a/n: slight spoilers for 3.10, Dream a Little Dream of Me, but really it's mostly an AU version of that episode. Enjoy, and please review! Thanks.
It looks like a scrawled out drawing of hills and sun. Sam thinks that if he had to put an age to the artist they would've been about six, maybe, and not too keen on staying within the lines of rolling waves that make up the ground or the circle (spikes radiating outward) that is the sun. Everything is in technicolor brightness: lime green for grass, neon yellow for sun. But the sky is white, devoid of color, forgotten in the rush. There are faint 'm' shapes in the distance, and Sam almost has a heart attack when they seem to move.
And it wouldn'tve been important, just another picture done by a kid to say oh, how nice and move on. Sam wishes now that it was only that, but they're stuck in it, everywhere they turn it's more of the deadened landscape, suffocating and surreal. Dean's quiet, just staring at the distant peaks of wobbly mountains with whitewhitewhite crests. This is not good.
"Dean?" Sam's afraid to speak and his brother's name is voiced as a croak. "Dean, how did this happen? We're supposed to be inside of Jeremy's dream. Not--this." He feels Dean shift next to him, feels eyes glancing off the corner of his face, studying him.
"We might be. This is someone's dream we're in. Could be his."
Sam steps forward; the sensation is weird--ground and not-ground. He isn't sure if he feels anything solid under his feet, or if it's just air, but he keeps walking, suddenly uncomfortable and feeling it like a hot knife between his shoulderblades. "Um." There's nothing here, just the same too-green grass that hurts his eyes, and he thinks how did this happen? "I'm pretty sure that this isn't Jeremy's, Dean. Almost positive."
"I still don't see--" Dean's annoyed, cocky, but Sam breaks him off, confused and irritated, and Dean's smugness is just too much.
"Ithinkit'smine."
Dean stops him with a hand around his elbow, fingers digging deep and sending bolts of flash-quick pain down his arm before letting go, stepping back. "Uh, what? Couldn't quite keep up with that last bit."
Sam huffs a breath, turns toward his brother. Green eyes are looking up at him, the familiar amusement brightening them, but Sam can't reciprocate because if he's right? Then this is all his, and he doesn't want his brother to see it, even if it's only a child's picture. It's his. But. "I said, I think it's mine. Dean. This is mine." He watches Dean's lips purse, eyebrows lowering, emphasizing the lines that wind and life have made, and he's amazed at the level of fear that shoots through him. Doesn't really want to know how Dean will react, but he can't stop waiting for it, either.
"Really? Just from--?" Dean doesn't finish, only waves his hand in a gesture that takes in the monotonous scene before them. Sam knows it's ridiculous, he shouldn't remember, but he does; remembers coloring this for Dean when his brother was still everything that mattered. Remembers giving it to him, and seeing Dean smile and tuck it away in a small shoebox (tiny, tiny kid shoes); he remembers seeing that battered box the night before his and Dad's last fight, finding the picture folded and tucked inside. Remembers taking it with him to California, knows it got burned along with everything (everyone) else.
"Yeah," and it's all he can force out under the weight of Dean's eyes--serious, now, and willing to follow Sam's lead. But Sam doesn't have one, besides thinking out, out, out and so far that hasn't worked; he doesn't know anything else, wants to tell his brother that, but can't. Can't, and it sits like a lead weight in his belly, and he thinks that the not-ground might open, might let him sink down, because this might be it, but it might not. And Sam has no idea what to expect.
"So. What now? If we're arguing for your theory, can't you just--I dunno--wake up?"
"I've tried that, Dean. Either I'm sleeping too deep or the root takes over once the person's dreaming. " He runs a hand through his hair, feels the tangles pull and part; his scalp feels itchy, like lightning's overhead. But the sky's unerringly empty, the too-bright sun still visible (no heat, no heat). "I'm not consciously able to control anything right now. I mean. I wouldn't have left us with no weapons, right?" Even though by the looks of things they don't need any. Still, he would feel better with blades and gunpower. Even holy water and crosses. Anything.
"Well, what d'we do, then?" Dean's fidgetting, pulling at the sleeves of his leather jacket, rolling his shoulders. Sam's sure Dean knows the answer, and he knows Dean wants him to say it.
"I guess we wait it out." It's a mumble, but the glare his brother shoots him let's him know Dean hears him. Louder, he says, "If we had Dad's journal--"
The sound of Dean's teeth grinding together is loud without background noise to muffle it, and when he says, "But we don't, do we? Great," it comes out like a snarl.
888
It happens so quickly they almost miss it. Sam only catches a glimpse of light, jerky and refracted--like one landscape was briefly transposed over another--before it's gone. In the exact same area is a sudden copse of trees, crooked and mismatched, and Sam turns to stare at Dean.
"Dude. I don't know." And soon as his brother shuts his mouth, Sam sprints towards it. Behind him, he hears "Sam!" But he ignores it, knows his brother will be behind him. This has to mean something, Sam thinks, for these things just to sprout up.
He reaches the edge, stands there a moment before stepping closer. It's a child's version of what a dense forest looks like; the frontward trees are packed in close, but Sam notices that the inner area is bare, a wide clearing that is devoid of any kind of life or color. Where the ground should be is the off-white of cheap construction paper. He doesn't know whether the blank areas are safe, doesn't know if it's some void or if it's just the same as anything else. But he thinks of the sky, and how it hasn't caused any harm, and it seems like enough to tentatively put a foot forward. It has the same feel as the ground outside of the clearing--there and not there. It's nothing. It's fine.
That's when he sees it. A small, charcoal rabbit sitting half in, half out of the clearing. It's coloring is natural, like Sam and Dean, calm and neutral where everything else is hectic and vivid. The fur along its back is undulating and he steps closer, hearing and discarding the sounds of his brother catching up to him. He whispers, "Hey," before Dean's cursing and spitting out, "Sam! What--" the noise startles the animal, and it backs out until it's fully facing Sam, and Sam can see the ragged end of something that's not vegetation.
Dean still has entered in, but Sam can see his outline through the tree limbs. "Hold on," he hisses, and makes his way over to where the rabbit is still sitting. He slides his hand over the object (smooth and cool and hard), pulls it out. A journal. Dad's journal. "What?" And from the corner of his eye he sees a sudden flash of white and gray, then a piercing pain in the side of his hand. "Fuck!" He yells, trying to shake himself free from the teeth sunk into his skin.
"Sam, what the hell?" There's stomping, then Dean's hand on his shoulders as the rabbit releases him, scurries off into the trees again. Sam doesn't know where the thing's heading now, doesn't know where it can go, and wonders idly if it'll just disappear. He looks down, sees blood smeared across the back of his hand, sees small slices in his flesh. But it's not bad, even though it hurts like hell.
"It was a rabbit, Sam," Dean breathes in, like he's trying hard not to laugh. "A fluffy, little bunny."
"You didn't see it's teeth, Dean," Sam waves his hand under Dean's nose and hears his snort, brief and choked off. "And for the record there's a big difference between fluffy and furry. This thing was furry!"
"Yeah, well, so's your ass, dude."
"I do not have a hairy ass."
"Easy for you to say, you're not the one--"
"Alright. You know what? I'm gonna look through Dad's journal. Why don't you just--" Sam stops, eying the empty space, "Go over there?"
"Whoa, whoa. Dad's journal?" Dean finally stops grinning, and Sam shows him the leather bound notebook in his other hand. "How'd you get that?" Dean snatches it away, starts to flip through it. "Can you control stuff now? Get us out?"
"Dunno. I guess I got the journal here, but the rabbit attacking me? Not something I'd include." He's digging in his jacket, wanting a tissue or something to wrap around his hand. Empty. "Come on, let's get out of here."
"Maybe you've got a pain kink. Y'know, all that Freudian crap." Sam rolls his eyes, stays quiet. A moment and then, "How d'we even know that this journal is a copy of Dad's? Maybe the stuff in it's completely wrong."
"Well, we don't." They're back on the hills, and Sam sees that what he took for weeds in the distance are actually stray marks of green cutting through the black outline of the ground, scratching into the space between the sun. "But at least it's something. Have you found anything about dreaming potions?"
"Only a paragraph on lucid dreaming, dude. Then, depending on the person it can affect the length of the dream--" Dean hums, skimming through the information. "If someone isn't keeping you locked in, then we should be able to wake up when the root wears off." Dean turns, and Sam sees green eyes skitter over his face before looking him in the eye. "Hey, little brother? You wonder why this isn't like a real scare-you-dead nightmare? I mean, with everything--"
"Yeah," Sam says. "Yeah, but I figure we're just lucky. This once, you know?" Dean nods his head, looks back at the book in his hands. Sam sees his fingers clench. Once. Twice. But Dean doesn't say anything about it, and Sam let's it go. "Alright, so we wait for me to wake up, and then we can finish the job, right?"
"Yeah, Sammy. Sounds about right."
888
They're prepared for it when the landscape around them shimmers, wavers like concrete in a heatwave. They scramble to their feet and Sam feels Dean's shoulder brush his jacket. "Wha--"
Sam hears a low rumble; indistinct with distance, yet he catches the difference in volume, as if a radio station was going in and out of range. There's a thrum shaking the not-ground, and he can't tell if it's from the the staticy noise he hears or something else.
Dean grips his arm. "Sam." His brother waits until he's looking at him. "Do you hear that?" Sam's about to roll his eyes, but Dean says, "Is that carnival music?"
Sam wants to say no, wants to deny it, but he hears it now, too. It's the pulsing tempo of a carousel, played out as if from a wind-up box nearing it's end, deep and macabre. "Uh," he's staring at the empty expanse, seeing the levels of hills. Waits, because that's all he can do. Shit, he thinks, shit, shit, shit. There's a low shadow, a long stretch of darkness rolling toward them; Sam can see the beginning of shapes in the mist. "Oh, my god." And it's a moan, low and cracked. Sam can feel the throb of his pulse in his temples, behind his eyes, can hear it in the rushing in his ears.
"Sam, what?" He sees Dean squint, stretch his neck out to make out the shapes in the distance. "Holy shit. Are those clowns?" He can feel the panic claw up from his chest, hot and paralyzing, yet for a split second Sam's almost embarrassed for his subconscious. "Oh, man. Look at those teeth," but Sam doesn't have to; he can picture the stretched and twisted mouths, full of razor sharp fangs, without actually having to see them. "This would be, like, an awesome time for you to wake up, little bro."
888
He feels firmness at his back, and for a moment he thinks he'd passed out. But. He opens his eyes, sees the water-stained ceiling of the motel room and thick floor-length curtains closed over the windows. Turns his head and finds Dean just stirring from his own sleep. Thank you, thank you, he thinks, before shutting his eyes. A moment later he's blinking them open, sitting up and running hands over his face. No. Just...no.
Dean's up; Sam can hear the whisper of his feet on the carpet, stopping in front of him. Silence. Then, "Shit, man. What kind of acid trip were you on?"
"Shut. Up."
888
a/n: my inspiration for this fic? These lines from a Lifehouse song:
Trapped inside of these four walls/walking brainless moppet dolls/mushroom face beneath the tangles/bleeding silhouette inside/dancing like an angel would