With Spit and a Prayer

Thanks to Starflow and BoMama for your kind reviews! I'm glad you continue to enjoy this one.

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With Spit and a Prayer, Chapter Four

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Eighteen days
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The first night after Sam remembered, Dean didn’t sleep, and neither did Sam, though both of them pretended. The hours stretched out in the airless dimness of the motel room, and Dean counted them, counted the minutes, the seconds, each heartbeat another moment that everything was still wrong. The second night, after a day that had drifted by in silence and avoiding each other’s eyes, Dean tried to stay awake but found himself falling into a dreamless darkness, and was grateful.

When he woke up, sun was spilling through the gaps at the edges of the curtains, and Sam was perched on a chair in the corner, knees drawn up, biting his fingernails. He was wearing his jacket, even though the room was sticky with heat.

“Hey,” Dean said. “How long have you been up?”

Sam’s head jerked towards him, then he looked sharply away. His left hand beat out a nervous rhythm on his knee. “Did you track it?” he asked. “Do you know where it went?”

Dean rubbed his eyes and sat up, wondering if Sam had been out to get coffee. Sam turned like he was going to stare at him, but at the last minute his eyes slid away. “Dean!” he said, louder than was really necessary given the size of the room. “Are you listening to me here?”

“Did you get any sleep at all?” Dean asked, knowing that Sam hadn’t woken screaming for the last two nights, which might mean that the nightmares had stopped, but probably didn’t.

“Don't change the subject,” Sam said, his right hand clenching and unclenching. “You must have looked. You must have tried, right?”

Dean closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face. “No, Sam. I can’t track it. I don’t know anything about it.” It wasn't like he hadn't put all those sleepless nights to good use, but damn, what was he supposed to do? All he knew about the thing was that it could possess people, it was strong, and for some reason it really wanted to fuck up their lives. That could be any number of things, though a demon was definitely at the top of Dean's list, and there had been no newspaper reports of anything strange in the surrounding area for months before the incident. Biloxi was innocent. Innocent and incredibly unhelpful.

Sam shook his head, looking like he might jump up from the chair then scrunching down into it instead, knees pulled right up to his chest now. “It was in your head. You must know something about it. There's got to be something.”

But there was nothing. Except maybe... “Uh,” Dean started, wondering if the question was worth asking, “well, did you see anything... weird?”

Sam's hand suddenly stopped tapping. He sat deathly still for a moment. “What?”

“You know,” Dean shifted in the bed, wishing he had had a chance to have some goddamn coffee before this conversation. “Like... black eyes or...” he didn't want to talk about it, and he sure as hell didn't want to describe what weird might be. Yeah, because your big brother beating you up and... well, that was totally normal, right?

A muscle twitched in Sam's jaw, and he stared fixedly out of the window for so long that Dean thought maybe he hadn't heard him, even though how could he not have done, he was sitting right there. “Sam?” Dean tried.

“No,” Sam said with a tiny shake of his head. “No. Just...” He didn't finish his sentence. Dean finished it for him. Just you. Just you.

OK, that was enough of that. This conversation was going nowhere fast, and Dean still hadn't had his coffee, and dammit, Sam looked like he was about to snap from the tension that was holding his body rigid. The air in the room felt dense and moist and kind of stained, and Dean had had it with the fucking place.

“Dude, coffee.”

Sam started as if he'd forgotten Dean was even there, then wrapped his arms around his knees. “It's too early. The gas station won't be open yet.”

Dean threw him a skeptical look and glanced at the clock. “It's nine-thirty.”

Sam's mouth opened slightly, and for just a second he caught Dean's eye, but it was long enough for Dean to realise that that was the first time his brother had looked directly at him since the banshee. “Shit,” he said, looking quickly away. “I didn't realise.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean hauled himself out of bed, pulled on the nearest pair of jeans and reached for Sam's arm, stopping himself just in time. Don't don't touch don't touch him. “Coffee.”

Sam unfolded to follow him, and didn't look him in the eye.

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There were too many people about. It wasn't like this was a big town or anything, so why were there so many people hanging around on the stretch of pavement between some shithole motel and some shithole gas station at nine-thirty in the morning? Didn't they have something better to do, jobs to go to or school, something other than staring at him? Sam shrugged his jacket more closely around himself, dug his hand into his pockets and hunched his shoulders, pretending he couldn't see them, because probably they weren't even looking at him, probably they were staring at Dean or something because he was so freakin handsome and all the girls always did stare, everybody wanted him so much except...

Sam closed his eyes and tried to shake it all off, the itching feeling of being watched between his shoulderblades, the dull headache that hadn't dissipated for days now, the thoughts that kept rushing headlong in a direction that he really didn't want to go, not now, not ever. Some hope. He never had been any good at not thinking about stuff, and right now, wired and jumpy despite not having slept for a couple of days, his fucking brain was going into overdrive--

--that woman over there, she was looking. She was, wasn't she? She was looking at him, yeah, definitely, had he seen her before somewhere? Brown hair, ordinary-looking, could have been anyone. Why was she looking? Maybe she was... could she...?

OK, it was fine, all he had to do was move closer to Dean. They were almost at the gas station now, and he was being totally ridiculous. Why would some random woman be looking at him? Why would anyone look at him? All he had to do was get to the gas station, get the coffee, and then they could go back to the motel room where it was quiet (safe) and everything would be OK, and then he would stop feeling like he couldn't breathe. OK? OK.

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“That’ll be three dollars,” the girl behind the counter said, and turned away to pour the coffee. The guy who had been served before them brushed past on his way out the door, and a harassed-looking couple came in with two bratty kids. Pretty much business as usual for a gas station at this time of day, Dean figured, and actually a breath of fresh air after so much time stuck with his own thoughts back at the motel. At least, that was what he was thinking until Sam’s hand closed on his wrist and squeezed painfully.

“Sam?” Dean started, but stopped when he turned and saw the look on his brother’s face, because he looked the way he always did in Dean’s nightmares, his features stretched with fear, chest heaving, mouth opening and closing silently. He looked like he was about to die, and for a moment Dean wondered if maybe he was actually having a nightmare, except that it had been almost three weeks since his dreams had involved Sam standing upright.

“Is he OK?” the girl asked, coming back with the coffee and staring open-mouthed, her wad of chewing gum visible stuck to her lower jaw.

“Does he look like he’s fucking OK to you?” Dean asked, and turned to face Sam fully, his free hand hovering over Sam’s shoulder. “Sam? Snap out of it, Sam, OK?”

Sam just shook his head, his eyes glazing over, and made a strangled noise that would have gone straight into the category of things I never want to hear again except that Dean had heard it far too many times already and wasn’t stupid enough to think that this was the last one. The grip on his wrist increased until Dean thought he could feel the bones creak. In the next aisle, the bratty kids were peeking at them, whispering and giggling, and the parents didn’t even have the goddamn manners to shush them, and Dean hesitated a moment longer before putting his hand on Sam’s shoulder and steering him out onto the forecourt.

They made it as far as the grassy verge before Sam’s knees buckled and he went down, Dean lowering him gently to the ground. Sam let go of Dean’s wrist then and put his head in his hands, gasping and wheezing, but breathing at least, breathing now, and Dean took a step away and stood, clenching his jaw and wishing for that goddamned coffee, because too much had already happened this morning, too much, and he just wished he could rewind and start all over again.

“You OK now?” he asked, which was dumb because of course Sam wasn’t OK, he was a fucking wreck, but he couldn’t exactly say are you less of a fucking wreck now because really, that would be insensitive or whatever.

Sam drew a couple of breaths and said, “Can we just go back to the room?”

Christ, that was the last thing Dean wanted, to sit in that sweat-box of a motel room for another day and try to stop thinking. “What happened in there?” he asked, because stalling seemed like as good a tactic as any, and he did want to know in any case.

Sam shook his head. “I think I’m going to die,” he muttered.

“What?” Dean asked, leaning forward but not too close not too close. “Dude, what did you say?”

But Sam didn’t look up, and all he said was “Please. Let’s just go back.”

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Twenty Days
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When Sam woke up, Dean was gone.

It was still early, but the room was already beginning to heat up, the air dull and thick with sweat, the dust motes moving lazily as if they were too tired to dance. Sam thought that maybe Dean was in the bathroom, and that would be OK, that would mean that Dean hadn’t left him, so he crawled out of bed and pulled on his hoodie and jacket over the shirt and t-shirt he’d been sleeping in, moving to the bathroom door to check. Dean wasn’t there.

Sam wasn’t going to panic, though. It was OK, because he was still inside the motel room, and the door was locked, the curtains were closed, he was safe, he was safe. Dean was probably... was probably just... Well, it was OK, anyway, because there were all kinds of reasons Dean might want to go out, right? All kinds. It was just because he was still sleepy that he couldn’t think of any.

Sam moved cautiously across the room to his bed, dragging the .45 out from under his pillow. He didn’t miss the irony. Just taking precautions. Once he had checked it was loaded and the safety was off, he crossed to the chair by the window and sat down, pulling his legs up, peering through the crack between the curtain and the window frame. He’d noticed the day before that he could get a good view of the door this way without anyone being able to see him from outside. His head was starting to throb already, and he thought wistfully of the painkillers in the bathroom, but if he went to fetch them he might miss something, someone might come to the door or something might happen and he wouldn't be prepared, and he was supposed to always be prepared, right? That was what Dad always used to say. Better safe than sorry. No such thing as too alert. Just taking precautions.

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Dean cursed as the woman at the front of the line counted out her pennies one more time. “Jesus H. Christ, can we move it along?” he muttered, earning himself a disapproving look from the soccer mom in front of him. Well, fuck her, she didn’t have a brother who was just one step away from falling apart sleeping back at her motel room.

Dean had been kidding himself, he knew that now. Both when he thought that maybe they could carry on in denial forever, and when he thought that denial was maybe worse than the alternative. This was the first time he’d left the motel room since Sam’s episode at the gas station two days before, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t wanted to leave, God, he would have done anything to get out of that fucking prison, the four walls seeming to him to run with sweat and dirt and accusations, but every time he’d made a move to go, Sam had stopped him, had explained to him in a perfectly reasonable tone why there was no reason to go out yet, why it didn’t matter that they were running out of food, or why it was crazy to want to go out in the middle of the day when it was so hot. And Dean let him do it, let himself be persuaded, because for some reason, even though he remembered everything now, it seemed like Sam still wanted Dean around, which was a hell of a lot more than Dean had been expecting, a hell of a lot more than he deserved, and it would maybe have felt almost like forgiveness if Sam would just look him in the face once in a while.

In any case, the truth was that, whatever Sam wanted, they were likely to starve to death if they didn't get provisions (that wasn't the real reason though was it?), and Dean had sneaked out early while Sam was still sleeping, out into the blissful freedom of the morning air that was not yet limp with the weight of the day, and now here he was, cursing some old dear with her pennies and her catfood and wishing he'd been smart enough to leave a note.

Yeah, that would have been great. Dear Sam, had another dream about fucking you while you were unconscious, went to get groceries. Back soon. Dean.

You weren't going to think about that. Stop thinking.

Finally, finally the line moved, the soccer mom checked out her stuff and then it was Dean's turn, and the cashier kind of stared at him like he was a freak or something (well, yeah), but after a moment of panic Dean decided it was just because he looked like he hadn't slept or eaten in days (he wasn't blind, and the motel room had a mirror), no way she could tell just by looking at him, right? I mean, it wasn't like he had I raped my brother and I dream about it most nights tattooed on his forehead.

Jesus, Dean was tired. He was tired of the way that almost every waking though led him back to the same thing, no matter how much he tried to stop it, even now, when Sam wasn't right there the bruises mostly gone now but the hunch of his shoulders and the curve of his face as he turned away a living, breathing reminder. He was tired of the dreams (he wanted to call them nightmares, because that would have been so much better, but were they really?), the fact that he couldn't even escape when he was asleep, and it was even worse then because the memory of the demon's emotions was so much more visceral. He was tired of not being in control of his own body, of hard-ons at inappropriate times and desperately trying to hide them from Sam.

He was tired of all of it, every single fucking thing, and when he entered the motel room to find Sam pointing a .45 at him, he hoped for a split second that he would pull the trigger.

“Christo,” said Sam.

Dean blinked a couple of times. “What?” he said, feeling like somehow he had missed something.

Sam's eyes snapped away, and he laid the gun down carefully on the battered table. “Nothing,” he said. There was a pause, and then, “You went out.”

“Yeah,” said Dean, coming all the way into the room and setting the bag of groceries down on the bed. “Even I can't live on candy forever.”

“Oh,” said Sam. Dean waited, but there was nothing more. He felt like he should say something, maybe apologise, though he wasn't sure what for.

“Sam...”

“Can you close the door?” Sam interrupted. “I'm cold.”

And Dean knew it wasn't true, but he closed it anyway.