Disclaimer: Yeppers... still applies. Love: Yeppers… still applies.
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Author's note: This story WILL get confusing at times… I PROMISE…
A word of CONTENT warning, (the least of which are some season 2 spoilers). The most of which are that… there are moments in this fic that could be considered a departure from my norm… so please…consider yourself warned.
I'm also going to say this here and now before I forget to say it at all: Thank You Nevermore for allowing me to subject you regularly to one of the dark-ish boxes in my brain… You allowed me to inundate you with… this… and made sure to remind me that there was a genuine story in there somewhere… Thank You. :D
Now let's begin if you please….
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Got a itch… can't get it… nose itches… gonna kiss a fool… heh heh… maybe if I scootch down just a… little… ah… ah… oh yeah… that's good… heh… yeah… he smiled, his eyes closed against the bright lights. damned itchy nose… he grinned and rubbed the tip of it against his shoulder again, almost preemptively, he knew it would start itching again the instant he relaxed and got himself comfortable.
snug as a bug in a rug… I'm a givin' myself a great big hug… heh… hug therapy… sheeyah… cause ain't nothing a hug can't cure… except…no man… don't go there… oh god the door's opening… the screaming… I can't take it anymore… no more screaming please! I can't listen to him anymore… it's not my fault… really… NO one could want to live like that… I couldn't let it happen… nope… nada.. nyet.. nunca… nil… no freakin' way was I gonna… uh uh…he shook his head from side to side, slowly it became a rocking motion and he was on the floor. Soon the meds kicked in and he gave in to chemistry, the problem was that no one else knew what came to his head while he dreamed, and no one could save him from those dreams like he'd saved so many from their own nightmares.
He saw it all happening over and over again, every time sleep took him he lived those horrible moments, watching that cloud of living dark dust descend, watching Sammy first trying to run from it while he blasted the thing with rock salt, watching in horror as Sam tripped, then his own fall onto and over his little brother. The subsequent slide on his backside while still firing the sawed off at that cloud, then Sammy screaming.
That was the sound that spider-webbed the safety glass of his world.
The first cube fell out when Sammy turned to look at him with those churning oily yellow eyes and smirked tauntingly, "Happy birthday to me…"
"No…" he'd hear himself whisper aghast, then his throat would close even as he screamed out, "He belongs to ME! YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM!" and he would rise to his feet, the shotgun in hand, the barrel inches away from his baby brother's chest as he cocked it.
"…kill me… kill Sammy…"
Every instinct he had was telling him to stop, every muscle strained for him to pull that shotgun away from his brother, to let go the trigger and find another way 'cause somehow, something was wrong with the shells inside…
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"Come on dude… talk to me… please…" John's hand reached over and cupped his eldest sons' face, "I can't lose you too… please Dean… don't leave me alone in all this… don't you want us to be together again? Like it used to be?" he asked despite the faint tremor in his voice.
Dean pressed his cheek into his father's hand, "Yeah dad… you know I do… it's all I've wanted since Sammy went to school…" his eyes began to swim, "…but it can't be like that again… without Sammy… we can't go back to the way things were… we both know that…"
"I know…" John swallowed hard and nodded, "I know it can't son… but we still have each other…and if you don't get through this… well we don't even have that…now do we?" he nodded again sniffing back his tears.
"He was possessed dad… the shells were filled with rock salt… I loaded them myself… don't make me see this… don't make me live this again dad…please…" his voice fell to a pleading whisper.
John shook his head, "It was consecrated iron buckshot Dean… how could you not know which shells you loaded into the shotgun!?" his voice rose and his mouth turned down, his lips still trembling while his eyes finally overflowed.
"I loaded the rocksalt shells… blame that yellow eyed son of a bitch that took him over…" Dean tried to explain.
"You shot your brother with buckshot! It tore his chest apart Dean! All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put Sammy together again!" John screamed at his oldest boy.
"I LOADED THE ROCKSALT SHELLS!" Dean screamed.
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"Dean? Wake up man…" Sam muttered from across the room, tossing one of his pillows hard at his big brother. For days now Sam hadn't been able to get a good night's sleep, Dean was tossing and turning, mumbling and protesting incoherently something he claimed he didn't remember come morning. Sam was actually starting to believe him, his patented puppy-dog pout would've had Dean giving it up by now if he remembered anything.
The lack of rest was starting to show in his big brother's eyes and the way he carried himself. His step was heavier and his enthusiasm duller, but what they'd been through… Oh just another year in paradise for the men of the Winchester family! We need to catch a break… something… well okay Kaitlyn helped… helped me… I know Dean hasn't been wild about this whole…someone in my head thing… and that creepy ass s.o.b. getting in there didn't help anything either… but yeah, okay… Dean needs a break… maybe I should call Lau…oh… right…I hope for his sake she's okay… maybe I could try to find her for him… or suggest we try finding her together again… who knows… with what Kaitlyn helped me with so far… maybe I could sense her somehow… with those good intentions circling his head Sam's mind drifted easily back to sleep while his big brother lay on his side, his eyes wide open, unsure if he could trust himself to be seeing his baby brother sleeping in the bed across the room.
Is it really him? But it was sooo damned real! I heard the bubbles through his blood… slowly Dean sat up looking hard at Sam. He fisted his eyes until he saw stars then stared again, willing himself to see through the hallucination.
He grasped the pillow that had woken him up and strode to the other bed, his heart pounding in his throat so that if he'd had any wetness to swallow, he couldn't have anyway. Is that really you Sammy? he thought watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, hearing his comforting breathing.
He sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his head then rose again, this time he laid the pillow next to Sam's head, then drew the covers over his knobby feet and tucked him in.
"Mmm?" Sam grunted kicking Dean's hand away and sticking his toes back out from beneath the comforter. The instant of physical contact was enough. Dean was satisfied. It had just been another dream. Thank God for favors man…I just wish they'd stop… I can't take much more of this.
Standing at the foot of Sam's bed Dean turned his head and looked at his own, it looked like he'd just had one hell of a raucous all nighter, maybe I should just go hit a bar and find a quick hookup… Laura would understand…yeah SHE would but… heh…I wouldn't …I don't want anyone else… sorry junior the girl you want is nowhere to be found, you're on bread and water buddy boy… he groaned and booted up the laptop while making the first pot of coffee for the day.
If I can't find us a job maybe Sam won't mind if I start looking for her again…maybe he could even use some of what Kaitlyn taught him… see if he can sense her… I mean she does kinda have some… thing going on… that's what those scans said anyway… parts of her brain that are dormant in folks like us… well probably more like me than Sam… are wide awake and waving at the world in hers right? Right… he's got to be able to sense something.
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"Sam"
"Dean?" they said together over Sam's second cup of coffee.
"Dude…" Dean shook his head smiling wryly.
Sam grinned openly and shook his head as well, "I know… we just can't seem to shake it…" he was talking about the synch they'd fallen into. It didn't happen all the time but it was happening so much more frequently now, that both of them wondered exactly why and what was the genuine cause of it.
They'd noticed it during the Turnbull case, and though like all brothers with the same upbringing and on the same mission, relatively speaking, they were often on the same wavelength. However, between Sam's efforts to actively control his psychic abilities, and Dean's forays into parallel realms and or the times and lives of ancient deities, both men were starting to wonder if perhaps these jobs, these… events… moments of exposure or … whatever one could call them, might be serving a purpose they couldn't yet quite begin to fathom. Or was it just random?
"Tell me about it…" Dean muttered swallowing a big gulp of coffee and asking, "… so… what?" while he kept his eyes focused on the information on the computer screen.
"What what?" Sam asked and shook his head quickly remembering after spying Dean's spocked eyebrow, "Oh yeah… I think we should try to find Laura again," he blurted.
"That's what I was gonna say… did you have a vision?" Dean asked finally peeling his eyes away from the computer screen and the police report that detailed what was left behind in her car when it was found deserted.
Sam shook his head, his hand hovering over the last Boston cream donut while Dean eyed him, practically daring him to take it. With a smile and a shake of his head he settled on the chocolate cake and bit into it while Dean nodded unspoken and simple thanks.
"No… but you've been having nightmares Dean," he said around a mouthful of carb-o-liciousness, "Whether you remember them or not… you've been having 'em… I mean seriously all you have to do is look at your bed in the morning… looks like you're some kind of lazy Deuce Bigalow banging the buxom or…"
Both of Deans eyebrows tried to grab his hairline while his mouth dropped into a small 'o', "Alright whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa right there! Dude… first off… I am NOT lazy… especially not in bed! Second, I'm a helluva lot better lookin than that guy!, hence I'd make a helluva LOT more money than him... and lastly…" he paused more for effect as he cocked a trademark smile and wagged his finger toward Sam's expectant expression, "…you're right… I don't need to be psychic to read the evidence…" he pointed to the disaster area he called his bed for the last few nights.
"Dean…" Sam looked at him, met his eyes then looked down. Never a good sign, and always a sign that he was about to ask something difficult.
"Oh God… what?"
Sam started, then stopped, then started again while watching his brothers face, they'd come through so much in the last year and a half, if he couldn't be honest now, Sam would start to think the bond he felt they'd been forging was a lie.
"Sam? What?" Dean asked reading his brothers uncertainty in his expression.
"Couple questions…"
"Ooohh kay."
"This… these nightmares… this isn't some other kind of Aaron Beyers thing and you're just trying to hide it from me? Or well protect me from it? right? It's not that right? I promised I wouldn't ask you about it and I haven't and I won't… I just need to know that it's not something you're trying to protect me from…" he asked, a hint of the little boy he'd once been shining through.
Dean grinned at the image of Sam as a kid, he'd been cute and with those dimples the scams they'd pulled! Man… sometimes Dean wondered how they managed to NOT land themselves in Juvie.
"Are you kidding me Sam?" he asked watching him shake his head, "No dude… nothing like that… I swear…" which was the truth, at least enough truth for Dean to convince himself it wasn't a lie.
Sam had said, 'questions' plural so he gestured, 'gimme', "What else Sammy?"
Sam shook his head, "I'm… not even sure where to start…"
"Pick a place…" he suggested.
"You pick…" Sam sipped his coffee.
Dean frowned just a little, "…and our categories are?"
"Your nightmares, the content of them…Dad, Marshall Hall, Layla, Alex Bentley, The Demon, Laura,… me…" he ticked off the choices, counting one on each finger determined to ask at least the most important questions that wouldn't leave him alone in those… maybe too quiet moments with his brother.
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tbc?
it's a slow moving beginning chapter
but please R&R anyway.
Thanks, sifi