{SPN RBB} As I Saw Him Break Me: Chapter 2 of 3
Two: Road Block
Grumbling under his breath, Dean squinted against the harsh light that shone on his face from the motel room window opposite his bed. He tossed and turned for a few minutes before giving up on getting a few extra minutes of sleep. Yawning widely, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and then proceeded to knuckle his eyes.
The sound of tapping keys reached his ears and he looked over to see Sam sitting at the small table in their room with his eyes fixed on the screen. Dean frowned as he got a good look at his brother. The dark lines under Sam's eyes deepened as he squinted at the screen. Three cups of coffee littered the table instead of the usual two. One for Dean and now, apparently, two for Sam. Dean sighed, realizing his brother probably hadn’t slept much over the course of the night, and when Sam brought his hand up to rub his eyes, it pretty much convinced Dean that Sam hadn’t slept at all.
Deciding to ignore it for now and confront Sam later, Dean yawned again. “What time is it?” he croaked.
Sam glanced at his watch and said, “Eight thirty. You’re up early.”
“Hey, I’m always up early. It’s you who thinks that 5 am is a good time to be up and bustling about. It’s practically night.”
Sam snorted and rolled his eyes.
Shaking his head in fondness, Dean picked out clothes from his duffel, laid them out on the bed and headed to the bathroom to clean up.
About forty minutes later, he headed out with a towel wrapped around his waist, thinking that Sam would have been done with his internet surfing by now. As he exited the bathroom however, it was as though Sam had never left his seat. He was still hunched over his laptop, a look of concentration on his face.
Dean quickly got dressed. This was getting ridiculous. Sam had hardly slept these past few weeks ever since Dean had revealed what their father had said to him, and, after the possession, it had gotten worse.
Dean walked over and promptly closed the lid of Sam’s laptop.
“Dude, what the fuck?!” Sam exclaimed.
“I’m gonna get right to the point. Did you even get any sleep last night, Sam?” Dean asked, stern.
Sam glared at Dean before dropping his gaze, suddenly not meeting Dean’s eyes. “I slept, okay? Don’t worry about it.”
Lies. Dean thought.
“Really?” Dean asked, voice now soft as he pulled up a chair opposite Sam.
Sam didn’t answer as he absently twirled a pencil around his fingers.
“Dude, I know this case is bothering you. And I know I don’t get how bad the whole fiasco with Meg was, okay? But man, you need to stop blaming yourself for this crap. It wasn’t your fault. Okay?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Hey,” Dean consoled as he laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “We’ll figure this out, okay? Like we always do.”
~*~*~
“So nothing?” Dean asked, incredulous.
Sam shook his head as he parked the car on the side of the road. They’d decided to visit the carnival again, try and question other people, look for an explanation. “Nope. No electrical storms, no cattle mutilations, nothing. Nothing to even indicate that there’s someone like…well, me here,” Sam explained as he exited the car.
“But how is that possible? Your visions always point to one of those kids right? They have up until now,” Dean stated.
Sam ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t know, okay?! I just…I feel like there’s more to this case. There’s something we’re not seeing. Something that’s right in front of us. And it’s bothering the hell outta me.”
Dean looked Sam directly in the eye. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”
Dean started walking towards the numerous wagons set up in the grassy field. There seemed to be one new addition to the scene. An enormous tent had been put up at the far end of the field, probably where the circus was going to be held.
The people around the caravans appeared to be fewer than last time. Some were probably practicing in the tent.
Admiring the scenery around him, Sam walked right into someone who stumbled to the ground.
“Whoa, sorr - “ Sam's words caught in his throat as he realized what he was looking it. The hand he had extended to help was immediately withdrawn and he stood rooted to his spot.
The man in the clown costume looked offended as he picked himself up. “Can’t even help someone get to their feet,” the man grumbled as he walked away.
Sam gulped, mentally shaking his head. He needed to get over this irrational fear. He looked ahead of him and realized Dean was already talking to someone. Thankful that Dean hadn’t noticed what just happened. Sam straightened his jacket and walked over to his brother.
Just as Sam neared him, Dean thanked the woman he’d been talking to and turned around. Sam raised his eyebrows in curiosity as he stopped in front of his brother.
“Well, there’s never been a weird fire. And no one has been killed in any fire for that matter,” Dean said, frowning.
They walked around for thirty minutes, asking and interrogating anyone they could find. Some were not as helpful and kept to themselves while others welcomed the brothers with smiles and answered most of their questions. But by the end, they still couldn’t pinpoint what exactly was going on.
Sam glanced at Dean who looked just as annoyed and let down as he felt.
Not knowing what else to do, Sam suggested they head back to the motel. Dean agreed. In about twenty minutes, Sam parked the car in front of their motel room.
The next few hours went by with Dean aimlessly flipping through channels on the small television in their room while Sam sat on his bed, trying to scrounge up clues or any indications of the yellow-eyed demon around the area. Sam glanced at the window, watching darkness envelop the skies as the sun disappeared.
Dean groaned in frustration and turned off the television. “You find anything, Sam?” he asked as he buried his face in his hands.
Frowning when Sam didn’t answer, Dean said, “Dude, did you fall asleep?”
A pained whimper made him turn around and what he saw made him rush to his brother’s side, the television remote landing with a muffled thump on the carpeted floor. Sam was curled up in between the two beds, his hands clutching tightly at his head.
“De-” Sam gasped.
“Fuck,” Dean muttered, feeling helpless. “It’s okay, Sam. Come back to me, man.”
He laid a firm hand on the back of Sam’s neck, hoping that the familiar gesture would help.
Dean muttered small reassurances as he held onto his brother, preventing him from listing sideways and hurting himself unknowingly. He hated when Sam had visions like this, when Dean could only sit by and wait until Sam snapped out of it. It scared the living shit out of Dean. He had complete faith in Sam and knew that his brother would never become a killer like those other psychic kids. But that didn’t mean that Sam was out of danger. Dean could only hope that he’d be able to save his brother.
Because he damn straight wasn’t going to kill him.
A surprisingly strong grip on his hand snapped Dean out of his thoughts. Sam had a desperate and agonized look on his face.
“Dean,” Sam said in a strained tone.
“Yeah, I know,” Dean replied, knowing that there was no way Sam was going to stay in the motel.
~*~*~
Dean kept shooting worried glances towards Sam as he drove as fast as he could back towards the carnival. Sam was still pale and his hands shook slightly. Dean would usually make Sam rest a while after a vision because it always took a toll on him, but then there were moments, like this, where Sam would be adamant, and Dean knew that Sam would hold himself guilty if they couldn’t save the people in his visions.
The impala screeched to a halt beside the caravans. As Dean and Sam got out, sounds of people yelling reached their ears. Dean looked towards Sam and knew that they both were thinking the same thing.
Dean and Sam quickly made their way towards the source of the noise. A few people were rough handling a man who looked to be in his late thirties while another crowd stood in a circle around someone on the ground.
Dean walked pushed past the people in the circle and felt his heart sink.
Sam’s vision had come true. Bryce laid dead on the ground with a pool of blood underneath his forehead. He looked back towards Sam and shook his head, and felt his heart clench at the broken look on Sam’s face.
Dean looked back towards Bryce and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone disappear behind one of the caravans.
Thinking it could be the killer, Dean sprinted towards the caravan. He spotted a pair of legs disappearing behind another wagon and quickly followed.
A flash of metal as he got to the edge of the wagon made Dean instinctively stop- but not in time. He felt a sharp blow to his chest. He gasped in pain and went to his knees, struggling to breathe. He coughed a few times and struggled to see who his attacker was as he tried to blink away tears of pain. He slowly got to his feet. A glint of silver on the ground caught his eye and he knelt back down. He picked up the object and realized it was a bracelet of some sort. A small circular metal band with a name engraved in the center.
Jenna
Confused, but knowing this could mean something, Dean pocketed the bracelet and slowly made his way back to the scene of the crime.
By the time he got there, officials were loading Bryce’s body into the back of an ambulance and the man in his late thirties was being escorted towards a police car, handcuffed.
As Sam spotted Dean he ran over to his brother, a look of worry on his face. “Where the hell did you go?”
“Thought I saw who did this and ran after him. Pretty sure he had a hammer. That’s what you saw right? Bryce getting hit in the head with a hammer?” Dean asked as he absently rubbed the sore spot on his chest.
“Yeah but, what happened to you?” Sam asked.
Dean waved it off. “I’m okay. Whoever did this swung the hammer at me. Didn’t quite manage to dodge it.”
Sam frowned. “But how is that possible?”
Dean gave Sam a confused look. “What do you mean?”
“The guy the police just escorted? He’s the guy I saw kill Bryce. But he was here the whole time when you disappeared. He couldn’t have attacked you.”
Dean felt even more confused. “What are you trying to say, Sam?”
Sam pursed his lips as he said, “I’m trying to say that the killer is someone else. Not the guy they took. I knew something was off here. The look on his face, Dean. I could tell that he had no idea what was going on.”
“Well, you can count me into that category. I have no idea what’s going on either,” Dean said. He then pulled out the bracelet. “Do you remember seeing this somewhere? I think our guy dropped it.”
After examining it, Sam handed it back with a frustrated look on his face. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t remember.”
Dean laid a reassuring hand on Sam’s shoulder as they walked back towards the Impala. “I know this is bothering you, Sam. But we’ll figure this out. We always have.”
Sighing when Sam still seemed to be lost in thought, Dean said, “Okay, so let’s go through what we have.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, before we do that, get this. I’d found this while trying to look for connections between anyone we saw here. Apparently Martin and Bryce, they were involved in some sort of bank robbery a few years ago and this woman ended up being shot before they escaped. But they didn’t get sentenced because of lack of evidence.”
Dean frowned. “How’s that supposed to help us?”
Sam shrugged. “I have no idea, man. Just telling you ‘cause I remembered it just now.”
Dean nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, so we have what? Two people dead, a bracelet, some rumor about a bank-robbery, and a dead guy killing his daughter-in-law.”
Sam pursed his lips as he nodded. “And…that gets us nowhere, Dean,” he said, dejected. “Let’s just get back to the motel.”
Sam held out his hand silently for the car keys.
For once Dean didn’t argue and handed it to him, making his way to the passenger’s side.
Dean knew Sam was beating himself up about what just happened. He knew that shattered look on Sam’s face.
He just wished Sam knew that it wasn't Sam’s fault that they couldn’t save someone.
But then again, Dean didn’t know what it felt like to watch someone die and not be able to save them when you knew what was going to happen.
A tense silence filled the car as Sam started it up and turned it back around to their motel.
~*~*~
2:23 am.
Sam laid on his bed sighed as he glanced at the clock, and then turned towards the wall. Dean had done all he could to reassure Sam that none of this was his fault, and Sam wanted to believe him. But he just couldn’t because recently, everything around him seemed to be going to shit.
He couldn’t sleep without having nightmares of himself shooting Dean or slicing that poor hunter’s throat. Meg had made sure that Sam was aware of what was happening when he's been possessed.
Sam had felt disgusted, helpless, and ashamed. He’d screamed in horror when Dean had fallen off of the edge of the pier when Meg had shot him. And when Meg had made him look over the edge and Dean hadn’t come up, Sam had been so sure that he’d killed his own brother.
He would never forget how that felt.
Sam sat up in bed and rested his back against the headboard. These visions meant something. He wanted to save these people. Dean would never understand, but Sam felt like he could make the evil in himself go away if he saved these people. That way, he wouldn’t turn bad like many of the 'special kids’ they’d encountered.
Dean's words, a confused and hurt echo of their father, kept coming back to him.
He just said that I had to save you, that nothing else mattered, and that if I couldn't, I'd…
That I'd have to kill you. He said that I might have to kill you, Sammy.
And with what was happening now, the number of people that kept dying because of him, the fact that Dean was hurt and wounded because of him, Sam wouldn’t blame Dean at all if he had to kill him.
To be honest, Sam would welcome death at this point.
He just didn’t want this anymore. Dean might think that Sam would never go dark side, but with every person Sam failed to save, that’s all Sam thought of. He was definitely going to end up doing something horrible, something worse.
Worse than shooting his own brother.
The possibility terrified him.
Shaking his head against the barrage of negative thoughts, Sam shut his eyes, hoping to fall asleep.
He wished they’d figure out this case soon.
Sam eventually fell into an uneasy sleep filled with images of Dean being shot, interspersed with flashes of the nameless faces of people that had died because he couldn’t save them.
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