A big thank you to JackFan2 for the beta work.

Chapter Six

Dean insisted on driving when they finally left Bobby's place. Sam took over the passenger seat of the Impala and slept as the taillights of Bobby's multicolor Chevelle serve as guide on their way to Chicago. Sam kept his silent promise of not pushing the subject and Bobby hadn't really made any sort of comment on it, but Dean could see and hear the doubts in his mind. The big white elephant that had been in the room before was now trotting at full speed behind the two cars.

No one had said anything about what they were going to do when they got to Chicago, or about Dean's 'condition'. Sam didn't say a word about Ruby; no one asked if Castiel would be dropping by to give them a hand. In their silence, they were all agreeing with each other.
Despite the urgency of their travel, the Winchesters weren't heading to Chicago in a straight line, something that would've probably gotten them there before the end of the day. They were making a stop in Iowa first. Apparently, it was important.

Bobby had only mentioned a contact of his that they were supposed to meet in Des Moines but even that had been somewhat cryptic, a single mention that it was someone that had something that could help them.

Sam had protested to some extent, reminding the older hunter that they were wasting their time and that he and Dean could head straight to Chicago and Bobby could catch up later. The suggestion, a too cold reminder to Dean and Bobby of the time Sam had spent hunting on his own, hadn't been well received by anyone.
Dean could feel the importance of the detour to Bobby, even if he couldn't get any stray thoughts coming from the older hunter. Bobby's mind was focused only on the road ahead and, oddly enough, on dry walls. Dean refused to dwell anything deeper than that. When Bobby was ready to share, he would tell them what was going on. It wasn't as if all of them weren't keeping secrets from one another. It felt like a freaking secret club.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

They had settled themselves to wait in the car when they arrived at the park, happy to let Bobby go meet with his contact on his own. The older hunter had other ideas and had asked them to come along.

More than once now, Dean had allowed his curiosity best him and had tried to have a peek in to Bobby's brain and see who the hell they were meeting here. After too many hours driving with no idea of what they were doing in Des Moines, frankly, all the cloak and dagger stuff was driving him nuts… well, more nuts than the thousand of whispering voices that he'd been listening to ever since they had entered the city's more populated borders. From Bobby though, not even a peep, just that dry, plain wall that Dean was starting to think was on propose.
Dean took another swing of the bottle he kept in his pocket, waited for the voices to notch down a little bit more and then followed Sam out of the car.

A corridor of brown leafed trees flanked their path as they made their way to the lakes in the middle of the park. The weather was warm and even in a week days like this one, there were a lot of people around, walking their dogs, jogging, walking or simply seating around enjoying the sun on their skin.

The person Bobby was looking for was already waiting for them in one of the benches near the lake, two squirrels patiently waiting for the next chunk of bread that the plump African-American woman sitting there was offering them.
"Hello, boys," the fragile sounding voice seemed almost out of place in such a plump woman, but both Winchesters knew that there was nothing fragile about Missouri. "I've been waiting for this call for a very long time."

Dean turned to Sam, who just shrugged, and then to Bobby, who met his eyes head-on, daring him to say anything. The plain wall that he'd been seeing for awhile suddenly vanished and in its place Dean could finally see all the little slips and doubts that he done to make Bobby suspicious of him. Enough slips for Bobby to call Missouri about him, because Bobby knew something.
"Son of bitch!" Dean let out.

"I've been waiting for this call for close to twenty five years Dean," Missouri said as she moved to grab his hand.

The reaction was simultaneous as both of them flinched back, hands drawn close to their bodies, as if they'd been burned.
"Oh, honey… I had no idea," the older woman said, her voice filled with sorrow and sympathy for the torment and suffering that she'd glimpsed inside Dean. "You poor thing… you did not deserved that."

As for the hunter, Dean wasn't quite sure of what he'd seen, but it was almost as if he was looking in to a twisted mirror, all of his emotions and feelings slung back at him, distorted by Missouri's perception. It was a bit disturbing, to say the least.

"What call was that?" Sam asked. He hadn't miss the double reaction, nor did he missed the way in which Bobby was quietly observing the interactions between those two, looking like he wasn't as lost as the rest of them. "Is she the contact you were supposed to meet here? Why?"

It wasn't Bobby who answered him. In fact, Bobby seemed pretty contended in to just lay back and let Missouri take the lead.

"Sam, sweetie, I would like to talk to your brother… alone. Is that ok?"

The tone had been gentle and questioning, but Sam had no doubt that he had no option in this. Whatever the hell was going on, Bobby and Missouri seemed in on it and there wasn't much they would let him do about it. Dean, at least, seemed about as puzzled as he. Puzzled and weary. Of what exactly, Sam had no clue.

"You don't have to worry about your brother, Sam… all will be explained in its due time," the older woman reassured him, her small hand grabbing his in a gentle gesture. She didn't flinch back, like it had happen with Dean, but the sadness reached her eyes all the same. "You poor boys… all will be better soon, don't you worry."

Dean watched as Sam was semi-dragged away by Bobby. He could feel Missouri's eyes on his back, feel the pressure of her mind trying to assess his, feel her uneasiness as to how to proceed. It occurred to him that, in some way, they were the same.

"Come, walk with me," she finally said, closing her bag to the infinite sadness of her little starved rodent friends.

To anyone looking, they looked just like two friends, having a relaxing walk in the park. The tension, however, was easy to sense to anyone that came near enough.

"Twenty five years?" Dean finally asked, because that was the only thing that he couldn't figure. It was clear who had made the call and he could guess what the call had been about. He should've known that he couldn't fool Bobby for too long.

"You were barely a baby then, Dean, and you were already carrying the weight of the world on your tiny shoulders. You were such a sad little boy," Missouri started, not looking at him, her eyes lost in the past.

"Thought you said I was a goofy looking kid," Dean said, remembering their previous encounter in Lawrence. She hadn't been very nice to him then.

She stopped and faced him for a second before resuming her walk.
"It was never about your looks, boy," she said, pondering what she had seen and felt before. "Though if you ask me, the goofiness never really went away."

Dean thought he should be offended but he didn't really care. The sense of care and fondness that accompanied every single word coming from Missouri's mouth made it particularly hard to be mad at her for anything.

"Your poor father, God bless his soul, knew nothing about nothing when he came to me that first time," she went on. "And there were a couple of things that I didn't tell him until much, much later."

"Like what things?"

'You know perfectly well what I'm talking about Dean Winchester'

Dean stared at the back of the older woman for awhile before realizing that he had stopped dead in his tracks and Missouri had just kept on walking.

"Well, don't stand there, mouth gaping like some fish out of his bowl… I've known about your gift even before you did, before you were old enough to realize what it meant."
The older Winchester could feel his legs going out, muscles as strong as wet spaghetti. The wooden bench by his side was a welcoming alternative to landing on his ass.

All this time, Dean had latched on to the idea that all that was happening to him now was Castiel's fault. That this telepathy weirdness was a result of the angel's funky hand-mojo. That, most importantly of all, when this was all over, he could convince Castiel to make him normal again, to take it away.

But Castiel had already said that he could not take away something that he had not given him in the first place. Dean should've figured that an angel wouldn't be lying through his divine teeth.

Castiel couldn't take away what had always been a part of him. He'd always been a freak. He would always be one.

"You're not a freak, honey… don't you ever think that… unless you think I am a freak too… or that your brother is."
Dean shook his head. No, of course he didn't see Sam as freak, but his brother was a normal guy who had been unfortunate enough to be fucked over by a demon with a grudge. He didn't have that sort of excuse. Did he?

"All of our gifts come from some place, or some higher power, Dean, but no, your gift was not a result of any demon taint. But that's not what's important," she went on, a chubby hand resting on top of the hunter's shoulder. "What's really important is what you do with it."

Dean snorted, trying to ignore the irony that his part in this conversation about his freakiness was being held inside his own head.

"Most psychics come to realize their gifts somewhere around their teen years… some even later than that. It's easier then to deal with the change, when they're going from childhood to being adults," Missouri said, leaving Dean alone in his thoughts, knowing that he was still listening to her. "Even so, it is terribly hard on some, on account of them being raised believing that such things do not exist. You, on the other hand, came to your gifts when you were but a baby, on account of what happened to your momma."

Dean looked at her again, realizing for the first time that, if there was someone that could help him with this, it was Missouri.

"How do you know all that?" He asked.

The older woman smiled, happy for the small accomplishment that she knew had been achieved. "Your father didn't trusted many people back then, so, it took a while for him to trust me enough to bring you and your brother with him when he came to my house. When he finally did, you had just turned five and your brother was just starting to crawl around. The minute I touched either of you, I knew you were both special."

"But you said nothing to my father," Dean said, trying not to sound accusing.

"I didn't… John had too much on his head those days, and his grief was still too fresh. And then, there was you boys. To tell your father then that both his sons had psychic powers would've burdened you even more."

"How come?"

"You weren't talking then, Dean," Missouri said, her eyes once again looking distant and not quite in the present. Somewhere inside her head, Dean could see perfectly the image of a blond little boy, with eyes too big for his face and deep, dark bags underneath them. "When John left my house, you were able to talk again."

"Why? What did you do?"

"You were too little to understand or control your gift. Dealing with what had happen to your momma, the confusion of not quite understanding why she was gone, on top of being overburdened with John's feelings of grief and despair and all those grim thoughts that were not even your own… it was too much for you then. You simply shut down and stopped talking all together."

Dean had his eyes close, trying to remember the fog of those days.
"That night… I could sense the demon inside our house… I felt my mom die," he whispered, his eyes stinging from the onslaught of buried old emotions.

"Yes, honey, that's what I saw inside your head then too. That's when I realized that, like many telepaths, you were also able to feel the emotion and pain of others as your own. It is a dangerous combination and the results were very clear in your case. You were so broken that I did the only thing that I could think of to help you," she said, her eyes shinny with tears of her own. "I blocked your gifts, helped you built a wall around them, until you were healed enough to be able to deal with it."

"Come again?"

"I blocked your gifts, Dean. Kept them hidden and secure," Missouri said with the same casualness of a parent saying he'd hidden the kid's playstation until the kid's grades were higher. "I was hopping that, as you got older, you'd be able to unblock it on your own, but I guess you never did."

Dean leaned back against the bench, the warm sun falling on his face and, for a second, turning his world safe and bright. The feeling was gone as soon as he remembered his last meeting with Missouri.
"Twenty five years… why didn't you remove the block when we met in Lawrence?

Missouri sighed, like this was an argument she'd had with herself too many times.
"I thought about it… in fact, I came very close to doing it then," she confessed. "But in those days, it was your brother's grief that scared me… things hadn't changed that much since your childhood… you were older, sure, but your problems had gotten that much bigger too and also…"

The psychic took Dean's hand in hers and closed her eyes.

Suddenly, the sunny park was gone and Dean was back in Missouri's house, in Lawrence. He could hear his brother's voice, asking about their old house, him asking about what had killed their mom.

Dean remembered that conversation well. What he didn't remember was that other presence inside Missouri's house. A familiar presence, someone he would've given everything to have by his side then, when he was back to the place he hated the most. Someone that he had called on the phone, only to have his call for help answered by a recorded, cold voicemail."My dad was there," Dean said, surprised that his eyes had been closed as well.

Missouri let go of his hand, still looking pained from the contact."Yes, yes he was and it surprised me greatly that you couldn't sense him then… made me angry too, at you both" she confessed.

"Why?"

"Something like this, like what you can do… it is a precious gift from God…. You do not throw it away or hide it under the couch like I saw you doing your whole life. When I saw you again, you were repressing your gift so hard that I often wondered how you could use your brain for anything else."

Dean snorted. He remembered well all of Missouri's veiled remarks at his mental prowess.

"And then there was your daddy… he didn't wanted me to tell you any of this."

Dean looked down, the realization that his father knew what he was and was ashamed of him bringing forward all those feelings of inadequacy that he'd been fighting for so long.

"No… none of that boy!" Missouri was quick to add, his thoughts as always no secret to her. "John was very proud of you, of both his boys… you should've heard him talk about the things you and your brother could do, the things you'd both achieved. The people you'd helped even when he was not around, the way you both stood by each other… that man loved you both more than anything in the world. Dean, he knew what you and your brother could do… about your gifts and his only concern on that matter was for what others might do about it if they ever found out."

"Then why?" Dean whispered, afraid to hear Missouri's answer.

"Because you didn't want it. My block was not that strong, Dean… if you had truly wanted it back, you could've had it back with no problem. Your father made me realize that and asked me to allow you to come to terms with it yourself, in your own time."

"Well, someone wasn't as considerate as you about that," Dean mumbled. "This isn't a gift… this is a freaking nuisance!"

Dean jumped out of the bench and for a second considered the benefits of just making a run for it. He figured that he would never be able to run fast enough.

"Is that what you really feel about this, child?"

Missouri's gentle voice stopped him from going any further. Dean took a deep breath. He would give anything to make this go away. What kind of psychic was Missouri if she couldn't see that much?

"People's thoughts are their own… I don't want to be some kind of peeping tom in other people's heads!"

"Is that what you think I am, boy?"

Dean turned back to face her, sensing the imminent storm in her tone.
"… No… I… It's not," Dean tried to put at least one of his thoughts in to words. He sat back down. "How can it not be?" How do I stop this?

Missouri smiled, a hand coming to rest on Dean' shoulder.
"That is why I am here, boy… being a telepath and a bit of a empath, like you are, is so much more that being a 'peeping tom'… specially in your case. Especially with what you do for a living."

Dean looked at her questioningly. He could hear what others were thinking and feel what they were feeling… what else could there be other than that?

"Do you know what the first words out of your mouth were, as soon as I put that block up?"

Dean shook his head. He couldn't even remember where they were living at the time, much less anything about his father's dealings with the psychic.

"'Sammy doesn't like the blue pajamas… makes his legs itchy'."

"I said that?" Dean said, his breathing itching inside his chest.

He remembered those pajamas. They had been his and the only reason for Sam wearing them was because he'd had them on the night their mother died. Everything else had burned along with their house. It had taken forever to clean the smell of smoke from those pajamas.

Missouri nodded.
"You were just a little kid, who hadn't spoken a single word in months and the first words out of your mouth were to help your baby brother express himself when he couldn't."

Dean scratched his head. He really hadn't thought about that."So… you're saying that I can use this… thing… to help those who can't speak for themselves… that there's actually an upside to this whole mess?"

"There are plenty of upsides, Dean… you just need time to learn them all."

"But I can hear them all the time, Missouri… it's driving me insane," Dean confessed, no longer able to keep that secret inside. "Sometimes, I can't even tell which thoughts are mine… which feelings are mine." I'm loosing myself in all the others.

Missouri's grip on his shoulder intensified.
"Come here for a second," she beckoned him, getting up and moving closer to the lake. "What do you see there?"

Dean looked down. The clear water reflected back the clean blue sky and their distorted images. "I see us."

"Wrong," Missouri said as she carefully tapped the sole of her shoe in to the lake, disrupting the water and their mirrored image. "Look again."

Dean looked at her, trying to guess if she was making fun of him or being possessed by the spirit of freaking Yoda.
"I see water," he said this time, annoyed.

The woman beside him said nothing, once again opening her bag and this time throwing some bread to the swimming ducks in the lake.
Seeing that a foot tapping in the water was as much help as Missouri seemed ready to provide, Dean looked ahead. The surface of the lake rippled, cut clean by the speeding ducks swimming in their direction. Inverted trees in the water shimmered and disappeared, only to come back again when the surface got quieter. He soon realized what Missouri was trying to make him understand.

"So, my mind is like water?" He asked her. "I may reflect what others are thinking, I may change color depending on the sky above me, I may change shape depending of what ever floats, but I remain water all the same?"

Missouri smiled, that proud smile that teachers often give when one of their students makes a brilliant leap ahead. "Wasn't that hard, was it?"
"Well, that might all sound awesome in whatever new age-y group you're leading, but, borrowing your analogy there, how do I keep myself from drowning in all of this?"

Missouri's hand sneaked in to Dean's jacket pocket.
"You stop trying to drown in this and start listening to what I have to teach you," she said, showing him the bottle that she'd taken before throwing it in the trashcan.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Dean left Missouri in the bus stop. He'd ended up telling the woman about everything that had happened. If she was to help him, she needed to be in possession of all the facts. It felt good to finally take some of that weight off his chest, even if she hadn't offer much help in the matter of Sam's future.

Dean spent the rest of the afternoon walking aimlessly through the streets of Des Moines, working his way towards being able to block other people's thoughts from his mind. He wasn't there yet, but that deep sense of panic that only alcohol seemed to put a dent on these days, was getting considerable smaller.

Missouri had taught him some tricks, things that he could use to avoid listening to other people's thoughts all the time. She had also opened his eyes to other things that he could do, things he hadn't even realized because he was too afraid to look too deeply in to his ability. He was still scared of what he could do but, now that he had managed to get some control of it, it didn't feel like such an impossible task to live with it.

Bobby and Sam had left a note in the windshield of the Impala telling him where he could find them once he was done with his 'secret shit'. Sam's wording, no doubt.
Dean was sure that he was about to deal with a very pissed off brother. And a possibly, by association, very pissed off Bobby.

Dean wasn't sure how much of what Missouri had told him was common knowledge to Bobby as well, but he knew that there was no way in hell that he would be able to face them now without giving them something. Not to mention the fact that he had left the older hunter to deal with Sam's curiosity and, no doubt pout, the whole afternoon.

The lights were on in the last apartment of the first floor of the motel the note had mentioned, Bobby's Chevelle parked in front of it. Dean parked the Impala in the space adjacent, took his duffel bag from the trunk and locked the car.

Dean was biding his time to walk inside that room. This was a conversation that he wasn't particularly looking forward to, but all the same, one that he could not escape much longer. He closed his eyes, using one of the tricks Missouri had told him about, and tried to sense the mood of the occupants of the room.

Contrary to what he had thought, it wasn't anger or even annoyance that he could feel coming from Sam or Booby. It was concern and anxiety. Pain.
There was someone else in the room with them, a presence that Dean didn't know, but a presence that he was sure he wouldn't like to meet.

Concentrating harder, Dean looked for specific thoughts coming from either hunter. Sam, he could tell, was itching to use his powers and just deal with the threat inside the room, but something was stopping him from doing that.

Bobby's mind was filled with Latin. Exorcism after exorcism, the older hunter was searching his mind for the best set of words to send the presence in their room back to Hell.

A demon then… and they were all waiting for him to open the door.

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