Fake Fan Fiction ❯ The Devil's Sweet Ride ❯ Narcoleptic Nate ( Chapter 6 )

Slightly Confused?: Thanks for reviewing! I'm glad you didn't abandon the story, though I would certainly understand if you did. (Lest we forget, I considered abandoning this story for a little while there…) Anyways, glad I cleared things up for you, but I am sorry you haven't seen Supernatural. That's especially unfortunate since they're actually the main part of the story. On FanFiction.net, which is my main venue, this story is posted under the Supernatural category, see. (I have to change the MediaMiner category…)

 

Toaster-chan: Thanks for reviewing again! Trust me when I say that you and a couple of others are basically keeping this story alive single-handedly. If not for you I may have given up entirely by now. As it is, I'm merely consuming massive amounts of chocolate and waiting on pins and needles for it to end.

 

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Chapter 6

 

“Well, I already knew the guy was psycho,” Dean mused. “That much was obvious. But what's with the metric?”

 

Sam shifted his gaze from the computer screen to his brother, and stifled a sudden, unexpected surge of amusement. Dean was sitting up in his bed now, all traces of the hangover erased in the face of actual answers. It never ceased to amaze Sam how he could switch moods so suddenly, especially when on the job.

 

Then Dean glared at him, his slightly bloodshot eyes asking, “What's your problem?” and Sam could tell that the hangover was still there, just shoved aside for the moment as a distraction. He turned quickly back to the screen and answered Dean's question.

 

“Psychometric is the term for people who can use psychometry.”

 

“Never heard of it,” said Dean, looking a little surprised. Sam couldn't exactly blame him—sometimes Winchesters tended to forget that it wasn't actually possible for them to know absolutely every supernatural force in the universe.

 

“Yeah, well, it's not as well known as some abilities. And you wouldn't know about it because it can't actually hurt anyone, so it probably hasn't been much of an issue.” He shrugged and didn't look at Dean, not wanting to see the frustration that he knew would be there. “Anyway, psychometry is pretty simple to explain. It's basically just when you touch an object and get a flash of it's…history, I guess. You can pick up the thoughts and feelings of someone who touched it, and sometimes scenes, too. Like all psychic abilities, it seems to come with a headache, disorientation, that kind of thing.”

Dean was staring at him when he finally looked over, but where some might mistake his expression for one of awe, Sam knew differently. To him, it was clear that Dean was wondering if Sam was maybe adopted after all. The sentiment was just as obvious when he spoke.

 

“Dude, where do you pick this crap up?”

 

Sam shrugged, and bit back a grin because that would only irritate Dean. “Around.”

 

The truth of the matter was that he'd been studying up on all manner of psychic abilities almost since the day he'd gotten his, and he probably knew enough to publish his own encyclopedia by now.

 

But he wasn't going to tell Dean that.

 

“Okay, so what makes you think JJ's…whatever that word is?”

 

“Well, I started thinking about it when JJ had that flash at the place where he disappeared. I was sure it wasn't a memory flash because he wasn't in it. But it couldn't be a vision because it was of the past. Both of his flashes were. Then it occurred to me that both of them also happened in the same place where JJ was when he had the. I put two and two together and got this.”

 

Dean rolled his eyes. “Thank God you weren't this much of a geek back when I had friends. I would've had to lock you up.”

 

Sam smirked for a moment, then sighed. “But you know what all this points to, right?”

 

Dean's gaze became distant, and Sam could practically see the wheels turning as Dean sifted through the facts—JJ's ability, the sulfur they'd found clinking to the wall where JJ had disappeared, the disappearance itself, Sam's vision…

 

It was probably the vision that did it. Dean's eyes widened as he went slightly paler. Then he let out a long, low groan and rubbed his forehead, the hangover obviously rearing its ugly head again. Then he sighed deeply and looked up again.

 

“Fine. Let's figure out what to do with this before we talk to JJ.”

 

XXX

 

The rest of the Winchesters' daylight hours were spent trying to collect as much information as possible—about JJ's ability, mostly, though Sam also insisted that they search for ways to restore his memory, as well. It was Dean's idea—and Sam agreed wholeheartedly—that it would probably be wise to know as much as possible when they talked to JJ, in the slim hope of minimizing the blow a bit.

 

As the sky grew steadily darker, though, Sam decided that it was about time they got it all out in the open, before his mind jumped in with all kinds of stupid reasons to keep this development to himself—reasons that would inevitably prove to have more to do with his own cowardice than anything else.

 

However, his eagle eye did note that there was one person in the room that was even less thrilled with the situation than he was.

 

“Hey, Dean, why don't you just stay here?” he advised, and no one could have mistaken the look on the older hunter's face as anything other than the relief it was.

 

Still, of course Dean wouldn't have it in him to let the offer stand without question. “Why? Not like I have so much to do.”

 

Sam shrugged. “I just don't see the point in both of us going. It's all the same information anyway. And I know you're even more uncomfortable around JJ than he's been around you—” and everyone else— “since he lost his memory.” Then, to lighten what was most certainly not an insult, merely the truth, but an unsettling truth all the same, the younger Winchester smiled and said, “Besides, you still need to sober up.”

 

Dean glared and reached across the space between their beds to grab a pillow from Sam's bed. “Get outta here, Sammy,” he growled, chucking it across the room.

 

Sam ducked laughingly and the pillow bounced harmlessly off the wall. “I'll bring back dinner,” he said as he opened the door.

 

“Whatever,” Dean muttered, already falling back to the bed.

 

Neither Winchester spoke the deeper reason for Dean's staying behind—that fact that both of them resolutely ignored but that hung constantly between them like an unspoken curse.

 

Fact was, Dean hated thinking about what he called the Shining deal—not only in his brother, but in anyone. Especially in someone they knew. If a friend of theirs was psychic, like Andy or, had he gotten to know her, Ava, things just got…complicated. Unnatural abilities just had a horrible tendency of mucking things up, especially with all the new truths about those abilities coming to light.

 

And more confusion was absolutely the last thing they needed right now.

 

XXX

 

Sam was getting more than a little sick of surprises—even the good kind, to an extent—but it seemed the world wasn't quite done throwing them at him yet, because Derek, Nikki and Diana were back at JJ and Drake's apartment when he got there.

 

Sam heard them before he saw them—heard Derek laughing at some joke or other—so he managed to sound merely idly curious when he asked, “What're you doing here?” upon reaching the living room, instead of sounding like he was wondering if some sort of outside force was at work on him and Derek here.

 

To his credit, Derek looked just as surprised where he was sitting next to Nikki on the couch. “Oh…well, Diana wanted to come over to see how JJ was feeling after…yeah…and Nikki and Diana came because she…felt like it, I guess. I came along because I didn't want to be left alone and I wasn't sure if you two would still be passed out.”

 

Sam gave him a mock-sour look. “Hey, lest we forget, I was the only one who didn't drink.”

 

“Mmm…and I really wish I'd had your forethought…” a slow, slightly pained voice spoke up from the floor.

 

Sam looked down and only then noticed that JJ was sprawled out on the floor, definitely sobered up and looking a little depressed and slightly green. He squinted up at Sam, then groaned softly and threw his arm over his eyes to block the light.

 

Sam smiled and crouched down next to him. “You in a little bit of pain there, JJ?”

 

“More than a little…God, why didn't anyone stop me?”

 

Surprisingly, it was Drake who laughed the hardest at that question—Drake, who had hardly let a chuckle escape since Sam first saw him at the hospital.

 

“We tried to warn you, JJ. We said you don't drink often. And Sam here warned you every time you popped open a bottle that you were going to regret it.”

 

“Well, you should've done more!”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Like…I dunno, smashing a bottle over my head…”

 

“I'll keep that in mind,” Drake said in what was evidently supposed to be a soothing tone. Then he turned to Sam, and suddenly the joke was over.

 

Sam squirmed uncomfortably under that steady gaze, feeling suddenly as if he were under an NYPD Blue interrogation lamp. The feeling only intensified when Drake asked carefully. “Did you have something to tell us, Sam?”

 

Sam let out his breath in a big gust, a murmured “Yeah” mixed in. Then he threw an apologetic glance in Derek's direction and added, “It's sort of…a sensitive subject. Can we talk in private?”

 

Drake looked a little surprised, and with good reason. After all, hadn't Sam already spilled what amounted to his family's biggest secret to the whole group at once? He covered well, though, and simply said, “Sure.” Then he turned to look down at JJ and said reluctantly, “JJ, you need to get up now.”

 

“What?”

 

“Sam has something to tell us.”

 

“No.”

 

“JJ—”

 

“No…not time to get up yet…room still spinning…can't move…”

 

“It's okay,” Sam broke in when Drake went to urge the other man to his feet. “You can just pass it on to him later.”

 

“Oh…uh…all right,” Drake said in confusion. “I guess…we can talk in my room, then. We'll be right back,” he added to the room at large.

 

Sam tried not to feel it, but the relief was there all the same—relief at not having to tell JJ himself, relief at having a good reason to duck out and let someone else deal with it for a change.

 

It was a traitorous thing, that relief. He shouldn't feel it, he knew. After all, wasn't he the only one who really knew how J would feel when he found out he was psychic? Wasn't it his job to help in any way he could, to help JJ understand?

 

And yet…on the other side of the coin, how could he hope to make JJ understand, when he still had such a hard time with it himself sometimes?

 

Maybe the relief was justified after all…

 

Ha. Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Sammy-boy. Maybe you'll even start to believe it eventually.

 

XXX

 

Drake took it pretty well, all things considered. He didn't tell Sam he was insane, and that was a first. He didn't run screaming from the room, which was only slightly less surprising. He didn't even ask how Sam could be so sure. He simply sat cross-legged at the foot of his bed, staring off into space, his face deceptively blank as his mind raced.

 

Sam didn't push him, waiting patiently for the inevitable flood of questions.

 

It never came.

 

In the end, Drake only asked one question.

 

“Is it dangerous?”

 

Sam stared at him, and he elaborated.

 

“To JJ. Is it dangerous to JJ? Could it…you know, hurt him?”

 

“Uh…” Sam replied intelligently, fumbling for words. He'd never had any call to think on this question before, given the fact that no one had ever actually asked before. “Well, it's not like it will mess anything up in his head or anything. I mean, the flashes will hurt like hell, but they don't really affect him any more than that, physically.”

 

Drake studied him intently. “Sam, what aren't you telling me?”

 

Sam took a moment to reflect on the fact that maybe it was a good thing Dean was always the one lying to the cops before he proceeded to lay out the whole, ugly truth.

 

By the time he finished, Drake was decidedly less calm.

 

XXX

 

Dean prowled restively around his and Sam's motel room, his mind as agitated as his body, which just couldn't seem to decide what to do with itself.

 

He'd been this way all day, too. At odd moments, he would find himself getting up to pace the room. He'd move from the bed to the door, open it, stare out for a while, close the door, turn around, go to the open laptop, stare at that for a while, get up, return to the bed, sit there for a bit, and then start all over again.

 

So, yeah, the whole sleeping it off idea?

 

Great in theory, but the execution had so far been a little elusive.

 

And the worst of it was that he had no idea where this tension was coming from. It was just….there, like a heavy, stifling, smothering blanket.

 

Of course, at least part of it was the fact that right at this very moment, Sam was telling a man who was very possibly already psycho that he was also psychic, and there was no way of telling what this knowledge would do to an already damaged psyche. Oh, and that JJ and Drake were licensed to carry guns and they would definitely receive the news with something considerably less than utter joy.

 

But there was more to Dean's bad feeling than all that.

 

He just…couldn't put his finger on it.

 

This was rapidly driving him insane.

 

In the hopes of distracting himself, Dean sat down on his bed again and turned his thoughts to something else.

 

The first thing that came to mind was almost as off-putting a subject, but it was also one guaranteed to hold his attention, and so he latched onto it with vigor.

 

Why was he so much more uncomfortable around this new J than he was around the old one?

 

After all, the JJ he'd met last summer was certainly a more…disturbing specimen, to say the least. The man had been so gay he could barely contain it. Now, that Dean probably would have been able to deal with. He had been nothing less than truthful that time he'd told Sam he didn't care about that kind of thing. No, what bothered him was that twice-cursed affection!

 

And okay, so maybe Dean was asking for it, with his inarguably gorgeous face, but he couldn't help being so handsome! Did JJ honestly have to jump him and scream inappropriate nicknames every time they saw each other?!

 

And yet…and yet…

 

And yet, Dean couldn't deny the truth to his own private thoughts.

 

And the truth was, right now he would take any one of those pounces, any one of those nicknames, if JJ would just stop being that polite, normal, nice guy who didn't even recognize himself. It felt like JJ was…possessed, or like he'd switched bodies with someone else. The fact that JJ didn't know his own friends hurt all of them, and there was nothing to be done about it and—

 

And obviously Sam was turning him into a girl because he never had thoughts like this and now that he'd thought about Sam here he was back at square one and he had accomplished nothing…

 

But hey, wait, maybe he had, because now that he'd taken a break from thinking about it, he understood where the tension had been coming from.

 

His Sam-sense was all tingly.

 

Well, that's never good.

 

XXX

 

Over the next twenty minutes, Sam watched as all the precautions he'd taken to protect JJ's privacy were systematically broken down. All of the composure that Drake had grasped so firmly for days now seemed to shatter under the weight of this new problem.

 

Everyone sat around and watched as the sandy-haired NYPD cop paced the living room, gesticulating and ranting rather wildly. They all looked rather nervous, and Sam couldn't exactly blame them, because Drake just looked…insane. And it couldn't help that they all had to piece together the why of the freak-out from the fractured, broken, incoherent sentences.

 

JJ's hangover wasn't helping matters, either. He seemed to have no idea that he was the topic of discussion. He made a valiant attempt to follow the conversation at first, but eventually just gave up and instead traced Drake's path with his eyes.

 

Sam, for his part, was seriously regretting his idea of telling Drake first, because now he couldn't think of a way to shut the man up and actually do what he came to do—help JJ feel better about his situation.

 

Finally, after Sam felt that a suitable amount of time had passed and that it was about time for Drake to calm down, he spoke, carefully pitching his voice so that he got their attention without seeming to yell.

 

When Drake fell silent and shot him a dark look, Sam stood up and said, “Drake, come with me. Now,” he added when Drake went to protest, and he was taken aback by the note of command in his own voice. Drake nodded reluctantly and stalked back onto his room without another word.

 

“Sam, what's going on?” Derek asked, and Sam felt a twinge at the innocence of the question.

 

“I wish I could tell you, man. I really do. But it's…it's sort of his business.”

 

Derek shrugged. “Hey, I probably wouldn't get it anyway, would I?”

 

“Well…no,” Sam replied, and though Derek's tone was bantering, he felt a little sad as he followed Drake into his room.

 

Drake was standing in the middle of the room when he came in, looking unhappy. He whipped around as Sam closed the door and opened his mouth.

 

Sam beat him to it. “Drake, listen to me. I need you to calm down. Right now.”

 

“But I—”

 

“I know. I know you're scared. Who wouldn't be, right? And I know you're tired and you feel like you can't handle anything else. But you have got to calm down, okay? As tempting as it must be to fly off the handle, as good as it might feel to yell until you're hoarse, you can't. JJ needs you now. He's not going to deal with this very well, and he's going to need you to be there for him.”

 

Drake had been staring at him through this entire diatribe, and now he took a deep breath and let it out, very slowly.

 

“Okay. So what do we do about this? How do we protect him from this…thing?”

 

Sam winced, because that was absolutely the worst question he could have had to answer while trying to calm Drake down.

 

“Well…uh, me and Dean are working on that.”

 

As he'd expected, Drake's rant began anew with that.

 

“DRAKE!” Sam bellowed before the tirade could gather any wind. “Get hold of yourself!”

 

Drake came up short, looking almost as surprised as Sam felt—and a little contrite.

 

“You're right. I'm sorry. I just can't seem to get my mind around…this.”

 

Sam sighed a little. “I know the feeling. But believe me when I say that this will be a lot harder for JJ. So you're gonna have to cool off. Forget about protecting him—Dean and I'll do that. Just concentrate on him, okay? He's going to feel a little lost for a while, even when—” If... “—He gets his memory back. He'll probably withdraw and try to pretend it isn't happening, and he'll act fine when he's not. What he won't do is talk about it, so you're gonna have to make him.”

 

“But…Sam, isn't this kind of…your thing? I mean, can't you help him better than I can right now?”

 

Sam shrugged. “I thought so, but…no. all I can do is explain the mechanics to him. I can't guess how he's feeling—I don't know him well enough. You do.”

 

Drake shook his head. “But I…”

 

The half-hearted protest was cut off when Drake decided it was time for a nap.

 

Huh. No one told me he was narcoleptic, Sam thought in mild surprise as he watched his friend collapse to the carpeted floor, his eyes closed and his breathing deep and even.

 

“…Drake?” he asked, stepping forward to lean down and shake him. “Drake, wake up.”

 

When that proved just as useless as Sam had thought it would be, he straightened and went to Plan B: get someone else in here.

 

The idea probably would have gone more according to plan if everyone except JJ hadn't been gripped with the same impulse to snooze.

 

“Uh…Sam, what's going on?” JJ asked nervously as he stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by three people, all in a state of sound sleep. “They all just…collapsed. I think they're alive, but…”

 

Sam motioned for silence, and JJ acquiesced. Then, with quiet efficiency, Sam went to each of the other three and checked to make sure they were all indeed alive. Reassured that they were fine, just out like lights, he stood still and waited.

 

“Hello, Sam.”

 

On some level, Sam had already known, and he was able to turn without much surprise to face the Yellow-Eyed Demon that was his family's nemesis.

 

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Author's Note: Just a little info for those of you who are reading on MediaMiner. This story will be moving as of the next chapter to the Supernatural section of the web site. They're in here more often than anyone else, and I didn't realize that was the case until recently. I intended to split it up pretty evenly, but it didn't turn out that way, so I'm moving it. Just thought I'd let you know.

 

Oh, and also, another note entirely for you Supernatural fans. I know that the whole putting-people-to-sleep thing is TOTALLY not something the YED would do. He's not nearly that polite. But there was NO WAY I was going to kill my Derek. It would be a snowy day in Hell before I let that happen. (Oh, and Diana and Nikki are cool, too…) So just pretend he had a stroke or an aneurysm or something and decided not to kill anyone.