Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ In Omnia Paratus ❯ De Boyz ( Chapter 8 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Anonymous / Mediaminer reviewer(s):

nli: Thankies for your review—glad you're still not confused! I for one dunno HOW you're making sense of this, but I'm still glad you are.

Shinigami17: Thanks for taking the time to review, especially since you don't do it very often. I don't really review on Mediaminer, either, because they make it difficult most of the time, but thanks for putting up with the annoyance to send me one. And by the way, if you like Buffy / Yu Yu crossovers, you should check out the story “When Evil Comes to Play” by Hana_Tenshi. It's very good, trust me!

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The battlefield seemed somehow familiar to Sam, and yet he knew that he had never been here before. Maybe he had dreamed about it? He didn't—couldn't—remember…

Before he could think on the matter anymore, a rasping voice caught his attention. Tearing his gaze from the slaughtered masses stretching out of sight—they held a horrifying sort of fascination—Sam looked around, trying to find the source of the sound.

He shouted and leapt back in alarm.

There was a body right next to his foot.

Sam thought the man was dead like all the others at first. Then the voice came to him again, and with a jolt of alarm he realized that it was issuing from the unmoving body, and quickly scrambled over to crouch next to the guy.

“Hey, are you…?” Sam began, but he trailed off when he saw that the other man was most certainly not all right. “Oh, my God…”

“Don't worry about it,” the man said, carefully placing his blood-covered hands over the gaping wound in his stomach. “It doesn't hurt anymore…nothing does…”

Sam highly doubted that a hold like that wouldn't hurt—actually, he was shocked the guy was still talking. There couldn't be more than a few pints of blood left in his body. By all accounts, he should be…

“Are…are you dead, then?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

“I'm working on it!” the man said irritably. “What, do you think I want to be here?”

“Sorry,” Sam said sheepishly, and to his own astonishment he had to hide a smile.

The man grunted. “Whatever, man, it's all kinds of useless at this point. Your name Winchester?”

“Uh…yeah…”

“Then your dad's John.”

“Right…” Where is this going?

“Good. Then you'll be…Sammy.”

Sam's first reaction was annoyance at the name, but it was quickly replaced by uncertainty. “How'd you know that?”

The man grunted again. “John did a job for me once. Poltergeist or something, I don't remember too well. But he wouldn't talk about anything except you and your brother the whole time he was there. But we don't have time for a walk down memory lane. You have to stop him.”

And suddenly his voice wasn't at all steady. It was filled with such terror that his body trembled with it and the emotion poured over Sam like a bucket of cold water.

“S-stop what?”

“Him! I don't…I can't…none of us know what he is! He just…came…and…and…this was L.A. a few hours ago, kid!”

The silence that followed this extraordinary pronouncement rang in Sam's ears, and he could do nothing but stare. His first reaction was denial, disbelief. It was impossible! There was nothing living or dead capable of wiping out one of the biggest cities in the world in just a few hours. And yet…

Why would this stranger lie to him?

“A-are you serious?”

“I'll assume that's rhetorical,” the guy said, rolling his eyes.

“But that's not…”

“It's possible, it happened, yada yada yada, you can go to group therapy later. Now listen to me!” Once he was sure that he had Sam's full attention, he continued in a voice full of pent-up emotion. “He came earlier today. He looked so normal when he turned up…said he needed a lawyer…and then I told him, well, our best lawyer was Karen Edwards and he said, `Fine, I would like to speak with her.' So I sent him to her office, and went on with my work, and…”

Okay, he is seriously babbling…

“And next thing I knew, city was…and everyone…dead…and he was gone…”

“You aren't making any sense…”

“That's because I'm dying, you idiot! So shut up and listen to me. You can still stop him.”

Sam, for a moment, just kept looking at the guy, waiting for more. When nothing came, he found his voice and murmured, “Me?”

“Well, you and a helluva lot of other people. But in the end, it all boils down to the same thing. The guy…he's still in California. You have to stop him! He'll…he won't stop until he does this to the rest of the world.”

“But…how…?”

“You're John Winchester's boy! You'll…” The man's voice began to fade—he was succumbing at last to his injury. “You…you can change it.” He closed his eyes, and his breathing began to slow. “You can…change it.”

Sam remained crouched on the blood-soaked ground for a long time after the man died, those last words ricocheting around in his head. You can change it…you can change it…you can change it…

“He's got it about right, kid.”

Sam whirled so quickly that he nearly fell over, and saw a man standing behind him. He had dark hair and brown eyes and mismatched clothes and he looked strangely familiar…

“Hey, you're that guy…”

“From your last dream, yeah.” The guy smiled a little, but the rest of his face remained serious.

“Why couldn't I remember you?” Sam asked.

His companion shrugged. “It's just a thing. You weren't supposed to know I exist, and I couldn't have you telling your brother. You'll forget me again when you wake up, but you'll remember the important thing—that you can change this.”

“You mean, change what's happened to L.A.?”

“Mm-hmm. See, none of this has happened yet. The guy he was talking about is still biding his time. And you, kid…you might be able to take him down.”

“Why do people keep saying that around here? I'm not anything special! I can't do anything the others can't!”

“If saying to makes you feel better, then okay. But the fact of the matter is, you are something special. All of the others—your brother, Kurama, Hiei, the Slayer, the witches…they're all vital to this, too, and you have to make them understand all of this when the time comes, but you are the power in this. And you'd better come to terms with that, because the price of your ignorance will be the lives of billions. Not could be or might be…will be.”

Sam couldn't think of a single thing to say to that, so he just looked at the other, much shorter man in silence.

The guy's face softened slightly. “Look, like I said, you're not gonna remember me when you wake up. But I'm going to make damn sure you remember this: You have got to do everything you can to learn to control this new power of yours. And by power, I mean the speed, the visions…and whatever else is going to come.”

“What? You mean there's more?” Sam yelped in utter disbelief.

The man said not a word to that.

“Answer me! Is there—”

XXX

“Jeez, Sammy, you had to do this when we're staying with nine other people,” Dean muttered, but his voice held nothing except concern as he studied his younger brother.

He had barely fallen asleep an hour before when Sam had begun screaming like someone was killing him. Dean later thought that he shouldn't have been quite so surprised, given Sam's history with nightmares, but at the time all he could feel was fear, as always.

He had been engaged in trying to shake Sam awake when Buffy ran in, followed quickly by Dawn, and then, one by one, Xander and Anya (who had spent the night), Willow and Tara, Giles, and then Kurama and Hiei. They had then proceeded to crowd so close that Dean had nearly killed them all.

Then, about fifteen minutes before, Sam had quieted down, and since then, Dean and the others had been sitting there, waiting, in absolute silence. It was like that for ten-some minutes before Sam's eyes finally snapped open and he sat up with a gasp.

And now he was sitting with his back propped up against the headboard of the bed, Dean next to him, and everyone else gathered at the foot.

Sam looked up at Dean's words, and his face was pale enough to shock those who had never seen him after one of his dreams. “Yeah…I'm sorry.” But his mind was clearly somewhere else, and Dean thought he had an idea of where.

“What happened?” Buffy asked, eyeing the younger Winchester.

Sam shrugged. “Nightmare.” But the way he looked at Dean told the truth all too clearly.

“What was it about?” Dean asked, carefully making it sound like just a question that someone would ask when his little brother had a nightmare.

Sam met his eyes, and even Dean was surprised at the fear and pure vulnerability in his gaze. “I saw death. Bodies…thousands of them…and so much blood…and I felt all of them, Dean. All of their fear and their pain…”

Abruptly, Dean reached out and gripped Sam's shoulder, just for a moment, trying to convey some sort of non-chick-flick “I'm here for ya.” Sam looked gratefully at him, but being Winchesters, neither said anything.

It was then that everyone noticed Buffy staring at Sam with something like accusation in her eyes.

“What's up, Buff?” Xander asked.

“I just had that same dream.”

Giles moved forward instantly. “Oh? Was it a prophesy? Is it going to come true?”

“Yes.”

“So that means that he had a prophecy dream too?” Anya, who made both hunters slightly uncomfortable but nevertheless seemed rather valued in this group of misfits, asked in confusion. “I thought that was just another weird Buffy thing.”

“I always thought so, too,” Giles said, sounding preoccupied.

“Who are you guys?” Buffy demanded. She still hadn't taken her eyes off Sam, who was beginning to fidget under her scrutiny.

“Kurama already told you—we're demon hunters,” Dean replied before Sam could say anything.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “A person can't just wake up one morning and decide to hunt things that most people say don't exist.”

“You wouldn't say that if you were part of my family,” Dean countered before he thought about it.

“So it's your whole family that does this?” Buffy asked incredulously.

“Yeah, all three members of it,” Dean replied bitterly. If it's still even that many… “Why do you care?”

“Because you claim to be a demon hunter, but you showed up with two demons. And your brother apparently had dreams like mine, and has had them before, because you don't exactly seem surprised by this. You already know too much about me and what I do. And ever since the moment we met I've felt like there's something you were hiding. It all adds up to dangerous, and unless you tell me what's going on you can just pack your stuff and get out right now.”

“It's like one in the morning!”

It wasn't Dean or Sam who protested, but Willow. Buffy didn't look at her friend as she replied. “I don't care. I want to know what they're hiding.”

“Well, then, you can just keep on guessing, blondie. I'm tired of telling people about this!” Dean snapped. “It's nobody's business but ours and I'm sick of people acting like it is. I told Yusuke because I had to. I told Kurama because we needed his help. But I see no reason to tell you. And—”

“Tell her, Dean.”

The soft voice cut through the room, affectively ending Dean's tirade and restoring silence to the room. Dean turned to face his brother, making no attempt to mask his surprise and irritation. “But Dad—”

“Don't give me any crap about Dad, Dean. I know he wouldn't want this, but you still need to tell them.”

“But why—”

“Just trust me on this, okay? You know I wouldn't ask you to do this if it wasn't important.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. You'd do anything to break orders.”

Sam didn't respond to the jibe—he made no attempt to protest, he didn't give the patented half-smile, and that was enough.

Dean sighed and shook his head, then fixed Sam with a penetrating gaze. “Everything?”

Sam met the look and nodded, once. His intensity puzzled Dean—what could have happened to make Sam so determined?—but in the end it all came down to the same thing—what Sammy wanted, Sammy got.

“Dad's gonna kill us for this. You know that, right?”

A faint smile played across Sam's lips, and Dean felt a pang of relief. “You can take him.”

“You and your dad fight?” Buffy asked, sounding appalled. Actually, physically fight?”

“Yeah. Oh, don't look so shocked, blondie, it's not as bad as you think. He's the one who taught us to.” This only seemed worse to Buffy, and Dean fought a smirk. “Well, what can I say, Slayer? Not everyone has preternatural strength. Some of us rely on skill, too.”

“All right, all right, that's enough of that,” Giles said idly, and for some reason, Dean found himself obeying. “Thank you. Now, you said that it was your father who taught you to fight. Am I to understand that he also began to demon hunting?”

Dean was taken aback for a moment. “Wow, just jumping right in, huh?” He took a deep breath. “Okay. Well, then, yeah. The whole thing started with Dad. But Buffy's right about one thing, if she's wrong about everything else. It wasn't just a random decision. Something did happen to cause it—my mom was murdered.”

Buffy's mouth dropped open. It was clear that this was the last thing she was expecting. Dean continued, speaking directly to her now, because looking around at the rest of their faces and seeing the pity that was undoubtedly going to be there would probably be enough to make him throw up.

“It happened twenty-two years, six months, three weeks and four days ago.” Dean knew the day exactly—he always knew. “I was five years old, and Sam was about six months, and a demon fame into our house. It…it was a fire-demon—”

Dean caught sight of an odd movement out of the corner of his eyes, and it occurred to him that that was where Hiei was standing. Looking over, he saw that Hiei was now looking carefully at the wall, face expressionless as usual but oddly pale. And at the same time it occurred to Dean that he had never before mentioned that a fire demon had been what killed Mary.

Shrugging off a sudden feeling of unease, Dean faced Buffy again. “None of us heard the thing come in, and in fact I doubt it used the door. It went right to Sam's room. I…I dunno why. Probably just one of those random things—a coincidence, ya know? Anyway, I don't really know everything that happened. All I can tell you is that I woke up with this feeling, in the middle of the night. I got up, and for a minute I just stood in my room and wondered. And then I heard my dad yell.

“I went straight to Sam's nursery, and I swear to you, I remember what I saw there as if it was yesterday. I found all of the furniture, the walls, the ceiling, everything flammable burning. And then I saw Dad standing in the middle of it, staring at the ceiling. I looked up, and…there was my mom. Her stomach was slashed and her nightgown was covered in blood and she was just staring at Dad with this questioning look, like he knew so much more about what was going on than she did.

“Then Dad turned and shoved Sam at me and told me to take him outside as fast as I could. I was only a scared five-year-old kid and I did what he said—I ran for my life. Mine and Sam's.

“It was weeks before Dad talked to me—to anyone. He took us to a tiny, crappy motel that turned out to be the first of many tiny, crappy motels, and for two or three weeks he just walked around in a sort of daze, leaving me to wonder. I didn't understand any of it—only that Mom was gone and she wasn't coming back.

“Then, one day, Dad came into the motel room—I was feeding Sam at the time—and he came up to me and he said, `Put Sammy in his crib and come here.' So, I put Sam down to sleep and then I went out to the truck.

“Dad was messing around in the cab, and when I came up behind him he tossed me a rifle. I just stared at it—had no clue what it was, of course—and Dad walked over and started pointing out the different parts—their names and what they did and stuff.

“And my training began.

“Over the next few months, I learned about weapons—guns and knives and chains and just about everything else under the sun. I didn't understand why he was teaching me all of this—I was still only five, after all—but I liked it. And I was good at it. But I never actually got to use the weapons—this was all strictly theory.

“We started studying demons and spirits when I was six, and it was only then that I found out that Dad knew how Mom had died. I didn't even really understand it then, which actually might have been for the better, because it left room for my imagination to go to work, and a kid's imagination usually paints things worse than reality, and I know from experience that a scared person fights harder.

“Anyway, until I was eight years old, my `education'—I actually considered it a hundred times more educational than school—revolved around four things.

“The first was weaponry. I learned all the parts of a gun, what they did, how to clean then, and how to take them apart and out them together. Dad also showed me how to use them, but I wasn't allowed to do anything more than hold one. We set the age for using them for when I turned ten.

“The second area was the supernatural and the paranormal. I studied books on demons and spirits, and how to kill or hurt them. I also learned all the elements and how to combat each one, and how to perform an exorcism.

“The third part was the theory of self-defense. That was actually a lot funnier than it was supposed to be, because Dad would pretend to be a demon and he'd come after me trying to look scary, and I was supposed to figure out what he was so I could `fight' him. The whole thing was a disaster at first—I saw it as nothing but a game and usually ended up laughing so hard I couldn't move. But Dad got fed up with this eventually, and he got really mad at me for the first time. He yelled, and told me, without sparing a single detail, exactly what I could expect if I didn't start taking this seriously. It wasn't a pretty thought—it mostly concerned various parts of my body being ripped off by a demon and used to beat me to death, and a lot of other potentially painful things. It was the first time he had ever been really tough on me—and it worked, too, I can tell you that. It wouldn't be the last time, either—it worked better than anything else and so became permanent. Good thing he managed to scare me into behaving, too, because I'd be dead a thousand times over if I never learned what he was trying to teach me.

“But it was the last part of my training that was most important to Dad…and to me—protect Sam. He made it perfectly clear that if I screwed that part up, it would be the worst thing I could possibly do.” Dean paused, and his eyes flickered to Sam, who was staring at him, all of the dream-haze gone. “And if any of you turn that unto something sappy I will kill you,” he added, speaking to the room but watching his brother. “He was only a kid—and a pathetic one at that. I can't help that he always needed someone to watch his back.” Sam grinned, and when Dean looked around at the others he found that they all had identical looks. “Aw, man, stop it!” he groaned, although it was almost worth it to see Sam alert again.

“Well, anyway…that was what I was taught. And meanwhile, Sammy…” Dean placed careful emphasis on the hated nickname, in an attempt to get some sort of rise out of Sam as vengeance for embarrassing him, and was rewarded with a glare that he pointedly ignored. “…Was growing up fast, and getting into a lot of trouble along the way. And most of the time, it was me who took care of him—Dad was away a lot, on jobs that he mostly discovered through clues in newspaper articles and stuff, going after demons and spirits and anything he could find, hoping, someday, to find the thing that killed Mom—and I was stuck being both the parent and the brother most of the time.

“We spent a lot of time together, Sam and I. Actually, that's a huge understatement. We were hardly ever apart. We don't look a thing alike, but no one ever doubted that we were brothers. And even if some miracle took place and someone did make a mistake, Sam always, always, always corrected them. It was damned inconvenient for undercover ops, but there was nothing we could do to convince him to lie about it, so we finally just stopped trying.”

“Sounds like he was pretty attached to you,” Tara said, smiling.

It was Sam who answered this time, with a shake of his head. “I always idolized him.” He said it earnestly, as if it were very important for them to understand this, and unlike Dean, he seemed completely unconcerned about sounding “sappy.” “I was absolutely certain that he could rope the moon—there was no way he could fail at anything, in my eyes.”

“Yeah, well, you were an idiot then,” Dean snapped, trying to keep things light.

“…Who said anything about `then'?” Sam asked, and before Dean ducked his head it became clear that he was hiding a pleased smile.

“Well, as I was saying, Sam and I were alone a lot of the time. Dad always took strong precautions when he left the house. He made sure I knew his cell number and all the other numbers to call by heart and could remember it no matter what happened, he made sure I knew exactly what to do in an emergency, he put salt down at the door and around the beds and everywhere else—”

“Why?” Buffy asked interestedly.

“Spirit repellent,” Dean replied without missing a beat. “And for a while all of that seemed to do the trick.

“I was nine years old, and Sam was five, the first time our family was directly attacked after my mother's death. Dad was away on another job, had been for a day or so, and Sam and I were, as usual, left at home—or the crappy motel that was home for now, anyway. I had put Sam to bed and was waiting for Dad to call, which he always did every two hours, down to the exact moment. (Our bills were always astronomical, by the way.) The salt was down, the phone within arm's reach, the gun loaded and ready, and I was watching TV and trying to fool myself into thinking I was acting normal.

“Dad called at nine, and after he made sure everything was fine, he told me he was about ten minutes from home, having finished his job early. I went to wake Sam and tell him once I'd hung up, because this was way back when he still cared.” Sam jerked a little at that, but raised no protest or contradiction.

“I have no idea what the thing was or how it had gotten there—I don't even remember what it looked like—but it doesn't matter, anyway. The point was, and still is, that it was standing next to Sam's bed, ready to kill him for no apparent reason.

“I didn't think. Everyone in this room most likely knows that thinking is the last thing a person does in that kind of situation. The gun was still in my hands—I hadn't even noticed up to that point—and it didn't matter that I didn't know anything about the thing except what its pieces were called and how to care for it. I lifted it and pulled the trigger.”

Dean chuckled without humor, his eyes looking not at this room, but at a room in the distant past, at a tiny boy sleeping in a bed, and the creature that was about to steal his life. “It's a miracle I didn't hit Sam. I didn't hit the demon, either, but I didn't hit Sam, so I counted it a good shot. Of course, since I hadn't thought ahead, I was a little less than prepared for the thing to go for me instead of him. But Dad came in then, and he killed the bastard in a couple seconds.

“The gunshots woke Sam up, obviously, but we got him back to sleep pretty quick with some cock-and-bull story because hey, he was five, he'd buy anything. And then Dad took me aside and said, `Well, that's it, you're learning to shoot.' And things just…progressed from there.

“Fast forward about twelve, thirteen years. I've gotten out of school as early as possible, and work with Dad full time. That year we're actually staying in an apartment for a while. And Sam's seventeen and about to graduate. By that time, he was a total geek, and completely into the books. He had always been…different…from the two of us—he didn't like hunting; in fact, I could go as far at to say he hated it. He and Dad did nothing but fight, he and I argued more and more as time went by, and he seemed to get more miserable every day. But I had no idea how bad it was until his senior year. It was at that point when he started deciding he'd had enough.

“And just like that, he started applying to colleges. He only had a second-rate education—we never stayed in one place long enough for him to stay in one school district—and there was no way we could afford to send him, but I guess he didn't care. He never told us anything about it, either. He just…let us think things were normal.” If Sam noticed the faint note of hurt in his tone, he was too tired—or maybe just too used to it—to react. “But obviously, he couldn't hide it anymore once he got the answers back—all acceptance letters. Including a full ride to Stanford, which covered the courses, the books, even a place to live while he was there.”

And while in Dean's voice there was the pride that should be found in any man when that man is talking about his younger brother's accomplishments, it was a fragile pride, laced with a bitterness born of sleepless nights and constant worry and an almost constant anger.

“Sam told Dad first. He didn't drop any hints whatsoever—just went into the living room where Dad was checking the weapons, and said flat-out that he'd gotten a full ride to Stanford and he wanted to go.

“I was in my room when they started yelling. I didn't even get out of bed at first—I was too used to it to care. But I could hear every word of the argument through the walls, and as soon as I figured out what it was all about, I got the hell down there as fast as I could.

“I dunno why I thought I could make him forget about it—I don't even know if I was planning to try. But whatever I was on my way to do, I never got to see it through, `cause just as I got there, Dad told Sam that he could leave if he wanted to, but if he did go he could just stay gone.

“Sam didn't say anything to that. He just looked at Dad, and then he turned toward me. I couldn't for the life of me think of anything to say, so I just stared at him and wondered, Where did it all go so wrong? How did it get this bad without me noticing it? How did I not see this coming?

“I guess Sam didn't find whatever he was looking for in me, because he just shook his head and left the room. And by the next morning he was packed and headed out to catch the next outbound bus for California.”

Dean turned his eyes to Sam at that point, and as if by some unspoken consent, the younger man picked up the story, though it looked as if it was the last thing he wanted to do. But the fact was, he was the only one who knew what had gone on during he and Dean's long separation, simply because he never, ever talked about it.

But he was talking about it now, and that just added to Dean's suspicions that something was going on. Even so, he didn't interrupt as Sam continued their story, not taking his eyes off the pillow that had somehow gotten into his lap.

“I know it may seem horrible—leaving my family and going off to be `normal'—whatever the hell that means anymore—while they were off risking their lives and being heroes. But the truth is, I never wanted to be a hero! I'm not cut out for this kind of life. I never was and I never will be. The violence and the blood and the getting hurt all the time and, worse, watching Dad and Dean get hurt and knowing that every day could be the last for all of us…I can't stand that. I do it, but I hate every moment of it.

“So when I left, I managed to convince myself that it was a good thing. That in the long run, it was just better…for all of us. I got what I wanted and Dad and Dean wouldn't have to worry about me all the time. It never even crossed my mind that, just maybe, having me live to far away, out of sight and contact, would only make things worse for them, not better. That was the truth, but I didn't find that out until a few months ago.

“Anyway, at the time, I thought Stanford was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I was finally free to live my own life, to not think about possibly dying every day, to learn about things that had nothing to do with demons or spirits or hell-beasts. I got a taste of normal life and just like that I was caught. Oh, I thought about Dean and Dad, of course, and I kept an eye on the papers, but I figured that if anything really bad happened, one or the other of them would at least call me, so I didn't let myself dwell on it too much, and just tried to live.

“And then I met Jessica.”

A small smile appeared on Sam's face without his apparent notice, and his voice softened, as if he was speaking directly to someone from the past.

“God…I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was one of those things where all I had to do was look at her for the first time to know that she was all that I wasn't and more. Sweet, and so happy all the time, and with this incredible drive to make sure that the entire world was always as happy as her.

“And I guess she saw…something…in me, too, because within a month we were head-over-heels in love. I mean `in love' as in the chick-flick, kick-up-your-heels, I-will-do-anything-for-this-woman love. I swear, every time I saw her that old song `Crazy For This Girl' would start playing in my head. I was pathetic and happier than I had ever been in my life. It was almost as if that whole demon-hunting thing was a kind of cosmic joke and this was how things were supposed to be.

“And then, about seven or eight months ago, I got a chance to go to an actual law school. I described it as `my entire future on a plate.' And Jess was so proud of me—she wouldn't stop saying so. The interview was set, I had it all planned—it was going to work.

“Then, the Friday before the interview, in the middle of the night, Dean showed up at me and Jess's apartment.” Sam chuckled dryly. “He didn't use the door, either, he climbed in through the window. I was going to sleep when I heard him, and I went down planning to knock some heads.

“Of course, Dean jumped me before I could find him, and since it was dark, I didn't recognize him.”

Dean snorted. “Or so you say. I always thought you just liked hitting me.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, but the point is, he jumped me, and we started fighting. He pinned me in a few seconds, and I finally recognized him. And next thing I knew Jess was there and I was introducing them like it was perfectly normal for my brother who I hadn't spoken to since I'd started college to break into my apartment when it was just as easy to knock on the door.

“So Dean flirted with her for a little while, and then he dragged me outside to finally tell me why he was there.”

“Was it about your dad?” Tara asked.

Sam nodded, unsurprised. There weren't too many other things it could have been, after all. “Yeah. He had gone missing—well, sort of. Dean was working a gig in one state while Dad was in another, and I guess when that happens the two of them are usually in constant communication. But apparently, Dad had stopped calling three weeks before Dean came to Stanford. And Dean wanted me to go and help find him.

“I put up a fight over it at first. I told Dean that Dad had been missing before and he was always fine, and why should I drop everything and go find him? And then Dean pulled out the fact that I'd abandoned him and Dad and the hunt and gone off to live a good life, and then he told me that somehow this time was different and he couldn't do it alone—or more to the point, he didn't want to.

“So I went. Packed and got in the Impala and left Stanford to track the one guy I'd secretly hoped not to see again until I was old and gray.”

“So you left your girlfriend,” Buffy said, scorn coloring her words. “You claimed to love her but you left her at the drop of a hat even though you said your dad was fine.”

It was not Sam who reacted to this, but Dean. He rocketed off the bed so fast that even Buffy didn't have time to react before Dean was on her. He grabbed her by the arm, hard enough to bruise, and shook her roughly, his face livid with fury, ignoring the gasps of alarm as Xander, Giles and Anya each jumped forward. Buffy twisted her arm in his grasp, trying furiously to get free, but Dean's grip was like iron and completely unbreakable.

“Don't you ever say anything like that again,” Dean growled, his voice dangerously low. “I swear to God, if you ever accuse my brother of leaving his girlfriend again, I will kill you, you little b—”

“Let go of her, Dean.”

Once again, Sam's soft voice had an instantaneous affect on his brother. Dean turned quickly, though his hand remained clenched around Buffy's arm.

“Let go of her,” Sam repeated, and now his tone held a bite of impatience. “She doesn't know. Just sit back down before you actually have to fight her. Chances are she could take you.”

The look on Dean's face said very clearly that he doubted it, but he finally released Buffy with a snarl and returned to his spot next to Sam.

Breathing slightly faster than normal, Buffy brushed off the concern of her friends, as well as their rather interesting plans for Dean's fate, and faced Sam again, and she looked surprisingly contrite. “I'm sorry, Sam. I…I wasn't thinking.”

Sam didn't smile at her, but he didn't frown or glare either. “It's…don't worry about it. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, when we left. Well, I had told Dean I absolutely, no arguments, barring a piano or a safe falling on my head and causing temporary insanity that made me want to go back on the road again, had to be back on Monday for my interview.”

“And I'm guessing something kept you from getting back?” Xander spoke up.

“That usually being what happens,” Anya added brightly.

Sam shook his head. “Actually, you're wrong. Things went fine while I was with Dean—with the exception tat we didn't find Dad. We hunted a spirit in Jericho, California, where Dad had been when he'd gone MIA. We took care of the thing and then…Dean drove me back to Stanford. Well, there were some complications along the way, but basically, that's it.

“I was sort of surprised when Dean didn't argue about taking me back to Stanford, but I only had to remind him of it once and he didn't say another word about it, and when we got back to my building he didn't make any attempt to get me to forget Jess and Stanford and my life there. And I left without looking back and went up to my apartment.”

Sam stopped talking then, and Dean knew exactly why, if no one else understood it. Sam had reached the most painful part of the story, the part that he'd never had to tell anyone else.

“Do you want me to take it from here?” Dean asked, in an unusually gentle voice.

Sam shook his head. “No…no, I have to do it.”

“Why?”

Sam ignored the question and went on with the story, his voice shaking with carefully controlled emotion. “The shower was going when I got in, so naturally I assumed that was where Jess was. I put my bag away and went to lie down on the bed.

“I hadn't been lying there for more than five seconds before I felt something dripping down on my face, and opened my eyes.” Sam's hands fisted around the sheets, and his voice rose in pitch. “And there was Jess. She was…she was pinned to the ceiling…her stomach was slashed open…that was where the blood was coming from…and then…”

A single tear rolled silently down Sam's cheek, freezing about halfway. He wiped it away almost angrily.

“I knew what was going to happen. How could I not, after hearing so many times from Dean how my mom had died? But I couldn't move. I wanted so badly to pull her down, but it was like I was as stuck as she was. And a second later she was burning, along with the ceiling and the rest of the apartment.

“I would have died then. I had no thoughts of escape or even trying it. I just laid there and screamed her name and watched her burn and wished it was me instead and waited for the fire and then Dean came.

“I didn't even notice he was there until he started pulling me out, and I didn't try to fight him. I just didn't think to do anything but scream. And then we were outside, the firefighters were on the way…and Jess was dead.”

“So Sam came back on the road with me,” Dean said, picking up the story when Sam's voice finally failed. “He took a break from college and…picked up the hunt again. Only now he was doing it for vengeance instead of for the sake of family.”

Once he'd reached the end pf the story, silence fell, tense and anxious. Sam looked at the pillow in his arms, Dean looked at Sam, and everyone else looked at one or the other or both.

“And how did you come to have these prophecy dreams?” Giles asked, gently pulling Sam from his reverie.

“Oh…I started having them a week or so before Jess died,” Sam replied vaguely. “And they're not prophecies. They're just…visions of people who need help.”

“And the dream you and Buffy had tonight—that was one of those?”

Sam nodded at the same time as Buffy said, “I already told you it was.”

Dean turned so that he was facing Sam fully, and said, “Tell me about the dream.”

So, Sam recounted the whole strange, confusing thing. Well, at any rate, he recounted the part with the dying man, having entirely forgotten the other guy. When he came to the part about the destroyed city being L.A., Xander, Willow, Tara, Dawn, Giles, and Anya all gave cries of alarm, and Buffy leapt forward and positively screamed, “WHAT?” It was only after Sam explained that there was still a chance to prevent it that calm was restored.

“S-so basically the thing is either on its way to California or already here,” Buffy said, her voice slightly shakier than even the present situation warranted.

“And it's very strong and very powerful and capable of taking out an entire city in a couple of hours,” Willow added.

“And you, Sam, are the one who's gonna beat it, with our help,” Tara put in.

“That about sums it up,” Sam said weakly.

“Yeah, but why?” Dean demanded. “Why you, Sam?”

“I…don't know,” Sam said quietly. “But I do know one thing, Dean—I have to learn to control all of these things. If I don't…we're dead.”

He didn't know how he knew, but he did.

And the thought that it all hinged on him was absolutely terrifying.

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AN: Okay, so this chapter may have been boring for all Supernatural viewers. But like Kurama's story, it needed to be told, so…yeah. Anyways, review, please!

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“The story of your life is not your life. It is your story.” -Unknown

“Live in the present, remember the past, and fear not the future, for it does not exist and never shall.” -Saphira, The Eldest by Christopher Paolini