Disclaimer: Supernatural and all its characters belong to The CW and Eric Kripke.
Suggested Songs:
- "Sure Got Cold After The Rain Fell" by ZZ Top
- "Crystal" by Stevie Nicks
Chapter Twenty-Two
Whiskey was Bobby's solution to everything. He poured them three glasses as they listened to Sam's muffled shouts from the panic room below them. Dean paced around the room nervously, radiating stress, as Melissa sat silently on the couch picking at her bare nails. Dean sipped at his whiskey quickly as Bobby handed it to him, but Melissa only stared, practically lifeless.
"How long is this gonna last?" Dean asked in exasperation.
Bobby sat down with a heavy sigh. "Here, let me look it up in my demon-detox manual. Oh wait, no one ever wrote one," he sassed Dean. "No telling how long it'll take. Hell, or if Sam will even live through this."
Melissa swallowed down some of the alcohol and felt it burn in her stomach. She listened to Sam, hearing him this time not even say any words but let out a guttural scream. She shut her eyes, hearing echoes of old things running through her mind. She bit the inside of her cheek and set the tumbler down on the coffee table in front of her. Wiping her sweaty, shaky hands on her jeans, she went over to Dean, putting a hand on his chest to stop the pacing.
"I'm gonna go talk to him," she told him, giving him a chaste kiss on his flushed cheek.
"What? Let me come with," he said, following after her as she turned around.
"Not a chance in hell," she snapped, facing him once more. She put her hands on her hips and sighed, seeing the deep lines of worry set in his forehead. "Sorry, just...you don't know how this feels."
"Right, because you know how it feels to sip on demon juice," he scoffed. Her eyes darkened.
"Yes," she told him sharply. "I do."
She began to storm off, but he sighed and grabbed her by the wrist, spinning her back around. "Missy, wait, I'm s-"
"No," she growled at him, forcing her wrist out of his grasp and stomping her way down to the basement.
Dean sighed heavier, running a hand down his face. He looked to Bobby helplessly, who only shrugged in response.
. . .
The stairs down to the basement creaked warmly as Melissa descended them. Though she knew they had to be there, being at Bobby's only made her more lost in her own memories. Her skin was crawling and her stomach was in knots. To be honest, she knew what cold turkey could do to a person, and now was not the time for them to be down a team member. But it couldn't be helped. She knew the addiction was turning his blood dark. And occasionally his eyes. She tried to ignore the screaming and the thrashing around that came from the panic room as she approached the door, unlokcing the hatch to see him.
She had to bite her lip and fight the mistiness in her eyes. "Sam…" she said.
His bloodshot eyes widened and he ran up to the hatch, his skin both feverish and pale. "Melissa! Thank god! Alastair was down here! You gotta get me out! Talk to Dean!"
She shook her head. "Sam...I don't…"
"No, no, no! Please!" he began, but she cut him off.
"No, Sam!" she yelled. "Just listen for a fucking second."
He swallowed with a cringe, as though he had a sore throat, but said nothing and gave her a small nod.
"I came down here…" she stopped for a moment, looking down at her falling-apart boots. "To apologize...to you."
"What?"
She blew out a long breath and turned around, her cheeks heating up in shame. Sliding her back down the iron door, she tried her best to find her words. She let out a sigh as she came to sit on the cool cement floor.
"I gave you so much crap...you shoulda just told me," she told him, resting her forehead in her palm tiredly. "Of all people, Sam...I'm on your side."
She heard Sam scoff bitterly.
"No, you shut up until I'm finished or I'll come in there and kill you myself," she bit out. She paused for a moment, feeling at the base of her collarbone for a necklace that she hadn't worn in ten years.
Her eyes were shiny when she spoke again. "This thing that you're feeling...the hot-cold on your skin, the pounding in your head….the way every cell and bone in your body is screaming for what you think you need...you're never gonna forget it. At least, I never have."
She swallowed thickly, looking ahead into the dingy, lifeless room around her. "I just wish-"
Her voice broke for a moment and Sam raised his eyebrows in surprise. He'd sat on the other side of the door, mirroring her position. He almost didn't remember the last time he'd heard her cry, but then it dawned on him. Echoes of her screams the night Dean had been dragged to hell ran through his head for only a moment before the guilt set in. That was the night he'd hit her, the night he'd first betrayed her. And he'd kept on that train ever since.
Her words came out shaky and forced. "I wish I could've helped you, Sammy. I wish you would've told me."
"I'm sorry, but I did it for us," he said quietly, his angry words coming out slightly slurred in his fevered state.
"No," she said. "You're not sorry. Not right now, at least. Right now, all you want is more. Maybe apologize to me again once it's worth a damn."
"Melissa," he began, but she stopped him.
"You can't lie to me, Sam, remember? I've been where you are. It wasn't exactly demon blood, but there were times when it felt like it. So do me a favor and stop pretending," she scolded him with heavy breathing as she came to stand again.
"So, I'm sorry I couldn't help you sooner...I'm sorry you became a victim...I'm sorry the thing you thought would make you strong made you weak…" she told him, her voice filled only with sincerity and comtempt.
Sam's eyes widened as he heard her go back up the stairs, his vision blurring slightly as he rose and put his face close to the hatch.
"Mel! Wait!"
She stopped, her hand on the old, splintered railing of the basement steps. Sighing, she turned around. Sam's eyes were bright, darting all around even though she knew he was trying his best to focus on her. She could act like she knew exactly what was going to happen to him, but deep down all she had were questions. Every time she looked at him, she saw Dean's body, shredded to ribbons the night the hellhounds got him, and she wondered if the younger Winchester brother was next. This time not by hellfire, but by demon blood.
Boots tapping on the concrete floor, she strolled back over to him sadly.
"I almost forgot," she said coolly before she shut the hatch with a loud snap. He screamed and begged, but all she could do was shut him out of her mind. Her heart was heavy as she walked away from him for real.
. . .
"So, correct me if I'm wrong, but you just willingly signed up to be the angels' bitch?" Bobby snapped at Dean, who stood silently with his arms crossed shamefully over his broad chest.
After getting no response, Bobby only looked angrier. "Oh, I'm sorry, do you prefer 'sucker'? All you said about them, and you just go and pledge allegiance?"
Melissa rolled her eyes and ran a hand down her face. Of course, Dean had gone and prayed to Castiel. He couldn't just come and hash it out with Melissa and Bobby. She was getting a little fed up with all the angel business. He'd given himself over to the angels, to the will of God, and promised he would do their bidding to stop the apocalypse. Castiel had told Dean it was the only way to get Sam out of this mess. All while Melissa and Bobby had been pouring over the books.
On top of that, Rufus had given Bobby a call. Seals were breaking left and right, and it seemed like Lillith was closing in. Like she could smell that Sam was in crisis, like she could smell Sam's body breaking down before them.
"Come on, Bobby, gimme a little credit, alright," Dean tried to explain himself. "I've never trusted 'em less. They're like shady politicians from the planet Vulcan."
Melissa clicked her tongue ruefully, spinning her tumbler around on the worn wood of the desk that she sat behind. Dean cast her an exasperated glance but didn't take her bait.
"Then why the hell did you-" Bobby began.
"Because what other option do I have? I either trust the angels or let Sammy trust a demon?" Dean cut in loudly, taking a few frustrated steps towards Bobby.
"Or, you trust us," Melissa spat, standing up and cracking her knuckles.
"Missy, compared to all that's out there...there hardly is an us," he argued. He looked like he was about to continue when he perked his head up and raised his eyebrows. "You hear that?"
They listened and Bobby's face fell in realization. "That's a whole lotta nothin.'"
All three ran down the rickety steps once more, stopping at the door to the panic room, which Bobby quickly unlocked. They found Sam writhing around on the floor, convulsing with his eyes rolled back into his head. Melissa rushed forwards, but Dean took her by the elbow before she could make it to him.
"You think he could be fakin'?" he asked.
"Hell no," Melissa replied, running over to him. Just before she reached him, some invisible thing flung Sam across the room, his back hitting hard against the salted iron wall. Melissa could practically hear the wind being knocked out of him.
"That ain't fakin'!" Bobby exclaimed, and the two men joined Melissa in pinning Sam down onto the cot. Melissa thought she saw him beginning to foam at the mouth, and gave Bobby a pleading look. Sometimes, when everything went to hell, she still felt like she was 18, looking to Bobby for an answer.
"We're gonna tie 'im down for his own safety," the older hunter announced. Melissa nodded, though Dean looked like he was out in space. "Dean! You hearin' me?!"
After a moment, he came to. "Yeah...yeah. Let's just get it overwith."
. . .
Summer was warming over again, and now it only reminded Melissa of hellhounds. Of prostituting herself and feeling lower than she ever had. She could feel the warm breeze hit the back of her neck and give her goosebumps as she leaned on the windowsill. She had a headache behind her eyes, she figured from the constant screaming below.
"I'm sorry, I can't bite my tongue any longer," she heard Bobby blurt out as he argued with Dean. She'd been pulled down into her memories for a moment, but she knew the fight was over Sam. "We're killing him, keeping him locked down there. This cold turkey thing isn't working. If he doesn't get what he needs, and soon, Sam's not gonna last much longer."
"No, I'm not giving 'im demon blood," Dean yelled. "I'm not doing it!"
"What happens when he dies, then, Dean?" Melissa countered, finally speaking up. She could see Sam withering.
"Then at least he dies human!"
Shaking her head, she stormed towards the front door, her headache getting worse by the second.
"Where the hell are you goin'?" Bobby yelled from behind her.
She turned back around with her angry flush turning her cheeks scarlet. "I need some air, alright? Maybe I'll call some of my contacts, see if we got a lead on Lillith around those breakin' seals. I would call Pamela for some help, but oh wait, that's right, we already killed her!"
Dean blew out a sigh and looked like he was going to try to reason with her. But she whirled back around and slammed the front door before anyone could say another word.
. . .
"Yeah, thanks Marv...No, it's alright, just...watch yourself. Bye," she spoke shortly over the phone and closed it harshly, afraid for a moment she had broken it in half. When she saw it was in one piece, she tossed it to the passenger seat. She gripped the old steering wheel of the truck hard, biting her bottom lip until she could taste the blood. Blowing out a long, weary breath, she searched around for something, anything.
Finally, she settled on a dirty flannel on the floor of the passenger side, lying there since she didn't know when. She bit into it and screamed, feeling no other instinct. She felt like she couldn't breathe, like she was watching the world collapse. The apocalypse beginning, Sam fading away, and Dean becoming a henchman for the angels. And she was watching it from the sidelines. No hunter she knew had any leads on Lillith. She would've gone and killed the bitch herself, just snuck out and put an end to it herself, if she'd gotten the jump. But now she just sat, watching the May afternoon turn to evening. She wanted a cigarette. She wanted to ride down some country road in the Impala, with Dean's hand on her knee and Sam snoring in the back seat. She wanted the light Dean'd had in his eyes before hell to return. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to see Pamela again. She wanted everything she could probably never have again. Well, except for the cigarettes.
She knew she was acting like a child, but she couldn't stay there and listen to Sam scream, watch them actively kill him with this cold turkey method. Watch Dean stand helpless in the corner of the room nursing a whiskey. It was breaking her heart. She took a few deep breaths and leaned back, tossing the flannel aside, looking up to the roof. There, she saw a faded cigarette burn, and felt herself go back to the night it got there.
. . .
She sat in the gravel driveway, staring towards the cozy-looking house in the light of the moon. There was a gentle breeze, and she shivered a little in the October nighttime. She'd been lost in her thoughts, and only noticed the smell of burning a few moments after the gray fabric of the truck's roof started sizzling under the tip of her cigarette. She laughed at herself, a lively, bubbly sound that poured from her mouth without a thought as she tossed the cancer stick out the window. Clumsily, she nearly fell out of the truck's driver's side. She brought her bag with her, filled with the few things she needed to stay alive (including the revolver she'd gotten at a pawn shop three years back), but forgot to shut the door on her way to the front stoop. She stopped to toss her cookies in the bushes on the way up. Still wiping at her mouth, she knocked on the familiar door loudly.
"Paaaamelaaa," she sang, leaning on one of the tables near the door for support. She got distracted for a moment as she gazed at a particularly stunning fern that sat atop the table, reminding her of her mother's garden all those years ago. The way she brought the plants in during the winter to keep them from freezing.
After a moment of silence, her goal cleared in her mind again and she knocked on the door. "Pamela Baaarnes, get your ass out here!"
She listened to the crickets sing warmly around her before the door finally opened, revealing her psychic friend dressed in a black, satin robe. She looked pissed, but Melissa was too drunk to notice.
"Melissa Lowry, what the hell are you doing here?" the psychic asked her begrudgingly.
Melissa laughed sloopily. "Just wanted to pay my favorite psychic a visit!"
Pamela sized the young girl up. She had just turned 20, but her eyes were much older. There was vomit on the collar of her sweater, and her jeans had bloody holes in the knees. A flash of recognition went through her clarvoiyant mind and her face softened. She let out a heavy sigh.
"Alright, girl interrupted," Pamela said wearily, putting an arm around Melissa's shoulders, bringing her into the humble abode. She managed to get Melissa to flop down onto the couch. Pamela pulled a throw over the girl, who watched her with starry, sad eyes.
Grabbing a bucket and a glass of water, Pamela came over, her hands on her thighs as she finally came to sit on the coffee table.
"What happened?" she asked simply.
"There was a little girl...I didn't get there in time," Melissa admitted, her voice steady but her eyes searching the room for anything but Pamela's face. She blushed in shame.
Pamela sighed through her nose and nodded, standing up once more, having already seen what Melissa had gone through that day. "Well, if you need anythin,' just holler."
. . .
Breathing in and out, Melissa tried to quiet her erratic heart. She jumped as the door to the passenger seat opened, and she almost panicked that she hadn't brought her gun, but she looked over only to see the downtrodden Dean.
She sighed heavily. "Jesus."
"Not quite," he joked with a flat voice.
Running a hand through her hair, she swallowed thickly. The sky was a dark blue now, and she wondered how long she'd been out there. Maybe she'd even dozed off. She couldn't tell. Rubbing her eyes, she cleared her throat and sighed.
"I'm sorry I ran off, Dean," she told him, bringing her hands to grip the steering wheel tightly once more.
"Do you remember when Alastair beat the hell outta me and I had to spend the night in the hospital?" Dean asked.
She furrowed her brows and looked over at him in confusion. "Um...yeah."
"And you told me we would stop it...we would stop it no matter what," he said, taking her hand.
"But Sam-"
"Sam's in the panic room. Where he needs to be. And we?" he told her, gesturing between the two of them. "We will stop it. You and me and Bobby."
She sighed. "Dean, he's-"
"I know this is hard for you."
"It's not about me," she said, her voice tinged with anger.
"I know you feel it every time you look at him, hell, I bet you feel it even talkin' about him now," he continued, not letting go of her hand though she wasn't holding his, only looking out the window across the darkness of Singer Auto.
"And I know you don't want him to have to feel it too, but he did this to himself. And I cannot let him drink anymore of that...that poison. That is my line."
"Right because I'm Dean Winchester and I know what's best for everyone," she mocked him bitterly, still not meeting his eyes. She knew where the road was leading, and she also knew that Dean was probably right, but it was a damn hard pill to swallow.
"Sweetheart, I love you, but you are absolute ass at impressions," he said, though his tone was hardly light as he let go of her hand. She looked back at him, her eyes shiny with hot, stinging tears. She tried to stomp out of the truck, but he stopped her with a hand on her thigh, his voice somewhere between pleading and stern. "And I need you to be on board, alright? Because I am right about to jump off a cliff, Missy, and if you can't pull yourself together, so help me God, I don't think I can do it-"
She pulled away before he could finish, slamming the door so fast and so hard he didn't even have a chance to react. He followed her without a word as she made her way back into the house. She'd gotten quite the head start and he'd lost sight of her by the time he got to the front door. Back in the study, he found her and Bobby with their noses in lore books, and Sam still screamed endlessly from the basement.
"Melissa…" he began, noticing the only sign she hadn't been sitting there for hours was her rapid breathing.
"You're right, Dean. This ain't the time for distractions," she said earnestly, not lifting her head to meet his eyes.
Bobby gave him a questioning look, since it seemed Melissa wasn't talking, but Dean only gave him a shrug. For a moment he just gaped at her more, unsure of what would diffuse the situation.
"Just sit your ass down and do some research, alright? Now all we gotta do is wait for Lillith or wait for the angels, ain't it?" she snapped, her eyes fiery from behind her reading glasses. He sighed, but complied, his mind mixed up in a million ways.
. . .
With Bobby pacing on the porch, getting more reports about breaking seals from his other hunters, Dean and Melissa were alone for the first time in hours. It was a little past eleven and Melissa sighed tiredly as she took off her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose, the burning ache behind her eyes ever-present. Dean sat in an armchair across from the couch, and he watched her shoulders slump in her fatigue as the night turned from blue to black.
"I hate it when you call me sweetheart," she said suddenly, her eyes closed as she leaned back against the old sofa.
"What?" he asked, knowing now that she'd seen him staring.
"You always call me that when you're tellin' me somethin' I don't wanna hear," she explained through a yawn, finally looking back at him as she brought her elbows to her knees.
"Oh," he answered dumbly, flushing slightly. "Sorry."
"No, I just mean, I'm sorry I got pissed. I'm just mad that...I couldn't help him sooner, I guess. And that I can still feel how it felt...all the time," she said, her voice a million miles away.
"It's okay, I'm sorry too," he sighed, coming to sit next to her, his arm around her shoulders as she leaned her head on his chest. "I didn't mean to take it out on you like that. I'm just...hangin' by a thread here."
"Aren't we always?" she laughed bitterly. She felt her eyes getting heavy as his breathing begin to slow. "Just...it was my job to protect Rosie...and I couldn't do it. Dean, it's not about Sam not feeling what I feel...it's about you not feeling what I feel."
He sighed and slowly, very slowly, laid them both down, comfortbale even though they still wore their boots and jeans with holes in the knees. "Baby, no matter how hard you try, I'll still feel like that all the time. And giving him more? You and I both know that be would be worse than just lettin' 'im…"
"Yeah, I know," she slurred airily as she began to doze off.
"You don't need to worry about me…" Dean continued, passing out as she had after a damn long day. And when Bobby returned, he found them together, resting but never at true rest.
. . .
"Melissa! Wake the hell up!" she heard Dean shout gruffly, pulling her out of a dreamless sleep. She shot up, feeling around her for a pistol. She saw Dean and Bobby's panicked faces before her in the early morning darkness.
"What's the matter?"
Bobby's jaw tensed. "Sam's out."
Author's Note: Alright, we're just about to get onto season 5...get excited! That's my favorite season! Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter. More soon! Thank you so much for reading!
Special thanks to Purplestan and bjq for your reviews! Thank you so much for sticking with me and I hope you liked this chapter! Feedback is basically my favorite thing, if you didn't know ;)
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Peace and love.
