CHAPTER 9 – A LITTLE UNSTEADY
~SOUNDTRACK: X Ambassadors – Unsteady~
Dean.
Come to me.
Dean opened his eyes. He could vaguely tell his sight was altered, because he wasn't exactly aware of his physical surroundings. All he saw before his eyes was red hair and black dress and bare feet and a Mark sunk deep into the flesh over a collar bone. And smoke. So much smoke.
Dean.
Come to me.
So dark. And her, in the middle of it, owning it.
Dean.
Come to me.
Her voice pierced Dean's skull and made every corner of his mind vibrate along with it.
He got up from the bed. He felt slight shifting of the mattress in the background, but he couldn't be bothered by it. For now, he had one sole purpose and one purpose only.
Dean.
Come to me.
He had to go to her.
Emma woke up when she felt the bed moving. She groaned and extended her arm expecting it to meet Dean's chest. But instead, it only met an empty side of the bed. She opened her eyes slightly and saw Dean standing up by the bed, his back turned to her.
"Dean?" she whispered in the dark. "What's wrong?"
When he didn't reply, Emma sat up from the bed, rubbing her eyes. Yet he seemed to barely acknowledge her presence. Her gut warned her. There was something wrong with Dean. Gulping, Emma stood and fastened his gray bath robe around herself, then she moved to stand in front of him.
Her breath hitched. Dean wasn't even looking at her. He kept staring straight ahead, his eyes blank and his expression stripped of any kind of emotion. Emma tentatively put a hand on his forearm.
"Dean?"
"I have to go," he hurried to say as soon as he felt her touch.
Emma drew in a sharp breath. His voice sounded so empty, so robotic, as if the words rolling off his tongue weren't even his to begin with.
"Dean," she pleaded. "It's the middle of the night. Come back to bed."
"I have to go," he repeated, just as empty.
"Wherever you wanna go, it can until tomorrow morning. I'll go with you, I promise. Just please, come back to bed."
But no muscle in Dean's face even twitched. He kept staring right through her, as if he hadn't even heard a word she'd said and, eventually, he started moving past her.
"I have to go," he kept saying the words like a mantra. "I have to go. She's waiting for me."
Dean.
Come to me.
He was going.
Dean.
Come to me.
He focused on her voice. He didn't know where he was headed, but he'd find her. They were meant to be together. He just kept going forward.
Dean.
Come to me.
The smoke never cleared. It filled his lungs and blinded him, but he went through it, letting it choke him, knowing it sheltered her. And from the thickness of the gray darkness, her voice rang clear as bells.
Dean.
Come to me.
Dean was walking down the hallway and Emma hurried after him. Somehow, she knew this weird trance of his had everything to do with Amara and her toxic influence on Dean, her way of hypnotizing him and making him so susceptible to her will.
"Dean!" Emma called after him, but he gave no sign of having heard her.
She put herself in his path, but he kept walking past her as if she wasn't even there. Emma ran a hand through her hair in despair.
Was he really this far gone?
Dean.
Come to me.
He felt hands tugging at his clothes, he heard a voice, a different voice, begging him to stay. But none of it mattered.
Dean.
Come to me.
She was waiting for him.
Emma kept pulling him back, kept tugging at his shirt, kept pinching, hitting, yelling at him to snap out of it. He didn't. It was as if he wanted to walk right through her. He took step after step, ignoring Emma's attempts to get through to him.
"Dean!" she kept yelling. "Dean, hear me out, please. It's me. Dean!"
Dean.
Come to me.
"Dean! Stay with me!"
His steps faltered for just one second. Just one second of slight hesitation. Emma didn't waste a single breath and threw herself at him, her arms hugging his muscular torso, shaking and sobbing.
"Dean," she whispered in his chest. "Please."
And just when she thought all hope was lost or that he'd throw her into a wall and head off to Amara anyway, it happened. He tensed and, tentatively, Dean raised his shaky arms and placed them around Emma's shoulders with a sharp intake of breath. Emma gasped and looked up at him.
"Emma," he whispered into her hair, his body relaxing, and by his haunted expression, she could tell he remembered every second of this damned sleepwalk.
"Dean," she grabbed fistful of his shirt trying to hide her unsteady hands.
"I know," he kissed the top of her head, and his kiss felt a little too much like despair. "I know, Em. I'm so sorry."
"Let's go back to bed," Emma surprised herself with the fierceness in her voice. "We really need to talk. And you're gonna tell me exactly what's going on with you, Dean. No excuses."
So that night, Dean told her everything.
~SOUNDTRACK: Jill Andrews – Lost it all~
Melody walked inside the bunker on her tiptoes, hoping she could sneak back into bed without drawing too much attention to her arriving at the crack of dawn. Stinking of alcohol and guilt.
"Melody."
She flinched and turned around, a hand over her chest.
"Shit, Sam, you scared me. What are you doing here so early?"
Sam was sitting in the library with a half-drunk coffee pot next to him and a dozen open books next to him. There were dark circles under his eyes and his lips were pursed in that thin line that usually meant he was pissed and that she was in trouble. Oh, boy, was this gonna get ugly for her.
"Couldn't sleep," he told her sharply, closing a book he was reading with a loud thud. "I noticed you were gone, found your note, then worried myself sick for half the night."
Oh yeah. He was definitely pissed. Mel gulped.
"Sorry," she mumbled a half-assed apology and moved to turn around and leave.
"Sorry?" he jumped to his feet, extending his arms incredulously; she should've known she wasn't getting away so easy. "Sorry doesn't begin to cover it, Melody. Sorry doesn't cut it."
"Then what do you want me to say, Sam?" she screamed back. "We talked about this. You said you were okay with it."
Sam ran his hands over his face. Yes. He had said that. He had really thought he was okay with her finding some answers on her own terms. But disappearing in the middle of the night? Repeatedly? With not as much as an explanation? Missing for days? He couldn't be okay with that. He had not signed up for this. He considered his next move. Should he stand by his word and give her that freedom she craved her much? What could guarantee him that this freedom wouldn't end up with him losing her for good?
No. He couldn't afford that. The games were over.
He turned around to the chair next to the one he'd been sitting on and took a cloth in his hands. As he moved closer to Melody, he pulled a bloody angel blade from the cloth. Melody swallowed hard.
"I found this in your closet," Sam spoke in a broken voice, as if willing her to offer an explanation that could justify it all without putting her in a bad place; it was clear on her expression she didn't have one. "And I also found a pile of your clothes covered in blood. I think you're overdue for an explanation, Melody. You've had enough time to play."
She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to summon the same arguments she'd given him for weeks now. That she wanted space. That she wanted answers. That she needed time. But somehow, even to her, it all started to sound like a really weak-ass excuse. Like an ugly tantrum.
"I've given you time and space to grieve, Mel," Sam lowered his voice. "To grieve what you lost to hell. I've let you be sad on your own terms."
"That's right," she cut in. "But I'm not sad, Sam. Grieving time is over. Now there's just anger. That's all there's left."
Sam nodded, but it was clear to both of them that the explanation she offered was not satisfying. Even she could tell that much. Eventually, Sam put the bloody blade on the table and lowered his gaze. Melody clenched her jaw. The blade sat between them, teasing and rolling the silence around its blade, until Mel cracked and spoke first.
"I've been hunting demons. Torturing them for answers."
There. The words were out. She didn't dare to look up at Sam, afraid of what she might have found in his eyes. Judgment? Shame? Disappointment? When she couldn't take the silence anymore, she raised her gaze, just to find Sam staring back at her, his expression unreadable. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down and he looked like he was on the verge of saying something, but he didn't know how to voice the words.
"Alone?" he asked eventually.
Melody could tell, by the way he'd phrased the question, that he already knew the answer. She had no idea how he could suspect it, but she assumed her guilty eyes gave her away enough. She considered lying to him. Again. But she couldn't. She couldn't take this chain of lies anymore, and she knew that, if she kept adding lie after lie to the chain, this same chain would turn into shackles around her wrists that would cage her away from the man she loved. So she opened her mouth and let it out.
"No," the word rang through the library, hitting Sam in the ribs and knocking the air out of his lungs. "With Jace."
He exhaled sharply. He ran his hands over his face again and it occurred to Mel she'd never seen him so tired. He turned away from her and paced back and forth while she waited to be scolded like a little kid who broke mom's favorite vase. Except she hadn't. She had only broken Sam's trust in her. Maybe for good. And even now, their relationship hanging by a thread, she knew that, given the chance, she would've made the same stupid decisions over and over again.
"With Jace," Sam repeated eventually, his voice filled with venom. "Once again. Once again, instead of confiding in me and asking for my help, you go to an angel." He raised his voice and Mel found herself backing away from him. "An angel, Melody. You chose an angel over me, again. Was it even worth it? Were your answers freaking worth this cost?"
"Sam—"
"No, Melody, let me tell you what the cost was!"
"I freaking know what the cost was," she cut him off, yelling back. "I know. I just—"
"Me!" Sam screamed, and Mel fell speechless. "It cost you me. You should have come to me, Melody, because I would've had your back. Not Jace. No one else. Me. I should have been there for you and I'm sorry that it wasn't enough for you."
"You were," she tried to back down, to reason with him, to argue, but she felt him slowly slipping out of her grasp. "Sam, you are. But I just—"
"I wasn't," Sam kept shouting. "And you can't tell me otherwise, Melody. Not when your actions speak for themselves. Because you're not supposed to remind people that they love you."
His words hit like a knife, sinking deep into her gut.
Because you're not supposed to remind people that they love you.
You're not supposed to remind people that they love you…
…supposed to remind people that they love you…
…remind people that they love you…
Their weight crushed Melody under a pile of stupid choices and thrown blames. She wiped away the tears she had no idea had fallen down her cheeks. She wiped them away angrily and stared at Sam. He stared right back, standing by his words. Because once they're out, you can't claim them back. And the longer they lingered in the air between them, the deeper they cut, the hotter she felt them burn into her flesh. Her head was spinning, filled with a storm cloud, and from it kept falling hurricanes of words, of phrases, of things they'd whispered lips over lips, things they'd whispered in the darkness of their bedroom, on the doorstep of the bunker when she returned from hell, in the rain where they'd shared their first kiss.
And as a thunder, it all ended with the same conclusion.
You're not supposed to remind people that they love you.
How had they fallen so low?
"Guys," Mel heard Emma behind her, her voice sleepy. "It's the crack of dawn. What the hell are you doing?"
Mel sniffed and tried to pull herself together just as she heard Dean's voice, too.
"What the—" he groaned. "What's with all the screaming so fucking early in the morning? We heard you from the other side of the bunker."
Mel kept her eyes on Sam the whole time. And because she was dumb like that, she shot another poisoned dagger out of her mouth at him.
"That," she spoke in a hoarse voice, then cleared her voice before continuing. "That was the sound of me and Sam crying 'uncle' and giving up. I'm out of here."
Without waiting to see the aftermath of her words, she turned on her heels and left.
Oops. Sorry, guys.