FIC: Shadows and Sunshine Land (Supernatural)
Title: Shadows and Sunshine Land
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Rating: FRT (Fandom Rated for Teens)
Summary: Post Asylum. There's a new case to solve, nothing between them has been fixed, and Dean is finally pushed too far.
Warnings: Deals with subject matter that may make some readers uncomfortable. Proceed with caution. Some minor spoilers for Asylum.
Notes: Big, huge thanks to my beta readers stone_princess and catmoran for helping me focus this story. You guys are the best!
***
Shadows and Sunshine Land
By Lenore
Dean had plotted all the angles, more than once, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see any way it was a good thing that Sam had taken to watching Court TV pretty much non-stop. Every free minute he got, on went the TV, the half hour before an exorcism, in between casting out malevolent spirits, while mincing up a batch of bloodwort to replace what they'd used fighting a witch in Biloxi. He'd gotten picky about where they stayed too, wouldn't hear of a place that didn't have cable, even when they'd been on the road since before the freakin' dawn of time and Dean's eyes felt like sandpaper and his arms were threatening to fall off.
"Come on, man," Sam whined at him. "There's got to be another place further up the road."
Dean glanced over, impatiently. "Dude, what is up with you?"
"Just a few more miles. If we don't find anything else, we can always turn around." A combination of begging and determination in his face, and that really pissed Dean off. Shit worked too well.
He sighed heavily, making sure Sam knew he wasn't any too happy, and kept on driving. Like a pussy-whipped jackass. Only there wasn't even any pussy in the picture. He rubbed a hand over his face. The truly annoying part was that Sam honestly believed Dean called all the shots.
They went around a bend, then another, over a slight rise, and Dean was just contemplating a u-turn when Sam pointed. "There!"
It was more excitement than a grimy dump that had the pretension to call itself a "traveler's court" could possibly deserve. Still, there was a big sign in the window promising "Free Cable TV!" and Dean would have gladly stopped at the Bates Motel about then for the chance at even a few minutes uninterrupted sleep. He turned the wheel, came to a sharp halt in the parking lot, throwing gravel. Inside, the clerk gave him a dirty look, apparently not appreciating his driving, but he took their money and handed over the key. Dean was too tired to give a shit about anything else.
Their room was all the way at the end of the long building, and Dean drove down to park in front of it. They dragged their stuff out of the car, feet making hollow thuds on the concrete sidewalk. Inside, Dean flipped on the light. Sam went straight for the television.
"You've got to be kidding," Dean said.
"I'll keep it down low." At Dean's hard look, Sam insisted, "You can sleep through anything. You know you can."
"It's not me I'm thinking about."
"I'm fine." Sam settled onto one of the beds, legs crossed under him. "I'm not tired."
Dean shook his head. "Whatever, man."
He went into the bathroom, threw water on his face in lieu of the shower he really needed, stripped down to his underwear, and headed for bed. Sam was staring at the TV, a woman in a pink suit with a serious expression staring back from the screen. The volume was down so low Sam must have been reading lips to understand what was going on. But then, all that legal stuff was supposed to have been his future, and maybe he'd learned enough already to be able to fill in the blanks.
If Dean thought about it too much, he could see how Sam really did have some reasons to hate him. Maybe it wasn't any surprise he'd taken the first excuse of being possessed by a ghost to shoot Dean in the heart. Three times, no less. If Dean thought about that too much, he'd be up all night. So he rolled onto his side and closed his eyes with determination. Thinking about shit didn't change it. Fact of life.
When he woke up again, there was a pale strip of light coming in through the gap in the curtains. He reached for his watch, squinted. It wasn't even seven yet. The TV was off, but when Sam came out of the bathroom, Dean could tell from the sorry sight of him that it probably hadn't been off too long.
"You're looking all chipper and bright-eyed this morning," he said dryly.
Sam ignored that. "I went for coffee." He pointed to a large Styrofoam cup on the bedside table. "That's yours."
Dean hauled himself up into a sitting position, took the top off his coffee, downed a large swallow. "Thanks."
Sam nodded distractedly. "No problem. You mind if I--" He gestured toward the TV.
Dean sighed. "Sure. Never mind me, Sammy."
Sam flipped on the set, sank down onto the edge of his bed. He wasn't real good at picking up sarcasm when he was preoccupied.
Dean got out of bed, grabbed some clothes. "I'm going to take a shower, and then we need to get on the road."
Sam nodded, but it was pretty clear he wasn't listening. Dean rolled his eyes.
When he came out, clean at last and ready to go, he found Sam still frozen in the same position. An announcer on television was saying, "To repeat our breaking news, the verdict is in from Hopewell, California, in the Sunshine Land Daycare Center child sex abuse case. All six defendants were found not guilty on all counts."
Sam met Dean's eye. "I think this is where we need to go next."
Dean raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, so a bunch of kiddy rapists getting off is a bad thing, but don't you think miscarriages of justice are a little outside our area of expertise?"
"You think they're guilty?"
"Don't you?"
Sam stared at the screen, almost as if he expected to find the answer there. "I'm not sure. All I know is that something's bothering me, has been since I started following the trial." He scrunched up his forehead in concentration, reminding Dean of when Sam was little, bent over his homework, trying to get his cursive letters just right. "There wasn't any physical evidence of abuse. The entire preschool was wired with video cameras to help keep the kids safe. None of them were ever gone from sight long enough for any of the things they claimed to have actually happened."
"Videotapes can be altered," Dean pointed out.
"There wasn't any sign of that. And a live feed of the video went to a web site parents could visit, making it even harder to fake. Plus, there was other stuff that didn't make sense. All the kids described a room under the school, painted with blood, where all this ritual stuff was supposed to have happened, but there's no such room. Investigators went through the whole place with ground-penetrating radar. Nothing."
"So-- what?" Dean asked. "Somebody planted ideas in their heads?"
Sam shrugged. "It's happened before. In one of my pre-law classes, we studied the McMartin and Fells Acres cases from the 80s. We found that the accusations all started with anxious parents. The kids even denied anything had happened at first, but investigators kept pressing them, and then the kids' stories started to change."
"That's what you think happened here?" Dean asked.
Sam shook his head. "No, that's what's bothering me. There are procedures in place now that should prevent that from happening. And these claims are all coming directly from the kids themselves."
"Kids don't lie about shit like that," Dean said. "Maybe they got the details mixed up, but something still could have happened."
Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Or maybe they just believe something happened."
"Mass hysteria among toddlers?"
"Maybe. Although the details are all really similar from one story to the next, not what you'd expect if this was simply group panic. The kids were all interviewed independently, so they couldn't have influenced each other."
"Well, you're the college boy, not me, but isn't there such a thing as the collective unconscious? Maybe they're all dipping into the same well."
Sam stared at him, and Dean had to tamp down the impulse to punch him in that slack jaw of his.
"Nothing so endearing as you assuming I'm a moron, Sammy."
"I wasn't--" He stopped. "I really think we should go check this out."
"And what do you expect to find? If the teachers were abusive, that maybe they were just possessed or something? Demons made them do it?" His voice turned ugly. "So they weren't responsible for their actions. Is that what you're saying, Sammy?"
Dean's hands curled into fists. This was the problem with trying to pretend nothing was wrong when your brother had shot you in the chest three times. It had a tendency to back up on you, bitterly.
Sam kept his eyes trained on the bedspread. "I don't know, Dean. I just have a feeling that something isn't right."
For a moment there was only quiet, and then Dean said tersely, "Fine."
He pulled his duffel bag out from under the bed, started stuffing things into it randomly, balling up his clothes. He would regret those wrinkles later, but that didn't make him any more careful now. Sam moved quietly around the room, packing up his clothes. Dean kept his back to him. He had no idea if they'd find anything out in California, but one thing was for sure. It was going to be a hell of a long ride the way things were between them right now.
***
Hopewell lay up the coast from Los Angeles, a small, sunny town with storybook houses and immaculate lawns, bright emerald grass and dull green succulents. It was the first time they'd been back to California since Dean had come to get Sam, since Jessica, since all of it. In Dean's head, the entire state had a big X marked through it, not that he would admit to being superstitious or anything. He just had this nagging feeling that the next time he crossed these borders he'd have to give Sammy back to his old life.
He did his best to shake it off, told himself it was good to get away from the dust-colored Midwestern towns they'd been spending so much time in lately. Sam read out directions to the daycare center. Dean turned onto the street and slowed down, looking for the place. It wasn't hard to spot, a mob gathered on the sidewalk outside it, signs in their hands, murder in their eyes. He pulled the car off to the side, up the block, so they could check it out without attracting attention to themselves.
The Sunshine Land Daycare Center must have once seemed like a nice place to drop kids off, with its neat yard, bright blue swing set, the smiling sunbeam logo on the sign outside. Now, it had the pall of scandal over it, windows dark, an abandoned feeling to the place, graffiti scrawled in red, like blood, over the walls, "perverts," in blocky capital letters, like a voice screaming the accusation.
"I don't know about this," Dean said.
Sam stared out the window. "Yeah. We're not getting through all those people. Maybe we can track down some of the parents? Or teachers?"
Dean nodded. "Let's go find a place to stay, and then we can hit the phone book."
They followed signs to the business district and found a ready supply of cheap motels among the strip malls and auto repair shops. As soon as they got to their room, Sam unpacked the laptop and started to google.
"Okay," he said, turning the computer for Dean to see, "here's a list of defendants."
Dean fished the phone book out of the nightstand drawer, scanned the list. "Labruzzi's a pretty uncommon name." He flipped through the L's. "Yep. Just one listed."
He ripped the page out, and Sam made a face at him. "You could have written that down."
Dean shrugged. "Okay, now what about the parents?"
Sam shook his head. "Names changed to protect the kids."
"Hmm. Okay. Hold on. I'll be right back." He headed for the door, searching his pockets. "You got a quarter?"
"You don't even have a quarter?" Sam gave him disbelieving look.
Dean grinned. "That's what I have you for, little bro. Provide for me in my time of need."
Sam rolled his eyes, dug into his jacket, flipped him a coin. There was a newspaper stand outside the motel office, and Dean came back with a copy of the Hopewell Star Ledger. He scanned the front page and found the byline on the cover article about the case. He flipped the phone book open again and dialed. Sam watched curiously.
"Hopewell Star Ledger," a voice on the other end of the line answered.
"Yeah, hey. It's Dean Kent. Is JJ there? I was supposed to meet him, and I can't find the damned address--"
"Um, I'm sorry. Do I know you?" the receptionist asked hesitantly.
"That's okay, darlin'. I'm terrible with names, too. This is Dean Kent, the new guy on the city desk? What's your name again?"
"Madelyn?" she said, still not too certain about him.
"Right. Madelyn. Look, I just need to track down JJ. His cell's off for some reason, and I was supposed to meet him over at one of these parent's houses. I wrote it down, on this little scrap of paper, and I know I put it somewhere. Damn, what was that name again?"
"You mean the Gilchrists?"
He brightened. "That's it!"
"I thought JJ had given up on that. I mean, Mrs. Gilchrist did threaten to call the police."
"Oh, you know JJ. Doesn't have the sense God gave him."
Madelyn laughed. "Yep. That's JJ. You need the address?"
"Yeah." He flashed Sam a smile while he jotted down "486 Poplar Lane" in the margin of the torn phone book page. "You're a lifesaver, Madelyn. Thanks."
"Sometimes you scare me," Sam said after Dean hung up.
"Hey, you wanted to check this out," Dean reminded him. "So what do you think? The mom first? Or the teacher?"
"Neither one of them is going to want to talk to us," Sam said.
"That's true." Dean grabbed his keys off the dresser. "So I guess it doesn't really matter who we start with."
***
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up outside the Gilchrist's. Dean made Sam flip a coin on the way over and the mom won. Or lost, as the case may have been. He eyed the house, and his immediate impression was that if normal had an address it would be 486 Poplar Lane. There was even a picket fence.
"I hate this shit sometimes," Dean said under his breath as he got out of the car.
They went up the tidy flagstone walk, knocked and waited. No one came to the door, and Dean knocked again, just in case. At last a woman answered, opening the door just enough to peer out.
"Mrs. Gilchrist?"
"How many times do I have to tell you people to get off my property?"
"Oh, we're not reporters," Dean assured her. "I'm Dean, and this is my brother Sam. We're from the Survivor's Network, a support group. We thought maybe we could help, but if you'd rather we go--" He made a vague gesture toward the car.
Mrs. Gilchrist studied him. "You don't look old enough to have children."
Dean met her eye. "No, ma'am. The Survivor's Network is for both parents and kids who've been through things like this."
Understanding registered painfully on her face. "I'm so sorry. Please. Come in." She pulled the door open for them.
Sam shot Dean a disgusted look as they went inside. But how the hell else did he think they were going to get this woman to talk to them?
In the kitchen, she invited them to have a seat and poured cups of coffee. On the table was a sugar bowl in the shape of a lamb, a few stray Legos. Brightly crayoned drawings decorated the refrigerator. Mrs. Gilchrist sat down with them. Dean smiled, ready to say something to win her over, but then he noticed it, the heavy fall of blonde hair in her face, sweetness of her features beneath the severity of her grief. The more he looked the more he saw his mother, and every convenient lie went right out of his head.
Sam took up the slack, "We're really sorry for everything you've been through, Mrs. Gilchrist."
"Thank you," she said in a weary voice.
"How did you first know something was wrong?" Sam asked gently.
"Melissa was having bad dreams. At first, I thought it was just--" Her eyes went bright with tears. "But she kept having them, and I would ask her about it, and she wouldn't say anything. Until finally--"
"And you never had any suspicions about Sunshine Land before the nightmares started?"
She shook her head. "None. It always seemed like such a nice place. Mrs. Whittimore--the woman who ran it--invited parents to stop by whenever we wanted, without any notice, so we'd feel comfortable. And there was a web page where we could go and watch the kids, see what was happening. I thought they were good people." Her hand flew to her mouth.
For an awkward moment, neither Dean nor Sam could think of anything to say, and the soft sound of her crying was conspicuous in the quiet kitchen.
At last Dean managed, "We're really sorry, Mrs. Gilchrist."
She nodded and struggled to compose herself. "Can I ask what happened to you? If," she hesitated, "you don't mind telling me."
Dean swallowed hard. "Similar story. This-- evil came into our lives. Last thing we ever expected."
"Did you tell anyone?"
Dean shook his head. "What happened to us--" Orange flames leaped in his memory. "We didn't think anyone would believe us."
"You were probably right." Mrs. Gilchrist's mouth flattened into a bitter line. "That's been the worst part, trying to explain to Melissa how those people could go free after what they did." She looked from Dean to Sam. "I can see it in both of you. In your eyes." Her voice went soft, "How it still haunts you."
The room felt suddenly too close, as if all their nightmares had crowded around the table.
It took Sam to finally break the spell, "We really shouldn't take up any more of your time, Mrs. Gilchrist. We just came by to let you know that you're not alone."
"Thank you," she said earnestly. "I appreciate that."
They got up to go, and Dean caught the sound of footfalls hurrying on the stairs. In the foyer, he looked up, and a little girl peered down from the landing above, half hiding behind the baluster. Sam noticed too, and he stopped, staring up at the girl, for so long that Dean had to tug on his sleeve.
"Goodbye," he told Mrs. Gilchrist.
In the car, for a moment Dean could have sworn he smelled smoke, but he pushed that thought away because it was so utterly ridiculous. Beside him, Sam was staring straight ahead, at nothing.
"So?" Dean asked. Sam didn't get that all checked out look for no reason.
"I saw something hovering around the girl. Kind of this-- dark cloud."
"Seriously?" He gave Sam a long look.
"Yeah." Sam glared at him. "Could you stop staring at me like I'm a freak?"
"Having you plugged into the Psychic Friends Network is kind of weird, you have to admit, Sammy."
"Bite me."
Okay, Dean thought, so maybe he didn't have to admit it.
"What do you want to do now?" he asked, to change the subject. "Go to the library, do some research. Or swing by this teacher's house?"
Sam pursed his lips. "Let's hit the library first. The more we know, the more we'll know what to look for."
"Works for me, bro."
He made an abrupt u-turn in the middle of the road, complete with screeching tires.
"Ass," Sam muttered.
Dean grinned. "Library's the other way."
Sam flipped him off. It was the closest they'd been to normal since they'd walked out of that asylum in Illinois.
***
The Hopewell public library was a startling change from the dusty, one-roomed libraries they'd grown used to, all metal and glass on the outside, with a huge, modern-looking fountain in front of it. Inside, there were rows of computers instead of a card catalog.
"I'm going to go check out old newspapers," Sam said, nodding in the direction of the periodicals room. "See if there's any history of this kind of thing."
"Okay," Dean told him. "I'll see what they've got in the folklore section. Maybe there's information on something that attacks through dreams. Mrs. Gilchrist said her daughter had been having nightmares."
There was actually rather a large selection of books on urban legends, ghost stories, local myths. Dean settled on the floor in the stacks and started flipping pages. It wasn't long before he found something that made him sit up straighter, grip the book more tightly in his hands.
A mare (from which we derive the word "nightmare") or dream demon is said to come during the night and sit on the chest of its victims and cause feelings of suffocation and choking. Common varieties of dream demons are the incubus and succubus who evoke erotic dreams and have intercourse with the sleeper. A more rare type is sometimes referred to as a dream weaver, a demon whose malicious dreams bleed over into the victim's waking thoughts, giving the demon the power to wreak havoc in the corporeal world.
Dean scrambled to his feet, went off to find Sam in the periodicals room, spotted him at one of the microfiche machines.
Sam looked up. "Find something?"
He put down the book, pointed with his finger.
"Dream weaver, huh?" Sam said. "You heard of that before?"
"No, and there's nothing in dad's book about it. I guess he never tangled with one. But if these things get into people's heads when they're asleep, fuck with their dreams--"
"Then they might not know what's real and what's not when they wake up."
Dean nodded. "Exactly."
"Any information on banishing it?"
"Usual way. Herbs, crystals, mostly just letting it know who's boss. You find anything?"
"Yeah." Sam leaned out of the way so Dean could see the screen.
"Local scout leaders accused of corrupting youth with bizarre occult practices," Dean read. "Devil worship, huh?"
"I guess that's what they were afraid of back in 1954. Check out the next page."
Dean hit the button, and the page whirred forward. "Accused scout leader found beaten to death in own home. Damn."
"Yeah, and I found several more cases that were similar. Kids accused a group of adults of doing something terrible to them, and it caused a panic. Sometimes ended in violence." He got a thoughtful look. "I mean, if you think about it, even the Salem witch trials fit that pattern."
"It was a group of young girls that did the finger pointing," Dean said. "So-- we've got an especially nasty dream demon that's been around a long time and specifically attacks kids because…? They're easy targets?"
"Not to mention that nothing tears apart a community quite like thinking innocent children have been hurt." He met Dean's eyes. "That's what this thing is really after, what it thrives on. Conflict. Terror. Hatred."
"Well, from what we saw outside that preschool, it's doing a hell of a job."
Sam got the kind of look that always made Dean nervous.
"What?" he asked, even though he wasn't completely sure he wanted to know.
"It's just-- the people accused in this case aren't going to jail. And I saw something around the Gilchrist girl." He met Dean's gaze, deadly serious. "I don't think this thing has gotten everything it came for yet."
"Shit," Dean cursed quietly.
"My thoughts exactly," Sam said.
***
After the research, they grabbed some dinner, and by the time they were finished, it was too late to be knocking on a stranger's door. They'd decided to go see the teacher, Monica Labruzzi, in the morning, and headed back to the motel. For once, Sam didn't make a beeline for the TV, just did a little more research on the computer. Dean went to take a shower, and they turned in early. It had been one long day.
The next morning, Sam was asleep when Dean got up. He threw on some clothes, went out for coffee and the paper. When he got back, Sam still hadn't stirred. He scanned through the headlines, checked his watch, once, twice, a third time, and finally went to shake Sam's shoulders.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Wakey, wakey. We've got to get a move on."
"Fuck you, man," Sam mumbled, not lifting his head from the pillow.
Dean threw back the covers. "Seriously. It's getting late."
Sam finally cracked his eyes open. "What the hell time is it?"
"After nine."
Sam scowled ferociously, but he did drag himself out of bed. "Just give me a minute."
"Thirty seconds."
"Bite me," he said, with a slam of the bathroom door.
"Didn't I tell you not sleeping was going to catch up with you sooner or later?" Dean shouted at him.
But the water in the shower had started, and he doubted that Sam was listening anyway. His brother hated I-told-you-so's.
Sam got dressed and downed the industrial-sized coffee that Dean had gotten him, and they headed out. It wasn't hard to find where Monica Labruzzi lived, another quiet, tree-lined street, not far from the Gilchrists.
Dean stopped the car, contemplated the house. "You got any ideas?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah. I read something about her background that'll help us. Just follow my lead."
They went up to the porch, and Sam rang the bell. It took a while, but a young woman answered the door at last, pale and tired looking, with dark, serious eyes.
"Mrs. Labruzzi?" Sam said.
"Yes?" She looked rather frightened.
"Hi, I’m Sam Skinner. I'm a Masters student in the Stanford psychology department. I apologize for not calling first."
"My husband took the phone off the hook. We've been getting some-- We just couldn't listen to it anymore." She looked puzzled. "I'm sorry. I don't understand why you're here."
"This is Dean, my research partner. Our work is in child psychology. We're looking at cases like this one, where groups of children may have been unwittingly influenced into making false allegations of abuse, trying to understand the factors involved so we can develop a model for police investigators and social workers. It would be invaluable to us to have a few moments of your time, if you can spare it."
She let out a little sound and leaned heavily against the doorframe.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Labruzzi," Sam said in a rush of concern. "I didn't mean to--"
She shook her head. "No, it's just-- the first time anyone has come out and said they were false allegations. I didn't know it would be such a relief." She took a deep breath. "Please. Come in."
They followed Mrs. Labruzzi down the hall. In the living room, the television was on. Dean glanced at it. A video was playing. It was the children from the daycare center.
Mrs. Labruzzi hurried over to turn it off. "I'm--I was--working on a child psychology degree too," she explained. "My thesis was on dispute resolution strategies among preschoolers. Mrs. Whittimore used to let me bring copies of the surveillance tapes home to study." She quickly added, "With the parents' permission, of course. Sometimes now I just put it on and--" She shook her head sadly.
In the kitchen, they settled at her table. Sunlight streamed in through a window. The room smelled warm, fresh, like something had been baking.
"I'm not sure how I can help you," Mrs. Labruzzi said.
Sam wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully. "I guess we'd just like to get a sense if there were any warning signs that something like this could happen. Did you ever have a problem with any of the parents?"
Mrs. Labruzzi shook her head. "Never. We always made it a priority to see that all our parents were comfortable with the care their children were getting. Little things might come up every now and then, but we never had any serious complaints."
"Did you ever notice any of the children acting strangely?" Sam asked. "Did they ever mention anything about nightmares?"
Mrs. Labruzzi considered the question. "Sometimes some of the children wouldn't want to take their naps, but that's hardly unusual. I never had any of the kids say anything to me about nightmares, but I guess it's possible it might have come up with some of the other teachers. Is that important?"
"We're not sure," Dean told her. "Is there anything else you can think of? Something you might have disregarded at the time, but when you look back on it now it doesn't seem quite right?"
She met his gaze squarely. "It was a nice place to work. A good place for people to bring their children. There was never anything that wasn't right."
Sam assured her, "We're sure that's true. We just needed to ask."
She looked down at the table. "Of course. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--"
"We understand," Dean said.
They got to their feet, and on the way out, Sam surprised Dean by asking, "Do you think I could borrow that tape from the daycare center?"
Mrs. Labruzzi looked startled, too.
"It might help us," Sam explained.
She hesitated for a moment, then went over to the VCR. "Just destroy it when you're finished," she said, handing Sam the tape. "My husband doesn't like me watching it. He says it's not healthy."
Dean waited until they were in the car to ask, "What was that all about?"
"There might be something on the tape."
"Like that cloud you saw around the Gilchrist girl?"
"Or something suspicious from the staff," Sam surprised him again.
Dean frowned. "But I thought you were all over this dream weaver theory."
"I'm not making any assumptions," Sam snapped.
Dean stared at him. "So...what then? You think Mrs. Labruzzi is a kiddy rapist? A devil worshipper?"
Sam looked away, out the passenger window. "Even the person you trust most in the world can betray you."
"Whatever," Dean told him. "I guess you expect me to go rent a VCR now, huh?"
No answer from Sam, and Dean sighed, started the car. The next time they had that conversation about Dean being the bossy one he was going to have plenty of evidence for the defense.
***
When Dean went to bed that night, Sam was still watching the video. He'd been at it since they got back to the room, obsessively, the same uneventful scene of preschoolers pushing toy dump trucks across the carpet and fighting over Barbie dolls, again and again. Dean expected to get up the next morning to find him still glued to the TV, but instead he was jolted awake in the middle of the night to the blood-curdling sound of one of Sam's nightmares. He looked over, and his brother's body was snared in the sheets, twisting fitfully, as if trying to free himself. Dean was halfway up to go wake him when Sam let out a pitiful whimper and settled back down. Dean sighed, punched his pillow, tried to go back to sleep, not particularly successfully.
By all rights, he was the one who should have been prickly the next morning, but apparently Sam hadn't gotten that memo. He slammed the door on his way into the shower, let out a hot string of curses when he couldn't find the T-shirt he wanted. They were some pretty colorful obscenities, too. Dean wouldn't have guessed his brother knew that kind of language. Over breakfast, Sam scowled at his eggs as if they'd done something to personally offend him.
"What is up with you?" Dean finally asked him.
Sam got his patented persecuted look. "What?"
Dean gave up. Whenever Sam was acting like he was on the rag, there was just nothing Dean could do with him, and they had more important things to worry about anyway.
"We need a plan," Dean said, all business, "to cast out this dream weaver."
"How are we even supposed to find it?" Sam asked, irritably.
"It attacks kids, right?" Dean reasoned. "And you saw it hovering around the Gilchrist girl. That seems like our best shot."
"So what are you saying? We break into the house and…what? Hang out and wait for it to pay a visit?"
Dean gave him a look that said "duh."
Sam shook his head, emphatically.
"What are you doing that for, Sammy? It's a good plan."
"What if we get caught?" Sam said loudly enough to make people look.
Dean pretended to be very interested in his breakfast.
When everyone looked away again, Sam added in a fierce whisper, "We could go to jail for a really long time."
Dean shrugged. "So let's not get caught."
Sam looked like he was about to let loose with some more of that colorful vocabulary of his, and Dean grabbed him by the sleeve, hustled him out of the diner before the locals really thought they were up to something.
They spent the afternoon making the rounds of every new age store they could find, laying in a supply of herbs, investing in some crystals. Banishing demons was unpredictable business. You never knew what was going to work. Dean took the opportunity to browse through some books on the subject while they were shopping, but it all came down to the same thing. To get rid of a demon, you just really had to want it gone.
Sam griped and complained and was just generally unhelpful pretty much the entire day. By the time they were heading back to the motel, Dean was ready to chuck him out the first convenient window. More important things to think about, he kept reminding himself.
In their room, he set to work making preparations for that evening, laying out his weapons, checking them all.
"You going to shoot the demon?" Sam asked snidely, as Dean cleaned his revolver.
"Take care of your weapons, and they'll take care of you," he quoted their father.
Sam snorted. Dean ignored him. More important things, more important things.
He pulled out the herbs from the new age shop and started grinding them. Sam paced the room, more agitated by the moment.
Finally, when it got too annoying, Dean glanced up. "We've banished demons before. It's going to be fine."
Sam stopped, his face twisted with fury, "I'm not afraid!"
Dean let out his breath, doing his best not to lose his temper. "Right. So if you’ve got all that nervous energy to work off, why don’t you make yourself useful? I could use a hand with this angelica."
"You can't tell me what to do," Sam snapped at him. "You can't make me do anything I don't want to do."
"That's fucking it, Sam! I've had enough of you being a pissy jackass," Dean shouted at him. "What the hell has crawled up your ass?"
Sam didn't answer, stubbornly refused to make any move toward the angelica.
"Fine," Dean said, disgusted. "I'll do it myself."
"You're really eager to chalk all this up to supernatural forces, aren't you?" Sam's eyes were bright with some kind of accusation, although what exactly that was about Dean had no clue.
"Yeah," he said sarcastically. "I mean, coming here to check this out was all my idea. Oh, wait. No, it wasn't."
"You want to deny that things like this go on," Sam said, voice thick with anger.
Dean threw down the angelica, fed up. "What the fuck, Sammy? You were just as convinced this was a dream weaver not that long ago, and now suddenly I'm the ringleader of some kind of cover up. What is your problem?"
"My problem," all the color had drained out of Sam's face, "is that I remembered."
Dean raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? You want to share?"
Sam was shaking. "I remembered what you did to me when I was a kid."
"Oh, Jesus." Dean shook his head. "Not again. Not again, Sam."
"I remember everything, Dean." He sounded like a little boy, his voice soft and halting and scared.
Dean's hands closed into fists, anger and helplessness all coiled up inside him. "Can't we run into one evil thing that doesn't get inside your head and fuck you up?"
Sam wasn't listening. "I remember how you used to wait until Dad was asleep. And then you'd come into my bed. And," his voice faltered, "touch me. Make me do things."
The reasonable part of Dean kept reminding him, "not his fault, it's the demon, not his fault." But the piercing look of betrayal on Sam's face, like Dean was the slimiest filth that had ever walked the earth--that was just too much of a match for reason, the last damned straw. "Fuck you!" he screamed. His fist flew, landing hard, making Sam stagger back.
He couldn't remember a time when he'd hit Sam in anger rather than some fucked up necessity, because "you're bigger than him, Dean, you've got watch out for your little brother" had been drilled into him all his life. But now that he'd started he really wanted to keep doing it. He grabbed Sam by the collar and hit him again, again, until he fell to the floor, nose bloody, hand pressed to his jaw.
Dean loomed over him. "You can hate my guts for dragging you back into this life. And blame me for what happened to Jessica. And despise every damned thing about me." He stopped and pointed a finger, his hand shaking. "But don't you ever say I did anything to you when you were little. Don't you ever, Sammy. I would have died before I let anything happen to you. I would have fucking killed myself before I ever hurt you."
Sam huddled on the floor, blood smeared on his face, eyes wide and confused, still afraid. Afraid of Dean. It was enough to make Dean feel like throwing up. That and the fact that his hand hurt like hell, because he'd beaten his little brother with it, his little brother that he was always supposed to protect.
He took a shaky step backwards. "I'm going to go vanquish this thing." He grabbed up his gear. "You stay here."
Sam might have called out his name, but if he did, the slamming door drowned it out. Don't get distracted, Dean reminded himself as he drove, his father's words. He parked across the street from the Gilchrist house and kept watch. By the time all the lights were out and the block had gone utterly silent, his mind was empty of everything but the job at hand. His father had trained him well.
Breaking into the house was easy, a lock to pick, alarm to short circuit, nothing he hadn't done a million times before. There were times when it gave Dean pause how thin the line was between the good fight and commonplace crime, but he pushed those thoughts away now. He had a mission to accomplish, and that was all that mattered. This family, this town, his own brother…nothing would be okay again until he'd finished this.
He crept up the stairs, moved silently down the hall. There was only one door not closed all the way, and Dean headed for it. Kids liked that little splinter of light from the hallway to help ease the dark. Sam had been like that when he was young. Inside, he found Melissa asleep in her bed, and he crouched down in a corner of the room to wait.
He could sense it before he actually saw anything, a cold presence that permeated the room, so hopelessly icy Dean could feel it all the way down in his gut. The demon manifested a moment later, a dark shadow gliding across the floor toward the sleeping girl. Dean rose to his feet, and the movement made the demon turn. When it trained its focus on him, Dean smelled smoke for a second, then the room grew even colder, and he had the sudden panicky sense that nothing would ever be okay again.
Dean braced himself, told it with quiet force, "You're not welcome here."
The demon retaliated, making pictures spring to life in Dean's head, things he'd never done to Sam, never would, but still so vivid that it felt like a knife in his side. He took a deep breath, pulled out the angelica, tossed it at the demon. The images flashed more furiously behind his eyes, Sam and his father, their mother, so many twisted lies, so much pain. And that just pissed him off. No one used his family like that. He grabbed the crystals out of his bag, gripped them in his hands, breathed slowly in an out, clearing his mind, slowing down his heart.
"Leave this place, leave this place," he began to chant, stronger each time he said it.
The demon pushed back hard, trying to swamp him with his worst fears. Sam cut and burned and bleeding. Sam alone and suffering. Sam cold and gone. But the harder it pushed, the more furious that made Dean, and he gathered his will, forced all the fucked up pictures out of his head. None of that was ever going to happen to his brother, not while he had half a breath left in his body. He tightened his fists until he could feel the crystals leaving imprints in his flesh, and focused every ounce of energy he had.
"Get out!" he ordered the darkness.
The outline of the demon started to waver, the room to shake. Its form began to shimmer, and a high, whining noise filled the space. The floor pitched and rolled. Dean threw his arms up to cover his face just before the thing exploded in a flash of pitch black. Icy aftershocks roiled through the air, so powerful he had to grab for the wall to keep from being thrown down. Then there was…nothing. Dean took his hands away from his face. Outside, he could hear the wind playing along the eaves of the roof. Inside, everything was quiet and still. By some miracle the whole house hadn't been woken up by the disturbance. He scrubbed his hand over his face, let out a breath in relief.
It was then that he noticed the little girl sitting up in bed, staring at him.
Dean put a finger to his lips, whispered, "It's okay, Melissa. Go back to sleep. The bad dreams are all gone now."
She watched him warily, but finally seemed to decide he wasn't dangerous or perhaps wasn't even really there. She lay back down, closed her eyes. Dean tucked the blanket around her and went quietly out the same way he'd come.
By the time he got back to the motel, he felt so utterly used up that merely calling himself "tired" felt like an insult. He turned the key in the lock, pushed the door open. Sam was sitting on his bed, like he'd been waiting right there for Dean the whole time he'd been gone. Dried blood on his face, and Dean tried not to look at it, wanted not to notice the sadness and guilt in his brother's eyes.
"You okay?" Sam asked in a cracked voice.
Dean dropped his bag. "Yeah. It put up a fight. But-- it's gone now." He took a breath, felt the silence in the room like something physical. "You-- better?"
"Yeah." There was a painful pause. "I'm sorry, Dean."
"All I need to know is that you're better."
"Can't we at least--"
Dean held up a hand. "Not now, Sam. Okay?"
"Okay," came the quiet answer.
Dean stared at a spot on the wall just past Sam's shoulder. "I was thinking pizza."
"Whatever you want."
He picked up the phone and ordered, but wasn't sure why he'd bothered when it came. Neither of them felt much like eating. Dean closed the box and set in on the dresser. Cold pizza wasn't the worst breakfast they'd ever had. He took a long shower, as hot as he could stand it, scrubbed himself nearly raw trying to get the lingering feeling of cold off his skin. Then he went straight to bed, no discussion, no goodnight. Sam turned off the light next to his bed, although Dean figured he was just going to pretend to sleep.
As he was drifting off, he could have sworn he heard Sam say, "I've never hated you."
***
In the morning, they did their best just to go on as if nothing had happened. Not that this had worked particularly well the last time, but tradition was tradition.
"I was thinking we could check this out." Dean handed Sam a folded up newspaper, from a small town in Nebraska, two articles circled. "Local sportsmen keep disappearing, and there's something about this mysterious swamp gas that just came out of nowhere. Maybe there's a connection."
Sam nodded, barely glancing at the paper. "Sure."
They packed up the car and drove, saying nothing that wasn't you need to stop? or mind if I roll down the window? all morning. It left Dean with plenty of time to think, not something he appreciated as a rule. His thoughts weren't even all that coherent, more a jumble of impressions, how scared Melissa had been, the sense of failure clinging to Mrs. Gilchrist, thinking she hadn't protected her daughter, all that sadness in Monica Labruzzi's eyes. He darted a glance over at his brother and added one more thing to the list, how miserable Sam looked right now.
They were all victims of that demon's fucked up games. Sam and him, included.
"At least we stopped it," Dean found himself saying, the sound of his voice startling after all the silence. "It can't hurt anyone anymore. Things can go back to normal. People can get on with their lives."
"But the damage has already been done," Sam said miserably, staring at his hands in his lap.
"Things get better," Dean told him. "People-- they get over stuff. Sam?" His brother met his eyes at last. "Really."
"I know you've always looked out for me, Dean," Sam told him in an earnest rush. "I may not have liked it all the time. But I've never doubted it." His mouth flattened unhappily. "Not when I was in my right mind, anyway."
And the thing was, Dean believed him.
"Okay," he said.
Sam locked eyes with him. "Yeah?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah."
Sam let out his breath like he was relieved, and the atmosphere in the car suddenly didn't feel quite so thick and stifling.
Dean drove a while before saying anything else and then he surprised himself, "It turned its whammy on me. While I was fighting it."
"Really?"
Dean nodded. "It fought dirty. Put a whole bunch of really fucked up shit in my head." And then he thought of something. "Did it go crazy on you, too?"
For a moment, he didn't think Sam was going to tell him. Because that would be just like his brother, to go all mute and mule-headed when Dean was having an Oprah-like moment of sharing.
But after a long hesitation, Sam mumbled, "Yeah. The pictures in my head-- there started to be more of them, different ones."
Dean waited. He figured his best shot of actually getting the story was not to ask for it.
It worked, too. "It was dad," Sam admitted shakily. "He was mad at me. Said I'm why he's had to stay away. Because of this-- whatever it is about me that keeps attracting evil stuff. He said-- I'm not made right."
"You know that's bull, right?" No answer, and he reached out for his brother's arm. "Sam? That thing was trying to hurt you. You know that. And what's going to hurt you more than shit like that from dad?"
Sam's gaze shot over to meet his, and the look in his eyes said that there was one thing that would be worse.
"I don't hate you," Dean told him quietly. "Never have, never will. So let's not let this stupid demon fuck us up, okay? Let's not let it win."
Sam opened his mouth, but nothing came out, and Dean stayed quiet, letting him work up to it. "I think I need to go see Missouri," Sam said at last. "After we're finished with the swamp gas thing. See if she can teach me to control this-- whatever it is that I have. I'm always going to be a liability to us if I can't keep the bad stuff out."
"You really think she can help you?"
Sam met his eye. "Yeah."
Dean nodded. "Okay. We'll go now. The swamp gas will still be there."
"Thanks, Dean," Sam said softly.
"Hey, it's been entirely too long since somebody slapped me upside the head for what I'm thinking instead of something I've actually said."
Sam laughed, and it finally felt like them again. All they needed now to really get back to normal, Dean figured, was some music for the trip. He groped around in the floorboard, came up with his White Snake tape and popped it into the cassette deck.
Sam screwed up his face.
"What?" Dean asked.
"You're not seriously going to listen to that again."
"It's a classic."
"It's painful."
"You know, Sammy, I may have spoken too soon. 'Cause if you don't like White Snake there really is something wrong with you."
"Bite me."
Dean grinned. Hey, maybe it wasn't anybody else's notion of normal, but that didn't matter. It was his, and he relaxed back against the seat, gunned the engine, and looked forward to razzing his brother about his bad taste in bands all the way to Kansas.
Author's Note: For the record, opinion remains divided on the McMartin and Fells Acres cases. Serious questions have been raised about the interview techniques used on the children and the role of the media in sensationalizing the trials. At least one victim has recanted his allegations. Others maintain that they were abused.
***
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Rating: FRT (Fandom Rated for Teens)
Summary: Post Asylum. There's a new case to solve, nothing between them has been fixed, and Dean is finally pushed too far.
Warnings: Deals with subject matter that may make some readers uncomfortable. Proceed with caution. Some minor spoilers for Asylum.
Notes: Big, huge thanks to my beta readers stone_princess and catmoran for helping me focus this story. You guys are the best!
***
Shadows and Sunshine Land
By Lenore
Dean had plotted all the angles, more than once, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see any way it was a good thing that Sam had taken to watching Court TV pretty much non-stop. Every free minute he got, on went the TV, the half hour before an exorcism, in between casting out malevolent spirits, while mincing up a batch of bloodwort to replace what they'd used fighting a witch in Biloxi. He'd gotten picky about where they stayed too, wouldn't hear of a place that didn't have cable, even when they'd been on the road since before the freakin' dawn of time and Dean's eyes felt like sandpaper and his arms were threatening to fall off.
"Come on, man," Sam whined at him. "There's got to be another place further up the road."
Dean glanced over, impatiently. "Dude, what is up with you?"
"Just a few more miles. If we don't find anything else, we can always turn around." A combination of begging and determination in his face, and that really pissed Dean off. Shit worked too well.
He sighed heavily, making sure Sam knew he wasn't any too happy, and kept on driving. Like a pussy-whipped jackass. Only there wasn't even any pussy in the picture. He rubbed a hand over his face. The truly annoying part was that Sam honestly believed Dean called all the shots.
They went around a bend, then another, over a slight rise, and Dean was just contemplating a u-turn when Sam pointed. "There!"
It was more excitement than a grimy dump that had the pretension to call itself a "traveler's court" could possibly deserve. Still, there was a big sign in the window promising "Free Cable TV!" and Dean would have gladly stopped at the Bates Motel about then for the chance at even a few minutes uninterrupted sleep. He turned the wheel, came to a sharp halt in the parking lot, throwing gravel. Inside, the clerk gave him a dirty look, apparently not appreciating his driving, but he took their money and handed over the key. Dean was too tired to give a shit about anything else.
Their room was all the way at the end of the long building, and Dean drove down to park in front of it. They dragged their stuff out of the car, feet making hollow thuds on the concrete sidewalk. Inside, Dean flipped on the light. Sam went straight for the television.
"You've got to be kidding," Dean said.
"I'll keep it down low." At Dean's hard look, Sam insisted, "You can sleep through anything. You know you can."
"It's not me I'm thinking about."
"I'm fine." Sam settled onto one of the beds, legs crossed under him. "I'm not tired."
Dean shook his head. "Whatever, man."
He went into the bathroom, threw water on his face in lieu of the shower he really needed, stripped down to his underwear, and headed for bed. Sam was staring at the TV, a woman in a pink suit with a serious expression staring back from the screen. The volume was down so low Sam must have been reading lips to understand what was going on. But then, all that legal stuff was supposed to have been his future, and maybe he'd learned enough already to be able to fill in the blanks.
If Dean thought about it too much, he could see how Sam really did have some reasons to hate him. Maybe it wasn't any surprise he'd taken the first excuse of being possessed by a ghost to shoot Dean in the heart. Three times, no less. If Dean thought about that too much, he'd be up all night. So he rolled onto his side and closed his eyes with determination. Thinking about shit didn't change it. Fact of life.
When he woke up again, there was a pale strip of light coming in through the gap in the curtains. He reached for his watch, squinted. It wasn't even seven yet. The TV was off, but when Sam came out of the bathroom, Dean could tell from the sorry sight of him that it probably hadn't been off too long.
"You're looking all chipper and bright-eyed this morning," he said dryly.
Sam ignored that. "I went for coffee." He pointed to a large Styrofoam cup on the bedside table. "That's yours."
Dean hauled himself up into a sitting position, took the top off his coffee, downed a large swallow. "Thanks."
Sam nodded distractedly. "No problem. You mind if I--" He gestured toward the TV.
Dean sighed. "Sure. Never mind me, Sammy."
Sam flipped on the set, sank down onto the edge of his bed. He wasn't real good at picking up sarcasm when he was preoccupied.
Dean got out of bed, grabbed some clothes. "I'm going to take a shower, and then we need to get on the road."
Sam nodded, but it was pretty clear he wasn't listening. Dean rolled his eyes.
When he came out, clean at last and ready to go, he found Sam still frozen in the same position. An announcer on television was saying, "To repeat our breaking news, the verdict is in from Hopewell, California, in the Sunshine Land Daycare Center child sex abuse case. All six defendants were found not guilty on all counts."
Sam met Dean's eye. "I think this is where we need to go next."
Dean raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, so a bunch of kiddy rapists getting off is a bad thing, but don't you think miscarriages of justice are a little outside our area of expertise?"
"You think they're guilty?"
"Don't you?"
Sam stared at the screen, almost as if he expected to find the answer there. "I'm not sure. All I know is that something's bothering me, has been since I started following the trial." He scrunched up his forehead in concentration, reminding Dean of when Sam was little, bent over his homework, trying to get his cursive letters just right. "There wasn't any physical evidence of abuse. The entire preschool was wired with video cameras to help keep the kids safe. None of them were ever gone from sight long enough for any of the things they claimed to have actually happened."
"Videotapes can be altered," Dean pointed out.
"There wasn't any sign of that. And a live feed of the video went to a web site parents could visit, making it even harder to fake. Plus, there was other stuff that didn't make sense. All the kids described a room under the school, painted with blood, where all this ritual stuff was supposed to have happened, but there's no such room. Investigators went through the whole place with ground-penetrating radar. Nothing."
"So-- what?" Dean asked. "Somebody planted ideas in their heads?"
Sam shrugged. "It's happened before. In one of my pre-law classes, we studied the McMartin and Fells Acres cases from the 80s. We found that the accusations all started with anxious parents. The kids even denied anything had happened at first, but investigators kept pressing them, and then the kids' stories started to change."
"That's what you think happened here?" Dean asked.
Sam shook his head. "No, that's what's bothering me. There are procedures in place now that should prevent that from happening. And these claims are all coming directly from the kids themselves."
"Kids don't lie about shit like that," Dean said. "Maybe they got the details mixed up, but something still could have happened."
Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Or maybe they just believe something happened."
"Mass hysteria among toddlers?"
"Maybe. Although the details are all really similar from one story to the next, not what you'd expect if this was simply group panic. The kids were all interviewed independently, so they couldn't have influenced each other."
"Well, you're the college boy, not me, but isn't there such a thing as the collective unconscious? Maybe they're all dipping into the same well."
Sam stared at him, and Dean had to tamp down the impulse to punch him in that slack jaw of his.
"Nothing so endearing as you assuming I'm a moron, Sammy."
"I wasn't--" He stopped. "I really think we should go check this out."
"And what do you expect to find? If the teachers were abusive, that maybe they were just possessed or something? Demons made them do it?" His voice turned ugly. "So they weren't responsible for their actions. Is that what you're saying, Sammy?"
Dean's hands curled into fists. This was the problem with trying to pretend nothing was wrong when your brother had shot you in the chest three times. It had a tendency to back up on you, bitterly.
Sam kept his eyes trained on the bedspread. "I don't know, Dean. I just have a feeling that something isn't right."
For a moment there was only quiet, and then Dean said tersely, "Fine."
He pulled his duffel bag out from under the bed, started stuffing things into it randomly, balling up his clothes. He would regret those wrinkles later, but that didn't make him any more careful now. Sam moved quietly around the room, packing up his clothes. Dean kept his back to him. He had no idea if they'd find anything out in California, but one thing was for sure. It was going to be a hell of a long ride the way things were between them right now.
***
Hopewell lay up the coast from Los Angeles, a small, sunny town with storybook houses and immaculate lawns, bright emerald grass and dull green succulents. It was the first time they'd been back to California since Dean had come to get Sam, since Jessica, since all of it. In Dean's head, the entire state had a big X marked through it, not that he would admit to being superstitious or anything. He just had this nagging feeling that the next time he crossed these borders he'd have to give Sammy back to his old life.
He did his best to shake it off, told himself it was good to get away from the dust-colored Midwestern towns they'd been spending so much time in lately. Sam read out directions to the daycare center. Dean turned onto the street and slowed down, looking for the place. It wasn't hard to spot, a mob gathered on the sidewalk outside it, signs in their hands, murder in their eyes. He pulled the car off to the side, up the block, so they could check it out without attracting attention to themselves.
The Sunshine Land Daycare Center must have once seemed like a nice place to drop kids off, with its neat yard, bright blue swing set, the smiling sunbeam logo on the sign outside. Now, it had the pall of scandal over it, windows dark, an abandoned feeling to the place, graffiti scrawled in red, like blood, over the walls, "perverts," in blocky capital letters, like a voice screaming the accusation.
"I don't know about this," Dean said.
Sam stared out the window. "Yeah. We're not getting through all those people. Maybe we can track down some of the parents? Or teachers?"
Dean nodded. "Let's go find a place to stay, and then we can hit the phone book."
They followed signs to the business district and found a ready supply of cheap motels among the strip malls and auto repair shops. As soon as they got to their room, Sam unpacked the laptop and started to google.
"Okay," he said, turning the computer for Dean to see, "here's a list of defendants."
Dean fished the phone book out of the nightstand drawer, scanned the list. "Labruzzi's a pretty uncommon name." He flipped through the L's. "Yep. Just one listed."
He ripped the page out, and Sam made a face at him. "You could have written that down."
Dean shrugged. "Okay, now what about the parents?"
Sam shook his head. "Names changed to protect the kids."
"Hmm. Okay. Hold on. I'll be right back." He headed for the door, searching his pockets. "You got a quarter?"
"You don't even have a quarter?" Sam gave him disbelieving look.
Dean grinned. "That's what I have you for, little bro. Provide for me in my time of need."
Sam rolled his eyes, dug into his jacket, flipped him a coin. There was a newspaper stand outside the motel office, and Dean came back with a copy of the Hopewell Star Ledger. He scanned the front page and found the byline on the cover article about the case. He flipped the phone book open again and dialed. Sam watched curiously.
"Hopewell Star Ledger," a voice on the other end of the line answered.
"Yeah, hey. It's Dean Kent. Is JJ there? I was supposed to meet him, and I can't find the damned address--"
"Um, I'm sorry. Do I know you?" the receptionist asked hesitantly.
"That's okay, darlin'. I'm terrible with names, too. This is Dean Kent, the new guy on the city desk? What's your name again?"
"Madelyn?" she said, still not too certain about him.
"Right. Madelyn. Look, I just need to track down JJ. His cell's off for some reason, and I was supposed to meet him over at one of these parent's houses. I wrote it down, on this little scrap of paper, and I know I put it somewhere. Damn, what was that name again?"
"You mean the Gilchrists?"
He brightened. "That's it!"
"I thought JJ had given up on that. I mean, Mrs. Gilchrist did threaten to call the police."
"Oh, you know JJ. Doesn't have the sense God gave him."
Madelyn laughed. "Yep. That's JJ. You need the address?"
"Yeah." He flashed Sam a smile while he jotted down "486 Poplar Lane" in the margin of the torn phone book page. "You're a lifesaver, Madelyn. Thanks."
"Sometimes you scare me," Sam said after Dean hung up.
"Hey, you wanted to check this out," Dean reminded him. "So what do you think? The mom first? Or the teacher?"
"Neither one of them is going to want to talk to us," Sam said.
"That's true." Dean grabbed his keys off the dresser. "So I guess it doesn't really matter who we start with."
***
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up outside the Gilchrist's. Dean made Sam flip a coin on the way over and the mom won. Or lost, as the case may have been. He eyed the house, and his immediate impression was that if normal had an address it would be 486 Poplar Lane. There was even a picket fence.
"I hate this shit sometimes," Dean said under his breath as he got out of the car.
They went up the tidy flagstone walk, knocked and waited. No one came to the door, and Dean knocked again, just in case. At last a woman answered, opening the door just enough to peer out.
"Mrs. Gilchrist?"
"How many times do I have to tell you people to get off my property?"
"Oh, we're not reporters," Dean assured her. "I'm Dean, and this is my brother Sam. We're from the Survivor's Network, a support group. We thought maybe we could help, but if you'd rather we go--" He made a vague gesture toward the car.
Mrs. Gilchrist studied him. "You don't look old enough to have children."
Dean met her eye. "No, ma'am. The Survivor's Network is for both parents and kids who've been through things like this."
Understanding registered painfully on her face. "I'm so sorry. Please. Come in." She pulled the door open for them.
Sam shot Dean a disgusted look as they went inside. But how the hell else did he think they were going to get this woman to talk to them?
In the kitchen, she invited them to have a seat and poured cups of coffee. On the table was a sugar bowl in the shape of a lamb, a few stray Legos. Brightly crayoned drawings decorated the refrigerator. Mrs. Gilchrist sat down with them. Dean smiled, ready to say something to win her over, but then he noticed it, the heavy fall of blonde hair in her face, sweetness of her features beneath the severity of her grief. The more he looked the more he saw his mother, and every convenient lie went right out of his head.
Sam took up the slack, "We're really sorry for everything you've been through, Mrs. Gilchrist."
"Thank you," she said in a weary voice.
"How did you first know something was wrong?" Sam asked gently.
"Melissa was having bad dreams. At first, I thought it was just--" Her eyes went bright with tears. "But she kept having them, and I would ask her about it, and she wouldn't say anything. Until finally--"
"And you never had any suspicions about Sunshine Land before the nightmares started?"
She shook her head. "None. It always seemed like such a nice place. Mrs. Whittimore--the woman who ran it--invited parents to stop by whenever we wanted, without any notice, so we'd feel comfortable. And there was a web page where we could go and watch the kids, see what was happening. I thought they were good people." Her hand flew to her mouth.
For an awkward moment, neither Dean nor Sam could think of anything to say, and the soft sound of her crying was conspicuous in the quiet kitchen.
At last Dean managed, "We're really sorry, Mrs. Gilchrist."
She nodded and struggled to compose herself. "Can I ask what happened to you? If," she hesitated, "you don't mind telling me."
Dean swallowed hard. "Similar story. This-- evil came into our lives. Last thing we ever expected."
"Did you tell anyone?"
Dean shook his head. "What happened to us--" Orange flames leaped in his memory. "We didn't think anyone would believe us."
"You were probably right." Mrs. Gilchrist's mouth flattened into a bitter line. "That's been the worst part, trying to explain to Melissa how those people could go free after what they did." She looked from Dean to Sam. "I can see it in both of you. In your eyes." Her voice went soft, "How it still haunts you."
The room felt suddenly too close, as if all their nightmares had crowded around the table.
It took Sam to finally break the spell, "We really shouldn't take up any more of your time, Mrs. Gilchrist. We just came by to let you know that you're not alone."
"Thank you," she said earnestly. "I appreciate that."
They got up to go, and Dean caught the sound of footfalls hurrying on the stairs. In the foyer, he looked up, and a little girl peered down from the landing above, half hiding behind the baluster. Sam noticed too, and he stopped, staring up at the girl, for so long that Dean had to tug on his sleeve.
"Goodbye," he told Mrs. Gilchrist.
In the car, for a moment Dean could have sworn he smelled smoke, but he pushed that thought away because it was so utterly ridiculous. Beside him, Sam was staring straight ahead, at nothing.
"So?" Dean asked. Sam didn't get that all checked out look for no reason.
"I saw something hovering around the girl. Kind of this-- dark cloud."
"Seriously?" He gave Sam a long look.
"Yeah." Sam glared at him. "Could you stop staring at me like I'm a freak?"
"Having you plugged into the Psychic Friends Network is kind of weird, you have to admit, Sammy."
"Bite me."
Okay, Dean thought, so maybe he didn't have to admit it.
"What do you want to do now?" he asked, to change the subject. "Go to the library, do some research. Or swing by this teacher's house?"
Sam pursed his lips. "Let's hit the library first. The more we know, the more we'll know what to look for."
"Works for me, bro."
He made an abrupt u-turn in the middle of the road, complete with screeching tires.
"Ass," Sam muttered.
Dean grinned. "Library's the other way."
Sam flipped him off. It was the closest they'd been to normal since they'd walked out of that asylum in Illinois.
***
The Hopewell public library was a startling change from the dusty, one-roomed libraries they'd grown used to, all metal and glass on the outside, with a huge, modern-looking fountain in front of it. Inside, there were rows of computers instead of a card catalog.
"I'm going to go check out old newspapers," Sam said, nodding in the direction of the periodicals room. "See if there's any history of this kind of thing."
"Okay," Dean told him. "I'll see what they've got in the folklore section. Maybe there's information on something that attacks through dreams. Mrs. Gilchrist said her daughter had been having nightmares."
There was actually rather a large selection of books on urban legends, ghost stories, local myths. Dean settled on the floor in the stacks and started flipping pages. It wasn't long before he found something that made him sit up straighter, grip the book more tightly in his hands.
A mare (from which we derive the word "nightmare") or dream demon is said to come during the night and sit on the chest of its victims and cause feelings of suffocation and choking. Common varieties of dream demons are the incubus and succubus who evoke erotic dreams and have intercourse with the sleeper. A more rare type is sometimes referred to as a dream weaver, a demon whose malicious dreams bleed over into the victim's waking thoughts, giving the demon the power to wreak havoc in the corporeal world.
Dean scrambled to his feet, went off to find Sam in the periodicals room, spotted him at one of the microfiche machines.
Sam looked up. "Find something?"
He put down the book, pointed with his finger.
"Dream weaver, huh?" Sam said. "You heard of that before?"
"No, and there's nothing in dad's book about it. I guess he never tangled with one. But if these things get into people's heads when they're asleep, fuck with their dreams--"
"Then they might not know what's real and what's not when they wake up."
Dean nodded. "Exactly."
"Any information on banishing it?"
"Usual way. Herbs, crystals, mostly just letting it know who's boss. You find anything?"
"Yeah." Sam leaned out of the way so Dean could see the screen.
"Local scout leaders accused of corrupting youth with bizarre occult practices," Dean read. "Devil worship, huh?"
"I guess that's what they were afraid of back in 1954. Check out the next page."
Dean hit the button, and the page whirred forward. "Accused scout leader found beaten to death in own home. Damn."
"Yeah, and I found several more cases that were similar. Kids accused a group of adults of doing something terrible to them, and it caused a panic. Sometimes ended in violence." He got a thoughtful look. "I mean, if you think about it, even the Salem witch trials fit that pattern."
"It was a group of young girls that did the finger pointing," Dean said. "So-- we've got an especially nasty dream demon that's been around a long time and specifically attacks kids because…? They're easy targets?"
"Not to mention that nothing tears apart a community quite like thinking innocent children have been hurt." He met Dean's eyes. "That's what this thing is really after, what it thrives on. Conflict. Terror. Hatred."
"Well, from what we saw outside that preschool, it's doing a hell of a job."
Sam got the kind of look that always made Dean nervous.
"What?" he asked, even though he wasn't completely sure he wanted to know.
"It's just-- the people accused in this case aren't going to jail. And I saw something around the Gilchrist girl." He met Dean's gaze, deadly serious. "I don't think this thing has gotten everything it came for yet."
"Shit," Dean cursed quietly.
"My thoughts exactly," Sam said.
***
After the research, they grabbed some dinner, and by the time they were finished, it was too late to be knocking on a stranger's door. They'd decided to go see the teacher, Monica Labruzzi, in the morning, and headed back to the motel. For once, Sam didn't make a beeline for the TV, just did a little more research on the computer. Dean went to take a shower, and they turned in early. It had been one long day.
The next morning, Sam was asleep when Dean got up. He threw on some clothes, went out for coffee and the paper. When he got back, Sam still hadn't stirred. He scanned through the headlines, checked his watch, once, twice, a third time, and finally went to shake Sam's shoulders.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Wakey, wakey. We've got to get a move on."
"Fuck you, man," Sam mumbled, not lifting his head from the pillow.
Dean threw back the covers. "Seriously. It's getting late."
Sam finally cracked his eyes open. "What the hell time is it?"
"After nine."
Sam scowled ferociously, but he did drag himself out of bed. "Just give me a minute."
"Thirty seconds."
"Bite me," he said, with a slam of the bathroom door.
"Didn't I tell you not sleeping was going to catch up with you sooner or later?" Dean shouted at him.
But the water in the shower had started, and he doubted that Sam was listening anyway. His brother hated I-told-you-so's.
Sam got dressed and downed the industrial-sized coffee that Dean had gotten him, and they headed out. It wasn't hard to find where Monica Labruzzi lived, another quiet, tree-lined street, not far from the Gilchrists.
Dean stopped the car, contemplated the house. "You got any ideas?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah. I read something about her background that'll help us. Just follow my lead."
They went up to the porch, and Sam rang the bell. It took a while, but a young woman answered the door at last, pale and tired looking, with dark, serious eyes.
"Mrs. Labruzzi?" Sam said.
"Yes?" She looked rather frightened.
"Hi, I’m Sam Skinner. I'm a Masters student in the Stanford psychology department. I apologize for not calling first."
"My husband took the phone off the hook. We've been getting some-- We just couldn't listen to it anymore." She looked puzzled. "I'm sorry. I don't understand why you're here."
"This is Dean, my research partner. Our work is in child psychology. We're looking at cases like this one, where groups of children may have been unwittingly influenced into making false allegations of abuse, trying to understand the factors involved so we can develop a model for police investigators and social workers. It would be invaluable to us to have a few moments of your time, if you can spare it."
She let out a little sound and leaned heavily against the doorframe.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Labruzzi," Sam said in a rush of concern. "I didn't mean to--"
She shook her head. "No, it's just-- the first time anyone has come out and said they were false allegations. I didn't know it would be such a relief." She took a deep breath. "Please. Come in."
They followed Mrs. Labruzzi down the hall. In the living room, the television was on. Dean glanced at it. A video was playing. It was the children from the daycare center.
Mrs. Labruzzi hurried over to turn it off. "I'm--I was--working on a child psychology degree too," she explained. "My thesis was on dispute resolution strategies among preschoolers. Mrs. Whittimore used to let me bring copies of the surveillance tapes home to study." She quickly added, "With the parents' permission, of course. Sometimes now I just put it on and--" She shook her head sadly.
In the kitchen, they settled at her table. Sunlight streamed in through a window. The room smelled warm, fresh, like something had been baking.
"I'm not sure how I can help you," Mrs. Labruzzi said.
Sam wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully. "I guess we'd just like to get a sense if there were any warning signs that something like this could happen. Did you ever have a problem with any of the parents?"
Mrs. Labruzzi shook her head. "Never. We always made it a priority to see that all our parents were comfortable with the care their children were getting. Little things might come up every now and then, but we never had any serious complaints."
"Did you ever notice any of the children acting strangely?" Sam asked. "Did they ever mention anything about nightmares?"
Mrs. Labruzzi considered the question. "Sometimes some of the children wouldn't want to take their naps, but that's hardly unusual. I never had any of the kids say anything to me about nightmares, but I guess it's possible it might have come up with some of the other teachers. Is that important?"
"We're not sure," Dean told her. "Is there anything else you can think of? Something you might have disregarded at the time, but when you look back on it now it doesn't seem quite right?"
She met his gaze squarely. "It was a nice place to work. A good place for people to bring their children. There was never anything that wasn't right."
Sam assured her, "We're sure that's true. We just needed to ask."
She looked down at the table. "Of course. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--"
"We understand," Dean said.
They got to their feet, and on the way out, Sam surprised Dean by asking, "Do you think I could borrow that tape from the daycare center?"
Mrs. Labruzzi looked startled, too.
"It might help us," Sam explained.
She hesitated for a moment, then went over to the VCR. "Just destroy it when you're finished," she said, handing Sam the tape. "My husband doesn't like me watching it. He says it's not healthy."
Dean waited until they were in the car to ask, "What was that all about?"
"There might be something on the tape."
"Like that cloud you saw around the Gilchrist girl?"
"Or something suspicious from the staff," Sam surprised him again.
Dean frowned. "But I thought you were all over this dream weaver theory."
"I'm not making any assumptions," Sam snapped.
Dean stared at him. "So...what then? You think Mrs. Labruzzi is a kiddy rapist? A devil worshipper?"
Sam looked away, out the passenger window. "Even the person you trust most in the world can betray you."
"Whatever," Dean told him. "I guess you expect me to go rent a VCR now, huh?"
No answer from Sam, and Dean sighed, started the car. The next time they had that conversation about Dean being the bossy one he was going to have plenty of evidence for the defense.
***
When Dean went to bed that night, Sam was still watching the video. He'd been at it since they got back to the room, obsessively, the same uneventful scene of preschoolers pushing toy dump trucks across the carpet and fighting over Barbie dolls, again and again. Dean expected to get up the next morning to find him still glued to the TV, but instead he was jolted awake in the middle of the night to the blood-curdling sound of one of Sam's nightmares. He looked over, and his brother's body was snared in the sheets, twisting fitfully, as if trying to free himself. Dean was halfway up to go wake him when Sam let out a pitiful whimper and settled back down. Dean sighed, punched his pillow, tried to go back to sleep, not particularly successfully.
By all rights, he was the one who should have been prickly the next morning, but apparently Sam hadn't gotten that memo. He slammed the door on his way into the shower, let out a hot string of curses when he couldn't find the T-shirt he wanted. They were some pretty colorful obscenities, too. Dean wouldn't have guessed his brother knew that kind of language. Over breakfast, Sam scowled at his eggs as if they'd done something to personally offend him.
"What is up with you?" Dean finally asked him.
Sam got his patented persecuted look. "What?"
Dean gave up. Whenever Sam was acting like he was on the rag, there was just nothing Dean could do with him, and they had more important things to worry about anyway.
"We need a plan," Dean said, all business, "to cast out this dream weaver."
"How are we even supposed to find it?" Sam asked, irritably.
"It attacks kids, right?" Dean reasoned. "And you saw it hovering around the Gilchrist girl. That seems like our best shot."
"So what are you saying? We break into the house and…what? Hang out and wait for it to pay a visit?"
Dean gave him a look that said "duh."
Sam shook his head, emphatically.
"What are you doing that for, Sammy? It's a good plan."
"What if we get caught?" Sam said loudly enough to make people look.
Dean pretended to be very interested in his breakfast.
When everyone looked away again, Sam added in a fierce whisper, "We could go to jail for a really long time."
Dean shrugged. "So let's not get caught."
Sam looked like he was about to let loose with some more of that colorful vocabulary of his, and Dean grabbed him by the sleeve, hustled him out of the diner before the locals really thought they were up to something.
They spent the afternoon making the rounds of every new age store they could find, laying in a supply of herbs, investing in some crystals. Banishing demons was unpredictable business. You never knew what was going to work. Dean took the opportunity to browse through some books on the subject while they were shopping, but it all came down to the same thing. To get rid of a demon, you just really had to want it gone.
Sam griped and complained and was just generally unhelpful pretty much the entire day. By the time they were heading back to the motel, Dean was ready to chuck him out the first convenient window. More important things to think about, he kept reminding himself.
In their room, he set to work making preparations for that evening, laying out his weapons, checking them all.
"You going to shoot the demon?" Sam asked snidely, as Dean cleaned his revolver.
"Take care of your weapons, and they'll take care of you," he quoted their father.
Sam snorted. Dean ignored him. More important things, more important things.
He pulled out the herbs from the new age shop and started grinding them. Sam paced the room, more agitated by the moment.
Finally, when it got too annoying, Dean glanced up. "We've banished demons before. It's going to be fine."
Sam stopped, his face twisted with fury, "I'm not afraid!"
Dean let out his breath, doing his best not to lose his temper. "Right. So if you’ve got all that nervous energy to work off, why don’t you make yourself useful? I could use a hand with this angelica."
"You can't tell me what to do," Sam snapped at him. "You can't make me do anything I don't want to do."
"That's fucking it, Sam! I've had enough of you being a pissy jackass," Dean shouted at him. "What the hell has crawled up your ass?"
Sam didn't answer, stubbornly refused to make any move toward the angelica.
"Fine," Dean said, disgusted. "I'll do it myself."
"You're really eager to chalk all this up to supernatural forces, aren't you?" Sam's eyes were bright with some kind of accusation, although what exactly that was about Dean had no clue.
"Yeah," he said sarcastically. "I mean, coming here to check this out was all my idea. Oh, wait. No, it wasn't."
"You want to deny that things like this go on," Sam said, voice thick with anger.
Dean threw down the angelica, fed up. "What the fuck, Sammy? You were just as convinced this was a dream weaver not that long ago, and now suddenly I'm the ringleader of some kind of cover up. What is your problem?"
"My problem," all the color had drained out of Sam's face, "is that I remembered."
Dean raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? You want to share?"
Sam was shaking. "I remembered what you did to me when I was a kid."
"Oh, Jesus." Dean shook his head. "Not again. Not again, Sam."
"I remember everything, Dean." He sounded like a little boy, his voice soft and halting and scared.
Dean's hands closed into fists, anger and helplessness all coiled up inside him. "Can't we run into one evil thing that doesn't get inside your head and fuck you up?"
Sam wasn't listening. "I remember how you used to wait until Dad was asleep. And then you'd come into my bed. And," his voice faltered, "touch me. Make me do things."
The reasonable part of Dean kept reminding him, "not his fault, it's the demon, not his fault." But the piercing look of betrayal on Sam's face, like Dean was the slimiest filth that had ever walked the earth--that was just too much of a match for reason, the last damned straw. "Fuck you!" he screamed. His fist flew, landing hard, making Sam stagger back.
He couldn't remember a time when he'd hit Sam in anger rather than some fucked up necessity, because "you're bigger than him, Dean, you've got watch out for your little brother" had been drilled into him all his life. But now that he'd started he really wanted to keep doing it. He grabbed Sam by the collar and hit him again, again, until he fell to the floor, nose bloody, hand pressed to his jaw.
Dean loomed over him. "You can hate my guts for dragging you back into this life. And blame me for what happened to Jessica. And despise every damned thing about me." He stopped and pointed a finger, his hand shaking. "But don't you ever say I did anything to you when you were little. Don't you ever, Sammy. I would have died before I let anything happen to you. I would have fucking killed myself before I ever hurt you."
Sam huddled on the floor, blood smeared on his face, eyes wide and confused, still afraid. Afraid of Dean. It was enough to make Dean feel like throwing up. That and the fact that his hand hurt like hell, because he'd beaten his little brother with it, his little brother that he was always supposed to protect.
He took a shaky step backwards. "I'm going to go vanquish this thing." He grabbed up his gear. "You stay here."
Sam might have called out his name, but if he did, the slamming door drowned it out. Don't get distracted, Dean reminded himself as he drove, his father's words. He parked across the street from the Gilchrist house and kept watch. By the time all the lights were out and the block had gone utterly silent, his mind was empty of everything but the job at hand. His father had trained him well.
Breaking into the house was easy, a lock to pick, alarm to short circuit, nothing he hadn't done a million times before. There were times when it gave Dean pause how thin the line was between the good fight and commonplace crime, but he pushed those thoughts away now. He had a mission to accomplish, and that was all that mattered. This family, this town, his own brother…nothing would be okay again until he'd finished this.
He crept up the stairs, moved silently down the hall. There was only one door not closed all the way, and Dean headed for it. Kids liked that little splinter of light from the hallway to help ease the dark. Sam had been like that when he was young. Inside, he found Melissa asleep in her bed, and he crouched down in a corner of the room to wait.
He could sense it before he actually saw anything, a cold presence that permeated the room, so hopelessly icy Dean could feel it all the way down in his gut. The demon manifested a moment later, a dark shadow gliding across the floor toward the sleeping girl. Dean rose to his feet, and the movement made the demon turn. When it trained its focus on him, Dean smelled smoke for a second, then the room grew even colder, and he had the sudden panicky sense that nothing would ever be okay again.
Dean braced himself, told it with quiet force, "You're not welcome here."
The demon retaliated, making pictures spring to life in Dean's head, things he'd never done to Sam, never would, but still so vivid that it felt like a knife in his side. He took a deep breath, pulled out the angelica, tossed it at the demon. The images flashed more furiously behind his eyes, Sam and his father, their mother, so many twisted lies, so much pain. And that just pissed him off. No one used his family like that. He grabbed the crystals out of his bag, gripped them in his hands, breathed slowly in an out, clearing his mind, slowing down his heart.
"Leave this place, leave this place," he began to chant, stronger each time he said it.
The demon pushed back hard, trying to swamp him with his worst fears. Sam cut and burned and bleeding. Sam alone and suffering. Sam cold and gone. But the harder it pushed, the more furious that made Dean, and he gathered his will, forced all the fucked up pictures out of his head. None of that was ever going to happen to his brother, not while he had half a breath left in his body. He tightened his fists until he could feel the crystals leaving imprints in his flesh, and focused every ounce of energy he had.
"Get out!" he ordered the darkness.
The outline of the demon started to waver, the room to shake. Its form began to shimmer, and a high, whining noise filled the space. The floor pitched and rolled. Dean threw his arms up to cover his face just before the thing exploded in a flash of pitch black. Icy aftershocks roiled through the air, so powerful he had to grab for the wall to keep from being thrown down. Then there was…nothing. Dean took his hands away from his face. Outside, he could hear the wind playing along the eaves of the roof. Inside, everything was quiet and still. By some miracle the whole house hadn't been woken up by the disturbance. He scrubbed his hand over his face, let out a breath in relief.
It was then that he noticed the little girl sitting up in bed, staring at him.
Dean put a finger to his lips, whispered, "It's okay, Melissa. Go back to sleep. The bad dreams are all gone now."
She watched him warily, but finally seemed to decide he wasn't dangerous or perhaps wasn't even really there. She lay back down, closed her eyes. Dean tucked the blanket around her and went quietly out the same way he'd come.
By the time he got back to the motel, he felt so utterly used up that merely calling himself "tired" felt like an insult. He turned the key in the lock, pushed the door open. Sam was sitting on his bed, like he'd been waiting right there for Dean the whole time he'd been gone. Dried blood on his face, and Dean tried not to look at it, wanted not to notice the sadness and guilt in his brother's eyes.
"You okay?" Sam asked in a cracked voice.
Dean dropped his bag. "Yeah. It put up a fight. But-- it's gone now." He took a breath, felt the silence in the room like something physical. "You-- better?"
"Yeah." There was a painful pause. "I'm sorry, Dean."
"All I need to know is that you're better."
"Can't we at least--"
Dean held up a hand. "Not now, Sam. Okay?"
"Okay," came the quiet answer.
Dean stared at a spot on the wall just past Sam's shoulder. "I was thinking pizza."
"Whatever you want."
He picked up the phone and ordered, but wasn't sure why he'd bothered when it came. Neither of them felt much like eating. Dean closed the box and set in on the dresser. Cold pizza wasn't the worst breakfast they'd ever had. He took a long shower, as hot as he could stand it, scrubbed himself nearly raw trying to get the lingering feeling of cold off his skin. Then he went straight to bed, no discussion, no goodnight. Sam turned off the light next to his bed, although Dean figured he was just going to pretend to sleep.
As he was drifting off, he could have sworn he heard Sam say, "I've never hated you."
***
In the morning, they did their best just to go on as if nothing had happened. Not that this had worked particularly well the last time, but tradition was tradition.
"I was thinking we could check this out." Dean handed Sam a folded up newspaper, from a small town in Nebraska, two articles circled. "Local sportsmen keep disappearing, and there's something about this mysterious swamp gas that just came out of nowhere. Maybe there's a connection."
Sam nodded, barely glancing at the paper. "Sure."
They packed up the car and drove, saying nothing that wasn't you need to stop? or mind if I roll down the window? all morning. It left Dean with plenty of time to think, not something he appreciated as a rule. His thoughts weren't even all that coherent, more a jumble of impressions, how scared Melissa had been, the sense of failure clinging to Mrs. Gilchrist, thinking she hadn't protected her daughter, all that sadness in Monica Labruzzi's eyes. He darted a glance over at his brother and added one more thing to the list, how miserable Sam looked right now.
They were all victims of that demon's fucked up games. Sam and him, included.
"At least we stopped it," Dean found himself saying, the sound of his voice startling after all the silence. "It can't hurt anyone anymore. Things can go back to normal. People can get on with their lives."
"But the damage has already been done," Sam said miserably, staring at his hands in his lap.
"Things get better," Dean told him. "People-- they get over stuff. Sam?" His brother met his eyes at last. "Really."
"I know you've always looked out for me, Dean," Sam told him in an earnest rush. "I may not have liked it all the time. But I've never doubted it." His mouth flattened unhappily. "Not when I was in my right mind, anyway."
And the thing was, Dean believed him.
"Okay," he said.
Sam locked eyes with him. "Yeah?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah."
Sam let out his breath like he was relieved, and the atmosphere in the car suddenly didn't feel quite so thick and stifling.
Dean drove a while before saying anything else and then he surprised himself, "It turned its whammy on me. While I was fighting it."
"Really?"
Dean nodded. "It fought dirty. Put a whole bunch of really fucked up shit in my head." And then he thought of something. "Did it go crazy on you, too?"
For a moment, he didn't think Sam was going to tell him. Because that would be just like his brother, to go all mute and mule-headed when Dean was having an Oprah-like moment of sharing.
But after a long hesitation, Sam mumbled, "Yeah. The pictures in my head-- there started to be more of them, different ones."
Dean waited. He figured his best shot of actually getting the story was not to ask for it.
It worked, too. "It was dad," Sam admitted shakily. "He was mad at me. Said I'm why he's had to stay away. Because of this-- whatever it is about me that keeps attracting evil stuff. He said-- I'm not made right."
"You know that's bull, right?" No answer, and he reached out for his brother's arm. "Sam? That thing was trying to hurt you. You know that. And what's going to hurt you more than shit like that from dad?"
Sam's gaze shot over to meet his, and the look in his eyes said that there was one thing that would be worse.
"I don't hate you," Dean told him quietly. "Never have, never will. So let's not let this stupid demon fuck us up, okay? Let's not let it win."
Sam opened his mouth, but nothing came out, and Dean stayed quiet, letting him work up to it. "I think I need to go see Missouri," Sam said at last. "After we're finished with the swamp gas thing. See if she can teach me to control this-- whatever it is that I have. I'm always going to be a liability to us if I can't keep the bad stuff out."
"You really think she can help you?"
Sam met his eye. "Yeah."
Dean nodded. "Okay. We'll go now. The swamp gas will still be there."
"Thanks, Dean," Sam said softly.
"Hey, it's been entirely too long since somebody slapped me upside the head for what I'm thinking instead of something I've actually said."
Sam laughed, and it finally felt like them again. All they needed now to really get back to normal, Dean figured, was some music for the trip. He groped around in the floorboard, came up with his White Snake tape and popped it into the cassette deck.
Sam screwed up his face.
"What?" Dean asked.
"You're not seriously going to listen to that again."
"It's a classic."
"It's painful."
"You know, Sammy, I may have spoken too soon. 'Cause if you don't like White Snake there really is something wrong with you."
"Bite me."
Dean grinned. Hey, maybe it wasn't anybody else's notion of normal, but that didn't matter. It was his, and he relaxed back against the seat, gunned the engine, and looked forward to razzing his brother about his bad taste in bands all the way to Kansas.
Author's Note: For the record, opinion remains divided on the McMartin and Fells Acres cases. Serious questions have been raised about the interview techniques used on the children and the role of the media in sensationalizing the trials. At least one victim has recanted his allegations. Others maintain that they were abused.
***