DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the CW's Supernatural
You all asked for it, so i made some of it happen.
There was something about the car that just seemed to sooth Alison's wondering mind. She tipped her head back and so that the back of her head was on the headrest and the side of her head was resting on the window. She watched the trees whiz by as Dean pushed to a speed that would more than likely result in them getting pulled over should they come into the sights of some hidden radar.
The seats were moderately comfortable. With Dean's window open the breeze kept it cool enough in the summer sun for her to doze off and on. Of course it could have been the relaxing music that hummed softly from the speakers. She smiled to herself, there was no way that Dean would allow anything in the Impala that didn't have some calm screaming in the lyrics. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Dean's fingers tapped on the steering wheel in time to the Black Sabbath song that was currently playing.
She let her eyes close again and felt the pull of sleep against her as her mind became foggy.
She felt hands moving their way up her side, slowly climbing up her and fitting like a glove. The long, tender fingers wove their way up along her collarbone and grasped the back of her neck. She expected the pressure on her lips next, but what she felt was not something that she wanted…the thumbs came around to the front of her throat and crossed over to lock on her windpipe.
She tried to move. Tried to scream. Tried to inhale. Nothing. It was like she was suddenly paralyzed and couldn't move the smallest muscle in her body. She was frozen in fear as the hands tightened around her. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe…suddenly she was falling…falling into the black.
She jolted awake, barely making a sound, but the two faces that she saw when she opened her eyes confirmed her first thought: that she had been making some sounds in her nightmare. Dean and Sam were both turned in the front seats with their eyes locked on her hers. She cleared her throat, unconsciously bringing her hands up to rub the spot where seconds ago there were bruising hands, and took in the surroundings.
They were no longer on the highway but in a small town, and stopped at a gas station. The sun was casting an orange glow as it was beginning to sink lower in the sky. She heard Dean get out of the car and cleared her throat again. "Where are we?"
Sam watched with amazement as she visibly pulled herself back together. She had been shaken up. Bad. The way that she had been moving in jerky motions and making small panicked noised in the back of her throat had made it seem like something was physically hurting her.
"Fort Collins, Colorado. Dean says we need gas." Sam turned back around in his seat and opened the door to get out and stretch while Dean pumped gas. He shut the door and walked around to the back of the car. "Should I even say anything about how there was still a half a tank?"
Dean rolled his head on shoulders to give Sam a bland look. "Okay." Sam replied and walked away from the car to watch vehicles passing on the highway.
Alison watched Dean walk towards the small convenience store to pay and then turned her head to watch Sam staring out at the highway. It was both lucky and unlucky that she had finally fallen asleep. The lucky part about sleeping was that she didn't have to put up with the awkwardness that had planted itself on their shoulders. They had barely spoken three words to each other since the blowout at the motel that morning. The unlucky part was that she had then had a nightmare and apparently it had been vicious enough that she was tossing and mumbling in her sleep.
The sun had gotten even lower in the sky by the time Dean walked back out. There was barely any glow left at all. Sam returned back to the car and was about to open the passenger door when Dean said, "Hey." Sam caught the keys against his chest. "You drive the rest of the way."
Sam rolled his eyes and moved around the front of the car to the other side. Alison's brows dipped into a frown as she watched Dean move. He had seemed fine when he had gone in to pay, but now she sensed that he was uneasy. Something was definitely bothering him.
Sam got into the car and so did Dean. She leaned forward. "Are you feeling alright, Dean?"
Dean grimaced. "Actually, I'm not feeling so well. I think I could use some more sleep, you know? Hey, you think you could ride shotgun so I can get some sleep before we roll into Denver?"
"You're such a little girl, Dean." Sam shoved the keys into the ignition.
"Yeah, sure." Alison's brows dipped even more in concern. She quickly hopped out feeling the need to accommodate him fast. Sam watched Dean open the door slowly, and right before he stood up Sam saw a small grin appear on his older brother's face.
Sam shook his head and gave himself a twisted grin. Of course, it was all coming together. Stopping for gas when the half a tank would have gotten them to Denver. The sudden mood change of fine to tired. He could practically hear Dean thinking "poor Sammy, he's still got the hots for this chick and he blew it…damn I'd better make time for them to talk".
Well if it was the last thing that he did, he was not going to talk to her about anything…especially not about anything remotely personal.
Apparently Alison had felt the exact same way, because an hour later they still had not spoken. The silence made him want to rip the skin off his face and just when he was about to say something about the weather she spoke.
"I'm sorry."
The two words caught him completely off guard. There he was, about to talk about the weather when it was pitch black outside and she had begun with something much more personal than what he had thought she would be comfortable with.
He looked to the side to catch a glimpse of her profile. She was facing the window still and her hands were folded across her chest. She wasn't as calm about the situation as her voice led him to believe. "For what?" He turned his head back to the road.
"Back at the motel…I've been thinking about it and," She cleared her throat. "And I over reacted."
It seemed odd to him that she should be the one to apologize when he knew that it wasn't really her fault. "It's okay. I should have remembered that you being dog-like is a touchy subject…"
She turned to look at him and cut him off. "It's not, Sam. Or it hasn't been for a long time, but when I'm around you…" She stopped and looked away.
He knew that what she was going to say would either be a very good thing or a very bad thing. Not knowing if he really wanted to know he asked. "What?"
She gave a small laugh but didn't look back at him. "I want to be different, I want to be normal."
Sam frowned. Not exactly the news that would make or break their relationship, but there was something in her tone that led him to believe that she was trying harder than either of them had tried before. And for that he wanted to try equally as hard.
Alison cursed herself in her head. Why the hell had she even said anything? It had been little over an hour and the silence had been driving her crazy. She sat there going over what had played out in the motel again and again. And every time, much to her dismay, she had come to the same conclusion. Sam was worried about her and that was the only reason that he had gone all caveman on her.
In her mind she wasn't wrong often, but when she was she damn well admitted it.
"I didn't mean what I said."
His silky voice brought her back to the now, and she pulled her eyes away from the window to watch him. His hands gripped the steering wheel. And because there were so many things that he had said that she knew he hadn't meant, she laughed. "When?"
"Back at the motel after…" He glanced suspiciously in the rearview mirror. Dean was seemingly asleep, and since he was probably waiting for them to talk, more than likely he was. His breathing was constant.
She ran her tongue along her teeth. "So…you're sorry?"
He shifted in his seat and replied gruffly. "Yeah."
She laughed lightly. "Dean, your dad and you all seem to have issues getting those words out."
One corner of Sam's mouth lifted up. "Must be a family trait."
Alison nodded and replied thoughtfully. "Yeah, you have a lot of those. You're stubborn. You're bullies. You think that you're that smartest people in the world. You're egotistical…"
Sam stopped her. "I am not egotistical." He said with dignity.
Alison kept going as though she hadn't even heard him. "You're always right. You're stronger. So basically, your family trait is that you are all men."
Sam rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, you're prettier."
Alison fell silent, not quiet knowing how to respond to that. It wasn't the first time that Sam had given her a compliment, but it was the first in a long time. The problem was that she wasn't sure if it had just slipped out in the ease of the moment, or if he was actually trying to tell her something. She realized that it was the first time that they had actually been able to hold a civil conversation with each other without a buffer between them.
It felt good.
Sam cursed himself in his head. Why the hell did he have to say that? It was blatantly obvious that he would think that she was better looking than his brother or his dad. They had been speaking like normal adults for a few minutes, had even come as far as teasing each other, and he had gone and made it more intimate.
"Thank you." Sam glanced over as she spoke. She was flushed slightly pink, as though she had never heard it before. "It means a lot coming from a fairly good looking guy."
He was caught up in her gratitude before the insult sunk in. He made an insulted face. "Fairly?"
He looked over when she didn't reply. She was staring at him with a small grin on her face. "And you said that you weren't egotistical."
He gave her one of his trademark boyish grins. "I kinda walked right into that one, didn't I?"
She tilted her head. "No, you kinda ran full force."
He laughed lightly, not wanting to the moment to end. Was there ever a time when they were this at ease with each other? The thought ran through Sam's mind quickly and just as quickly he removed it. Of course there was, except all the good memories seemed to have been taken over by the bad ones. He wondered how he had ever let it happen.
"You know I get it now." She spoke softly, but with a strong conviction.
He looked curiously at her. "Get what?"
"Why you had to leave."
After the enjoyable conversation that they had just had, that was the last thing that Sam wanted to talk about…but then again that was always the problem. One of them never wanted to talk about it when the other did. They were just starting to act like friends again, and for that Sam was willing to deal with the rough topic that she had chosen. Just for that chance at a friendship.
"I didn't have to." He decided that the first step to getting over the pain was admitting that he did in fact have a choice when he had said there wasn't one.
But Alison apparently had different ideas. "Yes, you did." She replied forcefully.
He decided that what she had said earlier was wrong. Women, he thought, were the ones that were always right. "Okay," He agreed. "So, you get it. Explain it to me."
She crinkled up her face. "I hate to say it, but you were always kind of a wuss."
"Ouch." He said with sincerity.
She laughed. "Come on, hear me out. You were always fighting with John that you didn't want to hunt, you wanted to study and go to school…what kind of a little boy wants that?"
"A smart one."
"A wuss, that's who." He peeled his eyes away from the road to glare at her. She laughed again. "Sam, for the first month of our relationship you were as awkward as a twelve year old. You were a lanky geek."
"Ya, well, you were intimidating." He tried lamely. "And if I was so bad, then why did you even date me?"
She flipped her hair. "I felt sorry for you…I'm kidding, Sam. I dunno, I guess I've always gone for the geeky guys."
He snorted and before he had time to think about he was saying, "So where the hell did Derik come from?"
She withdrew, not a lot, but enough that he could practically feel the chill washing over him. He cursed himself again for opening his mouth without thinking.
"Sorry." He mumbled.
"No, its okay." He felt a little more warmth. She laughed nervously. "You know, I'd love nothing more than to tell you that Derik was a mistake…but it'd be a lie." She didn't say it, but somehow he knew what she meant. She didn't want anymore lies or half truths between them.
"Tell me."
She quickly brought her head up to look at him. She wasn't sure if he wanted her to lie and tell him Derik was a mistake or if he wanted the truth. So she asked. "You want the truth?"
He swallowed. "Yeah, I do."
She nodded and he watched her shoulders heave up and then fall as she took a breath. It was reassuring to know that she wanted him to know. "Derik and Shamus are like family to me. I guess you could blame the wolf in me, but I seem to adopt people that are close to me. In a warped way Derik is like a bully older brother, so I don't know why I even agreed to marry him…no," She shook her head. "That's not true, I do know why I married him. I didn't think that they would really be my family until a little piece of paper said that I had the same last name as them."
Sam tried to understand where she was coming from but since he had always had strong family ties, even during the fall out about Stanford, it was hard. It was the idea that Derik had been the family for her when he hadn't been. That irritated him. He struggled with the words. "Family has always meant a lot to you."
"Yeah, it has."
The words that she had spoken to him that night came back painfully clear."Well, that's funny cause I thought that we were like family. But apparently blood means a lot more to you than you let on." He cringed at the remembrance. They really hadn't listened to each other. It suddenly occurred to him that she had mumbled a few words in her sleep.
"That's what the nightmares have been about, isn't it?"
The silence that met him was all the conformation that he needed. Not only for his question, but he had apparently also stepped over the boundaries of their new found relationship. He was just settling in for a long, silent ride the rest of the way to Denver when she spoke up again.
"Sometimes." She sat up straighter in her seat and looked at him again. "Did you know that when I was little I used to get these panic attacks?"
She was opening up again, another good sign. It made him happy to know that he hadn't screwed things up royally. A grin formed on his lips as he teased her lightly. "You still do."
Some of the tension left her shoulders as she laughed. "Seriously. They used to be so bad that I actually couldn't breath. I couldn't move. It was like I was suddenly frozen and there was nothing that I could do to move or to breath."
Sam thought about that. He'd never heard of extreme panic attacks where the victim actually froze up. "Did your parents take you to a doctor?'
She sighed. "Yeah, and that's when all the weirdness started. The doctor's told them that my heart rate was abnormally fast." Sam flinched at the word abnormal, it was something that she had had to deal with all her life apparently. "And that if there was nothing wrong at home, like abuse, that they couldn't explain it. For some reason my parents were furious."
"How old were you?"
"Seven."
"Jesus." He shook his head. "When did you start changing?"
She scratched her head. "I must have been eleven…ya that's right. The hair started to try and come through my skin. I was at school in the bathroom and I got so freaked out that I ran away and hid in this field behind the school. The school called my parents and said that I had skipped, so I got in trouble. I tried to tell them but they got even madder because they thought that I was making things up. So I became what they called a trouble child. I left school every time it happened, which was anywhere from one to five days a week."
Sam watched the road ahead blankly. "And when you first changed all the way? How old?"
"Hmm, eleven to…thirteen I'd say. Of course back then it was completely involuntary, so I stopped going to school altogether. Then one night I was getting bitched out and it happened right in front of them."
"You were upset, it used to happen a lot back then."
His insight and remembrance warmed something inside her. "Yeah, it did. God, the look on their faces. Thinking back on it now, it's actually funny."
"When did they…" Sam stopped himself. He was asking some pretty personal things and he wasn't sure if he should continue to push her for answers.
"Leave?" She slightly smiled at his hesitancy. "It wasn't right after that. I have to give them some credit. They tried. But the changes started happening everyday, and they got worse. More intense. Somewhere in between the crying and the screaming and the scratching, I don't know…they just gave up."
Even though he knew that his questions were probably limited, he tired to keep them simple and allow her to make them more complicated. If she chose to. "How did you get into the mountains where dad found you?"
She shrugged. "Oh, well that one's easy. They dropped me off on the road one night and when I changed, I ran." She stopped and waited until he looked at her. "I've always been good at running, Sam. It's the sitting still that I've had problems with."
His eyes remained locked with hers. She was telling him something beneath the words. And if he was reading it right, it was that she was sorry that she had taken off that night. Sorry that she hadn't stayed and tried to talk things out. She looked away and he looked back to the road. "So how old were you when that happened?"
"When they took off? I don't know…a little over fourteen I think."
"Christ, you were just a kid. You were out there for a year and a half before dad even found you."
She tilted her head. "Yeah, I guess I was. I was the wolf most of the time, you know things would go bump in the night and I'd change out of fear. A lot of the animals up there were hesitate about me, something about my smell probably, and left me alone for the most part. I'd go to a little town every couple of weeks when I was normal and steal some food, talk to the locals to keep myself sane."
Sam scratched his face. "I can't believe that. Did dad know any of this?"
Alison shook her head. "Not at first. I told him at one point, but it would have been after…" She stopped from saying anything more. They both knew what she was referring to and she didn't want them to remember those past angry words at the present moment. "Just after." She said weakly.
They fell into silence once more. The awkwardness was gone, but the tension remained. As though one wrong word would shatter everything that they had just accomplished.
Sam didn't want to silence to continue. "So, you've been getting nightmares about being alone?"
Alison accepted the topic. "Sort of. About ten months or so after I had left your house I went through this needy, girly stage I guess. I started to really crave affection. Badly. I even went as far as to get children to pet me when I was the wolf. One day I picked up their scent…"
"Your parents?"
"Yeah. It was thanks to John that I began to accept myself and really learn to use my…inner wolf." She laughed. "It took me about three days, but I found them…and their new baby."
Sam chewed on that little piece of news. "I can't even begin to imagine what that must have felt like for you. You must have wanted to tear that kid apart."
She glanced at him and gave him a look of awe. "You would think so, wouldn't you? But I didn't. I was happy that they got another chance. But at the same time the image of them haunts me. It's like, what makes them think that the same thing won't happen to him?"
Sam looked at her. "You have a brother?"
She smiled sadly. "I have a lot of brothers. Anyways, so I'll be dreaming of their happily ever after, only it's not happy anymore. He starts to change…and they kill him. They don't just drop him off and leave, they kill him. Like some kind of wild animal. And that's where the panic attacks come back. I can control them when I'm conscious, but when I'm asleep they're even more powerful than before."
"So you've been having these panic attacks in your sleep? How the hell do you wake up?"
"I don't know, I just do. But it's horrible because it feels like I'm not breathing for hours. And lately there have been these hands that choke me. I don't even like to sleep anymore."
"I know how that feels. A while back, Dean and I were on a hunt for this killer clown…"
She burst out laughing then covered her mouth with her hands and looked back at Dean. He was still sleeping. She uncovered her mouth. "Sorry, killer clowns and all…not to mention I would think you would have stayed as far away as possible from a clown."
Sam sighed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, tell me about it. Anyways, it turned out not to be a clown. It was a Rakshasas, but I still had this freaky ass nightmare. It was this game or something, I'm still not sure how this game works or how it was supposed to be fun. The game was that you had to run along these corridors and these clowns were following you, and if you were too slow or if you stopped the clowns would kill you."
He shuddered and she held back a laugh. "So I'm standing there and this guy infront of me yells 'go', I'm friggin frozen on the spot and I watch him run away. Like three seconds after this guy disappears, this clown suddenly appears about fourteen feet ahead of me. And he started walking in the same direction buddy ran off in, suddenly I made a noise in the back of my throat and this friggin clown turns and locks eyes with me. I'm still frozen in the spot, but I fall onto my back. And I can feel it crawling up my legs and see it appear right infront of my face. I tried to yell, I tried to breath. Like you said I couldn't."
He turned to look at her. She had her mouth open and her eyes were wide and filled with tears. "Are you crying?"
"No," She wiped her eyes. "Yes. I tear up when I'm terrified, which doesn't happen often, let me tell you." She held up her hands. "You know, I'm not afraid of clowns, but that dream is freaking scary. How the hell does your mind come up with this shit?"
He laughed.
Alison leaned her head up against the brick wall of the alley, and wished like hell that she had brought a sweater. If she had a watch, she would have checked it for the tenth time that night. Sam and Dean had gone into the club at least over two hours ago by her calculations.
The rest of the drive to Denver had been easy. They had told stories of previous hunts and laughed at Dean, who had woken with "The planes going to crash!" Sam had been in mid sentence and they had both burst out into laughter three seconds later.
She pushed off the wall and walked down the alley to peer around the corner at the entrance to the club…they still weren't out. Her shoulders sagged and she sighed. What a boring job, especially since it had been hers in the beginning.
Why wait for them here?
The thought floated smoothly through her mind. There was no real reason for her to stay hiding out in the alley when she could be finding them a room for the night. She chewed on her lips. Sam would be furious if she left without somehow telling them where she was going.
Does he own you like you are his pet?
That thought didn't float as smoothly as the one before. Her brows furrowed as she thought on it. They had just talked about that, and she had actually believed what he had said. He didn't think of her like that. She wasn't just an animal to him.
Didn't he tell you to stay here before he left? Isn't that what you say to a dog?
She pushed the thoughts out of her head. Why was she acting so insecure? Three hours ago they had been chatting it up and laughing about stupid mistakes that they had made of hunts, and now she was doubting him again. Didn't she ever stop?
If only you could be normal…
She stopped dead. That was not her thought. She hadn't had a thought like that in over three years. She turned around to stare down the darkened alley, it was faint but she could definitely feel someone or something there. Watching her. And putting thoughts into her head. The Demon.
I'm not as bad as you believe I am.
A pair of radiating blue eyes flickered in the darkness. They were clear as crystals and as beautiful as Christmas lights. She was captivated by the intensity in them.
I can help you, if you chose.
The eyes seemed to bubble.
It's what you want, is it not? It's what you have always wanted.
She forgot everything but the happily ever after that she could practically see in the blue gaze. Images of a different life flashed through her mind like a fast paced slideshow.
Do you like what you see?
She couldn't even answer.
I can make this happen for you.
"I just don't get it, Dean." Sam walked out of the club twenty minutes later with Dean at his heels. Dean had a contented grin on his face. "It should have been here."
"Maybe Alison messed up. Wrong night or wrong club."
"No." Sam shook his head. "She planned this for two weeks, there's no way that she would have made such a huge mistake."
"It happens Sam…"
"Not to people like us, Dean." Sam cut him off quickly. "Not when there are lives at risk."
Dean's jaw ticked, but he kept his mouth shut. Apparently Sam and Alison had gotten pretty tight in the time that they had driven alone together…he was beginning to regret giving it to them.
Sam turned the corner and stopped suddenly so Dean ran into his back. "What the hell, dude?" He stepped around Sam. "Where's Alison?"
Sam swallowed the fear that suddenly jumped into his throat. "Alison." He called out. Sam looked over at Dean with a worried look on his face. "This can't be good, Dean."
Dean shook his head. "No, it doesn't fit the pattern, Sammy. First off, the guy is always the first victim. And secondly, Alison is not vulnerable enough to be taken by this thing."
"You're right about the first part, but after the conversations that we had this afternoon I'm betting that she was more than vulnerable. I bet she was radiating hesitancy." Sam ran a hand through his shaggy hair. "Damn it!" He kicked over a trash can. "I can't believe I didn't even think about it. The demon not showing and Alison going missing...of course they're connected."
"Sam, calm down. We'll find her, okay. I promise you." Dean wiped his face with one hand. "You go around that way, and I'll go this way and we'll meet around back."
Sam nodded but didn't say anything.
Three blocks later Sam met Dean around the back of another street. Dean is panting as hard as Sam and shakes his head, confirming that he hadn't spotted her either. Sam looked around helplessly and leaned his forearms on his thighs. He whispered breathlessly to no one in particular.
"Alison."
So Alison and Sam are finally making progress in their messed up relationship, was it up to your expectations? Whether it was or it wasn't there's definitely more trouble to come. Tell me what you think!