center Chapter Two /center
It was two weeks after Dean's near drowning experience and Sam heard his brother mutter the words, "I need you to save me," in his sleep when he knew something was wrong. It started with Sam observing some oddities in his brother's actions. A paused, worried look here or a moment of blank confusion in the middle of a conversation there. His brother would sometimes forget to pay attention. Sam had worried that they were lingering ramifications of the time he spent under the water, not breathing. But as the days went by, new oddities would surface. Whenever Dean drove, he was constantly looking in the rearview mirror. Whenever they walked somewhere, he would glance behind him as if he expected something to be following them. But he never seemed worried. It was like a habit that had manifested itself spontaneously. At night, when Sam lay awake, unable to sleep, Dean would get up and drag himself to the bathroom and turn on the light, shutting the door so only a sliver of it escaped. Then he'd trudge back to bed. The first night Dean had done it, Sam had just watched, wondering what the hell his brother was doing. After a few nights of the same thing, when Dean had joked about Sammy needing a nightlight, Sam realized that Dean must not have even been aware he was the one doing it. This had sparked new worry in Sam's mind.
Days ago, they'd been at a gas station and Dean had gone inside to pay. He hadn't come out and after five minutes, Sam had gone into the store, knife tucked beneath his shirt in case the gas station was being robbed. But it wasn't. He'd found Dean in the gifts section, fingering a strand of fake pearls, his eyes distant. But Sam's presence had startled him out of it and he'd give Sam some half ass lie about how they reminded him of a girl. Sam hadn't pushed the subject.
Now, Sam lay awake in his bed, the light creeping out from the cracked open bathroom door lighting the opposite bed. He was watching Dean. His brother lay on his back, one hand on his chest, the other stretched out beside him. His face was calm, but he was muttering. Most of it, Sam couldn't make out. But the pat that he could made Sam think that maybe ignoring that off feeling he'd been having the past two weeks had been a bad idea. "I need you to save me." The words were quiet, muttered in a style that didn't sound like Dean's.
There was something wrong with his brother. He should have known the moment Dean had coughed up a lungful of lake water. He'd felt it then. But he hadn't thought anything of it. Sam could feel his brother in ways he couldn't explain. When he looked at Dean, thought of Dean, was just in the same room as Dean, he felt him. He hadn't known he'd had that ability until two weeks ago when he realized that his brother felt different. The only way Sam could explain the new feel of his brother was thinking that Dean had too much shadow. He seemed….dark. No, dark was too strong of a term. He seemed…less bright than usual. There was a flicker to his flare. And Sam was worried. He was worried that Dean was hiding something, pain maybe. He was worried that his brother's spirits had been dampened, that his heart wasn't in it anymore. But most of all he was worried that perhaps his brother wasn't alone inside his head. A part of Sam thought that may be the answer, but another part of him thought, no, he'd know it if that were the case, Sam would be able to feel something new inside his brother. And there was nothing new. The old stuff was just dulled, dim. But it was still Dean.
They'd been going about business as usual. There'd been a ghost in Kentucky. After that, they'd gone to Billings for a demon. Now, they were on their way to Wisconsin to check out some mysterious murders. Seven teenagers. Best friends. Good kids. But Sam worried that Dean's oddities were getting out of hand. He worried that his brother would get distracted during a hunt, at a crucial moment. A crucial moment that could mean the difference between life and death. But whenever he tried to hint to Dean that something was wrong, his brother wouldn't get it. In fact, he'd turned it back at Sam a couple of times, thinking it was Sam who had something funny going on. And that made Sam worry even more. His brother didn't know that he was acting strange. And Sam probably wouldn't have been able to notice either if he hadn't been watching him so closely.
Dean was muttering again, his whole body still except for his lips. The words weren't Dean's, Sam was sure of it. After a few minutes of it, when it was obvious Dean wasn't going to stop, Sam had had enough. He reached and flicked on the bedside lamp. Shoving the blankets off himself, he swung his legs off the bed and sat up, staring at Dean. What was he going to say? 'Dean, you were muttering in your sleep?' or 'Dean I think you're losing your mind?' or how about 'Dean, you're flickering and it's scaring the hell out of me?' Yeah, his brother would respond well to that. Dean loved it when Sam talked loony.
Deciding that whatever it was that was happening, he couldn't let it go on any longer, Sam stood and crept over to his brother's bed. He stood over him, watching Dean's lips move, the soft mutterings now too quiet for Sam to make out. As Sam reached a hand out to touch his brother's arm, Dean's lips stopped moving abruptly. He paused, expecting Dean to open his eyes and ask him why the hell he was standing over his bed. But his brother merely turned his head and gave a soft sigh, which sounded more like Dean than the mutterings had, and lay still again. Sam took a breath, bit his lip and reached forward, placing his hand on Dean's shoulder.
With a frown, Dean's eyes opened, blurry and sleepy. They immediately moved to Sam and Dean rolled his head back to face him. He sat up a little on his elbows. "Sammy?" he asked tiredly. "What's wrong?"
Sam hesitated for a moment, tempted to say nothing and go back to bed. But Dean was looking at him with those eyes that Sam could never deny. They were the older brother eyes. The eyes Dean pulled when he was worried about Sam or when Sam said something that reminded Dean his little brother wasn't a kid anymore. So Sam bit back the hesitation he had and whispered, "Are you okay?" Lame, but he didn't know what else to ask.
"What?" Dean asked, pushing himself further up. Sam stood up, giving his brother room to sit up straight and rub at his eyes. When he was fully awake, he looked back at Sam. "Yeah I'm good," Dean said, eyeing him suddenly. "What's wrong? Nightmare?"
Sam sighed. This was going to be harder than he thought. He took a step backwards and sat down on the edge of his bed, mouth twitching to the side as Dean watched him, looking as worried as ever. "No," he gave quietly. "Dean…" Sam trailed off, unsure of how he wanted to say it. He couldn't think of a way to word it that wouldn't make Dean angry or upset. Hell, look at how he had reacted when he told him that he'd been dreaming of Jess's death days before it happened.
"Dude, come on, spit it out already," Dean pried. "You can't wake a guy up at two in the morning and then sit there looking like someone just told you Lucky the Leprechaun's not real." Dean ran a hand over his face, obviously frustrated that he'd been woken up for no apparent reason.
"He's not?" Sam joked lamely, though his smile didn't reach his eyes. Dean looked over at him with a glare and Sam held up his hands. "Okay," he said and let his shoulders slump. Here goes nothing. "It's just, I'm worried about you." There, he said it. Now Dean needs to get angry, tell him that he's fine and he'd acknowledge the odd tics and tell him not to worry about them, that he's just still feeling scared about the drowning and then Sam would comfort him and they'd joke and Sam would resist hugging his brother and they'd go back to bed. Easy as that. But Sam should have known that Dean never made things easy.
"What?" Dean asked instead. "Why? You have another dream about me?" Dean's face suddenly turned sour. "You know, now that you've got the shining, when I ask if you have nightmares, you should probably answer me truthfully…"
"I didn't have a nightmare," Sam broke in and Dean paused, mouth half open.
Pushing the blankets off of himself, Dean scooted over to mirror Sam, sitting on the edge of the bed. He bent over, resting his elbows on his knees and looked at his brother. "Then what?" he demanded. "You're freaking me out a little, Sammy," Dean admitted softly.
A deep breath. "I think something happened to you in that lake," Sam said, watching Dean's face for any indications that he knew what Sam was talking about. He couldn't find any.
"Yeah," Dean scoffed. "I drowned."
"That's not what I meant," he said, irritated. He took a breath to calm himself. "Look, ever since I pulled you out, you've been acting weird." Dean gave him a look but Sam immediately went on, wanting to get it out before Dean could say anything. "Looking over your shoulder like you think someone's following you, spacing out at random times, muttering in you're sleep, getting up in the middle of the night to turn on the bathroom light." Dean's frown was growing more and more defined and at the last part his eyes opened wide, obviously shocked to hear that. "And you know, I wouldn't normally think it was weird because drowning can be pretty traumatic, but I…I don't think you know that you're doing it."
The room seemed utterly silent when Sam finished. They stared at each other for a minute before it was Dean who looked away. He looked confused, lost, cornered almost. Then he shook his head. "I don't get up to turn on…"
"Yeah you do," Sam whispered, cutting him off. "I've watched you do it for the past four nights." Sam watched his brother's eyes dart towards the bathroom, glaring at it. "I don't know what's going on," Sam said gently.
Dean's eyes slowly drifted back to Sam's face. They were sparkling with confusion and worry and maybe even fear. He licked his lips and gave a lopsided smile. "And your spidey-sense isn't tingling?" It was a joke, but Sam could see that beneath it Dean was asking a serious question.
Sam smiled at that and shook his head. "No," he said. "I know you're still you. And I don't feel anything that's not supposed to be there. You just…you don't feel right." Dean's eyebrows raised at that and he smiled. Sam couldn't help but return it. God, once he said it out loud it did sound kind of silly. But it was the truth. Or the closest thing to the truth that Sam could put into words. He couldn't explain the way his mind worked. I just worked.
Dean was tonguing the side of his cheek, eyes going back to the bathroom. He looked pensive and Sam figured he was trying to take this all in. He couldn't imagine what he'd think if someone told him he'd been doing things he couldn't remember doing. He was surprised Dean wasn't up throwing things around the room or throttling Sam for being a liar. Dean finally let out a gruff laugh and put his face in his hands, looking frustrated. "Sammy, I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to say to all of this," Dean said at last. He looked up and Sam opened his mouth to talk, but Dean went on. "You sit there and you tell me that I'm doing things I don't remember doing?" Dean stood up then, too flustered to sit down anymore. "Well, is it sleepwalking?"
"I don't think so," Sam said. "You do most of it when you're awake."
"What the hell?" Dean said, rubbing his head.
"Dean…" Sam tried.
"Don't 'Dean' me!" he yelled back, surprising Sam. "I'm walking around doing things that I don't even notice? Sammy, please, just tell me you're messing with me. If this is about all those Love-Hewitt jokes I've been making, I'll stop."
"I'm not making it up," Sam said somberly. "And they aren't really things that anyone would notice if they didn't know you. I probably wouldn't have even noticed if I wasn't watching you 24/7 after you almost died."
"Just little shit," Dean said. "That's all I'm doing right?" Dean asked, not giving Sam time to answer. "I mean, I'm not doing anything bad. I'm not punching you while you sleep or anything, am I?"
"No," Sam was quick to assure him. He got up too and went to stop his brother's nervous pacing. "Dean, it's nothing like that. It's almost like…" Sam trailed off.
"Like what?" Dean demanded.
"Like you're scared," Sam said after a bit.
Dean let out a harsh laugh. "Of what?" he asked incredulously. Sam didn't know what to say. "Of what, Sam?" he asked again, his voice louder. "I don't remember doing these things. I don't feel any different. I mean, you think if I was possessed I'd knot it, right? And what kind of a ghost possesses you just to make you turn on a light? That's all I need, to be possessed by a ghost with OCD."
"I don't think it's a possession, Dean," Sam said. "I don't know what it is, but I don't think there's anything else inside of you except for you."
Dean scoffed, but a halfhearted grin came to his face as he looked away. "Well that's comforting," he muttered. He let out a long sigh and dropped his shoulders. With his head tilted downwards, he moved his eyes to look back up at Sam. "So what do we do?"
Sam wished he had something to suggest. "I don't know," he answered quietly. "Try to figure out what it is, I guess. And go from there." Dean nodded in agreement. "What do you remember from that night at the lake?"
Sitting back down on the bed, Dean knit his hands together and leaned forward. "Well, I told your stupid ass to stay on the shore, which by the way, don't think I forgot that you didn't listen to me."
"Gee, Sam, thanks for saving my life," Sam chided, sitting down across from his brother. Dean just snorted.
"Yeah, whatever," Dean brushed it off, though there was a look of gratitude in his eyes that Sam accepted as a thank you. "But I swam down to the gravesite, placed the rune, then went to come back up but I got caught on something." Dean was quiet for a second but Sam didn't push. He tried not to think of how scared his brother must have been. Especially if he thought Sam would listen to him and stay on the shore. "And when I tried to get loose, it just made it worse." Another pause. "And then I just…everything just stopped." Dean looked up then.
"That's it?" Sam asked. "Nothing happened after that?"
"Oh, you want a more exciting story?" Dean asked, his voice light. Sam tried to talk, but Dean went on. "Well then I was saved by a mermaid," Dean grinned. Sam rolled his eyes and stood up, pulling his laptop out of his duffel. "Not too much to look at, but I did get a kiss."
"You're such an idiot," Sam muttered, sitting down at the table. "I should have just left you down there." But he looked up playfully to show Dean that he didn't mean it. Dean didn't seem too bothered.
"Aw, come on, Sammy," Dean joked back, standing up when he realized he wouldn't be going back to bed any time soon. He slipped on a pair of jeans. "You know you're my hero." Sam snorted and shook his head. Dean sat down on the bed and made a kissing motion with his mouth. Sam rolled his eyes and got online. His brother was quiet for a moment before he said softly, "You know, Sam, we still have to check out those murders."
Sam looked up at that. "What?" he asked, surprised. "You don't think this is more important?"
Dean shrugged. "People are dying," he said. "I'm just getting up at night and turning on lights," he chuckled but then his smile faded a little. "I mean, we can be looking and everything because I rather like having complete control over my own body. But until it really becomes a problem, I don't really think it's our number one priority. Maybe number two, but definitely not number one."
Sam watched his brother for a moment. "You don't want to try and stop it before it becomes a problem?"
"Look, Sam," Dean said. "It freaks me out, yeah, and I know you're the one with the magic head and everything, but, it doesn't feel wrong to me." Sam frowned at that. "I don't know, I can usually tell when things are a threat."
Sam thought about it. He didn't want to tell Dean, because he didn't want to give them both a sense of safety if they were wrong, but he agreed with him. It didn't feel wrong. Nothing about it felt wrong, only that it wasn't right. But not being right and being wrong were two different things. "Okay," he said simply. Dean nodded with a smile and a breath. He looked relieved. "So, those murders," Sam said and pulled up a newspaper article about the recent murders. He fully expected them to switch gears altogether. He didn't expect Dean to go on.
"We see a lot of crazy shit with this job, huh?" Sam looked up. "And you said it was like I was scared." Dean wasn't looking at him. "You think…" he paused to lick his lips. "You think maybe I've seen one crazy shit too many?"
Sam looked surprised at that. "Are you asking if I think you're going crazy?"
"Well," Dean bobbed his head side to side and then shrugged. "Yeah."
Knowing he was treading on sensitive ground, he gave a smile. "You can't go crazy if you already are." Dean snorted, but the grin that crossed his face reassured Sam that his brother was okay, or as okay with this whole thing as he could be. "We'll figure out what it is."
"And if we don't?" Dean looked so open then. He looked confused and a bit scared. But he also looked calm. He looked worried but at the same time assured. Sam was reminded of a conversation they'd had not too long ago. i You're not going to let me die in peace, are you? /i Dean had been open then too. Not as open as now, but open enough so that Sam could see all of his thoughts, feel all of his emotions. He'd been raw. And he was raw now too.
"Then I'll learn to sleep with the lights on."