LOG: John/Sam
It didn't take much for Sam to improvise a lock-pick for room #201 and in a minute, maybe less, he had the room opened up, letting himself inside. The room looked like the one he shared with Dean only instead of the two beds there was just the one. The room was spotless though, clean, orderly. The only indication of its occupant were a few of their personal effects which... made little sense... because Dad was dead. He knew what Dean said, but still... Sam had found his body... they had both been there for what followed...
But these belongings.. the few he discovered.. either they were his Dad's... really his Dad's, or this was some kind of cruel joke he wasn't ready to believe. Dean would never mess with him when it came to their parents. Never. That was holy ground.. sometimes even more so for Dean than for Sam.
He turned and leveled the .45 he had on him at the first sound he heard come from the doorway, as if daring someone to intrude here now. But it wasn't a stranger... no... and maybe that was why a small tremor passed through Sam's hand and wrist as he stared at a face he believed could no longer exist in a corporeal form.
When Sam came to the hotel (if he ever would), John had anticipated that he'd find Dean, if he could. And Dean would tell him the truth. He'd prepared himself for frantic knocks on the door; he'd prepared himself for hearing the scream from three doors down. But he hadn't expected the lock picking (clearly a fucking understatement), and he hadn't expected the look on his youngest son's face as he'd come around the corner. Sam was shaking, and he looked like he was either going to scream or just drop his gun and start to cry.
John held his hands up on instinct, knowing how fast his sons both were with guns. Still. All he could say was "Sammy."
Sam just stared at his father like he had forgotten he could still blink. His hand shaking, his finger let up the pressure on the trigger when his father said his name... but he didn't lower the gun just yet. He just... stared at John with a half-wild/half-frightened look in his eyes as the man kept his hands raised, careful and cautious of the gun. A dead man didn't need to fear a bullet... unless he wasn't dead. "I saw you.." Sam got out, swallowing against a lump of emotion in his throat. "We burned your body." He said tightly. His eyes bright with tears he seemed determined not to let fall.
Sam was actually being less emotional than Dean, and it grated on John that he couldn't have seen that coming. "I know you did," he said heavily, hands still up in a posture of surrender. "Dean told me. I don't know how this happened, but Sammy, it's me." He spoke in that same tone he'd used, like he was a negotiator and Sam had people in the room to kill. "I swear it to you, it's really me."
Sam watched him for a long time, a very long time... or at least what felt like... hours instead of minutes before he lowered the gun. His eyes still locked on his father as the safety was clicked back into place. "Dad?" He asked sounding less.. dangerous now... more broken. Dean wouldn't have lied about this... Dean would've made sure that if he said it was Dad... he would know for sure that it was him, wouldn't he?
Oh, thank God. John lowered his hands, but still didn't make any move over toward his younger son. It wasn't safe yet. He just kept repeating the same mantra. "I know you don't believe me, but I swear to God, Sam, it's me. I don't know how - I can tell you; I just .... appeared here. One morning." He'd tell the whole story if Sam wanted. When it was safe. Right now Sam still looked wary, like he'd snatch the gun back up and aim a bullet at John's head like he'd once refused to do.
Sam watched him so carefully, like he was still a potential enemy that had to be put down. It was strange for the both of them, no doubt. "What do you remember?" He asked him cautiously. Still testing the waters so to speak. To make sure he didn't need that gun.
At first John looked confused, but then he understood what Sam was getting at. "That the last thing I ever said to you was to ask for a coffee." He hadn't wanted to do it, but he'd needed to talk to Dean alone. "That you lived over a bar at Stanford, with that pretty girl. That you used to like Thundercats when you were little." In other words? John doubted there was anything he'd ever forgotten.
His son looked less guarded, less unsure as he listened to his father speak. "Right.." He said softly, John seeing his mind working and turning very quickly in the quiet that passed between them... however brief it was. "You told me... to get you some coffee so you could tell Dean in private.. what?" He asked his father. "That he might have to kill me one day?" Did he remember that too? God! It was so... unfair to them both... Sam was angry with himself for saying it when all he wanted to do was hug his father. Be HAPPY that whatever this place was, they were all there together, but the stubborn part of him just... couldn't let it go without saying something.
John sighed. If he'd had any doubt that this really was his son, well, there it went. "You wouldn't have believed me," was all he said, eyes weary and sad. "You can't tell me you'd have believed me, Sam." Hell, he still wanted to apologise to Dean for what he'd done. It hadn't been right - but he'd had no options.
"I don't know if it would be disbelief in what you said.. so much as the fact that you'd said it in the first place." Sam said, his gun finally being returned to the waist band of his jeans. "That wasn't fair..." He said. "It wasn't fair to Dean."
He saw the gun being put away, but he still wasn't about to walk closer to his son until Sam seemed okay with it. "Dean and I have talked," John finally answered. "I told him it was wrong." He'd told Dean a lot of things. He'd be happy to tell Sam the same things, but dammit if he didn't want to just look at Sam for now. He looked so haggard - was it the trip in? The uncertainty? Or was it the job, and had it been eating him? Damn if it didn't make John's heart hurt a little.
Sam nodded seeming to accept that for the most part and he seemed to deflate a little bit more. Letting himself take that guard down another notch. Unrolling much more slowly than Dean had in certain respects. "You've missed a lot..." He said. "while you were... gone."
"I met others... other children like me. Some of them.. they didn't turn out so great.." He said his mind just drifting from one thing to another. The things he wanted to tell his father. The things he needed to say. "Some of them are dead... some of them are missing." He said looking at his father like he didn't expect him to have the answers. He just... wanted him to. Needed some kind of confirmation he wasn't a killer in the making. He was more afraid of himself than this crazy hotel and the people in it.
Jesus, this was like walking on knives. John looked away, his voice gruff. "There's good and bad in every bunch, Sam. Hunters, psychics, ordinary people." He didn't dare say much more. He didn't trust his brain and his mouth to stay joined. There were things on his tongue he just couldn't say.
"And where do I fall?" Sam asked because he had tried all 3 categories. To be ordinary... to be the Hunter... to be the Psychic since that was unavoidable, really. But was he good... or bad? "Don't you know? Or.. are you just afraid to tell me what you think?" He asked his father, searching the man's face. Because Dean would swear up and down, from hell and back that Sam was good, but sometimes... sometimes Sam just didn't know who he was saying it for... for himself or for his little brother. He wondered if Dean believed it as much as he claimed to... if it helped him sleep at night because it didn't do much for Sam.
"Maybe I don't want to really know." He decided. "Dean tells me what I want to hear even if neither of us are sure we can believe it... You don't really tell me anything at all. You just wax cryptic and hope it flies." He scoffed at himself. "I'm sorry, its just for every one answer I get there's a million more questions and it's making me... insane.." He confessed.
"I'd tell you if I knew." John's voice was harsh, harsher than he intended, and he immediately cursed himself. Being dead put things in perspective for a guy. He tried again. "Sam, I'm as fucking clueless as you are. All I have, but I can't speak for Dean, is my belief that I raised you right and that you've got the training - and the guts - to stand up to whatever you're facing." The look on Sam's face was destroying him slowly, but he knew, if nothing else, he owed both his boys honesty. Especially now. He had to go on, though. "But Sammy? Dean and I don't know if the Demon can come here." It was probably pretty obvious in his tone how badly he wanted the answer to that question to be that they were safe, that this place was impenetrable. "You might not have to worry. About any of it ..." Of course, that meant leaving the field to Yellow Eyes - but it didn't look like they had a choice.
Sam was conflicted. He wanted to believe that so badly. That they were safe, but just because they were here together and maybe they were safe, that didn't mean anyone outside of this hotel, this place, were going to be okay. More people would die, innocent people, hunters, friends, kids like him. Some would die, some would do the killing. As much as he wanted it all to end he didn't like the idea of being trapped somewhere out of the way while the Demon had its fun. Did as it pleased... maybe that was the point. Maybe it sent them here? To tuck them into its back pocket. Keep them in a corner. But then why was their father here? Was it incentive to stay? If they left, if they even could, he doubted John would be allowed to go with them. "I'm always going to worry about it.." He said softly, his voice low. A thickness in his throat that John heard in his voice. "But.. I'm glad you're here. However you're here.." He said glancing back at his father. "I'm glad you are.."
He ran the risk on hearing that of stepping a little closer to his younger son. "We're going to get to the bottom of this," was all John said. "Me and Dean. And you." Of course. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, so he didn't touch Sam too soon. He could hear the confusion seemingly coming to a head in Sam's voice. "We'll find a way out." But he had to be impressed ... Sam didn't seem like he wanted to stay. He wanted to do the right thing and get back out there. The noble thing. He was damn proud of both his boys.
Sam sniffed hard, pulling back his emotions, attempting to, somewhat in vain, and looked at his father, nodding quickly. "Yeah?" He looked into his Dad's stormy eyes. "Together." Sam said. "No secrets." He said wondering if his father would comply with that.
"I'll do the best I can." That was the best he could do. If he had to keep a secret to keep his sons safe, well, he was going to do it.
Sam could accept that much. He nodded again quickly. "Okay," That was enough, it was a lot, especially for him to get out of his father. Sam shifted a little on his feet, there was the slightest twitch in his arms, almost raising them, then he stopped, allowing them to drop again. There was an awkward beat of nothing, then the boy closed the distance between the two of them and wrapped his arms around his father, holding onto him like he was the life-line now. Giving himself the last bit of confirmation he needed to fully believe it was his father. His father alive, flesh and blood, alive and with him. With Dean. The 3 of them together again. Finally.
John returned the tight bear hug, breathing out a ragged sigh of relief against Sam's shoulder. He and Dean had worried for so long. If they had to be stuck here, it meant a hell of a lot that at least all three of them were here. With all three brains it was more likely they'd come up with a way out.
Three brains. Four. Oh, shit. He pulled back a little bit, looking at Sam. "There's a couple things more I have to tell you ... nothing earth-shattering, swear to God. No more demonic secrets or anything. Least not that I know of." But he needed to tell Sam about Alice, for whatever was there. If they were going to start with the honesty thing, John would make the first move.
"Alright." Sam said, his light eyes once again sweeping his father's face, attempting to read it as they pulled apart. "Should I sit down for this?" He asked. His Dad had this... look about him that just made him wonder.
"Dean made a big deal out of it. I don't know if you will." That was honest enough. John walked into his room ahead of Sam, shutting the door after his son came inside. "It's about someone I met here, that's all." He sat on the bed, arms resting on his thighs, hands clasped.
"Okay." Sam said nodding once and taking a seat across from his father in an empty chair, waiting for the details.
Damned if John was going to make a big production out of it. He just started to talk. "I still have no clue how I ended up here. I can't even - I mean, I was just here. I opened my eyes and I was standing in the desert with no clothes." He actually chuckled faintly at the memory; it was either that or dwell on its bad moments. "But right when I came into the hotel, I met a woman. She showed up at the same time - she'd been walking down the hallway at her office" - only a teeny lie - "and it turned into the desert."
Sam let himself smile, imagining what might've went through his Dad's mind in those first strange moments back in the land of living, sans clothing no less. It was fleeting, then he was just listening, far more intently then he normally would've listened to his father, probably more so than he could ever remember paying attention to the man because they'd never been two adults having a conversation and when they had been it was usually an argument. But well... that was the past. He wordlessly urged his father to continue his story.
John did so. "Her name is Alice. She's younger than me - by kind of a lot." Talk about honesty. Hell. "She lives right there, across the hall." He pointed through the door, as if Sam couldn't tell where he was talking about. "She ... " How the hell to put it? "She likes me."
Sam's expression broke with a wide grin he couldn't hide if he wanted to. "I'm sorry Dad.. I'm just.. " He shook his head a little. "Am I suppose to condemn you because this woman likes you?" He asked his father. If it was his Dad still trying to come to terms with it... that was one thing, but well... as far as he was concerned... Yeah he wanted to be stalwart about Mom's memory too, but he didn't have much of a memory of her to protect in the first place. Just stories and a photograph here and there. Although he understood the potential reservations that arose with having lost the woman you love... "I'm not going to freak out at you about this." He said to start with. "So... she likes you... Do you like her back?" He was perversely amused in asking his father such a question.
Well. He hadn't expected that, and he broke into a faint smile himself. "Your brother's freaked out about it," he said by way of explanation. "You know Dean." He actually felt bad - Sam didn't remember his mother. Dean clearly did. Not like he was intending to replace Mary, of course, but sometimes he wondered -
Oh, hell with it. "I don't know." That was about as painfully honest as he could get. "But I wanted you boys to know. Just because Dean isn't comfortable with it doesn't mean you can't think differently." He was still faintly surprised that Sam seemed so accepting, but maybe it was merely that his mother was more of a cause for him than a flesh-and-blood person. The thought ached.
"Dad, you've been alone a long time." Sam said after a brief pause, looking wise beyond his years. Which he had a strange habit of doing now and then, even when he'd been a little boy. "And I don't... remember Mom." He said. "But I feel like I have an idea of what she was like." He added. "And I know she'd want you to be happy... not stodgy and alone. That doesn't mean you have to entertain this thing with this Alice if you don't want to, but if you do want to... I'm pretty sure wherever Mom is she's not going to condemn you for it either. We all know you love her. That's never going to change." Sam said looking his father in the eyes. Not lip-servicing the man by any degree, that had never been Sam's style. He said what he felt like he always did.
John knew that much, and he was grateful for it. For all their arguments, he'd always been able to get the truth from Sam. Or at least Sam's version of the truth. Sometimes, he had to admit, he'd needed it.
He nodded, looking right back at Sam, like a man. "I think you're right." John shrugged. "I'm glad you think like that." It really meant a lot, though it was a strange feeling of coming full circle - it was like he was twenty again, and getting permission from Mary's parents to ask her to be his wife.
"It's just the way I am." Sam said with a hint of a shrug, but he was smiling a little. Although normally he'd be trying to out-yell his father to make his thoughts known so this was... a nice change of pace. He liked that his father wasn't looking at him like a defiant child, but more like an equal. He'd savor it while it would last because he knew sooner or later they'd probably butt heads about one thing or another.
John nodded. "Well, I'm damn glad you are the way you are, then." It would have sounded disgustingly sappy if he'd let it. Still. He sat up a little, looking over at Sam. "I hope you meet her," he said. "She's short - maybe 5'3". Brunette. Big, wide eyes."
"I'm probably bound to run into her at some point." He confessed. "Of course I'd be glad to meet her." Sam assured his father with a brief nod.
John nodded, belatedly remembering the main point of telling Sam all this. Fuck, he really was going soft. "Good," he said, not unkindly. "But aside from just personal reasons, it'd be great to have another pair of eyes." He got up, walking over to his desk, and held out the notes he'd been keeping. "A dossier with every bit of information I've been able to get on the people I've met here. If we're going to get out, we need to know who we can trust, who we can use, and any possible weakness in the Hotel - maybe any kind of force field that needs to be breached."
"Right." Sam said taking the notes handed to him, his eyes gliding over his father's chicken scratch quickly, while still taking in the content carefully and thoroughly, storing it away to his memory for future use. There wasn't a lot on any one person, but some there was significantly more on than others. "I see you don't have much on River." He said, which amused him, but didn't surprise him hardly at all. He had a feeling she'd be put off by his father.
"River ... oh, her." John shook his head. "No, I didn't get much. She's apparently kind of new, and I tried to talk to her, but she got scared and ran." He still clung to his conviction that he hadn't scared her, dammit.
"She is a little strange.." Sam said. "But I guess I can't really talk. Huh?" They weren't normal either. Far from it.
"She's the first person I met when I found the place. She confirmed Dean was here, but I'm pretty sure I hurt her feelings. Don't ask how because I'm not entirely sure myself. I think time moves differently inside the hotel." He went on to add as he read what his father had on Alice and this House guy. "But that's just a theory right now. Although I know Dean was here longer then he was 'missing' outside. I only waited a couple hours before I tried calling. Provider said the number was 'out of range' and then the Impala was just... sort of there... I knew it was all a trap, but I guess... I didn't really care if it meant finding out what happened to Dean." He confessed, glancing up at his father. They stuck together.
John nodded, and though it wasn't good instincts to drop everything to find Dean, he didn't blame Sam. "Dean's been here for .... days." That basically confirmed what Sam was saying. "Alice and I got here, and there were maybe seven or eight others here. I still haven't met them all - some, I'm sure, stick inside their rooms." But what Sam said about River was interesting. "Alice apparently knows River ... I guess she's ... damaged, somehow. Again, don't ask me how."
"I get that." Sam said. "She talks in riddles. The message is pretty plain if you can decode her vernacular. That's the challenge." Sam said, clearly, he was very curious about the damaged girl Alice knew. "I don't think it's that she's damaged there's... I don't know.. just something else there. Something familiar, but I can't pinpoint it.-This House guy sounds like an ass." Sam said, interrupting himself, pulling a bit of a face.
John didn't dare laugh at his son's face. They'd always called that Sam's 'bitch face', from when he was a little kid. It just sort of stuck. "Yeah, House is a piece of fucking work," he said grimly, looking down at the page. "I hit him after he made some cracks about your mother." He still wasn't sorry, though he hadn't seen the asshole lately. "And what do you mean, exactly, riddles?" River had only said four words to him - my name is River - before running away, so he couldn't really talk. "What'd you do to piss her off?"
"Hope you put your weight behind it." Sam said (as if he need wonder when the man insulted their dead mother) going back to Alice's page, setting aside the one on House like he might catch a disease from it. Sam looked up, meeting his father's eyes once more, as he posed the question. "She said I 'looked like a skyscraper'... and she said something about my 'Earth-That-Is' as if she didn't belong here." He explained. "I don't know, she said other things too, it wasn't what she said, just how she said it."
"In all honesty I don't know that I did anything wrong. I told her Dean was my brother and she just changed gears on me." He said shaking his head. "Like she couldn't believe it, like I was wrong. She was as curious as about me as I was about her and then she shut down like she wanted nothing more to do with me." He explained, why it was bothering him, he wasn't sure really, but he realized it was, in fact, nagging at him a little. "It was almost like we're two 6 year olds on a play ground and I... pushed her in a mud puddle or something." He said narrowing his eyes, thoughtfully, to himself. He wasn't sure why he chose such descriptions, but it felt right. There was something about her that was... untouched. Almost child-like.
John chuckled, but there was no mirth behind it. "Yeah, I got House good," he said, trying not to brag. Wasn't anything to brag about. "Uppercut." Still, he turned over the new information on River in his mind. What a weird way of speaking. "Earth-that-is ... as opposed to what, Earth-that-Was? That-Will-Be?" He was more thinking out loud, though he wouldn't have turned down an answer. But Dean. Hm. "Maybe Dean's met her." It would explain at least that much. Maybe he'd given her an alias or something?
"I don't know." Sammy shook his head, but he was really wondering what she had meant by all that. 'Earth-That-Is'. Where did she come from that she spoke like that? She didn't seem crazy to him, just different. He latched onto his father's reasoning. "He must have. She knew him. Knew he was a hunter.." Sam had gathered.
Well, if River had known Dean was a hunter. John nodded. "That must have been it. I'll talk to him ... maybe he can talk to the girl, and find out what her deal is?" They had to know more. Right now it didn't seem like she'd be any use at all, but she interested him.
"Yeah," Sam agreed. "I don't think she's going to want to deal with me for awhile." He said.
John shrugged. "I wouldn't advise alienating too many people - I mean, we're stuck here for now - but it doesn't sound like you could have done much to avoid it." Now he was curious. "And I'll ask Alice if she knows any more." He looked over at Sam, suddenly, well, happy that they were talking like this. It was like old times, except they hadn't argued yet.
Sam nodded. "I can start compiling a digital dossier on the laptop." He suggested. "Pool our resources, between the 3 of us, well, 4 of us, we can probably hammer out some decent profiles on the others." He suggested. And he could encrypt the laptop. You couldn't do that with paper, short of tearing it up and burning it, but then there was no accessing it again. It was just ashes.
John nodded, a little annoyed that he hadn't thought of that before. "That's probably even safer than what I've got. I mean, you can back it up, and protect it." He just had to watch over his journal with a shotgun. He didn't mind so much, but Sam had the right idea. "Only thing is that you or Dean will have to tell me when you find something. Not going to sit here covering ground you've covered already if I don't have to."
"Yeah well.. likewise, right?" Sam said nodding, standing up. He'd almost forgotten he'd grown past his father in height. A part of him was still thinking of him as larger than life and he was.. at least for a moment. "I'll get to work, if I can't track you down I'll tag your phone. Let you know what I find."
John nodded, though it was still weird to look up at his youngest son. "Okay, Sammy." He managed a small smile, but it went all the way up to his eyes. Looking down a little, he offered. "I'm glad you're here."
Sam caught it, saw that the smile, the sentiment, wasn't just on the surface. "I'm glad I'm here too, Dad." He offered genuinely before finally heading for the door.