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nightspear) wrote2008-03-10 01:37 pm
Finding Home (6/?)
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:
1. There’s a character brought up here named Joshua. He is my own--not the Joshua of the Brotherhood AU, for example. Assume nothing more about him than we actually know from the show itself (basically, that he’s a hunter John knows).
XXXXX
“I know what to do about your premonitions. I know where we have to go.”
(“Nightmare”)
XXXXX
“So, you and your brother,” Jess said three days later. “You’re close, huh?”
“Close?”
Jess was lounging in Steve’s unoccupied bed with a while Sam absently finished a problem set. Sam glanced up from the cell phone he’d been turning over in his hand. The conversation that morning had been stilted and awkward, but...okay, considering. He hadn’t heard Dad in the background, but couldn’t make himself ask. Dean hadn’t offered, either. They never talked about the hunts. The gaping holes left by their avoidance spoke just as loudly.
“Close” seemed the wrong word for him and Dean, somehow. Too strong, maybe. Or not strong enough. In Sam’s mind, close meant talking to each other, sharing interests. Sharing a space, maybe, when needed, but able to occupy space alone, too.
We shared a bed until we were too big to fit. He punched me in the mouth when I was five and then cooked dinner for me. We know everything about each other and don’t understand each other at all.
He kills everything supernatural and now maybe there’s some of that in me, too.
“Yeah,” he answered. “We’re close.”
“Is he as good at the...hunting stuff as you are?”
Sam furrowed his brow at her. “Why are you and Steve so interested? I’d have thought you’d had enough after...you know. Last weekend.” Steve, in particular, was still a little uneasy about the weapons stashed around the room (his dad was an adamant pacifist, and Steve hadn’t quite shaken off the anti-gun ideals he’d been raised with), but he made up for it with enthusiasm for the academic side of hunting.
“What, so I should just ignore it, now I know what’s out there?” Sam didn’t quite flinch at her casual words. “Besides, it’s kinda cool. You were pretty slick, dealing with that shapeshifter.”
Cool, he thought bitterly. Until someone gets hurt.
Forcing a smile, he said, “Dean’s a lot better at all of it. Always has been.”
That wasn’t quite true, but Dean was better at everything he cared to be better at. He could do the research and the rituals, but he didn’t have the knack for them that Sam—or even Dad—did. Well, there was lockpicking, too, but that was just because of practice: Sam usually ended up opening doors and hacking systems while Dean stood guard over him.
The only thing Dean sometimes griped about was that Sam could beat him at hand-to-hand or knife-fighting, especially in close quarters. Even then, it was by a small margin, and only because of physical advantage. Plus, even after he’d shot up past Dean’s head, Sam’s body still remembered the days when he was the shortest kid his age and had to be fast. Still, Sam might be book-smart, but Dean was the smarter fighter, instinct melding smoothly with sharp strategy and dirty tricks to make him a natural hunter; he’d probably win every sparring match if they had the same height and strength.
Dean grumbled, but really, he liked guns more, so he didn’t complain too much.
“You’re very different,” Jess observed. “You and your brother, I mean. I wasn’t expecting him to be so unlike you.”
Sam shrugged. “He’d like you,” he told her honestly. “He comes on a little strong at first, but I think you’d like him, too, once you got to know him.”
There wasn’t even a hint of jealousy in that, he realized with surprise. Sam could imagine the three of them having a beer together, his girlfriend and his brother both teasing him the way only they could. He didn’t think he’d mind it that much. They’d get along as friends, Dean and Jess, with their delight at the thought of badass monsters, their air of confidence, even their music.
But Jess possessed the bright-eyed hopefulness that Dean sometimes pretended to wear, and Sam couldn’t help but wonder if that would still be there if she’d stood guard over her closet with a .45 when she was nine.
Jess studied his face for a moment. “Maybe...next time we meet will be under more relaxing circumstances. I’d like to get to know your family.”
More relaxing. Only if Dad’s not there. If there’s no hunt to run off to. If I’m back in the hunt and away from Stanford, meaning away from Jess... “Yeah,” he said again, knowing the chances of that ever happening were low. “I’d like that, too.”
A few minutes passed in silence. Tentatively, she asked, “Are you planning on staying here over the Thanksgiving break?”
Just a week ago, he wouldn’t have considered anything else. Now, part of him itched to call Dean and ask what they had planned.
The smarter part of him knew the answer would be a hunt. Knew that nothing had changed, really. He and Dean might be on speaking terms again, but they still weren’t saying anything.
“Sure,” he told Jess, shrugging. “It’ll give me some time to work on...” He wracked his brain for something he needed to work on. “...on my history reading. I’m a little behind.” If a week ahead counts as ‘behind.’
Her look let him know how well she believed that. “Alright. But, you know, you’re welcome to come stay with me over the break.”
“A little soon to be meeting the parents, don’t you think?”
“No,” she said bluntly. “They’ll love you, baby. I hate to think of you alone for Thanksgiving.”
He thought he should be feeling more conflicted about the offer, but there was no hesitation when he shook his head, smiling at her. “Thanks, Jess, but...I’ve got some stuff here I want to sort out.”
She nodded, looking disappointed.
XXXXX
The headaches started a few days later.
Not headaches so much as one, singular headache that crept in on Monday and refused to let up.
Jess said it was from stress—every professor seemed to be trying to fit in an exam before Thanksgiving. Sam thought it was probably stress, too, but not from an exam. He’d stopped dreaming again.
Or he thought so, anyway, until Steve asked him who Max was.
“Who?” Sam asked, massaging his temple.
“I don’t know, dude, I was asking you. You were dreaming something about, uh, needing to get him away. I figured maybe he was someone you’d run into, you know, on a job.” Even more than Jess, Steve was like a little kid, digging for stories about hauntings and witches. He’d been crushed to learn Bigfoot wasn’t real.
“I’ve never met anyone named Max.” He winced as a flash, almost like an image, popped before his eyes.
Steve watched him as he fumbled for a bottle of aspirin. “You sure you don’t get migraines? Flashes of light could be an aura.”
“Thought auras were supposed to come before the headache,” Sam grumbled before swallowing the pills. Steve shrugged.
With the way Steve and Jess had started seeing the supernatural in everything (Sam had had to point out that their calculus professor had a reputation for being harsh and that strict grading wasn’t proof of demonic possession), he supposed it was a good thing they were thinking migraines instead of suggesting some kind of weird psychic business or something.
“Maybe you’ve got a connection to some sadistic psychic,” Steve suggested.
Sam shook his head and left for class. “What?” Steve said from behind him. “It’s possible, isn’t it?”
XXXXX
By Thursday, Jess was starting to rethink the stress theory. “You should see someone about this, Sam,” she whispered to him.
They were sitting at a round table in the lounge of their dorm building, Sam carelessly finishing an essay while Jess, having taken her last test earlier that day, came to relax with friends. Becky and her brother Zach were bickering about something to do with their flight home to
“I’m not kidding. This could be a warning sign for something more serious.”
“It’s probably just a migraine,” he answered, trying to look like he wasn’t squinting to block out the daggers of light assaulting his eyes. “You said it yourself.”
“Well, even if that’s it, you should see someone about that! You don’t mess around with pain like this, not if it’s lasted this long.”
Thinking back on the concussions he’d had—and others he’d seen—he grunted something noncommittal.
Becky looked up to tease Jess about whispering sweet nothings into Sam’s ear, and he felt a little guilty for his relief when she shut up.
An hour later, Mike commented, “You walked out of IHUM today.”
“It’s a stupid class,” Sam ground out, irritated.
Mike raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, it’s not like you, is all. You liked it fine in the beginning of the semester.”
“Yeah, sure,” he muttered back, his tone making clear what he thought of that opinion.
Mike rolled his eyes. “Whatever man. Sorry for trying to make some conversation.”
Sam thought he should feel bad for dismissing his classmate so abruptly, but instead, he rose stiffly, blinking at the hammering pain that was still escalating. “I’m done for tonight,” he forced out, not caring about how strained his words sounded. His stomach roiled, and he managed to make his leaning on the table look as if he were just reaching to close a notebook. He knocked into his backpack, though, which fell with a thump, and he couldn’t help hissing as the sound drove another spike through his head.
“Leave it,” Becky told him, looking a little worried. He didn’t have to look at Jess to know she was, too. “We’ll bring it back to the room for you.”
Normally, he would have refused, but the thought of moving more than he had to was enough to make him feel sick. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he pushed away from the table, letting his lack of response serve as an acknowledgement.
“Let him get some sleep,” he heard Becky say and he made his way down the hallway. Jess’s huff came a second later, followed by the sound of someone sitting back down.
Once in his room, out of earshot, Sam swallowed the last few aspirin in his bottle and collapsed into bed, not bothering to pull the covers over himself.
He didn’t think sleep would be coming easily, but there was a strange, unexpected feeling of blackness closing in on him.
He found himself pushing back, suddenly afraid of being trapped under...whatever it was.
Then, like something breaking, everything exploded behind his eyes.
And he knew, just before he lost consciousness, what drowning was like.
XXXXX
Dean's last hunt had been a waste of time. The Black Dog had turned out to be a black bear, and he'd found out that apparently you weren’t supposed to shoot them.
He was driving away when his phone rang, so he only glanced at the screen long enough to register that he didn’t know the number. Flipping it open, he answered with, “Yeah?” in the neutral tone he saved for when he couldn’t be sure of what he was dealing with.
The voice on the other end was breathy, shaken, and he couldn’t quite place where he’d heard it before. “Um...Dean? Is this Dean Winchester?”
“Yeah,” he said again, trying to remember if they’d helped some girl and left her his number. “Who is this?”
“I don’t know if you remember; my name is Jessica Moore, I met you last...”
“Jessica?” he asked, alarmed, one hand tightening on the phone and the other around the wheel. Right; he’d left his number with her at Stanford. “What happened? Is Sam okay?”
“Where are you?” she said, not answering his question, and he forced himself to stay calm. Yelling at her wouldn’t do any good. Pulling off the road, he idled on the shoulder.
“I left
“Uh...Sam’s in the hospital.”
He was heading west before he registered turning the car around. “Is he okay?” he asked again past the stifling fog of fear that threatened to settle around him. “What happened?”
“He’s been having these...uh, these headaches,” she answered. “We thought it was just stress, but it got worse. This morning, his roommate went to wake him up for class and he...”
“What? He what? Jessica!”
“He was...I don’t know, delirious or something? He was in pain; we didn’t know what to do, so the RA called an ambulance. He kept saying weird things, like maybe flashbacks or something, I don’t know, and he was calling for you...”
That was enough. Jesus Christ. “What’s the name of the hospital?”
XXXXX
It took almost five hours to get there. He’d barely started yelling at the reception lady when he heard, “Dean?”
With a final glare for the woman behind the desk, he crossed the floor in what seemed like a single step to where Steve had just stood up. He sort of looked like shit, but honestly? Dean couldn’t bring himself to care all that much at the moment. “Where is he? What’s going on?”
Steve shifted awkwardly. “They said they could give him something for the pain and do some tests, but that’s it. They’re hoping it’ll fade on its own, but they’re watching him because he hasn’t been all that...um. Coherent.”
That was a little scary. Okay, a lot scary. Sam had had some monster headaches before—who hadn’t after all, especially with their lives—but he’d never gotten confused or anything, not just from that. “He hasn’t hit his head recently or anything?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Is he asleep now? What’s he been saying?” Flashbacks, Jess had said, but it wasn’t like she’d really know, was it, since she had no idea about anything Sam might flash back to.
“Uh, he woke up a few times. Sometimes he seems to get what’s going on, but sometimes...he says things that don’t really make sense. Like, he said you got shot in the head?”
Dean stared. “O...kay, so that hasn’t happened before. He must be dreaming, then. Where the hell is he?” A thought struck him. “Is anyone with him?” Dean starting moving toward his brother’s room, only, oh wait, he had no clue where that was. Scrubbing a hand over his eyes, he suppressed a growl—well, mostly suppressed it—and turned to Steve.
“Here, come on. I was only out here to wait for you. Jess has been sitting with him.” They began walking immediately.
There was an odd moment in which Dean hated the two students with an aching intensity he didn’t want to explain. It was fleeting, though, and when he spoke, it was only, “Thanks.”
Steve gave a little nod and asked, too carefully to pass as casual, “Is your dad here?”
Dean tightened his jaw for a moment, until he was sure he voice would come out neutral. “I called him. He might not have gotten the message yet.”
Another nod and an awkward silence made excruciating by the endless hospital hallway—Jesus, how fucking far away did they have to put his brother, anyway? Dean was about to repeat the question aloud, but from the open doorway just ahead, he heard a voice saying,
“Sam? You with me again, baby?”
There was no time for the obligatory smirk at Jessica’s name for his brother, because in the next instant, he heard a much more familiar voice, slower than usual, slurred, soft. “Mm...Dean?”
Dean was inside the room in a second, ignoring the girl’s jump as he appeared by the bedside. The room was dark, but he didn’t wait for his eyes to adjust before starting to speak. “Hey, Sammy. I’m here. You look like crap,” he added, taking in the pinched, sweaty face and the IV line in his arm. Just saline, he saw, which was probably a good sign. Maybe.
Sam’s legs curled toward his chest, and he gave a pathetic-sounding moan as he rolled slowly toward the side where Dean stood. Dean’s hand had found itself on Sam’s head, his thumb brushing sweaty bangs from his brother’s squinting eyes. “Sam,” Dean said again. “You awake? I hear you’ve been callin’ my name. I’m flattered, dude, but you know how I feel about chicks...”
Sam’s eyes opened another fraction of an inch, and his brow furrowed. “Huh?” he asked, barely more than a croak, but his hand reached out, and Dean gripped it without thinking, as if his touch alone was enough to soothe.
Fuck. What the hell was he supposed to do with this? Come on, Dad, where the hell are you already?
“M’head,” Sam grunted, turning his face into the pillow. “H-hurts...”
“Shh,” Dean murmured uselessly, then directed his next words toward the other two in the room. “Thought you said he was on painkillers?”
Jess sniffled. She’d clearly been crying, he saw now. “After he woke up the first time, he said he didn’t want them, and they said, since he’d refused...”
Shit. Sam always did this at the hospital, after his first terrifying experience with morphine. He’d hallucinated for hours, babbling about shadows and monsters coming for them before the drug could wear off.
“I c’n hear you,” Sam muttered, his voice muffled in the pillow. “’M still in the...the room.”
Well, not hallucinating now, apparently. “Hey,” Dean said softly. “Sam, you know, maybe you should just let them give you the drugs. I’ll be here the whole time, you don’t have to worry about...”
“Wanted my head clear,” Sam mumbled. “Have to tell you.”
“Well, that sounds vaguely ominous,” he quipped back automatically.
“Where’s Dad?”
This was seriously the worst time for everything. Why the hell had the man gone off hunting alone, now of all times?
Why wasn’t he answering Dean’s calls?
“He’s...I left him a message, Sammy, he’ll come when he gets it.” He would.
“S’not what I meant.” Sam pulled his face out of the pillow to stare—well, squint, whatever—at Dean. “He’s gonna be too late.”
Alarms rang loud in Dean’s ears. “Sam? Don’t say...What...?”
“For the woman,” Sam amended, making things as clear as the
The alarm bells muted, but another set started jangling. “Wait...How do you...?”
“It’s the demon again. The one...that killed Mom.”
A few beats passed with Dean unable to say anything, and Sam’s eyes opened again, now shot through with a hint of fear. “Dean?”
“I’m still here,” he said numbly, then, “Sam, I didn’t tell you what he was hunting.” Or even that he’d been hunting.
(“Got a tip,” John told Dean tersely. “The demon that killed your mother. I know where it was last seen.”
“So Sam was right? It was a demon?”
John didn’t answer.
“Well, let’s go, then. Where—”
“There’s a Black Dog near
Sam’s eyes were wandering away, though, and the fear in them was growing into panic. They snapped once more to Dean’s face. “You have to get her out of there,” he hissed, breaths coming faster.
“Sam?”
“He’s going to get her, too,” Sam continued hoarsely, then moaned. “No. No...Jess! Get away! No...”
A choking sound from behind him made Dean turn long enough to see Sam’s girlfriend’s stricken face. Leaning over Sam again, he whispered, “She’s...Jess is fine, she’s right there, see her? Shh...it’s okay. You gotta breathe, Sammy, you hear me? Slow down. Shh...”
And just as with every nightmare—and this definitely qualified as a fucking nightmare—Sam’s hand curled around Dean’s and he calmed. “You’ll make sure?”
Man, this was screwed up. “Yeah,” Dean promised, with the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what he was agreeing to. “’Course I will, Sammy.”
“S’not a Black Dog,” Sam added, making a chill run down Dean’s spine.
He recovered quickly. “You couldn’t’ve told me that before I starting shooting at an angry bear?”
Sam didn’t answer. A guy in a labcoat appeared at the doorway just as Sam’s eyes drooped closed again in sleep. “Mr. Winchester?”
Making sure he was truly asleep, Dean slipped his hand away, brushed past Steve and Jess, and walked purposefully toward the doctor until he’d backed a few steps out of the room. “Uh, s-sir...” the man stammered.
“What the hell is going on with him?” Dean demanded.
The doctor gathered a tiny backbone and asked, “What relation are you to—”
“I’m his brother, dammit, I’m his next of fucking kin—”
“Sir—Mr. Winchester, you have to calm down—”
“My brother’s in pain in there and...and...and fucking delirious and so help me God, if you don’t give me an answer...”
The problem was, he was starting to think maybe it wasn’t delirium. Sam knew, somehow, what Dad was doing, when no one besides himself and Dean had even had a clue...
No. Impossible. Sam was obsessing over the demon, like he always did about whatever was bothering him. Just a coincidence. There was a reasonable explanation for this.
But the Black Dog...
“I’m afraid I don’t have a definite explanation for you yet,” the doctor said, and Dean had to force himself to relax his clenching fists. Decking the guy wouldn’t help. Probably. “But we did an MRI and a CT scan on your brother already, and the images have come back normal. There’s nothing to indicate an aneurysm or anything else too alarming at this stage.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No, but it does raise the probability that it’s a normal headache. A migraine, probably.”
“Sam doesn’t get migraines,” Dean stated flatly.
“I see that from his...extensive medical records, but it’s not unusual for a young man of his age to begin experiencing them,” the doctor replied, looking more unruffled now that Dean had stopped raging at him. “I’m leaning in that direction, actually. He’s been shying away form light and seems to be having some visual disturbances, feeling nauseous. Confusion and even sensory hallucinations are not unheard of in severe cases like your brother’s. I’ve called in a consult from neurology, though, for another opinion, and I’ve scheduled an EEG for him.”
“And the IV?”
“Just to keep him hydrated,” the doctor placated. “As I mentioned, he’s been nauseous and hasn’t been able to drink.”
“Well, that’s just peachy,” he groused. He turned back to see Sam’s friends sitting now, not-so-surreptitiously trying to listen. He jumped when the doctor lay a hand on his arm.
“Your brother will most likely be fine,” he said, in what was supposed to be a comforting tone but actually sounded too rehearsed to be truly soothing. “I’m just going to check in on him, and I’ll have the nurse take some vital signs. Don’t worry.” With a practiced smile, the man entered Sam’s room.
Dean’s cell range before he could follow, though, and he snapped it to his ear without looking at the screen. “Dad?”
The person who answered wasn’t his dad, though, and he was distracted by a nurse who pushed him toward the waiting area, pointing at the No Cellular Phones, Please sign.
“Hello?” he heard once he’d escaped the nurse. “Are you there?”
“Yeah, yeah. Who is this?”
“Dean? This is Joshua Smithley. I’ve met you before...”
“...with my dad, yeah, I remember,” Dean finished. They’d gone to the man a few times, years ago, mostly when John’s usual munitions supplier, Caleb, had been away. “Listen, Joshua, uh, this really isn’t a good time for...”
“I know, I know. I saw your dad just now, and—”
Dean straightened. “What? You...where is he? Where...” He frowned. “And what do you mean, ‘you know’?”
“He told me about your brother.” Dean’s hand tightened. “You called him, right? About little Sammy?”
He didn’t know Joshua all that well, but Dad did—the man was a good friend, a proven ally. Still, John usually kept everything close to his chest. “Why’d he tell you?” Why didn’t he pick up the goddamn phone and tell me “Did he say he was coming?”
“He’s...There was an emergency, and he had to...Dean, listen to me. I can help.”
Fuck that. “There was an emergency? Did he say what? His son’s...There’s something wrong with my brother, Joshua, and...” Dean looked around, lowering his voice. “I don’t think it’s what the doctor says it is.”
“It’s not,” Joshua told him seriously. Dean had wanted an answer, but this wasn’t the one he’d been hoping for.
“How the hell do you know that?”
There was a pause, then, “You should probably bring Sammy here. Easier—safer—than trying to explain over the phone.”
Dean glanced over his shoulder, as if he could still see Sam from here. “Right. The way things are now, I don’t think it’ll be that easy. You gotta give me more than that.”
They trusted Joshua, he was pretty sure, but still...dragging an incoherent little Sammy—who, by the way, wasn’t all that little anymore—to see a guy they kind of knew on nothing more than his word? Yeah, not happening.
“I understand,” came Joshua’s answer. It was calm—he was a hunter, too, and knew how important it was to be careful. “Your dad said to tell you ‘no fire.’ Does that mean something to you?”
Dean almost laughed. It had been years since they’d needed that password—he was pretty sure Sam had picked it, but Sam insisted it had been Dean. Dad didn’t give a shit, as long as his boys didn’t open the door to strangers who didn’t know it. These days, they had passwords that meant Danger—Trap. They’d been kids the last time they’d used the one for All Clear—Safe.
The one that meantDad’s not coming home.
“Yeah,” he said. “It does.” He hesitated. “Joshua, I gotta...You can’t tell me anything else? This is my brother, man.”
There was a sigh on the other end. “Your brother...he’s been seeing things, hasn’t he? Having...dreams. About things he shouldn’t—couldn’t—have known. Things that haven’t happened yet.”
Dean didn’t need the meaning spelled out. “That’s crazy. You’re saying he’s...nuh uh. That...” ...makes more sense than anything else I can think of.
“You need to get here Dean. I can help.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face and paced a few frustrated steps, then made the decision. “You’re still out in
“
Huh. He’d only been an hour or two away from there when Jessica had called him back to
Trying to estimate the route in his head, he got out, “Yeah. Okay. Uh. We’ll be there as soon as, uh... We’re five or six hours away, I think, and I’ll need some time to break him outta here first.”
“Can you manage it?”
He laughed shortly. “Piece of cake. Just like old times.” Of course, last time they’d had to run from the hospital with Child Services on their case, Sam had been ten and pretty damn short. “I’ll manage.”
“I understand,” Joshua said again. “Just don’t take too long. Your brother needs help. Oh, and Dean? If Sam starts talking about something—even if it doesn’t make sense to you—remember it, yeah? It might be important.”
There was a click, and Dean lowered his head. Jesus.
Okay. First things first.
XXXXX
“Guys, thanks for coming here with Sam,” Dean told Jess and Steve once he’d made his way back to the room. “Why don’t you go back, get some rest? I’ll stay with him,” he added when Jess looked like she wanted to protest.
“I don’t want to leave Sam,” she told him, lifting her chin. Dean resented a little that she was actually taller than he was, in those boots she had on. Of course, Sam had to go pick a girl who was not only tall but also stubborn. Loyalty to his brother was a plus in Dean’s book, but now wasn’t a good time for it.
“Look, I get it,” he said, slipping easily into the role of fabricator. Flirting with her wouldn’t help in this case, so he drew on sympathy for Sam instead. “But I know my brother, and when he gets better, he’ll be pretty upset that he missed classes today, right? I was hopin’ you’d talk to his professors, you know, pick up notes for him or whatever.”
Steve was nodding; Jess was still hesitating, so Dean pushed a little more. “He really wants to do well here. It’s really important to him.”
It worked. “Yeah, you’re right,” she admitted. “He’s been working really hard; I don’t want anything to ruin his chances here.”
Funny how the same words from her mouth hit so much harder. He scrounged up something resembling a smile. “Great.”
“You’ll call if...?”
“Yeah, sure,” he replied, quashing the urge to look at his watch or prod her out the door. “You can get back okay?”
Finally, she sighed and nodded, and he watched until both students were out of sight before turning back to his brother, who was still asleep.
“Time to shag ass, little brother.”
XXXXX