Once upon a time you could sleep the sleep of the innocent. You don't really remember those days too well but sometimes you look back fondly and wonder what it would be like to dream like that again. You're trying to recapture that feeling now but there's a constant thumping at your shoulder and a noise in the background that's disrupting your efforts at sleep. Prising your eyes open you find Sam poking you gently and softly calling your name. You want to tell him to piss off but all that comes out is "mmmff". Sam laughs and you wonder if you made a joke or whether his translation is just that off.
"C'mon Dean, open your eyes." He's persistent, you have to give him credit for that. He's moved his hand from your shoulder and is brushing imaginary strands of hair from your forehead. You bat your hand at him but your arm feels like it weighs seven hundred pounds so you let it fall, useless, to your side. You crack open one eye, which you don't remember closing, and give him a lopsided glare.
"S'mmy?" you slur at him and he stills his hand, resting on your brow. You have to admit it feels good, it's cool and soothing.
"Hey, how you doing?" You think about that for a few minutes. Physically you've been better but you've also been a hell of a lot worse. You'll be up and about before breakfast and that qualifies as 'fine' in your book. Mentally though? You've just had a spook going through your every thought. You don't share your thoughts for a reason and the experience has left you shaken to the core. If you'd wanted anyone to know about that incident on the boat, you'd have told them. It's left you feeling sullied and insecure and you don't like those feelings. Logically you know there's nothing you could have done to prevent it, nothing you'd have done differently, but that doesn't stop you from playing 'what if'. What if you hadn't gone out for food? What if you'd noticed him before he got his hands on you? What if you'd managed to get a shot off? Just one? What if Sam hadn't been there to bail you out?
"Dean?" Sam's looking pensive again. You realise that you never answered his question.
"I'm good," you manage to slur out. At least you're coherent enough for Sam to understand you this time. He holds out three fingers and raises an eyebrow at you. You know this routine all too well.
"Three, Sammy. Dean Winchester. January 24th and no, I've no idea where we are."
Your answers seem to satisfy him and he rises up from your side. As if by magic a glass of water appears in your hand and Sam is passing over some pills. You try to glare at him – he knows how you feel about medication – but the effect is lost on him. Probably because you're still a little unfocussed. He pushes them on you and you have little choice but to accept. The water is an added relief and if it gets Sam out of your hair it's worth it.
Swallowing the pills, you get your first proper look at Sam since your little conversation with Charlie. With a pang of guilt you realise you haven't asked after his own wellbeing. It's such a natural thing to you now and it just goes to show how off your game you are at the moment for it not to have occurred to you before now. Watching him fuss about the room, you notice that he's favouring his right arm more than normal. His left arm is hanging limply by his side and it doesn't look natural to you.
"Hey, Sam?" Sam stops where he is. Freezes more like. Sign of a guilty conscience you always say. He obviously knows what you're about to ask and you can tell he's going to try and fob you off with some cock and bull story. "What's with your arm?"
"It's nothing," he stammers, refusing to look you in the eye. Suddenly that discarded newspaper is looking mighty interesting to him. You've known him for too long to be taken in by that answer and he should know you well enough by now to know that it just won't work on you anymore.
"Sam?" You'd probably sound more threatening if you weren't still two shades of pale yourself. Sam sighs and slowly turns to face you. You're not sure what you read in his eyes but you suddenly wonder if you're the only one who got to have a chat with Charlie tonight.
"It's nothing, Dean. Really." Doesn't seem like nothing to you though and you raise one eyebrow at him. Unfortunately it would appear that your brother is immune to that gesture nowadays. There was a time you could scare the pants off him with that look.
"Doesn't look like nothing. How come you're holding it funny?" You're like a dog with a bone here. The sooner Sammy realises that, the better for both of you. Your eyes are getting heavy but you know you won't sleep till you know what the deal is.
Sam huffs a little. "The ghost kinda threw me across the room," he admits, "but I'm okay. I think you must have interrupted it. I don't really remember much…" he trails off into silence.
"Did you hurt your head too?"
"I'm okay, Dean. Really. I'm more concerned about you. That ghost wasn't exactly Casper."
It suddenly hits you that Sam doesn't know it's Charlie. You flop back onto the bed, exhausted. Just before sleep claims you again, you manage to pass on that little piece of information to Sam.
When you wake again, sunlight is peering round the curtains, spilling into the motel room. As you claw your way back to the land of the living you're relieved to note the absence of pain in your head. You still feel defiled but you guess it's going to take more than a good night's sleep to get rid of that particular memento Charlie's left you with.
Sam is sitting by at the table, watching you. You guess he's been waiting for you to wake and it doesn't look as though he's had much sleep. You stretch, popping joints that have been long neglected. Scrubbing the back of your hand over your eyes, you peer blearily back at Sam. After a pause that's a little too long you wave towards the laptop sitting in front of him.
"What've you found?" You'd like to bet he's spent the night looking into Charlie's history in more depth. Now you know for sure it's him, Sam must have something to go on.
"Not much," Sam sighs, despondently. "Charlie doesn't seem to have made much of an impression on anything round here. I don't understand why he's still here. Or why he's targeting the victims he is." He stops and turns away from you. "I think maybe we should go visit his mom. She moved away after Charlie's dad died but we could be there in an hour. If you feel up to it?"
Hell, yeah, you feel up to it. You want to send this dude back to where he belongs. He's been through your head so it's kind of personal now for you. The fewer people, or things, who know what's in there, the better. You nod your head and swing your legs over the side of the bed.
Charlie's mom is living on a trailer park, quite similar to the ones you spent time on in your childhood. Glancing at Sam you can see his thoughts are going down the same highway as yours. Sam quickly finds the right trailer, adorned with garden gnomes and flower pots overflowing with greenery. He raps on the door and it's opened almost instantly, as though Mrs Harrison was waiting for you. Life hasn't been good to her and you wonder if it was always like this for her, or whether the loss of her husband had more than an emotional impact on her. It turns out that she's the spitting image of Alice and it creeps you out more than you would have thought. Charlie must have had some serious issues.
"Hi," Sam always has the right tone of voice. You've noticed it on more than one occasion and one day you might get the hang of it yourself. "My name is Sam. I was at school with Charlie." He hesitates and waves a hand around aimlessly as if he's searching for the right words. "I just heard and I wanted to say how sorry I am."
Her eyes soften at the mention of her son's name. She moves to one side to let you pass and although she eyes you curiously she doesn't query your presence. The trailer is untidy in a homely way. There are signs of neglect round the edges but it's clean and she obviously still has her pride if nothing else. Sam's in full flow and you find yourself tuning out, as you so often do in these situations. You catch the odd word, 'sorry' and 'good boy' and 'misunderstood'. The last one catches your attention and you have to stifle a laugh.
You think the shiver down your spine might be a residual effect of last night's discourse with the man in question, or it might be the way she's turned to you suddenly. Sam is looking at you too and, vaguely panicked, you wonder if you've been asked a question.
"I'm sorry," you find yourself apologising, "did you say something?"
"Dean? Are you okay?" Sam looks concerned and Mrs Harrison looks downright scared. She's staring at you with wide eyes and a slightly trembling mouth. And that's when you realise you've drawn your gun. You don't remember doing it but there it is, in your hand. Okay, so you haven't raised it, it's still pointing down and you haven't released the safety, but you've got it out and you didn't know you'd done it. Sam has stepped forward and taken hold of your wrist. He gently draws it up and pulls the gun out of your fingers.
"Dude?" he hisses in your ear. "What're you playing at?"
You look stupidly from the gun, to Sammy's face, to Mrs Harrison and back to Sam again. You shake your head in confusion.
"I don't know," you admit, your voice barely a whisper, "I don't know." You stumble backwards, not really knowing what you're doing. You know you have to get out of the trailer. Not because you're scaring Mrs Harrison, and probably Sammy too, but because there's a pressure building behind your eyes and you need to be out in the open. Sam' s looking worried so you plaster a false smile on your face.
"I'm sorry, Mrs Harrison. I'll go wait in the car." You turn to Sam. "I'll just be outside." He nods and watches you anxiously as you turn on your heel and make for the open air.
When you get outside you realise that Sam still has your gun. You wonder what he's telling Charlie's mother. You're not too bothered – you know that boy can spin a story with the best of them. But you are bothered that you didn't realise you'd drawn a weapon. You're even more bothered by the fact you don't know why you had it drawn. The pressure is gone from your head and you decide you'd be more comfortable with a weapon. You have your knife strapped to your ankle, you never go anywhere without that, but a gun has a certain solidity to it that you find comforting. You reflect on how screwed up your life is that your security blanket is a gun.
Taking the keys to the Impala out of your pocket, you make your way round to the trunk. Opening it in one swift move, glancing from left to right, you pull up the floor to reveal your stock of weapons. Running your fingers, almost lovingly, over the array of hardware revealed, you pause on the handgun lying there. You know it's loaded with iron bullets and if Charlie is about to show his face again this is the weapon you want by your side.
Stowing it in the back of your jeans, you close the trunk and turn to watch the door of the Harrison trailer. You pull yourself up on to the trunk, resting your feet on the bumper, careful not to mark it with dirt. Your senses are heightened but even so you don't notice the figure to the left until it's only a couple of metres away. There's no drop in temperature to warn you and the first you know of it is when the voice in your head pipes up.
"Hello again, Dean."
You slide off the car and whirl round to face it, gun aimed, but just as you're about to pull the trigger Charlie raises his ghostly hands in surrender.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he says. "I was trying to help you."
"Why do I find that hard to believe?" you snarl, tightening your finger on the gun. Just as you feel the mechanism start to engage, the weapon is pulled viciously out of your hand. The metal scrapes your fingertips and the stinging sensation distracts you just for a fraction. You watch incredulously as your only defence flies across the front yard and lands harmlessly in a hedge.
Charlie has moved and now he's right in front of you. You want to yell for Sam but Charlie's face has you captivated in all the wrong ways. There's a ball of ice in the pit of your stomach and it's not melting. You want to be far, far away from this spook. You try to put some distance between you but the Impala is at your back and there's no escape route there. Charlie's figure is solidifying. He's stronger here, and that means he's even more dangerous.
He lifts one hand, splays out his fingers and you duck your head to the left.
"Uh uh," you tell him. "You're not getting into my head again, you freak." If it were possible, you'd say Charlie looks hurt and rejected.
"But I just want to talk to you, Dean," he says.
"Well, do it from outside my head this time."
"But I need to know how you feel. Words mean nothing."
"You don't need to know anything. You need to go away." He's moving his damn arm again and the car is stopping you from moving. What you need right now is for Sam to finish up his conversation and to get his ass out here to help you. You take a deep breath to yell for Sam but all that comes out is a puff of air. You glare at Charlie who just shakes his head sadly at you.
"I can't have you shouting out, Dean. That would spoil our conversation. Sam is fine in there. Mom's a good woman, she'll look after him." And then his fingers are on your head again, a hand on each temple, and you're frozen in place.
It doesn't hurt so much this time. Charlie's voice is floating around your consciousness but it's as if he's trying to be careful this time. Doesn't mean to say you're not going to have one hell of a headache later. You're feeling lightheaded and the world around you is fading to a fuzzy grey. Your thoughts are incoherent but unlike last time you feel warm. With a shock you realise Charlie is sharing his thoughts and feelings. As he withdraws his hands you sink to your knees and stare up at him, gaping like a fish out of water. He smiles gently at you and then dissipates slowly.
You drag yourself up, using the Impala as support, registering hazily that Sam is exiting the trailer. You can hear him making his farewell to Charlie's mom but you know he's seen you. Next thing you know, he's sitting next to you, checking you out worriedly. You feel nothing. You know you should be pissed with Charlie, you should have put up a fight, but all you feel is… empty.
Forcing your mask back into place before Sam asks any awkward questions, you stride over to the hedge your gun landed in. A few minutes of rummaging around brings the said weapon to hand. Nonchalantly you replace the gun in your waistband and return to Sam. It's a brief distraction but Sam isn't falling for it.
"What the hell was that in there?" he asks. And you wish you could answer that. You look up at him slightly vacantly, unable to concentrate properly. That promised headache is there, building slowly at the base of your skull and working it's way up.
"What?" and you dig around in your pocket for the keys. Taking them out, you pass them to Sam and silently walk past him to the passenger's side of the car. You give him a look that brooks no argument. He blinks slowly and then takes up position behind the wheel.
"You know we're going to have to talk about it, don't you?" Yeah, you know but not just now. You need to get your own head round this and that might take some time.
By the time Sam pulls up to the motel room, you think you've got a handle on what Charlie was trying to tell you back at the trailer park. You just need to articulate it for Sam. Hell, you need to articulate it for yourself. There are some things that are just too hard to put into words. It's all in your head, you just need to get it into some sort of order. As Sam puts the car into park and switches the engine off you can feel him watching you. You sigh and lift your head off the back of the seat where you've been resting.
"Charlie was there. He was at the trailer park and he was in my head again." And that's as much as you can express at the moment. You turn to face Sam. "I can't explain it, Sam. He was there and he put his hands on my head and then I just …." You trail off into nothingness, shaking your head.
Sam looks at you as if you're having some kind of breakdown and you can't really blame him. It sounds pretty pathetic even to you, and you just lived through it. You shrug helplessly at him and look away. Sam obviously decides to take pity on you and drops the subject for the time being. He climbs out of the car and makes his way to the motel room. By the time you've followed him in, he's got bottled water on the nightstand and he's sitting on the edge of his bed.
"Mrs Harrison was quite forthcoming," he informs you as you settle yourself opposite him, clearly deciding to cut you some slack. "Charlie's death hit her hard, she still can't understand why he did it. She told me he was very insecure."
"He was," you find yourself nodding along. Sam just glances at you curiously and carries on.
"Seems there was no love lost between her and Alice either. She had a few choice words to say about her. Charlie was totally besotted but as far as mom could see, Alice walked over him on a daily basis. She doesn't know why he stayed with her."
"He was under her thumb," you agree.
"Yeah, and she knew it. According to mom, Charlie wanted to move away from here, make a new start for the two of them but Alice wouldn't hear of it. She told them both that she grew up here and she was going to die here and if Charlie wanted to be with her then the sooner he accepted that the better."
"She was a total bitch," you whisper and you know Sam is giving you that look again. The 'are you okay' look he saves for special occasions. You can't blame him now though. You think you're okay but Charlie left you with more than a headache and you're having trouble working out which emotions are his and which are yours. You think you're just getting to grips with it but each time Sam mentions Alice, another feeling pops into your head.
"Charlie was in love with her, totally. He felt it was the first time anyone had paid him any attention, even if it was all the wrong kind. She started out being good to him, saw him as a steady income and a doormat. But she got bored, that's when Davey stepped in. Charlie couldn't take the rejection and the humiliation." You scrub your hands over your face, screwing your eyes closed. You can feel Sam watching you, bewildered.
"How do you know all this?" he asks, not unreasonably. You open your eyes and face your brother, hoping you're not going to sound too crazy.
"Charlie told me," you offer, "when we were at his mom's."
Sam sits back and regards you studiously. You try not to fidget and squirm under his scrutiny. Just before you say something you might regret to him, he nods thoughtfully.
"What else did he tell you?"
"Not much," you admit ruefully. For all the aggravation he's caused you, Charlie hasn't actually left you with very much to go on. You've got his feelings, sure, but that's not going to help you and Sam get rid of him. And you know, without a doubt, you have to get rid of him. Before he hurts someone else. Before he hurts you. Or Sam.
"Dean?" Sam's in your face suddenly and you wonder when he got so close. Maybe you were so lost in your thoughts you forgot you were in the middle of a conversation. You could kick yourself. You really need to get your head back in the game. Idly, you wonder what Charlie took from you while he was kicking around in your mind this time. You shift your focus back from the middle ground to Sam's face.
"He didn't blame Alice. For cheating on him." Clarity hits you like a bolt of lightning. Suddenly you know why Charlie is choosing the victims he is. "He didn't ever think he deserved Alice so he wasn't surprised when she cheated on him. It was who she cheated with that got to him. It was a bit close to home. He couldn't cope with that so he topped himself."
"So why is he still here?" Sam questions. It's a reasonable enough query and you'd think you would know the answer now. After all, you and Charlie have shared headspace for longer than is decent now. But that's an answer you don't have. If the freak left it with you, he hid it well. You're not used to digging around in your own mind. Things in the deepest recesses of your memory are there for a reason and you don't want to start stirring them up now. So you decide to ignore the question.
"He chooses spurned lovers. Men who don't even know they're being cheated on. I bet if we went back to Christine and Melinda we'd find a few skeletons in their closets."
Sam ponders that for a few minutes then gives you a look that makes you shudder involuntarily. He smirks at you. "I've never cheated on you, Dean," he grins.
"Huh?" That's not what you were expecting. You blink at your brother rapidly, trying to process what he's just said, along with that smirk. You shake your head at him. "What?" you add, just for good measure. Sam laughs and slides back along his bed until his back hits the wall and he relaxes his shoulders.
"What I mean is, why did Charlie come after you? We're not even involved so why would he think I was cheating on you?" A look of indignation flits across his face suddenly, "And why would he think I would be the one to cheat anyway? Everyone knows you're the one who has trouble keeping it in one place."
"Me? I'm the embodiment of faithfulness." You raise your eyebrows as you give Sam a glare that would cut through steel. He just laughs and after a minute you have to join him. Now he's mentioned it, it does seem kind of screwy the way Charlie has you two totally wrong. You've never known anyone as loyal and steadfast as Sam whereas you, well, if you're with the same girl twice it's a miracle.
"Seriously though, Dean. Why?"
And that, you think, is the 64 million dollar question.
tbc