Solitary Man – chpt 12

By: sifi

--

Sam looked around curious about his surroundings. The last thing he remembered was being in Dean's motel room with his brother unconscious. Slowly the yellow walls surrounding him became filled with shelves and devices that should've been foreign to him, but thanks to everything his family had been through, weren't. I'm in a hospital…he thought as a gasping breath and sniff caught his attention. He wheeled around and felt his eyes grow wide.

"Dean! Dean oh man am I glad to see you awake!" he bolted to his brother who sat against the wall with his knees in his chest and his head shaking back and forth, his eyes red and tear filled.

"Dean!" he barked crouching in front of him. He reached out and tried to touch his shoulder but his hand passed through him, the same way it had when he'd had the vision of him as a teenager burning those polaroids. "Damnit!" It's a dream… man… okay is it mine or is it his? Could be either or neither… man my head hurts… well, there's no choice, if it's even a remote possibility that I could be in his head, in his dream… I have to try and reach him any way I can…

"Dean…" he leaned in to his ear, "Listen to me Dean… this is just a nightmare… all of this… none of this is happening… Dad exorcised the demon…" If it's dead or exorcised shouldn't the effects of what it did have worn off? he shrugged internally, "Dean please hear me… you have to wake up… don't make me take you to a hospital… they'll catheterize you y'know…" he tried knowing how much Dean hated those things. "What are you seeing Dean? Am I seeing what you're seeing?" he asked straightening up and pacing as a nurse came in and dabbed at the cut on his older brothers forehead then put a couple butterflies on it.

She wrapped her hands around his arm and coaxed him into standing. Sam looked at her and thought she was familiar. She had reddish brown hair, cut short and bright brown eyes, She looks like Laura, only not… he realized and felt a smile touch his lips, This must be Dean's head…it makes sense, she was his nurse when they met, she loves him, he loves her… even if he won't admit it… dumbass…okay… now all I have to do is find a way to get through to him…oooh he felt a stroke of inspiration as he remembered an episode of one of Jess's favorite shows, some chick got body-jacked and she superimposed her psychic self over one of her friends to try and get a message out. Sam, having been lost in thought quickly dodged out into the hallway and followed them to where the nurse put Dean into a chair and squeezed his shoulder before leaving him.

Sam jogged up to his brother and sat down next to him, "Dean if you ever make a crack about this man… so help me…" he warned and scooted himself to the left passing into his brothers' form until they were completely superimposed.

Wow this is weird…in his head… inside his head…he thought. Sam could sense densely woven layers of his brother's personality and mental processes. It was like wading through a latticework of molecules, unable to see quite what the end product would be or how it would end up that way but knowing it was contributing to it just the same. Images of moments passed by his perception, like frames of film cut apart from the main strip, most of them moved too quickly for him to see clearly but there were those that seemed to meander and given the content he could see of them, these were images that gave his brother comfort. He saw their dad smiling as he taught them how to shoot as children. He saw himself holding out a hand drawn birthday card to his ten year old big brother, and he felt a wave of warmth pass over him as the image meandered by. He saw Mary pushing Dean on a swing at some long ago park, Dean sitting in dad's lap behind the wheel of the Impala as they went on an imaginary drive through the country without ever leaving the driveway.

This is so private…he thought wondering if he'd remember any of this when he woke up. Or if Dean would ever know he'd been in there. It's like reading a diary…Sam was disturbed by the intrusion but he also knew he didn't have much of a choice if he was going to get his brother back.

He cocked his head to the side as something yellow seemed to flicker in the distance. Slowly, not really meaning to Sam reached out his 'hand' grasping the image gently between two fingers and looked at it. His heart tripped and he felt his blood chill. The image was really a series of images, like the photo album loop he had on his laptop. Oily yellow eyes staring out from John's face, that sneer… the eyes again but this time the image haloed by rock walls instead of the cabin… a trigger finger wrenched and dislocated as a gun was somehow torn from the young hand holding it… the demon within John pulling eight or nine year old Sam out of a dog kennel by the hair and dragging him toward a gore encased makeshift altar…Aaron Mitchell Beyers gazing out at him, his lower face painted orange by smeared lipstick… photographs of children, rows and columns of photographs of children in obscene poses who's nature was in complete contradiction to the tearful and terrified expressions on their faces… Aaron Mitchell Beyers gazing at a thirteen year old boy as his life drained away on the floor…

Sam felt his belly flutter and his breath come short as his fingers parted and the square of scrolling images zipped away, back on its normal course. I knew you killed him but knowing it and seeing it are two different things…Oh man… Dean… why didn't you ever tell anyone? but he knew the answer. It was already done and telling anyone wouldn't change anything, it wouldn't help those sixty one children, Sixty two, he corrected himself. That his big brother hadn't fallen prey to the man wasn't the point, he'd still been victimized and that was something Dean would never want anyone to know.

I feel filthy… I gotta get outta… his heart was pounding for the anxiety that seemed to be coursing through him. He'd been fine until that series of… horrors… How much of that is actual memory? he wondered finding an odd measure of solace in the idea that some of it might have been, perhaps a product of fevered delusion. After all, he'd never been caged by their dad as a child and he'd never known of John being possessed until earlier that year. Sure… Dean was sick then too wasn't he? He was down for a couple days after dad and I woke up…man it's so…fuzzy…I guess it doesn't matter… except that I know for a fact dad dropped him into a vortex, and I know for a fact he found his own way for a hundred and fifty miles back to us… and I know for a fact he was nearly… nearly…yeah, that's facts. He shook his head unable to think about what might have happened if Dean had been any other child. I still feel filthy…

He turned around, wondering which way was out when his eye caught sight of another image, the one from the box of pictures Jenny returned to them, the one that had all four of them in it, happy and at peace as a family. He felt his eyes mist and he swallowed hard as a few more family 'pictures' glided by then he noticed the women. He huffed, smiling and shaking his head thinking he might've just strolled into an entire 'store' devoted to sexual misadventures but he was wrong. There were only three woman in these particular fluttering images, all of whom he knew. Mercy, Bobby's niece; Dean's first time if I'm not mistaken; Cassie, who he let himself love before she broke his heart; and yep, if I'm not mistaken… but the last image seemed held apart from the others and he tried to move toward it, to see it more clearly, confirm what he knew but for every step he took toward it, it remained the same distance away. Held at arms length? he wondered, Why?... then he saw the image of Cassie again and knew why, don't you understand Dean? She's your equal in every way that counts…she'd never hurt you… he thought and sighed.

"Sam?" he heard and turned to find himself sitting next to Dean in the hospital corridor again. Wow! that was… ungh…I feel sick… he moaned.

"Dean? Was that you?" he asked wondering if a psychic self could barf.

"Sam… come on buddy…"

He knew then, there was somebody in the motel room with them, No! No don't wake me up yet! I have to reach Dean!...No! he protested both in his head and, well, technically in Dean's head.

"Dean! Please… hear me… this isn't real! None of this is real! I'm here… I think dad is too…either that or I'm going insane but that's not important… I'm here and I'm not leaving you I swear..." he felt himself slipping through the realm of his brothers' nightmares, almost like flying but without altitude. He grinned as for a split second he saw Dean turn his head toward where he'd been, his expression curious and open as he mouthed, "Sam?"

--

"No!... Damnit!" he cursed breathing hard and looking into John's fearful eyes. "I almost had him dad!... He looked at me and said my name…" he gasped allowing his father to help him up off the floor, his body protesting the movement in general, "…how long have I been out?" he asked moving slowly to unkink himself.

"I haven't been able to get hold of you for about six hours…" John scrubbed his face with one hand while the other touched Sam's face gently, his relief obvious until his eyes fell onto his oldest boy and they began to mist.

"Dean…" he whispered and sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hand over Dean's head, "Come on dude… come back to us…"

"Dad, I almost had him, I have to try again…" Sam croaked and chugged hard on a half full bottle of water.

"I exorcised the demon… why isn't he coming out of this?" John asked.

"I don't know…" Sam shook his head, "I wish to hell I did…"

"What about your friend Laura? Any word from her?" John asked.

Sam picked up and checked his phone, "Nothing… did you get the APB put out on her?" he asked.

"Yeah… what makes you think she can help anyway…? Even Missouri can't help…" John shook his head.

Sam had never seen his father looking defeated before and he found he didn't much like the way it made him feel.

"You called her?" he asked, John nodded. "Did she say anything?"

He nodded, "She said she's not a magician… that if the people who love him can't wake him up then he's going to have to get out of it himself,"

"That's it?" Sam snarled.

John nodded.

"Well we're not sunk yet, not unless something happened to Laura…with the magiks she knows, the whole being an emissary thing… there's got to be something she can do, some way she can help… and we both know she loves him…"

On the bed Dean's head rolled to the side and they heard, "Laura…" slide from his lips as a faint smile tugged at the corners of them.

--

"Hey handsome… need a lift?" she asked pulling to the curb and opening the passenger door for him. He slid into the seat and clasped the belt around himself.

"Dean… look at me…" she instructed and pulled the car into a spot about a block ahead of where she'd picked him up. He did and felt tears spill yet again.

"Dean do you trust me?" she asked turning in her seat to face him.

"Course I do…" he nodded lethargically.

"Do you believe I love you?"

He nodded.

"That I'd never hurt you?" she asked.

"Yeah of course I know all that Laura… what're you getting at?" he asked feeling his heartbeat accelerate as a "spider walking on your arm" feeling ran amok over the whole of his body.

"There's part of a demon in your mind… it was in a telepath… it used the telepath to implant this… this hell into you… this nightmare you've been living Really IS a nightmare…" she explained.

Dean shook his head and for a brief second his hope flashed in his eyes, unguarded.

"Bitch!" came a snarl from the back seat as a black arm wrapped around her neck from behind, the other hand holding a gleaming blade it moved to strike across her neck, "Don't you listen to this bitch cracker boy… she's just trying to keep your spirits up! She knows as well as you do your boys are dead…"

"No they're NOT!" she growled fiercely and grabbed the knife hand, pinching it in just the right place to make him drop the blade. "You might have…" she stopped and swallowed hard glancing at Dean who eyed her curiously wondering what was truth, what wasn't. "But this is my mind! You have no quarter here!" she railed against the wiry man in the back seat, and with Dean beside her they watched the demon fly apart knowing it would regroup and return soon.

She nodded, "Sam's been trying to reach you Dean… if you can't find your way out by yourself, keep your mind open… he can help you, it's all he wants…" she explained and winced then drew a deep breath.

"What's wrong?" he asked and turned his head quickly, once more trying to catch that flash of silver. "What is that?" he asked turning back. Somehow he'd known she wouldn't be in the drivers seat, but he didn't like what he saw there. The beige interior of her car was sodden with so much blood the seat glistened and appeared almost maroon.

--

"…ra…?" he mumbled tossing his head as his dad and brother called to him, hoping this was a sign that he was coming back.

--

tbc

y'all are gonna kill me.

sifi