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nightspear) wrote2008-03-02 07:23 pm
Finding Home (4/?)
Title: Finding Home (Main Post and Chapter List)
Rating: PG-13/R for language, mostly
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of materialistic value from this.
Pairings: Mostly gen. Briefly, Sam/Jess
Notes: I'm a little nervous about Dean's voice...I'll be grateful for any constructive criticism here.
XXXXX
“What’s next, you’re going to start praying every day?”
(“Houses of the Holy”)
XXXXX
Dad called to say he was staying in a motel a couple of miles from campus. Dean was relieved that this explosion waiting to happen could be put off for another few hours—a fight between Dad and sleepy, dizzy Sam might be just as bad as one with Sam on happy pills.
All four under-thirties crammed into Sam and Steve’s dorm, Jessica curled up in what must be Steve’s couch. They were all so shaken—even Sam, which was how Dean knew there was more to that shapeshifter hunt than he’d said—that Dean hadn’t even tried to crack a joke about the hot blond chick sleeping with three guys.
The first time Sam woke was only an hour after he’d fallen asleep. Dean had been waiting for it, almost, and he stood immediately from the chair at Sam’s desk. He definitely hadn’t missed the nightmares.
No matter how much Sam had whined about hunting in the past few years, acting like he was only annoyed because he’d missed some biology test (which, come on, was a good thing), the nightmares always came the night after a hunt.
Remembering that, Dean could almost understand why Sam had left. It still didn’t excusehow he’d left.
By the time his all-too-familiar litany of It’s okay, Sammy got his groggy brother asleep again, Steve and Jessica were both awake and staring at him. He pasted on a smirk, raising a cocky eyebrow at them instead of saying the defensive What are you lookin’ at? on the tip of his tongue. Steve sat up on his bed, catching his eye and jerking his head toward the door.
Exhaling, he looked at Sam one more time to make sure he was asleep, then pushed the door open, looking down the hallway in both directions first out of habit. There was a lounge at the end of the hallway, and Dean headed there but Steve shut the door behind him and said, “Jess’s roommate’s away for the weekend. She said we can go to her room; it’ll be quieter.”
There had to be some joke he could crack about going into the girl’s room for a private talk, but it wouldn’t be any fun without Sam awake to appreciate it. Or not appreciate it, probably, but whatever. As it was, he simply followed Steve in, thinking how stupid it was to leave the door unlocked and wrinkling his nose at the girliness that was a stark contrast to Steve’s posters of the Chargers and the LA Galaxy and Sam’s…well, blankness. His brother was such a neat freak.
And there was a copy ofHighway to Hell sitting on Jessica’s desk, which was just wrong surrounded by pink and glittery things. Okay, not that they were actually pink and glittery, but it was pretty girly.
“Sam’s okay?” Steve asked first, and his approval rating went up a notch in Dean’s mind.
“Yeah, just a dream. He’s always had some pretty freaky nightmares.”
“No, yeah, I recognize it by now,” and Dean remembered that Sam lived with this other guy now. “It’s just that I haven’t seen him sleep that deeply in a while, so...”
“Uh, he just woke up, kid. That’s not very deep.”
“Well, you got him to fall asleep. Usually he just lies in bed most of the night.”
Damn. Dean swore sometimes Sam did crap like this just to force him into a sentimental scene.
“You been watchin’ him sleep? Something you wanna tell me? Because I’ve got Samantha’s honor to protect.”
He got the feeling he wasn’t doing a good job of getting Sam’s friends to like him, going by the distrust on Steve’s face as he snapped, “We’ve been worried about him! All we know is that he had some kind of fight with your dad that he refuses to talk about—”
“You don’t know a thing about our family,” Dean said, warning this time, partly because he didn’t know himself what had happened that night. Sometimes Sam was so much like Dad Dean wanted to kill them both. Or lock them both in a room with bowie knives, which would do the same thing.
“I just know he’s been sleeping even worse than he used to. You’re in his nightmares, you know,” Steve shot.
That was surprising, and Dean couldn’t deny a twinge of...actually, yeah, he was totally denying it. “What?” he asked.
The other shifted. “Look, man, I’m not trying to imply anything,” which was something people only said when they were trying to imply something. “Sam doesn’t talk much about family stuff, but he’s never said a word against you, so I’m just asking, as his friend, talk to him before you jet. Something’s been bothering him, and he won’t talk to us.”
Something’s always bothering Sam, Dean wanted to say. But he could see it, too, something dull in his little brother’s eyes, so he only said, “Winchesters don’t do the sharing and caring gig.”
Steve’s irritation was back. “Yeah, how’s that been working for you?”
“Go shove your relationship advice up your ass. I think we’re done here.” He stood, not particularly caring if the guy was following him.
“Jesus, are you all so touchy?”
“We are when some snot who don’t know what he’s talking about goes all Dr. Phil on us!”
“Well, pardon me for caring about my roommate!”
“Oh, you’re his roommate? Because I was fooled by your impression of a teenage girl with a crush.” Steve actually blushed at this, and Dean backpedaled. “Whoa, seriously?”
“No,” Steve muttered. “He and Jess are together, anyway. Or as good as.”
He really hadn’t needed to know about this. He wondered if Sam had a clue, then decided he probably didn’t, because Sam could be surprisingly oblivious for someone with full on OCD about everything else.
Wait, wait…
Jess? As in the hot blond he’d left sleeping with Sam? (Hah…sleeping with Sam) “Dude, her? That girl is completely out of my brother’s league.” That’s my boy.
Steve huffed a laugh. “He was tutoring her in Latin.”
“He would,” Dean said, honestly amused. “Geek.”
“Yeah, that’s what I tell him. There’re some smart people here, but Sam’s, like, genius-smart sometimes,” Steve said. Dean was torn between being annoyed at the guy and starting to like him. He decided on the latter—seriously, it was funny to be called a geek by kids nerdy enough to go to Stanford. “I mean, who the hell dreams in Latin?” Steve continued.
Well, hello, left field. “Sam’s...really?” he said skeptically.
“Yeah, it’s hard to miss. Kinda creepy. He’s never done that?” Dean gaped a little and shook his head. “You know, I didn’t recognize it before, but it actually sounded kind of like that thing, the exorcism he was doing outside tonight.”
“Whoa, time out. He exorcised someone? I thought this thing last night was a shapeshifter.” It better have been, because Dad had definitely found a body out there when he’d called earlier.
“Well, he thought it was possessed at first, but it turned out to be…you know, not,” Steve said. His voice was odd all of a sudden. Dean couldn’t figure out why until followed his gaze to the gun he’d pulled out (it was a habit, okay? Demons were nasty). He considered keeping it out, just for kicks, but put it away. See? He could be nice.
Not that nice helped much here. “So let me get this straight. Sammy’s dreaming...about exorcising a demon?”
“He doesn’t ever remember it, but I know what I’m hearing. Like I said, creeped me out the first few times. I thought he was a psycho or something.”
Yeah, I hear Latin’s real popular with the psychos these days, he thought. Sam, what’s going on in that freaky head of yours?
Steve rubbed his hand, and Dean vaguely remembered Sam babbling something about him getting cut. “You okay?” he asked grudgingly, trying to keep in mind that this was a kid who’d met the supernatural for the first time just a few hours ago.
“Yeah, Sam cleaned it up from me. I won’t get rabies from shapeshifter claws, will I?”
“Well, unless they were rabid claws and they bit you and slobbered on you…”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
XXXXX
How the fuck had Sam gotten out the door without waking him? If his little brother had to be bigger than Dean was, couldn’t he at least have the courtesy to be clumsy or something?
“Goddammit, Sammy,” he muttered, looking out the window at the lightening sky, then glancing at his watch. Who the hell got up before five-thirty on a Sunday morning? Okay, so Dean had always slept like the dead compared to Sam, but seriously, sleeping on a hard, armless dorm room chair was uncomfortable enough that he should have woken pretty easily.
Problem was, he was still so used to the sound of Sam wandering around in the middle of the night that it didn’t even register.
He hit the speed-dial on his phone and jumped a second later when Sam’s phone buzzed angrily on the desk. Dean snapped his phone shut with a curse.
“What’s wrong?” Jessica was stirring on the couch, stretching so that her shirt rode up to expose a strip of skin. Goddammit, and she was taken, too. Dean sighed.
“Do you know where Sam might be?”
There was something wrong about people he’d never met before knowing more about Sam than Dean did.
She blinked sleepily at him for a couple of seconds, then said, “Oh, it’s Sunday. He’s probably at church.”
Dean scoffed. “Kinda early for Mass, isn’t it?” He wasn’t sure what time Mass usually was, but it wasn’t at five freakin’ thirty. “Besides, Sam doesn’t go to church.”
“Uh, yeah he does. And he always goes really early.”
What the hell? He hadn’t seen Sam for three months and suddenly it was like he was a completely different person. “Since when?”
She was wrinkling her brow, looking at him strangely. Warily—like she wasn’t sure what to think of him. “Since years ago, I assumed. He said he—you guys, I mean—used to stay with this pastor sometimes.”
“Pastor Jim? Yeah, because he was a hunter. We learned target practice from him, not praying.”
Jessica sat up fully, her eyes challenging. Her shirt flopped back into place. Damn. “Well, maybe your brother learned something else there, too.”
He stared at her, then shrugged. “Fine. I’ll look there.” He paused at the door. “I left my cell number on the window sill behind you. Call if anything happens.”
She looked surprised at that but said, “Okay,” then lay back down again, already falling back asleep.
Because normal people aren’t running around at five in the freakin’ morning, Sam.
Dean had pointed out
“Jesus fucking Christ, Sam!” he called as he stepped into the church, mostly to make Sam roll his eyes and say, Could you be a little less politically correct, Dean?
His brother didn’t move. Dean walked cautiously toward him. “Sam?” he tried again, lowering his voice, but was greeted again by silence.
Or, not silence. Sam was whispering something, and Dean cocked his head to listen.
“…peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo opere et omissione...”
Dean hadn’t enjoyed Latin lessons like Sam had, but he’d learned them all the same. Sam didn’t normally speak the language when they weren’t hunting, though, unless he was really surprised or upset for some reason. The next part, though, he understood.
“… mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...”
“Sam!” he said again, now recognizing the confession. “What’s going on with you?” Hurrying toward his brother, he knelt to see Sam’s face, his eyes widening in surprise. “What the hell happened?”
The confession died on Sam’s lips, and he raised his eyes, red and wet in a pale, bruised face. “I can’t perform exorcisms anymore.” The dullness Dean had glimpsed last night was in Sam’s voice now. Dean raised a hand to Sam’s forehead. There was no fever, but Sam didn’t try to pull away either, which was maybe worse. A plastic bottle lay on its side on the floor.
“O…kay, random. I’m not seeing where…”
“I can’t bless water, Dean! I tried this morning and it didn’t work.” Dean shifted awkwardly. Sam didn’t cry—he whined, complained, bitched, sulked, but Dean couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. He didn’t want to watch it happen now.
“Sam. Sammy, you gotta calm down, okay. First, how do you know it didn’t work?”
“Wh…I tested it. I always do before I use holy water.”
Uh… “Tested it…on what?”
Sam opened his eyes. “I touched it, that’s all. It felt like normal water.”
Dean wanted to laugh in relief. “Well, good, ‘cause that’s what it’s supposed to feel like.”
“What?” He looked genuinely puzzled, and Dean raised in eyebrow to hide a prickle of concern and confusion of his own.
“It only works on demons, genius. I’m sure it’s fine.”
“But…I can always tell,” Sam persisted, frowning now. “You don’t…I mean, you don’t feel the difference? It tingles when it’s been exorcised properly.”
“Tingles.” Dean wanted to tell him he was just tired and dreaming this up, but Sam’s eyes had cleared and looked more worried than confused.
“Yeah. Like...if it kept building up it would be painful, except it…You’ve seriously never noticed?”
Now Dean was kind of worried, too, because he knew for certain that holy water was indistinguishable from tap water except by demonic forces. “I’m serious, Sam. If people could tell the difference, you don’t think they’d notice it every time they walked into a church?”
Sam’s face was starting to show some panic now. “I don’t know! I thought maybe most people didn’t notice…you know how people try to explain away supernatural stuff. I figured…well, then how do hunters make sure it’s blessed water?”
“You just…I mean…no one tests it on anything.” Dean studied his brother’s face, exhaustion and frustration making the bruise on his cheekbone stand out. “We’re goin’ around in circles. We’ll ask Dad in the morning.”
“It is morning.”
“Yeah, no, it’s not morning ‘til the sun’s up. Come on, broody, let’s get back before your friends miss our faces. Or mine, anyway; they’re probably tired of yours—”
“Dean, did Mom pray?”
Holy crap. It was really too early for this.
Sam almost never mentioned their mom or asked about her. Dean cleared his throat. “Yeah, I think so. Why do you ask?” he said in answer, trying for casual and succeeding. Mostly.
“And she would say…when she put us to bed…that
(“…the angels will watch over you, baby.”)
angels were watching over us?”
“There’s no such thing as angels,” Dean answered stiffly. Sam took it as the confirmation it was. “That’s another thing—why are you going to church all of a sudden, again?”
Sam glanced at him before looking away again, his movements seeming almost nervous. “I used to stay with Pastor Jim while you were hunting with Dad.”
“Yeah, I was there, too...Wait, he made you learn prayers and…whatever Jesus-people do?” It didn’t sound like the Jim Murphy he remembered.
Sam shook his head. “He didn’t make me. But every time, I kept thinking something would go wrong and you’d never come back. Or Dad.”
Dean sighed, recognizing this mood. “Sam—”
“Pastor Jim found me once, and I was kind of…well, he didn’t know what to do with me, so he taught me how to pray for…how to pray. And I’ve kept it up ever since.” Sam snorted, though the effect was ruined by the hitching breath that followed it. “Said that angels would watch over you and bring you back safe. If I believed in them, they’d listen, and…” He bit his lip. “Now, I’m not sure I’m liking their track record so much.”
Dean scrubbed a hand over his face. Trust Sam to have a crisis of faith just when Dean found out he had a faith at all.
“I’ve tried to believe, Dean, I really have. All term it’s been getting…And now I can’t perform the simplest rite.”
“And you think it’s because you…you’re starting to have doubts about…God?” Dean hated having to choose his words carefully, but Sam could read a thousand insinuations in a simple statement, which was the last thing they needed now. He wished someone else were here now; as far as Dean was concerned, God and his angels could go fuck themselves for all the good they did, but there was no way he could say that to Sam right now.
“That’s how Pastor Jim taught me to perform exorcisms. You can’t just call on God’s power and not mean it. It doesn’t work.” Dean really wished Sam would look up—his eyes were always easy to read, but his stupid hair covered his expressions when he was looking down like that.
“It works for me. The point is to send the demon to Hell, Sam,” he pointed out. “Dad showed us, remember? You just need enough intent.”
Sam huffed. “Dad never taught me the rites. That was Pastor Jim.”
Dean blinked, realizing he didn’t actually remember Sam learning that. They’d been hunting a demon once, and Sam had just known the exorcism by then. “He…That’s not the point. Maybe you just have to…you know, shift your focus a little.”
“To the hunt.” Sam’s tone was flat, so empty of emotion that Dean knew how much it must be hiding.
“Would that really be so bad?” Dean asked, his own tone sharper than he’d wanted. He’d take the hunt over God any day.
Sam was silent for a while. “I don’t even know what we’re hunting for.”
“Dad’s spent years looking for—”
“—for the demon that killed Mom, yeah, I know. Dean, if it weren’t for pictures, I wouldn’t even know what she looked like.”
The pang that always accompanied thoughts of his mom was sharper this time, because sometimes Dean wasn’t so sure if he’d remember he face, either, without photos. “She was killed over your goddamn crib, Sam. That doesn’t mean anything to you?”
He regretted it immediately at the hurt that flitted over Sam’s face and left it looking defeated. “That’s what you think, too?” Dean wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but no way was it anything good. “All I mean is, I don’t remember her at all. There’s nothing that makes her different from anyone else who got in the way of a demon.”
Dean seized on the opening. “If it were anyone else, we’d try to save her, too. Come on, Sam. This isn’t just about Mom, you know that. And you were always whinin’ about wanting to hunt with us when you were little.”
Sam’s head snapped up at that. “That wasn’t about hunting, Dean! That was about always having to stay with one of Dad’s friends and not knowing whether you two were getting killed!”
“We’ve saved a lot of people.”
“Yeah? At what cost? Someday it’ll be you or Dad lying in the woods with your throat slit. You ever notice how hunters never have a problem with old age?”
“Bobby’s pretty old.”
“Bobby’s not that’s old, and even he almost never does field work anymore. And one person isn’t a great statistic.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do? If you heard about a haunting somewhere, would you just leave it, knowing what you do about what’s out there?” Sam’s eyes slid away. Dean’s own opened wider.
No way. “You did. Sam! You ignored some evil sonuvabitch because you wanted to benormal? Is that it?”
“What? No! I can’t believe you think I’d…I salted and burned her corpse, Dean!”
Dean held his brother’s gaze, though he felt a little bad for thinking it. Not that bad, though, because what was he supposed to think when Sam said it like that, looking like he felt guilty about something? “Well, then, you know how important it is.”
“God. I bet you can’t even remember how many times you or Dad came back bleeding half to death. This job isn’t worth your life.”
“It’s a dangerous job, Sam, we all know that. How many people get to save hundreds of lives before they die? You don’t think that’s worth my life?”
“No, I don’t!” Sam’s head dropped back into his hands. “Fuck. Don’t you get it? I never hunted because I liked it. I hunted because it was the only way for me to know you were still alive.”
“Then why’d you stop?”
Sam’s laugh was short and cold. “I wasn’t good enough. I just got in the way.”
“Don’t give me that emo-bullshit, Sam…”
“Oh come on, you can’t deny you spent most of the time saving me from something.”
“That’s my job! I’m your brother, I look out for you—that’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s how it’s always been. And you…you learned to pull your own weight. Pulled me or Dad out of the way of some supernatural freak a few times.”
“Landed you in the ER more,” he said.
Dean gritted his teeth. He hated arguing when Sam was determined to be an idiot. “You can’t win every fight. You blame me for every time I let you get hurt on a hunt?”
“You’ve never let me…Dean, you were in the hospital for three days after those zombies back in September, remember.”
You really wanna go there? Fine.
“Yeah, that. I remember that, and let me tell you, Sam, it was fucking awesome to wake up and have Dad tell me you’d gone off to college without a fucking word to me.”
Sam faltered, but rallied and went on, “Then you remember how you ended up there.”
He didn’t, technically, because he’d flown headfirst into the side of a tractor (or something hard, he wasn’t really sure what), but he’d found out upon waking at the hospital. “Sam…” he warned.
“I shot you, Dean!” Sam’s voice cracked in a way that would have been funny if Dean weren’t too angry—too something, anyway—to laugh.
“Yeah, and it wasn’t fun, but people screw up sometimes. Besides, you barely grazed me. Only needed four stiches.” The zombie had done the rest.
“Sure, yeah, that makes it okay, then. Just kind of shot you. Helped the zombie along.”
“Jesus fuck, Sam, what d’you want me to say? It was an accident! No one’s blaming you!”
“Yeah? You sure about that?”
Dean’s retort caught in his throat at the bitter smile (or grimace, maybe) that accompanied his brother’s words. “This about Dad?” Sam didn’t answer, but didn’t deny either, which was answer enough. “Shit, Sam, Dad says things—”
“He was right.”
“You mean everything you say when you fight with him? ‘Cause I gotta say, some of the stuff that’s come outta your mouth ain’t exactly nice, either.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“No, you know what, I’m not throwing you your pity party. Because, Sam? We finished that hunt three days before you left. You know what that means? It was three days before you were gonna start your college life, and you still hadn’t told us. If I’d been there at the time, you still would’ve just said ‘bye’ and walked out.”
“No. I wasn’t going to tell you, anyway.”
Dean wasn’t even going to pretend that didn’t hurt. Sam had wanted to walk away for a new life. Dean’s life had walked away from him and hadn’t even planned on saying goodbye. “So.”
“That’s...that’s not what I meant.”
“Pretty friggin’ clear what you meant.”
“One word, Dean. Just one word from you and I would have stayed.”
Oh, now that was just unfair. “What part of out cold in the fucking hospital don’t you get? If you’d waited another six hours I would’ve fucking told you how much we needed you!”
“I know.” Sam dropped his eyes again. “And I would’ve stayed. That’s why I had to go then. Before you could convince me.”
“What was so important about this, huh? College. Stanford. Why’d you want to come here so bad?”
“I’m good at this, Dean, I’m really good at it. I needed something I could be good at.”
“You’re good at hunting.”
Sam snorted. “Right. That’s why you and Dad always had to save—”
“Pull your head out of your ass, Sam! I’ve been hunting twice as long as you.” Well, it wasn’t that much of an exaggeration. “This isn’t a competition.”
“We grew up beingscared, Dean. All the time. How screwed up is that?”
“Did you miss the shapeshifter last night? You can’t run away and close your eyes and hide from the big bad wolf!”
“Well, then maybe I just wanted normal for once.”
“Bullshit! You didn’t want normal. You wanted safe!”
“So what! Is that such a crime?”
The door creaked open behind them, letting in a sliver of sunlight. Dean stood abruptly and dragged his brother roughly to his feet, catching him as he staggered in surprise. “Come on. We’re not doing this in here.”
Once they were outside, the snow melting under their feet, Dean leaned on the side of the building, not know what to do but breathe. Sam wasn’t offering any suggestions, but he slumped against the wall, too. A minute later, he heard Sam’s breathing rhythm shift to match his own.
For a moment, it was like they were hunting again, just the two of them, every breath in synch so they could hear better, every movement coordinated in a tight pattern that only they could understand. The way they were standing—shoulder to shoulder, their backs to the wall, even the bandage on Sam’s arm that was spotted with traces of blood—was so familiar that Dean suddenly itched to reach for his gun. This was how it should be. He just wished Sam would agree.
“You were safe with us,” Dean finally said, quietly. “We woulda kept you safe.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
Eventually, the comfortable silence took a turn into uncomfortable, and Dean fidgeted with a little snort. He wished absurdly that he had some telepathic power so he could make people in chick flicks decide to fight wendigos. If the Winchesters had to play out scenes like this, it was only fair to ask the reverse.
He pushed himself fully upright. “Let’s go back. Your girlfriend’s still sleeping in your room,” he added, twitching the corner of his mouth upward.
He stopped when he felt Sam’s grip on his arm. “We were never safe, Dean, no matter how much protection we put in the doorways. So, yeah, when I left, it was because…maybe I was tired of being scared all the time.” Dean met his brother’s eyes at the unexpected admission.
“You can’t run away from it,” he repeated, but there was no heat in the words this time.
“You know what’s funny? This past semester, I’ve been looking over my shoulder every minute. And I haven’t felt safe—not really. Until last night.”
“That’s a little fucked up.” You’re a little fucked up, he thought, watching how his brother alternated between complete, empty stillness and nervous little motions with his hands. “Shifters don’t tend to be cuddly.”
“Not that. After.”
Dean looked away. “Okay.” He peeled the hand from his arm, and reached up to clap Sam on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go back.”
XXXXX