don’t go tangling with it.”
Missouri took a deep breath. Normally, seeing something this harsh, and in honor of her love and devotion to the rules of her foremothers, she'd back away and tell the unhappy client that she wasn't able to help. But knowing there wasn't one but two children relying on her, she braced herself and reached out into the swarming darkness, forcing her own strength and calling the words she'd so long ago memorized into the swarm. She reached out and touched the very end of the infection, eyeing the darkness as it scurried like beetles.
Sam, she thought, you hear me. Yes?
Yes, his voice resonated in her head.
Good. And you trust me?
Fix it. He says yes.
Good, she said, feeling her own breath hitch. That's good. It may sting.
Dean's here. Hang on. I will.
Good boy. She reached out and laid her psychic-self as gently as possible against his wound. She felt his physical self flinch as his psychic self surged into her touch, anxious to receive grace.
Back, she thought, at the same time as her conscious mind registered, easy, Sammy, easy.
It'd only get worse.
The hole was twice as large as she anticipated, hurt and flame and fear pouring outward in a slow but steady stream. She steadied herself against it, regained her strength, and faced the flood with a calm, cool back, chanting in all the languages she'd been taught. The infection recoiled, pulling itself up and into the dark beyond until she could surpass the current and touch the edges of the wall. She willed her own strength into it, letting the dark deepen, thicken, and grow over the leaking infection. The body above her hissed and whimpered, and a voice drifted soothingly down, and she pushed all the harder, relieved neither Winchester was calling her off.
There was a strange, odd suction, and the hole sealed itself, the wall thickening, even with the scalded remains of a once-ward.
His wall. His mind.
Missouri felt a slight resistance and pushed with all she had, shuttering up the wall and withdrawing, slowly but surely. When the room appeared once more in her vision she allowed herself a few deep breaths before opening her eyes.
Sam was pressed tight against his brother, face damp, bucking slightly as if in a seizure. She reached out and grasped his hand, felt a surge of emotion, and scanned her work from afar. It had held: the hole was sealed. Sam's body was just catching up to it.
"Sammy--c'mon!" Dean pleaded, trying to wrestle his brother into stillness.
"Give him a minute," she soothed, touching his hand as well, but for reassurance. His fierce green eyes turned on her.
"Your eyes went yellow," Dean hissed.
She started. "What?"
"You heard me."
Missouri looked down at Sam as he whimpered and went limp. She checked his temperature, smoothing his bangs aside.
"The wards on his mind are yellow," she said softly. "Brighter than any I've ever seen."
"That...thing. Sammy said his eyes were gold. Like a cat."
Missouri set to smoothing Sam's hair as the boy stirred. "I don't know what it was," she admitted. "But boy...it was evil."
***
There's another journal.
Sam saw flashes of memory--a white-barred crib, a chiming mobile, a crescent-moon night-light.
There's another journal.
Dean--and he couldn't believe that Dean was ever that small--with blond hair floppier than Sam's.
There's another journal.
His dad holding him, bouncing him to keep him from fussing.
There's another journal.
His mom beautiful and warm and alive. Paralyzed and bleeding and enflamed. The flash of the ceiling as Dean ran with him. The singing mobile. The flickering night-light. The yellow eyes. Crying sirens. Cold motels. Silver spoons, a rosary in his bottle. Latin lullabies. Crawling over a devil's trap.
And through it all, flashes of being lifted, hugged and even kissed, reaching for the pen his father used in a leather-bound book Sam had never seen, smaller than the journal he spent almost as much time with as he'd spent with his sons, and as the memories flooded through and the blinding pain in his head turned the whole room white and erased Dean's voice, Sam felt his youngest self reaching out from beyond the pit of his unconscious before he was buried once more to tell him the most important thing he ever could--
There's another journal.
Next
Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII