Fic: Headtrip (6/7)
Spoiler warning: I came up for the idea for this fic long before there were spoiler warnings that Supernatural was going to be doing something similar this season. Just in case, though: If you don't want to be spoiled for a future episode, don't read.
Fic: Headtrip (6/7)
Series: Special Projects
Summary: On their way to Metropolis for Christmas, Dean, Sam and Chloe take a detour though Colorado Springs to investigate a series of mysterious deaths, but Dean is still broken, Chloe looks ready to run and Sam is just worried about holding things togeather.
Author: pen37
Beta: Clarksmuse
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: Pg-13.
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Written for the Crossovers100 challenge. Prompt #40 Sight. The table is here.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
Dean was used to being completely disoriented. The dreaming state was like one of those weird paintings that Sam had printed on a t-shirt: stairs that went nowhere, doors that opened on nothing, and melting clocks. He opened one such door, and was surprised to find a small classroom.
He looked around cautiously, to make sure there wasn’t some kind of weird shit in here - like that fabric softener teddy bear that would jump out and try to eat him - before stepping into the room.
With his mental radar up, he studied his surroundings. Brightly colored letters and numbers were painted on a wall over a set of purple wooden cubby-holes. All the desks and chairs were built for small people - they were about knee high and scaled down.
The other wall had an actual chalkboard. Not a white board like most classrooms have. And above it all was hung a wooden crucifix.
Dean was pretty sure that he wasn’t in his own dream anymore. For one thing, there were no melting clocks. For another, he’d never gone to private catholic school.
He turned and saw a small girl with long blonde hair in a plaid skirt and knee socks quietly coloring. She seemed content to work by herself. As she worked, she swung her legs underneath the table, and quietly hummed to herself.
Dean stared at her for a moment. She seemed - very familiar. His curiosity got the better of him, and he sat on the floor across the desk from her. He looked at her hands, and noticed that they were red and slightly puffy. A little silver band circled her right thumb.
Dean looked up at her sharply. “Chlo?”
“You have to be careful,” she said without looking up. “If the penguins catch you out of your desk, they’ll get you with the ruler.” She sat the crayon down, and looked at him with clear green eyes. “Tommy Biggs said that Sister Mary Kate O’Reilly broke someone’s fingers with her ruler. But that’s factually impossible. I mean - honestly! The ruler would break.”
Dean smiled at her. She was a little on the runty side, but the pint sized motor-mouth was undoubtedly his girl, and not the monster who had been stalking him. He wasn’t sure how his dreams had connected with hers, but the connection had somehow driven off his tormenter.
He looked closely at Chloe’s open, honest face. She seemed more innocent at this age. As if she hadn’t yet seen the things in this world that had made her more guarded. He had the impression that although she was his Chloe, the dream state had regressed her, both physically and mentally.
He looked around. “So where are all of your friends?” he asked.
Chloe shrugged. “At recess, I guess. I’m in time-out.”
“Why?”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “We’re supposed to be learning about the Eucharist, because we’re going to take communion. And the nuns said that the wine becomes blood.” She made a face. “What do they think we are? Vampires?”
Dean seemed to remember Chloe telling him that she’d been kicked out of Catechism classes for being argumentative. He grinned at her, chuckled and shook his head. He could already see the woman that Chloe would grow to be in the child she was.
“So you got put in solitary because you talked back to a nun?”
“Do I look that stupid? Hello? Rulers! ” She shook her head. “I wanted to see.”
“See what?”
“I wanted to see the communion wine turn into blood. So I went to have a look.”
A grin spread across Dean’s face from ear to ear. “You got caught stealing communion wine?”
“I was only borrowing it,” Chloe frowned. “It’s not like I wasn’t going to take it back.”
“They wouldn’t believe that.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” she said. “So I stood on the First Amendment. Which, apparently, doesn’t mean much when you’re a kid.”
He looked down at the table and noticed her drawing. In a childish scrawl, she’d drawn a series of figures across the page that looked eerily familiar to him. He picked the paper up, and looked at it closer.
“That’s my family,” she said as she leaned forward over the desk to point them out to him. She first pointed to a stick figure on a couch. Dean shut his eyes suddenly when he realized that the color of the couch was the same as the couch that Moira Sullivan had been sitting on when Chloe went to visit her in Kansas City. “That’s my mom. I don’t get to see her very often.”
When Dean opened his eyes, he realized that Chloe was pointing to a telephone that sat on a stand next to the couch. “And that’s my dad. He’s in France. I think that must be a long way away. Sometimes he sends me stuff from there. I think they have cheese.”
Dean clenched his jaw, and willed himself not to pull the little girl close to him. Even if she was his girl, she was age regressed to six years old, and he was probably a big scary man in her eyes.
Then she pointed to a shaggy-haired figure that had to be Sammy. “And that’s Sam. He’s my bestest friend in the whole world.”
“Is he?” Dean’s voice was subdued. “What’s he like?”
“He’s awesome on a computer, and he knows trivia and stuff.”
“Sounds like a good friend,” Dean said with a serious nod. “Wish I had a friend like that.”
Chloe surprised him by jumping out of her seat, rounding the desk, and placing a hug around his neck. “I’ll share him with you, if you want,” she nodded sagely. “Sam needs a friend to talk guy-stuff with. I’m no good at that.”
“Thanks,” Dean smirked at the top of her little head. Then he looked at the drawing again. A second stick figure was standing next to Sam. Judging by the spiky bits of hair on this one’s head, it had to be him. “Who’s that?” he asked Chloe knowingly.
Chloe looked at the drawing slowly, and then up at him. “That’s my boyfriend. I hope he marries me.”
He blinked at that. She hoped he what? “Are you two pretty close?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don't know. And anyways,” She sighed, and frowned down at the picture. “I don't want to scare him away. I think . . . I don't know if he likes me enough.”
“So why don't you ask him?” Dean studied her serious face. Everyone said that kids were more truthful, but Dean didn't believe that. Kids were even less truthful than adults, really. They were just more honest. At six, Chloe hadn't yet learned to hide behind a brave smile. Instead, every thought seemed to telegraph itself clearly across her face. He could tell that the idea that he didn't like her bothered her a lot.
She stared at the drawing for a long time. “I guess I'm afraid,” she said.
Dean didn't have to ask what she was afraid of. He already knew the answer. “Funny thing about being afraid,” he told her. “Something this smart girl once told me: the trick is to feel the fear - and not mind it.” He looked back at the drawing. “So what's so great about this guy?”
She made a typically childish shrug of her shoulders. “He's a good person. A smart person. He could do anything. Really anything! Even if he doesn't think he's good or smart or anything. But instead he wants to help other people. And he doesn't just love easy. But when he does, he loves with everything he has.”
Dean watched in amazement as she leaned forward and talked with him. Her eyes sparkled and her hands wove in and out in front of her as she described him. It was obvious how deeply she cared. It was all over her child-like face. He felt - humbled that anyone could see him that way.
“He argues with me for fun, he listens to my theories. He doesn't think I'm crazy. And he looks at me like I'm special.” She ducked her head, as if suddenly embarrassed.
Dean tilted her chin up so that he could see into her expressive face. “If he's so great, why do you think you're going to scare him away?”
She pushed off him and stood up. Then she turned, and walked toward a side door. “Because that's what always happens,” she said over her shoulder. Dean got to his feet and followed her. She crossed the threshold and was momentarily out of sight. When Dean caught up again, she'd grown. She looked like she was about nine. Her hair was shorter and she wore a pair of jeans with colorful patches over the knees, and a pair of clunky boots.
They appeared to be on the upstairs landing of a two-story house. Dean watched as she leaned against the balcony railing, gripped the slats, and stared between them, down to the first floor. The sounds of an argument drifted up the stairs.
What was the point of coming out here, Moira, if you're not going to visit with your own daughter?
I don't want to see her, Gabe. It's less painful this way.
Less painful for who? I'm the one who has to pick up the pieces after these visits. She thinks you don't love her. And I'm really not surprised.
So you don't want me to come over anymore?
I think that would be for the best.
Dean recognized Gabe's voice and figured that the woman's voice was that of Chloe's mother, Moira. When he looked at Chloe again, she seemed to be fighting tears. He sat next to her, and watched her watching the fight downstairs.
“In a few months, she'll check herself into Belle Reeve. Dad'll file for divorce, but he'll never sign the papers. When she leaves, I'll go downstairs and he'll fix me waffles.” She shut her eyes. “I know she loves me. That's why she's doing this. Because she could hurt me with a casual comment, and she doesn't want to run the risk. But I didn't know that then. I thought . . .” she bit her lip, and shook her head.
“You thought that you were the reason that she left,” Dean said softly.
“I thought I was unlovable,” Chloe said.
Dean didn't know what to do. He watched helplessly as her lower lip trembled. Chloe solved the dilemma by launching herself into his arms.
“Hey,” he whispered to her as he pulled her close and stroked her hair. “It's okay, you know.”
“I'm sorry, she whispered into his ear between sobs. “I'm just . . . not myself right now.”
Yeah, you're nine, he thought. Ordinarily he would have said something like that out loud, but right now he knew it would be the wrong thing to say. Instead, he tried to will the right words out of his mouth.
“Hey,” he said. She leaned back, and nodded to him. “You know that guy you like so much? The one who is so smart?”
“Yeah?” she whispered.
“You know what he thinks of you?”
“What?” she asked quietly. He was encouraged by the spark of hope he saw in her eyes.
“He thinks you're smart and beautiful, and he gets a kick out of arguing with you. And he thinks that you're more than special.” He pressed a kiss against her forehead.
When he pulled back, Chloe - looked like herself again. She smiled at him with a look of adoration and love that told him that she had accepted what he had said. “Hi.”
“Hi.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “You okay?”
She looked like she was seriously thinking about it. “I think . . .” she nodded slowly. “I think I'm home. And it feels . . . right.” She turned serious eyes on him. “How about you?”
Dean thought about what Chloe had told him, back in the classroom. He gave her a lazy smirk. “I think I can answer your question.”
“My question?” Chloe blinked at him.
“You wanted me to tell you what I was good at - other than hunting and sex. I think I've got a better idea now.”
“Really?” she raised an eyebrow.
He nodded slowly. “It's an eye opener. Seeing yourself the way someone else does.”
“It is,” she took his hand. “So are we okay?”
“We're . . . getting there.” He gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry, Chloe. I'd like nothing more than to get back up on the horse, but.”
“I understand,” She took his hand and gave him a reassuring smile. “It takes time.”
He nodded, and then looked around. “Where are we?”
Chloe's eyes widened as she remembered something. She sat back, and looked around. The house they'd been in seemed to melt like cotton candy in the rain. “Sam!”
“Sam's here, too?” Dean stood, and pulled her to her feet. He looked around the featureless landscape as if Sam might walk out of it at any second.
“We're hunting a Powaqa,” Chloe said. “It attacked you in your dreams. Sam found a ritual so that we could reach you.”
Dean remembered the dark man. He remembered walking away, and he remembered feeling like he was being pursued. As if the thing was pressing down on him. Until the moment that he found Chloe. Then it was as if the thing went somewhere else. Probably to attack Sam. Dean rolled his eyes. It would figure that the Powaqa would go after Sam. He was like a friggin' lightning rod for the freaky-deaky.
He took Chloe's hand and pulled her along behind him.
“Where are we going?” Chloe asked.
“Find Sammy.”
“How?”
He threw a look at her over his shoulder. “It's Sam. Trust me, Chloe. I could find my brother anywhere.”