Persistence of Vision (1 of 2)
Persistence of Vision
A Story in Six Sections of Unequal Length
..i..
..catalyst..
Sam dreams of fire.
For as long as he can remember, back into the far reaches and depths of his memories, long before Jess and every night since, he has dreamed of flames, hot and starving, desperate and needy, and so when he wakes up in a cold sweat one morning, in a cheap motel somewhere between Texarkana and Hope, Arkansas, he doesn’t know why his heart’s racing a million miles a minute, why this latest dream was so different. It’s only as he’s nearly fallen back to sleep that he remembers the voices, and as his eyes close again, they come back, loud, dissonant, clamouring for something he doesn’t quite understand. The realisation, the noise, combined, make him sit up, panting for breath.
He eventually just gets out of bed, hearing things, voices, people every time he gets near to sleep, and sits at the rickety table, opening the laptop and staring out of the window until Dean rolls over and gives him a bleary-eyed, “Whattimesit.”
--
They drive in the direction of Carthage and a poltergeist. Sam’s dreading this, dreads the mere mention of poltergeists after what happened in Lawrence, still fresh in his mind and heart, like everything that’s happened in the year since hasn’t taken its own toll on him. He tries to stay awake, but can’t help drifting every so often, startled out of his doze every time by a din of voices that’s loud enough to drown out the Metallica. The first couple times, Dean doesn’t say anything, but the third time, when it leaves Sam white and shaking, Dean says, carefully, “Is it a vision or a nightmare?” and then, “When’s the last time you slept more than four hours?” Sam struggles to get defensive, but he’s hearing things now, and that just isn’t normal, so he replies, “I slept a couple hours last night. And it’s not a vision. I don’t think. I mean, hell, I don’t know,” and he gives this little laugh and rubs his eyes. He kept the visions to himself for months, carried the guilt from that even longer, but they all almost died and things have changed and he might be going crazy, and if there’s one thing Sam’s learned, it’s that he might as well just tell Dean now, it’ll be better in the long run.
Dean doesn’t say anything for a while, lets four songs click through and the fifth one start on the cassette before asking, “You still wanna go after the poltergeist? I can do it myself, drop you off at a doctor’s or hospital or something.” Sam shakes his head, looks out of the window as he says, “Because that would be a great conversation. ‘Hi, doc, m’name’s Sam. I have visions and now I’m hearing things-think they’re connected or am I just finally losing it?’” Dean frowns but says, “Yeah, good point. Hearing things?” Sam’s head falls back as he gestures, says, “Voices. I guess. I dunno, they’re too loud to make any sense of.” The song finishes and the car is silent for as long as it takes the cassette to turn over, start playing the ‘B’ side and “The Shortest Straw.” “Sam,” Dean begins, and Sam shakes his head. He knows that tone, heard it in Jess’ voice and every day in Dean’s, knows what it means. “It’s both of us or neither, Dean. I’m not letting you do this alone.” Dean says his name again, but Sam just looks at his brother until Dean nods twice, reluctantly.
--
The poltergeist seems to be a pissy one, not dangerous but annoying. It won’t let them walk through the front door, makes them climb through one of the large windows at the back of the house, and Sam thinks of Max’s uncle when he’s halfway through and praying that the window will stay up. It does and when they’re inside, mirrors shatter on the wall, clocks stop, lights flicker on and off. “Maybe it’s a baby poltergeist?” Dean half-asks, turning to Sam. “’Cause, honestly, I think this is the extent of our troubles.” A candlestick breaks in half and rolls off of a table in the hallway, a long and thin red taper, and it comes to a stop at Dean’s feet. Dean leans down to pick it up, but Sam’s seeing things now so he says, “Stop,” high and urgent and Dean pauses, hand outstretched and half bent over. “Yeah?” he asks, and Sam blinks furiously as if that will make the orbs he’s seeing go away, as if there’s something wrong with his vision instead of what he’s picking up, but then his skin breaks out in goosebumps and shivers. “Let’s do it and leave,” he says, “please?” and Dean stands up. “What is it?” he asks, and Sam shakes his head, winces. “I don’t know, but it isn’t nice or happy. Where’s the chalk?”
Dean pulls three pieces of white chalk from his pocket and gives Sam a worried look before they go down to the basement and find the centre of the house. Dean traces an elaborate symbol while the floorboards above them shriek as if twenty kids are running across them at full tilt, and Sam pours salt in the middle of the design as he murmurs the incantation to dispel the poltergeist. He stops halfway through, swallows tightly and licks dry lips, and the moment stretches enough for Dean’s brow to crease and furrow. Sam’s head is throbbing, pounding the way it does when he’s about to have a vision and he can’t move his eyes from the design because the poltergeist is orbing all over the damn place and if he looks at that straight on, he’s going to go blind from the white-hot light, and why can’t Dean see it, why isn’t Dean casting a circle or pentagram around them, it hurts.
Sam drops to his knees, the pressure building and forcing him down, but the painfully cool concrete brings some measure of relief, enough to finish the ritual, and it’s a good thing he’s already close to the ground because the build-up of sheer power caught in the symbol seconds before the poltergeist is banished knocks him unconscious.
--
fire everywhere, nothing but flames and heat and hunger, and it’s burning but not burning him and it doesn’t make sense, doesn’t feel real, which is a lie because this is the most real he’s felt since he almost had that stupid gun, since he started having the visions, since Jess and is this another nightmare, oh, God, is he going to wake up next to her and have this all be a dream, he doesn’t think he could handle it, can’t handle the fire taking someone else from him, can’t handle this heat, please, somebody, make it stop, but it doesn’t, because now he can hear things, too, hear people and they’re telling him things he can’t understand, please, stop, make it stop, let him wake up, please, pleasepleaseplease
--
He comes to with a start and a shiver, feeling a wave of nausea move through him, upwards from his stomach. “Don’t you dare fucking throw up in my car,” he hears, and after a moment of panic, places the voice. “Dean. What?” is all he can ask, fighting the bile rising in his throat. Sam loses a few seconds of time, because the next thing he knows, the Impala’s stopped moving, Dean’s opening his door and dragging him onto the grass, and he’s retching, one hand pulling at Dean, the other scrabbling for a hold in the dirt.
“Better?” Dean asks when Sam’s gone a full minute without heaving, and Sam’s focused too intently on his esophagus to try and decipher his brother’s tone. “Yeah,” he finally rasps, feeling his throat burn, and he coughs again but doesn’t gag. Dean leaves for a moment and Sam tries to move but can’t, so he stares at the trees along the ditch until Dean returns with toothbrush, toothpaste, and a bottle of water.
It helps, makes him feel semi-human again, and it’s not until they get back in the car and start driving that Sam thinks to ask, “What happened and where are we going?” Dean looks over, hands tight on the steering wheel, then back at the four-lane state highway they’re on, and says, “You knocked yourself out once the poltergeist left, fell and hit your head on the concrete. It left, too, I checked,” he adds, before Sam can ask. “I don’t know why you stopped the incantation and I don’t know why you passed out like that, but I’m taking you to Missouri. Even if she can’t do anything, we’re still going,” and Sam doesn’t argue, knows how freaked out by all of this Dean must be if his brother didn’t even make one snide jab at how Sam fainted like a girl.
--
They hit the Oklahoma/Kansas border and then, at midnight, Liberty, and Dean’s practically falling asleep at the wheel, but since he refuses to let Sam drive, they stop at a homey-looking place and get a room for a few hours. Dean fusses over Sam, makes Sam sit on one of the beds and then salts the door and sills himself, like because Sam passed out hours ago, he’s incapable of performing tasks he could do in his sleep. Sam doesn’t argue, his head pounding out a John Bonham drum solo and hearing things every time he blinks. There’s no chance he’ll be sleeping as well, not with the terror that creeps over him every time his eyelids close, every time he can feel that fire licking at the edges of his bones, every time he hears that crowd of voices. Dean’s out almost instantly, still dressed but missing his shoes and coat, those kicked and shrugged off at the edge of the bed. Sam gets up, moves slowly, his whole body humming, and drapes the coat over a chair, moves the shoes under a table. He lines up his own sneakers next to them, then sits down, facing Dean, and opens the laptop.
--
Dean wakes up around six, when Sam’s just finished filling out his twenty-second credit card application, after Sam’s spent hours researching, thinking, playing solitaire Vegas-style. He’s won over five thousand dollars, and when Dean thumps down in the chair next to Sam, fifteen minutes later and coffee in hand, he sees the little black number and nods approvingly. “Maybe we should get you to Vegas,” Dean mumbles, and then asks, “You didn’t sleep last night. Gonna be okay to shower?” Sam shrugs and nods, stands up a little unsteadily, but catches his balance. He’s gone longer than this without sleep before, hunts back in high school, all-nighters and the Game at Stanford, and twenty-six hours awake should not hurt like this, but his skin aches with heat and there’s the reason.
Sam always takes hot showers, so that the mirrors fog up and steam billows around his head like clouds when he’s done, but this time, muscles stretched too far, too tight over bone, like there’s something inside of him that needs to get out, the mere thought of hot water sets his teeth to grinding. Instead, the water’s frigid, like it just melted off of an iceberg, and it feels good, soothes him, but doesn’t cool him down. He’s sweating the instant the water shuts off, dresses in a hurry and opens the bathroom door to see Dean clicking away the laptop. Sam doesn’t say anything but it’s like Dean hears him, because his brother jumps and turns and asks how he’s doing. Sam shrugs, sits on the edge of the not-slept-in bed, and wishes he could concentrate enough to speak, but the damn fire’s trying to eat him and all of these voices won’t shut up, and he can feel unconsciousness clawing its way toward him. He blinks, sees flames, opens his eyes and Dean is there, right there, asking what’s going on. I don’t know, but make it stop, Sam tries to say, but can’t, and then his eyes close, slow motion and he can’t stop them.
--
hurts so much, the fire’s not burning him up but it’s flaring through him, trying to burrow out of his skin from every pore, like he’s trying to contain the sun inside of his body, the sun and stars and supernovas, but he can’t do it, he isn’t that big, and it hurts, oh, God, it hurts, make it stop, make the fire stop, it’s blinding him and burning and hungry and eating him from the inside out and he can hear the voices through the flames and there are hands and bodies and voices and it’s too bright, too needy, too much, too much, please, he can’t take it anymore, someone make it stop, God, please, please, please
--
The slide to consciousness is even faster this time, one instant to the next, and he’s clawing at the door, trying to get out, feeling fire all around him. He doesn’t register Dean pulling the car over, doesn’t know that Dean opens the door and yanks Sam out of the Impala, just knows he’s out and there’s space around him, and the shock wears off and leaves him throwing up again. He hasn’t eaten anything since the last time, all that comes up is liquid and it stings and makes him think of fire again, eating away at his esophagus, stomach, throat. He screams, eyes wide, and vomits, screams and vomits again, and then a hand connects with his cheek and it feels like ice.
Sam breathes, takes big, gulping breaths of air, and fights the reflex to gag, heave. Fingers rest under his chin, push his head up gently, and Sam looks up at Dean, who says, “Sammy,” very carefully and quietly. “You were hyperventilating. D’you feel better now?” Sam swallows, gags, tries again, and then nods. “Good,” Dean says, then helps Sam back to the car. “We’re half an hour from Lawrence and you better not pass out again ‘cause I don’t think we’ll make it next time and you are not going to barf in my car.” Sam tries to smile, but can’t, and Dean pretends that nothing is wrong as he hits the gas.
..ii..
..denial..
Dean drives straight to Missouri’s and she’s standing outside, hands on hips, when they slow to a stop. Dean gets out and Missouri yells, “You bring that brother of yours in here, Dean Winchester, and be quick about it,” and Sam registers that but doesn’t understand it, just watches her walk back into her house without moving . Dean comes over to Sam’s side, opens the door, and hauls Sam out and into the house like a rag doll, but Sam’s glad because his head is splitting apart and his muscles are coming unglued and it hurts.
Dean sits Sam down and Missouri makes Sam drink a cup of tea, and something in the tea or the house or the air penetrates the haze of agony Sam feels. He looks at Missouri for the first time since they arrived and she smiles, “There y’are,” all soft and slow and Sam looks at her. “Oh, I know,” she says, “and I know it hurts, but I’ll help you get used to it.” Sam doesn’t know what to think about any of this, doesn’t know if he can think, and she laughs and says, “I know a trick or two, Sam. There’s angelica all over the house and the tea’s got chamomile in it. You’ll be able to sleep while you’re here and we’ll work on it while you’re awake.” He nods, distracted by the sight of Dean hovering behind Missouri, face tight and lips pressed together, and Missouri raises her voice, says, “Dean? Take him upstairs, would you? Sam needs to get some rest.”
Sam watches as Dean moves instantly, detached, as if this isn’t his body that his brother’s manhandling up the stairs, tucking into bed, watching over. He’s numb and that’s better than the ache, and he wonders how Missouri could do that so fast, and then he wonders why she never touched him, not once, not even when she gave him the cup of tea. When he sleeps, he dreams of fire, not this new kind, but the fire he’s used to, there, warm, hungry but controlled.
--
Sun’s streaming in through the curtains when he wakes up, and he thinks he hears the low murmur of voices until he shakes his head and they’re gone. The action makes him slightly dizzy, he hasn’t eaten for a while and miracles do happen because he’s actually hungry, thinking about toast and coffee and maybe strawberries. He gets out of bed and wobbles on legs that don’t quite feel like his own as he slips on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, runs a hand through his hand, carefully goes downstairs. Missouri’s not in the kitchen, but there’s a candle on the counter, a red one, like the house in Carthage, and the small flame’s dancing in the air currents. Sam watches it, feels like he’s falling into it, and he’s distantly aware of noise and movement.
He blinks when the flame goes out, comes to himself and feels light-headed, and Dean’s there with a chair. Sam sits heavily, looks at his brother, question in his eyes, and Dean says. “Sorry, but I had to blow it out, Sammy. You were vibing all over the place.” Sam looks around, sees pictures hanging crooked on the walls, sees dishes inches from where they used to be, sees the table’s moved across the kitchen. “What’s happening to me?” he asks and jumps when Missouri, behind him, replies instead of Dean. “You’re just coming into your power,” she says, matter-of-factly, moving into view. “It needs to be trained, like any muscle, so eat breakfast. You’ll need the energy.” He sits there, still numb but now feeling the faint trace-ends of panic, confusion, anger as well, as Missouri makes eggs and bacon for Dean and toast and melon for him, eats when he’s told, cleans his plate, and carries it to the sink when he’s finished. “Go sit in the living room, Sam,” Missouri tells him, and as he goes, obedient, he hears her say something to Dean about how they should have come here right away, not messed with the poltergeist.
--
They spend the whole first day focusing and learning how to breathe. Well, he does, and Missouri tells him what he’s doing wrong, what he’s doing right, what he needs to try doing harder. He thinks it helps, though, either the breathing or just being here, because he’s not hearing things and he feels more at peace, more himself. The fire is still there, though, still thrumming underneath his skin like he could burst into flames at any minute and when he has the thought of doing that and Dean seeing it happen, Missouri calls a stop for the day and a stern warning to “control those thoughts of yours, or else this is going to take too much time.” Sam listens and tries, but he can’t really calm down until he sees Dean outside, puttering under the Impala’s hood.
He walks outside, sits on the front step and watches Dean tighten something and then look up. Sam smiles, half-invitation, and Dean wipes his hands off on a rag before closing the hood and coming over, sitting down next to his brother. “Y’good?” Dean asks, and when Sam says, “Yeah. Yeah, I think I will be,” he exhales and Sam watches a line of tension dissipate from his brother’s body. They sit there for a few minutes, watching the odd car drive past, waving at people who walk by, and Dean looks over and asks, “We can go inside if you’re cold?” and it takes Sam a minute before he sees that Dean’s wearing a t-shirt, a shirt over that, and a ratty old coat he must’ve found at the back of one of Missouri’s closets. Sam’s only wearing a t-shirt, and not a very thick one at that, but he’s not cold. If anything, he’s a little bit warm, and he starts to panic just as Missouri opens the door and says, “Now, Sam Winchester, what did I tell you about those?” Dean looks at him as Sam laughs, smiles, rubs his temples. “Sorry,” he says, and Missouri says, “Dinner’s ready, you two. Come in, wash up, and eat so Sam can get to bed,” which, of course, is when he realises how tired he is.
Dinner is good, hearty food: fried chicken, potatoes, lots of fruits and vegetables which Dean doesn’t touch, and Missouri gives Sam a cup of tea he thinks is the same as he had last night when he’s done eating. This time he savours the taste and asks what’s in it, what else beside the chamomile. Missouri gives him a slanty-eyed look and says, sharply, “There’s no need for you to know. We’ll be training your gift, not blocking it,” and Sam’s eyes widen, then narrow, as he looks from Missouri to the tea and then back again. “It dampens the psychic threads?” he whispers, and when Missouri nods, the tea suddenly doesn’t look as good. “What?” Dean asks. “Care to explain it to the mundane here?”
Missouri sighs, starts cleaning off the table, and explains. “Sam’s gift kicked in too fast. If he’d been here sooner, or it had come on slower, we could have worked into it, but it was too fast and he wasn’t close to someone who could help.” Dean shifts in his seat and Sam wonders why his brother looks vaguely guilty. “It could’ve driven him crazy or worse,” Missouri continues, and Sam thinks of Meg and Max, thinks of them and shudders and then yelps when Missouri thwaps him on the back of the head with a wooden spoon. “The tea helps block his psychic abilities as long as it’s in his system, and I’m already weakening it.” Sam says, “That’s why it’s vague, isn’t it?” and Missouri nods, mutters something about too much power as she’s leaned over the sink that Sam doesn’t want to ask about. “What’s vague?” Dean asks, and Sam looks down at the teacup still in his hands. “The voices,” Dean says flatly, and Sam hears Missouri leave, hears her shut the kitchen door, but doesn’t see her because he doesn’t want to look up and see what sort of look Dean’s wearing.
Dean, bastard brother that he is, won’t accept Sam’s silence, says, “Sam, look at me,” and it’s that tone of voice that Dean learned from their father, so of course Sam looks up, looks at Dean. His brother is wearing the most earnest expression Sam’s ever seen on Dean’s face, and Sam wants to flinch, but he’s tired and takes a sip of his tea instead. “We’ll get through it,” Dean says, “I hate seeing you go through this, but it’ll be over soon,” and Sam holds Dean’s gaze for a moment before he drowns the rest of the tea. “I know,” Sam says, but he doesn’t sound convinced or relaxed or believable, and Dean opens his mouth to say something, but he closes it, stands up, leaves, and Sam drags himself to bed and falls in, still wearing his clothes, and dreams of fire.
--
They settle into a rhythm, the three of them, for the next three weeks. Dean runs errands in the morning and works on the Impala in the afternoons, and Sam goes for a long run in the morning right when he wakes up and then sits in Missouri’s living room all day and learns how to control his power. By the end of the first week, he doesn’t feel like falling asleep face-first in his dinner, so Missouri starts talking about the different planes open to Sam now, the different ways he can use his gift, the things he can do to contact the other psychics. Dean doesn’t sit around for these talks, says he’s too mundane for all of it, and disappears off to God knows where. Missouri asks, at one point, out of the side of her eyes, if Sam’s all right with that and he doesn’t know why she wants to know, so he shrugs and says, “Yeah, I guess so.”
During the third week, Missouri has a friend come over, a friend who has a rune-covered palm, red whorls that hypnotise Sam the first time he sees them, a friend who calls him lanmò-mennen. Missouri looks surprised, then looks even more surprised that Sam doesn’t, and the friend coaxes Missouri out of the room and introduces herself as Jeannie. “What does that mean?” Sam asks, “I’ve been trying to find out for years,” and Jeannie replies, “It is something only the loa-ridden will call you, because what you are, at your core, lanmò-mennen, is something only we can understand.” Sam shakes his head, says, “Yes, but does it mean? Why are you calling me that, like a title?” and she doesn’t answer his question, just smiles and begins the lesson.
Over dinner, three nights later, Sam’s trembling so much that he can’t hold a fork. Dean glares at Jeannie and Missouri in turn, and hustles his brother up to bed, Sam’s first night without the tea.
--
Fire, of course, always fire, but he’s learned how to control it here, learned how to hold it inside of himself, his body, and he’s learned not to flinch as it burns through him, hot and hungry and needy. He dreams of fire, but it comforts him, cleanses him, and it’s the best night of sleep he’s ever had, even if it feels like it could be better, maybe, if he didn’t try to control it so tightly, force it to stay in his bones, but the thought of letting it flood through him, uncontrolled, letting it settle even more into him, let it become a part of him, is enough to wake him up and ruin his concentration. It takes ten solid minutes to regain focus, to build up walls in his mind to keep himself here, present, together, separate from the other psychics and his fire and everything supernatural, ten minutes of panic. Sam’s proud of himself when he calms, but knows Missouri and Jeannie will have felt that, and he groans audibly at the thought of more breathing practice.
Sam puts on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, grabs some socks and heads downstairs to the kitchen, pauses in the doorway as all three sitting around the table look at him, three sets of eyes all pinned on him. “What,” he says, and Dean says, “A job. Friend of Missouri’s in Michigan. You ready to leave?” Sam looks at Missouri, who doesn’t shake her head but is definitely saying ‘no,’ and Jeannie, who shrugs. He thinks of how he woke up, that he doesn’t want to go because he’s safe here, with other psychics who understand, but sees how Dean’s tapping his foot, wonders how much more work Dean can do on the Impala, and says, “Yeah, I’m ready.” Missouri frowns, says, “This morning,” and Sam says, “It’s only going to get better, and I didn’t even set off the wards.” Dean stands up, grins blindingly in Sam’s general direction, says, “I’ll pack,” and leaves with a spring in his step that Sam hasn’t seen since they arrived. He stands there, thinks about that, eventually says, “I should shower.”
They’re standing next to the Impala half an hour later, Dean and Sam, and Missouri and Jeannie are telling them to be careful, to call if they need anything, to not let Sam push the limits of his power or control, and while Missouri’s completely serious, Sam sees a sparkle of laughter in Jeannie’s eyes. “Loa clear your path,” Jeannie says, and Missouri elbows her, says, “Don’t invite trouble on them, now. They can pick up their own just fine. You two just keep an eye on yourselves, and Dean, listen to your brother.” Dean looks taken aback, says, “Always do,” and Missouri sighs, rolls her eyes. “All right. Get going, then,” she says, and so Sam and Dean get in the car and Dean drives off, heading east towards Kansas City.
..iii…
..anger..
Michigan’s a lot prettier than Sam remembers, though he hasn’t been back since Max and he didn’t exactly have the time to enjoy the scenery then. This time, he and Dean stay on the other side of the state, following the curve of Lake Michigan north, staying to back roads and rural routes. It’s mostly quiet, no people, no cops, and the only things that keep them constant company are the sun, the trees, and Dean’s collection of cassettes. The further north they go, the more desolate things become; when they cross into the Upper Peninsula, it’s even worse-lake on one side, forest on the other, until they drive up through the middle and then the lake and trees switch sides.
Dean tells him that they’re hunting a ghost, one that until now was relatively harmless but has recently started trying to drown people in a small, quiet, out-of-the-way lake. The first set was a group of students who managed to get away because one of them had a pentagram tattooed on her back. The second time was a week later, a couple of fishermen who don’t like to talk about it and blame everything on too much beer, and the third was the first night Jeannie slept at Missouri’s, when a couple went out to the lake for a picnic lunch and only the girl made it home.
When they go through Munising, Sam gets a sudden headache, a quick flash-fire through his body that leaves him gasping for breath. He tells Dean to keep driving and turns around in his seat, looks out the back at the strip of road they just drove over. “What is it?” Dean asks, one eye on the road, slow and sweeping sideways, the other on Sam, who swallows and thinks about the headache, how it felt. “Dispossessed spirit, I think,” he finally says, turning back around. “Not malevolent, just wandering.” It still echoes in his head, the chalkboard sensation of ghosts and spirits, as if ghosts have nails to make that sound and Sam can feel it instead of hear it. He closes his eyes and breathes, and doesn’t think of why the fire flared, which leaves him thinking about the ghost.
This is difficult to do, at parts, because he doesn’t want to summon the ghost, but easy as well now that Missouri’s taught him the basics and Jeannie drilled him in some of the finer points, and if he’s hesitant to reach out psychically, it’s only because the last time he tried, he actually did summon the spirit and Dean had to banish it and Sam couldn’t hold a fork to eat. “Don’t try it,” he hears Dean say, as if Dean knows what he’s thinking, but Sam’s already brushed his mind against the ghost, now ten miles behind them. “I need the practice,” he says, and then, “Definitely a spirit. Zacharias Cooper. He was a miner for the Iron Company and died in a rockfall.” Sam pauses, opens his eyes and is sun-blind when he adds, in a whisper, “He wants to leave, but he’s trapped.”
Dean looks over and says, “Sammy, don’t think about it. We can’t go back. We’re supposed to be meeting Missouri’s friend and it’s not like we can find this guys bones or lay down an exorcism in the middle of the road,” and Sam nods before settling back in the sear, cramped legs and all, and closes his eyes again. “We won’t go back,” he says, and then brushes minds with Zacharias’ ghost, trying to convince the long-dead miner to move on.
The Impala brakes suddenly and Sam can hear Dean swear as he opens his eyes and puts one hand on the dash. In the split-second moment of shock before the reaction, Sam loses the tight control over the communication with Zacharias and he’s thrown out of his body. He feels weightless and formless, burning and hot, and then the ghost finds him and touches him and disappears. Sam slams back into his body as Dean says, “Fucking deer,” and his hand hits the dashboard as his mind is going haywire. Little things inside the car begin to shake, like Sam’s water bottle and Dean’s empty styrofoam coffee-cup, empty cassette holders and the last piece of beef jerky bought on the St. Ignace side of the bridge, the fudge box and change from the bridge toll. “Sam,” Dean says, low and forceful, and Sam’s already shaking his head, “I know, I know,” as he’s frantically trying to build his walls up again, putting the questions about the whole astral, out-of-body experience aside so he can make things stop moving.
It only takes eight minutes this time and Sam’s pleased, but not, and completely unable to look at Dean, who doesn’t say anything, just starts driving. He wonders, not for the first time, how Dean really feels about this, if his brother’s glad Sam survived the crash, if Dean hated being at Missouri’s, trapped there by Sam for three weeks, if Dean’s resentful or scared or disgusted by the new manifestation of Sam’s power. He wants to ask, wants to know, could always try and see if he can’t pluck the answer from Dean’s mind without wading through messy conversation, but he doesn’t think he could stand the answer if it turned out to be anything too honest, and he’d never invade Dean’s privacy like that. It’s like Stanford, in a way-this is who, what, he is, and this is all he has, no going back. If Dean can’t accept that, can’t accept him, Sam doesn’t have anywhere else to go, and he knows that he won’t ever be able to go through the pain of claiming a new life without his family again.
--
When they get to Marquette, Dean pays for a room at one of the local motels with wireless access, using Stan Rayner’s credit card. A room like any other motel room, anywhere across the country, and they shower and change and drive downtown to go find Missouri’s friend. She’s waiting for them at a nice brewpub/restaurant, definitely nicer than the places they’re used to, complete with families and businessmen and co-eds. They both get checked out when they walk in, and Sam rolls his eyes as Dean preens under the attention. He feels a tug, like someone’s guiding him, or trying to, and follows the summons to the back of the dining area, to a young woman sitting alone at a table overlooking the harbour. Dean’s right behind Sam when she asks, “Sam, right? Sorry to be presumptuous like that when you walked in,” and Sam smiles, says, “It’s all right. We wouldn’t have seen you otherwise.”
They sit and drink, order food as well, because there’s only so far that beef jerky and fudge can go, and conversation about Marquette, the Upper Peninsula in general, flows easily. Her name is Vicky, she lives down state, ‘below the bridge,’ as she calls it, and met Missouri a few years back. As the tables around them clear out, Dean asks, “So what’s your thing?” and she smiles, teeth and laughter, replies, “Other psychics call me a sensor. I’m like the human version of an EMF,” and Dean, who’s had a few beers and a good steak, likes Vicky and finds that funny, laughs and says, “What would they call Sam?”
Vicky stops smiling and looks at Sam, who’s honestly curious to hear the answer, because up until three weeks ago he was precognitive and that was all, and Missouri and Jeannie didn’t say anything about his new classification, apart from calling him lanmò-mennen and never explaining what that meant. He blinks, and as if that breaks the tableau, she laughs, leans over and ruffles his hair, says, “We’d call him a little, lost puppy-dog,” and Dean laughs while Sam wonders just what the fucking hell’s going on. The salt shaker on the table twitches just once before he can bite down his irritation, but Vicky catches it, inhales sharply, and doesn’t touch Sam again.
“Why did you call Missouri?” Sam asks, and Vicky starts telling them the story about Harlow Lake. One of the girls from the first group is a friend of hers and level-headed, but she swears that there was a woman who walked on the water and tried to drown them, so Vicky got curious and went out to the lake. “There’s a local legend,” she says; “people have been seeing a woman there for a hundred years, at least. I took salt with me and cast a circle, but I couldn’t sense anything, so I waited. After the second time, I went back. It felt like a very faint breeze-I was picking something up but not necessarily the ghost. After the third time, I definitely felt it. Her.”
Dean asks about the legend and Vicky spins a story about a woman who lived on the edge of the lake with her husband. The husband, according to the story, went out fishing on the lake and was gone for weeks at a time, and in his absence, a younger man from the village started courting her. One night, the husband came home and caught the two sleeping side-by-side in front of the fire, and killed the man with his bare hands. His wife, he drowned in the lake.
“It’s like a reverse woman-in-white,” Dean says, and Sam nods, says, “But if she cheated on him, why’s she the one haunting the lake? And why not her boyfriend as well?” It’s not a question they can readily answer, so Vicky leaves them directions to Harlow Lake along with her cell number and tells them to call if they need anything. She’s in classes five hours a day but says she can skip if she has to, and that they should get some rest. When she’s gone, and Dean’s asked for another round, Dean leans closer to Sam and says, “She liked you, Sammy. Kept looking at you all night, and she seems less buckets-of-crazy than Meg.” Sam shakes his head, tries to figure out how to tell Dean that Vicky was watching him the way a mouse eyes the cat blocking it from running away, and says, “Not my type. Feel free, though.” Dean grins and when the place closes, they hit up another bar before going back to the motel.
Part Two