SPN Gen Fic: Weaver 6/9
Nov. 24th, 2006 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
superbadgirlTitle: Weaver
Author: sbg
Rating: R, for language
Category: H/C, Angst, A/A
Season/spoilers: 1/directly follows "Nightmare"
Summary: Sometimes dreams teach, sometimes they tell the future and sometimes they just hurt like hell.
Disclaimer: The Impala, Sam Winchester and (oh, this one hurts) Dean Winchester and various other characters don't belong to me. Some of the things referenced in the story also don't belong to me, but then some of them do. All these things, sans my own words, belong to Kripke Enterprises (Scrap Metal & Entertainment) and The CW. Not trying to step on toes or claim ownership, much as I would really enjoy that.
~~*~~
Dean fidgeted some more and ejected the Zeppelin tape in favor of Kansas, not either of their first choices. His brother had apparently forgotten his own rule about who picked the music, but Sam didn’t really care. He wasn’t really listening to the music anyway. There was too much blood rushing in his ears, and too many thoughts about what exactly might happen when he slept again. He knew what. Kansas was rapidly swapped out for AC/DC. He thought maybe Dean kept messing with the tape deck so he’d stay awake.
“I’m just not sure,” Sam blurted, surprising himself.
“About what?”
“What I’m supposed to do when I’m dreaming, or how I’m supposed to even know I’m dreaming. I’ve never been able to tell before.”
It was a big flaw in the plan, if they could call it a plan. He knew him going to sleep had to happen, and he knew Dean had his back, but Sam was as scared as he’d ever been. He’d do what it took. He wasn’t afraid of dying. He was afraid of dying before he had the chance to find Jessica’s killer. He could not die here. He just didn’t know how many times he could be revived.
“You know there are no easy answers,” Dean said, strained. This was probably as hard on Dean as him. In some ways harder, Sam thought. “It might take you a couple tries before we…you…figure anything out. Maybe you can out think it.”
“Out think it.” He’d always suspected Dean was a little nuts. “It’s a demon.”
“Dude, we out think demons all the time.”
“Well, I do anyway,” Sam said.
Dean smacked him on the shoulder. Sam ducked in reaction, regretting it when the tender throb of his ribs turned to more severe pain. For a second he couldn’t seem to catch his breath, which was odd because he really had been feeling better. He frowned. These were familiar feelings.
“Dean, pinch me,” he said with a gasp.
“What?”
The same hand that had smacked him now latched onto his shoulder. Sam kept his eyes on the road, concentrating on staying between the yellow and white lines. It was harder than it should have been.
“Pinch me. I need to know if I’m awake.”
“You’re awake. I’m not letting you fall asleep when you’re driving my car.”
“Just do it, okay?”
“Okay.” Dean moved his hand down and grabbed an inch of bicep, squeezing tightly. “But you’re crazy, you know.”
“Ow.”
That should have reassured him, but he still couldn’t breathe very well. Dean leaned closer to him, bringing his face right up next to Sam’s. Sam tried to regulate his breathing, but no matter what he did he couldn’t quite get enough useable air into his lungs. Tiny dark spots flitted across his vision, and he slowed the car and drove it onto the shoulder. He put it in park. This didn’t make sense. There was nothing…he looked at Dean, recoiled when he saw his brother’s eyes had been replaced by swirling black.
“Of course you realize that even if you were dreaming, you could just dream me pinching you,” Dean said with casual charm, but it wasn’t quite Dean’s voice.
“Dean…” he said uneasily, though he suspected it wasn’t really his brother.
“Sam!”
He started shaking uncontrollably, violently. Another memorable sensation. Sam watched Dean’s face morph into something else, skin tone changing color to pale blue-grey. He tried to recoil, but couldn’t.
“Sam, snap out of it.”
Dean sounded like Dean, and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about, so Sam did. Well, he didn’t snap so much as groggily surface. It was déjà vu all over again. Dean was practically on top of him. Sam lifted his head slowly, shifted his body. His left knee connected with something hard. He blinked and looked down blearily. He was still behind the steering wheel…oh, shit.
“Oh, shit,” he choked out.
“You can say that again,” Dean said gruffly, like he was angry, but Sam knew better.
Sam sat up straighter, wincing. The jarring motion Dean had just unleashed on him had reawakened the pain. He’d lied before about not needing painkillers, and now he needed them even more. Sam glanced around. Somehow Dean had managed to get the car off the highway and onto the side of the road.
“I don’t understand. I was driving. I wasn’t…I didn’t go to sleep.”
“Yeah, well, beg to differ.” Dean relaxed slightly and moved out of Sam’s space. “One second I’m looking for new music, the next the car’s veering off the road and you’re zoned.”
Dean’s jaw clenched three or four times in succession. That was bad. Very, very bad. Sam shook his head. It was possible the succubus or whatever the hell it was somehow knew they were on to it, and it had changed its MO, but Sam couldn’t quite make himself believe that it wouldn’t simply escape and find a new dreamer to feed off of. Part of him wondered if it was bound to the host until it was all over. He shivered. And if the car had crashed…
“I could have killed you,” Sam said. “God.”
He fumbled for the door handle. It took him several attempts before he managed to get the door open, and then he half slid, half stumbled from behind the wheel. The morning air was cool, and with the adrenaline now coursing through him, helped clear his head. Sort of. He walked to the front of the car and slouched down on the hood. Dean wasn’t far behind him, sitting next to him.
“Me? It’s not me you should be worried about, Sammy,” Dean said softly and slapped him on the arm just as softly. “Come on, get back in the car. We should keep going.”
Just like that, Dean was able to shake it off and get back on track. Sam wished he could do the same. They were in the middle of nowhere, and now this thing could happen at any time, whether he was awake or asleep. He had no control. He didn’t know how they’d ever thought he’d be able to fight it within the dreams. Dean stood up and started around to the driver’s side.
“Dean,” he said. “Aren’t you scared?”
Sam expected the pat “no” answer to roll off his brother’s tongue. He looked up when no response at all came, and caught Dean staring at him. His eyes weren’t swirling and black, but they were still haunted. Then Dean gave him a lopsided, unhappy smile.
“Of course I am.” Funny how the truth didn’t make Sam feel any better. “But fear won’t get us anywhere. Come on. Get in the car.”
For a panicky second, Sam thought he could be dreaming again. There was no transition with this, no skittering or overlaying of reality and vision, no headache. He searched Dean’s face, looking for any clue it wasn’t really him. Dean raised his eyebrows and gesticulated for him to get in the car already. Sam eased off the hood and walked over to the passenger door. Even if he was dreaming, there wasn’t much else he could do.
“Don’t worry, Sam. I’m not going to let you sleep until we’re in a more controlled environment.”
Sam swore Dean had told him that before, but he didn’t know if it had been during a dream or in reality. Either way, the reassurance wasn’t anything more than words; he didn’t think Dean had the power to prevent him from sleeping. It was almost like the demon was aware of what went on while he wasn’t dreaming, and was exerting more influence on him. If that were true, he couldn’t really bring it up to Dean, who might not be Dean anyway and even if he was the demon succubus thing was listening in so it wasn’t like it could be a secure conversation. God, he was going crazy. Sam ran a hand through his hair and slid into the car gently. He looked at Dean and then looked away. And then did it again.
“Spit it out,” Dean said as he rolled the car back onto the highway.
“What?”
“I need to know every detail upfront from now on, Sam.”
“I’m just not sure,” Sam said, repeating the words he’d spoken in his dream. He shouldn’t have. They just made him doubt even more what was real. “What if it could know what we talk about somehow?”
“What would make you think that?”
“I…” Sam cleared his throat. He held out his left arm. “Hey, Dean. Pinch me.”
“I’m not pinching you, freak,” Dean said, no hesitation. As soon as he heard that, Sam knew that was exactly what Dean was supposed to say. “Pinch yourself. You’re awake.”
“That’s what you said the last time,” Sam said with a mildly hysterical laugh. “But then you weren’t you.”
“Tell me what that means, Sammy.”
He had to keep track of the Sammys, he thought. The more often Dean used that stupid nickname, the more concerned he was. If life were a poker game, Dean’s tell would be obvious to any idiot. He closed his eyes briefly. Again, he had no choice. He was almost sure he was, in fact, awake, but even if he wasn’t, there wasn’t much else he could do. He just had to be and hope that was right.
“I think it makes dreams fluid with reality so I have no way of knowing when it’s all going to hell. It’s like a shock. It must thrive on that more than the dreams themselves.”
“And…”
“And this time it used your face instead of Bloody Mary’s. Or it would have if you hadn’t woken me up. It was so real until it wasn’t.”
“This just keeps getting better and better,” Dean said.
It felt to Sam as though the demon was accelerating its attacks the same way Dean stepped on the gas and drove that much harder. That made sense to him, the only thing that did amid the confusion in his brain. None of the reports had given any clue that the victims had suspected what was really happening to them. It was possible the demon hadn’t revealed itself to them or it did and they didn’t put the pieces together.
“I still don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to do while I am dreaming, especially if I still don’t know that I am. I haven’t got any useful information so far.”
“That’s what I want.”
Sam wasn’t sure he’d heard that right. His heart started racing anyway, and his skin prickled. He stole a look at Dean, hoping to observe his brother unnoticed. Dean looked right back at him, ignoring the road. The gaze was suffocating, hypnotic. Dark. Sam tried to break eye contact and couldn’t.
“Dean, uh, maybe you should watch the road,” he said.
“Nah,” Dean said, but Sam swore his lips didn’t move. And then Sam couldn’t move his lips, either. He could barely move anything. He couldn’t breathe. “I don’t think there’d be much fun in that. Sammy, you need a stronger sense of adventure.”
Sam tore his eyes away from Dean’s abnormally darkened orbs. It came out of nowhere, a large animal – deer? – and he tried to shout, to get whatever had taken his brother’s place to stop the car or swerve or anythinganything but it was useless. The car impacted the animal at full speed and Sam was crushed against the dashboard. There were flashes of light and dark and chaos and he couldn’t breathe. And then there was nothing at all.
~~*~~
The room didn’t allow for much movement, but Dean managed to pace anyway. It seemed like he was forever pacing. It was all he could do, as if moving constantly would keep the bad things away. He’d known this was a terrible idea going in. Now he started to doubt it was even sane. Every time Sam went to sleep and dreamed, more and more strength was sapped out of him. So far Dean had managed to break his brother out of it immediately after he stopped breathing. Those were all small victories as far as he was concerned.
Sam was losing the war.
When awake, Sam had a pinched look around eyes that were dull and flat, and when asleep he looked lifeless even before he stopped breathing. Frankly, Dean didn’t know how much more either of them could take. He suspected that for Sam, it was very little. He wasn’t far behind.
“Dean,” Sam said, sounding as wasted as he looked. Dean stopped pacing and glanced at his brother. “I don’t think this is accomplishing anything.”
Not for them, anyway, no. The dream succubus was making out like a bandit. Dean moved over and sat on the edge of the bed. He felt helpless, and he hated that he could only watch. He ran a hand through his hair, and then patted Sam on the knee. There wasn’t much he could say. At this stage, words of encouragement would only be platitudes and they’d talked the subject to death anyway. Pun definitely not intended.
“It’s keeping it interested in you,” Dean said, pretending that was actually something to put on the positive side of the tally sheet that was otherwise very negative.
“Huh.”
Sam gave a small laugh, not much more than a puff of air. Such a tiny noise, but it sounded loud. The toll on Sam wasn’t purely physical. If it was just that, Dean thought he could handle it better, but Sam was also getting less lucid. As far as he could tell, Sam would say things that just didn’t make sense, or laugh as if he found something that wasn’t funny absolutely hysterical. He was kind of relieved he’d exercised brotherly discretion and had deemed all the small towns along the way inadequate, medically speaking, and pushed on to Salt Lake City. He tried not to think about it, but it was nice knowing backup was there if Sam needed it.
“I swear I already told you this, man, but I think it stays with someone until they die. No one else should be in danger while I’m still around for its amusement. Didn’t I tell you that?” Sam said cheerfully. Case in point. Because it was really amusing to learn the only plausible way to get rid of a dream succubus was to let the dreamer die. Especially because the dreamer was Sam. “That’s so funny.”
“Yeah. I’m busting a gut.” Dean shook Sam’s knee. “I don’t think that’s the solution we’re looking for in getting rid of this thing.”
The bed jiggled as Sam leaned forward, pulling away from the headboard. He drew his knees up and swung his legs over the side until they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. Dean felt his brother quiver slightly, and knew the simple act of sitting up had required a lot more effort than it should have. God, he hated this. He avoided professional medical help wherever possible, but not for the first time, the temptation to drag his brother to a doctor cropped up.
“That isn’t what I meant.” Sam wasn’t laughing anymore. “I don’t want to die, Dean.”
“Good to hear.”
He was being sarcastic, but he was also genuinely relieved. Sometimes Sam could get a little reckless with his own life. Dean thought that had gotten better over the past few months. There would always be that underlying fear, because if there were one thing that linked their family besides blood, it would be their willingness to die, for either a cause or for other people. He thought knowing that trait about each other actually made them more diligent with each other’s safety. At least that’s what he told himself.
“It’s too bad there’s not a way for you to make your dreams more dreamlike, so you’d know,” Dean said. He’d said that before. They both had. So far Sam hadn’t been able to gain any control over his subconscious.
“Déjà vu.” Sam bumped his leg against Dean’s, then stood up and went to the coffeemaker. He poured himself a cup, but set it down again without taking a drink. “I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t know it was going to be this hard. I don’t know…”
Dean felt like every nerve ending was frayed beyond repair, and he could only imagine what all this was doing to Sam. Beyond the obvious physical and psychological symptoms, so much more could be happening that he couldn’t see. He knew forgetting that Sam was his brother would be the best thing to do, think of him as just a regular person who needed help. If he could do that, he might be able to reduce if not eliminate personal feelings. Their father could do it. Dean admired John Winchester as a hunter. Sometimes, though, he thought his father was a heartless bastard, and he couldn’t let himself be that way. No. Sam was his brother, and that wasn’t ever going to change.
“What can I do?” Dean said. “Tell me how to help you.”
“You do it by waking me up, Dean. There’s nothing more you can do.” Sam sighed. “Want coffee?”
“Sure.”
Sam brought him the cup he had poured for himself. Dean took a sip and looked over to the bedside clock. He couldn’t remember if it was morning or night anymore. He’d mostly lost track of how long they’d been going on, keeping track only by the number of times Sam had fallen into a period of not breathing. Seven times. Didn’t seem like a huge amount, but seven was so not a lucky number.
“Are you all right?” Sam said. “Because I have to say you stink and you look like crap.”
“I’m tired, Sam, that’s all. And you don’t exactly smell good yourself.”
Dean’s head hurt from too much caffeine. He finished the coffee anyway, figuring at this point it might not help, but it couldn’t hurt. He’d blown through the caffeine threshold a long time ago. Fear kept him awake now. Fear and thoughts he couldn’t stop thinking. Nothing was going right. None of their father’s friends had been able to provide a viable plan, though he knew none of them had stopped searching. Their father himself so far neglected to return the phone call Dean finally made to him.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough to control what I dream about.”
Dean hadn’t ever said that. He didn’t correct Sam. The more he mentioned Sam’s slips between what had really happened and what was apparently from a dream, the more it agitated his brother. Dean hoped that was the right thing to do. He could just be making it more difficult for Sam.
“I thought we established that it couldn’t really be done,” Dean said. Seven times over, they’d established that. “Not to shoot you down or anything. You can’t just think about lollipops and candy canes and expect to see them in your dreams.”
Sam looked at him funny, sinking back down on the bed.
“You’re right. But what if I try to dream about something that used to fill my nightmares? That started out as something else. Something that really happened.”
Dean didn’t like the sound of that. He knew what Sam was talking about, and those months after Jess’s death had left his brother looking almost as bad as he did at the moment. If it went wrong and Sam couldn’t control more than the dream’s subject material, thing could skip right from bad to dead.
“I…”
“Think about it, Dean. I’ll know it’s a dream because I’ve had it a million times.”
“It’s used Jess before. Can you really be so sure you’ll know what’s going on?”
“No. Of course not, but neither has just falling to sleep with no plan.”
Fair point.
“So you need to get in a Jess frame of mind,” Dean said. Just when he’d thought this couldn’t get any worse.
“That is the only thing about this that won’t be a problem,” Sam said. Dean turned to give his brother whatever non-verbal support he could and caught the tail end of a telling facial tick. “I don’t need any help with that.”
Dean couldn’t find a way to respond that would be helpful in any way. He stood up so Sam could get comfortable on the bed. He wasn’t ready for this himself, hoped like hell Sam knew what he was doing, even a little bit. This had the potential to go very wrong, and with their luck it probably would. Not that he didn’t have faith in Sam – the guy was one stubborn SOB. No, his concern came more from the fact that they still knew basically nothing about the succubus. It held all the cards in this game.
“You ready?” Dean walked over and put the coffee cup down by the sink. “It hasn’t been very long since the last time we tried.”
“Waiting won’t help.” Sam sounded like he thought nothing would, which was not a good thing. “No, I’m as ready as ever.”
Except more exhausted, sore and weak, Dean thought. He clenched his jaw. He wasn’t helping Sam or himself by being so fatalistic. It was hard to change that attitude, knowing he was about to watch Sam sleeping. Sure, that didn’t sound like such a terrible thing, but with each successive sleep session it became more like watching Sam die. His job there might be simple, but it sure as hell wasn’t easy. And he sincerely doubted Sam was ready at all, despite the assurance that he was. He had an urge to tell Sam he’d be right there, even though that was obvious and one of the dumbest things he could say. God, Sam and his chick-flick tendencies were rubbing off on him way too much.
“Okay,” Dean said.
He leaned on the counter. Dean had discovered after the third attempt that standing kept him alert and allowed him to get to Sam quicker when things went south. He drummed his fingers on his thigh and became watcher. He knew the second Sam was asleep, the muscles of his body tensing in an equal, opposite reaction to Sam’s slackening ones. It was scary to see his brother so pale and still – worse than anything else he’d ever seen in his life, or at least that he could think of at the moment. He pushed himself away from the counter and started pacing alongside the bed, filled with all kinds of nervous energy.
One minute turned to two, then three. Dean frowned, stopped pacing and leaned over Sam. It usually only took a few minutes for Sam to exhale and then just not inhale again. He eyed Sam’s chest as it rose and fell steadily, if shallowly. He reached out a hand, tempted to wake Sam even though there wasn’t reason to yet. He could always make up a new time limit rule if Sam protested. Four minutes. Five.
It was different this time; he knew it in his bones. Dean felt a chill run through him.
Sam suddenly surged, chest heaving, off the bed and then fell down again. Dean jerked back, taken off guard as Sam continued to heave and gasp and shudder. Shitohshit, was all that went through Dean’s head. He grabbed for Sam’s shoulders and dug his fingers into them with all his might. The pain that had to have cost garnered no reaction. Sam’s movements were quickly weakening, though, becoming more erratic while his attempts to breathe lingered.
“Sam, snap out of it,” Dean said, the same words he’d said so often lately. “Come on, Sammy, don’t pull this shit again.”
His brother always was contrary. Instead of following Dean’s order, Sam stopped moving, went completely limp. Dean’s skin prickled, the chill he’d felt before tripling. He shook Sam, which only made a lifeless hand thump hollowly against the cheap hotel mattress. Last time Sam’s heart stopped, it had nearly taken Dean too long to bring him back. Dean hadn’t realized he had a definite line in the sand, but Sam was crossing it. He let go of his brother and reached for the phone. He’d hit nine and one before he realized Sam was scarily immobile, but was actually breathing. He put the receiver back down on the cradle.
“Okay. That’s more like it.”
Dean thought about letting Sam alone to sleep or dream some more, and then reconsidered. He didn’t need Sam crossing that line again, and it was better safe than sorry. He shook his brother’s shoulder to rouse him, gently this time. Sam tended to be pretty out of it when pulled from sleep on a good day, and now was just plain freaky, saying all sorts of strange things and making pain-filled grunts. Knowing what, in theory, Sam was dreaming about really wouldn’t help with that.
“Hey, you can wake up now,” Dean said.
But Sam didn’t move, didn’t make any of those sounds Dean hated. The silence was far worse. After ten minutes of trying to prod Sam awake, Dean reached for the phone again.
~~*~~
Part 7 here
Author: sbg
Rating: R, for language
Category: H/C, Angst, A/A
Season/spoilers: 1/directly follows "Nightmare"
Summary: Sometimes dreams teach, sometimes they tell the future and sometimes they just hurt like hell.
Disclaimer: The Impala, Sam Winchester and (oh, this one hurts) Dean Winchester and various other characters don't belong to me. Some of the things referenced in the story also don't belong to me, but then some of them do. All these things, sans my own words, belong to Kripke Enterprises (Scrap Metal & Entertainment) and The CW. Not trying to step on toes or claim ownership, much as I would really enjoy that.
~~*~~
Dean fidgeted some more and ejected the Zeppelin tape in favor of Kansas, not either of their first choices. His brother had apparently forgotten his own rule about who picked the music, but Sam didn’t really care. He wasn’t really listening to the music anyway. There was too much blood rushing in his ears, and too many thoughts about what exactly might happen when he slept again. He knew what. Kansas was rapidly swapped out for AC/DC. He thought maybe Dean kept messing with the tape deck so he’d stay awake.
“I’m just not sure,” Sam blurted, surprising himself.
“About what?”
“What I’m supposed to do when I’m dreaming, or how I’m supposed to even know I’m dreaming. I’ve never been able to tell before.”
It was a big flaw in the plan, if they could call it a plan. He knew him going to sleep had to happen, and he knew Dean had his back, but Sam was as scared as he’d ever been. He’d do what it took. He wasn’t afraid of dying. He was afraid of dying before he had the chance to find Jessica’s killer. He could not die here. He just didn’t know how many times he could be revived.
“You know there are no easy answers,” Dean said, strained. This was probably as hard on Dean as him. In some ways harder, Sam thought. “It might take you a couple tries before we…you…figure anything out. Maybe you can out think it.”
“Out think it.” He’d always suspected Dean was a little nuts. “It’s a demon.”
“Dude, we out think demons all the time.”
“Well, I do anyway,” Sam said.
Dean smacked him on the shoulder. Sam ducked in reaction, regretting it when the tender throb of his ribs turned to more severe pain. For a second he couldn’t seem to catch his breath, which was odd because he really had been feeling better. He frowned. These were familiar feelings.
“Dean, pinch me,” he said with a gasp.
“What?”
The same hand that had smacked him now latched onto his shoulder. Sam kept his eyes on the road, concentrating on staying between the yellow and white lines. It was harder than it should have been.
“Pinch me. I need to know if I’m awake.”
“You’re awake. I’m not letting you fall asleep when you’re driving my car.”
“Just do it, okay?”
“Okay.” Dean moved his hand down and grabbed an inch of bicep, squeezing tightly. “But you’re crazy, you know.”
“Ow.”
That should have reassured him, but he still couldn’t breathe very well. Dean leaned closer to him, bringing his face right up next to Sam’s. Sam tried to regulate his breathing, but no matter what he did he couldn’t quite get enough useable air into his lungs. Tiny dark spots flitted across his vision, and he slowed the car and drove it onto the shoulder. He put it in park. This didn’t make sense. There was nothing…he looked at Dean, recoiled when he saw his brother’s eyes had been replaced by swirling black.
“Of course you realize that even if you were dreaming, you could just dream me pinching you,” Dean said with casual charm, but it wasn’t quite Dean’s voice.
“Dean…” he said uneasily, though he suspected it wasn’t really his brother.
“Sam!”
He started shaking uncontrollably, violently. Another memorable sensation. Sam watched Dean’s face morph into something else, skin tone changing color to pale blue-grey. He tried to recoil, but couldn’t.
“Sam, snap out of it.”
Dean sounded like Dean, and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about, so Sam did. Well, he didn’t snap so much as groggily surface. It was déjà vu all over again. Dean was practically on top of him. Sam lifted his head slowly, shifted his body. His left knee connected with something hard. He blinked and looked down blearily. He was still behind the steering wheel…oh, shit.
“Oh, shit,” he choked out.
“You can say that again,” Dean said gruffly, like he was angry, but Sam knew better.
Sam sat up straighter, wincing. The jarring motion Dean had just unleashed on him had reawakened the pain. He’d lied before about not needing painkillers, and now he needed them even more. Sam glanced around. Somehow Dean had managed to get the car off the highway and onto the side of the road.
“I don’t understand. I was driving. I wasn’t…I didn’t go to sleep.”
“Yeah, well, beg to differ.” Dean relaxed slightly and moved out of Sam’s space. “One second I’m looking for new music, the next the car’s veering off the road and you’re zoned.”
Dean’s jaw clenched three or four times in succession. That was bad. Very, very bad. Sam shook his head. It was possible the succubus or whatever the hell it was somehow knew they were on to it, and it had changed its MO, but Sam couldn’t quite make himself believe that it wouldn’t simply escape and find a new dreamer to feed off of. Part of him wondered if it was bound to the host until it was all over. He shivered. And if the car had crashed…
“I could have killed you,” Sam said. “God.”
He fumbled for the door handle. It took him several attempts before he managed to get the door open, and then he half slid, half stumbled from behind the wheel. The morning air was cool, and with the adrenaline now coursing through him, helped clear his head. Sort of. He walked to the front of the car and slouched down on the hood. Dean wasn’t far behind him, sitting next to him.
“Me? It’s not me you should be worried about, Sammy,” Dean said softly and slapped him on the arm just as softly. “Come on, get back in the car. We should keep going.”
Just like that, Dean was able to shake it off and get back on track. Sam wished he could do the same. They were in the middle of nowhere, and now this thing could happen at any time, whether he was awake or asleep. He had no control. He didn’t know how they’d ever thought he’d be able to fight it within the dreams. Dean stood up and started around to the driver’s side.
“Dean,” he said. “Aren’t you scared?”
Sam expected the pat “no” answer to roll off his brother’s tongue. He looked up when no response at all came, and caught Dean staring at him. His eyes weren’t swirling and black, but they were still haunted. Then Dean gave him a lopsided, unhappy smile.
“Of course I am.” Funny how the truth didn’t make Sam feel any better. “But fear won’t get us anywhere. Come on. Get in the car.”
For a panicky second, Sam thought he could be dreaming again. There was no transition with this, no skittering or overlaying of reality and vision, no headache. He searched Dean’s face, looking for any clue it wasn’t really him. Dean raised his eyebrows and gesticulated for him to get in the car already. Sam eased off the hood and walked over to the passenger door. Even if he was dreaming, there wasn’t much else he could do.
“Don’t worry, Sam. I’m not going to let you sleep until we’re in a more controlled environment.”
Sam swore Dean had told him that before, but he didn’t know if it had been during a dream or in reality. Either way, the reassurance wasn’t anything more than words; he didn’t think Dean had the power to prevent him from sleeping. It was almost like the demon was aware of what went on while he wasn’t dreaming, and was exerting more influence on him. If that were true, he couldn’t really bring it up to Dean, who might not be Dean anyway and even if he was the demon succubus thing was listening in so it wasn’t like it could be a secure conversation. God, he was going crazy. Sam ran a hand through his hair and slid into the car gently. He looked at Dean and then looked away. And then did it again.
“Spit it out,” Dean said as he rolled the car back onto the highway.
“What?”
“I need to know every detail upfront from now on, Sam.”
“I’m just not sure,” Sam said, repeating the words he’d spoken in his dream. He shouldn’t have. They just made him doubt even more what was real. “What if it could know what we talk about somehow?”
“What would make you think that?”
“I…” Sam cleared his throat. He held out his left arm. “Hey, Dean. Pinch me.”
“I’m not pinching you, freak,” Dean said, no hesitation. As soon as he heard that, Sam knew that was exactly what Dean was supposed to say. “Pinch yourself. You’re awake.”
“That’s what you said the last time,” Sam said with a mildly hysterical laugh. “But then you weren’t you.”
“Tell me what that means, Sammy.”
He had to keep track of the Sammys, he thought. The more often Dean used that stupid nickname, the more concerned he was. If life were a poker game, Dean’s tell would be obvious to any idiot. He closed his eyes briefly. Again, he had no choice. He was almost sure he was, in fact, awake, but even if he wasn’t, there wasn’t much else he could do. He just had to be and hope that was right.
“I think it makes dreams fluid with reality so I have no way of knowing when it’s all going to hell. It’s like a shock. It must thrive on that more than the dreams themselves.”
“And…”
“And this time it used your face instead of Bloody Mary’s. Or it would have if you hadn’t woken me up. It was so real until it wasn’t.”
“This just keeps getting better and better,” Dean said.
It felt to Sam as though the demon was accelerating its attacks the same way Dean stepped on the gas and drove that much harder. That made sense to him, the only thing that did amid the confusion in his brain. None of the reports had given any clue that the victims had suspected what was really happening to them. It was possible the demon hadn’t revealed itself to them or it did and they didn’t put the pieces together.
“I still don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to do while I am dreaming, especially if I still don’t know that I am. I haven’t got any useful information so far.”
“That’s what I want.”
Sam wasn’t sure he’d heard that right. His heart started racing anyway, and his skin prickled. He stole a look at Dean, hoping to observe his brother unnoticed. Dean looked right back at him, ignoring the road. The gaze was suffocating, hypnotic. Dark. Sam tried to break eye contact and couldn’t.
“Dean, uh, maybe you should watch the road,” he said.
“Nah,” Dean said, but Sam swore his lips didn’t move. And then Sam couldn’t move his lips, either. He could barely move anything. He couldn’t breathe. “I don’t think there’d be much fun in that. Sammy, you need a stronger sense of adventure.”
Sam tore his eyes away from Dean’s abnormally darkened orbs. It came out of nowhere, a large animal – deer? – and he tried to shout, to get whatever had taken his brother’s place to stop the car or swerve or anythinganything but it was useless. The car impacted the animal at full speed and Sam was crushed against the dashboard. There were flashes of light and dark and chaos and he couldn’t breathe. And then there was nothing at all.
~~*~~
The room didn’t allow for much movement, but Dean managed to pace anyway. It seemed like he was forever pacing. It was all he could do, as if moving constantly would keep the bad things away. He’d known this was a terrible idea going in. Now he started to doubt it was even sane. Every time Sam went to sleep and dreamed, more and more strength was sapped out of him. So far Dean had managed to break his brother out of it immediately after he stopped breathing. Those were all small victories as far as he was concerned.
Sam was losing the war.
When awake, Sam had a pinched look around eyes that were dull and flat, and when asleep he looked lifeless even before he stopped breathing. Frankly, Dean didn’t know how much more either of them could take. He suspected that for Sam, it was very little. He wasn’t far behind.
“Dean,” Sam said, sounding as wasted as he looked. Dean stopped pacing and glanced at his brother. “I don’t think this is accomplishing anything.”
Not for them, anyway, no. The dream succubus was making out like a bandit. Dean moved over and sat on the edge of the bed. He felt helpless, and he hated that he could only watch. He ran a hand through his hair, and then patted Sam on the knee. There wasn’t much he could say. At this stage, words of encouragement would only be platitudes and they’d talked the subject to death anyway. Pun definitely not intended.
“It’s keeping it interested in you,” Dean said, pretending that was actually something to put on the positive side of the tally sheet that was otherwise very negative.
“Huh.”
Sam gave a small laugh, not much more than a puff of air. Such a tiny noise, but it sounded loud. The toll on Sam wasn’t purely physical. If it was just that, Dean thought he could handle it better, but Sam was also getting less lucid. As far as he could tell, Sam would say things that just didn’t make sense, or laugh as if he found something that wasn’t funny absolutely hysterical. He was kind of relieved he’d exercised brotherly discretion and had deemed all the small towns along the way inadequate, medically speaking, and pushed on to Salt Lake City. He tried not to think about it, but it was nice knowing backup was there if Sam needed it.
“I swear I already told you this, man, but I think it stays with someone until they die. No one else should be in danger while I’m still around for its amusement. Didn’t I tell you that?” Sam said cheerfully. Case in point. Because it was really amusing to learn the only plausible way to get rid of a dream succubus was to let the dreamer die. Especially because the dreamer was Sam. “That’s so funny.”
“Yeah. I’m busting a gut.” Dean shook Sam’s knee. “I don’t think that’s the solution we’re looking for in getting rid of this thing.”
The bed jiggled as Sam leaned forward, pulling away from the headboard. He drew his knees up and swung his legs over the side until they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. Dean felt his brother quiver slightly, and knew the simple act of sitting up had required a lot more effort than it should have. God, he hated this. He avoided professional medical help wherever possible, but not for the first time, the temptation to drag his brother to a doctor cropped up.
“That isn’t what I meant.” Sam wasn’t laughing anymore. “I don’t want to die, Dean.”
“Good to hear.”
He was being sarcastic, but he was also genuinely relieved. Sometimes Sam could get a little reckless with his own life. Dean thought that had gotten better over the past few months. There would always be that underlying fear, because if there were one thing that linked their family besides blood, it would be their willingness to die, for either a cause or for other people. He thought knowing that trait about each other actually made them more diligent with each other’s safety. At least that’s what he told himself.
“It’s too bad there’s not a way for you to make your dreams more dreamlike, so you’d know,” Dean said. He’d said that before. They both had. So far Sam hadn’t been able to gain any control over his subconscious.
“Déjà vu.” Sam bumped his leg against Dean’s, then stood up and went to the coffeemaker. He poured himself a cup, but set it down again without taking a drink. “I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t know it was going to be this hard. I don’t know…”
Dean felt like every nerve ending was frayed beyond repair, and he could only imagine what all this was doing to Sam. Beyond the obvious physical and psychological symptoms, so much more could be happening that he couldn’t see. He knew forgetting that Sam was his brother would be the best thing to do, think of him as just a regular person who needed help. If he could do that, he might be able to reduce if not eliminate personal feelings. Their father could do it. Dean admired John Winchester as a hunter. Sometimes, though, he thought his father was a heartless bastard, and he couldn’t let himself be that way. No. Sam was his brother, and that wasn’t ever going to change.
“What can I do?” Dean said. “Tell me how to help you.”
“You do it by waking me up, Dean. There’s nothing more you can do.” Sam sighed. “Want coffee?”
“Sure.”
Sam brought him the cup he had poured for himself. Dean took a sip and looked over to the bedside clock. He couldn’t remember if it was morning or night anymore. He’d mostly lost track of how long they’d been going on, keeping track only by the number of times Sam had fallen into a period of not breathing. Seven times. Didn’t seem like a huge amount, but seven was so not a lucky number.
“Are you all right?” Sam said. “Because I have to say you stink and you look like crap.”
“I’m tired, Sam, that’s all. And you don’t exactly smell good yourself.”
Dean’s head hurt from too much caffeine. He finished the coffee anyway, figuring at this point it might not help, but it couldn’t hurt. He’d blown through the caffeine threshold a long time ago. Fear kept him awake now. Fear and thoughts he couldn’t stop thinking. Nothing was going right. None of their father’s friends had been able to provide a viable plan, though he knew none of them had stopped searching. Their father himself so far neglected to return the phone call Dean finally made to him.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough to control what I dream about.”
Dean hadn’t ever said that. He didn’t correct Sam. The more he mentioned Sam’s slips between what had really happened and what was apparently from a dream, the more it agitated his brother. Dean hoped that was the right thing to do. He could just be making it more difficult for Sam.
“I thought we established that it couldn’t really be done,” Dean said. Seven times over, they’d established that. “Not to shoot you down or anything. You can’t just think about lollipops and candy canes and expect to see them in your dreams.”
Sam looked at him funny, sinking back down on the bed.
“You’re right. But what if I try to dream about something that used to fill my nightmares? That started out as something else. Something that really happened.”
Dean didn’t like the sound of that. He knew what Sam was talking about, and those months after Jess’s death had left his brother looking almost as bad as he did at the moment. If it went wrong and Sam couldn’t control more than the dream’s subject material, thing could skip right from bad to dead.
“I…”
“Think about it, Dean. I’ll know it’s a dream because I’ve had it a million times.”
“It’s used Jess before. Can you really be so sure you’ll know what’s going on?”
“No. Of course not, but neither has just falling to sleep with no plan.”
Fair point.
“So you need to get in a Jess frame of mind,” Dean said. Just when he’d thought this couldn’t get any worse.
“That is the only thing about this that won’t be a problem,” Sam said. Dean turned to give his brother whatever non-verbal support he could and caught the tail end of a telling facial tick. “I don’t need any help with that.”
Dean couldn’t find a way to respond that would be helpful in any way. He stood up so Sam could get comfortable on the bed. He wasn’t ready for this himself, hoped like hell Sam knew what he was doing, even a little bit. This had the potential to go very wrong, and with their luck it probably would. Not that he didn’t have faith in Sam – the guy was one stubborn SOB. No, his concern came more from the fact that they still knew basically nothing about the succubus. It held all the cards in this game.
“You ready?” Dean walked over and put the coffee cup down by the sink. “It hasn’t been very long since the last time we tried.”
“Waiting won’t help.” Sam sounded like he thought nothing would, which was not a good thing. “No, I’m as ready as ever.”
Except more exhausted, sore and weak, Dean thought. He clenched his jaw. He wasn’t helping Sam or himself by being so fatalistic. It was hard to change that attitude, knowing he was about to watch Sam sleeping. Sure, that didn’t sound like such a terrible thing, but with each successive sleep session it became more like watching Sam die. His job there might be simple, but it sure as hell wasn’t easy. And he sincerely doubted Sam was ready at all, despite the assurance that he was. He had an urge to tell Sam he’d be right there, even though that was obvious and one of the dumbest things he could say. God, Sam and his chick-flick tendencies were rubbing off on him way too much.
“Okay,” Dean said.
He leaned on the counter. Dean had discovered after the third attempt that standing kept him alert and allowed him to get to Sam quicker when things went south. He drummed his fingers on his thigh and became watcher. He knew the second Sam was asleep, the muscles of his body tensing in an equal, opposite reaction to Sam’s slackening ones. It was scary to see his brother so pale and still – worse than anything else he’d ever seen in his life, or at least that he could think of at the moment. He pushed himself away from the counter and started pacing alongside the bed, filled with all kinds of nervous energy.
One minute turned to two, then three. Dean frowned, stopped pacing and leaned over Sam. It usually only took a few minutes for Sam to exhale and then just not inhale again. He eyed Sam’s chest as it rose and fell steadily, if shallowly. He reached out a hand, tempted to wake Sam even though there wasn’t reason to yet. He could always make up a new time limit rule if Sam protested. Four minutes. Five.
It was different this time; he knew it in his bones. Dean felt a chill run through him.
Sam suddenly surged, chest heaving, off the bed and then fell down again. Dean jerked back, taken off guard as Sam continued to heave and gasp and shudder. Shitohshit, was all that went through Dean’s head. He grabbed for Sam’s shoulders and dug his fingers into them with all his might. The pain that had to have cost garnered no reaction. Sam’s movements were quickly weakening, though, becoming more erratic while his attempts to breathe lingered.
“Sam, snap out of it,” Dean said, the same words he’d said so often lately. “Come on, Sammy, don’t pull this shit again.”
His brother always was contrary. Instead of following Dean’s order, Sam stopped moving, went completely limp. Dean’s skin prickled, the chill he’d felt before tripling. He shook Sam, which only made a lifeless hand thump hollowly against the cheap hotel mattress. Last time Sam’s heart stopped, it had nearly taken Dean too long to bring him back. Dean hadn’t realized he had a definite line in the sand, but Sam was crossing it. He let go of his brother and reached for the phone. He’d hit nine and one before he realized Sam was scarily immobile, but was actually breathing. He put the receiver back down on the cradle.
“Okay. That’s more like it.”
Dean thought about letting Sam alone to sleep or dream some more, and then reconsidered. He didn’t need Sam crossing that line again, and it was better safe than sorry. He shook his brother’s shoulder to rouse him, gently this time. Sam tended to be pretty out of it when pulled from sleep on a good day, and now was just plain freaky, saying all sorts of strange things and making pain-filled grunts. Knowing what, in theory, Sam was dreaming about really wouldn’t help with that.
“Hey, you can wake up now,” Dean said.
But Sam didn’t move, didn’t make any of those sounds Dean hated. The silence was far worse. After ten minutes of trying to prod Sam awake, Dean reached for the phone again.
~~*~~
Part 7 here
