Equivalence (1 of 2)
Equivalence
A Story in Seven Parts of Unequal Length
i.
..arithmetic..
“Fucking hate rats,” Dean mutters, brushing off the back of his neck and looking at the building them, Sam following his gaze. The abandoned orphanage they’re walking out of looks creepy even in the daylight, but it isn’t haunted by a pack of insane child-spirits anymore, which Sam thinks more than makes up for it. He smiles, turning away, and says, “There were only a few, Dean, and remember,” and Dean cuts him off. “If you say that they’re more afraid of me than I am of them, I will make you regret it,” making Sam laugh.
That’s probably what makes Dean grin and resume walking towards the Impala. Sam hasn’t really laughed, nor even truly smiled all the way up to his eyes, since they left Arizona and came east. It hasn’t been a matter of finding out how Dean and he fit together now, though that’s been something they’ve dealt with almost every day. That’s the easy part, because Dean’s there going through it with him, suffering through this insanely careful dance that Sam created thanks to his own stupid stubbornness. Sam gets that, he really does, and gets that Dean’s forgiven him, still loves him and wants him around.
Dean is the reason that Sam can’t stop thinking about what the shaman said, what they talked about through long nights when Dean was out doing God knows what with God knows whom. It’s been a month, he needs to tell Dean but he can’t, and if Dean hasn’t said anything yet, he will soon. Sam’s been itchy this week, jumpy, the way he feels before a vision or if there’s magic working around him, and he’s tried everything he can think of to get it to stop, but it won’t. He can’t concentrate on the research, he’s too twitchy to hunt, and only Dean’s reflexes saved him from a nasty concussion or worse when the last girl-spirit here threw a desk at him.
The smile falls off Sam’s face as he thinks and rubs his chest, and the moment of peace disappears all too quickly, the edgy awareness of ‘other’ and ‘magic’ flaring up inside of his head. He manages to make it into the Impala before he clutches at his hair, bends over, and the throbbing passes after a few seconds. Dean’s crouched next to him when he opens his eyes and Sam’s lips quirk as he realises that he’s been caught and can’t deny anything anymore. Sam nods and Dean’s lips flatten for a moment before he stands and makes his way to the driver’s side. When the car’s in gear and pulling away from the orphanage, Dean says, “Dinner, then talk, or order in?” Sam shrugs and puts on sunglasses, the sunlight painful, saying, “Either or. Doesn’t matter to me.”
--
Dean compromises between good food and privacy, getting some meals to go at the local diner. The smell fills the Impala as he drives back to the motel, the boxes warming up the top of Sam’s legs. They go inside and Sam sets the containers of food on the table while Dean salts the room, and then Sam traces out runes and wards on the walls as Dean unwraps plastic forks and opens the boxes, taking the burger and fries for himself and pushing the chicken and salad across the table for Sam. A dull, insistent throb in the back of his skull makes Sam’s stomach roil and he nibbles at the warm lettuce until Dean sighs, exasperated.
“Talk,” Dean orders and Sam’s eyes flick up before going back down to the salad, slices of red onions and carrots swirling throughout the lettuce and in his vision. “Something’s going to happen,” he says, then rubs his eyes and says, “Not to us, I don’t think. I’m itchy,” and ignores Dean muttering about crabs. “How long?” Dean asks, and Sam says, “It’s been getting worse. I’m not sure when it started. A week ago?” as he tears a piece of lettuce apart. “You called anyone?” and Sam’s fingers still, holding the lettuce. Dean groans, letting the fry fall out of his fingers, and leans back, looking at Sam with something like disbelief. “You haven’t. Sam, dude, I know you’re trying to get used to this by yourself, but call someone,” Dean says, and it’s a measure of how stupid Sam feels that he nods and pulls the phone out from his pocket. Maybe he’s been thinking about everything too hard.
With Dean looking on, Sam presses the speed-dial for Missouri and sighs in relief when she answers, “Sam Winchester, if you’re counting on your brother to help you see sense, you’re in more trouble than I thought.” Sam smiles, says, “Hello to you as well. We’re fine, thanks for asking.” Missouri says, “Jeannie thinks its coming from Palo Alto,” and Sam sits up, says, “What is?” before Missouri goes on. “Sam, you have to get there. You’ve been feeling it longer than we have. Whoever this is, it's someone you resonate with.” Sam's teeth are on edge-he remembers the lessons about resonance, about psychics whose gifts are closer attuned, about power levels and he says, very slowly, “This is the black spot on the plane? A new psychic? In Palo Alto” and now Dean’s watching him, intent, a frown marring Dean’s forehead. Sam’s never told Dean about the changes in the psychic plane, the way one spot’s been glowing a deeper and richer black in the twilight, and Missouri says, “You need to talk to your brother, Sam. Do it on the way to Palo Alto.” Sam pinches the bridge of his nose and grimaces. “How soon do I have to be there?”
There’s silence for a moment once he hangs up, the sound of a passing car rousing Sam from his thoughts. “Palo Alto, huh?” Dean asks, and Sam hears the underlying worry and distaste, feels about the same, though his is mixed in with a generous heap of trepidation. He hasn’t been back to California, much less the Bay area, since he left with Dean, after Jess, and going back hasn’t exactly been a priority. Sam looks up at Dean and knows he doesn’t sound remotely okay with this as he says, “Yeah. Within the week.” Dean nods, but doesn’t move except to say, “We don’t have to go,” after a moment of studying Sam, who gives Dean a half-smile. “We really do. Missouri said that what I’ve been feeling is a new psychic, someone whose gifts are complementary or similar to mine, and who’s just awakening now.” He sees the moment Dean gets it, remembers what Sam’s had been like, his power bursting out in two days and leaving him numb and overwhelmed. Dean smiles, then, and it might be forced but he sounds amazingly casual as he says, “So you get to be Yoda this time?” and Sam sputters before shaking his head, smile small but genuine.
--
Palo Alto is literally on the other side of the country, a continent away from middle Kentucky, so they leave early the next morning and drive all day and half the night, switching off between Zeppelin, Metallica, and Dean trying to guess what this new psychic will end up being like. They stop for some sleep after Dean says, “Eighty, bald, with no teeth and the ability to drain the fun out of a party in two seconds flat.” Sam mutters something under his breath about showing Dean how to drain fun from anything, and Dean laughs, pulls over at the next motel they see.
The room gets the usual treatment, salt, runes, and wards, and, like every other night since Tucson, Sam unpacks the dream-catcher and hangs it above his bed. It won’t stop the visions, won’t stop the fire, but it holds back the nightmares about so many things that leave him awake, soaked in sweat and hyperventilating, leave everything else in the room floating near the ceiling. Dean watches him pin the dream-catcher, still glowing to Sam’s eyes with the vividness of a powerful charm, and turns on the television, collapsing onto the bed closest to the door, asking, “How long d’you think you’ll need that, Sam?” Sam shrugs and goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth, and falls asleep on his bed to the sound of Dean rinsing, brushing, spitting, the running of the water through creaky pipes.
--
Fire flares in Sam’s dream, a fire that isn’t really a dream because it’s part of him, a fire that can’t get caught in a dream-catcher because this is home, comfort, security, nothing to be scared about. It warms his bones, soothes his mind, washes through him and lulls him deeper into sleep, still conscious of fire and sleep but open and waiting. Flames swirl and undulate, lick at his skin, tickle with heat and touch, and Sam watches as the fire purrs around him and then another person, someone Sam thinks he should recognise but doesn’t. An outline, rough and smoky, nothing more, but he sends the fire out to comfort and when he wakes, the itch under his muscles has quieted to humming.
Dean’s still asleep, stretched out on top of the covers of his bed with one hand under his pillow, and Sam grins, seeing it, as he gets up, puts on yesterday’s clothes, and leaves. He goes out in search of food and better coffee than the instant packets on their little room’s sketchy-looking table, thinking that they passed both a McDonald’s and a small-town coffee-shop last night when they drove through. Sam finds both and sits at McDonald’s for a while, reading a local paper and nursing a coffee until enough time’s passed and a couple of the old guys sitting at the other end with the sausage biscuits are getting curious about him. He gets breakfast for Dean to go, and stops at the coffee place for a couple banana nut muffins and better coffee, the strong Colombian stuff that’ll wake Dean up faster than the promise of blowing things up.
Sam lets himself into their room, stepping over the line of salt and locking the door behind him. He crosses the room and picks up his pillow, chucking it at Dean’s head and snorting when Dean bats at the air and emerges from under his blankets with a bleary-eyed look and hair that’s sticking straight up. “I picked up breakfast,” Sam says, and hands Dean a cup of coffee, watching with amused fondness as Dean inhales the steam first, then sips as if he’s holding the Holy Grail. “I'm gonna take a shower, leave you two alone,” and he gets the bathroom door closed before the pillow flies across the room, thumping where it hits the door.
ii.
..grammar..
They’re halfway through Colorado before Dean says, “So, little brother. I’m going to ask you something and feel free to tell me to fuck off,” adding under his breath but meant to be heard, “Not that you ever have a problem doing that,” then asks, “You sure you’re ready for this?” Sam doesn’t know what he was expecting but he doesn’t think that was it, so he lets out a shaky little sigh of relief. “I don’t really have a choice, Dean,” Sam says, and he’s only halfway through the sentence before Dean’s shaking his head, though he waits until Sam’s done to say anything. “You do, Sam. If you’re not up to it, I’ll turn the car around and we’ll hide out in Jersey, see if we can’t track down a devil or something.”
Sam’s lips quirk in the imitation of a smile, looking out of the window. “Dean, I don’t have a choice. What I went through, what we went through, when the power broke, if I can save someone else from having to go through that, I have to.” Dean look forward, eyes on the road, and eventually says, “Yeah, okay. You have any idea who this person is or how we find them?” and that’s an easy question to answer: “No clue.” Dean goes off on a rant for the next half hour about goddamn psychics, and hearing it makes Sam’s stomach settle, makes Sam’s muscles loosen. A month ago, he would’ve taken this as Dean being freaked out about what’s happening to him, but now, knowing Dean, Sam relaxes and shakes his head, looks out of the window and watches crops fly by while Dean rambles on.
--
They stop earlier this time; Sam’s legs are cramping up, it’s raining, and he has a headache. He’s not sure if it’s from his gift, the new psychic, or stress at the thought of going back to Palo Alto, but he can’t sit in the car much longer and he wants to try something. He’s talked it over with Dean, and when they drove through Denver earlier, Sam refilled his bottle of lavender oil and picked up a few things at one of the New Age-type stores that was actually run by a woman who knew what she was doing. She’d had a rune-covered palm and a glyph tattooed on the inside of her wrist, both done in green, and she’d nodded when Sam laid everything he was buying down, to pay. “Wondered if you’d be passing through here,” she had murmured while Dean was checking out the werewolves’ claws on sale next to yellow pillar candles. “You’ll help her,” and she’d bagged Sam’s things up without accepting payment.
Now, in another generic, cookie-cutter, salted motel room, Sam tilts the bag and lets everything fall out onto the table. Bottles and candles and baggies tumble out, and Sam cocks his head, frowning as he rifles through everything. “What’s wrong?” Dean asks, eyes lingering on the black candle and plastic baggie filled with onyx gems. “Y’mean besides the fact that there’s necromantic stuff in here?” Sam asks in return, and Dean says, “Yeah. Besides that.” Sam shakes his head, opens his mouth to speak, then stops, then says, “I didn’t buy this stuff. I didn’t even see her put this stuff in the bag.”
Dean glances at him, then back at everything lying spread out on the table, and says, “Maybe she’s a magician, too. Look, you didn’t steal it, so it’s not hexed or anything, right?” Sam nods, “There aren’t any traces on these. It’s just odd, Dean.” Thankfully Dean doesn’t say what Sam’s thinking, that it’s odd even for them, the lifestyle they lead, a psychic with sleight-of-hand good enough to fool Sam, just claps Sam on the back and says, smiling, “Well, get to it, psychic geekboy. Sooner you do your magic thing, sooner I can get to sleep.” Sam snorts and says, “God knows you need it, cranky bitch,” and is halfway to the bathroom to fill a plastic cup with water when Dean retorts, “Fucking princess.” Sam rolls his eyes, and when Dean smiles in return, Dean’s eyes hold a curious light that Sam doesn’t understand and doesn’t question.
They move one of the beds so Sam can outline a five-pointed star on the floor with pine needles and patchouli, and Dean pulls a chair closer and sits down, rock-salt-loaded shotgun across his knees. It’s the best Dean can do, watching Sam’s physical back while Sam’s spirit is out wandering, and Sam appreciates it, even as Dean’s stare makes him a little nervous. It takes a few clicks of the lighter to get the last red candle lit, but when all five, placed at the pentacle’s points, are merrily dancing, Sam dabs lavender oil on his eyelids and breathes sideways, slipping into the psychic plane.
--
The others here seem to be focusing on a glowing black spot in the distance, a black that reminds Sam of Adam’s hair through a haze of power, and the memory makes Sam’s fire burst into flames all over his body, wreathing him in hot protection. He does feel better, and gets the flames back under control before he moves closer to the black spot. Psychics move out of his way until he’s right next to the black glow. Working slowly, he pours fire and warmth into the area, and if a knot of absence-of-life could unwind, loosen, Sam swears this one does. The glow smoothes out, turns into a dark, inky twilight, and Sam can almost feel gratitude pouring back towards him. Soon, he sends into the black, along with his fire. I’ll be there soon.
When he’s poured enough of his power out, he moves back and looks at the other psychics. Leave her alone, he says, and his tone sounds more like advice than command, so they listen. It’s disorienting to hear so many voices and not know where they’re coming from, even gradually. Leaving her be is the best thing to do, until I can get there and talk to her. They all nod, one by one, and wander away, and he’s left staring at the glow and wondering what he looked like when his power broke.
Like a supernova of fire, Jeannie says behind him. Too bright to look at, and in so much pain. We tried to help, but we only made it worse. Sam nods, says, It won’t be like that for her. Jeannie smiles, he can feel it, hear it, even though he isn’t looking at her. I believe you, lanmò-mennen. Now go home. She’ll be watched but left alone, and Sam trusts Jeannie, so he nods, slides back sideways, and opens his eyes. Dean’s sitting there, still, but the instant after he asks if everything’s all right and Sam says yes, he gets up and goes into the bathroom, locking the door and turning on the shower. Sam stares, then shrugs, and unfolds his legs from their cramps, blowing out the candles and scattering the outline of the star. Smoke curls lazily in the air, and Sam falls into bed and asleep before Dean emerges.
--
Dean wakes him up by throwing a pillow at him, and Sam rolls over and almost out of bed. Normally, that wouldn’t be all that bad, but he’s floating six feet off of the ground, and when he looks, everything else is, too, including Dean’s bed, Dean on it and looking too amused for comfort. “Dude. Vertigo or something. Can we have a little gravity?” Sam groans, puts everything down with a muffled, “Sorry.” Dean doesn’t say anything for a moment and Sam sits straight up, eyes narrowed, at the exact moment Dean says, “You haven’t done that for a while,” and Dean waits a beat before asking, “What?” Sam shakes his head, reaches inward, and then his eyes go wide as he realises. “What is it?” Dean asks again, and Sam says, “It’s the other psychic, I think. She’s connected to me, releasing some of the pressure, maybe?” Dean frowns, legs swinging off the bed, and he’s facing Sam when he says, “Okay, two things. This psychic’s a she?” Sam nods and Dean makes a face before asking, “What do you mean, she’s connected to you? Is this a good thing or a ‘we-need-salt-and-fire’ thing?” Sam laughs, leans back against the headboard, and says, “It’s all right. And even better, I have a straight line to her now. We’ll be able to find her without any trouble.”
--
They go for a run, quick because it’s dry and dusty, and then get cleaned up. Dean drives and they stop for breakfast a few towns over. By the end of the day, they’re staring at a ‘Welcome to Floristan, California!’ sign and Sam’s so against this whole idea that the air in the car’s twenty degrees warmer than the cicada-laced air outside. Dean’s worried, Sam knows that, and he thinks that maybe he understands now how Dean feels every time they drive into Lawrence. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out, and Dean turns to look at him eyebrow raised in question. “For what, Sammy?” Dean asks, and Sam’s just not sure how to say everything he means, so he finally settles on, “I think I melted your M&Ms,” and he opens the glove compartment and pulls out the half-eaten bag, peering inside. “You’re buying me new ones later,” Dean says, no argument possible, and Sam nods and lets his lips smile, dropping the bag back into the glovebox and holding his hands up in mock surrender, body language playful while his eyes are still worried, still serious.
Another couple of minutes of silence pass and Dean asks, “You gonna be okay?” There’s a slight sheen of sweat on Dean’s upper lip and Sam kicks himself and the other psychic for wreaking this much havoc with his usually tight control. “Perfectly,” Sam replies, and Dean lets him have the lie, starts up the car and drives into California.
--
They enter Palo Alto from the north in the mid-afternoon pre-rush hour traffic, down 84 and coming off the Dumbarton, and find a motel eerily similar to the one they stayed in the night before, though the receptionist is a bored college co-ed popping gum and eyeing them a little too predatorily for Sam’s taste, quite unlike the old grandma-type who checked them into the motel in Foresthill less than twelve hours ago. The girl looks too young for Sam to have known her here, or for her to recognise him, and he thanks God for small mercies. The room isn’t cheap, nothing is in this area, but they aren’t paying, Dirk Garrett is, and the lie rankles for some reason, here, when it doesn’t anymore anywhere else across the country.
--
After dinner, Sam gets behind the wheel of the Impala, Dean riding shotgun, and drives to his old apartment, his and Jess’, and sits parked on the other side of the street staring up at their old bedroom window. The landlord has rebuilt the damaged building and the white surface looks new, out of place, too white, like sticking a bandage over a gaping hole. He can’t take his eyes away. He’s seeing two things superimposed over each other: the week he and Jess moved in, surrounded by their friends and boxes of a new life, a new future; and the night he and Dean stood here, watching it all burn to ash like the body of a spirit that just won’t let go. Dean doesn’t say anything as Sam sits and stares, furiously blinking back tears and screams, just like he doesn’t say anything when Sam drives away, back in the direction of their motel.
They’ve decided that tomorrow’s early enough to look for the psychic and it takes Sam a handful of minutes sitting in the motel room to realise he can’t stay inside. He needs to get out, needs to do something, so he changes into running clothes and raises an eyebrow at Dean, half invitation, half challenge, and Dean smirks. “You’re on,” he says, and while Dean changes, Sam mentally plans a route. He wants to avoid the runs he used to make through the city and campus, all those times he ran at two in the morning, three in the afternoon, restless like he is now, but it’s too far to the airport and Bay, and he saw a sign for construction heading toward the preserve, so when Dean’s ready, Sam drives them in the direction of Lake Lag, circling around Stanford.
It still hurts, seeing the lake, smelling freshwater mixed with the salt water brought inland by that Pacific-kissed breeze, and he says, abruptly, “When you emailed, my freshman year? I’d been here a few hours before that.” Dean’s got this cautious look on his face, like he isn’t sure what brought this up and doesn’t know where it’s going, but he nods. “You were playing some game?” he asks, tone as careful as his expression, and Sam knows he doesn’t really ever talk about his years here, but he’s back and Dean’s here, and it hurts, hurts so much to see everything through a hunter’s transient eyes, no Jess to go home to, no friends to go out with, no prosaic things to worry about.
Dean’s here, though, doing this with him, and Sam’s about ready to break apart, but instead he says, “It’s called The Game, capitalised,” as he stretches, loosens muscles that ache from being cramped in the Impala almost constantly for the past three days, muscles that are tense for more reasons that the new psychic they’ll be meeting tomorrow. “It’s played a few different times a year, in different places. I was going to hunt that Hallowe’en, but Jess,” and his voice catches, just a little, before he goes on, “guilt-tripped me into subbing for one of her teammates. Becky, in St. Louis, was the captain and had a complete nervous breakdown every twenty minutes for thirty-eight hours.” Dean snorts, says, “Because she seemed so mellow when I met her.” They start jogging and Dean asks, “So it’s like a treasure hunt or something?” and Sam laughs between breaths, nods. “Treasure hunt for geeks,” he says, and Dean instantly comes back with, “Well, no wonder you won, then, geekboy,” and the rest of the run passes in silent camaraderie, just the sound of their shoes smacking against concrete and dirt in rhythm, Dean right on Sam’s shoulder, comforting and there.
--
Sam drops Dean off at a bar later that night, after dinner, and drives to the church he and Jess used to go to, the two of them for Advent and holidays, the one he used to haunt in that time of day sometime between far too early and way too late. The doors are unlocked, as always, and the lights inside are dim as Sam crosses himself with Holy Water and slips into the back pew, kneeling as he’s knelt here so many times before in a life that doesn’t feel like his. He doesn’t pray, just kneels silently, head bowed and eyes closed, soaking in the peace and quiet, the nearly-healed burns around his neck throbbing in time with his heartbeat, one of the only remaining scars from his run-in with Adam one month ago.
When he sits up, one hand moves to rub his chest, pressing on the faded white lines of the symbol Adam carved into him with Sam’s knife, the knife tucked into the back of his jeans even now. It’s an unconscious gesture, really, though he’s trying to be more aware of when he does it. He’s caught Dean watching when he makes it, noticed the look in Dean’s eyes. “It’s been some time,” the priest says and Sam returns the smile, though his wears an edge of loss. It always has, here in Palo Alto, but he mourns different things now, different people, and the priest nods as if he understands.
“When I didn’t see you again, I assumed you returned to your other life,” and Sam nods, wondering what to tell the priest, how to condense the past months, years, so that this man, his only confidant here, will understand. “The thing that killed her, it was the same thing that killed my mother. A demon,” and the priest nods again, asks, “And your brother, your father. You were all reconciled?” That makes Sam smile and he half-laughs as he admits, “Yeah. We still have our rough spots, but it’s good now. We killed the demon, and I,” he pauses, searches for words, finally says, “I couldn’t leave it again. Can’t leave my family, can’t go through it all again.” It’s the truth, even if it’s not the entire truth-even if he left and went back to school, he’d still have this power, and what would he do the first time he lost control in front of someone who couldn’t, wouldn’t, understand? “You’re happy?” the priest asks, and Sam doesn’t have to think before he replies, “Yes.”
“What brings you back?” is the next question and Sam shifts in the pew. “A new player’s joining the game,” he finally says, sidestepping the issue of psychics and abilities. “My brother and I came to check it out, see if it’s going to be trouble,” and the priest says, “Well, be careful. You seem, I’m not sure how to describe it, Sam, but as if you’re more you, now. Don’t lose that,” and the priest blesses Sam before he leaves through one of the side doors. Sam thinks about it, guesses that he is more himself now, not needing to hide what he was trained to be, the block on his power broken, and walks out, grace and sleek muscle genuflecting, in the hope that Dean hasn’t gotten into too much trouble without him.
--
Sam’s limbs are heavy and weighted down when he finally gets back to the motel room, Dean half-carrying him. “I’ll never understand you, Sammy. Two drinks go straight to your head, but you’re fucking huge. I’m ashamed to be related to you, sometimes,” a steady stream of the same type of muttering as Dean wrestles Sam’s shoes off and dumps Sam in bed. Sam slurs something about psychics and alcohol never mixing as well as Jack and beer chasers, and promptly falls asleep.
iii.
..geometry..
He has odd dreams, feelings and sensations mixed in with the ever-present fire, emotions that he knows aren’t his but he can’t seem to separate himself from them no matter how much he tries. Sometime in the night, flames crowning his head and covering his feet, he remembers the other psychic and stops fighting the foreign sensations, instead completely giving into them, letting them soak into him along with the heat. It’s not a vision, not the same ache, but similar, so closely bound to another person. Pain, she’s in pain and terrified, and reaching out to him in a way that she doesn’t understand at all but needs. He sends her as much reassurance as he can, reassurance and comfort and the promise that helps it on its way, nearly there. She calms, more with every minute that their dreams are shared, as if the fire he dreams about every night, the fire that he holds in his bones, warms and soothes her, and when he slips out of sleep and into wakefulness, she projects a feeling of self-confidence, not firm by any means, but enough.
Sam lays there for a minute, eyes closed, but the more awake he gets, the more he feels that something’s wrong. He opens his eyes and sits up, and Dean’s standing above Sam’s bed, holding a crucifix in Sam’s direction. “Christo,” Sam says, no hesitation, because this isn’t that uncommon anymore, just a precaution. Dean breathes out and lowers the crucifix before stepping to one side, and Sam’s jaw drops. The bag of supplies they’d picked up in Denver hadn’t been unpacked last night and Sam thought that it was still buried at the bottom of his bag. Now it’s on the table, all of the necromantic elements-black candles, onyx pieces, vials of crushed belladonna and henbane leaves-floating a few inches above the surface of the table and spinning slowly.
It takes Dean saying, “You can stop that, right?” to get Sam struggling with his power, mouth closed as he fights to stay connected to the other psychic and negate her influence over his gift both, and by the time he’s done, five minutes later, everything’s clattering back onto the table and he’s wrung out and exhausted. Dean perches on Sam’s bed, claps his hand on Sam’s shoulder, and eyes Sam with a worried look. “This mean what I think it does?” Dean asks, and Sam rubs his eyes before he says, “If you’re thinking that she’s some flavour of necromancer, then yes.” They both exhale at the same time, and Dean says, “Why’s it always gotta be us, huh?” with such a woe-is-me pout that Sam can’t help but chuckle.
--
After showers and breakfast, during which Dean has no trouble eating and Sam spends the time ripping his toast apart and watching Dean shovel food into his mouth, they get into the Impala, Sam driving. It’s not just for practicality’s sake; Dean’s still complaining about the roads, and as Sam turns onto Oregon Expressway, he snaps, “It’s not as bad as ‘Frisco or San Diego,” and Dean pauses before asking, “When were you driving in San Diego?” Sam checks the rearview mirror and changes lanes, then says, “Jess was from San Diego,” nothing more. It makes Dean stop complaining and though Sam knows his brother’s just trying to take Sam’s mind off what they’re doing, where they are, Sam prefers the silence. Evidently Dean gets this because he doesn’t say anything as Sam follows the thread connecting him to the new psychic, not until Sam parks and looks with disbelief at the house they’re in front of. “Hey, isn’t this where I picked you up?” Dean says, and Sam stares at Liz’s house, checking the psychic thread to see if he’s missed something. It doesn’t seem like he has, so he gets out of the Impala and starts walking up the driveway, stepping over a cat lying on the sidewalk.
The nearly-there feeling grows when Sam steps onto the front porch, Dean right behind him and tense. Sam rings the doorbell and braces himself when he hears footsteps. The door opens and he smiles at Liz, says, “Surprise?” and finds himself with armfuls of curvy brunette a moment later, something inside of his power slotting into place, grinning as Liz shrieks his name and starts going on about how unexpected this is, how long has he been in town, what the hell is he doing back. When she finally lets go of him, she smacks his arm, saying, “That’s for not keeping in touch. One lousy email a week, nothing more than hello, how are you?” Sam shrugs, takes in Liz’s bloodshot eyes, her pale skin, the less than impeccable clothes as he remembers the way she used to smile on the rare occasions he talked about his mother. She understood, she always said, talking about her stepmother, the way her birth mother died when she was young, not even a year old. Fuck.
“This is Dean,” he says, moving slightly so she can see Dean, and Sam adds, “My brother.” Liz looks at Sam, as if she can’t decide whether to narrow her eyes or let them widen, and then smiles at Dean, holds the door open. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Dean. Come on in, no use standing out here all day.” Dean smiles and follows Sam inside, giving Sam a look that Sam knows means Dean’s impressed with the house. He can remember the first time he stepped foot in Liz’s house for a history study group, and was taken aback by the sheer level of class Liz decorated with and seemed to take for granted, and Liz’s taste has, if anything, improved.
Liz gets them both a beer and takes them into the den, sits them down and says, “So, really, Sam. Why’re you back? I never thought I’d see you this side of the state line again,” and Sam looks down at the beer in his hands, makes this awkward smile, and takes a deep breath. “It’s you, actually,” and Liz looks puzzled, eyes flickering between him and Dean. “What’s been happening to you lately,” and now Liz looks defensive, like he just insulted the Seurat print on the wall behind him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks, wariness colouring the tone, and Dean snorts, takes a long sip of his beer. Before Liz can say anything, but not before she’s glaring in Dean’s direction, Sam says, “Your dreams. You’ve been hearing things lately, seeing things,” drawing her attention back to him. “Someone told you that they were coming to help you,” and Liz looks at Sam before her eyes slide to Dean. “Not me, princess,” he drawls, and Liz looks back at Sam, the picture of disbelief. Sam nods and it takes her a minute before she can say, “Explain, Sam.” He hears something in her voice beyond the confusion, the hope, the panic, some edge of steel he thinks has been there all along but which he’s only noticing now. He nods, says, “All right,” and starts talking.
--
By the time he’s done, a couple hours have passed and Liz looks shell-shocked. “The whole time you were here, the way you,” she says, then cuts herself off. Dean looks pensive, Sam’s said more about his time here than Dean’s ever heard before, even if he didn’t go into detail, just mentioned the hunts he’d been on while he was still a student. “You never told Jess, did you?” Liz asks. “You never told anyone you knew here.” Sam’s jaw clenches and he says, “I told the priest, under the Seal, but no one else. Jess,” he says, taking a breath, “I thought about it. I was planning on it someday.” Liz nods, an absent gesture since she looks deep in thought, and Sam waits, not willing to look at Dean or think about how talking about Jess is making him feel. All of this, what he’s told Liz, must be this world-changing revelation, finding out that creatures of legend are real, that one of them killed her mother, that a friend she thought of as a brother has this whole other life, and Sam thinks that, maybe, that’s another reason to be thankful to Dad; having grown up the way he did, Sam was never blind-sided to this extent.
They all sit in silence for a few minutes as Liz tries to comprehend everything Sam told her, and she finally looks up, back and forth from Sam to Dean, and says, “So you’re going to make this, this thing, me being a psychic, easier? Both of you?” and Dean leans forward, pinning her with his game face, the one Sam usually only sees when Dean’s ready to shoot, decapitate, exorcise, or otherwise kill something. “Sam’s going to help,” Dean says, his voice even and almost deceptively pleasant. “I’m just here to make sure you don’t hurt him.” Liz looks taken aback and Sam says, “Dean,” but Dean shakes his head and keeps going, tone turning low now, promises and threats of pain and danger woven underneath his words. “We don’t have the best history when it comes to necromancers, and the last psychic touched by the demon tried to kill us. Sam might like you, but if it comes down to it, I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger and scatter your ashes. Got it?” Liz stares and studies Dean, and Sam can see the moment when she decides to believe Dean; she pales and leans back, away, and then nods, “Got it.”
--
Liz calls for Chinese and they take a break from the serious discussions for a while, though Liz sits closer to Sam than Dean, her eyes darting warily in Dean’s direction from time to time, as if Dean might, at any moment, set his sweet and sour beef down and attack her. Sam tries to distract her by asking about some of their mutual friends and by the time it’s devolved into a general gossip-fest about one of the professor’s affair with another and the recent decline in quality law school applicants, she’s calmer. The phone rings and Liz gets up to answer it, disappearing into another room and leaving Sam and Dean alone.
“Do you miss it?” Dean asks abruptly, and Sam curses himself for sounding so interested in the new application process law school candidates have to go through. “Sometimes,” he says, unwilling to lie, not when they’ve been trying to be more honest with each other lately. “I miss it, yeah, but,” he’s not sure how to explain it. “It was hell, y’know, trying to forget about you and Dad and be normal. I never really did, just learned to hide it better. I don’t, I can’t do it again,” he says, and then Liz comes back before Sam can add, I don’t want to.
--
They clear lunch away, Sam and Liz, while Dean cases the house, and they watch as Dean goes outside, heading for the Impala’s trunk and nearly tripping over a cat. Sam knows what Dean’s getting, guns and salt and chalk for runes, bags of herbs for the house, and he smiles before he can catch himself. “The way you talked about him, when you did,” Liz says, startling Sam, making him look at her as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. “I never thought it was like this.” Sam cocks his head, asks, “Like what?” and Liz smiles, shrugs, and reaches up to put a glass away. “Like you love him. I didn’t expect that.” Sam looks out, sees Dean shut the trunk and reach in the back seat for a plastic shopping bag, and says, “It’s Dean,” as if that’s meant to be an answer.
When Dean brings everything inside, he gives Sam the shopping bag and chalk, and starts laying out salt at every entrance to the house. “Safety precaution,” Sam says, and Liz gets this look, like she finally understands that some of the things Sam did in the past, that all of his friends attributed to superstition, are more than mere habit, might actually be important. Sam makes her a cup of tea, tossing in a handful of herbs, mixture courtesy of Missouri when they passed through Lawrence on the way out here. Liz asks what the herbs are and Sam says, “No clue. I don’t want to know and neither do you. Just drink it for now,” and goes to start chalking protective sigils, runes, and glyphs over the house’s walls.
She follows him, sipping at the tea while he traces symbols from memory, asking him what they mean, where they come from, and Sam tells her, “This one’s east European,” “This one’s Chinese,” “This keeps out incubi and succubi,” “This repels animal spirits.” He finds himself telling her about the tulpa in Richardson and Dean interjects some other detail every time he passes nearby, embellishing the story. When Dean finally says that the two guys running the website are major players in the underground supernatural society, Sam laughs and says, “They were geeks, Liz. Neither of them had ever even seen a ghost,” and Liz says, “But you almost died because of them, because of what they did.” Sam looks at Dean, who looks back, and Dean eventually says, “The tulpa wasn’t that bad. The freakin’ beer bottle glued to my hand, though,” before ducking into the kitchen to lay protective herbs along the wall line. Liz watches Dean go out of side, then blinks, slow and long. “Tired,” she says, as if she’s only just realising this, and Sam takes the empty mug from her hands and shoos her off to bed, but not before she says, “You two can sleep here, if you like. Cheaper.”
Sam nods, she goes into her bedroom and shuts the door, and the last rune gets finished, a nice, complicated Celtic knot that, if done right, is supposed to keep out any and every malevolent force, natural and supernatural. Of course, doing it wrong’s like an open invitation and it’s a bitch of a knot to chalk, so Sam’s not surprised to find Dean watching him when he finally lifts the chalk from the wall, keeping quiet and not interrupting. “You done?” Sam asks, and Dean says, “Yeah. Managed not to knock any new holes in the walls. You?” Sam smiles, leans on the wall, and cracks his knuckles, wrists. “This house’s had the crap warded out of it. Anything gets in now, it’s not my fault.”
They stand there for a minute, listening to the traffic from Alma Street, two blocks away, drift in through the open windows, and then Dean asks, “How long will we be here?” tone cautious even though Sam thinks Dean’s trying to play the question off as a casual one. It’s a good question, though, and one that Sam’s not sure how to answer. It took him weeks and he’s still calling Missouri to ask about things, and though he can read more than caution in the way Dean’s standing, Sam doesn’t know what that stance is supposed to mean. He thinks about it, then shrugs, “Dunno, but I don’t think it’ll be more than two weeks. Being here before her power breaks should make it easier. I’ve never done this before. I don’t know.”
Dean nods once and says, “She’ll sleep for a while if she’s anything like you were. I’ll be back in the morning.” A month ago, a year ago, Sam would have let Dean go, but that was then, so moves to stand in front of the door and asks, “Where're you going?” Dean opens his mouth to answer, but Sam shakes his head and says, “No, Dean. You scared the shit out of her with the protective big-brother line, and you can’t back that up if you’re gone.” He pauses, adds, “Please don't go,” and Dean looks away, jaw clenching and unclenching, and eventually steps back and says, “I’m not sleeping on the couch.”
--
They decide to get some sleep while Liz is passed out, and Sam has no trouble falling asleep when most people in this neighbourhood are getting ready to cook dinner. He’s never had trouble sleeping on Liz’s couch, either, and he shuts his eyes and almost immediately falls into fire. He can’t feel Liz, so Sam closes his eyes here and basks in the heat. Flames writhe against him, cocooning him in warm comfort, but then the nightmares come and the fire recedes, leaving him cold and panicked.
--
The slip-sharp edge of a knife running over his chest, blade catching on his skin, slicing him up to the sound of coyote howls, and then coyotes surround him, tear him apart with long, sharp teeth, and he can feel every bite, every rip, and hands pry his ribcage apart and pull out his heart, still beating. Everything’s red, drenched in blood, and he’s choking on it, his heart keeping time with the coyotes and Adam, glossy black hair shining in the full moon, smiling wide and showing teeth, “Hunt you, hurt you. Kill you,” and Adam leans down, eyes pinning Sam to the floor as he lifts Sam’s heart to his lips and licks a stripe down it that Sam can feel, fingernails tearing through, across his throat, Adam laughing, sounds mixing with the coyotes, with the pounding rhythm of his still-beating heart.
--
Hands, he can feel hands, and Sam reacts on instinct, grabbing and grappling, and although his eyes are open, he doesn’t see that he’s straddling Dean, hands around Dean’s throat, until Dean stills beneath him. Sam lets go, rolling off of his brother, and sees Liz in the hallway, shock visible even through the glassy cast of her eyes. “Fuck,” Sam breathes, pushing himself up and stalking to the other side of the room, gathering his power and composure back under control before he can punch a hole in the wall.
Dean stands up and he’s wary but not scared, like Liz, as he looks at Sam and says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about going back to the motel and getting the dream-catcher.” Sam rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms, and doesn’t look up when he replies, “I need to stop depending on it anyway, right?” Liz steps forward, then, and says, voice as distant as she looks, “What do you dream about, Sam, other than fire?” Sam won’t look back at Dean, but he can feel Dean’s eyes on him, resists the urge to touch the scar on his chest and remind himself that he’s still alive, that Dean came for him. “It’s nothing, Liz. Go back to sleep.”
Part Two