Blue Skies From Rain Part 2 - Chapter 4 cont.
*
When Dean got in line to be escorted to his room that night, he was taken down a different hallway and after he stopped to take his pills, the orderly motioned to a new door that had two pockets with two clipboards and two names written on masking tape with a sharpie: Dean Doe; Sam Doe.
He hadn’t forgotten about Sam being alive, but as the day had progressed, the meds had continued to kick in, giving the idea the feel of a distant idea. But now he remembered what Dr. Logan had said. She wanted Dean to be a good influence on Sam, to be his caregiver, to look out for him. It was to be an experiment.
As Dean swallowed his water and handed the cup back to be thrown away, he figured it wasn’t much of an experiment. He and Sam had spent two years of 24/7 togetherness. Hours spent in the Impala and motel rooms and diners and gas stations from coast to coast. They’d managed, gotten along fine. This would be no different.
The orderly opened the door for him and motioned to the man standing against the wall.
Sam.
In spite of the drugs numbing him, Dean could feel every muscle in his body move forward, every cell, every part of him wanted to lunge forward and grab Sam in his arms and never, ever let go. Sam would normally love that, though, his body jerked upon seeing Dean and his eyes were wide enough to swallow stars as he stared at Dean, at the orderly, the open door.
“Here’s your new roommate, Sam,” said the orderly, waving Dean in.
Dean took a step across the threshold, while behind him, the orderly took up his cart and made a motion to get the line going again.
“If you ever say that you’re my brother again,” said Sam, low in his throat. Growling. “I’ll kill you.”
“Sam.” The orderly stopped, and Dean made himself keep his eyes on his brother, his heart thumping. “You know that behavior like that will only get you more Treatment. This is your new roommate. Be more welcoming or I’ll have to let Dr. Logan know you’re not being flexible.”
There was that word again. Flexible. Like it was the greatest attribute a human could have. And Treatment, which sent a shiver right up the middle of his spine, the memory of cold and dark still at a distance, but getting closer.
The orderly gave Dean a little push, and Dean stepped into the room, listening to the door snicking shut and locking behind him. The room was much the same as his old one, except the light came through the high, narrow window with no grill, and there were two beds instead of one. And Sam was there.
Dean eyed his brother from head to foot, the spinning of his stomach telling the rest of the body what the brain would not believe. Sam was here. Alive. Very much alive. Mixed up in the head and missing chunks of memory, but alive. And except for being a little thin and tense, he seemed physically okay. And that was all that mattered.
But like before, Sam’s eyes held no recognition for Dean whatsoever. His body, instead of being relaxed and welcoming, was stiff as he stood with his back against the wall in the narrow space between the two beds. There was a tall, narrow dresser jammed in one corner, and along the other wall was the open doorway to the bathroom. Dean could either go straight towards Sam or he could go left, into the bathroom.
So he did neither. Taking his cue from Sam’s hard glare, he eased his way to the bed on his right. He’d be willing to sleep in the other bed, if needed. But someone had to make a move, so he did.
As he sat down, Sam’s eyes tracked him. His jaw was starting to jut out in a dangerous way, and Dean would hate to be the cause of Sam coming apart just about now and not because Dean was the only target in sight. He didn’t think he could take another scene like the one before, with orderlies charging in and taking his brother away kicking and screaming. For it was his brother, it was Sam, and nobody else, no matter how strange he was acting, no matter how much he didn’t know who Dean was. It was Sam. Sam.
He sat fairly still for a minute, then, showing Sam what he was doing, eased off his shoes, pulling on the soft heels with his toes. Then he bent a little bit at the waist and pulled off his socks. Stuffed them in the sneakers. Then he sat up and ran the palms of his hands over the blanket, not liking how damp his palms seemed.
“I’m going to sleep in this bed, if that’s okay with you,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’m Dean, by the way.”
Sam’s mouth narrowed as if Dean had said something fairly rude in polite company. It was an expression Dean was familiar with; it reminded him of the look Sam had sent him when Dean had failed to act in a manner suitable to a young priest, stuffing cocktail weenies in his mouth, trying to make Sam laugh. He didn’t let it throw him then and he wasn’t going to let it throw him now. If he could just figure out a way to get to Sam, even just a little bit so that Sam would relax, he’d be well on his way to managing this whole thing.
“You’re not my brother,” said Sam. Firmly.
This struck him almost like a blow. He made himself take a slow breath. Obviously that was a sore point from before, but if anyone knew how to read Sam in a snit it was him. “No,” he agreed. “I made a mistake before. But your name is Sam and we were friends, once.”
With a little jerk, Sam’s body stiffened. “We were?” His voice cracked, and it was then that Dean noticed the dark circles of sweat making large patterns under Sam’s arms. Sam was holding it in, holding himself tight, but he wasn’t going to last much longer under the scrutiny or the pressure of someone new in the room. It wasn’t anger making him stand with his back to the wall, it was fear. Sam was terrified, if not of Dean in particular, than of the change itself. Dean backed off.
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” he said, pushing himself off the bed with slow hands.
He made a point of not moving towards Sam at all, but instead headed in a beeline to the bathroom. He flicked the light on, and stood there for a second, listening to the silence in the room beyond, and looking at the doorway that had no door. There was nothing for it, really, so he used the toilet and washed his hands, then took one of the toothbrushes and unwrapped it. The toothpaste was some brand he didn’t know, probably some generic brand for institutions; he concentrated on the flat taste of it instead of on Sam, standing in the other room. Doing nothing. Saying nothing. Probably hadn’t even moved an inch.
Dean rinsed his mouth and his face, drying it on one of the towels, which were just as thin and scratchy as the ones in the other room. And then he figured that he would act as if, as if Sam was normal, as if Dean and he were friends, as if everything would soon be alright, and they would soon be out of there. He turned off the light and stepped out of the bathroom. Then as he crossed the open threshold, he reached back to turn it on again.
“Sorry, did you need in there? I’ll leave the light on for you.”
For a minute, Sam just looked at him, like he might if Dean had spoken in a foreign language. But, as he watched Dean turn to the dresser to pull out some p.j.’s, he seemed to nod to himself as he looked at the floor. Then, just as Dean had done, he sat down to pull off his shoes and socks, stuffing the socks inside of the sneakers. Then he slipped past Dean and used the bathroom. Dean could hear him running the water, brushing his teeth as he changed clothes. He got into the bed and moved himself against the wall to make himself appear smaller, so maybe Sam wouldn’t be as threatened.
When Sam finally and turned off the light in the bathroom and came out, Dean was ready for the day to be over, grateful for the sleeping pill and the fact that he didn’t have to get up and turn off the overhead bulb. He watched Sam changed into his pajamas, letting his neck relax against the pillow. When the chime came, it was just as Sam was sliding into bed, and Dean heard him swear.
“What?” he asked, before realizing that he probably shouldn’t ask such a skittish Sam any questions.
“Late,” said Sam, sounding rather breathless as Dean listened to him rustling in the sheets. “Supposed to be in bed when the lights go off. It’s a rule.”
Moving his shoulders against the stiff mattress, Dean shrugged. “Well, you only had one foot on the floor, so I think it’s okay.”
“You won’t tell?”
It was something. It wasn’t much but it was something. Maybe Sam had actually heard Dean when he said they were friends, or maybe Dean’s slow motions and careful statements had had an effect, Dean didn’t know. “Never,” he said. “Not in a million years.”
There was an odd little silence from Sam, as if he was trying to reason this out, whether the exaggeration was meant to be serious or not. Then he took a breath, but didn’t say anything. Dean heard him rolling on his side to face the wall, and Dean finally felt like he’d gotten it right, at least this one thing. And in the morning, he’d figure out everything else.
*
Sam didn’t think he was going to be able to sleep, even with the sleeping pill. The sleeping pill, a long blue and red one, had been explained to him from the very first as being most important, because if he didn’t take it, he wouldn’t sleep. And if he didn’t sleep, he wouldn’t get better. That was paramount, of the utmost importance, a rule that he had to follow, no matter what. Well, he’d taken the sleeping pill, and it wasn’t working. All the other pills made his body really sleepy, but the sleeping pill? It just made his head buzz. It was hard to relax when everything was buzzing right behind his eyes.
The room felt new and alien, even though the walls looked the same and the smell was pretty much the same. The light through the high window, also keeping him awake, was maybe moonlight, maybe a searchlight, and would anybody be looking for him, would anyone find him? Did anybody even know he was gone? If his brother hadn’t been dead-
Unproductive. This was unproductive and wasn’t going to help him. He couldn’t dwell on that, wasn’t supposed to dwell on that. The doctor, the lady one, had said. The guy doctor had said so too. The man with the bristle hair had said something, something Jacob-
He had to stop again and take a big swallow. His name was Sam now. The guy in the other bed, Dean, had said it was and everyone had believed him. It would have felt less weird if it hadn’t felt as normal as it had. That guy, that Dean, had looked him in the eye and called him Sam. And the look in his eye was strong and right, and Sam felt it in his gut. So, okay, he was Sam.
Of course, Dean’d said he was Sam’s brother as well, which was just wrong and mean to say, everyone knew Sam’s brother was dead, that he’d died in some horrible accident, a fire maybe, and that Sam was working through his guilt issues. That’s what the doctor called them, anyway. When she came to get him out of Treatment that day, a little lecture had followed, in her office, about his issues, and Sam felt bad about getting out of control, yes, he had. Treatment sucked, no matter how helpful the doctor said it was, Treatment sucked, and it made him feel bad, not good.
Shifting his head on the pillow, he tried to ease the buzzing away, to make it go out of his ears and into the darkness. Sometimes that helped, thinking it away like that. Only when he did, other images came in, of places and events he felt he recognized, but that he couldn’t put a name to. Rooms, so many rooms, each one of them different, but the same, in a way. Each one had two beds, and a TV set that was always on, and someone was in the shower, hogging all the hot water. Why would a person live in so many rooms? He could never figure it out.
And then there was the car, some black, sleek thing, the chrome shining as the sun glinted off it, but he could never see who was behind the wheel. He kept trying to see, but that only gave him a headache. But it was better to think about that than the blue man. Or the werewolf. Or the vampire. Or was it vampires? He kept seeing a barn and someone pulling out a long knife, and brown weeds he was hiding in. Or there was a door he was hiding behind, or a pillar. Or he was waiting around a corner. That was the part that scared him most, almost more than the monsters, even. The monsters he could see might mean something else, but what the fuck was he doing going after them? Putting himself in their path? That part was just nuts.
The guy in the other bed shifted. Dean. Sam wasn’t very good at names, they wouldn’t stick in his head, except for this one, it seemed. The doctor assured him that that would improve with time, if he would keep taking his medicine, and if he kept being cooperative and flexible. Sam believed her. He had to, otherwise he would go insane. For real.
Because he wasn’t crazy. The doctors, both the man and the woman, had told him. He had amnesia and he was having trouble with reality, but insane wasn’t the word they would use to describe him. He needed to concentrate on the positive, he needed to-
In the other bed, Dean made a little sound, something that sounded like a grunt that turned into a question. Sam wasn’t used to sleeping with anyone. Or sharing a room with someone. In his memories, those rooms, hundreds of them, there’d never actually been anyone in the room with him, just the idea that someone was in the shower. As for sleeping, he couldn’t remember doing that, beyond three weeks ago. Since then, he remembered every moment, every Treatment, every meal served to him in his room.
Now Dean rolled over, and Sam listened for more sounds that seemed like talking, only Dean was asleep. Sam shifted in his bed, rolling onto his side so he could look across the narrow space between their beds and focus through the darkness at the outline of Dean’s shoulder.
Earlier, Dean had said that he wouldn’t tell about Sam not quite being in the bed when lights out had come. Maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. He’d seemed to mean it, but then, so did the orderlies when they threatened him with Treatment if he didn’t finish what was on his plate. Meaning it didn’t necessarily mean anything nice. Dean might just be waiting for the right moment to turn Sam in, to trip Sam up and make Sam mad so that Sam would get out of control and lose his temper. Then Sam would be in trouble. That’s what’d been happening since Sam could remember. Dean was just the next phase of it, something new dreamed up by the hospital to test that he was on his best behavior.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take it and stay calm, thinking of it, of Dean, who was going to say something to the doctor in the morning, something about not getting undressed fast enough. Dean would say Sam was inflexible last night.
Now Sam was cold, shaking hard enough to click his teeth together, and even though he pulled up the blanket, it was too thin, and the bed was too hard. The buzz in his brain had just turned itself up a notch, to an irritating note high enough to cut through bone. His lungs made hard, choppy motions, his breath coming out in jerky gasps.
He couldn’t breathe.
Across the little space between the beds, he heard Dean move again, and he froze. Dean was shifting the pillow around, and then Sam heard another one of those grunts that sounded like a question. Only this time, it sounded like a name as well. Like his name. Like Dean was asking for him. But in his sleep?
Now that was nuts. He huffed at himself under his breath for making up something so stupid. He didn’t know this guy and even if this guy knew him, like he said he did, he wouldn’t be talking to Sam in his sleep. With a tone that suggested he could tell that Sam was still awake, and couldn’t breathe.
Except now he could. He huffed again, felt his lungs relax, heard Dean twist deeper into the pillow. He took a deep breath. Well, a deeper one anyway. His chest hurt a little, felt strained along the sides like he’d been running. But Dean was breathing, nice and slow, like he’d not a trouble in the world. Sam made himself match the pace, the calm, even pace. It was hard at first, but he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the buzzing as he lifted his chest from the inside and then let it fall. Lift and fall, lift and fall.
The room felt quiet now. Although not dark enough for real sleep, it was quiet and cool, and the buzzing sound was fading into the background. His name was Sam. He was going to be flexible. He was going to get better.
His last thought was of Dean’s face, those bright green eyes looking right at him and that mouth saying not in a million years. That seemed a long time, and he wondered how Dean could plan on being nice that long.
We were friends, once.
Well, maybe they had been. He just needed to wait, to test the waters and see. It would be hard, but he was going to have to test Dean, to give him something so that he could see what Dean would do. Not telling about being late for bed was one thing. But what would Dean do if Sam told him about the blue man? That would be the real test.
Chapter 5
Blue Skies From Rain Master Fic Post