Supernatural Fan Fiction ❯ Paint Around the Empty Space ❯ A Meeting of the Minds ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter 5

 

Bobby grunted as he and Cal finally got Dean settled on the bed opposite the one Sam was lying on. He straightened with a sigh and rubbed his left shoulder, frowning down at the unconscious hunter. “Idgit…”

 

“You're both idiots,” Missouri said sternly, her eyes snapping fire as she checked Dean's pulse one more time. “How long has it been since you two have slept?”

 

Bobby shrugged. “I caught a nap for a while when we were researching, but I haven't seen Dean so much as close his eyes since I came here. Doubt he's gotten a wink of sleep since he went down.”

 

Missouri rolled her eyes. “Well, his body's certainly trying to make up for it now. And you,” she continued, pointing implacably to the empty space on Dean's new bed. “You sit down before you fall down.”

 

“Shouldn't we wake him up, though?” Cal asked, looking unruffled, and maybe a little amused, by the recent chain of events.

 

Missouri shook her head. “No. He needs rest, and this will be easier without him hovering, anyway.”

 

“He's not gonna be happy when he wakes up,” Bobby warned, leaning against the headboard of the bed.

 

“Then he can take it up with me,” Missouri replied. “I might even enjoy that a little bit.”

 

Bobby shrugged. “Your call, Mo.”

 

“Always, and don't you forget it.”

 

“Well, what about him, then?” Cal interrupted, gesturing toward Sam.

 

“Cal,” Niko said without opening his eyes, still maintaining his pose of peaceful meditation, only on the floor this time. “You might want to consider taking a more polite tone.” Despite the might, there was no hint of suggestion about it.

 

Cal rolled his eyes. “I'm just concerned.”

 

“And I'm sure that your desire to have your bed back has nothing to do with it.”

 

“Ya know,” Cal said, looking wounded, “it hurts that after all this time you still doubt my intentions.”

 

“I never doubted your intentions—only your selflessness,” Niko replied.

 

Cal was about to respond when Missouri turned on them both and snapped, “You two, zip it. I don't want to hear another word out of either of you unless it involves getting these boys out of this.”

 

Cal looked completely taken aback, and even Niko opened his eyes and dropped his pose of peace and serenity. It certainly wasn't the first time Cal had heard such an order—being the youngest and all—but neither of the brothers could seem to remember the last time anyone had spoken to Niko that way.

 

But Niko only looked surprised for a moment. Then he inclined his head—not in submission, never that, but rather in acknowledgement. Then he said, “So there is still a way to save Sam, then.”

 

“Of course there is. There always is. I just haven't thought of it yet. Now be quiet so I can work on that.”

 

Cal made a strangled sound, and at first everyone present thought he was angry for the way Niko was being spoken to. But then they looked, and saw that his face was turning a deep shade of red and he was shaking—with laughter.

 

Without so much as uncrossing his legs, Niko reached over and pulled his brother's legs out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor.

 

“Think,” Niko said without looking at him, and then closed his eyes again and resumed his meditation—or…you know, whatever.

 

Missouri raised her eyebrows at Bobby, who shrugged in reply and lay flat on the bed, assuming a thoughtful expression as he contemplated their problem.

 

But no one in the room was even able to sink too deeply into their thoughts before Niko seemed to hit on something.

 

“Excuse me, Miss Mosley,” he said with careful politeness.

 

“Missouri'll be just fine,” she said.

 

“Well, then, correct me if I'm wrong, Missouri, but didn't you say that the problem with you helping Sam is that your personality bars the way?”

 

“You don't need to make it sound so insulting, but basically, yes.”

 

“So does that mean that a different personality would be able to do something to help?”

 

She looked confused. “What are you babbling about?”

 

“What I'm saying is, if there were another psychic with another kind of personality—a gentler one, one that wouldn't rub quite so harshly against Sam's consciousness—wouldn't you be able to help this psychic do what needs to be done to bring Sam out of this?”

 

“I don't know,” Missouri said dubiously. “It's only a theory that I'm the problem, first of all. Second of all, I don't know that that kind of thing can be taught. Third of all, and most difficult, where can we get another psychic, who just happens to have the right personality, who believes us and is actually willing and able to help, at a moment's notice?”

 

Cal grinned slowly and shared a knowing look with his brother. “Well, I don't know about that other stuff, but I'm pretty sure we can help you with the last one.”

 

XXX

 

The pictures still flashed through Sam's head, but he couldn't quite focus on them. It was as if everything had been muted, dulled—including the sense of urgency, the urge to kill and kill and kill until anything that could possibly cause any pain was utterly eradicated.

 

In other words, to kill until he was the only one left.

 

That urge had hurt—a lot. Each time he killed, it had felt wrong—but not as wrong as not killing. Not killing seemed…dangerous. It felt like he had to kill everything before everything killed him.

 

Now, though, the urge was lessened, only it didn't make him feel better.

 

It made him feel empty.

 

It made him feel alone again.

 

XXX

 

Georgina King was a young girl with an old mind.

 

That was really the only way to describe her. Her face was young, her body small, but her eyes, her voice, and her words betrayed wisdom beyond her years—maybe beyond the years of any living human.

 

Missouri looked at her and knew immediately that this girl was of a completely different cut. This was a person who didn't even have to tap into anything in order to use her abilities—it seemed that she simply lived inside the psychic realm, and that any step she made into the outside world was purely accidental.

 

Watching her, Missouri felt something that she didn't ever remember feeling toward any living creature. She felt awed.

 

But then George's eyes swept the room and landed on Cal, and when she smiled it was like she was able to shed all of that. Suddenly she wasn't a larger-than-life power—she was simply a teenage girl with a crush. Suddenly she was just a person, so much so that Missouri wondered if she'd just imagined everything else.

 

“Niko says you need my help.”

 

She looked at Missouri as she said it, leaving no doubt that she knew almost exactly what was going on. Then she looked from Sam to Dean, and her face became sad. “These are the brothers you met after Cal was kidnapped.” She sighed. “I had hoped to meet them under better circumstances than this.”

 

Cal shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “Well, when you bring Sam out of this, you two can talk. He's a psychic, too, you know.” She smiled at him, and he looked embarrassed and muttered, “Of course you know. He was pretty interested when I told him about you—I think he'd like talking to you…” He trailed off rather lamely and looked away.

 

But George only looked fondly at him and said, “Well, then, we'll just have to make sure he can do that, won't we?” Then she turned away from him and toward Missouri. “I'm afraid I really don't know how to do this, though. I assume I have to enter his mind, but I don't know what to do after that.”

 

Missouri shrugged. “I don't have a clue, either, honey. We'll just have to wing it. Why don't you start by seeing if you can even get in?”

 

Looking thoughtful, but not nervous, George turned away from all of them and went to seat herself next to Sam. She reached out and took his hand, closed her eyes, and began to breathe deeply and evenly.

 

Five seconds later she opened them again and said, with complete and utter composure, “I can get in. It's actually pretty easy, since on some level he wants someone to go in with him—if it's the right person.”

 

“So are you the right person, then?” Missouri asked impatiently.

 

She smiled. “Of course.” It wasn't boasting—it was just facts. “So what do I do?”

 

Missouri sat down in the room's only chair—which was, thanks to Niko's firm decision that Cal should sit on the floor, actually available—and leaned back into it. “I'm not sure. I've done this about as many times as you have.”

 

“Well, then, why don't you just tell me exactly what's going on here? I've got a pretty good idea what's the matter, but it might help if I had details.”

 

Missouri looked incredulously at her and wondered dumbly, What is this girl?

 

Niko, though, seemed to be used to these sudden declarations, and he immediately launched into a quick summary of the events that had led them all to crush themselves in this apartment at this moment. George listened with an expression of mild interest, but didn't speak until Niko finished. Then she said, “Well, his abilities certainly work differently than mine, I can tell you that. It sounds like there's some kind of…off switch. Or at least a mute button. Maybe if I can find that…”

 

She subsided into inaudible murmurs then, her thumb rubbing circles over Sam's hand as she considered it.

 

“Um…George?” Cal asked, sounding uncertain.

 

“Yes, Cal?” she asked absently.

 

“Are you all right?”

 

“Of course. I'm just trying to figure out how best to find the volume button.”

 

“Yeah, `cause that makes a lot of sense.”

 

“It does make sense, actually. If I can find the volume button, I can make it so Sam's visions aren't so loud that they take over his mind. I can lower the volume so that he can't hear it most of the time, and then I can find the channel button so I can change it to the real world. See?”

 

“…No.”

 

“Well, that's all right. It does sound a little strange, I guess. I think I'll just have to dive in and try it. Do you think that's okay, Missouri?”

 

“Honey, I don't know,” Missouri said. “I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I'm pretty useless here, I can see now. Two-day drive and the best I can do is sit here and watch…but I think you should do what you think is best, for what it's worth.”

 

“Don't worry,” George said. “You're many things, but you could never be useless—I already know that about you.”

 

Missouri shrugged. “Well, might as well get this over with, then. We'll be right here when you get done.”

 

“I knew that,” she said with another smile. “Try to get some sleep, though—all of you, even if you have to do this in shifts. You're all exhausted, you know.”

 

“Yeah,” Missouri said, her eyes flashing at Bobby, who looked sheepish, and then to Dean, who hadn't even stirred yet. “We know.”

 

George nodded in satisfaction as if a great problem had just been solved, and then turned her attention to Sam again.

 

XXX

 

Sam was wondering if he was ever going to feel the urge again when he felt the new presence.

 

It wasn't malevolent—that was the first thing he noticed. It wasn't harsh, it wasn't irritated—it didn't hurt like the other one had. It felt…benevolent. Kind. And it…cared—like it genuinely wanted to make him feel better, and like it would be there for as long as it took to make that happen.

 

Sam shrank away from it, recoiling from the warmth. It just felt so foreign after all this time. And it was a trick anyway, of course. The warmth couldn't be real—it didn't exist in the world anymore. Dean had taken it all with him when he left. Sam knew that, and he knew he couldn't trust the presence.

 

But he wanted to. Oh, he wanted to, and it was the hardest thing he'd ever done to retreat.

 

He did it, though. He withdrew as far as he could, managing to separate himself from the presence by a good margin.

 

The presence didn't go away, though. It stayed, never so much as flickering, its patience never faltering.

 

Maybe it really did plan to stay forever.

 

Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

 

XXX

 

Two Hours Later

 

“I can't believe you didn't wake me up!”

 

Missouri rolled her eyes. “I see you're going to be mature about this, as usual.”

 

Dean glared at her. “Don't mother me, Missouri. You let some stranger start digging around in my brother's mind and you didn't even bother talking to me about it first.”

 

“And what would you have said if we did?” Missouri snapped, quite obviously losing her patience with him. “You listen to me, boy—I want you to stop acting like you're the only one who cares about the outcome of this. I couldn't help him, we were running out of options, and this girl could very well be our last hope. I—we—took a chance. The same one you would have taken if we'd asked. The end was exactly the same, so just put aside your pride and just leave it be.”

 

Dean glowered for a few more seconds, but then all the fight just seemed to drain out of him, and he sank back down onto the bed he'd vacated in his anger, and ran a tired hand over his face. “I just don't like the idea of putting Sam in more danger.”

 

“I know,” Missouri said, gentler now. “I understand. But George isn't dangerous. Niko and Cal can promise you that—and if you don't trust them, trust me. I'm a psychic too, you know.”

 

Dean smiled weakly at her. “How could I forget?”

 

“Well, you couldn't if you had any kind of sense,” Missouri replied. “Look, I know there's no way you're going back to sleep, but you lay down right now, you here? There's nothing you can do here, anyways. Nothing any of us can do but wait.”

 

“Why don't you sleep, then?” Dean countered.

 

Missouri reached across the space between them and slapped his knee. “Don't take that tone with me, boy. I'm a grown woman and I'll sleep when I want to sleep.”

 

“Well, I'm a grown man,” Dean said, and winced inwardly at the sheer childishness of the response.

 

Missouri seemed to feel the same way—she snorted and rolled her eyes. “Well, with mature adult arguments like that…”

 

Dean lay back down next to Bobby, who had conked out about half an hour before and was threatening to shake the apartment down with his snores. He turned over on his side so that he could keep an eye on Sam and this strange girl who looked as if she was asleep sitting up, but apparently was trying to help the younger Winchester.

 

His eyes stayed glued to Sam's face as he listened to the silence that was quickly becoming painfully familiar, and even though he was still unwilling to hope, there was a very tiny part of him that couldn't help silently begging Georgina King to do what no one else could seem to.

 

And an even tinier part that thought maybe, just maybe, this would work.

 

XXX

 

It was a long time before the presence tried to get close to him again. It didn't leap at him, though—it didn't try to force him. It simply flicked at him, a placid, patient wisp of a thought that conveyed a sense of safety and one single word.

 

“Sam.”

 

Sam tried to back away again, and once again the presence let him, didn't try to follow him. But it still continued to speak to him, and it sounded…sad.

 

He didn't want it to be sad. It didn't seem right. Something that carried this feeling with it shouldn't be sad—it should be happy all the time.

 

Sam wanted to make it happy, but at the same time he was afraid. He desperately wanted the kindness to be real, but…it had to be a trick.

 

“Sam, please.”

 

It had to be a trick, because otherwise he'd been wrong…

 

“Sam, I know you're afraid. I can feel that. I can feel that you're afraid, and sad, and you just want to hide. I know that, okay?”

 

No, the presence couldn't know…it couldn't know, because if it did then it wasn't a trick, and it had to be a trick…

 

“But I'm here now, and I'll help you. You don't have to hide anymore.”

 

It had to be a trick, because if it wasn't, then there really was good in the world still and Dean hadn't taken all of it with him and he'd done the killing for nothing…

 

“You don't even have to do anything. You just have to stop trying to get away from me. If you do that, I can take the pictures away and bring you back to the world.”

 

But he wasn't sure he wanted to go back to the world, because he was alone there. All alone…

 

“No, Sam. You won't be alone. Trust me. Just trust me. Dean's here, okay? Dean's with me.”

 

Now he knew it was a trick. Dean was dead, so the presence was a trick. It was nice to have it confirmed…

 

“Sam, stop it. Stop fighting. You're hurting Dean, don't you understand that? Dean wants you to come back, and you're hurting him by not letting us help.”

 

No. Stop saying that. Stop saying he was hurting Dean, that was wrong. He wasn't hurting Dean. This thing was just bad and saying so to hurt him…

 

“Sam, I'm not bad. Can't you feel that? Can't you tell that I'm good? I know you can. You haven't doubted yourself this whole time—don't start now, when we need you to believe in yourself the most.”

 

But no. Sam refused to believe it. He wasn't hurting Dean, he just wasn't, it wasn't possible. He wasn't hurting Dean, he hadn't killed those people for nothing…it just could not be.

 

“Sam, please. Please, just trust me. I'll make the pictures go away if you'll only let me. I'll make it go away and then you can see Dean. I promise.”

 

And no matter how much Sam wanted to, he couldn't disbelieve that promise.

 

XXX

 

Dean lost track of the number of hours that passed. He knew the sun rose, he knew everyone but him was catching sleep in increments, but he didn't really keep track of any of it. He just watched Sam and George, and waited, and wished a thousand times that there was a way for him to know what was going on.

 

He was so busy thinking this and being angry that he almost missed the change.

 

It wasn't a big change, and if Dean hadn't been so determined to catch it he wouldn't have. But as it was, he noticed immediately—noticed the slight scrunching of Sam's forehead, the twitch of his nose, the slight toss of his head. They were all tell-tale signs of a genuine Sam Winchester Dreaming, only somewhat muted.

 

He almost stopped breathing, as if daring to take in air would destroy whatever fragile thing was happening right now. He didn't try to rouse anybody, either—he just watched and waited.

 

He didn't really know what was happening, but he could tell from George's slight frown that she was concentrating hard on something. Sam wasn't thrashing or anything, though, so apparently she wasn't hurting him.

 

Good. He didn't want to have to kill her—he didn't much fancy spending two weeks on his knees in this apartment scrubbing blood out of the carpet under one of Niko's fancy swords.

 

Sam whimpered a little. It was just the tiniest sound—barely anything at all—but it was there and it was the first sound he'd made that wasn't a scream and it was just beautiful.

 

The next thing was a hand movement. He tightened his fingers around George's hand, his knuckles going white, and Dean marveled that George didn't even flinch even though Sam must be leaving bruises.

 

After the hand movement came a slight turning of the head—Sam rolled it to the side a little until he was facing Dean a little, as if he was seeking something.

 

And the entire time, George remained still as a statue, seeing her work through without thought to interruption, exhaustion, or any other worldly matters.

 

And suddenly, without any warning, without any further drama or emotion of pain, it was over. It was just…over, and George was opening her eyes and letting go of Sam and standing up and backing away.

 

For a moment, Dean couldn't make any sense of it. He couldn't understand why George was leaving the job unfinished.

 

Then he saw that Sam's eyes were open.

 

That was when the world stopped being there. It just became him and Sam. Sam, who was awake now. Sam, who hadn't gone away. Sam, who couldn't seem to figure out what was going on.

 

Sam…Sam, who needed him now.

 

Slowly, tentatively, Dean pushed himself to his feet and swayed over to the other bed. Sam's eyes followed him listlessly, as if he was waiting for something to happen.

 

Once he reached his destination, Dean collapsed to his knees next to the bed—lacking the strength to fit his frame on the mattress itself—and reached out to stroke some of Sam's hair off his forehead.

 

Sam's hand came up and locked around his wrist, hard enough to bruise. But Dean didn't flinch away—he just let Sam hang on while Sam looked for whatever he needed to reassure himself.

 

Sam studied him for a long time, and didn't even seem to notice everyone shifting and waking around the two of them. He just stared and stared, until finally he seemed to find what he was looking for.

 

And then Sam sort of hunched into himself, curling himself around Dean's hand and arm, and started crying, and it occurred to Dean how wrong it was for Sam to be so damn broken when Dean was finally ready to feel whole again.

 

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Author's Note: Okay, guys, I'm really not sure about this chapter. There's some parts I like about it and then some parts, like the end, that I just really can't seem to form an opinion on. So why don't you tell me your opinions in nice, pretty reviews?

 

And on a whole other issue, how `bout that Illinois earthquake, eh? I live right about on the Missouri/Illinois border, so we got it pretty big. And those nice scientist guys who never seem to have anything good to say have started thinking that this `quake is just the start of a big chain. So in other words, they say that we're pretty likely to get hit next here in Missouri—just a matter of time.

 

I hate science.

 

I love reviews, though. Have I mentioned that?

 

Yeah. It's about one in the morning here and I've been up since about 4:30. I apologize for any resulting incoherence.