Fic: Thinking about What a Friend Had Said, PG, 2/3
Thinking about What a Friend Had Said 2/?
Warnings: Language
Summary: Follows Hoping for Replacement, WIP. Sam and Dean are reborn into a universe where Sam is the older brother. This has consequences.
Part 1
Thinking About What a Friend Had Said
Part 2
He startled awake, skin shivering in response to the familiar sound of raised voices in the night. He’d shoved himself halfway up on his elbow, heart crawling up his throat, before his ears registered that the voices he was hearing were different from the screaming, wall-shaking noise of his childhood. Dean froze in place, halfway between collapsing back onto the bed and getting up completely, and directed all his attention at the source of the noise. He held his breath and strained his ears, but the noise was gone as quickly as it had come. Silence closed in quickly. Dean stuck his tongue between his teeth.
Gradually, Sam’s voice filtered through the walls, low and steady. Dean winced. The words were inaudible, but the tone was a familiar one. Calm, unassuming, and guaranteeing a rain of violence if the party on the receiving end didn’t fall in line. Dean had never been on the wrong side of that tone, but its casual danger sometimes still made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Then a voice rumbled in response, and any sympathy Dean might have felt for the hapless soul that had found itself on the receiving end of Sam’s ire evaporated, in a sudden white-hot rush of shock. Fifteen years had passed since he’d last heard that voice and it was the middle of the damn night and Dean was hearing it through a wall, but there was no mistaking its horrible familiarity.
“Dad,” he breathed, to the walls, to the air, to the light leaking through the curtains from the street below. “Oh God, Dad.”
He shoved the covers off his legs and staggered awkwardly out of bed, toes curling against the icy chill of the floor. His heart was hurling itself against his ribcage and he couldn’t hear much over the noise. All the moisture had vanished from his mouth and throat. His hair was in his eyes-it was too long but he’d spent the money for the haircut on gloves for Sam (Sammy). He pushed the strands out of his eyes with a shaking hand.
Dean crept to the door and eased out into the hall. The voices of his brother and--and…the other one…got louder but no less intelligible. It was impossible to hear clearly around the sirens shrieking in his own head. Dean didn’t even try.
…away…give me time….
The sound of footsteps. Not heavy enough to be Sam’s.
Leaving. Dad was leaving!
Dean padded into the kitchen entranceway. He heard Sam’s words--"It’s hard to face someone you never thought you’d see again.”--and then the door, opening and closing.
Gone.
John was gone again.
Dean slid further into the kitchen. His brother was standing a few yards away,
“Sam?” he began, and tried to form a coherent sentence, a question of some kind, a plea for information. All that came out, though, was the repetition of his brother’s name. “Sam?”
Sammy? Whispered a voice, so close it could have been beside his ear or in his own throat, but Sammy was Dean’s private name for his brother, the one he never used out loud.
“Shit,” Sam said heavily, eyes huge and mouth set in a grim line. “Jesus, kid.”
“That was…was that Dad?” Dean asked, and his voice sounded hollow and thin. “What was--why was he here?”
Dad’s missing said that familiar-unfamiliar voice by his ear. He hasn’t been home in
Dad
in a few days
“Dean,” Sam said sharply and Dean blinked and looked up. Sam was a lot closer than he had been an instant ago, and one huge hand was locked around Dean’s upper arm. “Stay with me, kid.”
“Stay…” Dean repeated, through strangely numb lips. That was Sam’s mantra. Dean had been hearing it since he was twelve years old.
Sam shook him a little. “Come and sit down before you fall down.”
His older brother half-led, half-dragged him to the old sofa and Dean collapsed onto the sagging cushions. He stared up at Sam and tried to push back the dark edges of noise and phantom sensations (whatever you have to say you can say it in front of) threatening another full-blown episode. He hadn’t had one in half a year. He’d even begun to tentatively hope that they were gone for good.
Dad’s on a hunting trip
he hasn’t been home in
in a few
“He hasn’t been home in a few days,” Dean gasped, and Sam’s hand locked on Dean’s jaw and shook him slightly.
“Stay with me man, c’mon,” he said softly. “It’s not real. You don’t wanna go back there, kiddo.”
Dean swallowed. His throat ached but his eyes were dry.
“What did he want, Sam?” he managed through gritted teeth. His brother let go of his face. “Why was he here?”
Sam sighed heavily and slumped back, until he was sitting awkwardly on the coffee table. He pushed a hand over his shorn scalp.
“I’d really--do we have to do this now, Dean?” he asked, voice taking on a plaintive note. Dean shifted a little. His brother was clearly exhausted, and damaged, a bandaged slapped over a fresh gash on his face, the livid edges peeking out. His face was pallid in the poor light, smears of purple like thumbprints under his eyes.
Christ.
“What’s it gonna take to get you to take care of yourself, huh Sam?” The words fell out of his mouth the way they sometimes did, sharp-edged and almost foreign to his usual tones. Sam snorted a little, then squawked when Dean latched onto his arms and hauled them both upright.
“Get off me!” He yelped, pawing at Dean’s smaller hands. Dean yanked his left away but only so he could whack his idiot older brother upside the head.
“Did you even disinfect that thing? You’re looking to get your face eaten off by that creepy virus? Jesus Christ.” He frogged-marched his brother to the bathroom before Sam could rally a useful protest, and in the unforgiving glare of the naked bulb he grabbed the bandage’s edge and ripped it off Sam’s cheek in one clean motion.
“Ow!” Sam clapped a hand to his face, paused a beat, took it away and used it to smack Dean on the ear instead. “You little freak!”
“Shut up,” Dean growled, and slammed the first aid kit (which Sam always kept ridiculously overstocked for some reason) on the counter. “Clean that fucker and go to bed. But this isn’t over,” he punctuated his declaration by jabbing a finger into Sam’s face. “Get me? I’m lettin’ you off ‘cause it’s three in the damn morning but we’re talkin’ about this tomorrow. Comprende?”
Sam grunted, but he was already fumbling the bottle of rubbing alcohol in his enormous paws, and that was good enough for Dean.
He was halfway down the hall to his own room before he realized he was stomping instead of walking like a normal person. He paused and put a hand out, resting it lightly on the wall. For a moment, a very brief instant in time, he felt someone in the hallway with him, some phantom presence looming over him.
"Take care of Sammy,” he heard, faintly, like a winter breeze through a broken window, and then it was gone, and he was alone.
Dean scurried back to his room, locked the door and curled up in the corner. He stared at the light leaking through the window and covered his ears, though that never helped. He didn’t hear anything else though, for the rest of the night, aside from Sam shuffling down the hall and, later, snoring gently through the walls.
It was kind of reassuring, in an annoying sort of way.
_______________
Lack of sleep combined with restlessness to drive Dean out of the apartment and to the nearest coffee shop a few hours later, before the sun had even properly risen. He sat by the window, bundled in coat and scarf and hat, and stared out at the grey city as dawn crept through its corridors. It was Sunday morning and most people, like Sam, were asleep or at least unconscious, though a few early-risers or late partiers occupied the coffee shop’s few seats. Dean clutched his coffee with both hands. Outside, steam rose from the grates. A light dusting of snow had fallen, decorating the tops of parking meters and newspaper vending machines.
Sam and Dean had a coffeemaker in the apartment. About half the time, they used it. The other half of the time saw either of them ranging far and wide to sample bad coffee at a variety of local eateries, coffee shops, and even the occasional Starbucks. Dean had no idea why he shared this particular penchant with his brother--they’d both grown up in a house where coffee was regularly made at home. Just another oddball quirk they shared, for no reason Dean had ever managed to parse. He tried not to think about it too much. Doing so tended to bring on the whispers, and the shadows.
He blew into his coffee cup and stared blankly out the window.
Sam would sleep at least until eleven. That gave Dean some time to try to really plan some kind of confrontation. Not that he wanted to fight with Sammy, of course, but it wasn’t as if the sudden appearance of their long lost father in the middle of the night wasn’t worth having a frank discussion about just what the hell was going on, preferably sooner rather than later. As soon as Sam had rolled out of bed and Dean finished rescuing him from faceplanting into his cereal, they were going to have to have a very serious conversation. It wasn’t something they did a lot, but Dean was pretty sure a situation like ‘unexpected reappearance of missing paternal figure’ sort of warranted it.
A car crawled along the road, slowly, still dusted with snow on the top. Across the street, a man approached the bus stop, paused to clean off the bench, and sat down. He moved with excruciating care, and wore a green jacket. His hands were shoved in his pockets and a yellow scarf, incongruously bright, concealed the bottom portion of his face. His hair was short, and dark.
Dean didn’t drop his coffee cup.
He didn’t drop it. But his fingers curled tighter around the hard ceramic, until his fingernails squealed across its surface.
Across the street, John Winchester lifted his eyes to the window of the coffee shop. Dean’s breath froze in his chest and ice spread out through his veins. But whether the man across the street (Dad) recognized Dean or was even able to see him through the window was impossible to say. Dean’s eyes were dry and fixed open. His lips had parted slightly but his mouth had gone dry and his tongue had somehow swollen to fill his mouth. He could hear his pulse, and see it hammering in flashes at the edge of his vision. The world around him strobed, faintly.
Some nights, a noise would wake him and he’d fly to the window to peer outside. Exhaustion and sudden change in elevation always conspired to rob his vision of coherence, sometimes greying it out so badly it was as if his eyes had been coated in frost.
The frost was creeping in now. He tasted adrenaline, and his heart pulsed strangely in his chest. And the world grew dimmer. Fainter. Greying out.
"Dad’s on a hunting trip," he heard, clear as ringing bells. "He hasn’t been home in a few days."
Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside.
He couldn’t see the window. He couldn’t see the glass, or the edges of the walls. He couldn’t see his dad, couldn’t see anything. His eyes strained but the world had hidden itself behind cloudy emptiness. Distantly he heard a clatter of ceramic, slosh of liquid. Something lukewarm dribbled onto his knees. His chest had swollen, full of emptiness. Aching for something he couldn’t name. He couldn’t see and couldn’t make his body work. His fingers spasmed. Someone spoke to him, urgently. He couldn’t make out the words.
You remember the poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine.
Hands pawed at him. It wasn’t unfamiliar. Hands were always pawing at him. It went with the phantoms, the memories-that-weren’t, the strange dreams and voices. Someone was speaking in his ear. Someone was asking a question.
Always the same question.
"Call me if you find him?"
The ground opened up and flames roared out of blackness and Dean opened his mouth and screamed until he tasted blood.
_______________
“Jesus motherfucking Christ on a fucking pogo stick, kid, are you tryin’ to put in me into an early grave?”
Dean flailed a hand at his face and physically pried his eyes open. He cast around the room (his room, thank god--last time he’d had an episode he woke up in the back of an ambulance) and finally set his eyes on his clearly exhausted brother, sitting in the chair by the bed, glowering around mouthfuls of spitting vitriol.
“Sorry,” Dean mumbled, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth, and the bits of blood still flecked there. He licked at his lips and took a few long, deep breaths. The walls around him were solid, at least. The world was the same as always.
Sam exhaled and dropped his head, pressing his fist to his forehead.
“We have coffee here,” his brother muttered, though half-heartedly. They both knew Dean spent a fair amount of time rambling around the city with no ill effects, for the most part. He rarely had episodes outdoors, and there was no way to predict when one might strike. Neither of them expected him to stay locked up in the apartment, pining at the window.
“Christ.” Dean hauled himself upright, pushing back until he was leaning against the wall. He passed a hand across his face, shoving his hair aside so he could see. He really needed a haircut.
“I didn’t think anything would happen, okay Sam? I just wanted to get out and get some caffeine.”
Sam sighed explosively. Pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I really thought we might be past all this,” he said, and Dean would have bridled a little except there was no accusation in his tone. Just more weariness.
“Sam, would you fuckin’ look at me?”
When his older brother lifted his head, Dean couldn’t help but wince a little. Sam looked like hammered shit, as the saying went: face sallow and eyes smudged with grey and purple. The bandage on his face had come off at some point and the wound was still vaguely pink. Christ, it was like the guy didn’t know how to take care of himself, half the time.
“I saw D-Dad,” Dean said, nearly forcing the words out. “At the coffee shop, I mean. He was there.”
Sam sat up as sharply as if he’d been jabbed with a taser. “What? That son of a bitch! Did he talk to you? Was that why--?”
“No, Sam, Jesus! Calm down. It wasn’t like that. I don’t think…I don’t think he even knew I was there. He was just sitting at the bus stop. He looked,” he paused, then continued in a small voice, “He looked old.”
Sam didn’t answer. His eyes skittered to the side and if Dean didn’t already know Sam was avoiding telling him something fairly important, that would’ve been a pretty obvious giveaway. He thinned his lips.
“Sam,” he said, warning clear in his voice. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Why don’t you eat something first?” Sam offered, pretty damn weakly in Dean’s opinion. “Get your blood sugar up? Then we’ll talk.”
“Oh fucksake, Sam!” he blurted, swinging his legs off the bed and shooting to his feet--for a half second, before the world greyed out again and his legs wobbled. No phantom voices this time though. Just a plain old boring head rush.
“Shit,” he griped, even as Sam’s hand closed on his arm.
“Food,” his brother ordered, “Now.” And he marched Dean into the kitchen and slammed around the room and Dean blinked maybe three times before a bagel and cream cheese landed unceremoniously in front of him. He blinked a few more times just to see if it vanished again, then turned his bemusement on his brother.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Ate while you were unconscious,” Sam returned, from where he was dicking with the coffee maker.
“Bullshit.”
“I’ll eat later--” he tried, turning with a coffee cup in hand, and Dean rose halfway to his feet, hands planted on the counter.
“No you fucking won’t, you’ll eat now. I don’t want you passing out on me while you’re explaining in extreme detail exactly what the hell is going on with D-Dad turning up out of the blue after a decade and a half.” He sat down again with a hard thump and Sam blinked owlishly at him, expression somewhere between startled and fond. Dean’s hand curved slightly inward, almost making fists. If Sam said one word…
He didn’t, thankfully. Just dropped his eyes and busied himself with his own bagel. Even meandered over to sit beside Dean and they shared a few quiet minutes as they both wolfed their respective meals.
Dean was a good brother and gave Sam a few minutes to spiritually bond with his coffee before grabbing up both empty plates and casually dumping them in the sink. And not even looking at Sam as he asked, “So mind fillin’ me in now about what the hell is going on?”
He ignored the soft little "erk" behind him and turned, folding his arms and leaning against the sink. He didn’t think the situation called for a smirk but it did seem to warrant some kind of glare, though Sam frankly looked like a stiff breeze might knock him over and he didn’t want to overdo it. Dean settled on something just this side of smarmy and all-knowing, with a touch of little-brother bitchiness thrown in for good measure.
“Cat got your tongue?” he inquired sweetly.
Sam scowled.
“Don’t be a smartass, you little twerp,” he said, and thunked his coffee mug on the countertop a little harder than necessary. Dean winched his eyebrows up slightly.
“Sam,” he enunciated clearly, for the hard-of-thinking. “You gotta give me something to go on here. Can you do that?”
“Yeah yeah, alright.” And still Sam didn’t say anything more, for several excruciating minutes, until Dean was ready to hurl the entire coffeepot at his head, lukewarm contents and all.
“Dad…he’s uh, he told me he’s not doin’ so good, Dean,” Sam said, slowly, drawing out the words as if he could distance himself from them somehow. Dean stared at him.
“‘Not doing so good?’ The hell does that even mean?” And never mind the fucked-up grammar. Half the time Sam talked like he’d been raised in a truck stop and not Boringtown, Suburbia. Dean had given up mentioning it years ago because whenever he did, his brotherlooked like he was in actual, physical pain.
Quietly, Sam said, “John told me he’s sick.”
“Sick,” Dean repeated flatly.
“Um. Yeah. Like, really sick. Like, he…he might die.” Sam drew a deep breath through his nose and added, “I’m…sorry.”
Softly, Dean said, “Why are you apologizing to me? He’s your dad too.”
_______________
Next
Warnings: Language
Summary: Follows Hoping for Replacement, WIP. Sam and Dean are reborn into a universe where Sam is the older brother. This has consequences.
Part 1
Thinking About What a Friend Had Said
Part 2
He startled awake, skin shivering in response to the familiar sound of raised voices in the night. He’d shoved himself halfway up on his elbow, heart crawling up his throat, before his ears registered that the voices he was hearing were different from the screaming, wall-shaking noise of his childhood. Dean froze in place, halfway between collapsing back onto the bed and getting up completely, and directed all his attention at the source of the noise. He held his breath and strained his ears, but the noise was gone as quickly as it had come. Silence closed in quickly. Dean stuck his tongue between his teeth.
Gradually, Sam’s voice filtered through the walls, low and steady. Dean winced. The words were inaudible, but the tone was a familiar one. Calm, unassuming, and guaranteeing a rain of violence if the party on the receiving end didn’t fall in line. Dean had never been on the wrong side of that tone, but its casual danger sometimes still made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Then a voice rumbled in response, and any sympathy Dean might have felt for the hapless soul that had found itself on the receiving end of Sam’s ire evaporated, in a sudden white-hot rush of shock. Fifteen years had passed since he’d last heard that voice and it was the middle of the damn night and Dean was hearing it through a wall, but there was no mistaking its horrible familiarity.
“Dad,” he breathed, to the walls, to the air, to the light leaking through the curtains from the street below. “Oh God, Dad.”
He shoved the covers off his legs and staggered awkwardly out of bed, toes curling against the icy chill of the floor. His heart was hurling itself against his ribcage and he couldn’t hear much over the noise. All the moisture had vanished from his mouth and throat. His hair was in his eyes-it was too long but he’d spent the money for the haircut on gloves for Sam (Sammy). He pushed the strands out of his eyes with a shaking hand.
Dean crept to the door and eased out into the hall. The voices of his brother and--and…the other one…got louder but no less intelligible. It was impossible to hear clearly around the sirens shrieking in his own head. Dean didn’t even try.
…away…give me time….
The sound of footsteps. Not heavy enough to be Sam’s.
Leaving. Dad was leaving!
Dean padded into the kitchen entranceway. He heard Sam’s words--"It’s hard to face someone you never thought you’d see again.”--and then the door, opening and closing.
Gone.
John was gone again.
Dean slid further into the kitchen. His brother was standing a few yards away,
“Sam?” he began, and tried to form a coherent sentence, a question of some kind, a plea for information. All that came out, though, was the repetition of his brother’s name. “Sam?”
Sammy? Whispered a voice, so close it could have been beside his ear or in his own throat, but Sammy was Dean’s private name for his brother, the one he never used out loud.
“Shit,” Sam said heavily, eyes huge and mouth set in a grim line. “Jesus, kid.”
“That was…was that Dad?” Dean asked, and his voice sounded hollow and thin. “What was--why was he here?”
Dad’s missing said that familiar-unfamiliar voice by his ear. He hasn’t been home in
Dad
in a few days
“Dean,” Sam said sharply and Dean blinked and looked up. Sam was a lot closer than he had been an instant ago, and one huge hand was locked around Dean’s upper arm. “Stay with me, kid.”
“Stay…” Dean repeated, through strangely numb lips. That was Sam’s mantra. Dean had been hearing it since he was twelve years old.
Sam shook him a little. “Come and sit down before you fall down.”
His older brother half-led, half-dragged him to the old sofa and Dean collapsed onto the sagging cushions. He stared up at Sam and tried to push back the dark edges of noise and phantom sensations (whatever you have to say you can say it in front of) threatening another full-blown episode. He hadn’t had one in half a year. He’d even begun to tentatively hope that they were gone for good.
Dad’s on a hunting trip
he hasn’t been home in
in a few
“He hasn’t been home in a few days,” Dean gasped, and Sam’s hand locked on Dean’s jaw and shook him slightly.
“Stay with me man, c’mon,” he said softly. “It’s not real. You don’t wanna go back there, kiddo.”
Dean swallowed. His throat ached but his eyes were dry.
“What did he want, Sam?” he managed through gritted teeth. His brother let go of his face. “Why was he here?”
Sam sighed heavily and slumped back, until he was sitting awkwardly on the coffee table. He pushed a hand over his shorn scalp.
“I’d really--do we have to do this now, Dean?” he asked, voice taking on a plaintive note. Dean shifted a little. His brother was clearly exhausted, and damaged, a bandaged slapped over a fresh gash on his face, the livid edges peeking out. His face was pallid in the poor light, smears of purple like thumbprints under his eyes.
Christ.
“What’s it gonna take to get you to take care of yourself, huh Sam?” The words fell out of his mouth the way they sometimes did, sharp-edged and almost foreign to his usual tones. Sam snorted a little, then squawked when Dean latched onto his arms and hauled them both upright.
“Get off me!” He yelped, pawing at Dean’s smaller hands. Dean yanked his left away but only so he could whack his idiot older brother upside the head.
“Did you even disinfect that thing? You’re looking to get your face eaten off by that creepy virus? Jesus Christ.” He frogged-marched his brother to the bathroom before Sam could rally a useful protest, and in the unforgiving glare of the naked bulb he grabbed the bandage’s edge and ripped it off Sam’s cheek in one clean motion.
“Ow!” Sam clapped a hand to his face, paused a beat, took it away and used it to smack Dean on the ear instead. “You little freak!”
“Shut up,” Dean growled, and slammed the first aid kit (which Sam always kept ridiculously overstocked for some reason) on the counter. “Clean that fucker and go to bed. But this isn’t over,” he punctuated his declaration by jabbing a finger into Sam’s face. “Get me? I’m lettin’ you off ‘cause it’s three in the damn morning but we’re talkin’ about this tomorrow. Comprende?”
Sam grunted, but he was already fumbling the bottle of rubbing alcohol in his enormous paws, and that was good enough for Dean.
He was halfway down the hall to his own room before he realized he was stomping instead of walking like a normal person. He paused and put a hand out, resting it lightly on the wall. For a moment, a very brief instant in time, he felt someone in the hallway with him, some phantom presence looming over him.
"Take care of Sammy,” he heard, faintly, like a winter breeze through a broken window, and then it was gone, and he was alone.
Dean scurried back to his room, locked the door and curled up in the corner. He stared at the light leaking through the window and covered his ears, though that never helped. He didn’t hear anything else though, for the rest of the night, aside from Sam shuffling down the hall and, later, snoring gently through the walls.
It was kind of reassuring, in an annoying sort of way.
_______________
Lack of sleep combined with restlessness to drive Dean out of the apartment and to the nearest coffee shop a few hours later, before the sun had even properly risen. He sat by the window, bundled in coat and scarf and hat, and stared out at the grey city as dawn crept through its corridors. It was Sunday morning and most people, like Sam, were asleep or at least unconscious, though a few early-risers or late partiers occupied the coffee shop’s few seats. Dean clutched his coffee with both hands. Outside, steam rose from the grates. A light dusting of snow had fallen, decorating the tops of parking meters and newspaper vending machines.
Sam and Dean had a coffeemaker in the apartment. About half the time, they used it. The other half of the time saw either of them ranging far and wide to sample bad coffee at a variety of local eateries, coffee shops, and even the occasional Starbucks. Dean had no idea why he shared this particular penchant with his brother--they’d both grown up in a house where coffee was regularly made at home. Just another oddball quirk they shared, for no reason Dean had ever managed to parse. He tried not to think about it too much. Doing so tended to bring on the whispers, and the shadows.
He blew into his coffee cup and stared blankly out the window.
Sam would sleep at least until eleven. That gave Dean some time to try to really plan some kind of confrontation. Not that he wanted to fight with Sammy, of course, but it wasn’t as if the sudden appearance of their long lost father in the middle of the night wasn’t worth having a frank discussion about just what the hell was going on, preferably sooner rather than later. As soon as Sam had rolled out of bed and Dean finished rescuing him from faceplanting into his cereal, they were going to have to have a very serious conversation. It wasn’t something they did a lot, but Dean was pretty sure a situation like ‘unexpected reappearance of missing paternal figure’ sort of warranted it.
A car crawled along the road, slowly, still dusted with snow on the top. Across the street, a man approached the bus stop, paused to clean off the bench, and sat down. He moved with excruciating care, and wore a green jacket. His hands were shoved in his pockets and a yellow scarf, incongruously bright, concealed the bottom portion of his face. His hair was short, and dark.
Dean didn’t drop his coffee cup.
He didn’t drop it. But his fingers curled tighter around the hard ceramic, until his fingernails squealed across its surface.
Across the street, John Winchester lifted his eyes to the window of the coffee shop. Dean’s breath froze in his chest and ice spread out through his veins. But whether the man across the street (Dad) recognized Dean or was even able to see him through the window was impossible to say. Dean’s eyes were dry and fixed open. His lips had parted slightly but his mouth had gone dry and his tongue had somehow swollen to fill his mouth. He could hear his pulse, and see it hammering in flashes at the edge of his vision. The world around him strobed, faintly.
Some nights, a noise would wake him and he’d fly to the window to peer outside. Exhaustion and sudden change in elevation always conspired to rob his vision of coherence, sometimes greying it out so badly it was as if his eyes had been coated in frost.
The frost was creeping in now. He tasted adrenaline, and his heart pulsed strangely in his chest. And the world grew dimmer. Fainter. Greying out.
"Dad’s on a hunting trip," he heard, clear as ringing bells. "He hasn’t been home in a few days."
Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside.
He couldn’t see the window. He couldn’t see the glass, or the edges of the walls. He couldn’t see his dad, couldn’t see anything. His eyes strained but the world had hidden itself behind cloudy emptiness. Distantly he heard a clatter of ceramic, slosh of liquid. Something lukewarm dribbled onto his knees. His chest had swollen, full of emptiness. Aching for something he couldn’t name. He couldn’t see and couldn’t make his body work. His fingers spasmed. Someone spoke to him, urgently. He couldn’t make out the words.
You remember the poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine.
Hands pawed at him. It wasn’t unfamiliar. Hands were always pawing at him. It went with the phantoms, the memories-that-weren’t, the strange dreams and voices. Someone was speaking in his ear. Someone was asking a question.
Always the same question.
"Call me if you find him?"
The ground opened up and flames roared out of blackness and Dean opened his mouth and screamed until he tasted blood.
_______________
“Jesus motherfucking Christ on a fucking pogo stick, kid, are you tryin’ to put in me into an early grave?”
Dean flailed a hand at his face and physically pried his eyes open. He cast around the room (his room, thank god--last time he’d had an episode he woke up in the back of an ambulance) and finally set his eyes on his clearly exhausted brother, sitting in the chair by the bed, glowering around mouthfuls of spitting vitriol.
“Sorry,” Dean mumbled, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth, and the bits of blood still flecked there. He licked at his lips and took a few long, deep breaths. The walls around him were solid, at least. The world was the same as always.
Sam exhaled and dropped his head, pressing his fist to his forehead.
“We have coffee here,” his brother muttered, though half-heartedly. They both knew Dean spent a fair amount of time rambling around the city with no ill effects, for the most part. He rarely had episodes outdoors, and there was no way to predict when one might strike. Neither of them expected him to stay locked up in the apartment, pining at the window.
“Christ.” Dean hauled himself upright, pushing back until he was leaning against the wall. He passed a hand across his face, shoving his hair aside so he could see. He really needed a haircut.
“I didn’t think anything would happen, okay Sam? I just wanted to get out and get some caffeine.”
Sam sighed explosively. Pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I really thought we might be past all this,” he said, and Dean would have bridled a little except there was no accusation in his tone. Just more weariness.
“Sam, would you fuckin’ look at me?”
When his older brother lifted his head, Dean couldn’t help but wince a little. Sam looked like hammered shit, as the saying went: face sallow and eyes smudged with grey and purple. The bandage on his face had come off at some point and the wound was still vaguely pink. Christ, it was like the guy didn’t know how to take care of himself, half the time.
“I saw D-Dad,” Dean said, nearly forcing the words out. “At the coffee shop, I mean. He was there.”
Sam sat up as sharply as if he’d been jabbed with a taser. “What? That son of a bitch! Did he talk to you? Was that why--?”
“No, Sam, Jesus! Calm down. It wasn’t like that. I don’t think…I don’t think he even knew I was there. He was just sitting at the bus stop. He looked,” he paused, then continued in a small voice, “He looked old.”
Sam didn’t answer. His eyes skittered to the side and if Dean didn’t already know Sam was avoiding telling him something fairly important, that would’ve been a pretty obvious giveaway. He thinned his lips.
“Sam,” he said, warning clear in his voice. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Why don’t you eat something first?” Sam offered, pretty damn weakly in Dean’s opinion. “Get your blood sugar up? Then we’ll talk.”
“Oh fucksake, Sam!” he blurted, swinging his legs off the bed and shooting to his feet--for a half second, before the world greyed out again and his legs wobbled. No phantom voices this time though. Just a plain old boring head rush.
“Shit,” he griped, even as Sam’s hand closed on his arm.
“Food,” his brother ordered, “Now.” And he marched Dean into the kitchen and slammed around the room and Dean blinked maybe three times before a bagel and cream cheese landed unceremoniously in front of him. He blinked a few more times just to see if it vanished again, then turned his bemusement on his brother.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Ate while you were unconscious,” Sam returned, from where he was dicking with the coffee maker.
“Bullshit.”
“I’ll eat later--” he tried, turning with a coffee cup in hand, and Dean rose halfway to his feet, hands planted on the counter.
“No you fucking won’t, you’ll eat now. I don’t want you passing out on me while you’re explaining in extreme detail exactly what the hell is going on with D-Dad turning up out of the blue after a decade and a half.” He sat down again with a hard thump and Sam blinked owlishly at him, expression somewhere between startled and fond. Dean’s hand curved slightly inward, almost making fists. If Sam said one word…
He didn’t, thankfully. Just dropped his eyes and busied himself with his own bagel. Even meandered over to sit beside Dean and they shared a few quiet minutes as they both wolfed their respective meals.
Dean was a good brother and gave Sam a few minutes to spiritually bond with his coffee before grabbing up both empty plates and casually dumping them in the sink. And not even looking at Sam as he asked, “So mind fillin’ me in now about what the hell is going on?”
He ignored the soft little "erk" behind him and turned, folding his arms and leaning against the sink. He didn’t think the situation called for a smirk but it did seem to warrant some kind of glare, though Sam frankly looked like a stiff breeze might knock him over and he didn’t want to overdo it. Dean settled on something just this side of smarmy and all-knowing, with a touch of little-brother bitchiness thrown in for good measure.
“Cat got your tongue?” he inquired sweetly.
Sam scowled.
“Don’t be a smartass, you little twerp,” he said, and thunked his coffee mug on the countertop a little harder than necessary. Dean winched his eyebrows up slightly.
“Sam,” he enunciated clearly, for the hard-of-thinking. “You gotta give me something to go on here. Can you do that?”
“Yeah yeah, alright.” And still Sam didn’t say anything more, for several excruciating minutes, until Dean was ready to hurl the entire coffeepot at his head, lukewarm contents and all.
“Dad…he’s uh, he told me he’s not doin’ so good, Dean,” Sam said, slowly, drawing out the words as if he could distance himself from them somehow. Dean stared at him.
“‘Not doing so good?’ The hell does that even mean?” And never mind the fucked-up grammar. Half the time Sam talked like he’d been raised in a truck stop and not Boringtown, Suburbia. Dean had given up mentioning it years ago because whenever he did, his brotherlooked like he was in actual, physical pain.
Quietly, Sam said, “John told me he’s sick.”
“Sick,” Dean repeated flatly.
“Um. Yeah. Like, really sick. Like, he…he might die.” Sam drew a deep breath through his nose and added, “I’m…sorry.”
Softly, Dean said, “Why are you apologizing to me? He’s your dad too.”
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