Here it is, chapter eight. I'll be replying to reviews and such today as well. ;)
Chapter Eight
He wakes up haphazardly, that is, like a baby gazelle trying to find its legs on a slight incline. All legs and limbs tumbling out of control until the hill ends, the sky swings into view, and you just realized you fell down a hill.
In Dean's case, he remembers he tumbled down a flight of stairs he should have had no problem descending and ended up with more than a few scrapes and bruises. His left leg's its own inferno fighting off the chill permeating the impassive stone walls, though not very well because his arms are covered in goose bumps.
Blinking a few times clears his vision. It's nothing but dull grey dotted with a few splotches of white. That's it. Nothing vaguely Sam-shaped is anywhere about, and he can swear he spoke to Sam not too long ago.
Everything's a bit fuzzy, so that may not be true. It's a little hard to remember anything, really, past discovering the car -- oh, man, his car! -- was no longer where he parked it.
Which wasn't entirely surprising, what with all the strange things the car had witnessed; here he implored the existence of some kind of personality to the car, even if most saw it as a melding of metal and leather seats. Hauntings, ghosts, bits of zombies -- half of what he's seen, the car's seen, and it wouldn't be too out there to believe something got into it.
But past that, and it does take his mind a little bit to process things, he remembers trying to get down the stairs, and then --
Alone.
"This is bullshit!" he shouts. His own words come back to him, snidely affirming that he's all alone in the lighthouse.
Sam left you all alone.
The voice is unmistakably his, yet not; he'd never say anything like that, but he'd think it. But there's malice hidden under the words, malice Dean himself doesn't feel.
Or does he?
Thoughts are getting twisted up in his head, and he shakes it to clear the preverbal cobwebs mucking up the works. Whatever's going on, he's sure there's an explanation for it --
You're all alone, but safe here.
He growls and lashes out as best he can even though he can't see his hand that far out. It's more a reflexive move because he knows that voice isn't his even though it bounces around inside his head and copies his distinct way of saying things with the appropriate amount of sarcasm.
Images start to clear in his head. Waking up. Seeing Sam. Something about leaving him at the top of the tower without warning, about him seeing something -- another one of his damned visions and deductive reasoning he wouldn't be able to reproduce until he figured out what the hell was speaking with his voice.
In his head.
Of all the things to invade, someone's mind was the worse. Invasive, personal, and just plain wrong, Dean had always been wholly opposed to dealing with any type of creature or spirit that may have the ability to do so and usually found himself arguing with his father over the merits of courage.
What did courage have to do with it? Deep dark secrets were secured for a reason, and he didn't have to explain himself to anyone, least of all his family. Weren't they supposed to be the ones who respected such boundaries without question?
Dean shifts his legs and groans -- long, meandering, deep groan that could develop into something else if he doesn't keep it in check. His foot's fallen asleep, and judging by the moisture on his leg and the tickling of air over his calf, things are progressing into seriously bad territory. He kicks out with his right leg; sitting in one position for too long has never been a strong point for him, and with something in there with him, he's getting antsy.
Where the hell is Sam?
Leave it to the psychic to ditch the party when his talents could actually be useful. Dean places his palms flat on the ground and tries to scoot farther down the wall towards the generator, hoping someone's left some tools or at least a flashlight in their haste to finish a job and get out of there. It's slow work; he only can move a few inches at a time before flopping back to the ground panting from the effort. A little break, then he pushes up again and scoots more.
A sickeningly innocent laugh knocks into him a few feet from the generator. His palms slip on the cement, rocks and dirt slicing into them as he falls back against the wall. His hands at least keep his attention off his leg for a moment, just enough time for him to feel a tickling in his left -- and still asleep -- foot before the burning in his hands transfers back to his leg.
"Yeah. Alone. Right," he mutters to himself. "If I were alone, I wouldn't have someone fucking around in my head."
Because he can feel it. It invades those dark blanketed parts of his mind even he's forgotten about, pries open locked doors with violent, painful thrusts of shoulders or feet or claws. It goes past the little white lies, the secret embarrassments, the mistakes he cringes at whenever they float in past the unconscious.
Don't worry, it says, this time mocking him with a voice he hasn't heard in years -- hell, didn't even know he remembered the inflections and light, sugary tones, I won't leave you like they did.
Dean doesn't care who the hell it is. He pushes up with newfound strength and scoots as far as he can before the effort saps all his energy and he collapses against the wall. He's so close, yet so far.
He growls and tries again. And again. Until his palms are bloody and raw and his leg's no longer something he can push to the back of his mind.
Because the sooner he finds some light, the sooner he gets the hell out of there, the sooner he can forget about someone lying to him in his mother's voice.
--
These headaches are getting a little annoying.
Sam should be thinking clearly, not struggling to stand up and align his vision to avoid tripping over something or topple over the edge of a cliff. Becoming confused or disoriented in dingy hotel rooms or the passenger seat of the car while flying past nameless towns was acceptable. Then, he could let them try to tell him something, hell, could give him clues that didn't make any sense.
But not now, not during a hunt.
The upside, though, and he struggles a bit to find it out in the field, is that non-corporeal entities are becoming easier and easier to see.
Their feet don't exactly touch the ground, one of the more haunting aspects of being able to see them instead of just feel their energy. Blades of grass strive to touch the bottom of Ruth Chillins' feet, but end up feebly praising her like sun worshipers on a cloudy day.
Like Sam's, her hair's plastered to her head by the rain, and while the wind and rain aren't howling as loudly as they were the night of her death, he can see the wind from her time ripping at her t-shirt, a plain, V-neck in red dangling over a ripped pair of jeans. Auburn hair swims around her face, tangled in the wind. A hand grips the edge of the swing set, knuckles white from the intensity of her hold, as if she'll float away if she releases even a finger.
Just pretend she's alive, Sam reassures himself. His talents for speaking with the living have to extend to the dead, or else why does he have this budding gift?
In order to bridge the gap between the dead and the living, Sam takes a step forward. His headache's loosened its death grip on his head a bit, so he feels fairly confidant that a few more feet won't do any more harm.
Boy, is he wrong.
The shock's strong enough to send him reeling to the ground flat on his ass, the wet grass soaking through his jeans. He's stunned, but that's the extent of his injury, which gives cause to the opposite polarity he's been feeling ever since their first day on the Cliffside.
"Don't come near," Ruth says. Her voice is a mish-mosh of female voices he can recall in his memory -- a little bit here and there all those girls he met at school -- so he blocks out Jess's voice as best he can.
There's a moment for oratory greatness, but this isn't one. "What's going on?"
"You have to leave," Ruth's mixed voice says. It's like a mosaic painting -- vowels drop here and there, an accent is emphasized on one syllable but not the other -- to make a composite sound. "You have to leave now."
"Why?"
When Sam was younger, his father admonished him for asking too many questions when action was required. He should be heeding the spirit's warning, should be rushing back to the lighthouse, grabbing his brother, and getting the hell out of there. But a part of his mind, the part that bubbled to the surface back at Angela's, keeps him rooted to the spot, hands splayed out behind him.
"You're not safe. He's never safe."
"Who's never safe? Thomas?" Sam demands. "Thomas is the reason we came here."
"I know. He'll never be safe. You'll never be safe. Can't you see?"
Ruth turns her head towards the cliffs, and that's what Sam thinks she's alluding to. After forty years, the cliff is closer, more perilous, a chopped drop created by some huge knife descending on the island. If he can't take a step towards Ruth, he can move in the direction of the cliffs, and gathers himself up to do just that.
"The cliff. Thomas fell over in the storm." He sighs and looks over to Ruth. "You fell over in the storm."
The wind howls up the cliff and slashes across the front of his body. His hair flies from his forehead and he can finally see. The gust pushes him back a bit, and when he glances in Ruth's direction, she's no longer there.
"She fell over in the storm," an icy voice whispers in his ear. Sam tries to wince away from the ice dripping on his shoulder, but feels Ruth's grip on his arm -- a tight, vice grip without the padding of flesh on her bones. Eyes wide, he looks down to see just that -- a pearl white hand gripping his arm.
It burns like ice, radiating out from her palm, and he pulls and pushes but her lips -- no, her skull -- remains tight to his cheek. "You have to leave. He will take you like he took me. Like she took me."
Sam's breathing's fast and hitches when Ruth's other hand comes across to caress his cheek. It pulls against his face hard enough to give him a feeling of whiplash in his neck and forces him to look out across the ocean.
His brain stops and he holds his breath. "There's a ship," he manages to get out.
Bobbing in the distance is the outline of a ship struggling over the waves, lights flickering in and out as it disappears and reappears beyond the squall.
A boney finger points out at it. "He took him." Sam's whirled around to look up at the dark lighthouse. "She took him."
The lighthouse. The light above is dark, a blind eye circling with no purpose. The lights from the ship blink in and out behind them, casting Sam's shadow on the side of the tower. He's a giant towering above everything.
A giant, solitary shadow.
Ruth's gone.
--
Sam manages to find a few discarded sticks and pieces of newspaper in the field, and gathers them up in his arms after a few more minutes of fruitless searching. He feels the light of the ship grazing his back, not the heat of physical light, but the pulsating brushes of spirit energy. Whoever's on that ship has been there a long time, calling out as best they can for some attention.
Sam almost feels bad turning his back on them, and ignores the clawing at the back of his sweatshirt as he rounds the lighthouse and pushes through the heavy metal door.
A bright light flashes in his face, and he has to thrust a hand in front of his eyes in order to see anything; all this bright light has him wondering if there'll be permanent damage after this trip's over. He squints and takes a few steps, almost jumping when the door slams behind him.
"Sam?"
The light wavers. Sam blinks a few times. "Dean? Where'd you find that?"
"Where'd I find it? How 'bout where the hell have you been?"
There's anger there, and hurt, and Sam realizes how it must have looked to Dean, waking up all alone, injured, unable to really do anything but sit there and think.
As explanation, Sam dumps the collected materials on the floor a few inches from Dean's outstretched feet. He notes the scrapes through the layer of dirt settled on the ground and follows the arch of the line around to the right. "I was looking for the car..." he says slowly, his mind putting things together. "Did you move all the way over there?"
His eyes return to Dean; the blood mixed with dirt makes his stomach queasy so he searches for something else to look at.
"Hell, yeah. You left me alone in the dark, Sam. What was I supposed to do? Twiddle my thumbs?"
"Since when are you afraid of the dark?" Sam decides to quip. Humor always works with Dean; he latches onto deflections like a frightened child grabbing a parent's leg. It's a casual remark, made as Sam starts sorting through what he's collected, separating out two of the larger sticks in hope they're strong enough to act as a brace.
"There's a fucking ghost in here, man," Dean spits.
This catches Sam off-guard halfway through building a pitiable fire. He drops the last piece of wet paper onto the small pile and looks around the room. Usually, he can sense these things -- the feeling of Ruth's presence is still fresh in his mind -- but right then, he feels nothing but the chill of wind that slips in from above.
One thing he's not going to do is tell Dean there isn't anyone in there besides them.
"Casper lives in a lighthouse?" Sam gives up on the fire -- nothing's going to burn until it dries out a bit -- and takes off his sweatshirt and over shirt before settling next to Dean's injured leg. "I though he preferred large mansions with cute girls."
Dean grunts. "Whatever," he says with a wave of his hand.
When Sam sees his palm, he grabs it mid-air and pulls it forward a bit too harshly, but then again, this is Dean he's dealing with, and anything short of a hard grip results in your hand being swatted away. Dean's palm looks like it lost a competition with a meat grinder; some of the deeper cuts are still oozing blood while the rest of his palm's just sticky with bits of dirt making the red more intense.
"Let me see your other hand."
"What are you, my nursemaid? Cause honestly, you're cute, but not that cute."
"You wish," Sam remarks, plucking Dean's other hand from his side.
"Yeah," Dean smirks. "I really do."
A slap on the shoulder's all Dean gets since Sam's not too keen on getting into a long debate over the pros and cons of good-looking hospital staffers. He gathers up his shirt, gives Dean's palms one last lingering look, and heads for the door.
"Hey, where are you going?"
"Listen, Dean, you're bleeding all over. I've got to get some water to wash out your leg." He pauses, running a shaky hand through his hair. "I'm going to have to straighten your leg, try to set the bone."
"Yeah, well," -- Dean motions to the door scoot scoot -- "I'm not going anywhere."
--
As soon as Sam's head disappears out the door -- he doesn't step all the way out, just one foot squishing on the wet grass -- Dean relaxes against the wall and allows his eyes to slip closed. In the dim light, Sam can't tell, but a cold sweat's broken out on his forehead and drips down his face into his eyes, down the length of his nose, right to his mouth. He licks his lips and wrinkles his nose at the taste.
It's getting harder and harder to keep up his façade in front of Sam. Simple quips die on his tongue, his eyes roll back when Sam places his attention on something other than his face. Even when he tried to fight against Sam's examination of his hands, he found it hard to do anything but let them hang there.
As dizzy as he is, Dean can't help but hear that voice in his head promising over and over that if he only stayed here, no one would ever leave him alone again. It laughs whenever he tries to block it out or reason with it, so he just lets it talk in all those voices it can find, each a new attempt to convince him.
He watches Sam collect rainwater in the cloth of his dress shirt, wondering about the state of the storm outside. The news reported the heavier winds would come in late-morning, followed by a torrent of rain. From the light coming in the doorway, Dean can't tell if its late night or early morning, the sliver of sky he's able to see is nothing but a collection of clouds in different shades of grey.
The shirt's dripping water on the floor as Sam walks back, small dots mingling with grey dirt to re-enact the swelling storm outside.
"I hope these weren't your favorite jeans."
"They're my only jeans," Dean replies lamely. Sam gives him a side-glance while he sits and starts dotting Dean's leg with the rainwater. "Only clean jeans?"
"You don't have to do this," Sam remarks so painfully soft, Dean struggles to make out exactly what he said.
"What?"
"Oh, c'mon, man," Sam sighs; the ripping of Dean's jeans fill the silence for a moment. "You've been -- been hiding whenever you're hurt since I was five." And to punctuate his point, Sam presses a little hard on the wound, causing Dean to let out a hiss.
"I have," -- another sharp press, another hiss -- "no idea what you're talking about. I'm just naturally this tough."
"No one's this tough, Dean." Sam looks up at him sharply, too fast for Dean to set his face right. "You must have been your doctor's worst patient."
"What? Dr. Mugle loved me."
Which isn't the response Sam was expecting. Dean couldn't remember a single instance, other than inoculation shots at free clinics wherever they settled, of Sam being to see a regular doctor for a check-up. Too many questions; doctor's reports for school were forged, illnesses taken care of at home, and all three of their rag-tag family had a good degree of emergency training.
But this isn't the time to fill Sam in on the exciting childhood experience of visiting the doctor with your parents, how the paper crinkled and you wished there were crayons so you could draw a picture while waiting.
Sam, face hidden by overgrown hair, holds the flashlight up to Dean. "Hold this."
Dean takes it, but not before mocking his brother while his head's turned.
"I saw that."
Since when was Dean the younger brother?
Since he had to take control. He'll leave soon, too, you know.
No, no. Not Sam. He came back.
He came back.
One time, he won't.
Hell, even Dean knew that one. It was inevitable. Security was something he gave up long ago for the sake of family -- no attachments meant no lingering grudges, no arguments when one came back apologetic. Time heals all wounds, but it's also not something you always have.
Dean squares his jaw and gives Sam the light he needs to finish cleaning his leg. It's the first time he's seeing his leg, and he can't help but wince himself each time Sam lifts the now wet and bloody shirt to reapply it somewhere else. His skin's red and raw with a bit of that white peeking through no one wants to see. Bones belong on the inside, and while Dean's no stranger to broken bones, this one's making him nauseous.
Really nauseous.
"Dude, I'm gonna puke."
"Seriously?" Sam asks. "Again?"
Dean places a closed fist in front of his mouth and nods. "Yeah. Seriously. Help me up." Sam's got his arms under Dean's before he's even tried to get up from the ground, and each step they take towards the door sends a jolt of white-hot pain through his body that only helps to raise his stomach in his throat.
They only just make it; some splatters on the door, but the rain washes it off, washes both of them off. The brothers lean against the wall just inside the door, Dean just focusing on breathing. He leans back and looks up the spiral staircase, frowning at his obvious weakness. Maybe that voice had a point.
"Damn, that thing's bright," he remarks.
Sam shifts next to him, glances up, then looks at his brother. "What are you talking about? The light's been out for at least a half hour."
"Uhh, all those visions have defiantly screwed with your head." Dean points up. "That is light."
He can't help but keep the worry out of his voice.
--
A particularly angry gust of wind slams into the tower making the walls vibrate. It's followed by the loud swish of waves sloshing over the beach to crash into the side of the cliff, receding with small bits of land to collect elsewhere. The storm scarred the land and took over the sky, giving the sun only bits and pieces of property through which to peek. It skated at the edges of dominating clouds, struggling in vain. With each surge came another shift in the ceiling above, taking back what little space the sun had managed to overtake.
As for the state of the lighthouse, if it was indeed casting a beam of hope through the darkness covering the island or contributing to the bleakness of early morning, was still up for debate. Pieces of a fractured reality, both Winchester brothers stood by their senses, not saying who was right and who was crazy; those are the kinds of things you can't take back.
So Sam keeps his mouth shut about his encounter with Ruth, her cold fingers, and cryptic messages about a he and she and their abduction of someone. Theories pop up in his mind, and he cycles through them as he cleans out his brother's leg and looks around to make sure no pieces are floating around.
Now and then, he'll give his mind a break and remember he working on his brother and not some random leg he imagines isn't attached to any living, breathing, feeling being. When he does, he can hear Dean grunt and groan with each movement, feel him shift whatever body parts he can.
When it comes time to straighten the bone, Sam bites his lower lip and questions his abilities. "I don't think I can do this," he says more to himself than Dean, but the latter feels the need to respond anyway.
"Sure you can," he says in that reassuring tone Sam's heard since his first day of kindergarten when the kids made fun of him for coloring wrong. It's the tone that Sam replicated in his head during his first week of college when everything seemed overwhelming and he had half a mind to lock himself in his room and avoid classes for the rest of his life.
He doesn't need anything more, just squares his jaw and remembers that he got through kindergarten with flying colors and a recommendation to skip first grade, that he finally got through those first few weeks using his brother's voice on the phone as a crutch.
It's a rushed, messy treatment for something that should be seeing the inside of a hospital. But the car's gone, the storm's howling outside, and he doesn't feel they'd be able to leave even if he threw Dean over his shoulder and started for the village a few miles away.
"Maybe..." Hand resting on Dean's leg, Sam pulls his cell phone from his pocket. Reception on the island had been spotty, at best, but came in now and again when he didn't need it. No bars are illuminated, just the blinking 'low battery' icon in the upper corner. "Shit."
"Stop stalling, dipshit," Dean says. His voice has grown more and more quiet over the last half hour, and even his digs sound lame when he doesn't have the energy to pack a punch behind them. It gives Sam some much-desired insight into his brother's psyche, but he'd rather learn the insults were code words for terms of affection when, maybe, Dean was drunk on alcohol and not a lack of blood.
Sam sets his eyes to connect with Dean's clouded ones and sees nothing but stern resolve staring back at him. And whereas Sam usually won these impromptu staring contests, Dean's will pushes Sam to drop his useless cell phone to the ground and place both hands back on his calf.
"This is so unsanitary," he remarks. He's stalling; they both know it. "You could get an infection."
"I hate to say this, Sammy, but sitting here with it open for a few hours hasn't helped prevent that. Get it over with."
There's a last dabbling of water trickled over the wound, then Sam twists up his face, puts a hand on Dean's knee, and slowly -- patiently -- attempts to straighten things out.
Straighten it out, put it in a sling, and prey the storm ends or the car reappears so they can get the hell out of there. Sam repeats this in his head over and over until things look pretty straight, at least to someone who's only watched over shoulders as this kind of work was done, then grabs for the larger sticks and thick fabric of his sweatshirt.
Dean clears his throat -- had he said something? -- and grabs Sam's arm.
"Fuck," he remarks, voice scratchy and almost not there. "You've got no -- "
And he gives up. Just stops in the middle of the sentence, leaving Sam hanging on the edge of a joke with no conclusion in sight.
"No what?" he prods.
Dean smiles and relaxes his grip on Sam's arm. "Beside manner."
But he says it in a way that makes Sam smile and frown all at the same time. He's like a child who sees something in a window and wants it right away, dreams about it at night, begs for it every holiday. The dreams never live up to the reality -- the colors are duller, the material cheep in hands that expected greatness.
To Sam, this is what his brother turns into without the tough façade he's worn for decades.
How do you return something you've yearned for?
Dean's transformation comes without a gift receipt, so Sam settles for focusing on the task at hand. Splints he can handle, splints his father or brother would give to him for practice. Just in case. Uncertainty seems blasé now; he'd gladly of stood by and continued to watch if it meant the opportunity to use the new knowledge would never come.
"You know what," Sam decides, ripping his sweatshirt in half, "promise me you'll never change."
"Huh?"
Like a professional with a patient, Sam voids his voice of the heavy emotion he's feeling. "Don't change for my sake. I'm okay."
Dean's laughter is a pale imitation of that cocky half-filled expression of mirth he usually chuckles out. It's hoarse and scratchy and Sam's brain fills in the holes in his memory with the sounds of his brother screaming his head off.
"Hell, Sam," he remarks. "I changed because of you. Can't go turning back now."
There's no response to that. Sam continues binding the leg until the arms of the sweatshirt are nice and tight around the wound, the sticks secure on each side. It's a pretty good job for someone as nervous as him, and he admires it for a second before patting his brother on the shoulder and standing to explore what else he might find discarded at the tower's base.
Because sometimes, the things you know are never things you want to hear out loud. Peter Pan saved his life, but gave himself up in the process.
Sam suddenly understands the concept of a life for a life, and his brother's reaction to the reaper makes so much sense, it hurts.
--
While searching for extra tools or dry scraps, Sam feels a cold breeze brush across his back like trailing fingers; in fact, when he turns his head to follow the sensation, he finds they are fingers. Jessica's fingers.
She's standing next to him dressed in that pink v-neck sweater he loved and tight jeans. Sam takes a double take, blinking. When he opens his eyes, the drafty, cold lighthouse has been replaced with his dorm room from freshman year, back when he'd just figured out what a normal life was and had severely overcompensated when it came to decorating his half of the room.
Jess's hand lingers on his shoulder. "Hey, you okay?"
"Uhh," he stutters. What the hell is he supposed to say? 'Yeah, I'm fine, just that you died and I'm not in school anymore?'
"C'mon, Bartle's lecture wasn't that bad. Seriously, you need to lighten up. No one believes all that stuff, anyway."
Sam feels like an actor who's forgotten his lines. He knows what she's talking about -- it's his memory. But his exact responses have escaped him, off somewhere where his body is, back in that lonely lighthouse.
He fibs, instead, not one to waste a life-like memory of Jess. "Sure. I know that."
"Good," she smiles, flopping down on his unmade bed. "Cause the faces you made -- " She bursts out laughing, hand flying to cover her mouth in that lady-like manner of hers. She was always doing things like that, the result of her upbringing. It amused Sam, and he made her a sort of case study on how people really interacted.
"Wow. I'm glad you find me so amusing."
And the painful reality of this memory comes crashing down because he knows what she's going to say, knew it the moment the line came stumbling out of his mouth.
She's going to say, "I find you more than amusing." And he's going to smile an awkward, strained smile and try to play it off. She'll grin and look him in the eyes and tell him that's one of the things she finds so attractive, his being completely lost in most situations.
She'll run her hand down the side of his face and give a kiss that quickly develops into something deeper.
And while Sam's half-convinced to stay there and let this particular memory play out, hell, he'd be crazy if he didn't, there's something nagging him, and he feels it slipping farther and father away as Jess stands and opens her perfect pink lips to say what she was going to say, what he knows she's going to say.
He turns and runs. This isn't right, something isn't right, and, as Dean calls it, his Spidey Sense is ringing. Loudly. The doorknob's cold, which gives him pause, but he wrenches the door open anyway --
-- there's a rush of wind and Jess's painted lips are coming at him, painted --
Sam lets out a scream and tries to pull away as Jess dissolves quickly before his eyes, blond hair turning into long strands of silver. Hands reach out and grasp his shoulders with a strength Jess never had, and whatever this was couldn't, and pull him close.
Empty brown eyes replace Jess's light ones, the face stretches long, and Sam finds himself face to face with the her Ruth was warning him against.
His feet try to pull him out of the skeleton's arms, but the movement's futile. She pulls him forward, a smile playing on what's left of her mouth; several teeth are missing from her exposed jaw.
"I find you attractive, too," she speaks with the wind, pulling him into an embrace. A cry dies on his lips as she drags him out the doorway and into a kiss.
She continues moving back, causing Sam to stumble forward. The door to the lighthouse slams closed behind him; he struggles to move, to look behind him, to get this thing off him, but all he can do is keep from throwing up in his mouth.
--
Gripping the flashlight tight in his right hand, Dean watches in wonder as his brother almost runs for the door and throws it open, relief flooding his face as soon as his hand made contact with the door knob. The flashlight had fallen from his hand, clanking to the floor with the hollow thud of plastic, and almost rolled out of Dean's reach. It took some quick reflexes -- which he was sure had pretty much left him by now -- to catch it before it rolled too far, but by that time, Sam had shut the door behind him.
I told you.
The tone suggests a child holding his tongue before dropping 'so' in that condescending way only children can make sound innocent.
He knows; he's still trying to get away with it even at twenty-seven.
Still gaping at the door, Dean fumbles with the flashlight. The light's dimming, and no matter how hard he shakes the flashlight, it continues to fade until there's nothing left. Small reflective mirrors suck all light from the circular room and like the light, what little warmth had managed to build up over the incalculable hours wanders away until he's left shivering.
There's no reason to stay awake.
That damn voice again, this time aggravating the steady headache caused by the lingering tendrils of shock. Whoever it is -- because at this point, there's no doubt in Dean's mind that a poltergeist has taken up residence with him -- has settled on a slightly younger version of his own voice. Not the odd, wavering tone of a teenager, but the sweet internal version only he knows. The one that voiced all his doubts and apprehensions at their new life, the one that asked over and over again if mom was ever coming back.
It comforted him when no one else could. Like a best friend no one could see, there's a lingering part of Dean's personality left over from before -- and this is how he thinks of his life, as before and now -- a glimpse of who he could have become had life not taken a tragic turn and thrust him prematurely into adulthood.
Most of the time, it's the voice he argues with when he has a blank look in his eyes, the psychological component of the conscious voice, a connection with deep buried things; he doesn't know technical terms, just that, somewhere, deep down, there's a four year old playing in the backyard with his mom who stops sometimes to talk to him.
For this reason, the intrusion is deep and personal, and takes most of his energy to fight against. Because you can't go from listening to it all your life to denying it's very existence. To do that would be to lose a part of himself, the sane, logical, normal part that acts like glue to fill the gaps Sam can't.
He feels that either way, he's going to lose something; Sam or his sanity.
"Why do you stop playing around and actually show yourself," Dean tries. "What are you, a coward ghost or something?"
Eyelids flutter; he's stayed awake too long, pushed himself too hard, and he can feel his chest constrict in rebellion with every breath. It tightens, threatening to pull him apart at the seams, his sides stretching. So he starts to breath shallow, it's more comfortable, but makes him lightheaded.
"God damnit," he swears. Giving up is not an option, not when Sam owes him an explanation, not when his car is missing and his father's missing and there's still a demon on the loose he swore to kill and send back to hell.
Dean tilts his head back against the wall with a small degree of force, hoping the contact will give him a small boost of adrenaline -- something, anything to keep him from falling asleep. When it doesn't, he takes a deep breath, ignores the pain in his chest, and stares up at the spiral staircase.
Where the fuck had his brother gone?
He left you, like I said he would. Like everyone does. Are you really surprised?
"Heh," Dean breathes. If he speaks out loud, it's not as crazy. "Yeah, yeah I am."
"No, you're not."
Dean can't see much in the dark, and the spillage from the light isn't doing much to help but shade in the shadows of a room without corners. On the other side of the generator, where the stairs begin their climb, a shadow flickers like a blinking light in the fog. He squints, trying to make out the shape, when his flashlight sparks to light just long enough for him see the outline of a boy standing there, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jean shorts, face long and worn.
"Huh. You must be Thomas," Dean remarks, though the boy isn't wearing the same outfit he was in the newspaper picture. He cocks his head to the side, breaths shallow again. "How do you know he didn't go for help?"
"How do you?" Thomas asks, still using a stolen voice. "He left his phone."
Thomas is right. Sam's phone sits where he dropped it after checking for a signal, the screen black from a dead battery.
"He doesn't need it."
"You lie to yourself as much as my dad lied to my mom."
With that voice -- God, it gives him a headache -- Dean can't be sure if he means Thomas' dad or his own, and it takes a moment for him to dig through the fog his head's become to make heads out of tails.
"Yeah, well, sometimes adults have to lie."
"Why?"
That's a good question. "Because," -- God, does he just want to go to sleep -- "because sometimes the truth hurts."
"Like your dad leaving you," Thomas says.
"He didn't leave," Dean retorts stronger than he thought possible. "He had something to do."
"But you did everything he asked you to. Did you do something wrong? Did you make him angry?"
The little fucker's been in his head way too long to not know the answer to that whopper of a question. "Yeah," Dean sighs, letting his eyes slip closed. "I think I did."
--
Fear mingles with repulsion as the woman drags them farther and farther from the lighthouse and the memory-created room until Sam feels the sharp prick of rusted chain-link brush his side. Not enough to cut through his t-shirt, just the catching of fabric as each link groped at his shirt, hungry for the skin that lay underneath. She pushes him against it, her hair flying in the updrafts caused by the cliff; she reminds Sam of Medusa, the way it flies around her head, then moves like slithering snakes to wrap around his wrists.
Hair should break with the smallest application of strength, but hers cuts against his wrist with the same ferocity you'd expect from tying his wrists with the jagged, rusted metal of the fence he's found himself attached to. Rain thunders down from above, making everything slick, slippery, and once his feet lose their footing, placing all his weight on the restraints. The sliding of blood down his arm is warm, almost scalding compared to the freezing rain pelting him.
She regards him with those dead, hollow eyes, too small for her eye sockets, and they rattle a bit whenever she moves her head. Her caress is a lot like Ruth's -- cold, boney, and it sends a bit of a shiver down Sam's spine -- but unlike Ruth, she presses in hard and Sam discovers first-hand how sharp a bone can be if applied correctly.
"I didn't know Thomas's little trick would work," she remarks. Instead of forming her voice from a kaleidoscope of memory, she uses her own deep, raspy whisper. "Men like you are rarely so gullible."
"Like what?" Sam asks. Keep your cool. Perhaps spirits are like animals; they can smell fear coming off you in waves.
"Psychic." She hisses like it's a curse. "Your brother was against the idea, I hear. How does it feel to know all this could have been avoided if you'd only listened to him?"
"He knew what he was getting into," Sam replies. "He trusts me."
"Too bad you can't trust your instincts." There's a spark in the air that makes the hair on Sam's arms stick up. Static electricity, and he's not sure if it's a by-product of her energy or a warning. "A baby. I've seen many of your kind before. But you served your purpose."
She turns her back to him, leaving him tied to the fence, and heads back towards the lighthouse. Sam's mind is churning over her words -- Thomas lured both of them there through Sam. He's the one who pushed Dean to investigate when they could have left. He's the one who said they were supposed to be there, the one who spouted all this psychic crap he barely understood.
When she reaches the door and sends him a grin over her shoulder, Sam struggles against the bindings made from her hair.
A trap. And they both walked right into it.