There's No Such Thing As Monsters 10/11
There's No Such Thing As Monsters
Summary: Sam is definitely not schizophrenic. So why is everyone telling him that he is?
A/N: Okay, there's actually 11 chapters to this and I posted them on FF.N ages ago. I just kept forgetting to post them here. Sorry LJ readers!
Chapter Ten
Rosalie was good at watching, and when she wasn't watching, she was good at listening.
What she was best at though, was being invisible. Not, like, now you see her, now you don't, disappear into thin air, what the hell, where'd she go invisible.
It was far more subtle than that. More of a... fading. Rosalie was best at being the background, so people barely noticed she was there at all.
At the ward she would listen to the nurses gossiping, about things they weren't supposed to talk about in front of patients. They had even talked about her once or twice, while she sat in the corner and pretended she didn't exist. That was how she first found out that Sam wasn't real, actually, because Julie told the other nurse that "Rosalie's got herself a new friend. I'll have to talk to the doctor about her medication..."
Except Sam was real.
And he was going to kill her.
That woman, the large dark-skinned woman, the psychic... Missouri, that was her name. She said Rosalie's head was a black hole, sucking sucking sucking...
Rosalie didn't like space. She didn't like the sky or stars or the moon or any of that poetic stuff. It's not so poetic when you're sleeping in doorways and it's raining it's pouring the old man is...
Wait, what was she thinking about?
Stop, Rosalie. Missouri's going to fix this.
Rosalie shook her head, ignoring Dean's sharp look. You don't know that. I'm broken. No one can fix what's wrong with me.
Sam was easier to hear now. At first he only spoke to her occasionally, though he was always there. There when she woke up, when she refused her meds, when they tied her down and when she cut her wrists open, but it was like he was in another room of the same house. Sometimes they bumped into each other and sometimes they didn't.
Rosalie laughed to herself. I never asked for a flatmate, Sam.
The door to her room was open now and Sam was trying to get in, the same way she was trying to get out. It felt like the walls were closing in on her.
Missouri said it was you or me. We can't both live here and it was mine first.
She felt Sam's panic dance over her skin.
Missouri said I have a gift.
It's not a gift. It's a curse. It's from a demon.
Maybe you're my gift.
She could feel it. Sam's... life force? It thrummed inside her brain, warm and... tight. It wanted to spread out, to fill up the rest of her mind. She wanted it to fill up the rest of her mind. Maybe it would fix her, weave itself around the broken and mismatched parts in her head and make them work like they should.
Maybe she could have a life that wasn't voices that weren't there and pills that didn't work. She could do her art and get her own place and be a person again.
It doesn't work like that. Sam was sounding desperate now. Rosalie shoved against the door and for a brief while Sam was nothing but static in her ears, fear that wasn't hers making her heart beat faster.
Then Sam shoved back.
Listen. You don't get a life if you give in. It just wants to use you.
Rosalie considered this, but she had heard Dean and Missouri talking. She wasn't stupid. If she didn't fight, Sam would win. Because she was broken. How would her mind compare?
Wouldn't it all come down to the same thing? She had never been in control. Maybe this was her only chance.
No. My brother-
Screw your brother. He only wants to help you.
Sam fizzed out again. Her head pounded. Or Sam pounded inside her head as his room got smaller and Rosalie's expanded.
"Rosalie, don't do this."
Dean was in her face suddenly. "Sammy?"
Had she said that out loud? Had Sam said that out loud?
"Huh?" she asked innocently as Sam bashed against the walls she was carefully holding him in.
Dean backed off a bit, uncertain. "Did you say something?" he asked.
Was that a hint of suspicion in his eyes, asking what he already knew?
"I don't..." Rosalie let her words trail off empty, schooled her face to a look of confusion.
If Missouri were here and not sleeping or focusing or whatever in her room, would she know? Would she know anyway?
Rosalie just wanted her thoughts to be hers.
The hope in Dean's expression faded. "Don't worry. Just..." He flapped his hand uselessly and returned to his spot at the table, doing whatever it was he'd been doing on that laptop.
See, he wants you to win.
No. Sam's pleading vibrated in her veins. He wants us both to win. He wants what you want; Me out of your head.
No, he doesn't!
Sam fell back as the walls around him shrunk again.
He just wants... he wants you. No one wants me. I can't make a dam. I tried. Missouri tried, and I can't do it.
You just need more time -
There is no time!
She knew it to be true. The walls were getting thinner and soon Sam would spill into her room and take over her thoughts, her blood and everything else. I won't be me any more.
You won't be you if you do what you're thinking. Just... listen, okay? This is bigger than you think. There are kids like us all over the country. There's a demon...
The yellow eyed man?
Exactly.
How do I make him go away? He's like you, but different. He says he'll help me.
There was a long pause. Long enough that Rosalie wondered if Sam had gone away. Finally-
He's not going to help you, Rosalie. He's a demon. Demons lie.
So do people.
Sam didn't seem to have an answer to that. His reasoning was failing him and Rosalie could feel his ebb.
I'm sorry, Sam.
She was. Sorry, that is. She didn't want it to be this way. She wanted both of them to live, so she could so back to her art - not back to the unit where all they had was coloured pens and crayons, but out in the world where she could find paints and pencils and canvasses begging to be brought to life, and she wanted Sam to be able to go back to his brother and his body and whatever journey he was on.
But journeys end. They were locked in a fight to the death and she didn't want to be the one losing.
She could see it all in her head, all this untapped potential. Hers and Sam's and if she could reach it, open the door, flip the switch, let it in... then she could save herself.
Missouri will find a way. Sam was as close to yelling as either of them could get in this place. Not like this. It doesn't have to be like this.
Rosalie shook her head. You're wrong. This is the only way.
Rosalie, don't!
Bye, Sam.
Rosalie flipped the switch.
XXX
Dean looked up as Rosalie stood. It was an automatic response to movement, drilled into him in his youth, unavoidable even though Rosalie was probably only headed to the bathroom. Although, it was possible she was about to have some kind of schizophrenic freak out, given the way she'd been giggling and murmuring to herself for the last half hour.
Rosalie didn't so anything though. She simply stood and stayed standing.
"Hey, are you alrigh-" he started to ask, but broke off, head whipping toward the door as it slammed open.
"Rosalie, stop!" Missouri cried, arm stretched toward the girl, and okay, Dean officially had no idea what was going on.
He leapt to his feet anyway, poised and ready for... whatever.
Rosalie turned to Sam. Time almost seemed to slow as she fixed him with her dazed stare, then sped up again as Sam jerked on the bed, once, then twice, and then he was in the throes of what Dean could only assume was a seizure.
"Sam!" He took a step forward.
"Stop," Rosalie said, and he did.
Just like that, his muscles locked and he froze. If he wasn't able to see Sam convulsing he might have completely forgotten why he'd wanted to move in the first place.
"Rosalie, honey," Missouri said, hands raised as she approached cautiously, tiny steps forward and no sudden movements, as if Rosalie was a wounded animal. "You need to stop this. You don't know what you're getting into."
"Stop," Rosalie said again, but apart from a slight pause as Missouri assessed herself, it had no effect.
"Just calm down now, there's no need-"
Dean felt the movement at his ankle before the blade he kept strapped there worked it's way out to hover in the air between the two women, and shit, shit, this was just like Max and Andy. Why the hell hadn't he considered them in all of this? Why had he assumed that Rosalie's head was too messed up to do anything other than accidentally suck people's souls out?
Sam was still seizing.
"You gotta listen to Missouri," Dean tried to order but he had the feeling that it came out more like pleading. "You don't know how big this is. Remember you said the yellow-eyed man scared you, now you're doing exactly what he wants."
"I'm doing what I want," Rosalie said breathlessly. "For once. You don't, you don't get to try and stop me."
"What are you doing to Sam?" Dean demanded.
Rosalie let out a hysterical laugh. "To Sam! I told him, I told him. You don't want me to win. You just, just want him back. It's not my fault! I didn't ask for this, but I'm not, I won't..."
She flinched, bringing a hand up to her temple. The knife dipped slightly.
"Rosalie-"
"God, shut up! You're both talking at once! Just shut up!"
Dean found himself unwillingly speechless, eyes flicking from Rosalie to Sam. Jesus, how long could a seizure last? And what would it mean with it ended?
Rosalie composed herself with a deep shaky inhale through her nose.
"Okay, okay... I'm leaving now. Don't come after me." The knife waved Missouri to the side, away from the door. Missouri took a hesitant step.
Rosalie took a decisive one, but paused immediately, swinging around to face Dean again. "But you will." It wasn't a question. She cocked her head to the side in contemplation. "Sam knows you will."
She flinched again, harder this time, and dropped her head into her hands, clenching her fists tightly in her hair. She let out a pain-filled growl, eyes snapping back to Dean, and suddenly he could move again, could probably speak if he tried. He didn't waste time trying to figure out why but he had the sense that it was Sam's doing. It took all he had not to slump and give himself away before he figured out a plan.
"You can't come after me," Rosalie said, face clenched in a mix of misery and determination. "It's my life. I can do..." She faltered, blinking furiously, before she pulled herself together again. "Shut up!" she moaned, seemingly to herself. "I'm calling the shots."
She shook her head. "Sorry, Dean."
The knife shuddered violently as it twisted away from Missouri, turning to Dean. It pulled back as if trying to build up momentum and hung there for such a drawn out moment that Dean had time to wonder whether Rosalie maybe needed more practice at this, before it suddenly shot forward.
Dean threw himself to the side, hearing the whistle of the blade through the air as he landed awkwardly by the weapons duffel.
There was nothing awkward about the way he drew his gun though, just a graceful roll onto his back and the split-second he needed to aim, then his finger was squeezing the trigger.
To Be Continued...
Chapter Eleven