If you miss the train I'm on
You will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow
A hundred miles
In the early morning fog, his footsteps seemed unnaturally loud. His dark hair hung in damp clumps in his face, but he'd become so used to it that it barely even registered anymore. It didn't matter anyway. All that mattered was getting to the church before it was too late.
Behind him he could hear another set of footsteps, measured and even, but a touch faster than his own. They sounded a tiny bit further away with each stride, but he'd learned the hard way a long time ago that it never paid to relax his guard. Despite the slight burn from the cold morning air in his lungs, he picked up his pace a little more. Long lanky legs ate up the road as he finally hit his optimal pace. In the last few months, since just before his fourteenth birthday, it seemed like all he did was grow, eat, ache, grow, train, grow, ache, study, eat, grow, ache and grow some more. Every inch he gained seemed to make him more clumsy and awkward and he was pretty sure he looked like a Stretch Armstrong doll; none of the bulk and muscle he needed and wanted, just endless skinny limbs, constantly increasing in length so that every shirt had to have the sleeves rolled up to disguise how badly they fitted, and every pair of pants displayed far too much of his bony ankles.
The last two schools he'd been at, he'd gotten a lot of shit from the other students for his appearance, and more than a few sympathetic sideways looks and well-meaning chats with the counsellors, but that wasn't anything he couldn't handle. Over the years he'd become an expert at deflecting and providing just the right answers and expressions to deflect the unwanted attention. Anyway, compared to his other issues, his body's sudden determination to change every couple of days was the least of his problems. Much more disconcerting was his body's reaction to certain situations and certain people which it had no goddamn business reacting to at all.
He wasn't stupid. He knew what it meant. Sure, none of the myriad schools he'd attended had ever even mentioned the subject in health class – got to love that medieval attitude – but those same well-meaning counsellors had had plenty of leaflets for an experienced thief to swipe without being noticed, certain tv shows provided some insight and, well fuck there's always Google. So yeah, he knew what was going on with him, he knew there was nothing he could do about it, and he knew that – at least when it came to part of the issue – there was nothing wrong with him per say, but he also knew that in his father's world, a world in which he also had no choice but to live, he might as well confess to being a vampire as confess to the actual situation. The expressions of disgust, disappointment, shame and hatred would be pretty much the same either way. And if I was stupid enough to mention the part that even I'm ashamed of, I'd be lucky not to just get a bullet between the eyes. He thought to himself with a snort.
An unexpected dip in the road broke his stride for a second, almost making him stumble and he shook his head in irritation, driving out the distracting thoughts. He couldn't belief he'd allowed his attention to wander, now of all times. If he let himself get distracted right now it would cost him dearly.
Get. To. The. Church. Get. To. The. Church. Get. To. The. Church. He timed his breaths and strides to the thought, his ground eating pace setting him flying towards his goal. He felt like he could run for days at this pace, more comfortable in his own body than he'd been for months. Ahead a dark shadow began to loom out of the fog, he was nearly there. This time he'd be safe; there was no way now that he'd be caught.
"Sam. What the fuck time do you call this?" The voice barking out of the fog almost made him stumble, but he caught his stride just in time and adjusted his direction slightly to intercept. A big grin broke out on his face as his father suddenly appeared in the swirling fog, leaning against the black and chrome Impala, stopwatch in hand.
"I call this a winning time, sir." He worked hard to keep his tone just on the right side of cocky, aiming to hit the irritatingly charming confidence that his older brother always seemed to pull off. Sam looked at his dad in triumph; finally, he'd beaten Dean at something. Finally, he was better than Dean at something their dad actually valued, and not just at academics. Finally, Sam was going to hear some praise from his father – something he'd waited his entire fourteen years on the planet for.
His grin froze on his face and dropped off as he registered the fury of his dad's expression. And his stride faltered to a halt.
"I call this a dumbass, cocky, dangerously over confident time." John growled at his, anger rippling through his clenched jaw. "You push your pace like that over a distance run and what have you got left in the tank at the end to fight with? I swear to god, Sam you just don't fucking listen. You keep pulling this kind of crap; showing off, thinking you know better, smart-mouthing me when I give you an order. How the fuck am I ever going to be able to trust you on the hunt if you can't even get it right in training?" John's clenched fist smashed against his own thigh in barely supressed rage. "You're going to get yourself, or worse – your brother or me – killed one of these days, you stupid cocksucker."
There it was. One of John's standard go-to insults when he really got into his groove. Cocksucker, fairy, Queer, pillow-biter, and of course the one Sam hated the most; faggot. They all made an appearance at least once a day, depending on just how much he'd managed to piss John off. Once, about three months earlier Sam, in a fit of bitter irony had kept a tally for a week. Marking off each insult to see if there was a pattern to it. He'd created a complicated table for his results; each insult cross-referenced against the activity and situation that had inspired its use and color-coded to denote whether it was being used in reference to Sam, Dean, or someone else. It had gotten lost on their last move though and he hadn't bothered to start a new one.
"I gave you money for clothes a couple of months ago. School's not a fashion cat walk for you to mince up and down with the other pillow-biters."
"Get off your ass and help your brother clean the guns, you lazy fairy."
"You're not wasting any more of your time with that queer-boy soccer team."
"You're not coming back in this room until you've given me another fifty push ups, faggot."
Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Sam had hated it from the beginning – he's never felt it was right to sling insults at people for things they had no control over. Once he'd begun to suspect what his own sexuality, every slur had stung like a slap around the face. Sam wondered if perhaps his dad knew about him. Had always known – long before Sam had known himself. He refused to allow himself to feel shame over his sexuality (although the rest of it – the feelings he had for his brother was a different matter) but the daily barrage of homophobia made his determination an uphill battle, it grew harder and harder to feel positively about himself in the face of it.
At least he had Dean. Although his brother did occasionally parrot the insults and slurs from their father, he never actually directed them at Sam. He was supportive and offered praise and pride for all of his achievements, both in training and academically – although the praise for the academics was usually mixed in with a fair dose of teasing. Dean made sure Sam ate as well as they could afford, would steal him clothes from the thrift stores whenever he noticed Sam had grown out of his again. He'd let Sam sit up late and watch crappy slasher movies with him when their dad was away on a hunt, and then pretend they'd scared him too when Sam got freaked out and was ashamed to admit it.
Everything was a lot more bearable as long as Dean was around to take the edge off it all. Sitting in the back of the car, quietly fuming at his father's response to his running achievement, Sam stared out into the fog, waiting for the sound of Dean's approach. His brother would nudge him and whisper some kind of grudging congratulations for beating him on the run, then make a dirty joke or something, and Sam would feel at least a little bit better. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He could deal with anything as long as Dean was on his side.
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Sam never could decide how he felt about how easy he found it to leave in the end. Not emotionally; that tore him up a little more every time he allowed his mind to dwell on it, but physically, it was an absolute breeze. Staying gone would almost certainly be much harder, but actually getting out in the first place was as simple as waiting for John to ditch his kids in the latest motel on the crappy side of the latest shit-kicker town, car-less and with the usual woefully inadequate handful of cash, and then holding out until Dean disappeared out the door with a cocky smirk, a lecherous wink and a "Don't wait up, Sammy!" after they'd eaten.
It's not like Sam wanted to find it difficult to make his escape, but the ease of the whole thing just seemed to highlight the total lack of care and attention from his family that he'd been feeling for the last few years. Actually, that's not completely true he reminded himself as he trudged along a sideroad towards the bus station. Dad's never paid much attention, but up until the last year or so, Dean's always looked out for me – almost annoyingly so.
But that flood of attention had slowed to a trickle and then pretty much dried up all together just before Sam turned fifteen.
About two months into his senior year at high school, Dean had suddenly announced that he was dropping out, and as that was pretty convenient to John, their dad had made no objections at all, simply slapping Dean on the back and telling him how useful it would be to have him on the hunt fulltime. Sam's objections were of course completely ignored by John, and carefully avoided by Dean, who changed the subject every time Sam tried to bring it up.
Sam couldn't even get Dean to tell him what had suddenly sparked his decision; it had seemingly come out of nowhere – no flunked test, no particularly difficult teachers, Dean had even had a couple of decent friends that he'd hung out with a few times. Then out of the blue, no more school and he even stopped hanging out with his new friends – volunteering to stay in with Sam or go on errands or extra training runs in the evenings instead. Sam couldn't figure it out at all, but of course John didn't bat an eyelid, just nodding and sending Dean off to scout out the security at the cemetery they'd be digging in the following night.
Before long, Dean stopped volunteering to stay in with Sammy, instead he would take one of his fake IDs out to the nearest dive bar, coming back in the early hours of the morning reeking of stale beer, cigarette smoke, cheap perfume and sex.
Sam would lie silently in bed, faking sleep and fighting back a mix of tears and bile as he waited for Dean to slump of the edge of his bed, kick off his boots and then stagger off into the bathroom to shower. Guess I should be grateful he at least showers it off Sam would remind himself frequently, even as he tried to shake of the now familiar twinned jealously and shame, knowing that he just wished Dean for himself.
Before The Change as Sam referred to it to himself, Dean had always been a fairly affectionate brother; not overly so, but slaps on the back or shoulder for a job well done, an elbow or shoulder check to emphasise a point, or even the occasional 'bro hug' were the norm. Then that all started to disappear too, even to the point that Dean would pull up one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs from the table at whatever shitty motel they were at rather than share the couch with Sam or sit on the same bed as they watched TV. He'd always make a point of cleaning a gun or sharpening a knife or tinkering with a car part or some other shit to make it look like a casual, unintentional thing, but Sam wasn't stupid, and he'd grown up learning to read body language – he knew that it was a deliberate move. It had confused the hell out of Sam right up until that morning.
As standard, on mornings when John was about, the brothers had been woken at Oh-fucking-stupid-hundred-hours for a run, John sending them off to a set destination and pointedly glaring at Sam as he clicked his stopwatch, before driving off to grab himself coffee and donuts and the papers so that at least he'd be comfortable warm and relaxed by the time Sam and Dean arrived at the checkpoint.
After that first blazing row, Sam had never again attempted to reason with John about his running speed, instead resolving to wait until John had driven off before he picked up his pace into one much more comfortable and ground-eating. About half a mile before reaching the checkpoint, He'd then stop and relax for a while until he could hear Dean's steady footfalls coming up behind him, then pretend to be doing a shoelace or stopping for a piss, or fake a cramp until his older brother had passed him – always with a sarcastic comment that made Sam's eyes roll – and he'd tag on a couple of paces behind, finishing the last half mile of the run in the choppy stilted gait he had to maintain to match strides with Dean. What neither John nor Dean knew wouldn't hurt them. Certainly not as much as the leg cramps and stitches from having to match pace with Dean over a five-mile run would hurt Sam.
That morning, after the glare and stopwatch click, and Sam's carefully hidden eyeroll in return, John drove off as usual and Sam started his run, carefully building his pace until he was eating up the road in front of him, his mind wandering off to his math homework that he'd not been able to get done the night before. Apparently, none of his homework was as important as an hour's extra sparring knife skills and target practice. An hour of each activity that is – it was nearly one in the morning by the time Sam fell into bed, and although he'd managed to get his History and English papers written before he got bitched at by John to turn out the light and get to bed, He'd only had time to glance at the questions on his math sheet. It was lucky then that one of the weird quirks of Sam's mind was that he could always call up an image of anything he'd read, meaning that he could work through the problems in his head from memory, and should be able to quickly write the answers on the worksheet during homeroom. He was almost distracted enough that he went too far before stopping to wait for Dean to catch up, but he caught a dead tree in his peripheral vison that he'd used as a marker for the last few runs just in time and slowed to a stop, stretching out his legs and twisting about to keep his muscles as loose as possible for the last torturous half mile once Dean got there.
Where the fuck is he? Dean seemed to be taking forever this morning, which was definitely unusual; Sam could set his watch by Dean on a run normally. After several more minutes with no sign of him coming along the road, Sam was starting to actually get concerned. The likelihood of anything having happened to Dean was fairly low, but that didn't do anything to stop the anxious feeling that was beginning to eat away at Sam's gut. With only a quick glance in the direction of the checkpoint, Sam started back down the road in the opposite direction, making his way as fast as he could back to where he'd last seen his brother.
As he neared a tight bend in the road, a meaty thwacking noise echoed out of the cold morning air ahead of him, and Sam slowed to a walk, cautiously approaching the source of the noise in case Dean really was in some kind of trouble, but as he drew closer, Dean's voice joined the thwacking sound.
"Fucking homo." Thwack "Cocksucker." Thwack "Fairy." Thwack "Pillow-biting queer-boy." Thwack.
Sam's eyebrows shot up and he stuttered to a halt, just close enough that he could see his brother if he leaned to the left a little. Shaking his damp hair back from his face, he did just that, keeping his weight on his back foot as he'd been repeatedly taught so that he could pull himself back out of sight if needed.
For years to come he'd wish that he hadn't. That he'd never run back to check on Dean. That he'd just carried on running to meet John and just waited there for Dean to finally show up.
There in the small clearing just off the road, Dean was repeatedly punching a tree. Blood covered fists pounding at full strength against the rough bark of the trunk were going completely unnoticed as he continued his onslaught, each punch punctuated by one of John's favourite homophobic slurs. The look on Dean's face was like nothing that Sam had ever seen there before; absolute rage combined with fear and hate. Sam hadn't even seen that expression on Dean's face on a hunt. Not even when he'd shot that Black Dog in Michigan and Dean really hated those things.
"Nothing but a fucking disappointment, you Faggot. Can't get anything right. Can't be who you're supposed to be. Can't be who Dad wants you to be. Can't even stop yourself from checking out guys in the restroom, you stupid fucking fudge-packer!" The punches continued, not slowing even slightly, though Dean must've been exhausted and in severe pain. Dean growled as he threw a punch so hard that Sam was amazed he didn't hear a crack either from the tree or Dean's fists. Finally, what Dean was saying as he punched broke through Sam's shock and his whole chest seemed to freeze for a moment, air rushing in and out of his mouth, yet unable to breathe.
He knows. Dean knows. And he hates me for it. Was suddenly playing on repeat at full volume in Sam's skull and he dropped to his knees, legs completely devoid of bone or muscle in his panic.
Finally, Dean's crazed assault slowed and stopped, his bloodied and battered fists falling forgotten to his sides as he stood, chest and shoulders heaving and head hanging as he stared blankly at the ground.
Both brothers rested for a moment, Dean completely unaware of Sam, and Sam aware of nothing apart from Dean. Suddenly everything made sense to Sam; not only Dean's crazed attack on the tree, but his distancing himself from Sam, the reluctance to make physical contact with him, or even to sit near him, the repeated trips out to the bar in the evenings rather than spend time with Sam. Dean knew that Sam was gay, and he was clearly disgusted and furious.
Lurching to his feet, Sam staggered back around the corner and safely out of sight, leaning against a lamppost as he struggled to catch his breath.
That's it then. Time to go. He forced himself to still the wildly spinning thoughts in his head, ruthlessly shoving his devastation and heartbreak down, locking it up until he could think around it. He'd known that he couldn't stay with his family forever, but he'd hoped he'd be able to stick things out until he could go to college. But then again, he'd perhaps foolishly hoped that when he finally found the courage to come out, Dean at least would've handled the news kind of calmly. Sure, Sam had heard Dean utter the same homophobic shit that John spouted plenty of times over the years, but Sam had always assumed that his older brother was just parroting their dad, that there had never been any true malice behind the words. Well now he knew better.
There was no way that Sam was going to be able to stay. How long would it be before Either Dean told John, or John worked it out for himself? How long could Sam handle Dean spitting those slurs at him, knowing that his brother actually meant them in their fullest sense?
No. I can't do it. I can't. It's time to go.
Finally mastering his breathing, Sam spun wildly and ran off in the direction of the checkpoint, only vaguely aware of how behind time he probably was. John was bound to lose his shit at both of his sons this morning; there was no way Dean was going to reach John in what he considered a reasonable time. He ran blindly on, only just remembering in time to adjust his pace so that it appeared he'd paced himself at the approved stride and speed. By an absolute miracle, he actually reached John almost bang on time, of course there was no congratulations or even approval offered. John just threw his youngest and nod and a bottle of water and then glanced back up the road for Dean. Not seeing him there immediately, John's eyebrow raised, and he frowned.
"Where's your brother?" he grunted roughly at Sam.
Sam shrugged as carelessly as he could manage. "I dunno. I was a bit ahead of him from the start today." He replied, carefully keeping his voice level. John glared at him. Of course, Dean not arriving yet was all Sam's fault. Any other time, Sam would've snapped back something about not being his brother's caretaker, but with everything else scrabbling around in his head just then, he just couldn't bring himself to give enough shits about this particular injustice.
Just as John was about to growl something at Sam which was bound to be some kind of accusation accompanied by one of his favourite slurs, Dean's footfalls could be heard coming down the road, faster paced than usual, but still metronome steady. The creases in John's forehead evened out a little, though his annoyance was still evident on his face.
"Where the fuck were you, Dean?" he barked at his eldest as he came to a stop by the car.
"I tripped about a mile back and messed up my hands." Dean replied with a casual shrug. Sam was amazed; there was no sign on Dean's face of his tirade less than an hour past. If Sam hadn't seen it for himself, he never would've guessed anything had gone down. The only evidence that he hadn't imagined the whole thing was the blood and scraps of dirt in Dean's fists.
"And you landed on your fists?" John asked sarcastically, clearly not believing Dean's bullshit. Dean just shrugged casually and headed for the passenger side of the car.
"Guess so." He answered, calmly meeting his father's eyes and not flinching in the glare he was getting back. John opened his mouth to bitch back at Dean but seemed to think better of it. His mouth snapped shut again, jaw flexing in clear irritation as he jerked his head at Sam to get in the car.
"We're late. Shift yourself or you won't make it in time to school." Sam didn't bother with an answer. There was no point. Anything he said at that moment was bound to set John off, and if he was perfectly honest, Sam just couldn't bring himself to care enough about anything right then. The care about anything would lift the lid on the box he'd shoved all his emotions in when he overheard Dean, and that was just unacceptable. Silent in the backseat, he stared blankly out the window, not seeing anything but the expression on Deans face as he repeatedly punched the tree. He'd do everything as normal today; it wouldn't help him any to alert his dad or brother that anything unusual was going on.
John was heading out later that day to check out reports in the paper that looked like an Al – a weird kind of evil dwarf spirt that attacked babies and pregnant women – a few towns over, and he was going to be gone for at least a few days, taking the car with him. It was ideal timing for Sam. He'd wait until Dean made his usual visit to the bar that evening and head out. He'd be on the next bus out of town before Dean even made it back to the motel room, and if he got drunk enough, he might not even notice Sam was gone until morning. Something made Sam think Dean was going to be very, very drunk that evening.
Over the years Sam had been carefully stashing away any money he could without John or Dean noticing, breaking one of the cardinal rules of the Winchesters by opening up a junior account in his real name to keep his savings unnoticed by John and Dean. A new batch of credit cards had arrived a few days before; Sam could snake one of those to keep him going until he could get himself straight. He had a plan, he had the means to carry it out, it was time.
Time to go.
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Laying a false trail, living in hiding, evading detection; these were all things that came as easy as breathing to a Winchester, and yet Sam had to make some changes to standard practice this time. He couldn't rely on skills taught to him by John and Dean to hide from the very people who'd taught him – he'd be found in no time flat. If they bothered looking in the first place that was. Once they'd read the letters he'd left behind, Sam was pretty sure they wouldn't bother – probably relieved to finally be rid of him after so many years of barely tolerating his presence.
Dad and Dean
I'm gay. I'm not sorry; it's just who I am. Don't bother looking for me – you won't find me. Stay safe.
Sam
Better to be safe than sorry though, and Sam was most certain to be very sorry indeed if they did look for and find him.
So, Sam trudged his way along to the bus station, bought a ticket to South Dakota to lay a false trail to Bobby's, bought another ticket for the bus heading in the opposite direction, and then quietly slipped away without notice, hitching a ride from a trucker heading in a third direction.
He had a final destination in mind but adding as many twists and turns as possible seemed like the only sensible way to go. Sam caught rides with several more truckers, and with a group of college kids on some kind of road trip, doubling back on himself twice, and picking destinations at random until after four days, even he wasn't completely certain where in the country he was. Living off gas station sandwiches and chips was nothing new to him, but after two days, he was craving some hot food, so when Hank, the latest trucker dropped him off at a nondescript truck stop in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere, he headed inside to the little diner and sat himself at a corner table, back to the wall and facing the door.
"What can I get for you, Hun?" The waitress was one of those mom types, salt and pepper hair tied back from her face, flyaways sticking out like a halo all around her head. He glanced around, looking at the otherwise empty table with concern. "You here by yourself? No parents?" Sam straightened in his seat, working to show off his height without looking like he was trying too hard – nothing made adults more suspicious in his experience.
"Just me for now, Ma'am." He replied with a carefully light tone. "My Uncle had to make a quick run into the next town, but I was too hungry to wait on him. He's going to pick me back up once he's dropped off some furniture to a customer." He gave her a bright smile, just the right mix of cheek and innocence, a trick picked up from years of trouble-making with Dean in various towns. The vague unease faded from her face and she offered Sam a kindly smile in return.
"So, what can I get you then, sweetie?" she enquired, pen at the ready. Sam mentally calculated the cash in his pocket; he'd plenty to hand right then, but until he worked out where his next lot of cash was coming from, he figured he'd better play it safe.
"Just a cheeseburger and fries and a Coke, please." He could've easily worked his way through the whole menu, but the burger would at least make a dent in his hunger for now. The waitress wrote down his order and wandered back to the counter with another kind smile at Sam.
His burger, when it arrived was surprisingly good and he turned, mouth bulging full, to share his appreciation with Dean. When the fact that he was alone and would probably never have the chance to compare notes over food with his brother ever again suddenly hit home like a sledgehammer, the juicy beef turned to ashes in his mouth. He woodenly and stubbornly chewed his way through his meal, firmly keeping his mind away from thoughts of his family and instead focusing on his next step once he left the diner. Ely, a small town in Minnesota was Sam's next (and hopefully final) stop. When Sam was just eight, the Winchesters had stayed in the town for nearly a month while John dealt with a Wendigo. As usual, Sam had settled right in to the school, and had even made a couple of friends. He wasn't holding on to any hope of meeting up with them again, what drew him to Ely was, of all things, the librarian at the tiny library there.
As had always been the case, Sam had spent countless hours in the library – both keeping up with his schoolwork and doing seemingly endless research for John. Usually, after a hard warning glance from the librarian in each library, Sam was pretty much ignored and left to get on with things, a librarian's dream child basically, reading quietly, finding the books he needed himself and always returning things to their correct shelves when he was done with them.
In Ely however, after the first warning glance, Sam had had that itchy feeling between his shoulder blades repeatedly. The one that warned him someone was looking at him. No matter how many times he casually looked round, he never actually caught the librarian looking his way, but nothing could remove the feeling of certainty from Sam's mind that she was staring at him whenever he looked away.
It took three days before she finally approached him, and even then, it was just to drop a card on the desk next to him, not even making eye contact, and wander off.
"We can't see when or why, but we know someday you'll need us. We'll be waiting when you do."
Sam hadn't understood it at the time, couldn't even understand why he'd kept the card all these years, carefully folded and transferred from pocket to pocket of pair after pair of jeans, safely out of sight of his brother and father; but kept it he had, and he couldn't escape the feeling that now was the time, and this was the why.
It wasn't perhaps the safest of choices for a final destination, being only a state over from Bobby, but at least it was up in the opposite corner of the state and was only a quick drive from the Canadian border in case an emergency retreat was called for. On the other hand, perhaps its closeness to Bobby's was an advantage; surely, they'd expect Sam to keep as far from anyone they knew as possible, and it certainly wasn't so close that he'd be likely to bump into Bobby in the milk aisle of the supermarket or something.
So, after paying his bill and waiting until the friendly waitress was distracted by a small rush of customers, so she wouldn't notice he was being picked up by anyone 'uncle looking', Sam walked out to the parking lot and hitched a ride with hopefully the last in a long line of helpful truckers, asking to be dropped off in Ely.
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"Thanks for the ride." Sam offered the driver a half-hearted grin as he climbed out of the cab. He felt completely drained; almost five days of barely dozing, not feeling he could relax and let his guard down in a stranger's vehicle with no one having his back had him on the very edges of his reserves, and it seemed to him that having arrived in Ely, he'd finally run out of steam. Even the small drop out of the truck cab had him staggering on his feet for a few seconds before he regained control of his knees.
"You're welcome, kid. You gonna be ok? Someone meeting you?" The driver glanced uncertainly up the road he'd just pulled over on, obviously looking for the relatives Sam had told him he was meeting.
"Yeah I'll be just fine, thanks." Sam replied dismissively. "My grandparents live just a couple of blocks up that way." He gave a vague wave up one of the side streets and casually slung his bag over his shoulder, turning in the direction he'd just gestured in.
"Well alright then, kid. I'll see ya then," The driver reached across and pulled the door shut, pulling away just a moment later, as Sam trudged slowly up a side street.
It was only a few yards later that he dragged to a stop and flopped down onto the closest bunch, hauling his bag up next to him.
Ok, so that's the first part done. I've reached Ely safe and sound and undetected. Now what the fuck do I do now I'm here? He wondered, looking blankly around himself. The daylight was starting to go and this far north it was shaping up for a pretty cold night. He fished through his memory, trying to recall the direction of the crappy little motel they'd stayed at the last time he'd been in this town. As far as he could remember, it was on the far west of the town, almost as far from where he'd been dropped off as it was possible to be. Shit. He sighed to himself. Guess I'd better get moving then. He heaved himself back up onto his feet reluctantly with a groan, throwing his bag back over his shoulder and turning to the west and the motel.
He'd only taken a few steps, eyes on his feet as he trudged, when he walked straight into someone on the sidewalk.
"Shit! I'm sorry." He muttered, reaching out to keep the woman on her feet. He managed to catch her elbow before she stumbled right over his feet. "I wasn't looking where I was going. You ok?" The woman gave a low chuckle. A sound surprisingly young for the age of the woman as far as Sam could guess it.
"Oh, that's ok, Sam. If anyone should've been able to avoid that little bump, it's me," The woman chuckled again. Sam froze where he was, arm still outstretched.
"How do you know my name?" he growled low under his breath, pulling himself up to his full height, exhaustion forgotten as paranoia and adrenaline flooded his system. "I don't know you, you don't know me, and no one knew I was coming here. So, how'd you know my name?" He reached behind him, hand gripping the hilt of his favourite knife, tucked in the waistband of his jeans.
The woman raised her hands a little, palms outwards in a clear attempt to calm him a little and kept her voice low and slow, obviously wanting to defuse the situation a bit.
"You probably don't remember me too well; it was a fair few years ago and both of us have aged a bit since then, but I do know you, Sam. Well a little anyway. You used to come into my library at least once a day back then. Every day for weeks on end, and then one day you just never came back. I gave you a card. Did you keep it? Isn't that why you came here? That's what we saw. Then and now. That's why I came out to find you this evening."
It was too much information all at once for Sam, exhausted as he was, body and mind. His brain felt scrambled as he tried to make sense of it all. His hand fell away from his knife hilt and the woman gently grasped his shoulder and led him back over to the bench, sitting the pair of them down side by side.
"My name's Mona." The woman told him as she sat. "I'm part of a group we call The Assembly." Sam looked at her blankly, the name not being at all familiar to him.
"This Assembly, that the 'we' you were talking about? Who are they and how did they know I was coming? You 'saw'? What's that even mean?"
"Follow me, Sam. It'll soon be far too cold for sitting around outside, and I can offer you a place to stay and some proper food. I'll explain as we walk." Sam didn't answer. Looking her over carefully, he weighed up his options. He needed answers, perhaps even more than he needed a roof over his head for the night. But while Mona didn't appear to be much of a threat herself, Sam had no idea who she was taking him to see, or how many of them there were. Let alone what sort of threat they might pose.
"Christo." He muttered under his breath, keeping a close watch on her eyes as he did so. There was no flinch and no change. Not a demon then. She grinned at his.
"You're quite right to be suspicious I suppose. You got anything silver I can touch to help you come to a decision?" Sam slowly reached for his knife once again. There was a reason it was his favourite; Bobby had given it to him three years before – Dean and John had one each too. Silver down the centre and blessed iron edges, it was good for most things the Winchesters encountered, and would reveal a were or shapeshifter of any kind if the silver was pressed against their skin. He pulled the knife out of his waistband and offered it to Mona, keeping a firm grip on the hilt. Mona held out her hand with another of her small smiles and let him press the flat of the blade against her palm; silver and blessed iron making full contact. Again nothing. Not a were or shifter then. Sam breathed a little easier and put his knife away.
There were still other supernatural creatures that Mona could be that couldn't be so easily tested for, and even a human could still be dangerous, but Sam felt it was worth the risk to get some answers. He hauled himself to his feet once again and glanced a question at Mona.
"Ok. I'll come, but I'd like some answers as we walk and then I'll decide if I'm going to stay or not." He tried to hide the weariness from his voice, but it was still there around the edges. They set off at a slow walk up one if the side streets, Sam's bag slung over his shoulder once more.
"So then tell me, who or what is The Assembly?" Sam prompted after a few minutes of silent walking.
"There are six of us. A real range of ages and backgrounds. The only thing we all have in common is that we're all psychics of one sort or another." She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, checking his reaction. There wasn't one. Sam had met several psychics over the years and although John didn't like them much, not liking the idea of someone rooting around in his mind, the Winchesters all knew how useful a psychic could be when needed. "Good. Not a blink. So, you know about that much at least. We struggle to see so much about you, so we couldn't tell if you'd have any trouble believing me." Sam frowned, both at the thought that people were using their abilities in his direction without him knowing about it, and also at the fact that apparently something about him made it difficult.
"Could my dad have had another psychic put some kind of protection over us to keep people out?" He wandered aloud.
"We don't think that's it. It doesn't feel separate from you." Mona gave a little shrug "Our best guess is that you've got a block - a natural wall built around your mind, which is pretty much unheard of for one as young as you. Natural mental abilities aren't supposed to emerge until adulthood." She stopped by a small house and gestured towards the blue door. "This is us."
"What do you mean by natural mental abilities?" Sam asked "Like psychic abilities? You think I've got some kind of psychic power?" He scoffed, expecting Mona to join in, but she didn't, she just fixed him with a steady gaze until he dropped his own.
"Yes, Sam. You do. I could feel it coming off you in small doses even years ago when I first saw you. And it just plain shouldn't be active yet, let alone back then, so you can understand why we're so eager to meet and help you out."
The inside of the house was small and cramped, but welcoming; the wood floors and panelling somehow creating a warmth to the rooms. In the front room there were six strangers, sitting in a collection of mis-matched easy chairs and couches. Strangely, Sam felt relaxed and at ease with them; not a common experience for a Winchester at the best of times.
"So, let me make some introductions." Mona said brightly. "Over there on the couch by the fireplace we've got Lynne, she's a Finder, Justin – a pagan witch and our resident hacker and Amanda, who runs an herbal remedy store and has a healing ability. The guy in the big armchair on your right is Stef, and he's got a mixed talent; clairvoyance and precognition, with a touch of telepathy on a good day, then finally over by the desk is my sister Fiona, another witch and our researcher and record keeper." As she named each of them they smiled and waved at Sam who was just trying to keep all the names and skills straight in.
"Um. Hi, I guess." Sam replied with a small guarded smile. His mind was whirling, and the exhaustion was hitting him hard. Mona gave him a look over and sharply clapped her hands together, making Sam jump.
"Well we can do proper introductions in the morning and get to know each other over the next few days, but it looks to me like Sam is dead on his feet. I've moved most of my stuff into Fiona's room, Sam so you can take my room. Come on; it's just up here and first on the left." She gestured at the stairs and Sam gratefully headed towards his room where he barely managed to pull off his shoes and tuck his knife under his pillow before he passed out cold for the night.
When he finally woke the next day, Sam was more than a little surprised at how well rested he felt. Normally any night spent without the reassuring quiet snoring from Dean in the opposite bed, or at least the louder and more throaty snoring from John, was a night filled with sudden jerking awake and panicked gasping for breath until he was sure of his safety. But there was something about the house he was staying in that seemed to just radiate safety and reassurance, a silent hum throughout the whole building. As he sat at the table for breakfast, surrounded by The Assembly, Sam was unsurprised to find that the same feeling poured off his new friends too. The laughter and teasing around the table spoke of family rather than a group of friends, although Sam was fairly sure he could see something deeper flowing between a few of the members. He was pulled out of his thoughts by a jabbing elbow from his left.
"So then, kid, I guess it's time we got started, eh?" Sam looked at him in confusion; Stef, if he was remembering the brief introductions from the night before correctly.
"Started with what exactly? I still don't really know precisely what I'm doing here with all of you, or what you all get out of helping me."
"Well until we've given you a good looking over we're not exactly sure ourselves, but we do know that you need our help, and that helping you will help us all. The best way to go about answering all our questions is to go looking for the answers, and the best way to do that is to go sit and stare at some candles for a bit." Stef stood with a wide grin and a wink, his short blond hair and twinkling blue eyes making him look like a mischievous little boy even though before that grin Sam had him placed in his late forties.
"Stare at candles?" Sam asked, baffled. But Stef had already left the table and was walking out back.
Following behind, Sam found they were walking to a small outbuilding in the back yard. Inside Stef had set up a small table with a line of white church candles, a cushion on either side. Stef walked straight in and sat on one of the cushions, waving at the other for Sam to take a seat himself.
"So, before we can work out how to help you, we need to know exactly what your abilities are and how in the hell they became active so early in you. So, what I need you to do is to sit there real quiet and stare into the middle flame then the far left one, then the middle one again, then the one just left of centre, then…"
"Then the middle again and the far right and so on?" Sam interrupted.
"That's it. You just continue the pattern over and over again, focusing for a good five seconds or so on each flame in turn. Let everything else slip away into the distance and focus on nothing but the flames." As he spoke in a quiet soothing tone, Stef lit each of the candles and blew out the match. Sam began following instructions, letting his vision focus on each flame in turn, just the way his dad had taught him to focus on a target when shooting, letting everything else fade into the distance, even his own thoughts. He had no idea of time, so he could have been staring there for just a few minutes or for several hours, all he was aware of was the flames, growing taller and thinner now, then shorter and wider, each flame melding into the next creating a solid wall of flickering yellow flame. With no separate candles to direct his eyes, Sam just let his vision settle on the new single large flame and let his mind go still.
The flames flattened out, a brightly glowing movie screen and a picture began to form of Sam and Stef as they were sitting on either side of the table.
"That's excellent, Sam. Just what I needed. Now we need to hit rewind and find the beginning of your troubles, so we can understand how to help. Think back for me, let your mind take the story back to when you first met Mona." Stef's soothing voice directed, and Sam followed suit, casting his mind through his memories to the previous day and meeting Mona in the street.
"Ok, that's the right idea, but I need you to go much further back, look for the time when Mona first encountered you in the library when you were eight." Sam did as requested, the scene shifting effortlessly into a perfect picture of the Ely Public Library, a skinny, scruffy-clothed kid sat at a large oak table, surrounded by a mountain of huge old reference books.
"Perfect, Sam. That's perfect. Now can you take us back a year before that? A significant event maybe?" Sam changed the scene again, a dark graveyard replacing the library in the flames, Sam crouching behind a gravestone now, clutching shotgun that dwarfed his little frame. Dean's image came sprinting past the gravestone and Little Sam jumped to his feet, aiming and pulling the trigger almost instantaneously as a ghoul came past, hot on Dean's heels. The ghoul splattered everywhere as little Sam staggered under the kickback of the shotgun.
"Nice going, Sammy!" Dean's jubilant voice echoed dimly through the flames.
"Yeah yeah, Dean. Now can we please go back to the motel? My ass and toes are frozen, and I've got a history test to study for." Sam's reedy seven-year-old voice piped back, and the scene froze.
"Jesus fuck, kid. You're a hunter? What the hell were you doing hunting that young?" Stef muttered under his breath. The comment barely pinging on Sam's consciousness. Stef cleared his throat. "Ok, well that was certainly a significant event. Can you take us back another year again, find another event that sticks in your mind when you were about six?"
Again, Sam obeyed, and then again, going back around a year each time and pulling up scenes of poltergeist hunts, salt and burns and werewolves, most often viewed by a progressively younger Sam through the window of the Impala.
"Fuck sake we're at two years old and the powers are already present. How young was he when they first developed?" Stef wondered out loud. "And what the hell kind of life this for a kid? Or kids, as I'm guessing this Dean must be his brother." With a tired sigh, Stef loosened his tight shoulder muscles and pressed on with his task. "Same again then, Sam. One year back, look for something memorable to focus on.
This time Sam called up a scene of him and Dean sitting in front of the TV on a dirty carpet in an equally dirty motel room. Over the sound of the TV, the faint muffled sobs of a broken-hearted man could be heard, echoing slightly from the bathroom. Stef could almost feel the despair through the flames, and he quickly directed Sam to make another jump back, eager to escape the strong emotion.
"One more time, Sam. Let's make it just six months this time." Stef directed, hoping that he wouldn't have to go back and witness Sam's birth first-hand to locate the beginning of his developing abilities. Sam followed his instructions, the scene changing once more to a nursery with a six-month-old Sam squirming slightly in his crib. "Finally!" Stef breathed. No sign of his abilities. But they were woken up this early? Between one and two years of age? That's crazy. How?" He mused as the nursery scene flickered in the flames. A man entered the room and walked over to the crib, leaning over the baby Sam and holding his hand up, directly over his face. Stef's eyes bugged out. "Demon!" he breathed in awed fear. "That's how your abilities got started up so early; the son-of-a-bitch demon jump started them for you."
A woman walked into the nursery scene and all hell broke loose. She slid up the wall, her stomach opened, and flames erupted around her as she laid there pinned to the ceiling. Another man rushed in through the door, grabbing up baby Sam and handing him off to another young boy, ordering him to run as he desperately tried to save his wife from the flames.
Wide eyed, Stef stared at Sam, noting the sweat pouring off the boy and the distressed breathing pattern. He pulled himself to his senses and as smoothly as he could, talked Sam away from the scene and to a happier image of two boys throwing a tatty old football back and forth in a dusty park somewhere. Quietly, Stef left Sam enjoying the scene as he slipped outside to try to catch his own breath and calm down. He didn't need a mirror to know that he was ashy grey and wild-eyed as he leaned against the wall, muttering the same phrase to himself over and over.
"What the ever-loving fuck was all that about?"
S&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&DS&D
It took Stef several minutes to calm and centre himself enough to return inside to Sam, in the years since he'd honed his own abilities, he'd never seen anything even close to what Sam had shown him in the candle flames. Not just the type of life he'd already lived for such a young kid, or even the demon attack and the horrifying blood-feeding, though they were more than enough to shake Stef up beyond anything he'd experienced before, but on top of all that, the sheer scope of Sam's gifts was staggering. On a first attempt, for anyone, let alone a child to successfully project their thoughts the way Sam had was unheard of. The clarity of the images was also beyond the skills of most of the gifted people Stef knew. Then there was the control and understanding of his ability that Sam had demonstrated almost immediately. There was no doubt about it; Sam was the most talented psychic Stef had ever met, and once he was fully trained, he would be several orders of magnitude better than anyone Stef had ever even heard of. And if he's only got that one talent tucked away in his brain, I'll eat all of Amanda's hat collection. With an amused snort, He walked quietly back inside to Sam, finding him just as he'd left him; sat staring into the candle flames at two happy brothers playing. He re-took his cushion opposite Sam and gently murmured.
"Ok then, Sam. You did really great with following my instructions, so now we're going to change things up a little, ok?" Sam gave an almost imperceptible nod and Stef continued. "Right. I'm going to ask you to turn your focus away from the flames now, and instead, think real hard about your left arm. I want you to concentrate on every fibre, every vein, every nerve and bone. I want you to block out everything else in the universe apart from my voice and your left arm. Feel the bones deep inside, the tendons and the blood vessels, look at them inside your mind and know that they are, every single cell of them, under your total control."
A quick glance at Sam told Stef that the kid was following instructions, but whereas on the previous exercise Sam's face had been completely relaxed, his forehead now was furrowed, his expression tense and frustrated.
"Tell me, Sam. Can you feel every cell? Can you see them? Can you visualise the bones and tendons and veins?" Sam made an irritated noise.
"Kind of, but it's all fuzzy around the edges and I can tell that I should be able to control it all and make changes if I want to, but it's all out of focus and just out of reach. Kind of like a table full of Legos in a room behind a dirty window; I know how to use Legos, and I know what they do, but I can't see them properly or get to them through the glass." Sam explained in frustration.
"That's pretty good, Sam. You won't be able to do everything I ask you to try, we just got lucky the first time. With some of these things you won't be able to even grasp what I'm asking, some will seem like second nature, and some, like this one will be things you understand but aren't able to do just yet."
Sam's head shot up to stare at Stef; what he'd just heard was completely alien to him. With John, every new skill was drilled into him until it became second nature. From day one he was expected to understand it, master and excel in it, and failure would bring about a barrage of verbal abuse and emotionally crippling disappointment. Never in his life had he ever been told that it was okay if he didn't get something first time, if he didn't get it at all. Suddenly a weight was lifted from Sam's shoulders. Maybe here with The Assembly things would be better. Maybe here with the Assembly Sam could be himself, could come out safely and explore who he was, not just with the abilities Mona, Stef and the others seemed sure that he had, but also the rest of him. He felt lighter than he could remember ever feeling before.
"Alright then, so what's next?" he asked Stef with a new sense of hope and determination; he still felt the absence of Dean like he was missing one of his own limbs, but perhaps by filling in the rest of him, he could lessen the pain of that amputation.
For the next five hours or so, with just a few comfort breaks and a quick break for a sandwich, Stef and Sam worked steadily at identifying just what gifts Sam had, how strong they were and how much he'd need to learn in order to maximise his potential. By the time the pair of them dragged themselves back into the house for dinner, Sam's brain was once again sluggish and reeling, in desperate need of sleep. He slumped down onto the couch next to Amanda, one arm thrown across his eye to block out the low light that was spearing through his eyes into his brain like red hot nails. Amanda quickly rose and crossed to a set of drawers on the other side of the room, rooting through the draws while muttering under her breath and pulling this bottle and that jar out.
"You look like you've been through the wringer, Sam." She murmured sympathetically "just give me a moment and I'll put something together that will at least lessen the headache I'm sure you're suffering with. Stef can be a real drill sergeant sometimes." Sam let out an amused snort.
"Trust me, Stef's got nothing on my Dad. I've lived my whole life training under a drill sergeant, so I can take anything Stef's got to dish out. It's just that this is mental instead of physical."
"Well be that as it may, there's something I can do about that headache and I'm going to do it." She started mixing various powders and pungent oils in a small wooden bowl and crossed back over to Sam on the couch. "And I'll be having words with Stef too. He's got no business pushing you this hard." She frowned. "Now sit back a little and let me at that sore head."
Amanda gently tugged Sam back to lie across the couch and started a light massage of his temples. The oily mix on her fingertips smelled strongly of several herbs Sam was vaguely familiar with from hunting. The pain behind his eyes started to gradually ease as she massaged, and Sam became aware of a strange buzzing and humming feeling inside his head. It didn't seem to be dangerous or damaging, but nonetheless Sam didn't like it. It felt alien and raised his naturally suspicious caution. Without really knowing exactly what he was doing, he sort of flexed his mind, pushing back against the foreign feeling, and suddenly it was gone, Amanda shoved back on her heels without Sam having touched her. She stared at him in shock.
"Wow, Sam. That was quite some block. How did you know how to do that?"
"Block?" Sam asked, confused. "I didn't even move."
"Not physically, no. But when you felt me tinkering around inside your head, trying to ease that pain, you threw up a big solid wall and shoved against it to get me out. I'm guessing you didn't like the feeling?" she slowly raised her hands to his head and paused, waiting for Sam to give her the go-ahead. He nodded, and Amanda went back to the temple massage, this time as far as he could tell without any other additional stimulus.
"It's not that it felt dangerous or painful or anything. It was just foreign – recognisably not me, - and I just kind of reacted on instinct. I'm sorry if I hurt you."
Amana smiled. "No, you didn't hurt me. But I am impressed; the fact that you could feel what I was doing and recognise it as an outside force is very impressive. As is the fact that you put up such an effective block without training. I'd be willing to bet that's why we've always had such a hard time searching for you and finding out what you needed from us. You've had a block built around you for all this time; a natural protective barrier you created without knowing it." She sat back on her heels and dropped her hands. "There. That should help a bit. I can't do anymore without getting inside your head and lifting the pain internally, and there's no way I'm going to get past that block of yours, and you're going to have to spend a while training yourself to let it down when you need to. There was something else in there too. I've not felt it before, but it was kind of dark and greasy. We'll need to sit down with Stef and work out a training schedule for you. Maybe work out what that extra something was too." Amanda stood and took the bowl out towards the kitchen.
"For now, though, you're going to need a big meal and plenty of sleep to recharge after such a draining day." She said over her shoulder. "Dinner will be at least half an hour, so why don't you go up and shower before that, get all that oil out of your hair."
Sam gave a tire chuckle and hauled himself up off the couch, his long limbs feeling heavy and uncoordinated.
"A shower sounds good, and dinner even better." He agreed. "I'll be back down soon to help out."
Amanda waved him off. "Not needed. Oh, don't get me wrong; we'll have you taking your turn around the place before long – we all pull our own weight here – but for now your focus should be finding your gifts and training with them. We need to know as much as possible, so we can help you. And that's something we all know without any doubt, we need to help you. It's important to your wellbeing, ours, and maybe everyone else's too."
The thought troubled Sam, but Amanda had continued on into the kitchen and he was clearly dismissed. He took himself off to shower as instructed.
Amanda had been right to send Sam up for a shower; he felt much better once he'd rinsed off the herbal oil. He still felt drained of all energy and heavy-limbed, and he was starving hungry. Whatever was cooking downstairs smelled fantastic. His stomach growled loudly as he trudged slowly down the stairs. Walking into the kitchen, he found the whole Assembly crowded around a table heaving with food, Stef and Amanda already shovelling food into their mouths like they were competitively eating, and Fiona absentmindedly popping the odd mouthful in between making notes on the small book she had balanced on the only corner of the table not crowded with food. The others were patiently waiting for Sam to join them before they started eating.
"Come on and grab a chair, Sam." From the brief introduction the night before, Sam remembered this guy's name was Justin. He was a tall guy – about Sam's height – but a little more filled out. With each growth spurt, Sam's carefully built muscle mass had stretched out, making him appear scrawny which irritated him to no end. Justin appeared to be in his early twenties and had short dark hair and wide chocolate brown eyes. There was the same quiet peaceful feeling radiating off him that came from the other members of The Assembly, yet something about his eyes told Sam that Justin could be a real prankster when he felt like it. Sam liked him immediately.
"Thanks." Sam said as he sat down next to Justin. "So, what's for dinner?"
"Oh, we've got a full spread tonight." Justin replied with a wide arm gesture across the whole table. "We knew that however hungry Stef and Amanda would be after helping you, you'd be at least twice as hungry, if not more. Using mental gifts burns through calories like running a marathon. So, we've got a bit of everything; macaroni and cheese, burgers, baked ham, lasagne, pizza and Chinese. Not everything's been homemade, so you can take that worried look off your face and stop fretting that we've been slaving away in the kitchen for you all day." Justin said with an amused snort, correctly interpreting the concerned expression on Sam's face as he looked over the huge spread of food. "Some of it Fiona and Mona picked up from this really great diner in town." Sam remembered the local diner from his last stay in town years ago. Dean had raved about the burgers and the pie in the place for months after they'd left. Sam felt a guilty pang at the thought of being able to enjoy Dean's favourites without him and firmly shoved it down; Dean wouldn't want to eat from the Ely Diner again if it meant having to spend time with his gay brother to do so.
Shaking off that depressing thought, he picked up the bowl of mac and cheese and served himself a huge portion, grabbing some garlic bread and a couple of slices of baked ham to go with it. He tucked in without any further delay.
"We've been arguing…"
"Debating!" Interrupted Lynne from Sam's other side.
"Sorry Debating" Justin corrected himself with a smirk "How best to go about training you up, Sam. Stef has made copious notes on what latent abilities you seem to have, and while you're not some miracle human with every ability known to mankind, you do have a wider spread of abilities than any of us have heard of before, and a couple of them have a scope and depth rarely seen even in a fully trained adult. Certainly, never in a child."
"I'm not a child." Sam grumbled through a mouthful of ham. Glaring at Justin. "I'm fifteen years old and a Winchester."
"Fifteen is legally a child, Sam." Justin replied with a tilt of his head. "And what does being a Winchester have to do with your age?"
"Numerically nothing." Sam answered with a casual shrug, swallowing his mouthful. "But my family isn't like others. My dad's been hunting since before I even turned a year old, and he put a gun in my hand the moment I had the strength to hold it up. Every day of my life until I left them a few days ago has been full of physical training, target practice, research, memorising hunting techniques for various monsters, and helping my dad and my brother save people and hunt things. I made my first kill when I was seven, dug up and burned my first dead body before that. I haven't been a child since I was two, maybe not even then if what Stef and I discovered about what happened to me when I was nine months old is true."
Sam glanced up; the whole table had gone silent. Looks ranging from sympathy to pity and horror were directed at him from The Assembly. Mona and Fiona were gripping each other's hands tightly and Stef was rubbing Amanda's back gently while she looked like she was trying hard not to burst into tears. Lynne stared blankly at her plate and Justin cautiously reached out his hand and rested it on Sam's wrist, not wanting to spook him. Sam wasn't spooked, but it was a little odd to him – apart from Dean, he'd never had anyone touch him with gentleness that he could remember – not even John. It wasn't that his dad was violent with Sam or Dean – it was just that for as long as Sam could remember, Dean had been the one to take care of him, dress him, hug him, feed him when he was young enough to need it, and treat wounds and illnesses when he grew older. Justin cleared his throat.
"Fair enough, Sam. I guess we can say that by all measures that we use to judge a man, apart from age, you qualify as an adult. I'm sorry if I offended you. All I meant was that we've never met or even heard of anyone under the age of eighteen managing to access their abilities, and we're impressed by your scope at such a young age." He patted Sam's wrist and pulled his hand back.
"It's alright I guess. I shouldn't have jumped down your throat. In fact, there's one way in which you're quite right; legally I am a child. If I stay here with all of you, that's going to create some problems, and I need to do something about completing high school. My brother ended up dropping out because our dad found it much more convenient to our hunting to have Dean on hand full time. I don't want to follow the same path. I'd always planned on going to college when I was old enough, as a way to escape the hunting life, but I've got other ideas now. Still I want to be able to graduate, or all the years of grinding myself practically to dust maintaining my A average despite school-hopping will be wasted."
The others around the table nodded in understanding, Mona and Fiona with approving smiles.
"Well I can do my thing and fix a lot of that." Justin said brightly, breaking the tension at the table. "I've not had a good hacking challenge for ages, so it'll be fun getting my teeth into the issue of your custody and school records. I take it you'd prefer to remain yourself, rather than having me set you up a whole new identity?"
Sam nodded emphatically. "Yes! Like I said, I've worked too damn hard for too long to lose everything I've worked for by becoming a whole new person. Besides, my new plan requires me to be Sam Winchester for a good number of years yet."
"New plan?" Lynne asked, confused. "What new plan? What is it you want to do?"
"I've spent my entire life hearing how I'm not good enough. Not fast enough, strong enough, smart enough. Not Dean enough." He took a deep breath and me Lynne's eyes defiantly. "Not straight enough." He paused and looked around the other faces, looking for judgement, disgust. He found none. Understanding and sympathy from most around the table was all he could read, and pride from Lynne and Justin. That last confused him a little, but he put a pin in that for the moment and pressed on. "I got to hear daily how I'd never make it in the forces like my dad did; how a faggot like me would wash out before the end of boot camp. It didn't matter that I never actually came out to him or my brother. I'm pretty sure my dad either worked it out for himself or at least suspected it. If I'd ever told him outright it would've been a total fucking horror fest. My brother definitely worked it out. And he really wasn't happy about it." Sam stared off into the distance, remembering the expression of hate on Dean's face as he repeatedly punched that tree. With a gusting sigh he shook it off. "Anyway, I've heard my whole life about how I'd never make it in the marines like my dad did. I'm going to prove him wrong. I'm going to make him eat his words, and not only will I make it, I'm going to out-rank him in the process. We'll see what he thinks about his fairy-boy son after that!"
Silence had once again fallen across the table. Some of them had tears in their eyes, all of them looked angry, but not with Sam. He startled a little as once again Justin gently patted his wrist. Sam offered him a tight smile and went back to his meal. Steadily focusing his attention on his plate until he heard the tale-tale signs of the others returning to their own dinners. This time Justin gave Sam's wrist a little squeeze before letting go, and on his other side, Lynne leant against him for a brief moment, her body heat offering a little more comfort.
Across the table, Stef cleared his throat.
"Well alright then. Sam Winchester remains, and Justin will work his magic – the computer type – to change your legal custody over to one of us and have your school records follow you here. The only problem with that is that it'd make it easy as pie for anyone to find you. Which I'm guessing is not what you want, and while normally we're not in the business of assisting runaways, this is definitely a special case. The small amount that Mona and I could see gave us no doubt that you need help, and that help has to come from us. For everyone's sake. We can't help you if you're out all around the country with your family hunting, and that's how it will be if they find you here."
"So, I'll combine both types of magic to fix this." Justin piped up cheerfully. "Sam here can give me a list of people who might look for him, and as I hack into and change his files, I'll lay on a good old-fashioned glamour aimed at those specific people, making it look like the files are completely untouched. Fiona can help me research a likely spell for the job, and voila – Sam will legally be no longer in his dad's custody in the eyes of everyone who looks, apart from the ones who would come to get him if they knew." He grinned at Sam who returned it, another weight lifted from his shoulders.
"I really don't think they'll even bother looking for me to be honest, but it makes sense to be cautious – that's why I covered my tracks so carefully when I left. I can easily give you a list of who might look for me. There are only four people on it. My dad doesn't trust people easily, he's only got two people he calls friend, and even they are more hunting contacts than friends. Hell, one of them threatened him with a shotgun the last time we saw him." Sam snorted.
"Your dad seems like a real peach." Lynne muttered with disgust. "Right, then we've worked out how to keep you here with us, what your plan is going forward, and how to get you graduated from high school. Justin and Fiona can each start working on all of that after dinner; the sooner we get it all sorted, the better. I'm not clear on how getting you into the marines is going to be important in the wider scheme of things though, like how it's so important to the world in general that Mona and Stef had visions about how important it would be to help you. So, the only conclusion I can come to on that front is that it's important that The Assembly trains you in your gifts. In fact, if I follow that thought to its logical conclusion, we should probably train you in pagan magic and hacking too to be safe."
The round of "Huh?"s that came from everyone around the table made her lift an eyebrow in amused distain at her colleagues' lack of discernment.
"Well it's obvious isn't it? There are lots of people who could train Sam in his gifts. One or two of them might even be do a better job – no offence, Stef."
"Some taken." Stef replied with a tight jaw.
"My point is, that for him to have been pointed our way so distinctly, there must be something about our merry little band specifically that is important to Sam. So that means we need to teach him everything we all know. Or we might miss the exact thing he needs."
The shocked silence from the rest of The Assembly was as good as a resounding chorus of agreement.
So, for the rest of the evening the group traded ideas back and forth, putting together a schedule for Sam that included his school work, training in his gifts, learning his way around Amanda's herbal business, and training in Justin's magic and hacking skills. On top of all that, Sam insisted that his physical training and weapons training not suffer. He was going to need his fitness and fighting skills to complete his plan in the marines after all.
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They'd been sitting in the outbuilding for nearly an hour, the candle had warmed the air until none of the morning's chill remains, but Sam still couldn't call up any images the way Stef was asking. Throwing up his hands in disgust, Sam let out a frustrated sigh.
"It's no good. We've been trying this for hours at a time for days and days. This isn't working. Either I'm just fucking useless at this, or you were wrong and it's not a gift in my goody bag."
"Mind the language, Sam." Stef warned half-heatedly. None of them had had any luck with cleaning up Sam's potty mouth. The dirty vocabulary was too well ingrained. "But you're right about one thing." He continued. "This isn't working. We need to change tracks. Find a new way of pulling the imaged forward." Stef sat and stared at his hands for a few minutes, thinking through the next step. Suddenly he clapped his hands sharply.
"I've got a new plan. I'm going to ask you to use your imagination a bit here. Everyone's imagination works a little differently, and what works for one person won't necessarily work for another. Similarly, what works with one of your gifts might not be effective when it comes to another. I know you've got this gift, Sam; and strongly too. In fact, I'm fairly sure it's the strongest of your skills. If you can go backwards in time and call up images, then you can go forward. It's just how clairvoyant projection works. Retrocog and precog always come as a pair. It's buy one, get one free." He gave Sam a wry smile. Sam just rolled his eyes in return. He was fast becoming used to Stef's weird sense of humour.
"What do you need me to do then?" Sam asked in resignation.
"I'll explain to you how I make it work for me. You might have some luck trying it my way, or you might need to tweak it to suit your own needs." He rolled his shoulders and took a breath. "What I do is I imagine a huge tv screen. I picture every tiny detail about the tv – the screen, the wire, the plug, the remote. I let myself focus on nothing other than the screen, the way that I had you focus completely on the candle flames before. I let everything else drift and fall away until I am the screen, as well as the person watching it. Then I pick a channel. I can pick a history channel or a news channel, or a sci-fi channel. Past, present, and future. I can then switch channels within those categories and find the exact moments I need to see. Eventually, my system fitted me so well that I can be busy with an everyday task, not meditating at all, and I'll get a "news flash" type deal. That's how I got the vision about you and knew that we had to help you." Stef chuckled under his breath. "Granted, the new report was fuzzy and badly tuned, due to that block you've got up, but your need was so urgent that the message still got through. Now for you, the tv thing might not work. You might ned to take a different track. Maybe create a library for yourself or build yourself a cable car type deal. Whatever it is, you create a method that suits your mind and imagination. Pick a track and work out your way, okay?" He fixed Sam with a stern expression, clearly determined that Sam get this.
"I'll give it a go." Sam agreed. "But how do I even get started? How do I know what'll work for me?"
"You sit here and clear your mind of everything. Total blank up there in your noggin. Then you let the idea come to you. When it does, you just follow it along its route until you've got a complete working system. It'll take you surprisingly little time once you have an in. Fuck, with your scope and strength, I'd be willing to bet that you'll have your entire method up and running by dinner tonight and will be eating us out of house and home to pay off the calories."
"Mind the language, Stef." Sam said dryly, making Stef roll his eyes and laugh. "Ok. I'll sit here and float around in my consciousness like a good little hippy."
"Don't let Amanda hear you say stuff like that, kid. You'll be needing to eat and drink from sealed containers for months in case she slips some herb or another into you in payback." Stef threw over his shoulder as he left the room. Setting Sam to laughing for several minutes until he could get it under control.
He did as Stef had asked, letting every thought and desire slip away from his mind and fizzle into the darkness. One by one, he brushed off each thought until he was floating in a light blankness inside his own mind. As was usual to Sam, off to one side was a darker, formless blob that seemed to be independent from him. Stef and Mona had no clue about what this could be. Neither of them had ever experienced the like; their blank state was completely empty. Stef's only possible suggestion was that it might be to do with the demon blood – he pointed out that Amanda had sensed something a little dark and other in the brief moments she'd been inside Sam's head. In irritation Sam threw off his curiosity. It had no place in his mind right then. The thought fizzled away like the others and Sam was once again empty.
He had no idea how long he stayed in that state – time was another thing that had no place in the blankness – but then he became aware of a faint sound. Slowly, the sound became louder and clearer, more distinct. A train! No sooner had the thought popped into his head, then a set of tracks rolled out in front of him. Like a ribbon unrolling and transforming into solid tracks as they hit the ground.
Well Stef said I needed to find another track. Sam thought, turning to see the tracks stretch out as far as he could see in each direction. Well I've got forward and back, so I guess that's past and future, and I must be standing in the present. He mused. But I'll need a way to travel each direction. He barely finished the thought before he found himself sitting in a train carriage, a huge window next to his seat.
Cool! So, I've got transport, a viewing window, and tracks to go forward and back. Then I guess each station will be a point in time. I pick a station, and I pick a moment in time along with it. Huh. Stef has tv stations, I have train stations… well he did tell me to find a new track. I guess my subconscious took him literally. He looked around his train carriage and out of the, presently black, window.
Well now I've got a method, do I make use of it by myself, or hold off until Stef can supervise. For that matter, how can I project this so that Stef can witness with me? Is it even possible to do that? He mused. How much longer will I have to wait until he comes back out to see how I'm doing?
The thought wasn't even complete when the train carriage slipped forward a few feet. The window was suddenly light, and a clean and well-maintained station came into view the sign on the station wall reading "The outbuilding, Assembly House, Ely, Minnesota." To the right of the sign was a large digital clock, the red numbers showing Sam that day's date and 3:22pm. On the platform, an image of Sam sitting in the outbuilding appeared, just as Sam knew he was right at that moment. The door opened, and Stef walked in. The Sam in the image opened his eyes and grinned at Stef.
Sam let his mind pour back into his body and opened his eyes, grinning at Stef as he walked in, just as he had on the train platform.
"3:22pm." Sam stated to Stef with authority. "That's the exact time right now. I knew you'd walk in at 3:22pm." Stef looked at his watch and then back up at Sam with an answering grin.
"Bang on, kid. I knew you'd get it quick once you had a method. I can't believe I didn't think of trying it this way days ago." He reached out a hand for Sam to grab and hauled the younger man to his feet. "I bet you're starving. Let's go grab a snack before dinner and you can tell me all about your system.
With broad grins on both faces, the two headed across the yard and into the house.
Dinner that evening was another huge spread, laughter and loud conversation flowing as quick as the beer and soda around the table. Suggestions and questions about Sam's new skill set flew back and forth, with everyone shouting each other down until no one could hear anything that was said. Mona stood suddenly and banged her beer bottle down on the table, startling everyone quiet.
"Alright, everyone. We've all obviously got questions and ideas, but if we don't make an effort to take turns here, none of us are going to get anywhere. So, let's start with Fiona and then make our way around the table until everyone's had their say. Keep it to one question or suggestion at a time; we can always circle back around if there are more." She sat back down, and Fiona leaned forward, elbows on the table.
"Sam., I wanted to know if you had any sense of driving the train. Or if it drove itself?"
Sam paused for a moment, calling up the memory and examining it carefully.
"Actually, it was a bit of both I think. A thought popped into my head – I was wondering how long it would be until Stef came back to check on me, and then the train slid forward on the tracks and the station appeared in the window. Location, time and date all clearly labelled for me," Stef chuckled a bit at that.
"Seriously, kid. Leave it to you and your controlled and organised mind to label your visions so clearly for you. I have to scout around my visions looking for clues, like an envelope on a counter with an address, or the length of the shadows across the ground. Not you. All neatly labelled and filed." They all laughed, even Sam. Out of everyone in the house, he was the only neat freak and the only one who obsessed about organising all his school work. Even Fiona and Mona, the scholar and the librarian had nothing on Sam's retentiveness when it came to filing and organising. In fact, Sam had been taking advantage of his training time with Fiona to start cataloguing and organising her research and records. He'd been doing something similar in Amanda's herbal shop.
"My turn." Justin piped up cheerfully. "I'm wondering about the limitations; train tracks are linear, but the future isn't. Granted, there are some events that it's almost impossible to change once they've been set into motion. But decisions are the essence of chaos. Minute decisions can have big consequences - I decide to stop for coffee on my way into work, and I end up crossing the road a couple of minutes later, avoiding getting hit by the speeding car. Big decisions can have even bigger consequences – Herr and Frau Hitler decide not to have a baby, and six million Jews don't die in camps. How does that work within the framework of your train tracks?"
Sam was taken aback. He'd never really considered the nature of the future before. If pressed he probably would've said it was like a lightning flash – starting at a single point and spreading out at random in countless directions. But the moment his train tracks had appeared in his mind, his perspective was set; he didn't have any questions in his mind – he knew. He knew exactly how the future was laid out.
"The future IS linear. But it's not just one line." He could see the baffled looks around him, so he tried to explain it better. "The best way for me to explain this is to continue the train analogy, if that's ok?" Everyone nodded, so Sam took a breath and plunged onwards. "The moment of a person's birth isn't a terminal. The tracks run out behind that point as well as in front. For most people there are countless decisions that decide the line that their train follows. There's not just one line. Each decision is a switch on the track. The train continues on, maybe parallel to the original line, maybe in a completely separate direction, but either way, the stations and the destinations are different. With a later decision, it's even possible to re-join the original line, bypassing some of the stations. These are the people for whom a little decision could make a big difference."
The astonished expressions around the table also showed understanding. They were all amazed, but they got it. He continued.
"Some people have a predetermined journey. Somehow, somewhere in the past, before they were born, their train was set in motion, and they just took up residence when they were born. These people would have to make big, no HUGE decisions to make those big differences. Their little decisions are of no consequence whatsoever – their train is so firmly planted on their tracks, that only really big decisions can make their train jump to another track." He sat back and steadied himself. Even he was shocked with what had just come out of his mouth.
"Sam?" Lynne spoke carefully. "How do you know all that? I mean it sounds right to me, I can't explain why I think that, but it does sound right. But how do you know it?"
Sam shrugged." I don't know how I know. Just, the second Justin asked the question, I knew the answer. It was just right there and so obvious. Like I'd known it my whole life."
Conversation around the table had dried up completely. Everyone just sat there, food cooling on their plates as they switched from digesting food, to digesting information. They sat there like that for several minutes, in total silence. Until Sam's stomach let out a loud grumble. His shoulders started to shake with supressed laughter, Justin and Mona followed suit before long and soon they were all giggling like crazed pre-teen girls.
"I guess…" Sam stopped, trying to catch his breath "I guess that's a hint to tell us that life marches on even in the face of huge revelations." He picked up his fork and shovelled a huge mouthful of pot roast in, chewing around his chuckles as the others joined him.
"Tomorrow we need to get down to some real work then." Mona stated authoritatively. We need to work out what lies ahead on Sam's current track, how we can make changes, if it's even possible to do so, and there's still a question nagging at me. I want to know what this dark otherness is inside Sam. Stef's theory that it's got to do with the demon blood makes sense to me, and it was undoubtably the blood that jump started his gifts." She turned to Sam and held his gaze firmly. "It's so important that you completely understand that, Sam. The demon blood didn't give you your abilities. It just woke up what was already there – far too early, and without your say-so, but that's all it did. You always had the potential for this. It's not good or evil any more than any human being is at birth. It all comes down to you and how you use them. Just like it's all down to any person with free will how they use it. Ok, Hun? It's real important that you get that." Sam nodded.
"I understand, Mona. Thank you. I know I would've torn myself apart wondering about that otherwise. If that darkness I'm carrying around is in fact the demon blood, maybe we can work out a way to get rid of it completely from my system, or at least contain it to one place so that it can't do me or anyone else any harm."
"That's a brilliant idea!" Amanda burst out. "I think I can work out a way to kind of herd it through your body and isolate it somewhere in an extremity. It's going to take a lot of meditation, and I think probably some tattoos, but I think it's possible."
The idea was pretty exciting to Sam. To get all that shit out of his system was well worth some hard work and a little ink.
"Tomorrow then. Tomorrow we get down to some serious work." Sam raised his glass to his companions in a toast.
They all copied him. "Tomorrow!"
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Sam slept like a log that night and woke full of energy and determination. Sure, they'd been working on identifying and training his abilities already, but today felt like the real beginning of it all. He started back at school the following week and was determined that he was going to have at least some kind of handle on everything before that happened; he always found he worked better if he had everything organised and compartmentalised, and his schedule until he graduated and joined up was going to be fiercely busy. School, physical training and weapons training were all second nature to him – the balance was tricky, but he'd managed it before. Now he was adding in healing and herbal magic, coding, pagan magic and mental abilities training, oh and he'd better find himself a martial arts class somewhere too – not that he needed the lessons per say, but he couldn't let his skills lapse, and a martial arts teacher seemed the most sensible person for sparing practice.
After his morning run, a shower and a large breakfast, he and Stef headed out to the outbuilding as usual, this time accompanied by Amanda. Looks like we're tackling the demon blood thing first then. Sam surmised as they all filed in to find a cushion to sit on.
"We're tackling the demon blood thing first." Amanda stated firmly, making Sam bite the inside of his mouth to keep his laugh in. Next to her cushion, she had a pack of fine black sharpies, which had Sam lifting an eyebrow in silent enquiry.
"Fiona and I did a little research last night before Stef and I headed home." Amanda explained. "We found an ancient symbol called a devil's trap. Actually, there are several different types. Some are for warding, some for banishing, and some do as advertised; they trap demons. We debated for quite a while about using the banishing symbol, but we didn't know what that might do to you after having the blood in your system almost your entire life, so we decided on using the warding symbol instead. Take off your shoes and socks." Sam stared at her blankly for a moment, not used to this business-like version of Amanda. She was usually so unassuming and soothing. Kind of your stereotypical patchouli-loving hippy type. But now she was being very type A. She gestured at him to get on with it and he followed her instructions, silently blessing himself that he'd showered before breakfast.
"So, the plan is to hear the demon blood around your body until we have it all collected into one place." Amanda explained as she took out a sharpie. "The most logical first step is to have you centre yourself and get you focussing on the blood and tissues in one of your big toes to watch for a reaction as I draw a symbol on the very tip of it. It's my theory and hope that the demon blood is in your blood vessels and not permeated through your tissues. It'll be difficult and time consuming enough even if I'm right. If I am correct, then as we get better at this, it should be possible to have you draw all the blood away from an extremity and towards you heart, slap on a warding symbol in the empty area, and then release the blood. It shouldn't be able to pass beyond the warding. Then we just keep at it, session by session, driving it along until we have it all trapped in one spot. Then we'll have another long, stand-up, throw-down debate about what to do with it." Sam nodded his understanding, offering Amanda his left foot and centring his entire focus on his big toe to watch the proceedings internally. He still wasn't very good in this discipline. The centring and focussing part were fine, but it was all so fuzzy and blurry still. And he couldn't get a grip on anything internally. It was as if it was all coated in a greasy, oily substance.
Once his full attention was on the blood and tissues of his left big toe, he gave Amanda a nod, and she started drawing a tiny but complicated symbol onto the very tip of it. It tickled, but Sam pushed the feeling to one side, laser focusing on any changes that might occur. He knew the second Amanda completed the warding symbol. There was a sudden lurching feeling in his blood, and the fuzzy, blurry view of his toe was, in an instant, crystal clear. He jumped. His eyes flying up to meet Amanda's, filled with hope and excitement.
"You're right! It's just in the bloodstream. It leapt away from that warding symbol as if it was red-hot, and it's not flowing back." Sam blurted out at speed. "And suddenly I can see everything without that murky, blurriness that was there before. It was the demon blood blocking me. My toe is clear up to the first joint now."
The three of them gave a loud cheer and hugged each other before Amanda brought up a small issue.
"Problem is, Sam. Sharpie rubs off. And when it does, the demon blood will just rush back down. The only way I can think of to make the process permanent is tattoos. And we can't cover your entire body with tiny devil's traps permanently. Especially not if you're joining the marines; a couple of tattoos in discrete places wouldn't affect you joining up, but full body art made of arcane symbols? No way." They all sat back and thought over the problem.
"How about using the sharpie to drive it up several steps per session, and then making the last one permanent by tattooing it on?" Stef suggested. Amanda screwed up her nose, thinking it over,
"Well that would be better than making every warding a tattoo, but it's still going to be far too much ink for the armed forces to approve." She said slowly.
"Wait. Who are we going to find to tattoo a fifteen-year-old anyway?" Sam asked, just now realising that his age was going to be a problem.
"Oh, I'll do it." Amanda told him in a blasé manner. "I've got my tattoo gun and inks in the car. I just didn't want to hump it all out here if the warding didn't work like I hoped." Sam's eyebrows shot up.
"You're a tattoo artist?" he asked incredulously.
"Oh yeah. I spend a few years working in tattoo parlours here and there. I'm pretty good though I do say so myself. I keep my eye in by doing healing symbols for clients now and again." Stef grinned at her with pride.
"Hey!" Sam suddenly burst out. "If you're doing the tattooing, then it's simple. No need to explain things to an outside source." The other two just looked at him blankly, not following his train of thought. "Oh, sorry. I was just thinking that if we found a safe dye to use in a human body, we could do the tattoos with ultra violet ink. Would that work? I mean would the wardings have to be visible with the human eye, or would UV do the job?" Amanda looked up excitedly.
"Genius, Sam. Absolutely genius. We'd have to experiment, of course, make sure the UV ink would hold the warding, but I don't see why it wouldn't. We could decorate your entire body with anything we wanted if we did it in UV ink. YES!" Suddenly, hippy Amanda made a reappearance, and Sam realised just how tense and anxious she must've been that the wardings wouldn't work. His heart swelled as he realised how much she cared about him even though they hadn't known each other for long. Jumping up, he rushed over and wrapped her in his gangly arms, hugging the crap out of her. He was completely unaware that this was the first time he'd initiated any physical contact with any of The Assembly, let alone an affectionate touch, so he didn't notice Stef's wide eyes and raised brows or Amanda's burgeoning tears.
"If we're waiting on a safe UV ink, then I guess there's not much point in pressing on with this today." She choked out past her suddenly tight throat. "Let's just quickly go in and tell Fiona how well the first try went, and then you and Stef can come back out here and get to work while I make a start on researching safe UV inks."
No one had any argument for that suggestion, and so they all headed back to the house, Sam rushing ahead like an excited puppy, and Stef and Amanda following slowly behind, Amanda tucked neatly under Stef's arm as he helped her regain her equilibrium.
They only took a brief break before Amanda hustled herself off to the computer to start her hunt for safe UV ink for Sam, and he and Stef wandered back out to the outbuilding to press on with their work. As they walked, Sam remembered a question he'd had the day before.
"Stef, is there any way to project my precog visions the same way I did with my retrocog ones?" Stef shock his head.
"Not that I've ever found or heard of, kid. I don't know why that would be, but there you have it."
They sat down on their respective cushions and Sam started finding his blank space. It seemed to come to him quicker and quicker each time he tried it. As he worked on his focus, Stef talked quietly to him in the background.
"Ok, Sam. So, what you're going to do here is both very simple and terribly complicated at the same time. You should find that asking yourself a question; wondering about a specific future event, will send you speeding along right where you need to be. The tricky part is to keep yourself distanced and unemotional while you're watching. If you let yourself get emotional then you'll just fall straight out of the vision. And you'll have the mother of all headaches for your trouble." Steff warned. "You've got to keep that shit on lockdown, kid."
Sam vaguely registered what the older man was telling him, even as he continued to place himself in his blank space. After just a few more moments, he found himself sitting once again in his train carriage, the black window beside him. Sensing he was ready, Stef started directing Sam's progress.
"First off, we're going to take you backwards a bit, Sam. Your decision to leave your family and come to find us here in Ely may have been big enough to jump you out of your tracks, so we need to get back to the original line and follow it forward. See where it was heading. Sam followed his direction, taking the carriage speeding back down the track to the day he'd seen Dean having his meltdown, and so decided it was time to leave. Sure enough, there in front of him he saw a stich point in the tracks.
"So, if you've got there, I want you to follow the original track, see what's along that way. Sam obeyed, watching out of the window to see the scenes at each station along the way. The first station he stopped at showed him a scene of an older Sam, maybe eighteen. He was in a stand-up row with John, Dean standing by helplessly as the pair tore verbal shreds off each other. Sam was leaving to go to college and John was issuing an ultimatum.
"If you walk out of that door, Sammy, don't you ever come back." John's words echoed through Sam, even as an impassionate observer. He saw the wisdom of Stef's advice about keeping an emotional distance. He pushed the train further ahead, seeing himself trying desperately to fit in at college, even going so far as to get himself a girlfriend that there was no way he could've actually been sexually attracted to, despite that fact that she was stunningly beautiful. If that was where his future had been headed, Sam was glad he'd taken a detour. He'd only been with The Assembly for a few days, and already he felt more at home with himself than he ever had since he'd been little and unaware of what attraction was. He pushed forward again and saw Dean breaking into his apartment.
"Easy Tiger!" The amused and condescending tone ripped into Sam, suddenly so homesick for his brother that he imagined he could smell his leather and gun oil scent. His vision wavered, and Sam ruthlessly pushed his emotions into the background, firming up the vision and moving forward quickly to avoid a repeat.
"Dad's missing." He watched as the Sam on this track left college with Dean for a weekend to search for their dad, and then returned, after an eventful woman in white hunt, but no sign of their dad. He watched as this Sam walked away from Dean, knowing just how much it must've been hurting, and then suddenly a kind of murky black curtain fell across the window. No matter how hard Sam tried, he couldn't see through the blackness, and even the tracks ahead were muted and dark. Seeing no other options, Sam reversed the train back to the switch point and onto his current track. Pulling it forward to the current time, he could see the track ahead clearly. No sign at all of that murky black from the other track. So, it looked like he'd avoided something majorly bad by coming to Ely. Just what it was, remained to be seen.
Sam allowed himself to fall back into his body and passed on all he had seen to Stef. The blond looked as troubled and confused as Sam himself felt, and between them they agreed to put a pin in the discussion, and to spend the rest of their time trying something a little different.
"We're going to see if you can precog for other people or if it's just a personal ability." Stef explained. "From the little you've told us, I know that you're closest to your brother, Dean. Or you were anyway before you left." Sam hid the wince that offhand comment brought on. Stef didn't intend to hurt Sam, he just didn't understand. "I want you to put yourself back into your blank state but hold onto one thought – Dean. What should happen is, you should be able to follow his future. I'm guessing for you that will mean a slightly different train carriage to follow along a different track."
Once again, Sam followed his instructions, and faster than he'd expected, he found himself in a nearly identical carriage. He almost burst out laughing as he realised that in the background he could hear a Muzak version of "Eye of the Tiger". Dean would flip his shit if he heard that! Sam thought to himself. Working at maintaining his calm and staying in the meditative state. He glanced ahead at Dean's tracks and was horrified to see that the same murky blackness that had shrouded Sam's original line was covering Dean's. He pushed forward anyway, wanting, needing to see what he could before he got to the shrouded section of track. Station after station, hunt after hunt, Sam saw Dean's life playing out in the usual Winchester fashion, although it seemed to Sam that something was a little off; Dean was hurling himself at monsters and ghosts in a reckless manner. Seeming almost indifferent to his own wellbeing as he hunted. Sam frowned. Definitely not great. He wished he could find a way to have Dean's back on the hunt without having to force his unwanted presence on his brother. The answer came to him so suddenly that it jerked him back into his own body, the threatened headache already blooming behind his eyes.
He forced them open, despite the pain and searched for Stef who was standing leaning against the open door.
"Stef. I want to set up a new email account anonymously. Justin can do that for me, right?" He asked, wincing against the pain his own voice brought him.
"Well yeah, kid. But what's that got to do with anything?" He took a second look at Sam. Scowling as he noticed the squinted eyes and pinched expression. "You fell out of your blank space, didn't you? Damn kid, that always hurts like a bitch. Come on. Let's go see if Amanda can help you out." Sam obediently staggered to his feet and followed Stef out.
"I had an idea so brilliant that it jumped me out." Sam grimaced. "I could follow Dean's tracks easily, but a few years into the future and they're as murky as my original line was. He's still going to be hunting, and that's dangerous without me. Our dad's too single-minded to watch Dean's back properly. But if I can look ahead for him, find the dangers in each hunt and direct him past them, then I've still got his back from all the way out here, without him having to have me near him, without him even knowing it's me." He rambled on eagerly, unaware of the dismayed look Stef was giving him in response to his wording. "Justin can help me with that, right?" Sam asked again. Deciding not to get into the backstory right now, Stef just reassured Sam that Justin would be able to hook him up with an anonymous email account and led him inside to let Amanda work her particular brand of healing on the kid.
