gentle flesh; part i

[steeplechasers]

Duluth, MN

It's a wonder Dean can't hear it. The noise in here.

Sam stands-floats, whatever-near the nightstand of the abandoned room. Unable to do much except watch Dean turn the place over: flinging back the bedspreads, opening the closet and closing it again, shunting drawers off their rails. The Bible in one of the drawers falls half-open to the floor. Dean doesn't bother to pick it up, so Sam does, instead. It rises slowly into the air, tremulous, and goes flat on the dresser-top.

“He's not here,” Sam says.

Dean's too angry to say anything back, to thank him for pointing out the obvious, genius . He's already looked under the bed twice-for what, Sam isn't sure-and now he's down on the floor again, triple, quadruple-checking.

He's not here, but the noise of him is. Sam's starting to understand what that means. The way everything he sees is washed blue-how thin walls seem, and doors. He noticed it first in the car: a low rumble even beneath her engine, the noise of Dean existing in her for so long, and his own voice woven there, too, though weaker, more far away.

Ghosts make more and more sense to him, the longer he is one.

I'm not what he says I am. That's the noise in here. If he could pinpoint it, it would be layered under the peeling wallpaper, the print of rusty fleur de lis. His own voice, but steelier. Don't listen to him. I'm not what he says I am. I want to live.

He frowns.

Dean's voice comes in over the noise, like clarity breaking out of radio static.”Hey.” He won't look directly at Sam; he's too bright, apparently. “Where's he headed? Can you feel it?”

Sam turns, looks to the window, the cool black glass. Outside the lights of Duluth are stale and icy. “South,” he says, with unease. “South-east. More-Iowa.”

“You sure?”

“I'm sure.”

Dean checks his rifle, clicks up the safety. He gives one more passing glance around the empty room. Pauses. His eyes move in Sam's direction, shrinking in his light.

“How you doing?”

“Good as I can be,” Sam says. Being this way; he neglects to say that. The noise ratchets up. It's almost like he knew-like he knew to leave a message-he should say something. “Dean, I-”

“Let's go,” Dean says. It's useless. When his brother's on a mission like this there's no stopping him, no listening to reason. “Keep feeling for him, okay?”

If Sam could sigh, he'd be sighing. “Okay.”

He tries to dim down as much as he can, but it's hard to control any part of himself. As far as ghosts go, he's not a very good ghost.

Seventy-two hours ago he was in Hell. Sixty-seven hours ago he was back on Earth again-no body, no substance. Just a light that made his brother shrink from him, shield his eyes. Dean, with a broken nose and blood scabbed on his lips, furious, because he had slipped away, somehow. He doesn't know how, he keeps saying, rubbing his temples hard. He was right there, he almost had him.

Fifty-three hours ago they left Sioux Falls, Sam still confused and breathless, hunkered down in the footwell of the passenger seat.

His body's on the run. That's the most he can gather. And Dean has nothing good to say about it. You have no idea what he's like, Sammy, he keeps saying. He doesn't feel anything. He doesn't care about you or me or anybody but himself. He's scary as shit, almost let me die-

But Sam doesn't want details, so he keeps quiet, letting Dean's anger run its course, until he's more or less silent.

Sam could feel him-scooping south to shake them, and then heading north, near Duluth-and said so before he could think better of it. So they drove, through the night, chasing a near-invisible string of stolen cars and misdirections, until they landed in the bitter urban winter in a no-tell motel on the outskirts of the city, and by then he was long gone.

Now he's taking the drive to Iowa to learn how to make himself as small and unobtrusive as possible in the passenger footwell, and Dean is quiet. Hasn't even bothered to wash the blood off his face.

They've barely spoken except to greet each other, at the very beginning. Dean trying not to cry, in frustration and relief. And Sam knew immediately not to show himself completely. Thus the tiny orb of floating light. The way souls should look, he imagines. Pure, simple, unharmed.

Dean doesn't need to see what he actually looks like.

Sam is sure that he's in Hills until they get to Hills, by which point it's obvious-nothing is there except the noise he left behind. He can see Dean trying to hold back a fit of temper. His jaw is clenched so hard Sam fears he might break teeth.

The room is barely touched, but it's loud enough that Sam is sure he was here. Dean doesn't bother checking the place out. He leaves the door wide open, muttering, and sits on the hood of the Impala, looking in and fuming.

Sam stays inside. Feels outward at the barely-rumpled bedding. He was barely here at all. Just long enough to find a direction in which to point himself next.

Sam wonders where he's running.

I'm not like he says I am. Almost the same message, but not quite. More desperate. If you could see me, you would know.

He feels lost. Listening to his own voice in this black musty room. The noise is underneath the bed, pooling on the ceiling, dripping from the lampshades. He feels a prickling in whatever it is he's made of.

“Dean,” he says, “maybe we should stop. Talk about this.”

“Talk about what?” Dean says. All the snappishness is gone out of him. He's exhausted. For once in his life his eyes are on the road.

“Him.”

“What about him?”

Sam has managed to make himself the size of a baseball. Easier to look at. From underneath the glove compartment all he can see are Dean's hands on the wheel, a cluster of sky flashing by in the windows.

“I think he's scared,” Sam says.

“Fuckin' better be.”

“Dean-”

“Look, you don't know about him.” Dean's rifle is rattling against the seat-back where it lies beside his leg. It makes Sam nervous. “You don't know the shit he's pulled. He's not right, Sammy. Even if you weren't here-”

He swallows that, as if the thought of it is too hard.

“Even if you weren't here,” he continues, steady, “it'd be time to take him the fuck out. He's dangerous.”

It begins to rain. Dashes and drops popping like firecrackers on the windows.

Dean reaches out to turn on the windshield wipers.

“You feel him?” he says.

“You should stop,” Sam says. “Get some sleep.”

“Where's he headed?”

“Dean.”

Dean doesn't ask again.

Mercifully, he does stop. Sam hasn't told him that he can feel the noise heading north again. He figures it can wait. Maybe if Dean hits the pause button and sleeps for a few hours then he will settle down somewhere, too, feeling safe.

He needs a name. Something besides he. Sam curls up on the motel armchair, watching Dean toss and turn with his boots still on in the first Motel 6 they could find. He wishes he could sleep. He doesn't think he remembers how. The afternoon sun is breaking gently, wetly, through the curtains, though they're closed.

It's good to sit still. There's a lot Sam doesn't remember. Doesn't remember the point of breach between the Cage and the surface except for the chilly hand that shoved him through it. He'd barely been listening to Dean's ranting and raving about him- too shocked by the familiarity of Bobby's house, really Bobby's house, and not some construction to torture him with, too shocked by the way things looked to his new eyes. Too overwhelmed by the big, anxious warmth of his brother, closer to him than it had been in-he doesn't want to think how long. Knows the years number in the thousands, and that's as far as he wants to go in that direction.

He still doesn't fully understand what Dean wants to do, once they find him . But the vague notion that he gets makes him queasy. Dean is scaring him. He's full of blood and vinegar, he wants to kill something. Before he fell asleep he told Sam he was sorry, sorry for not sitting still long enough to really welcome him home-that he loves him, that they'll be okay once they sort this all out. He sounded like he was on the brink of a breakdown. Sam is glad he's asleep.

Him, him, him. Dean refuses to call him Sam.

At four PM Dean is still asleep.

The noise is getting louder. Coming from outside, distant, in and out like a tornado siren. Sam doesn't know enough about the way his world works now to understand what that means.

I'm not like he says. I'm not. I just want to be left alone. He can hear it like he imagines angels can hear prayer. If you could see me you would know.

I'd like to see you, he thinks. Wonders if he can hear him. He imagines not. It's not a two-way street. I want to know what you are.

If you could see me, see me, see me. He feels a tug. Glances at Dean, face-down on the bed, his rifle near his arm like a bedmate. Swallows.

Maybe he's biased-his body, and all. But he worries that Dean is wrong about him. This person on the run from them. Dreadfully wrong.

I just want to live. The noise goes fuzzy, interference on the radio. He doesn't get it. But you get it. Don't you?

He's winding down. Far ahead. West Virginia. Sam doesn't want to know how he made it that far so fast.

Dean's still asleep when he leaves. Doesn't move a muscle. Sam feels a pang of guilt. Whispers into the wall: West Virginia. I'll make him wait.

Outside, in the windy late day, the pale surging moon is wheeling overhead, brighter than it ever was when he had physical eyes to see it through. He lets himself down. Unfolds from the floating point of light he's been for the last few days. The afternoon chill goes through him like knives.

He looks down at his body. The ethereal-whatever. Flayed skin and blackened flesh. It's a long way to West Virginia, even on the other side of the veil.

He supposes it's always a good time to learn teleportation.