With Spit and a Prayer
folder
Supernatural › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
24
Views:
6,218
Reviews:
83
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Supernatural › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
24
Views:
6,218
Reviews:
83
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Supernatural, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Chapter Twelve
Many thanks to Emilia, Angel Jade, Starflow and From Across the Pond for letting me know their thoughts once again. You guys rock :D.
Also, if any of you guys are interested in reading any of my non-NC17 SPN fic, you can find it at my LiveJournal, which is linked on my profile page. /self-pimp
OK, on with the show!
----
With Spit and a Prayer, Chapter Twelve
Ninety-five days
----
The knock on the door surprised Sam. It sounded loud, and for a moment he thought it was a gunshot or a car crash, because it was the loudest thing he’d heard for over twenty-four hours (since Dean left). He jolted up in bed, his heart beating in his throat, because who would be knocking, who would come here, who knew anything about him now?
There was only one person, and Sam disentangled himself from the blankets and staggered to the door, feeling the twinge of muscles barely used for more than a day.
It wasn’t, though. When Sam opened the door, a scruffy, middle-aged guy he vaguely recognised was standing there, holding a large box and scowling. He looked Sam up and down.
“I interrupt something?” he asked, and Sam became aware that he was wearing sleeping clothes, even though it looked like it was probably the middle of the day. He forced himself not to take a step back and swallowed, trying to think of something to say in response, but all he could think of was that it wasn’t Dean.
The man raised an eyebrow and said, “OK, whatever, well, the guy who paid for the room asked me to give you this.” He held out the box, and Sam took it automatically, even as the words the guy who paid for the room sank through his consciousness. The box was heavy, and he almost dropped it, managing to improve his grip just in time. The guy – Sam recognised him now, the motel clerk – cleared his throat and said, “Said I should tell you you’re paid up till the end of the month, too. So. I told you.”
Sam blinked and tried to get his voice to work, but nothing came out. The motel clerk gave him a weird look and said, “OK, well, no need to thank me, just doing my job. Have a nice day and all that crap.”
After he’d gone, Sam stood in the doorway holding the box until he registered that a woman was staring at him from across the parking lot. He didn’t understand. The guy who paid for the room had to be Dean, right? No-one else here knew Sam. But Dean was gone, Dean had been gone for more than a day, and no-one knew Sam, Sam was alone now, Sam might as well not exist.
He put the box on the floor and closed the door, frowning at it. He had to open it. He knew that he knew how to open it, but he couldn’t make his mind bring him the information. Jesus, why did everything have to be so hard?
Some time passed, but Sam had no idea how much. The curtains were closed, but it was still daylight outside. He supposed he could look at the clock, but he didn’t, because he was too busy looking at the box. Finally, he gave up and went back to bed.
----
Dean sighed and worked at the crick in his neck with his fingers, wishing he’d managed to rent a car that had a little more leg room. Wishing really that he had the Impala, because for all that it wasn’t the most comfortable car ever invented, it was his baby and he could forgive it any number of aching muscles and cramped shoulders. No good wishing, though, because the Impala was a lot of things, but inconspicuous wasn’t one of them, and Dean’s entire plan was shot to hell if Sam spotted him watching.
Not that Dean really had a plan. Dean didn’t have much of anything right now, except a first step, and he was clinging onto that as hard as he fucking could. It wasn’t easy; when Sam had stood in the doorway like a zombie for two whole minutes, Dean had had to clench his jaw and grind his hands against the steering wheel to stop himself from going out there and trying to make it better. The only thing that had stopped him in the end was the clear knowledge that had come to him two nights before when Sam was still unconscious (because Dean had strangled him): he couldn’t make it better. He’d tried everything he could think of, tried for months, and everything had just gotten worse and worse, nothing had helped at all. Dean had felt hopeless before, felt like his world was crumbling around him, but he’d never felt this certainty that he couldn’t help his brother, and it made him sick with fear and guilt.
But he’d left. He’d fucked up, real bad, but he’d taken a first step, and he didn’t know whether it was the first step towards sorting out the gigantic mess he’d made or towards fucking everything up so bad that it could never be OK again, but at this point, he was willing to take the risk. All he had to do now was figure out what the hell the next step was going to be.
----
Ninety-six days
----
Sam felt weird.
That was nothing new, of course. Sam couldn’t really remember the last time he’d felt normal, so feeling weird was OK, he could deal with it. But it was stopping him from sleeping, which was frustrating, because when he wasn’t sleeping he was just lying in the bed staring at the ceiling, and that made him feel lost and small (abandoned) so he preferred it when he could at least doze. Dozing was off the cards right now, though, until he worked out what exactly it was that felt weird.
He hauled himself into a sitting position, and held on to the side of the mattress until the room stopped spinning. It was light again outside, he thought, though he’d lost track of what day it was. There was a box on the floor, and he didn’t remember it being there before, so he stared at it for a little while, trying to work out where it could have come from, until finally he remembered sitting like this and staring before, on another day (or maybe that had been today as well), and remembered who had sent it.
Dean.
Dean had sent him a box. But Dean was gone. Sam tried to connect these two ideas, but he came up blank. Dean didn’t want to be with him any more (Sam had tried so fucking hard), so he’d left, but then there was the box, and the box didn’t fit. Maybe if he found out what was in the box, it would make more sense.
Sam spent a period of time trying to tear the tape off the box, but his fingernails were ripped down to the skin, and he couldn’t get any purchase. He wandered around the room for a little longer, trying to find a knife, scissors, a razor blade, anything, but there was nothing, and Sam thought vaguely that Dean must have taken them all with him when he left. Finally, Sam crouched down and used his teeth to cut the tape, which he thought would probably have made him feel ridiculous in another life. When he had made a hole big enough to put his finger through, he curled around the box and laid his head on it, closing his eyes and thinking maybe now he would be able to sleep.
He still felt weird, though.
After some time, he sat up again and sighed, pushing his finger through the hole he’d made and pulling until the tape ripped off. It took a while to get the damn thing open, even now, and Sam was pretty sure it shouldn’t take this long, sure there was something wrong with him that it did, but then, he’d already known that.
The box was full of food.
Sam stared at it for a while, trying to work it out. There were cans of beans and soup and peaches, two boxes of pop-tarts, ramen and orange juice. Underneath it all was a bag of M&Ms. Sam lifted it out carefully and felt the way the bag rippled and moved under his fingers. What did it mean?
He sat there for a while, and then he went to fetch Dean’s note from the drawer where he’d put it, tucked carefully between the pages of the Gideon Bible. He smoothed it out gently on the table and opened the bag of M&Ms; his hands shook, and the coloured candy spilled out across the note like surreal punctuation.
None of this is your fault, it said.
----
Ninety-eight days
----
Dean had four messages on his phone from Bobby, and none from Sam. He knew Sam had called him the first day, probably just after he’d woken up and found Dean was gone, but the message then had just been silence. Since then, the silence had continued.
Dean didn’t know what he’d been expecting. He didn’t want Sam to be calling him at all hours, begging him to come back. All the same, he hadn’t expected this... nothing.
He stared out of the window of the rental, watching the door of the motel room. He’d been terrified that as soon as he was gone, Sam would go out looking for it again, looking for someone to hurt him now that Dean wouldn’t any more. But Sam hadn’t left the room for days; the closest he’d come was when the box was delivered, and that had been the last time Dean had seen hide or hair of his brother. Since then, the curtains had remained closed, the door firmly shut, Sam locked behind them, unreadable as ever.
Dean itched to go charging in there, to make sure Sam was OK, that he wasn’t doing anything stupid, that he was taking care of himself. It felt like something was crawling under his skin, getting worse every hour, because he remembered what Sam had been like just before he’d left, how Sam had been constantly confused, disoriented. Dean had been pretty fucked up too, Dean still was pretty fucked up, but he’d have had to have been an idiot (more of an idiot) to miss the fact that Sam really wasn’t coping with life. And now Dean had left Sam on his own, and who knew if he was even eating, if he was even remembering to breathe? He was right there, he could just go in and make sure, just go in and be sure that his first step wasn’t the wrong one, that he wasn’t setting them both onto a road paved with good intentions. Yeah, he could just go and check, just for a moment...
And then his first step would be gone. Dean was pretty sure if he blinked now, he would be done.
He wasn’t going to blink.
----
One hundred days
----
Dean thought about deleting the messages from Bobby without listening to them, but something made him pause just before hitting the button and put the phone to his ear.
Dean, said Bobby’s voice, and Dean closed his eyes and wished, wished that that voice could make it all OK like it used to when they were kids. I know you and Sam are in some pretty bad trouble, son, said Bobby, and Dean thought he knows, but it was OK, because he and Sam were two towns away from Bobby and two towns might as well be a thousand miles when you don’t know where to look. Look, the message continued, I ain’t in any position to judge either of you boys. You come on back here now and let me help you. You need help, Dean. You need to let me help you.
Dean sat for a long time, staring out of the window at the motel. Wondering if Sam was even still in there at all. We need help. Dean had tried to help, he’d done everything he could think of to do. And Bobby... no, Bobby couldn’t help them, even the idea of going to Bobby, with what Bobby knew, with what he knew Dean had done... Dean closed his eyes against the thought of it, trying not to imagine the accusation in the man’s eyes. You need help, Dean.
You need help.
----
One hundred and two days
----
When the text message came, it was light outside. Sam had stopped really distinguishing between different times of day: there was light outside, and there was dark outside. That was all.
He almost didn’t remember where he’d left his phone, fumbled about for it in the semi-darkness until he worked out it was plugged into the outlet at the wall. He blinked a couple of times at the name on the screen. Dean.
That’s not right, he thought, because Dean was gone, but he pushed the button anyway. Room 329, 34 Chrysler Street. 1400. the message said, and Sam stared. Was it from Dad? But no, it wasn’t co-ordinates, and the phone had said Dean (and Dad was dead). So what then? Did Dean want him to go on a hunt? Or maybe...
Maybe Dean would be there.
Sam thought about that for a while. Dean was gone, but then there was the box. The box meant that he couldn’t have gone far. Maybe he had decided to give Sam another chance.
Sam thought about going out, all the way to Chrysler Street, wherever that was. Outside there were people and cars, life going on, things that he’d glimpsed out of the windows of the Impala a few times in the last month, but that wouldn’t be like this. He had no car to protect him, no brother to protect him from the accusing stares. His hands started to sweat uncomfortably, and he crawled onto the bed, still clutching the phone in one hand, and closed his eyes, trying to sleep, because at least when he was asleep the thoughts didn’t chase themselves round and round in his head until they were so tangled that they made his eyes water.
Sleep didn’t come, though, and Sam couldn’t help thinking, thinking that maybe, maybe Dean would be there, and Sam could show him that he was really trying, really trying, and Dean would forgive him. Sam just wanted Dean to forgive him.
Sam turned to look at the clock for the first time in a week. If he needed to be there at two, he would need to know what time it was.
----
There was a plaque beside the door of Room 329, 34 Chrysler Street, but Sam didn’t look at it, wasn’t even sure he would have been able to read it if he had. His eyes were blurred with tears, and the palms of his hands tingled unpleasantly, but he’d made it, thank Christ he’d made it. He stumbled through the door, trying not to breathe in shallow gasps because that would just make his head spin worse, and looked around for Dean please God Dean be here be here. The room was empty except for a young woman sitting behind a desk, who looked at him and smiled.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Sam leaned against the wall and tried to answer. His voice was hoarse, and he wondered how many days it had been since he used it. He needed it now, though. “Dean,” he croaked. “Dean Winchester.” And shit, shit he had probably just blown whatever Dean’s cover was like an idiot, how could he forget such a basic thing?
The woman looked down at her computer screen and nodded, though, still smiling as she looked back at Sam. “That’s right, we have you listed here, Mr. Winchester. You’re a little late, Doctor Horst has been waiting for you. You can go right in.”
Sam frowned, trying to make sense of this. He was here, and it was past two, but Dean was nowhere to be seen. There was a woman, and she acted like she knew who he was, but... And then, Doctor Horst? Was that Dean’s cover? OK, maybe it was Dean’s cover. That was OK, it was OK, Dean was here.
Sam approached the door the woman had indicated cautiously, hoping not to blow it any more than he already had, but the woman was ignoring him now, so he guessed it was OK. He stepped through, keeping his back to the wall, scanning the room quickly. There was a leather couch, a desk, a man with greying temples (not Dean). Some plants; a window. Books. No Dean.
“Mr. Winchester,” said the man, standing up and extending his hand. “My name’s Doctor Horst. We spoke on the phone?”
“We... uh... we did?” Sam wondered if he was going crazy. He didn’t remember talking to anyone on the phone.
Horst frowned. “Yes. You said you wanted to talk about some experiences you had a few months ago. You don’t remember?”
“I...” Sam looked down at the hand that was still waiting (waiting for what?), and suddenly it all clicked into place. He knew where he was, and what he was being asked to do. It was like all the air had suddenly left his lungs, and he looked at this man, this man with his smile and his friendly manner, and thought about telling him, about talking to him, and it was all he could do not to throw up. He turned and stumbled towards the door, he had his hand on the handle already when his phone buzzed in his pocket and he groped for it blindly (Dean Dean Dean will tell me what to do) and it was another text message, no address this time, it read Please, Sam. We need help.
Sam stared at the phone in his hand, shaking so hard he could barely read the message. We need help. Dean never said that, never. He never admitted that he needed help. Dean could always solve any problem whether it belonged to him or Sam or the world at large.
The phone blinked at him. We need help, it said.
“Mr. Winchester?” Horst asked behind him, his voice careful, sympathetic, a voice Sam had used himself a million times. “Are you all right?”
Sam closed his eyes and let out a breath. He wasn’t ready to say it, no way, not to anyone. But it didn’t stop him from knowing, suddenly, like a tiny part of the fog that hung in his brain had cleared.
No. No I’m not.
Also, if any of you guys are interested in reading any of my non-NC17 SPN fic, you can find it at my LiveJournal, which is linked on my profile page. /self-pimp
OK, on with the show!
----
With Spit and a Prayer, Chapter Twelve
Ninety-five days
----
The knock on the door surprised Sam. It sounded loud, and for a moment he thought it was a gunshot or a car crash, because it was the loudest thing he’d heard for over twenty-four hours (since Dean left). He jolted up in bed, his heart beating in his throat, because who would be knocking, who would come here, who knew anything about him now?
There was only one person, and Sam disentangled himself from the blankets and staggered to the door, feeling the twinge of muscles barely used for more than a day.
It wasn’t, though. When Sam opened the door, a scruffy, middle-aged guy he vaguely recognised was standing there, holding a large box and scowling. He looked Sam up and down.
“I interrupt something?” he asked, and Sam became aware that he was wearing sleeping clothes, even though it looked like it was probably the middle of the day. He forced himself not to take a step back and swallowed, trying to think of something to say in response, but all he could think of was that it wasn’t Dean.
The man raised an eyebrow and said, “OK, whatever, well, the guy who paid for the room asked me to give you this.” He held out the box, and Sam took it automatically, even as the words the guy who paid for the room sank through his consciousness. The box was heavy, and he almost dropped it, managing to improve his grip just in time. The guy – Sam recognised him now, the motel clerk – cleared his throat and said, “Said I should tell you you’re paid up till the end of the month, too. So. I told you.”
Sam blinked and tried to get his voice to work, but nothing came out. The motel clerk gave him a weird look and said, “OK, well, no need to thank me, just doing my job. Have a nice day and all that crap.”
After he’d gone, Sam stood in the doorway holding the box until he registered that a woman was staring at him from across the parking lot. He didn’t understand. The guy who paid for the room had to be Dean, right? No-one else here knew Sam. But Dean was gone, Dean had been gone for more than a day, and no-one knew Sam, Sam was alone now, Sam might as well not exist.
He put the box on the floor and closed the door, frowning at it. He had to open it. He knew that he knew how to open it, but he couldn’t make his mind bring him the information. Jesus, why did everything have to be so hard?
Some time passed, but Sam had no idea how much. The curtains were closed, but it was still daylight outside. He supposed he could look at the clock, but he didn’t, because he was too busy looking at the box. Finally, he gave up and went back to bed.
----
Dean sighed and worked at the crick in his neck with his fingers, wishing he’d managed to rent a car that had a little more leg room. Wishing really that he had the Impala, because for all that it wasn’t the most comfortable car ever invented, it was his baby and he could forgive it any number of aching muscles and cramped shoulders. No good wishing, though, because the Impala was a lot of things, but inconspicuous wasn’t one of them, and Dean’s entire plan was shot to hell if Sam spotted him watching.
Not that Dean really had a plan. Dean didn’t have much of anything right now, except a first step, and he was clinging onto that as hard as he fucking could. It wasn’t easy; when Sam had stood in the doorway like a zombie for two whole minutes, Dean had had to clench his jaw and grind his hands against the steering wheel to stop himself from going out there and trying to make it better. The only thing that had stopped him in the end was the clear knowledge that had come to him two nights before when Sam was still unconscious (because Dean had strangled him): he couldn’t make it better. He’d tried everything he could think of, tried for months, and everything had just gotten worse and worse, nothing had helped at all. Dean had felt hopeless before, felt like his world was crumbling around him, but he’d never felt this certainty that he couldn’t help his brother, and it made him sick with fear and guilt.
But he’d left. He’d fucked up, real bad, but he’d taken a first step, and he didn’t know whether it was the first step towards sorting out the gigantic mess he’d made or towards fucking everything up so bad that it could never be OK again, but at this point, he was willing to take the risk. All he had to do now was figure out what the hell the next step was going to be.
----
Ninety-six days
----
Sam felt weird.
That was nothing new, of course. Sam couldn’t really remember the last time he’d felt normal, so feeling weird was OK, he could deal with it. But it was stopping him from sleeping, which was frustrating, because when he wasn’t sleeping he was just lying in the bed staring at the ceiling, and that made him feel lost and small (abandoned) so he preferred it when he could at least doze. Dozing was off the cards right now, though, until he worked out what exactly it was that felt weird.
He hauled himself into a sitting position, and held on to the side of the mattress until the room stopped spinning. It was light again outside, he thought, though he’d lost track of what day it was. There was a box on the floor, and he didn’t remember it being there before, so he stared at it for a little while, trying to work out where it could have come from, until finally he remembered sitting like this and staring before, on another day (or maybe that had been today as well), and remembered who had sent it.
Dean.
Dean had sent him a box. But Dean was gone. Sam tried to connect these two ideas, but he came up blank. Dean didn’t want to be with him any more (Sam had tried so fucking hard), so he’d left, but then there was the box, and the box didn’t fit. Maybe if he found out what was in the box, it would make more sense.
Sam spent a period of time trying to tear the tape off the box, but his fingernails were ripped down to the skin, and he couldn’t get any purchase. He wandered around the room for a little longer, trying to find a knife, scissors, a razor blade, anything, but there was nothing, and Sam thought vaguely that Dean must have taken them all with him when he left. Finally, Sam crouched down and used his teeth to cut the tape, which he thought would probably have made him feel ridiculous in another life. When he had made a hole big enough to put his finger through, he curled around the box and laid his head on it, closing his eyes and thinking maybe now he would be able to sleep.
He still felt weird, though.
After some time, he sat up again and sighed, pushing his finger through the hole he’d made and pulling until the tape ripped off. It took a while to get the damn thing open, even now, and Sam was pretty sure it shouldn’t take this long, sure there was something wrong with him that it did, but then, he’d already known that.
The box was full of food.
Sam stared at it for a while, trying to work it out. There were cans of beans and soup and peaches, two boxes of pop-tarts, ramen and orange juice. Underneath it all was a bag of M&Ms. Sam lifted it out carefully and felt the way the bag rippled and moved under his fingers. What did it mean?
He sat there for a while, and then he went to fetch Dean’s note from the drawer where he’d put it, tucked carefully between the pages of the Gideon Bible. He smoothed it out gently on the table and opened the bag of M&Ms; his hands shook, and the coloured candy spilled out across the note like surreal punctuation.
None of this is your fault, it said.
----
Ninety-eight days
----
Dean had four messages on his phone from Bobby, and none from Sam. He knew Sam had called him the first day, probably just after he’d woken up and found Dean was gone, but the message then had just been silence. Since then, the silence had continued.
Dean didn’t know what he’d been expecting. He didn’t want Sam to be calling him at all hours, begging him to come back. All the same, he hadn’t expected this... nothing.
He stared out of the window of the rental, watching the door of the motel room. He’d been terrified that as soon as he was gone, Sam would go out looking for it again, looking for someone to hurt him now that Dean wouldn’t any more. But Sam hadn’t left the room for days; the closest he’d come was when the box was delivered, and that had been the last time Dean had seen hide or hair of his brother. Since then, the curtains had remained closed, the door firmly shut, Sam locked behind them, unreadable as ever.
Dean itched to go charging in there, to make sure Sam was OK, that he wasn’t doing anything stupid, that he was taking care of himself. It felt like something was crawling under his skin, getting worse every hour, because he remembered what Sam had been like just before he’d left, how Sam had been constantly confused, disoriented. Dean had been pretty fucked up too, Dean still was pretty fucked up, but he’d have had to have been an idiot (more of an idiot) to miss the fact that Sam really wasn’t coping with life. And now Dean had left Sam on his own, and who knew if he was even eating, if he was even remembering to breathe? He was right there, he could just go in and make sure, just go in and be sure that his first step wasn’t the wrong one, that he wasn’t setting them both onto a road paved with good intentions. Yeah, he could just go and check, just for a moment...
And then his first step would be gone. Dean was pretty sure if he blinked now, he would be done.
He wasn’t going to blink.
----
One hundred days
----
Dean thought about deleting the messages from Bobby without listening to them, but something made him pause just before hitting the button and put the phone to his ear.
Dean, said Bobby’s voice, and Dean closed his eyes and wished, wished that that voice could make it all OK like it used to when they were kids. I know you and Sam are in some pretty bad trouble, son, said Bobby, and Dean thought he knows, but it was OK, because he and Sam were two towns away from Bobby and two towns might as well be a thousand miles when you don’t know where to look. Look, the message continued, I ain’t in any position to judge either of you boys. You come on back here now and let me help you. You need help, Dean. You need to let me help you.
Dean sat for a long time, staring out of the window at the motel. Wondering if Sam was even still in there at all. We need help. Dean had tried to help, he’d done everything he could think of to do. And Bobby... no, Bobby couldn’t help them, even the idea of going to Bobby, with what Bobby knew, with what he knew Dean had done... Dean closed his eyes against the thought of it, trying not to imagine the accusation in the man’s eyes. You need help, Dean.
You need help.
----
One hundred and two days
----
When the text message came, it was light outside. Sam had stopped really distinguishing between different times of day: there was light outside, and there was dark outside. That was all.
He almost didn’t remember where he’d left his phone, fumbled about for it in the semi-darkness until he worked out it was plugged into the outlet at the wall. He blinked a couple of times at the name on the screen. Dean.
That’s not right, he thought, because Dean was gone, but he pushed the button anyway. Room 329, 34 Chrysler Street. 1400. the message said, and Sam stared. Was it from Dad? But no, it wasn’t co-ordinates, and the phone had said Dean (and Dad was dead). So what then? Did Dean want him to go on a hunt? Or maybe...
Maybe Dean would be there.
Sam thought about that for a while. Dean was gone, but then there was the box. The box meant that he couldn’t have gone far. Maybe he had decided to give Sam another chance.
Sam thought about going out, all the way to Chrysler Street, wherever that was. Outside there were people and cars, life going on, things that he’d glimpsed out of the windows of the Impala a few times in the last month, but that wouldn’t be like this. He had no car to protect him, no brother to protect him from the accusing stares. His hands started to sweat uncomfortably, and he crawled onto the bed, still clutching the phone in one hand, and closed his eyes, trying to sleep, because at least when he was asleep the thoughts didn’t chase themselves round and round in his head until they were so tangled that they made his eyes water.
Sleep didn’t come, though, and Sam couldn’t help thinking, thinking that maybe, maybe Dean would be there, and Sam could show him that he was really trying, really trying, and Dean would forgive him. Sam just wanted Dean to forgive him.
Sam turned to look at the clock for the first time in a week. If he needed to be there at two, he would need to know what time it was.
----
There was a plaque beside the door of Room 329, 34 Chrysler Street, but Sam didn’t look at it, wasn’t even sure he would have been able to read it if he had. His eyes were blurred with tears, and the palms of his hands tingled unpleasantly, but he’d made it, thank Christ he’d made it. He stumbled through the door, trying not to breathe in shallow gasps because that would just make his head spin worse, and looked around for Dean please God Dean be here be here. The room was empty except for a young woman sitting behind a desk, who looked at him and smiled.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Sam leaned against the wall and tried to answer. His voice was hoarse, and he wondered how many days it had been since he used it. He needed it now, though. “Dean,” he croaked. “Dean Winchester.” And shit, shit he had probably just blown whatever Dean’s cover was like an idiot, how could he forget such a basic thing?
The woman looked down at her computer screen and nodded, though, still smiling as she looked back at Sam. “That’s right, we have you listed here, Mr. Winchester. You’re a little late, Doctor Horst has been waiting for you. You can go right in.”
Sam frowned, trying to make sense of this. He was here, and it was past two, but Dean was nowhere to be seen. There was a woman, and she acted like she knew who he was, but... And then, Doctor Horst? Was that Dean’s cover? OK, maybe it was Dean’s cover. That was OK, it was OK, Dean was here.
Sam approached the door the woman had indicated cautiously, hoping not to blow it any more than he already had, but the woman was ignoring him now, so he guessed it was OK. He stepped through, keeping his back to the wall, scanning the room quickly. There was a leather couch, a desk, a man with greying temples (not Dean). Some plants; a window. Books. No Dean.
“Mr. Winchester,” said the man, standing up and extending his hand. “My name’s Doctor Horst. We spoke on the phone?”
“We... uh... we did?” Sam wondered if he was going crazy. He didn’t remember talking to anyone on the phone.
Horst frowned. “Yes. You said you wanted to talk about some experiences you had a few months ago. You don’t remember?”
“I...” Sam looked down at the hand that was still waiting (waiting for what?), and suddenly it all clicked into place. He knew where he was, and what he was being asked to do. It was like all the air had suddenly left his lungs, and he looked at this man, this man with his smile and his friendly manner, and thought about telling him, about talking to him, and it was all he could do not to throw up. He turned and stumbled towards the door, he had his hand on the handle already when his phone buzzed in his pocket and he groped for it blindly (Dean Dean Dean will tell me what to do) and it was another text message, no address this time, it read Please, Sam. We need help.
Sam stared at the phone in his hand, shaking so hard he could barely read the message. We need help. Dean never said that, never. He never admitted that he needed help. Dean could always solve any problem whether it belonged to him or Sam or the world at large.
The phone blinked at him. We need help, it said.
“Mr. Winchester?” Horst asked behind him, his voice careful, sympathetic, a voice Sam had used himself a million times. “Are you all right?”
Sam closed his eyes and let out a breath. He wasn’t ready to say it, no way, not to anyone. But it didn’t stop him from knowing, suddenly, like a tiny part of the fog that hung in his brain had cleared.
No. No I’m not.