Silence descended on the cabin in the wake of the explosion. For some time Sam heard nothing but her own breathing, harsh and loud in the sudden quiet. As her vision began to fade back in Sam pulled herself to her feet, hissing in pain as the brief but violent burst of adrenaline began to fade, leaving her arm throbbing and her neck stinging. Every step she took seemed to resonate through her wounds. Keeping herself upright was a feat in and of itself; making her way to the banister of the rickety staircase was something close to a miracle. Her eyes, cloudy and unfocused amidst the aftermath of the blast, drifted to where the uber-vamp had been only to see…nothing. No body, no fluids just…nothing. She squinted and as the room came into focus Sam couldn't help but laugh as her eyes traced the human shaped burn marks left in the floor. Whatever that demon had helped them create had done MORE than expected…which was almost as unsettling as it would have been if the mixture had just fizzled out.
"Sam…? Sammy I'm comin' down, you okay?" Sam opened her mouth to respond and had to clear her throat and force a few swallows.
"Yeah…Yeah Dee but I think I need a little help." The sound of boots on the rotting wood of the steps reverberated down the staircase, rattling the bannister. Sam gazed up into the darkness with solid trepidation in he eyes. As Dee's boots entered Sam's vision, tromping down the stairs with the sense of authority only Deanna could muster, a wave of relief washed over Sam. Though Dee had more than her fair share of scrapes and bumps, and what looked like quite a shiner building over her eye and a limp that was more prominent as she took the last step off the staircase, she seemed ok. Sam flushed as her sister's eyes traveled quickly from the torn fabric of her forearm to the wound at her neck, concern plastering her face.
"Got the jump on me, Dee… She took me to the floor before I could get a shot off. Bastard's were stronger and faster than I expected…" She murmured, jaw tense and eyes narrowing; visual representations of the shame and frustration she felt. She'd never been injured so severely…at least, not when she was on the top of her game. Was she even ready for this shit? She tried to focus on the fact that they had stopped incalculable deaths at the hands of these monsters, horrific wounds or not.
"Jesus, Sammy, we gotta get you patched up before you pass out." Dee offered her shoulder (which Sam refused) and, moving at a comfortable pace for both the injured Sam and the limping Deanna, the Winchesters began weaving their way back to the Impala. Amidst their various aches and pains Sam became painfully aware of her hunger; what had been a dull, slow burn in the pit of her stomach a few hours prior had been stoked into a raging inferno, licking at the edges of her thoughts with enough savagery to overpower the physical pain of her wounds. She groaned, grasping at her stomach with her right hand and earning herself a gaze bordering on amused from her sister.
"You uh…okay there?"
"You think we could stop somewhere for food?" Dee sputtered, pausing in the path and whirling on her sister, shifting the beam of her flashlight to point directly in Sam's face.
"You're…hungry."
"Well I don't know if you remember but it's been like… a day since we've eaten." She responded, wincing at the too bright light in her eyes.
"We've gone longer, Sammy." That insufferable sense of amusement from her sister was nearly enough to send Sam into a dark place she preferred not to visit.
"Yeah, that may be but… I'm hungry. And I'm tired. And damn it if I don't feel like I'm just about to pass out though whether it's from hunger or blood loss…" Sam shrugged, wincing as the movement sent fresh waves of pain radiating through her neck. They reached the Impala and Sam hoped the conversation would be dropped. She was hoping that Dee wouldn't ask if the smell of her own blood was causing an entirely different hunger to arise and she was hoping that with food…physical food…she could force it down.
They paused for a moment just outside the Impala, silently thanking whatever force had helped them get through this, before they slid into their respective seats. Sam groaned, nausea now battling with her hunger and leaving her feeling sick. There was a curious, tingling sensation at the back of her head; a tickling itch that seemed to exacerbate her pain and intensify her craving.
"Come on, Dee, just…fast food, whatever, anything. I don't care. Something quick then back to the motel… You're gonna have to help me; I need stitches." It was Deanna's turn to groan as the engine roared to life, purring in the darkness and illuminating the rough trail they'd arrived on.
"Yeah, yeah, Sammy. I know the drill." Sam said nothing to her sister's gentle reassurance; her eyes had fluttered closed while Dee had re-oriented the car.
Deanna glanced over once, eyes softening as she took in the prone form of her sleeping sister, before she sped off into the now silent night.
oOoOoOoOoo
"HEY, Sleeping Beauty, time to wake up. Come on, riiiiise and shine!" Her world was moving, shifting, swaying beneath her and now, suddenly, things had stilled. Eyes that ached rolled behind her lids as Samantha pulled herself from the seat her back had nearly fused to during the ride back to the motel. The world popped into blurry focus, continuing to dip and bob around her even as her body screamed that she was motionless. The ache, THAT ache, the insufferable, insatiable need for blood had exploded within her, a feeling so foreign and so alien that for a moment she was unable to breathe. The car reeked of fried chicken and blood, the smells combining to throw her already blood-addled brain through another loop.
"SAM, come ON, get the LEAD out; that wound ain't gonna sew itself up. I got the chicken, just get yourself." Sam managed something like a grunt and Dee retreated from the driver's seat, slamming the door with her hip as she made her way to the motel door. Feeling the ache more prominently than ever, body hurting as though she'd gone ten rounds in a UFC ring, Sam pushed her way to her feet. Overall she wasn't sure what was causing the most painful of her aches, the physical wounds or her desire for demon blood. It was only as she stood that Sam realized she couldn't move her head from side to side. Groggy hands fluttered up, brushing along where her neck was only to encounter cloth. It took a few more seconds for her to realize that Dee had bundled up her wound as well as she could; probably using a spare T-shirt or something to help staunch the bleeding. She tugged experimentally at the cloth and winced as it pulled painfully at the still raw, open skin of her wound. Her stomach roiled, bile rising briefly in her throat.
None of this, none of what had happened at the cabin, was normal. Her wound, her inattention…
Once the world stopped spinning Sam began the trek to the motel room. Though the door was about fifteen feet straight ahead from the car the journey seemed impossible. She lurched her way forward, feeling light and faint and altogether unpleasant before she managed to shuffle through the doorway and collapse on the bed nearest the door.
"Sammy? That you?" Her sister's voice, muffled through the closed door of the bathroom.
"Y-Yeah, Dee. It's me…" She groaned, loud enough to garner her sister's attention. The bathroom flung open with enough force to slam against the wall leaving a dent they would never see.
"Sammy?"
"Dee! Dee, it's…it's okay… I'm just… I'm exhausted, and hungry and my everything aches." She murmured, tilting her head just enough to bring her sister's profile into view. A moment or two passed as Dee shifted a few things out of Sam's view before plunking down beside her sister, nearly toppling the both of them as the bed dipped to meet Dee's weight. She swore, readjusting herself.
"How ya feelin', Sammy?"
"Better, I guess… Just patch me up, I don't think I'm gonna last much longer." A pause, then, "I mean sleeping. I'm just exhausted. It's like I haven't slept in a week." The thought of eating, which had so propelled the younger Winchester not an hour before, had vanished from her mind, sleep overriding any and every human function her body could produce. Hunger? Pain? Not even an afterthought as tendrils of weariness threatened to drag her into sleep with each blink of her eye; it was almost as though the hunger had driven her to bed. A silent nod was all she received as Dee's weight on the bed receded momentarily before resettling; sounds of rummaging and then a pressure at her neck.
"This uh… is probably gonna hurt." Sam opened her mouth with the intention of loosing some sarcastic phrase just as Dee began removing the tattered remains of her shirt, ripping through the fabric up the middle with a knife. Before she had time to register that yes, that WAS her favorite shirt, Dee was peeling the blood-soaked, sweat-dampened fabric off. Sam tilted her body as well as she could to accommodate the procedure, hissing as it took some skin with it. It took less than half a minute before Deanna was gently lowering her body back down to the bed. Dee bundled up what remained of the shirt and pressed it firmly against Sam's neck, keeping it in place with a nearby pillw while she picked up Sam's arm.
"Wow, Dee, I didn't know you cared." Sam managed, even as the residual waves of pain began to fade. Overall, her wounds weren't bad; having staunched the bleeding at her neck, she was no closer to bleeding out than she had been a few hours before this entire mess happened. She felt her mind beginning to wander as Dee began sterilizing her arm, moments of the ambush and proceeding fight flashing behind closed eyes as she attempted to analyze where she'd gone wrong. Not believing it a was a trap had been a mistake for sure …allowing the creature to take the advantageous top position…
"Well, let's just hope I can do this in a straight line; your lack of help is making this whole thing pretty difficult." Sam blinked, realizing she'd dozed off somewhere in the midst of her instant replay of that evening's events. She managed to force her eyes open for long enough to watch as Dee tugged the thread tight and snipped the end, finishing off what normally would have been a painful procedure. Some aspect of this worried Sam; to have nodded off through the pain? Not even to stir when the needle first punctured the torn skin of her forearm? She sighed and made to shift herself into a seated position amidst Deanna's verbalized objections.
"Come on, Sammy just doze back off, it's fine. I'm just gonna wrap this up then disinfect and wrap your neck, okay?" Sam shook her head, ignoring the sensation of moving through a pool of Jell-O and once more forced her eyes to open.
"Gotta eat somethin', Dee. I'm probably not going to wake up for a while and uh… I just wanna eat somethin' first." She winced at the withered sounds coming from where her own voice used to originate. It was now that Dee was beginning to look at her. REALLY look at her. Sam flushed and turned her face away, unable to meet her sister's gaze. As her sister manipulated her body, Sam forced herself to acknowledge her desires and then to put them away, far away, in some distant dark corner of her mind. She'd come far in the short time they'd been reunited and it would take more than some vamp suckin' her dry to make her return to the habit that had nearly destroyed their relationship.
Dee moved slowly, carefully, and it was more than apparent that she was doing everything in her power to keep the pain of this process at a minimum. Sammy was beginning to wonder how long it would take for her elder sister to notice that she wasn't sleeping right. To classify her nightly occurrences as nightmares would be close, though certainly they were not just dreams. It was not every person who could claim that they received nearly constant, incessant, smoothly spoken lies and persuasions from Lucifer himself while they slept. Hopefully, tonight would be a reprieve. She winced as the shirt was peeled away from the still raw wound at her neck and Dee's responding whistle confirmed that it was probably as bad as she'd thought it was.
"Christ, Sam, did you just let that thing have at you or somethin'? You even TRY to fight back?" Dee chuckled at her own joke, attempting to brighten the suddenly dark mood with a bit of light-hearted ribbing. Sam's right hand clenched around the comforter of the bed, knuckles white as her fingernails bit through the fabric to dig into the skin of her palm.
"How bad is it, Dee?" A moment of silence, broken only by the sounds of rummaging as Deanna dug through the pack beside her.
"Well…it's not the worst we've seen…"
"Yeah… Guess yours a week and a half ago takes the cake, huh?" Sam started, jerking forward and drawing more protests as Dee was pushed away in the process.
"Christ, Dee! I didn't… Damn it, are you okay?" Sam felt sick, realizing how much attention she'd stolen from what was likely a momentous amount of pain Dee herself must have been dealing with.
"Uh…yeah…um, it's.. uh…" Sam paused, hazel eyes flashing over Dee's face, not quite registering the fact that her sister refused to meet her gaze.
"Listen, Sammy I'm-…" She trailed off, seeming to weigh something in her mind as she prepared the antiseptic and wraps for Sam's neck.
"I'm fine, Sam. I guess I'm just healing faster because of the uh…the treatments! You know, all those extra…binding…changing and…cleaning it…and…you know…" With a shrug she commenced the cleaning of Sam's neck, fingers moving lightly, gently against the still oozing wound. Sam seemed to accept her comment as well as any over-exhausted, wounded warrior would and after a nod or two she leaned back against the headboard. Another couple of minutes passed, both sisters lost in their own thoughts before Sam was entirely patched up. She offered to re-bandage the wound on Dee's back and to check for anything else but was waved off with a plate of fried chicken and what appeared to be some seriously wilting salad. Caring little for the stinging at her neck and the throbbing of her arm, she dug in. It took less than five minutes for the younger Winchester to clear her plate, wilted, questionable lettuce, soggy chicken and all. Though she worried for a moment that the food would not sit well in her stomach, she felt nothing more than full and in a vague sense of the word, content.
"It's not like you to eat fast food without a fight." Dee was grinning at her sister from the small table set up just beside the window, a second bucket open and half devoured before her. She'd just twisted the cap off her second beer and was looking just as comfortable as Sam did, still half-propped up against the headboard of the bed. For a moment, Sam smiled. So long as their phones remained silent, their dreams void of horrors and their room empty of angels, they had an honest to God's chance of avoiding trouble for a few days. Which meant they might ACTUALLY recover their strength, have a little while to just…relax.
And as unlikely as this was, Sam couldn't help but give it credence. Allow it to build into an idea that she could believe enough in to at least allow herself to loosen her ever tightened muscles.
A yawn escaped her and she realized she'd nearly dozed off again. Dee laughed from her little corner of the hotel room, the sound rolling from her raspy tongue with a lightness that seemed to suggest she was feeling pretty good herself.
"Seriously, Sammy. Just go to sleep." She stood and stretched, yawning widely and theatrically for her audience of one.
"I'm gonna grab a shower then sleep myself. I paid in advance for two days, so we won't be bothered with an early checkout in the morning." Dee tossed her hand up in some vague dismissal as she sauntered into the bathroom and kicked the door shut behind her. Thinking that the suggestion was a good one, Samantha slid down into a more comfortable position and drifted almost instantly to sleep.
OoOoOoOoO
It wasn't until the door was closed, body pressed against the faux wood of the door, that Deanna allowed her mask to slip. Only a little. Enough to reveal the disturbing myriad of emotions hidden beneath its' surface. Frustration, borderline disgust, anger… All coagulating to form a creature whose face Dee couldn't recognize. Something akin to a snarl twisted her lips into a horror show. Dee pushed away from the wall and stalked the two steps over to the sink where she'd left their bag of toiletries. With a sigh that spoke volumes she dug through the bag until she produced her toothbrush, shampoo and conditioner. As she prepared her toothbrush her eyes flickered up from the dirty white of the sink basin to the mirror, yellowed with age and cigarette smoke and covered in enough smudges to violently distort her image.
Huffing, damp toothbrush held in her right hand, Dee used her shirtsleeve to rub away as much of the grime on the mirror as was physically possible.
Her haggard, exhausted, sitting-on-the-edge-of-some-sort-of-break-down face appeared, blue green eyes staring back at her own reflecting all of the horrid emotions she was feeling. Almost instantly she regretted her decision to clear the mirror and yet, Dee could no more stop analyzing each and every flaw than she could stop breathing. Skin too pale, hair ragged and sticking up unbecomingly in every which direction. Dark, heavy circles around her eyes completed the look, eyes dull and filled with each and every unspoken thing she held in her mind. A black eye was well on its' way to developing, a round circle of dark purple beginning to flower out from the center of her left eye, blossoming into a light blue around the socket. Gently pressing the pad of her finger on her eye caused the aching to intensify; this would probably be one of the worst black eyes she'd ever had. Shifting her weight from foot to foot confirmed that she had, at the very least, bruised her entire left leg and had likely popped her kneecap out of place. That she could stand on the leg was more than enough for her. Having gone through the checklist she returned to her face; swallowing past the lump in her throat gave way from pity to anger.
With a silent snarl she reached out and flung the mirrored cabinet open, removing her image and revealing a bare set of shelves. Unnecessary, pointless motions that solved nothing and only made her feel foolish. She left the cabinet door open, the mirror facing away from the door opposite the sink and towards the shower. She brushed her teeth in solemn moodiness, frustrated with her childish actions and irritated that even the act of brushing her teeth brought forth that dull ache in her face. Pretending that nothing was wrong between her and Sam… that Sam hadn't spent a week locked up in a safe room to detox…that they hadn't separated because Sam just couldn't handle it, was starting to wear on her. What made it all that much worse was the knowledge that she'd been fine on her own… no… she'd been better than fine alone, damn near great on her own as a matter of fact. Having Cas around had helped, that much was sure.
Her lips curled into a smile which could only be described as devious; oh yes, and she supposed Cas was another problem as well. Her grin widened into a look that was almost sheepish as she contemplated her time with the angel. Inappropriate comments and slightly drunken passes aside, it had been one hell of a week.
With her shampoo and conditioner waiting in the shower she set about stripping, peeling her shirt off and over her head to reveal a body toned and scarred through her years as a hunter. She turned, angling herself in front of the cabinet's mirror to get a better view of her back. Already dark, ugly bruises were blooming across her skin, evidence of their encounter with the creatures in the woods. Though she'd known just off of touch alone that the most gruesome of her wounds had been…healed, for lack of a less religious-sounding word, she'd had the urge to see it herself. To see what she'd assumed would be a horrendous mass of scar tissue across nearly the entire length of her back, her wound healed now into something that would no longer cause her pain.
She was entirely surprised to see a scar so old it was almost invisible, pale and entirely pain free. She stood there for a long while, eyes wide and reflecting back at her in the mirror. Her left hand fluttered up, coming to rest on her right shoulder, fingers gently brushing the freshly knit skin-
And she was back in the car; Cas' surprisingly warm fingers tracing her skin along the edge of her neckline, dipping just below the collar of her shirt to press against her wound… The way his fingers had twined together with hers. How close his face had been…
"What are you thinking about, Deanna?" Dee loosed a srangled cry as she whirled around to face the small space between the shower and the wall. Simultaneously she grabbed a towel and her gun, both of which had been draped over and dropped into the sink. For several seconds she stood there, eyes wide, heart racing even as her hand remained steady, outstretched with her weapon pointed directly at Cas' face. She was unsure whether she was more displeased or furious as a blush snaked its' way up through her neck, lighting her cheeks aflame.
"Cas."
"Yes, Deanna?"
"…We've talked about this, too, remember? BATHROOM EQUALS PRIVACY; P-R-I-V-" Frantic pounding at the door caused her to jump, whirling and dropping her towel as she aimed her weapon at the locked door of the bathroom.
"Dee? DEE?! What's going on in there, are you okay, answer me!" Her sister's frantic cries and incessant pounding on the door were oddly sweet to the elder Winchester. Dee lowered her firearm, flicking the safety on and removing the chambered round and covering her face with her hand, wondering how the evening had gone from the prospect of a quiet shower before bed to some odd sort half-naked stand-off at Motel 59.
"Uh no, NO, Sam, I'm fine!" She managed, clearing her throat once or twice before the words would flow.
"I'm alright! Just a uh…" She glanced at Cas, mixed feelings dancing her eyes as she continued. "Just saw something, a bug I think. In the shower! Yeah, I'm just tired is all, Sam." Silence on the other side of the door.
"It's fine; I'M fine. You can go back to sleep." Dee remained tense, half naked and ready to jump should Sam attempt to break the door down or should Cas decide to open his mouth. Dee was aware that it was silly and unnecessary to keep Cas hidden. And yet, there seemed to be no other alternative. It was imperative that Sam not know that Cas was invading her privacy. HER privacy; somehow this designation seemed important.
"Okay, Dee… Just uh… call…if you need something…" Quiet shuffling; another minute or two and Dee was fairly certain that Sam had walked away. She waited, however, until she heard the soft creaking of the springs on the worn mattress signifying Samantha's return to the bed before she rounded on Cas.
"Are you SERIOUS right now?!" She hissed, gesturing to the door and then to Cas himself before silently stamping her feet against the floor; Cas cocked his head to the side, nothing aside from curiosity adorning his features.
"Deanna, is there a reason you're missing your shirt?" Dee froze, horror dawning across her face as she realized she was wearing only her bra and a pair of ripped up jeans (courtesy of the uber vamps). Slowly, moving with enough stress in her body to cause Cas to take a step back against the wall adjacent to the shower, she rounded on him.
"Cas. If you value that human meat-suit of yours in ANY way… you will turn away from me. And you will say NOTHING MORE about my lack of clothing. Yes, just like that, AWAY FROM ME." She hissed, crossing her arms in a clear show of anger. For a moment he stared at her, eyebrows knit together in the way they always did when he didn't quite understand something. After about half a minute they switched places, Dee facing away from him while he took over her spot next to the sink. She sighed, rolling her shoulders as she realized that the angel intended to stay.
"PLEASE tell me this isn't about business; I'm so exhausted I'm about to drop." She was entirely oblivious to the fact that, due to her earlier frustrations with her exhausted appearance, Cas was now facing the mirror which was offering a complete view of Dee stripping. She unzipped her pants and proceeded to shimmy free of them, hips swaying as she moved. She stood there for a moment clad only in a simple pair of black cotton panties and a black bra, reaching her arms over her head to stretch away the stiffness before turning the shower on. Steam began to build in the bathroom as the water reached just short of scalding.
"You just gonna stand there Cas or you gonna answer my question? And anyway, how'd you find me?" She continued to undress as she spoke, peeling her bra and panties off until she stood there naked, turning just enough to offer a perfect side view of herself.
"Come to think of it, how'd you find me earlier? In the Impala?" She slipped into the shower, shuddering with delight as the hot water struck her skin.
"Cas? Cas are you still there?" She peeled aside the curtain, gazing out to see Cas standing where he'd been before, staring at her face with a look she wasn't quite able to decipher. "You uh…you okay there?" More silence… He cleared his throat, shuffling his feet in a series of actions entirely un-angelic.
"No. No, I uh… I just wanted…" He trailed off, staring at Deanna with a strange look as the water rolled over her face and dripped to the mat below. She shrugged and returned to her shower. His 'no' had been enough to satisfy that nervous twitch she'd felt the moment she'd laid eyes on the angel. She assumed, when more than a minute of silent counting had gone by, that he'd left just as quickly as he'd arrived. This left her with the now to enjoy. And the now was a steaming hot shower, delicious smelling shampoo and the altogether soothing sensation of having nothing to worry about. Yes, the water pressure was weak. Yes, she knew that she should have considered sandals before stepping foot into the shower she was now luxuriating in. She refused to allow Lucifer's imminent uprising and Michael's grab for her body to ruin her quiet. So rare were they now, these moments of peace. She took her time in the shower, running her fingers through her short locks, massaging her scalp and rubbing herself down with the suds from the shampoo. It was not peace, but it WAS peaceful.
She prolonged her shower until the water began to cool. With a sigh Dee shut the water off and threw open the curtain to the shower, intending to dress quickly and head to bed-
Only to find that Cas was still there.
Dee froze, staring at the motionless angel until a breeze alerted her to the fact that she was still naked. She nearly dove for her towel, all the while her jaw worked as she struggled to put her current emotions into words.
"Any uh… PARTICULAR REASON YOU'RE STILL JUST STANDING THERE." She hissed, wrapping the towel around herself. She stepped from the shower onto the slightly sodden bathroom mat, gaze flicking down for a split second. Her mouth opened, some angry smart ass remark floating at the edge of her lips as her gaze slipped back up-
To find that Cas was now a hairsbreadth away, deep blue eyes boring into her with enough emotion swirling around in them to steal her breath away. She froze, body taking over as it had in the Impala, bringing her natural instincts (to jump away, to lash out, to do anything to get herself out of this situation) to heel as she froze where she stood. Thoughts of the month prior danced through her mind before she shut them down.
"Cas… Are you…okay?" She murmured, barely breaking the silence and maintaining eye contact as she spoke, searching his gaze for something other than the indecision she seemed to see shining in his eyes. What happened next seemed to be a blur; one moment Dee was stabilizing herself outside of the poor excuse for a shower and the next she was pressed against the wall, towel held in place only by her hands. Tendrils of her hair, still dripping wet, clung to her neck and face, disheveled and pushed back from her forehead through the process of showering.
"Cas...This is uh… more than a little bit of an invasion of my… personal space." She breathed, air catching in her lungs, unable to tear her gaze away from the angel in front of her. It would have been a lie to say she wasn't doing everything in her power to keep her hands to herself; to not reach out, to not run her fingers across his stubbled cheeks and through his messy hair. He remained where he stood, arms held out on either side of her head, trapping her in place. His eyebrows knit together and lit a flame within Dee's body and it was all she could do to keep herself from launching herself at the trench-coat clad angel before her.
"We have…things… we need to talk about, Deanna." His voice offered no room for objection, the rough gravely pitch a direct and rapid line to her desire. Heat flooded her face as Dee attempted to keep herself still. Before she could formulate some sort of response his head bobbed down towards her neck, nose skimming the sensitive skin between her shoulders and the base of her neck. She moaned low in her throat, the sound so soft she wasn't even sure she'd made it as her hands clenched around the still damp towel wrapped around her body. Her body had entered a state of hypersensitivity and she felt his every move; the stubble brushing against her collarbone, breath he didn't need tickling across her shoulder…And his lips, soft and firm as they skimmed along her skin. It was all too much.
"I hate to break it to you, Cas, but this isn't the way we humans 'talk' about things." Her attempts at bravado and sarcasm failed, drifting away as her body cooled beneath the beads of water still clinging to her skin after the shower. He shifted forward, forearms pressed against the wall and bringing himself closer, pressing his body against her own as he continued to move at her neck. Dee could do nothing more than remain where she was, biting her tongue to keep from speaking once more, to keep her groans to herself as he moved gently against her body.
"Yes, I know that what you say is true." He murmured against her skin, sending an entirely new set of tingles and shivers dancing through her body. "But I don't have time to have a conversation. I have to leave."
Vaguely Deanna heard herself making little noises of contentment as his arms moved from the wall to her arms, thumbs rubbing circles into her skin. Gently his left hand came up to rest on her cheek, thumb gently brushing away the pains of her black eye. His actions, though they seemed sure, were laced with hesitation. His body moved awkwardly against hers, as though he were attempting to simply FEEL his way through their current interaction.
This revelation did little more than to stoke the already roaring fire within the elder Winchester.
"I wanted to be sure you were okay." And with that, the angel was gone; leaving Deanna bereft and so bewildered she couldn't seem to reconcile herself. Slowly, attempting to ignore the way her body seemed to have become a foreign entity, she reached for her clean undergarments and extra-large button up dress-shirt she'd bought some years back, dressing with the pains of a toddler new to his body might be familiar with. Her actions were robotic, mind otherwise displaced and in a daze.
A few minutes later, dressed and drying her hair with her towel, Dee exited the bathroom, flicking the lights off behind her and leaving the door open. Moving silently she slid silently past the bed nearest the bathroom (which now contained a sleeping Sam) and to the one nearest the door. The bed creaked as she settled herself down on it, towel still wrapped around her neck. By the time she'd curled up beneath the blankets her thoughts of the bathroom had been pushed to the back burner, the desire for a restful night's sleep so strong within her that it took a momentous amount of effort to keep her eyes open. Moments after her head hit the pillow she was out, drifting steadily into a deep sleep.
OoOoOoOoOoO
"You're just…PROLONGING the inevitable, you must realize that by now."
"No, I'm just…you know…trying to stop the apocalypse! Now scurry off to your spooky brimstone depths and let me get back to my deep, dream-less sleep, alright?" Sam hated the echo when she was caught in these dreams; it was like being in a large, empty room where every word spoken aloud was reverberated and thrown back at her. It was as though she were shouting in her own ear.
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy…"
"My name is Samantha, Lucifer."
"SAMMY, Sammy, SAMMY, don't you SEE?"
"See what, exactly?"
"We're just…trapped in this waltz, aren't we? I just about BEG for you location, you deny me, I send out signs of where I am… and you refuse to meet with me. You REFUSE to say yes. It just…boggles the mind. Especially considering that you were, you know, made me for me and all." For perhaps the thousandth time Sam was thankful for Cas' protective preventative measures. The runes carved into their ribs prevented any of the angels from finding either of them. These dreams, these…repetitive, irritating dreams that Lucifer continued to send, implant, whatever he was doing to her mind were becoming tiresome. Still unsure how she'd gained as much control over her sleep as she had, Sam had reached the point where she could force herself awake if things started getting bad. Lucifer, having determined that this was doing nothing more than pushing her to lack of sleep and distracting him from apocalyptic plans, had backed off for a few days. She'd been hoping he'd have more important things to do, yet…
Here they were.
"Yeah, and it's not like any of that is going to change. How about you just do me a favor… and uh… piss off? You know, go away? Make like a banana and split?" The devil, housed within the body of Nick and appearing much more put together than the last time she had seen him, snickered behind a free hand.
"Make like a- I think I like that one, Sammy." Sam's jaw ticked as Dee's nic name for her slithered free from between the Devil's lips.
"Lucifer, get OUT of my dreams. You've been pestering me for two weeks now and I'd like to get back to my regularly scheduled programming. You can't HURT me; you've tried and you CAN'T. You can't get to me; you can't get to EITHER of us… So how about you just…give it up." Lucifer's eyes, icy and bright, glared at her from Nick's face and then he was gone. Around her the fog that always seemed to indicate Lucifer's arrival and projection into her mind began to disperse, leaving her internal world dark. She remained aware of her body for only a moment or two before the feeling of being corporeal faded.
The darkness began to shift, twisting and whirling as a scene, a memory, began to solidify. The world inside her mind took on shape and became as real as the moment it had occurred: Deanna and Sam had been stuck in one of many motels between monsters, she remembered. Dee had been channel surfing, Sam sifting through their files on her laptop. They'd been enjoying the peace, knowing that it wouldn't be long before Cas reached out to them. They'd been on the trail of a couple of ghouls in the area (it had been a day or two before their showdown at the warehouse), but the trail had gone cold and they'd been left without leads. While things in Heaven hadn't calmed down, Cas was doing what he could to help find the nasty creatures causing such mischief. Whilst lying there one of Dee's multiple phones had begun to ring.
"Cas…? Cas are you…on a cell phone?" Dee waved her over from the motel's table and from her open laptop, curiosity etched onto her features. She could all but see Cas on the other line as Dee switched the phone to speaker and within seconds she could not help but grin.
"Yes, Deanna. Where are you?" His voice, laced with the type of irritation only he managed to perfect, crackled across the bad connection.
"We're in a motel."
"…This isn't funny, Deanna, I need a specific location."
"To uh…do WHAT exactly?"
"To come to you. I can't find you unless you tell me where you are."
"Now…why would I want you to do that again?" Sam had shared the wide grin and silent snickers Dee was offering up, both of them beyond amused as Cas' murmured frustrations echoed over the phone's line. Though Cas wasn't quite Sam's type, she couldn't deny that his often naïve responses had a certain…something about them that she couldn't help but be attracted to-
"Are you KIDDING me? Are you SERIOUS right now?" Sam jerked away from the bed, her memory frozen where she'd been before the interruption. "Do you SERIOUSLY think that guy's ATTRACTIVE?" Lucifer's tone suggested jealousy but Sam knew better, and as she rounded on the Devil she could do nothing more than grimace.
"NOW I think it's time you LEFT." An over-exaggerated sigh accompanying an equally over-exaggerated shoulder droop from the Morningstar was enough for Sam to screw her imaginary eyes shut, dispelling Lucifer as she jogged herself awake from her dream.
For a moment she remained motionless, listening to the sounds of her own gentle breathing in the dark of the motel room. She took a moment to reorient herself onto her side, left leg drawn up into an upside-down V. Her right arm was tucked beneath her pillow, left flung over her chest. In the silence she heard the signs of distress. Stressed, whining noises; the telltale sounds of tossing and turning… Dee was having a nightmare.
With this realization Sam was fully awake, shifting herself up as quietly as was possible. She guessed she had approximately two minutes to ease Dee from whatever nightmare she was having before it became a full-blown horror show. If the only good she could do her sister was to brush away the nightmarish monsters of her sleep then by God she would.
Sam slipped from her bed and knelt silently beside Dee. She'd learned after some trial and error attempts how best to rouse Dee just enough from sleep for her nightmares to end. It was important to care for her sister without her sister knowing. Careful not to shift the bed in any way, she leaned over, hovering just above Dee's head and began to brush her hair back from her face. The movements were gentle enough to be noticed on just the right level of Dee's subconscious yet not quite enough to rouse her from sleep. Almost instantly Dee began to calm, her breathing (which had been rapid and near the point of hyperventilation) slowed to a series of panicked bursts of air.
"Why are you doing that?" It took literally all of Sam's strength to stifle her yelp and keep her body in check. She whipped her head around, gaze alighting on their late-night intruder. Rather than speak she quietly hissed for silence. The sounds had started up again and Dee was beginning to shift in her sleep. Sam turned back to Dee and resumed the gentle brushing of Dee's hair. When her sister's restlessness did not ease as quickly as it should have, Sam leaned over and began to murmur. The words were nonsense, the tone far more important than the words themselves as she talked Deanna down.
A few moments passed and Dee began to calm once more; another minute or two and it appeared that Deanna had returned to a deep sleep. Once Sam was sure Dee wasn't going to return to her nightmare world, she stood, careful not to apply any pressure to the bed. She caught Cas' eyes and jerked her head towards the bathroom.
Once in the bathroom, Sam shut the door as quietly as possible and flicked the switch on the wall, illuminating the grungy room with an even grungier light.
"What the hell, Cas!" Sam hissed. "You can't just pop in at all hours of the night and day; you KNOW that!" A thought clicked in her mind and her tone went from frustrated anger to curious suspicion. "And how the hell'd you even FIND us? Aren't you, ya know, unable to do that unless we tell you our exact location?"
"You didn't answer my question." He appeared distracted, showing only his profile to Sam as though he had one ear cocked and listening to the room outside of the bathroom.
"What?"
"I asked you what you were doing." Sam forced down the millions of sarcastic and rude responses that jumped to her mind, taking a moment to reorient before responding.
"I was…helping Deanna, Cas." He squinted and tilted his head much like a puppy, indicating he did not understand. "Look, it doesn't matter. I answered your question, now answer AT LEAST one of mine." For a moment the angel stood there, head still tilted towards the bedroom, eyes squinting like he always did when attempting to discern or understand something. As the seconds crawled past and Sam's question hung unanswered in the air, she became more and more agitated. Hips cocked to the side, Sam crossed her arms.
"Cas it's like… three in the morning and I am EXHAUSTED; if you don't need anything and you don't feel like answering ANY of my questions then just-"
"I was…worried about Deanna." Sam stared, mouth parting in confusion as she took in Cas' reluctance to meet her gaze.
"You were…worried about… Dee…" She repeated, nodding as she spoke. A sigh slipped past barely parted lips as the realization of just how tired she was hit her. She'd guessed at the sparks between them, sure; seen little signs here and there that hinted at something more. Sam realized she was far too tired to really be bothered. Initial feelings of jealousy were swept away as easily as they'd come before she'd even had the time to analyze them. She could SAY she thought she was happy; Sam could say she was jealous or upset that Dee hadn't talked to her… But overall? Samantha Winchester just didn't care. And she especially didn't care at three-something in the morning.
"Well that's just…so darn sweet of ya, Cas. Now… assuming Lucifer isn't attempting anything particularly apocalyptic right this second, I'm just going to go back to bed so how about you just, you know, flutter away or whatever?"
"Is she…"
"She's FINE, Cas. Now…just…go away." A blink and the angel was gone. Sam stumbled to the bathroom sink where she swished some mouthwash in lieu of brushing her teeth and washed the remaining vestiges of dirt and grime from her face. Unlike her sister she avoided her reflection, knowing that seeing her skin devoid of color, hair a-tangle and bruises abound would do little more than send her into a spiral of moping self-hatred. She paused, both hands stabilized against the sink, propping herself up as she stared down into nothing. Cas, Dee, Lucifer… Sam wasn't sure she had enough room in her mind for herself any longer.
Once her face was dried she exited the bathroom, turning off the light and closing the door silently behind her. Amidst Dee's now consistent, gentle breathing Sam tip-toed her way across the room and over to the AC unit. The room wasn't extraordinarily hot and was in fact relatively comfortable at the moment. But both sisters had a habit of tossing and turning and overheating in the night, both slept better in a cold room with heavy blankets, and both had grown accustomed to the often loud, steady hum that accompanied motel air conditioners.
She turned the knob on the unit, finding comfort in the audible click and subsequent whir as it started up and promptly spewed a cloud of dust into her face. Sam gagged silently, comically, and waited until the air chilled before settling back into her bed. Sam tugged back the covers, caring little for the horrible stories and truths behind about motel beds and promising herself a hot shower in the morning.
She settled beneath the sheets, still cool but warming as her body heat filled the tiny space; beyond the blankets, the air was cooling, the AC doing its job. Slowly Sam's eyes began to flutter, a weight heavier than they'd been in days settling over her lids. For the first time in over a week, Sam drifted into a dreamless sleep.
OoOoOoOoO
"SAAAAMMMYYYY WAKE UP!"
The fact that Dee was awake first and the smells of breakfast were well on their way to filling the room seemed to indicate that Dee was trying to patch things up in her own little way. Sam, however, clung to the covers and remained buried beneath her pillow, blocking out the sound of the TV and the bustle about the room as well as she could.
She'd begun drifting off again when the blankets were yanked down to her waist.
"Time to get up, Saaaaaammy! It's almost 10:30."
"Yeah and I…I thought we had until tomorrow…before we had to check…out…" Sam managed, burrowing once more beneath her pillow in a haphazard attempt to block out the overhead light.
"Well yeah but-,"
"But it is important that we discuss something." Sam groaned, clutching the pillow around her head, curling her legs and body into a ball in the center of the bed.
"Are you serious right now? What is the angel doing here?" Even muffled, Sam's voice radiated her desire to remain in bed and her even stronger desire to avoid whatever it was that Cas wished to discuss. Quiet whispers passed between her sister and Cas, fervent and argumentative. Inwardly she sighed; that same sense of world-weariness began to descend, pressing heavily down upon her. Just as she was beginning to wonder if she could sink into the bed and somehow end up on a tropical beach far from Cas and whatever news he had brought, the bed dipped behind her and she was aware of her sister leaning over her.
"Come onnnn Sammmyyyy… I got you…some..uh…" She paused, bed creaking with her movement. "I got you a parfait, I think? With the… yogurt and…fruit and…! I got you tea, too! Iced green tea with just a DASH of lemon, right?" Silence followed Dee's attempt to pull Sam from bed as Sam considered whether or not the parfait was worth it. She sighed before slowly, slowly withdrawing her head from the pillow. Samantha squinted her eyes against the sudden change in light, glaring at Dee's hovering face.
"Just get me that parfait." Dee's face split into a grin and her response came in the form of the springs creaking as she leapt from the bed and made her way to the table where the food had been set. Sam resisted the strong and sudden desire to sigh or groan or…some unbecoming combination of the two as she pulled herself into a sitting position. She could not help but stare in confusion at Cas who was, in turn, staring curiously at her.
"Uh… Cas…why are you staring at me?"
"I did not know that your hair could do any of what it is currently doing." Dee snorted from somewhere behind the angel as Samantha reached up and groped at her hair for a moment or two.
"On second thought, hold the parfait…" She grumbled, yanking herself up and out of bed and stomping dizzily to the bathroom. Like every other day in their lives, like every other emergency, every other threat of death and destruction… Sam knew they would wait. She took only as long as was necessary to scrub every last inch of her mouth with her toothbrush before turning to the shower. Keeping her bending at a minimum she started the water and stripped quickly, wincing and breath hitching as she pulled her shirt over her head and removed her pants. As she waited for the water to heat she ran her fingers over the bandages on her forearm and then her neck, touching the spots gingerly with the fingers of her uninjured hand. Absently she tossed her shower essentials in and climbed in after them.
Both of her wounds were stiff. The pain in her neck far outweighed her arm, which felt only bruised. Her neck stung and ached when she attempted to do more than turn her head from side to side. Though her inner nurse was warning her of the serious disadvantages of getting her dressings wet, the urge to bathe was far stronger.
Twenty minutes later she was clean and dry. She'd removed her bandages shortly after exiting the shower, and had grimaced as the water flushed her wounds; the creature had less tried to drain her of blood and more attempted to tear through her throat. She continued to meditate on this idea as she dried herself off, wrapping the towel around her as she exited the bathroom.
For a few seconds she thought herself alone until she saw movement in Dee's bed. She edged around the bed nearest the bathroom and threw her duffel up onto the mattress, scrounging through it for only a moment or two before deciding on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved button up maroon shirt, complete with a collar and cuffs at the wrists. It was just as she was buttoning the cuffs that Dee sat up, blearily staring at her from beneath the covers.
"Where'd Cas run off to?"
"Uh… Think he was called back to Heaven?" Dee shrugged as she rubbed the remnants of sleep from her eyes with the palm of her hands. Sam nodded, silent as she gathered her things and shoved them unceremoniously into her own duffel.
"Packing?" Sam snorted, rolling her eyes with as much emphasis as she could muster.
"Why wouldn't I? I mean, if Cas showed up…" The implication of his arrival could only mean one thing and Sam did not have it in her to pretend they would get their second night of rest.
"Yeah… I know, Sammy." Deanna yawned at her as she followed suit and began packing her own belongings.
"But it's not that big of a deal, I promise. Rumors, really. Just rumors. Nothing rock solid yet, ya know?" Sammy nodded, paying only the vaguest of attention to her sister's attempts to reassure her; she was pretty sure Cas had told them that there were only "rumors" of multiple ghouls at the warehouse. Inwardly she winced, realizing how much anger she still held over the warehouse incident. It wasn't his fault, not really. They should have scouted the location first, gotten the proverbial higher ground before charging in, half-cocked and stupid as hell.
"Speak of the devil!" Dee crowed, laughing out loud in that way she'd started whenever Cas was around, loud and raucous and yet somehow sweet and natural all at the same time. Samantha straightened, hands against her lower back in a gentle aid to her posture as she pulled herself into a standing position.
A quick glance provided her with a view of him kneeling in front of the bed Dee still sat in, both speaking in hushed tones. Sam dropped in the chair next to the small table and rummaged through the bags of food still sitting unattended on the table's top until she found her parfait buried at the bottom of the only slightly soggy bag. Discovering that the yogurt was strawberry only eased the ache slightly.
"I guess angel boy here's been hearing some strange rumors coming from Devil's Lake."
"North…Dakota?" Sam said, face twisting into doubtful confusion. Dee flopped into the chair across from her own and snagged the remaining breakfast sandwich from the bag, nodding all the while.
"Yeah, that's right," Dee swallowed her bite and continued. "Anyway, sounds like…. What did you say, Cas?"
"I have received accounts of something like a poisonous, parasitic creature polluting the lake. I've never seen one on this plane of existence. As far as I can remember, the last time I encountered one was in Hell." At this Sam perked up.
"Do you think it's something new on the Lucifer front?" Dee shrugged, a movement that Cas seemed to watch before attempting to mimic, the motion jerky and awkward on the angel.
"Dunno, Sammy. But I think it's worth checking out. I did a little research while you were in the shower; I left the pages up for you to check out. It's like the season of comas over there; all of the victims were found near the lake. I figure whatever it is likes to stick close to the water?" She finished her sandwich and crumbled all the garbage together.
"I'm down; let's head out."
OoOoOoOoO
With breakfast done, the sun now set firmly in the sky and the angel gone back to whatever current emergency demanded his attention, the Winchesters packed up and shipped out. With approximately fourteen hours of driving ahead of them, the girls had flipped coins and Sam took the passenger seat, warning Dee that she hadn't slept well. Dee had waved her off with an eye roll. The elder Winchester rummaged around in the glove compartment for a moment, popped an old Metallica tape into the deck and promptly began their drive. The words filled the empty space between them and eased their awkward tension. Many a time Sam started to say something only to cut herself off with a headshake to stare quietly out the window. Though it seemed Sam wished to speak Dee did not push.
It did not take long for the tendrils of sleep to drag her down into a doze. The younger Winchester had at some point removed her shoes and curled up on the seat, head resting against the reclined headrest and was looking altogether quite comfortable to the amazement of Deanna. Dee felt more rested than she had in days; the exhausting uber-vamp fight and Castiel's shower surprise had resulted in…surprisingly delightful dreams. She could not help the faint and altogether dreamy smile that curled her lips into a look of delight. Allowing herself to be distracted, she quietly hummed along to her music as the landscape rolled past the windows. Overall it was peaceful. A quick glance at the silently dozing Sam relaxing against her just reclined seat, and Deanna Winchester allowed the miles to disappear beneath the Impala's tires.
Within the youngest Winchester's snoozing mind, however, was perhaps the polar opposite of all things tranquil and calm. Though her body appeared restless and at east, her dreams were anything but.
"I swear to all that is holy in this world, LUCI, if you don't get out RIGHT NOW-"
"Awww, you'll what? Punch yourself in the face?" The Devil, still wearing Nick even in her dreams, frowned. "Wait on second thought, keep that pretty face of yours intact for me, would you? Can't have us looking anything less than fabulous, now can we?" Sam resisted the urge to snarl; Lucifer's continued references to both herself and him as a single unit were nearly as infuriating as his constant use of Dee's favored childhood name. What seemed to make the whole thing significantly worse was that he knew what he was doing and continued to smile that little half-smile of his.
"I'm sure I can figure SOMETHING out… Oh! I know! Maybe I'll just jump off a cliff! Or…drown myself in a lake or… perhaps…hire a firing squad and a priest for my last rites… Really, there are all SORTS OF THINGS I CAN DO, LUCIFER NOW GET OUT OF MY DREAMS OR SO HELP ME-"
"SAAAAMMMYYYYYY, SAMMY SAMMY… You still don't get it." The brick wall she'd longed to drive her face into materialized suddenly between the two and, with great joy, she began slamming her face into it.
"ALL I was trying to say is you seem to forget yourself. Your…importance as it were." Sam ceased carving holes in the brick wall with her face long enough to offer a sidelong glance at the angel as he sidled around the side of the wall.
"Really then, Lucifer! Enlighten me, please. And while you're at it, how about you explain to me how it is you CONTINUE to pop up in my dreams like this. You're worse than a truck stop salad." Her voice dripped with a sarcasm that darkened the Devil's eyes. A myriad of things flickered through Nick's eyes, things she couldn't quite pin down before they'd fled behind his wall of dark mirth and calculating smirk.
"Do you really think I'd ever let you die?" Suddenly his voice was closer, honey-sweet and smooth and dancing along her skin like a gentle caress, his physical form no longer visible to her. Sam started to turn but was stopped as the wall she created began to stretch and elongate, encircling her and cutting off the view of her foggy dream world.
"You and I? We're CONNECTED, Sammy. Tied together in a way that no amount of distance could ever sever or disturb... Physically locating you may not be possible at the moment…but your mind? Your beautiful, simple little human mind? I close my eyes and it's like a beacon to me." He chuckled. Vaguely Sam was aware that the fear she felt was…illogical. Unnecessary. This was, after all, her dream and her rules inside of her mind. And yet… as the walls continued to close around her, suffocating her, bringing forth an intense and overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia, Sam was nothing less than terrified.
"You're MINE, Samantha. Nothing, not even Death, will keep me from you. It's only a matter of time before I track you down… Before you give in to me." His voice seemed to come from everywhere. Lucifer was leaking into her thoughts, transforming what was usually a tranquil setting into a world of chaos. The world around her blackened first and then exploded in harsh, violent shades of red and green. Beneath her the ground began to twist and writhe and suddenly she was ankle deep in a pit of venomous snakes, their fangs grazing her skin as their thick bodies wrapped solidly around her legs. All the while the brick wall was closing in, pressing the snakes more firmly to her legs and then forcing them higher and higher. That sense of claustrophobia, of being helpless and bound and unable to do anything, intensified ten-fold and it was all she could do to keep from screaming.
"Mine."
"Sammy… Sammy? SAMMY!" The Winchester jumped, wrenching her back as she spasmed back into the world of the conscious. Her breathing was erratic, strangled, as she gulped down the familiar scents that always accompanied being in the Impala. The soothing scent of worn leather and her sister's shampoo were enough to leave her feeling grounded. Calmed to the point where she could begin to rationalize what had just happened. It seemed that Lucifer was growing impatient. Less willing to simply wait for the younger Winchester to come to him. Despite the belief that they would soon meet in Detroit for their final, personal showdown, Sam refused to believe herself capable of surrendering in any way to the Devil. Her mind managed to process this in well under the two minutes it took for her to appear fully conscious.
"…I'm awake, jeez Dee, what's wrong?" Her sister remained silent for a moment, seeming to take in each and every carefully maneuvered display of tiredness Sam projected; her voice was properly laced with sleep, a yawn was fighting to escape and she rubbed at her eyes as though trying to clear them. After what seemed an eternity, Deanna finally spoke.
"Sammy…You were…" Dee paused, hesitating as she rolled words and phrases around in her mind before finally speaking.
"You were having some pretty bad dreams there, Sam." Her tone was gentle, Sam noted. The type of gentle, the EXACT same time of gentle as a matter of fact, that she herself had employed when she had first broached the subject of Dee's nightmares. In response Sam said nothing, fists clenched painfully at her sides.
"I mean they were really bad Sammy… You were talking, you know. Saying actual words, not any of that mumbling bullshit we used to do as kids." Sam bristled, feeling defensive and terrified. She hadn't said anything to Deanna about the dreams she'd been having lately… The conversations with the Devil that were all too real and far too lucid to be anything but actual communication. She waited for Dee to continue, silently counting to ten before speaking.
"Oh…?" Was all she managed, forcing a swallow or two to prevent her voice was breaking. "Anything interesting?" Her tone was light, she commented to herself; that was good! Downplay any seriousness of the situation. Still, she could not force her gaze away from the windshield, seemingly fascinated with the horizon as the sun was just beginning to set, brilliant shades of red and blue bleeding out from the very edge of the horizon.
"Yeah…. Is there uh… ANYTHING you'd like to tell me, Sam?" Her voice had gotten harder and when Sam snuck a glance over she saw that Dee's hands were gripping the steering wheel hard enough to elicit a tiny creak in the leather.
"Sorry, Dee, I uh… Don't REALLY know the winning lotto numbers." She murmured and, for a moment, she thought Dee was going to pull the car over and beat the tar out of her. The air inside the Impala seemed supercharged, crackling with tension as neither sister said anything for at least ten minutes. Still ramrod straight, Sam flinched as Dee twisted in her seat, allowing Sam a full view of her face… a face that spoke volumes of Dee's mental exhaustion and then Sam's heart was breaking.
"Sammy I can't… I can't do this lying shit anymore." Her words were soft, her hurt easing out between the tiny breaths of air that accompanied each syllable.
"It's too much. After Ruby-"
"I know, Dee."
"No, Sammy, you DON'T know. If you DID know, then you wouldn't be keeping this shit from me! You've been seeing him in your dreams, haven't you? Lucifer; and you've been talking to him too, right?" Sam winced at the implication in her words, shaking her head violently as she started to speak.
"Yeah, okay, I've been seeing Lucifer in my dreams-"
"God DAMN IT SAMMY, and how long were you going to keep this from me?!"
"Just give me a second to explain, Dee!" Sam wasn't sure at what point they had begun shouting at each other but now their voices filled the enclosed space, voices laced with anger and reverberating loudly in the small confines of the Impala. Both sisters were breathing heavily; Sam waited until she could catch her breath and force her rage back before finally speaking.
"Yes, Lucifer has been inside my head…" She ground out. "But it's not like I'm just…just LETTING him in there. I can feel him sometimes…scratching. Trying to communicate with me when I'm awake, I think… The only time I let down my mental guard is when I sleep, and it's not like I'm doing it on purpose; even then I don't always see him. Usually I can…" She struggled, trying to find the right way to phrase things.
"Usually I can kick him out, I guess. Or wake myself up… That's why I've been so tired… I'm not always able to sleep through the night."
"Okay…but why wouldn't you TELL me, Sammy? I bet there's SOMETHING Cas could do to help keep Lucifer out of your head."
"Maybe…but with your own…dreams… I just didn't want to put any more pressure on you by bringing it up. Like I said, up until now I've been handling it." Sheepish though her words sounded, Sam meant every line. Deanna's nightmares had begun escalating both in frequency and intensity as they had continued their trek and amplified their search efforts for a way out of the Apocalypse. Lucifer had until recently been nothing more than a nuisance; just an annoying little buzz in the back of her mind that could just as easily be ignored as it could be acknowledged. All of Sam's free time had been focused on trying to find an alternative method to aid in Dee's nightmares while her own troubles were forgotten.
Minutes passed in a silence so heavy that Sam could feel it settling over her like a heavy, suffocating blanket.
"Christ, Sammy…" Dee murmured as she flicked the blinker up to the right and began pulling over to the side of the road. The sun had all but set now, leaving the world soaked in oranges and reds; it had been seven hours since they'd left the motel and it was now Sam's turn to drive. Sam could not help but gaze at the twilit world around her, marveling at the freshness of the world in the freezing air around them. Piles of snow, tiny and pristine despite being located next to a frequented road, dotted the landscape. They had seen snow before, yes. Had lived and breathed and slept in places where the snow had made it difficult to track and hunt. But she would be lying if Sam said she saw nothing beautiful about it. The way it silenced the world was both utterly gentle and entirely brutal. In a way, the snow reminded her of themselves; their solidarity and solidity and their own harsh beauty in the face of the world's coming winter.
Dee leaned against the Impala at Sam's side, silently watched the sun chase the colors down beyond the horizon, setting and leaving the world with only a hint of light before the world was swallowed in darkness. The ritual the world underwent each and every day without fail was a gentle reminder that time was moving ever forward. Something that could be counted on, day after day, to rise and fall, to rescue the world from darkness before plunging it right back into it. Simultaneously and without comment the girls pushed away from the vehicle and switched sides, Sam taking over for Dee in the driver's seat. Sam adjusted the seat to better fit her longer legs while Dee pulled the lever to raise her seat up into a position more comfortable to sit in.
With a glance at Dee, Sam turned the key in the ignition, bringing the Impala purring the life around them. Signaling, Sam eased the Impala back out onto the road, brought it up to speed and continued onward. For several minutes neither sister spoke.
"So what changed?" Sam blinked back her surprise as Dee broke the quiet.
"Uh…what're you talkin' about…?"
"It's not like you've been waking ME up with any nightmares…and considering how loud that little nightmare was right there, I'm willing to bet you'd have woken me up before. Why the nightmare? What's CHANGED?" Sam was quiet for a moment, rolling Dee's question around her head. When she paused for a moment, when she thought about it, she realized there wasn't really any surefire answer she had to this… However, she had a FEELING. A sense of what it was driving Lucifer to be so damn insistent.
"I think it's the rings, Dee."
"…Uh, come again?"
"The RINGS, Dee. I mean we've very nearly got all the Horsemen's rings… probably he knows what we're gonna try… Even if that's NOT the case…well…" Sam flushed, shrugging slightly as she sighed. Trying to figure out a way to discuss the things she felt, the things she felt from Lucifer, was difficult.
"To be honest Dee? I think he's just…losing patience. Getting anxious, ya know? I mean… Deroit…" She shrugged again; trying to analyze the complex array of literal and unspoken thoughts and actions from Lucifer and the meanings of said actions…it was exhausting. Her shoulders sagged, something akin to relief seeping through her as Dee finally spoke.
"Okay… okay. So he still doesn't know where you are… he still can't physically find you at least. That just means we have to hurry, right? We have to get… get Death's ring. Soon. Before he figures out how to find you. Right? Yeah. You hear anything from Bobby?" Sam sighed, rubbing her neck and shoulders with her right hand, left gripping the steering wheel even tighter, the leather creaking beneath her palm.
"No… The last time I tried calling he sort of… hung up on me…?" Dee barked out a laugh, the sound sudden and sharp in the small confines of the Impala.
"He…hung up on you?"
"Yeah… said he was working on something big and my constant calls were distracting him…called me an 'idjit' and hung up on me. That was…like… four days ago? I haven't heard anything from him since." Another laugh, Dee's raspy voice wiping away what little tension had gathered in the air around them.
"Yeah, sounds about right… Well, not much we can do in the meantime, right?" Dee yawned, reclining the seat to the same angle Sam had used whilst napping earlier.
"We'll figure out what's goin' on in Devi's Lake…see if it's something related to Lucifer's actions." Dee yawned, stretching herself out before curling up in the seat.
"Yeah… Yeah I guess you're right." Sam murmured, fiddling with the radio until she found a station devoted to classical music. Turning it down so she could just hear it, Sam settled back into the seat and her thoughts, listening only half-heartedly as Dee's breathing slowed beside her. Before long a sort of silence descended in the vehicle. With the quiet broken only by the soft lull of the music and the quiet, even breathing of her sister, Sam began slipping away into her thoughts. She wondered at so many things. She wondered at Dee's seemingly dispassionate perspective on the entire Lucifer thing. She wondered at Lucifer's intensions; though his end game was relatively simple to determine, the way he was going about everything left her mystified. Why terrify her like that? Was it some sort of display of dominance? A shudder eased through her as she remembered the conviction with which he'd spoken to her. His, he'd called her. Connected; Lucifer had said they were connected. Surely he meant that on a more…cosmic level, right? Surely the not so subtle signs of possessiveness were the same as when a small child found a toy they particularly liked, right?
Surely she didn't find herself at all attracted to this, right?
Quite suddenly Sam was sick to her stomach.