Title: Going Back (For the Blue Rose)
Fandom: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (+TV Universe)
Characters: Sam Stanley/Chet Desmond (slight slash)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sam Stanley can't stop going back.
0o0o
He's been stationed at the San Francisco Bureau for the past two years but makes the trip every twelve weeks without fail, rain or shine, during Portland's cruel winters then again in its bright summers. He's not sure why he picked the twelfth week (twelve weeks is three months which in a twelve month year is quarterly) to return to Deer Meadows and the Canyon Trailer Court continuing a search the Bureau itself gave up after only fifteen weeks, except he knows he can't stop now.
Not yet.
These days it's almost a pleasant trip north for Sam Stanley, who drives his own car, buys his own gas (at over three dollars a gallon which at an average of fifty gallons per round trip equals a lot of money.) This is unlike the first few times when he scoured the trailer park and surrounding areas with dozens of other agents, all of them not speaking to him, ignoring all his questions, especially those about the Blue Rose.
It was as if he had disappeared as well, but he stubbornly stayed on even after those agents left. Even after they sent him to California, to "relax" a little. After they pointedly told him there is no Blue Rose, there never were any Blue Rose cases and he really needed to stop asking about them.
Even after they eventually told him there never was any agent named Chet Desmond who never went missing in Canyon Trailer Court the day Sam left to take Teresa Banks back to the Portland morgue.
They were very adamant about it but Sam knew for certain they were wrong only because of his habit of keeping extensive notes on, well, on everything, really. Just in case his memory didn't suffice except in this case he remembers every minute very well. The arrival, the fight with the sheriff's office, the autopsy ... those are all very clear in his mind.
He certainly doesn't need the notes to remember Agent Desmond's wry smile. His odd style of explaining things. The easy way he put up with Sam's ... quirks ... in a way other agents won't.
How he never lied to Sam about the Blue Rose.
Not that he ever explained it, but it's classified. Sam can accept that but he can't accept that Desmond is missing and no one will do anything about it. So he keeps coming back to Deer Meadow, one weekend, every twelve weeks (which is four weekends a year, one for every season) and searches for Special Agent Chet Desmond. There aren't many areas left he hasn't looked and almost all the townspeople know him by first name, giving him coffee for free whenever he comes around. The sheriff's office gave him a broken pair of binoculars, probably as a joke, but Sam isn't sure.
Figuring out jokes -- and insults -- was Desmond's job; Sam was never very good at it.
His home for the weekend is a trailer he rents from Carl Rodd, who shakes his head sadly at Sam before handing him the key. "Back again, huh?" He sighs, his voice growing louder. "And no I ain't seen him, ain't seen him at all, goddamn! Goddamn, no, ain't seen nobody."
"Thanks, Carl," Sam says evenly, taking the key. "I appreciate you letting me stay."
Carl gives him a guilty look. "Oh, hell. You can stay as long as you like. You know that." He sighs again, jamming his fists into the pockets of his bathrobe. "Do you want some Good Morning America? I'll bring you some."
"Some coffee would be nice, thank you," Sam says, slinging his bag over his shoulder.
He heads to the trailer he usually stays in, Number Six. It looks exactly the same it as it did the first time he stayed there, maybe a little bit dirtier (which would reduce its value from $4,873 dollars to $4,275.) Very little time is spent in the trailer anyway, he only sleeps for a few hours for the drive back. Once his bag is dropped inside off he goes, through the trailer court and beyond.
So intent is Sam on getting to the search, he walks right by Carl who his holding a steaming mug of coffee in both hands. "Hey!" Carl yells as Sam strides past him. "Don't you want your coffee?"
"Just put it by my trailer, thanks!" Sam yells back without turning around. He's already almost at the site. Almost ...
"But it'll get all cold and ... oh, goddamn!"
But Sam isn't listening anymore. He walking fast to the starting point, the last place Desmond was according to Agent Cooper's report, at least the parts that weren't blacked out. The Chalfont trailer isn't there any more -- they were never involved in the Banks case as far as Sam knows -- but it's supposedly the place and Sam thinks he feels a little something odd in the air whenever he passes by but that might just be his imagination.
One interesting bit of information remains foremost in Sam's mind: Desmond's car was towed from a spot nearby with the words "LET'S ROCK" scrawled onto the windshield.
That's the part that makes Sam's skin crawl every time he thinks about it. He has little hope that Desmond is alive -- two years is a very long time -- but Desmond was strong, able to fight, highly trained and to just disappear like that, with whoever took him deliberately leaving behind a sick clue on his car ...
He thinks about Teresa Bank's fingernail and shivers.
The practical side of Sam's brain knows if he ever finds anything, it'll be a body or parts of one. The other, less rational side keeps hoping Desmond will turn up in a local hospital or living on some side road, his memory gone or something else out of a movie script. That's why he keeps coming back, to feed that sliver of hope beyond the insatiable curiosity, beyond the crushing guilt that Sam did what Desmond told him to do and left his partner behind that fateful day.
If there's a body buried beneath the thin dirt of the trailer park, Sam isn't sure he wants to be the one who finds it.
But he can't stop looking. It's become an obsession, a quest of sorts and he checks over sites he knows as well as he knows the layout of his own apartment back in California. He tries to apply a fresh eye to them, but very little changes up here in Canyon Trailer Court. He'll spend most of the daytime hours here, hunting for something new and then it's off to the surrounding area at night where people have told him there are strange happenings sometimes, in the woods that ring the court.
One woman told him to wait for the owls to start flying and that's when he'll get his answers but so far in the past few visits, Sam hasn't seen or heard anything but the moon and the rustle of the wind through the trees. The rest is silence.
It isn't nighttime yet and there are dozens of trailers to inspect, a few new residents to question, maybe a visit or two to some old ones. Sam can't help but think he's biding time until sun sets - wait for the owls to start flying and then you'll get answers - but it's all part of the routine he's developed.
Sam likes routines, they calm him, just as numbers do.
Just as the memory of Desmond's kind grin does, when he dares to close his eyes and remember.
0o0o
Sam's learned patience during these dark vigils he attends in the woods that surround the trailer park. The first few were marred by fear, then impatience, before an irritable boredom set in and stayed there until dawn. Later, he learned to stand and listen carefully, to lose himself in the night and there were more things to notice than he ever dreamed possible, especially after that woman told him about the owls.
Now he strains his ears for hours, listening for their low whoots, for the flutter of wings. The night goes by more quickly now and he's not surprised to see that the stars have moved nearly halfway across the sky by the time he feel the first hint of tiredness.
He counts a few trees to perk himself up and it's when he reaches the number twelve he hears it. The unmistakable sound of birds in flight.
With trembling hands, he fumbles for his flashlight. Flicking it on, he points the beam wildly in every direction, up into the branches. More flying, this time accompanied by the wild, dark sound of owls and Sam's heart pounds in his throat.
Something else is there, an electric-static kind of chill spidering over his skin and the beating of blood through Sam's ears grows louder.
There's something ... something evil there ... and Sam starts to back away involuntarily, the flashlight wavering in his numb hand before he drops it. It hits the dirt with a dull clink! and Sam scrambles to retrieve it, falling to his knees in the process.
It's there he sees the mound of dirt, something he hadn't noticed before. Muted light catches the shine of something sitting atop it ... it's metal ... no, wait, it's jewelry of some kind ... a ring, he thinks, his curiosity overtaking his fear. Yes, it's a ring and an awfully familiar looking-one too. It's ...
It's Teresa Bank's ring.
Suddenly, there's a scream lodged somewhere in Sam's throat. He scrambles away from the mound, but when he tries to force his leaden legs to run, but they flounder uselessly beneath him, making him stumble, then fall. There's a taste of dirt mixed with blood in his mouth and the noise of the owls sounds like obscene laughter. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees what he thinks are figures, four maybe -- flashes of an old woman and strange young boy standing alongside a ragged gray haired man with a terrible smile and someone else as well, but Sam is too afraid now, so he closes his eyes and lays there, reaching for his gun.
He's not sure what he's going to do with it. The owls are gone as quickly as they appeared and the moon has come out of hiding again or so Sam notices when he dares to open up his eyes. There's another noise behind him, where the mound was and it sounds like a person's voice, muttering words that make no sense and Sam knows that this is the part where he either runs without looking back or faces his fears, as awful as they are.
It takes a moment, maybe two, before he chooses the latter. Rising to his feet, Sam breathes deeply and slowly turns around. He doesn't bother with the gun, he knows it probably won't help him and it's only after he sees what's lying in the place of the dirt mound is he glad he didn't pull it out.
"I don't want to talk about Teresa," a dazed Special Agent Chet Desmond says, staring up at Sam through the cover of moonlight, looking almost exactly the same as he did on the day Sam left. "Do you hear me?"
Stunned, Sam nods. He wonders if this is a dream. "I understand, Agent Desmond."
"It's not her fault. It's no one's fault," Desmond mumbles, his mouth twisting in what looks like grief. Eyes wet, he stares at Stanley. "Poor Sam. You shouldn't have come back."
Sam kneels, pulling Desmond up, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "It's very late, Agent Desmond and by that I mean it's very early. We need to go."
Hints of dawn are appearing in the sky as Sam pulls Desmond to his feet, half-carrying him back toward the trailer court. The adrenaline is pumping hard enough to make Sam feel as if his feet are no longer touching the ground; the man in his arms seems as light as a child. Everything disappears except for the trailers in the near distance and Sam's determination to get them both there, alive, by any means necessary.
Part of Sam wonders when he'll wake up. The other part is dying of sheer elation that this man he's half-dragging back to the light might be real.
He's not surprised to see that Carl is up and about, wandering through the trailers with a mug of something in his hand which falls to the ground and shatters when Carl sees the two bedraggled agents stumble through the courtyard. "Holy hell on earth," Carl gasps, his jaw dropping to his chest. "Holy HELL."
"Shhhh," Sam begs, tugging a weakening Desmond into a more upright position. "Help me, please, Carl. But quietly, don't upset him."
For a good thirty seconds, Carl continues to goggle at them until a sharp "please!" from Sam shakes him out of it. "Holy hell," he repeats, but whispered as he takes Desmond's free arm and pulls it over his shoulder and together they manage to get Desmond back to Sam's trailer, depositing him as gently as possible on the bed.
Carl falls into the trailer's only chair and tries to light a cigarette with trembling hands, still mouthing "holy hell" around the filter. Sam holds onto the wall, unable to look away from Desmond's pale and placid face. He looks like a man who's been to heaven and hell and every place in-between and Sam thinks that maybe he should call Gordon Cole, but thinks better of it, especially when Desmond meets his eyes and slowly shakes his head.
"There's nothing he can do. It's out of our hands now," Desmond says. His gaze drifts back up to the ceiling. "God help them."
"God help who, Agent Desmond?" Sam asks. His legs are failing him and he's forced to sit down on the edge of the bed before he falls down.
He's alivehe'salivealivealive...
"The ones who've gone in. One goes in, another comes out. That's the rule," Desmond whispers. His eyes widen with sudden fear. "It's not her fault!" he cries, grabbing Sam's forearm, hard enough to bruise. "The ring... ring..."
Sam doesn't move, he simply accepts the crushing pressure of Desmond's grip. "It's not her fault," he agrees and Desmond lets go, his eyes fluttering shut, his breathing turning light and regular.
"Holy hell," Carl repeats, ashes dribbling from the glowing tip of his cigarette. "What the hell do you think it means?"
"I don't know, Carl." Sam turns his hand over, notices that his palm and fingertips are flushed red. He glances up at the sleeping Desmond as through the trailer window, the sun is rising. "I truly don't know."
0o0o
Desmond sleeps for a long time, so deeply at points, Sam has to fight off an urge to take his pulse. There is no flailing, no bad dreams, he looks as peaceful as a child. It's a day and a half before he stirs and Sam is ready, with coffee and a dozen donuts Carl brought over that afternoon. He sits patiently across from Desmond, the donut box on his lap, a fresh cup of coffee already steaming on the nightstand.
Desmond looks from the box to Sam back to the box again. He manages to sit up on his own, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "Got any glazed ones?" he nods at the box.
Sam quickly plucks a glazed donut out and places it on a plate he's had waiting at the ready. "I also have plain, if you'd like," he says, handing the plate to Desmond, who stares at it with an odd expression on his face, as if he's not sure it's real. "As well as chocolate, Boston creme, lemon ..."
"Glazed is fine," Desmond takes a tentative bite, chewing slowly. A thin smile spreads over his face. "That's good. That's very good."
"Yes, they are good," Sam agrees. He fidgets before asking: "Where were you, Agent Desmond?"
He takes another bite of donut. "I have no idea."
That wasn't the answer Sam was expecting, but he pushes ahead. "You've been gone two years."
Desmond pales, but continues to eat. Once the donut is gone, he picks up the coffee and blows on it. "That's ... that's longer than I thought."
"They gave up looking for you," Sam continues, offering the box again then pulling it back when Desmond shakes his head. "They tried to tell me that you didn't exist. That you never existed, that the Blue Rose ..."
"Forget the Blue Rose, Sam," Desmond warns, his eyes hard over the rim of the cup.
For the first time in a long time, Sam's temper flares. It's been too long and he needs answers. "I'm not here for the Blue Rose. I came back for you, after they left you behind. They stopped looking, but I couldn't stop and now you won't even tell me where you've been?"
Something in Desmond's face softens. "Sam, I'm being honest when I tell you I don't know where I was." Wincing, he puts down the coffee cup to rub at his arm. "Pins and needles," he explains. "I was sleeping on it wrong." He blows out a pained breath and rubs harder. "There's something I need to know. Who took the case after us?"
"Agent Dale Cooper, I think. Gordon sent him to investigate your disappearance and about a year later, the killer struck again."
Desmond turns as pale as the white cup he holds in his hand. "Where?"
"Twin Peaks. It's upstate, on the Canadian border. There's been some issues with Cooper's investigation there but no one tells me much." Somewhat bitterly and Sam adjusts his cuffs with a twinge of annoyance. "No one tells me anything."
"It's better that way," Desmond says and reaching out, he puts a comforting hand over Sam's clenched fingers. "You're the last person that should be involved in this. I'm sorry I put you through this. Please believe that."
Face flushed, Sam stares at the trailer's dirty floor. "I'm glad you're back, Agent Desmond."
"I'm glad you're the one who found me." Desmond continues to rub his arm, wincing. "I hope it's not the last bit of luck I have." Pulling himself up, he manages a smile. "Are you up for a drive? I could use a lift."
Blinking, Sam nods. "Sure. Where to?"
"Twin Peaks. I think we're going to have some business there." Desmond's tone turns oddly grim. "Lots of business."
"Twin Peaks?" Sam is as taken aback as he sounds. "What about Gordon? The Bureau? Shouldn't we tell them you're back?"
Desmond shrugs. "According to them, I never existed." He rises, buttoning his dress shirt -- the same one he was wearing on the day he disappeared. For some reason there isn't two years worth of constant wear on it anywhere. "I think we should toe the company line, don't you?"
"I guess so," Sam replies nervously. He wipes perspiring hands on his pants. "I suppose I should gas up the car."
"I wonder what happened to mine," Desmond remarks casually. "Hope my worthless cousin didn't take it."
Sam's mouth opens, but he immediately clamps it shut. "I don't know," he lies. "I ... I think it was taken into evidence."
"Ah." Desmond shrugs on his suit jacket, making a face as he pulls his arm through the sleeve. He holds a hand out to Sam, helping him up. "I appreciate this, partner. If Gordon ever did anything right by me it was introducing me to you."
"He told me to stick with you," Sam says. "He said you have your own M.O. I see what he means."
Desmond only grins in reply. It's the smile from Sam's memory and he feel a sudden surge of strength at the sight, as tired as he is. He heads to the trailer door, but glances back once, then twice, at Desmond who laughs gently at him. "I'm not disappearing again, promise."
Sam tries to return the laughter but it's not there. Fear, doubt, elation and a maddening sense of destiny have squelched it. He'll go to Twin Peaks with Agent Desmond and together they'll get to the bottom of this. He's never felt more sure of anything in his life, not even the Whiteman case.
He's never been more filled with misgivings either.
It's an unsettling state for a man who appreciates nothing more than the concrete surety of science and numbers. He wonders what sort of power Agent Desmond has to inspire him to such imprudent actions. Sam wonders if maybe he's just lost a bit of his mind, a thought that finally makes him grin.
The other agents think he's crazy already, so what difference does it make?
Whistling, he hijacks Carl's gas can and heads to the filling station a few yards away, mentally counting exactly how much this trip would end up costing.
0o0o
They're on the road for less than an hour when a deer darts in front of them, forcing Sam to swerve into the other lane, which, thankfully, is empty.
He's shaken enough to have to pull over for a few minutes, with Desmond rubbing his shoulder sympathetically. "I'm not sure I can do this," Sam wheezes, the panic burbling like a stream. "This isn't what I was expecting. I don't even know what I was expecting but this probably wasn't it. I think I should turn back, Agent Desmond. Maybe you can find someone else because I think ..."
Desmond listens patiently for a few seconds, before leaning over and kissing Sam mid-gasp, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. It's a very gentle, very matter-of-fact kiss, as if they'd never been apart since that day in Deer Meadow's when there was nothing to fear except Carl waking up or the coffee at Hap's landing, painfully, in his lap.
"Oh," Sam whispers after Desmond pulls back, solemnly searching Sam's face.
"Please come with me, Sam," Desmond asks quietly. "I can't do it alone."
"Okay," Sam replies simply and starts the car as if nothing's happened, but something has happened, without a doubt. And no, it wasn't anything he'd been expecting but suddenly, this adventure isn't the worst thing that could happen to a man who's lived nothing but an orderly -- and ordinary -- life for far too long.
As Sam drives, the road to Twin Peaks winds up on ahead, a black ribbon through the pines. Sam holds onto the wheel of the car with white knuckles, heart pounding for a dozen different reasons and he's trying to reason past the lingering feeling of Desmond's mouth against his own, a bright warm tingle against his lips that's blotting out all coherent thought like the sun.
He's also trying ... trying ... not to see a shadow of the words "Let's Rock" scrawled on the glass in front of him.
0o0o
end (for this round) /lj-cut
Wow, I enjoyed writing that, as readerless as it will probably be. Anyway, if you've had a hankering for this pairing at any point in your life, here it is.