Blue Skies From Rain Part 2 - Chapter 6

[lovesrain44]

 

The supper hour was over and Sam felt like he’d been connected to Dean’s hip all day. That wasn’t such a bad thing; it was nice to be with someone. But it didn’t matter that Dean had been nice, that he’d looked after Sam. The look on his face when Sam had mentioned the blue man had been enough. Sooner or later word would get back to Dr. Logan and that would be all she wrote. Why, Dean was probably scheming even now as to how to get five minutes with the doctor. Just five minutes, and Sam would get sent back to solitary.

“Line, Sam,” said Dean. He was getting in line with a bunch of other men, the same men they’d been with pretty much all day, and Sam hurried to do as he was told. Even though these were different orderlies than the one in the other ward, it wouldn’t take much for one of the orderlies to get irritated, he felt pretty sure.

The line moved slowly down the hall, which was fine. Sam was tired now with the work therapy, as Dr. Logan had called it, which was really only thinly disguised manual labor. Wasn’t it? He remembered reading a book about the rights of patients, only now he couldn’t figure out where he’d read it or why, or how he was supposed to apply the information. Here they had no rights, only the obligation to do as they were told.

There was also the edge of anxiety that had followed him around all day. It felt like someone had wound him up inside, and if he’d not been so tired, he would have taken off running.

“Day room, gentlemen,” said the orderly.

Everyone piled into the room. Sam stuck close to Dean, not liking the feel of the air or the way the men scattered to the corners of the room without any reason that he could see. Except, if he stood still a minute, he could figure out that there was a TV with a couch in front of it, and he knew what a TV was and why it was, or could be, relaxing. Only all the spots got taken up fast. Then there were the men who went to the tables along the window, and sat down with each other with familiar ease. Sam didn’t know anyone. Only Dean.

“Hey,” said Dean. “Look, speed puzzles.”

He led Sam to one of the tables in the corner by the edge of the window, where the rain spat against the panes an irregular pattern that made his skin itchy. Dean didn’t seem to notice this. Instead he sat down and began briskly going through the pile of puzzle boxes.

Sam sat down because he didn’t know what else to do. He’d never been allowed in the Day room before. As Dean went through the puzzles, he had a little smile on his face. A nice smile, like he really meant it. And then he looked at Sam with this smile, rather more intensely than he had all day. Sam stiffened in his seat. He didn’t know what to do with a smile like that.

“Speed puzzles, like when we were kids,” said Dean.

Sam spoke without thinking. “We knew each other when we were kids?” he asked. He kept one eye on the door, because that at any moment Dr. Logan was going to come through it with her clipboard.

“Sure,” said Dean. “My dad knew, uh, your dad. Our families were close.” He pulled out one of the boxes, the one with the split rail fence and the impossibly blue sky over a field of about a million sunflowers. “Yeah, close.”

Dean took the lid of the box and set it on its edge so they could both see it. Then he set the bottom of the box with the puzzle pieces against the lid.

“What’s a speed puzzle?” Sam asked. As far as he could figure, looking at the box and the number that said how many pieces there were, the puzzle should take a long time.

“Huh,” said Dean. His smile dimmed a little. “I guess you wouldn’t remember that. Okay.”

He pulled a few piece out and put them in front of Sam. His fingers didn’t shake as Sam’s would have been had someone been watching. “We, uh, were on the move a lot, our families. Never got to finish many puzzles, or games, even. So, when we had to leave, whoever had the most money, or had the most puzzle pieces, won.”

Sam watched as Dean pressed two fingers down on a puzzle piece and moved it towards him.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Sam said. “How would we know whose puzzle piece was whose?”

This little bit of curiosity earned him another smile. He liked the way the lights flashed in Dean’s eyes. It was too bad that those eyes would betray him and he would soon be dragged back to solitary, because really, sooner or later, Dean was going to catch him and was going to turn him in. Then Dr. Logan would be angry because the experiment wasn’t an experiment at all. When the trap was sprung, it would give her the perfect excuse. It was exactly what she wanted. Well he, Sam, wasn’t going to make her wait. He couldn’t stand the anticipation. He would trip the trap and sooner rather than later, and get the Treatment over with.

“You always worked on the outside, I worked on the inside. Like this,” said Dean. He pushed one of the puzzle pieces closer to Sam. “That’s an edge, that’s yours. Here’s one for me.” He reached into the box and pulled out a piece and put it smack in the center of the table.

Sam leaned forward to look at it. It was a piece made up of pure yellow with only one tiny black dot in the corner. It would be impossible to match up unless you had something obvious to go by. There wasn’t. Dean reached into the box again and, glancing at the picture on the lid, moved some more mostly yellow pieces into place. One of the pieces had a slice of blue on it. Dean moved that piece towards the box.

“We’ll make this the top, okay?” said Dean, looking at the pieces on the table, and not at Sam.

Sam nodded, feeling a little dizzy as though the game were really moving a billion miles an hour, rather than sedately, which by nature, puzzles did.

It wasn’t going to get any easier. He might as well begin.

“So, um,” he started. “What I said today. You weren’t shocked at all.”

“About what?” asked Dean. He flicked a glance up to Sam, and was about to reach for another piece when he stopped and looked at Sam fully. “What?”

“The blue man,” said Sam, resigned to do this. “You weren’t shocked.”

Dean fiddled with one of the pieces, rolling it between his fingers. “Uh, no, not really.”

Now Sam was totally confused. Dean’s not being shocked was one thing, it was part of the trap. But it almost sounded like he actually knew what Sam was talking about.

“Do you know who the blue man is?” Sam asked.

For a moment, Dean was silent. Then he went still. When he started to talk, he was talking to the table. To his hands.

“Look, I don’t want to piss you off or anything, but I can’t tell you. Your memory has to come back all on its own. Otherwise, if I tell you, I’ll be planting my memories, and they’ll get in the way of yours. That’s what Dr. Logan said. You see?”

It might be a trap, or it might not, but it certainly wasn’t what Sam was expecting. It occurred to him that if their families had spent a lot of time together, then not only did Dean know who he was, but who his brother was. He wasn’t sure he could listen to anything about his brother without breaking down and causing a scene, even if Dean were to tell him. Maybe it was best not to ask. And not only that, well, the whole going after monsters thing might not surprise Dean either. Unless it was a trap, a big, complicated trap.

But Sam couldn’t help himself. “So, you knew my brother?” he asked. He was surprised at how fast his heart started beating.

Dean looked at him now, looked at him a long time with those green eyes of his going grave and still. It seemed like he was considering what to say, and Sam could almost imagine that he was phrasing his response so as to be as gentle as possible. Part of Sam remembered that this whole conversation was very likely a trap. The other part of him thought about how careful Dean was with him. All the time.

“Yeah, I knew your brother,” Dean said at last. He returned to the puzzle, taking a handful of pieces out and dropping them on the table with his fingers. He righted each piece and then picked three of them up and placed them near Sam. “These are edges, too. Get a move on, or you’re gonna lose.”

Sam looked down at the table, at the three pieces that were his. All of them had an edge that was totally flat. All of them were mostly green, and one of the pieces had a bit of brown that could be dirt or it could be part of the split rail fence. He looked at the box. There was no dirt anywhere to be seen in that pristine, springtime green field. It had to be fence. He lined the pieces up and realized that although they were all edges to the bottom of the puzzle, they did not hook up with one another.

“I need more pieces,” he said.

“Here you go,” said Dean, just as nice as you please.

If it was a trap, it was a good one. Sam couldn’t see the trip spring anywhere.

“So, then,” began Sam as he rearranged his puzzle pieces. Dean still wasn’t reacting, so Sam knew he had to divulge more of his secrets. “I have these, uh, things in my head. And they are, well, Dr. Logan says they’re not normal.”

“Uh-huh,” said Dean. His hands were busy stirring up the pieces in the box, probably looking for something with a lot of yellow.

“Like-” Sam stopped. His heart was really pounding now. He looked around the room to make sure no one was listening. Except for Dean. “There’s this girl vampire, okay?”

“And?”

“And a zombie that used to be a girl. And a werewolf that was also a girl. Why are they all girls?”

“What are they doing,” asked Dean. “Having a three way?”

It was not the answer Sam was expecting.

“No, they’re not having a three way, Dean. I’m killing them. One by one, in my memories, I’m killing them.” At Dean’s silence, the words boiled out of him. “I shot the werewolf in the heart with a silver bullet, I got chased by a zombie through a graveyard. And then there was this wendigo, in the woods, my brother was bait, and I had to get those people out of the mine shaft. I sharpened a machete so I could cut a vampire’s head off.”

His mouth felt dry as a winter lakebed, panting as he stopped, mouth open, realizing that he’d more than sprung the trap, he’d buried himself. These were things he swore to Dr. Logan that he was no longer thinking about, and there they were all in front of him. Like they’d been lined up like planes waiting to land.

But nothing happened. The noise level in the room went on in the same way, with the buzz of the TV, and the rumble of voices, the squeak of chairs across the floor. Only the silence between them sharpened into something noticeable, with Dean leaning forward in his chair, looking up at Sam through his lashes, so close that Sam could see the freckles along the bridge of his nose. Dean narrowed his eyes as though he were about to tell Sam a secret.

“And?”

This was not right. This was not how this was supposed to go. Dean was supposed to be totally shocked and appalled and go running to the nearest orderly that Sam was talking not only about the blue man but about killing things that used to be people and weren’t real. He was supposed to go ah-ha! and turn Sam the hell in so this appalling feeling of being about to explode from the outside in could just go ahead and happen. Treatment would ensue, the experiment would be over, and he could go back to his nice safe cubbyhole.

“And what? Vampires aren’t real, Dean, zombies aren’t-” He stopped and pushed the puzzle pieces away with the heel of his hand, hating the scratchy cardboard feel of them, hating the way he suddenly felt hot, like his armpits were filling with sweat. He had to pee really bad. That or throw up.

“Why are you doing this to me? Why don’t you just turn me in already?” He pressed his palms against his eyes and leaned his elbows on the table. “I tell you that I go around chasing these things, not that I was being pursued by a monster, but that I was hunting them. Me and my brother and my dad. It was what we did, that’s what I remember. You can’t just sit there and tell me you believe me. Go call Dr. Logan already.”

From behind the darkness of his hands, he could hear Dean pick up a puzzle piece, the edges of it making a scratchy sound on the table top. Then he placed it down with a little click. Sam lowered his hands. Dean was looking at him and not at what he was doing with the puzzle piece.

“And why did you do all that?” asked Dean. Casually, as if asking why Sam had done something ordinary, like open the door.

This was a question Dr. Logan had never asked. Not once. When Sam’s mouth would move faster than his brain could keep track of and all his dark secrets would come spilling out like hot salt, she was more interested in what it meant. What it symbolized. What the hidden meaning behind all the hunting and killing of imaginary things was. Not the why of it. Never the why.

“We saved people,” said Sam, feeling that in his gut. Knowing that it was true, even if he didn’t know why. And realized that if Dean were to turn him in? He could cling to that even as they strapped him to the table. “We saved a lot of people.”

“You and your dad and your brother,” said Dean. He looked like he wanted to smile. There were sparkles in his eyes.

“They were brave,” said Sam, his voice clogging up. He felt like he wanted to cry, and maybe, when he was on the table, tied down and wrapped in ice cold wet sheets, he would let himself. “They were brave, they were fucking maniacs, but they were brave, and I could never be like them, and I hunted even though it scared the crap out of me, and I can’t remember what their faces looked like, but I miss them, I miss-”

His voice cracked like someone had flung rocks at it, and he leaned forward and buried his head in his arms, puzzle pieces pushing against his skin, the cold air banking off the windows eating at the air, he could almost picture it, eating away like acid, and the flies with their little bloody feet. “I miss my brother.”

Now he was crying, as hard as he tried to stop it, swallowing against it, the heat boiling behind his eyes, and his chest churning as he realized that he couldn’t stop. They would come for him now, Dean would get up and call for someone, they would come and carry him off down the hall like he had no bones in his body, dragging him if they had to. Getting the water-

“Everything alright here?” a voice asked. An orderly. Sam didn’t know which one.

“Yeah,” said Dean. Casual. Sam could hear him scraping the floor with his chair, like he was standing up. “He’s just tired. First day of work therapy and all.”

“You sure?” asked the voice. “I thought I heard him getting a little agitated. The Day room is supposed to be a peaceful place. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” said Dean again. Then Sam felt a hand in his hair. He thought it was probably Dean’s, because it was gentle and warm and moved through his hair like it knew exactly how it grew along the back of his neck. “We were having a race with the puzzle pieces, got a little loud. Sorry about that.”

“Just keep it down,” said the orderly. Footsteps. Walking off. A scrape of the chair as Dean sat down again.

Sam’s heart was hammering and he wanted to explode. He wanted the flies to finish eating his brain. He wanted to stop crying. He wanted his brother. His mouth tasted bad and he realized that his fingers were digging into the table top, that his upper lip tasted like snot. That beside him, outside of the circle of his arms, that Dean was going on with the puzzle. Humming a little, breathing in and out. But attentive, like the second Sam lifted his head, he’d be there, with that smile, that little smile.

Dean was so calm, always. Sam wanted to be more like that. He also didn’t want Dean to see the snot coming from his nose, that was just gross. He sniffed a bit and then ducked his head, pulling up the collar of his shirt to wipe his mouth. Used the back of his hand to scrub across his eyes. Felt his chest do a couple of quick jigs as he took in a breath and straightened up in his chair. He watched Dean’s chest rise and fall for a couple of breaths and tried to match that. Then he raised his eyes.

There was Dean.

“Okay now?” Dean wasn’t smiling, but he was watching Sam, marking the effects of Sam’s outburst but there was nothing critical in his expression. Nothing judging in his eyes, no dubious frown. Just the solemn appraisal, and that attentive lean that his body did towards Sam’s. It felt comfortable, like they’d done this before. Maybe even most of their lives.

“So,” said Sam, “we’ve known each other a long time, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Dean. Eyes going over Sam like they were taking inventory. “A long time.”

“And everything I’m telling you, you already know.”

“Yeah,” said Dean. “I mean, I can’t tell you, but yeah.”

“And I can tell you about the blue man?”

“About anything.”

Sam felt a little empty, but in a good way. Like being tired at the end of a hard day’s work, and you couldn’t move, didn’t want to, but that was okay. You’d done what you were supposed to. It might be that the emptiness would work the same way, if you were tired, you went to sleep. If you were empty, something would come along and fill you up. Maybe something good.

“Am I remembering what really happened, or is it something that’s not really true?”

“What do you think?”

Another question that Dr. Logan had never asked, at least not in that way. When she asked it, Sam knew that she wanted to hear something productive, like how he was going to approach the problem of hanging on to false memories, or how he was going to apply himself to being flexible about what the memories meant, especially since they were false. She never meant the question as Dean did now, which was said in such a way that Sam felt fairly certain that Dean honestly wanted to know what he thought. So Sam told him.

“I think that either you are trying to trap me so you can turn me in to Dr. Logan for continuing to think about hunting monsters, or that you are flat out crazy. And that I’m crazy too.”

Dean shook his head. “None of the above.”

“Don’t tell me all my memories are real, Dean. They can’t be.”

“I’m not telling you anything. I’m just saying, you’re not crazy, I’m not crazy. And I’m certainly not going to turn you in. I would never do that to you.”

For the first time in a long time, it might be that he’d met someone who wasn’t messing with his head, who didn’t think he was crazy. Maybe. He still felt that itchy feeling along his skin, still felt the warning bells and that horrible buzzing sound right inside of his ears.

That Dean was nice seemed real enough, that he wasn’t going to turn Sam in was a strong possibility. It occurred to him as well that since Dean didn’t seem so very shocked about all the supernatural stuff, that he might have been there for some of it. Maybe even sharpened a machete of his own a time or two. But he couldn’t ask this of Dean, not with the orderly so close by, not with the threat still so close and dire. Maybe he didn’t really want to know.

Dean was still watching him, his eyes on Sam’s, his hands on the table near where Sam’s fingers were still digging into the table top a little. He looked like he wanted to place his hands on Sam’s to make them stop, so Sam obliged him so he wouldn’t have to. He uncurled his fingers and reached for the box.

“Hand me some of those,” he said.

This was the right thing to say, to do. Sam watched as Dean got him some puzzle pieces, and realized that it made Dean tense when he was worried about Sam, and that it relaxed him to do something for Sam. His shoulders went down, and the line of his jaw eased, and he looked like he might start humming again. Like he cared. Really and truly. Whether Sam should be trusting Dean as much as he had, well maybe it would be okay. Maybe Dean was what would fill the emptiness.

*

Sam welcomed bedtime like he could never remember doing before. A chime sounded from the corridor and the orderly stood by the Day room door to make sure they all got in line like they were supposed to. It occurred to Sam how time consuming it all was, all the lines and the waiting in them, the slow, stupid way everyone moved. Everyone but Dean. Whereas a lot of the men moved with the speed of crawling turtles, or shuffled their feet along the floor, their shoulders stooped or hunched, Dean moved fast and stood out like a blade. Sam guessed he’d noticed it all during the day, but as night came and the light outside the windows turned to darkness, the lights overhead made everything sharp and harsh, like a spotlight had been thrown on it. On Dean.

Sam walked along the wall. Dean walked alongside him, shoulders back, head up, looking, watching. Staying close to Sam, alert. Sam knew the feeling, he had to be alert all the time in case there was someone nearby who might think he was doing what he shouldn’t be doing. Dr. Logan said it was paranoia and she was currently evaluating his meds to determine which one might be causing that, or if he should be getting some additional meds to help with that. Sam didn’t want to take any more pills.

Dean, on the other hand, looked alert and aware all the time. Sam didn’t think it was paranoia; it was simply how he was. Even the way he stood at their doorway, their doorway, waiting for the orderly to unlock the door and hand them their pills, he was aware and watching but not edgy. Lit up from within. He nodded at the orderly, and popped the pill in his mouth as he walked in the room, not seeming to mind that Sam was almost on his heels, or that the door clanged loudly behind them, the key in the lock loud like someone was ripping through metal.

“Get some water, Sam,” said Dean. Like he was a little kid and didn’t know that he was supposed to do that.

Sam went into the bathroom and got himself a cup of water. In the polished metal, he could see the outlines of his hair, the color of his skin, maybe even what color his eyes were. In solitary, there were no mirrors not even metal ones. Maybe it was appropriate that with his memory gone, his reflection was fuzzy too. He swallowed the pill and brushed his teeth, and then used the toilet, washing his hands after.

When he walked out of the bathroom, Dean was sitting on his bed, taking off his shoes and socks, changing into his p.j.’s.

“Bathroom hog,” said Dean, in a conversational way.

For a second, Sam wondered if Dean was mad, but when Dean looked up at him, the smile was there, and the shine in his eyes, and though Dean looked tired, he seemed happy.

“If I’m a hog, why are you smiling?” asked Sam. He went over to his own bed, still not sure how much to trust Dean.

But his question took the smile from Dean’s face as he sat down. For a moment, he was still. His head was bowed like he didn’t want to look at Sam, and he pushed his fists against his thighs like he was trying to rub some warmth into his skin.

“I’m smiling because you’re okay. Because you’re going to be okay.” Dean’s head was still down when he said this and there was a cadence in his voice, like he was struggling to keep it even and not let it burst into something else. It made Sam feel as though Dean wanted to say something else, to do anything else but sit there, not looking at Sam. “And anyway, you’ve always been a bathroom hog, so when you get your memory back, you can remember this moment. You hogging the bathroom, and me pitifully waiting.”

This was supposed to be a joke and Sam almost smiled. He wanted to be sure of Dean, wanted to feel safer than he did. Because when Dean looked up at him, pretending to frown, it felt pretty good, and very familiar. He thought about saying something back, something snappy, but his brain was giving in to the sleeping pills and couldn’t quite manage it. So he sat on his bed and took off his shoes and socks, and said something else. Something quite true that Dr. Logan would applaud, were she here.

“I’m not used to sharing,” he said, feeling somewhat shy.

He expected Dean to say something snotty in return, but as Dean kicked his shoes under his bed with the heel of his foot, he actually could see it in Dean’s face, what he was thinking. About Sam being in solitary, about Sam being alone. It was only a flicker, but he could see it, that Dean hated the whole idea. That Dean hated being in here, in this place. Locked up like this, even though he liked being with Sam. Then it went away, just as fast. Sam shivered. Knowing someone as well as that was just plain weird.

Dean went into the bathroom, and Sam could hear the water running and Dean spitting into the sink. Sam hurried to get into his own p.j.’s, slipping between the sheets that felt like they’d been in a freezer all day. He’d been warm from all the work and the moving around, but now, lying still even under the covers, it was cold. It’d been much colder in solitary though, so he didn’t mind so much. Still, it made him shiver to get warm; he rubbed his feet fast across the sheets to get some friction.

Just as the chime sounded and the lights went out, he heard Dean cross the room and get in the bed. A second later, he heard the sound of feet rubbing the sheets for friction.

“Christ, this place is an ice box,” said Dean, muttering.

Sam thought about body heat, remembering something he’d learned, maybe in school. If you put two bodies together, you could generate heat. Like if you were lost in the woods somewhere, and it got dark and you couldn’t get home. But it wasn’t that cold, they had blankets, and there wasn’t any ice or snow. He let the idea go as the buzz in his brain settled into dullness, the meds kicking in just as he thought about getting up to put on his socks. But there was a rule about only wearing designated sleepwear to bed, one of those rules Dr. Logan was so fond of. He’d hate to wake up in the morning with an orderly standing over him, pointing at his sock covered feet.

“Dean,” said Sam.

“Uh-huh,” said Dean.

Sam could hear it as Dean rolled towards him and settled himself on the pillow. Waiting. Waiting to listen. Sam wondered if his own brother had been like that. So attentive.

“Um, I wanted to say-” He stopped, not really sure of what he wanted to say. He didn’t want to bring up the idea again of Dean’s being a spy, planted to trap him. Nor did he want to talk about blue men or vampires, it was just too late, and he was too tired. But if Dean was going to be his friend, and maybe he was, then Sam wanted to be nice the way Dean was nice. “I wanted to say thanks, for-showing me the speed puzzles.”

It came out all tumbled and rushed. And lame. Not exactly what he was wanting to say. But how could he possibly figure out how to say it short and sweet, to say what he meant, and yet not come across as some emotional wreck? Hey, thanks for not thinking I’m crazy, thanks for believing me, thanks for being calm. Thanks for breathing. How do you thank someone for breathing?

He said it anyway; it was like his mouth was in control of the rest of him. “Thanks for breathing slow. It helped.”

There was a small silence that came at him from across the short space between their beds. He heard Dean take a breath. Then Dean said, “Any time.”

Whether Dean understood what he meant or not, his voice sounded warm and calm in the darkness. Exactly the way Sam wanted, needed it to sound. He wondered if Dean knew that or if that was just the way he was. Maybe it was a bit of both.

Dean shifted in the other bed, and Sam could hear him breathing. He made himself breath in sync, letting his eyes clothes, not thinking about flies with bloody feet. Not thinking at all. Just breathing. With Dean.

Chapter 7

Blue Skies From Rain Master Fic Post