Static - Section One

[glasslogic]

Prologue

We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark

and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.

                                                                                ~From Beyond, H.P. Lovecraft

Lilith stood alone in an empty house, pale pink pajamas clashing with the thick streaks of crimson on small, delicate hands. She had always had an affinity for little girls. The shock and horror as people realized that what was looking out of wide eyes was in no way young or innocent added a special delicious edge to their fear. Lilith was all about edges.

She stepped lightly over the corpses of loving parents and strode out into the night, unconcerned with the bloody footprints she left in her wake. It had taken her weeks of struggle to regain enough strength to claim a new body after the disaster of Illchester, but she had that strength now, and safe within the shell of stolen flesh, she cast her senses wide to see what had happened in her absence.

Frustration like Lilith could never remember experiencing twisted in her at the memory of those last few moments in the convent. They had worked for so long. Everything had seemed perfect in the beginning. Lucifer’s plan all those long, long ages ago when he had first tricked the angels of Hell into their trap, that living layer of power that forced them deep into Entropy and away from the world. Hell’s guardians then dealt with, Lucifer had carved out the Rendering for his followers, a place for them to feast and grow strong off the terror and pain of every soul that entered the domain. They made the Entropic Plane a place to be feared.

But they had misjudged their enemies. Even bound deep in Entropy, the angels of Hell had struck back, grabbing tight hold of the most powerful and fiercest of Lucifer’s followers and pulling them deep into the chaos winds as well until all of their strength and power was spent simply maintaining their identities against the inexorable pull of dissolution. Then, with the strongest neutralized and Lucifer himself distracted with their plight, Michael had sprung his own trap and locked their Master away in the Cage.

Lucifer’s followers despaired, but not for long. Somewhere there was a lock, and to that lock a key. They need only be patient and watchful, and they would still have what was promised --dominion and power over all in the World and in Hell. But when finally, finally, the day had come when the lock was revealed and the key brought to light, once again everything was snatched from their grasp.

They had plotted and planned for millennia to free Lucifer to claim his throne. Thousands of years of searching and waiting, hoarding power and hiding alliances, all for that one moment when the fruits of their long labor would be realized and their Lord would usher in a new age, their vision of what the Plane should be.

All that long hope obliterated in an instant by one human, a mayfly existence beneath her notice had he not been so vital to their plans through an accident of fate and lineage. Samuel Winchester.

She mouthed the name quietly, but no direction came to mind. He was well and truly buried behind wards and power that smothered his presence to her simple detection. Just as well. She was still furious enough that had he been in easy reach she might have done something... rash. He was still the only key to the lock on Lucifer’s cage, and as soon as she found the door again, she would need him to open it. His willingness was not necessary. Not even desirable anymore. She wanted to watch him writhe, to see the knowledge of what was happening as she forced him to shatter the last seal. She would never get to witness his expression as her Master crushed his will, but Lilith could envision the moment and it was glorious.

Samuel hadn’t even really been the problem; she had dealt with him handily enough -- it was his brother. Without Dean Winchester’s interference, Samuel would have been easy prey. She had thought Dean safely out of the way in Hell. He had been useful to her there, but then surprised her with his... resiliency. And his strength. And his choice of allies; though in his position, she might have clung to any offered hand as well. She would have to see him destroyed, but the matter wasn’t her most pressing. Until she found the cage again, he would serve as a suitable guardian for Samuel’s life.

Many of Lucifer’s powerful and faithful had been gathered at Illchester to welcome their Master’s return, and when Samuel had shattered that ward, banishing them from borrowed flesh and scattering them to the wind... they would have still been in the World. The magic hadn’t been strong enough to drive them from the Plane, just hamper them for a while.

She wanted to know what the demons had been up to, wanted to know if they had begun to search again for the door to their Master’s prison. She didn’t trust their dedication without direction to guide it; she needed to know what had been happening in the weeks that she had been gone.

And when she found out, she began to laugh.



Chapter One

"I have grown to believe that a stone is a better pillow than many visions"

                                                                                  ~Robinson Jeffers, Clouds of Evening

Bobby opened his eyes in the dawn stillness of his quiet bedroom. The air was cool and his sheets were warm, with only the gentle rustling of wind outside in the trees to break the silence. He glanced over at his alarm clock and swore. Good sleep was a rarity anyway, but he’d been sleeping a lot worse lately and he knew exactly who to blame for it. The sun was barely above the horizon, leaving him to pick his way through the long shadows of early morning on his way to the kitchen. Bobby glanced through the open door of the guest bedroom as he passed it in the hall, but the tangled sheets of the twin bed were empty and no doubt cold.

He wasn’t at all surprised to find Sam in the kitchen with the lights off and his head resting on folded arms.

Bobby flipped the light switch on.

“You look like hell,” he greeted his guest.

Sam winced at the sudden brightness, rumpled and barely awake. He sat up with a yawn. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Breathing,” Bobby grunted and looked in the pantry to see what kind of groceries were on hand. “I hadn’t planned on getting up with the sun, but something keeps disturbing my rest.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Sam did look sorry, but mostly he looked exhausted.

“Screaming in the middle of the night is a little hard to ignore.” Bobby leaned against the counter, face lined with concern. “You ever get back to sleep?”

“Didn’t even try. I had enough nightmares for one night.”

Bobby nodded in understanding and bent to dig through the fridge. “Where’s the demon?”

“Bobby...” Sam started wearily.

“He lives in my house, eats my food, uses my tools, and argues with me about the timing belt on my own damn truck. We’ve made our peace with each other, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna forget for one instant what he is now. He might be --I don't know-- reformed, but we can't ignore what he is. Your brother's still a demon, Sam. And part of not ignoring that is knowing what he’s up to when he’s not dodging your shadow.”

The rumble of the Impala in the yard answered the question before Sam had to. A minute later the dull thud of a booted foot kicking against the frame had Bobby opening the door with a narrow-eyed look.

“Morning, Bobby.” Dean walked in, hands full of hot coffee and a brown paper bag tucked under one arm. Whatever he had in there smelled fantastic and Bobby decided to forgive Dean for any damage to the paint. As long as there was something in the bag for him.

“What’d you bring?”

“Sausage egg biscuits.” Dean handed him a steaming cup of coffee and set another on the table next to Sam’s elbow. Sam had his head back on his arms and barely bothered looking up.

Dean passed the biscuits out then glared at Sam until his brother reluctantly straightened up again and started eating.

Bobby waited until he had a few bites of his own breakfast in his belly before addressing the problem at hand. “I’ve been patient, but this is getting out of hand. Sam, you’ve woken me up ten nights out of the last fourteen. I can handle the interrupted nights, but you look like you’re about to drop dead from exhaustion and I don’t see any signs it’s getting better anytime soon. Is this related to that psychic bullshit or are these homegrown nightmares, because if it’s just bad dreams we might be able to get something to deal with that. Your body won’t run much longer without rest.”

“Drugs? To make it harder to wake up from his nightmares?” Dean snorted and crumpled his wrapper up. “Doesn’t sound like much of a solution to me.”

“Which neatly avoids my actual question,” Bobby snapped.

Sam picked at half of his biscuit. “We don’t know. I don’t usually have visions when I’m sleeping.”

Bobby caught the sidelong glance between the brothers before Sam turned back to his food. His eyes narrowed in annoyance. “I think I’ve been pretty accepting of a lot of crap from you guys. So cut the bull and just tell me what the hell is going on,” Bobby growled at them. “You weren’t having nightmares when I picked you up from Illchester after that mess with Lilith, and you weren’t having nightmares for the first few weeks after Dean showed back up. You had... what, two?- visions in the daytime that didn’t seem to go anywhere. You said Missouri told you it might just be random crap strained out of the whatever. Excuse me if I find it a little odd that now out of nowhere you can barely close your eyes before you scream yourself, and me, awake!”

“Three,” Sam muttered. “I had three visions.”

Bobby shot him a scathing look. “Well, hell. That changes everything.”

“Generally,” Dean chucked his wrapper into the trashcan, “the only psychic whatever Sam has had going on when he’s been asleep was when he was chatting with his pen pal in Hell.”

“The so-called angel,” Bobby grunted.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “But those weren’t really visions, that was the angel trying to be helpful and Sam being psychic made him easier to reach. Real visions just happen. They give him headaches. Talking to the angel gives him headaches too, but neither one of them have ever caused anything like these nightmares.”

Bobby could remember at least one time chatting with the angel had given Sam a lot more than a headache, but exceptions proved the rules and he only nodded and looked at Sam. “So you’ve never had a vision while you were asleep?”

“Just one. When we were looking for the spell ingredients to move the door to Lucifer’s cage. It didn’t seem significant.”

“Does it seem significant now?” Bobby asked dryly.

“Not really.” Sam sank back in his chair and rubbed at his eyes.

“And you don’t remember anything?”

Sam shook his head.

“And still no idea what it is you’re saying?”

“No,” Dean said in disgust. “He yells the same thing every night and it’s just a bunch of garbled syllables as far as I can tell. We’ve looked it up and asked around -- nothing.”

Bobby frowned at Sam. “Have you tried contacting that angel thing again? Not that I’m real eager to have you trying to contact something in Hell, but maybe it knows what’s going on.”

Dean scowled. “He’s not in any more danger trying to contact the angels in Hell than he would be trying to contact the ones in Heaven. Less, probably -- the angels up above seem a little confused and unreliable on the subject of Sam. We’ve been over this, Bobby! Hell isn’t evil, Heaven isn’t good. That’s just labels and crap advertising.”

“You keep saying that, but I’m not sure I’m buying,” Bobby snorted. “You might be a tame lion, but I’ve met plenty of other demons who don’t fit into this blissful image of the afterlife you’re selling.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed in marginal irritation. “Heaven and Hell are just labels for the polar Planes of Creation and Entropy--”

“--Order and Chaos,” Sam mumbled, face buried in his arms again.

“Yeah, Sam. Good input.” Dean rolled his eyes. “Human souls are drawn to one or the other after death, neither of them is bad, you just... rejoin the whole. Little drops of water falling back into the pond. Hell gets a bad rap because Lucifer carved the Rendering out of the top layer of the Entropic Plane to give his groupies a little processing plant where they get to strain all the souls bound for Entropy and warp and twist them into being just as bad as their captors. Like a recruitment drive, but with scalpels. It’s not Hell that’s the problem, it’s the fucking Rendering demons. And if we can figure out a way to spring the angels of Hell from the trap Lucifer tricked them into, they can set things back right. No more Rendering, no more demons. Everyone goes home happy.”

“The other demons won’t be,” Bobby said dryly.

“They won’t be unhappy.” Dean’s smile was colder than Bobby had ever seen on his living face. “What they will be is stripped of power and tossed back in the soup like they should have been when they died in the first place, so nobody cares how they feel.”

Sam twisted what was left of his biscuit up in the wrapper, ignoring the look Dean leveled on him. “You said those aren’t the only demons in Hell.”

“Right,” Dean agreed with exaggerated patience. “But like I told you, the Entropic demons don’t give a rat’s ass about the Material Plane. This place is a mix of both polarities, and the demons of either Entropy or Creation would just be pain-maddened and unhappy here. They have zero interest in this place.”

Bobby got up and pulled a carton of juice out of the fridge. “We’re getting a little off track, not that this isn’t interesting too. But we’re working on Sam’s problem right now.”

“This whole Hell thing kind of is my problem, since Dean and I are signed up to somehow spring the angels trapped in the Pit.” Sam cast his brother an annoyed look.

“Hey!” Dean defended himself. “I only agreed to do that in exchange for their help getting, you know, out of Hell, so I could come back up here and save your ass. Oh yeah, and everyone else on the planet’s ass as well. Plus, I offered to cut you completely free after we kicked the crap out of Lilith. You’re the one that insisted this was an us thing now and you wanted to come along on my next big adventure.”

“Well it’s not like I can actually go that far from you, Dean! I have this little problem, remember?”

“The voices in your head?” Dean raised an eyebrow.

Sam gave him a withering look and took a sip of the juice Bobby set in front of him.

“Ah,” Dean smirked. “You mean your uncontrollable lust for my hot body.”

Sam choked on his juice and Bobby cleared his throat loudly. “That’s really not a subject I need to hear anymore about. Ever. And also not what we were discussing.”

“It’s not your body,” Sam hissed when he could speak again. “It’s your blood, and it’s a freaking curse, Dean!”

“Hey.” Bobby glared at them both, though it was doubtful they noticed since they were busy glaring at each other. “Enough about that already. That’s not the problem at hand; your sanity is a little more important at the moment than whatever other crap is looming in the future. Have you tried, I dunno, meditation or something?”

Sam broke his attention away from Dean to find his coffee cup, swallowed the last of that and then looked hopefully around for more. “I’ve tried everything we can think of and nothing is making a dent. I can’t even tell you if it’s the same nightmare, because I don’t remember a damn thing about it.”

“Then what’s the plan?” Bobby demanded.

Sam shrugged and peeled some of the paper label absently from his cup.

Dean swallowed half of his remaining coffee and set what was left in front of Sam before answering for both of them. “Keep our fingers crossed and hope it goes away.”

“Yeah.” Bobby stood up from the table and pulled his jacket off the back of his chair in disgust. “You boys let me know how that goes for you.” He glanced at Dean. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours; maybe you can come up with something to make him sleep in the meantime.”

After Bobby was gone and the rumble of his truck had faded from hearing, Sam tossed what was left of his food into the trashcan and headed back to the stairs. Dean trailed in his wake.

He followed Sam into the guest bedroom and leaned against the wall while Sam toed off his shoes and sank onto the edge of the mattress.

“Taking a nap?”

Sam nodded mutely.

“Gonna be able to sleep?”

“I’ll let you know after I try.” Sam’s eyes narrowed. “And what the hell was that downstairs with shoving the curse under Bobby’s nose like that?!”

“Hey,” Dean’s shrug was easy, “you’re the one talking about your little problem; I just said what we were all already filling in.”

“I really don’t think Bobby has ever considered you, me and the phrase ‘uncontrollable lust’ in the same general idea before. So thanks for making his morning special.”

“Oh please,” Dean snorted, sinking onto the mattress beside Sam. “What do you think he left for?”

Sam just blinked at him.

“You need sleep, you don’t feel good, he suddenly has to take off and lets us know we have a few hours alone -- do you need more of a map here, Sam? Because I’m not seeing a lot of comprehension in your eyes.”

“No,” Sam said flatly, sitting up a little straighter, suddenly painfully aware of how close Dean was on the bed. He’d actually been painfully aware of Dean for the last couple of days, but hadn’t got around to doing anything about it yet. The cycle of the curse was not perfectly predictable, but he generally had about three or so weeks before he had to slake his body’s need for the power in Dean’s veins and trade for it his own kind of... release. Lilith’s curse had been meant to bind Sam to Ruby, to tangle them together with chains of sex, blood and power, so that when the time came, he would be able to shatter the last Seal and free Lucifer from his prison.

But she hadn’t taken Dean’s plans into account. Reasonable, since she had sent him to Hell and probably didn’t think he was in much position to do anything. But underestimating the Winchesters hadn’t paid off for a lot of monsters, and Lilith was no exception. Dean had made his bargain and returned, furious and powerful. He had stolen the curse from Ruby and taken its mark upon his own flesh, the unavoidable consequence of which was taking Sam into his bed as well.

Or on the carpet, or in the Impala, or just about anywhere else.

It was that kind of curse.

To say Sam was unhappy about it was an understatement, but they had won in the end. And to have averted the Apocalypse and gained some small measure of revenge for what had been done to their family... Sam couldn’t weigh that against the twisted bonds forged between himself and his brother and not be satisfied with the balance. No matter how irritating Dean could be about the whole thing or how much Sam didn’t want to discuss it in front of Bobby.

“What do you mean no?” Dean asked narrowly, crossing creaking floorboards to stand by the bed. “He gave us a window; it will knock your ass out, you’ve dragged this just about out to the point where I force the issue anyway, and you won’t feel like crap when you wake up. What’s the problem?”

“You know what the problem is,” Sam growled. “I don’t want to do that here!”

Dean flopped onto his back and crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the ceiling.

“And you wanted to know why I mentioned it in front of Bobby.” It wasn’t a question.

“What does that have to do with anything?!” Sam demanded.

“It’s not a secret what we do together, Sam! He helped you when you were figuring out what to do with Ruby -- you think it somehow escaped his grasp what it meant when she was out of the picture and it was me with the tattoo? I promise you, if it did, it sure didn’t escape him when we brought you back here dying and I had to spill gallons of blood down your throat to keep you alive.”

Sam eyes widened with outrage. “You said you kicked him out for that!”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I needed his help to take care of you. I did kick him out as much as I could, but you were pretty obviously desperate and it was pretty obvious what you were desperate for! You were dying, Sam. He knows it’s a spell, that this isn’t something you would choose. But we’ve been here for almost three months now and except for the night I came back, every couple of weeks when we have to deal with this, you act all weird and insist we sneak off and get a motel room for a few hours. I’m fine with the polyester sheets and thin walls, but if you think Bobby doesn’t know exactly where we’re going and why, you’re kidding yourself.”

“We go out all the time and it’s not for that!”

“Yeah,” Dean snorted. “But usually when you tell Bobby we’re going out for awhile you aren’t staring over his shoulder and turning scarlet. I get that this isn’t your ideal situation, but I’m tired of acting like it’s some dirty secret. Bobby knows; he doesn’t care. I do care, so knock off the scandalized virgin act.”

Sam grabbed a pillow from the headboard and shoved it up against the wall, then leaned back until he was lying beside Dean. “It’s not a dirty secret, Dean. I just... this place was the closest thing we had to home. I took my first steps in the downstairs hall, we both learned to fire a gun in the back field, and I think your name is still carved into the side of the desk downstairs from when you first learned to spell it. This place is full of our childhoods, and Dad, and family. I don’t like having sex with you in the same bed we used to tell ghost stories by flashlight under the covers in! It’s not you, or the sex, it’s everything together. Bobby knowing is just icing on the cake.”

Dean thought about that for a few minutes. “Do you have any special attachment to Bobby’s bed? Because that’s just down the hall...”

Sam elbowed him hard in the ribs. Dean elbowed back, but more good naturedly.

“Maybe we should think about leaving.”

Sam turned to look at him, surprised. “Why? Because every few weeks or so I get a little uncomfortable here?”

Dean shrugged. “A lot of reasons. You might be less of a prima donna if we’re not squatting with a family friend; Bobby can start sleeping through the night again--”

“Bobby isn’t sleeping because I’m screaming him awake in the middle of the night, not because he has a demon living under his roof,” Sam interrupted.

Dean rolled his eyes. “I meant you’re waking him up in the middle of the night. You think Bobby still has issues with me?”

“You know he does. I mean... you do know that, right?” Sam was suddenly unsure. The demon Dean had been when they had first hit the road together wouldn’t have cared what Bobby thought about him, but he had changed and Sam didn’t always know just how far those changes went.

“Chill, Sam. He’s been a heck of a lot more understanding than I ever would have thought he’d be. Just because he keeps a flask of holy water on his belt and a consecrated blade in his boot doesn’t mean we can’t get along.”

“Right.” Sam still sounded dubious and Dean’s smile was a little more genuine.

“There’s just really no reason for us to stay. We’ve been through everything here, the internet is universal, we have phones, and anything else can be mailed to us wherever we go as easily as it can be shipped here. Or we can just go get it. It’s freaking cold in this state, and since we aren’t making a lot of progress on the research front, I mean... this may take years, Sam. Decades even. Do you really want to be living with Bobby when you’re old and creaky? If you’re old and creaky, just think about how Bobby will be. I don’t know about you, but I’m not up for bedpan duty.”

“That’s real charitable of you, Dean. Glad to know you’ve considered all of the angles.” Sam was still having trouble contemplating a future where he lived to grow old; worrying about the details was still a ways off.

“Seriously, Sam. We aren’t getting anywhere; we can’t even find a reference to Entropy or angels in Hell, much less anything about the barrier or how to free them. This could be the rest of your life. Do you really want to spend it in Bobby’s guest bedroom?” Seeing indecision in Sam’s face, Dean pressed on. “There’s another thought too, you know. Maybe your nightmares are just the stress of everything finally catching up. You start to unwind a little now that that bitch Lilith is off our case, and it’s just all falling on your head at once. I know you like Bobby, but this place is kind of tied to a lot of that crap. You need a change of scenery.”

“I like how you think you can sit here and tell me what I need, Dean.”

Dean shrugged. “Moving out sounds like win/win/win to me. Bobby wins by getting us out of his house, you win by maybe sleeping better, and I win by having to put up with less whining and sneaking around. Not having Bobby staring holes in my back would be a good thing too.”

“Let me think about it.”

“Isn’t that your way of saying ‘Sure, but I’m going to punish you for thinking of it first by making my agreement as painfully long and drawn out as possible’?”

Sam glared but refrained from arguing, the tracery of veins visible on the inside of Dean’s arm catching his eye. He was exhausted, his head was killing him, and he could feel the fine tremors of withdrawal running through his body. Bobby was out of the house, and his other protests seemed... uncompelling with Dean lying warm and willing not even an arm’s length away. It was tempting to insist on a motel room just to be annoying, but not really worth the inconvenience.

“No guarantee if we do this I’ll sleep afterwards. It’s still exhausting, but not an automatic light’s out anymore, you know. Not since...”

“Since Illchester.” Sensing capitulation, Dean relaxed into the mattress. The cyclical tie between them could be a chancy thing and Dean was never entirely certain which way Sam would go when it came time to bend to its dictates. Right after a power exchange, Sam’s emotional state would blaze between them like a neon light at ten feet, but then it would fade and shift into a more physical awareness. Dean imagined it had been cast that way so Ruby could manipulate Sam better without letting the withdrawal go so far he might actually die, but there was no way to know; it could have just been a screw-up. The people who might have an answer were the kind of people they needed to avoid and the knowledge wouldn’t change anything. The curse was what it was. Besides, the effect was more subtle since they had destroyed Lilith’s plans -- another of the strange new differences in the unconventional bond they shared.

“Do you think Lilith affected it somehow when she tried to take it?” Sam asked.

Dean grimaced, those harrowing minutes when Lilith had him trapped in the spell circle and tried to flay the curse off of him so she could take Sam had been the equivalent of anything he had experienced in the Rendering, before he had broken the first Seal and angelic whispers drew him deeper into the darkness of Hell. But the circle had been broken in the nick of time and she had failed. Such an utter, complete failure that even these months later an involuntary smile crept over his lips as he relived it.

“Dean?”

Dean turned his head to face Sam again. His brother really did look awful, pale with circles under his eyes that were so dark he almost looked like he had been punched. “I don’t think she affected anything, Sam. She tried to mess with it and fell on her face.”

“You and Ruby both said I would get stronger, maybe that’s why I don’t pass out anymore when we finish,” Sam mused.

“‘Stronger’ meaning you can take and store more demonic power; it shouldn’t change how the spell actually functions, though. I mean, I can’t imagine why it would.”

“So then why are things different?” Sam demanded.

“Are they?” Dean reached out and traced a finger over the skin of Sam’s waist where his shirt had ridden up. Sam shivered and tensed but didn’t try to move away. “Maybe you’re just less stressed and things feel different. And you are getting more used to... other talents. Maybe that’s messing up your perception. Let’s get this over with, and then you can rest.” He swept his hand up under Sam’s shirt until he could rest his palm over his brother’s heart.

“I don’t want to dream anymore,” Sam confessed in a low voice.

Dean pulled his hand free and shifted until he could look down at his brother. “I’ll stay right here, Sam. The first sound, the first twitch, I’ll wake you up.”

The look in Dean’s eyes was completely serious and Sam found himself nodding. “Okay. Just... okay.”

He had barely finished speaking before Dean rolled off the bed entirely and went to rummage in his duffle bag. Three months and neither one of them had taken over so much as a drawer. Old habits.

Sam kicked his jeans and boxers off and pulled his shirt over his head with quick, economical movements. He had pushed it rather late this time, and the more strung out he was, the less control he had over himself after the bleeding stopped. He needed Dean to touch him, needed that touch and that pleasure so much that ripping his clothes beyond repair was a poor second to getting them off. Easier, then, just to start off naked in the first place. He hated shopping for clothes.

Dean was back a moment later, the familiar, silvery blade in one hand. He sat back down on the edge of the mattress and cut deeply into his wrist. Sam was sealing his mouth over the wound even as blood welled to the surface. Dean waited until he was sure Sam was completely absorbed in the thrall of the spell, then ghosted his free hand over his brother’s dark hair.

“No more bad dreams today, Sam. I promise.”



Chapter Two

The Eastern world, it is exploding
Violence flarin', bullets loadin'

                                                                             ~Eve Of Destruction, Barry McGuire

Dean scowled and tore his attention away from the in-store display television he had been watching. Sam was standing behind him, holding up two different bottles of cheap shampoo. Dean pointed at one randomly then turned back to the screen with its serious-looking reporter and pictures of unhappy people milling about. He was still watching it five minutes later when Sam returned, holding a half-full handbasket of groceries.
“What’s so interesting?”

Dean took the shopping basket, scowled at the toothpaste Sam had picked out, and dropped in a box of Cheese-Its. “They think there might be a few thousand people missing out in Asia.”

Sam looked a little taken-aback. “Just... missing? A few thousand?”

“Nomadic tribes,” Dean answered absently, eyes glued to the screen again. “It took people awhile to notice because they moved around and no one ever reported it. But I guess there was some kind of seasonal gathering and only about half the guests showed up, so they started looking and found zilch.”

Sam did some quick computations in his head about seasons and geography. “Maybe it was a bad winter and they froze to death.”

“These are people who have lived out there for generations, Sam. I might buy a few getting taken by surprise and turning up with the melt, but a few thousand? With no survivors to report it?”

“What’s your hypothesis then?” Sam asked as Dean lost interest in the report and they headed for the front to check-out.

“Maybe it was the world’s biggest sink hole,” Dean suggested.

“Yeah, Dean. Because that’s something the locals would have missed. What about a demon?”

Dean was quiet for a few minutes, then shrugged. “Sure. A few working together could probably have managed something like that. More powerful ones might even be able to gain control over a group, kind of like a mass brainwashing. I just don’t see why. Getting to this Plane isn’t easy without a gate like the one in Wyoming. You either have to work really, really hard for centuries, or hitch your wagon to a major player who can drag you across. The minor pests couldn’t have managed it, and the big problems aren’t as interested in being here as people seem to think. In Hell they have power, and followers, and as much pain and degradation as they can stand. Here... well, without an agenda like the one that brought Lilith and ol’ Yellow Eyes sniffing around there isn’t much to attract them. Sure, they don’t have to compete for victims and space like they do down below, but you can only kill so many people before you start attracting attention. Plus you can only torture them so much before they die and you have to stop to find another victim. Then some hunter comes along and spoils the fun. It’s a lot of aggravation just to get your ass deported.”

“But it still could have been a couple of the lesser ones?”

“Yeah, but they are even less interested in getting caught than the serious threats are. The nuisances come up here to get away from stronger demons, and they don’t exactly get along with each other. Trust is in short supply in Hell. I can’t imagine a group of them working together long enough to kill several thousand people. I would look for some local boogeyman that got disturbed out of a couple of centuries of snooze and needed to fill its belly.”

Sam drummed his fingers on the door thoughtfully. “Pastor Jim said once that demons could get power from hurting people. Could they have been raising power for something?”

Dean grimaced.

Sam recalled sharply that Dean’s information came firsthand; it made him suddenly less interested in the answer. “Never mind, I’m sure there are local hunters looking into it if they think it’s something. What are we doing for dinner?”

“Anything involving a bun and about half a pound of grilled cattle.”

Sam groaned. “We bought soup; what about we have that instead?”

“What about we don’t.” They spent enough time in research and quiet that Dean insisted on eating out most nights, drawing energy from the variety and bustle of the crowds. Sam could almost feel his arteries hardening just from the air in the places Dean preferred.

“Can we at least try and find a place with a salad bar this time?”

“Salad bar, fern bar, nacho bar, whatever. As long as they do burgers too. What about that place on Tanner Street we passed yesterday? They advertised burgers.”

“That would be a biker bar, Dean. I want something to eat that didn’t get run through a slaughterhouse first, not to play pool with drunks.”

“You must have been a lot of fun in college, Sam. I can’t believe you got a girl like Jessica to date you. She must have been taking pity on your sorry ass, trying to save you from a life that would make a monk cry.”

They were still arguing about it when they walked together into the house they had rented just a few streets off the student ghetto, an area where a constant revolving door of tenants ensured that nothing short of an explosion would stand out as odd. Dean had secured a six-month no-questions-asked lease by agreeing to pay in cash and up front. The landlord just seemed happy they weren’t in a fraternity and in the two months since they moved in hadn’t so much as knocked on the door.

Leaving Bobby’s had turned out to be a good thing; though Sam would pull his own fingernails out before he mentioned that to Dean. But in the privacy of his own thoughts he admitted to himself that out on the road again he felt... lighter. Like he had left some of the smothering weight of his past and his future in the dusty corners of the salvage yard. It helped that the early spring days had been mild and sunny. With the windows rolled down on the Impala and Dean’s mix tapes rolling out tunes Sam had first learned in the more carefree days of his childhood, it was almost peaceful. Dean was still a demon, other denizens of Hell would probably stand in line for a chance to takes pieces out of either of them, and they were facing a task that neither one of them had a clue how to begin. But on the open road with no immediate pressure, those things seemed far away for awhile.

They had drifted southwards, tracking down a few of the visions Sam had had since Illchester, but none of them panned out to anything. An empty field, a grocery store, a burned out car. Nothing Sam had seen in the visions had indicated anything special about them, and nothing they could find once they were tracked down had seemed important either. The visions themselves had an oddly flat feel, like still pictures with no depth. Before the showdown with Lilith, all of Sam’s visions had come charged with a sense of urgency and foreboding. But these new ones were just... empty.

“It’s like Missouri told you,” Dean had argued around a mouthful of lunch one afternoon in another anonymous truck-stop diner. “You’ve got this ability, and it doesn’t go away just because you aren’t actively using it. It took you for-freaking-ever to get it turned on right in the first place, and you barely know what the hell you’re doing with it, so you probably suck at finding the off switch. The visions are just random crap floating around out there.”

Sam had leaned in to retort. “I’m not trying to shut it down, Dean! I’m trying to focus in on getting information about our little angel problem. You know, the one we’ve come up completely blank on so far?!”

“And getting old cars and dead grass?” Dean had raised a dubious eyebrow then turned his attention to flagging down a waitress to get a dessert menu. “I think you need to reset your dial. Maybe start with something simpler. Why don’t you concentrate and see if you can find us the tastiest apple pie in all of Oklahoma?”

Sam had studied him suspiciously, but all he’d been able to see in Dean’s eyes was shining sincerity. He’d groaned and given up.

Out on the road, even his nightmares had eventually faded away. Not instantly, there were a couple of bad nights, but by the end of the third week he was sleeping more and screaming less and then soon it was as if he had never had them at all.

But without any place specific to be, the endless driving was just taking up time that could be put to better use, and they settled on Lubbock, Texas, as a place to put down roots for awhile. Half a year was as long as either of them felt was safe to stay in one place, even with the university and the transient nature of the population helping to mask them. Sam spent days on the phone or buried in the computer teasing out obscure leads, exchanging information with contacts he had made over the seven years he had hidden himself away from the world. He spent hours sunk deep in meditation, trying to feel the edges of the aura he had constructed with Missouri’s guidance months ago, trying to weave his needs into the elusive fabric, desperate for any information he could gather.

Sam also took a lot of long walks.

For his own part, Dean spent time with his car, or seeking his own leads. He wasn’t having any more luck than Sam was. Frankly, Sam was pleased Dean was spending so much time in the yard. If Sam’s outlook had improved by hitting the road, Dean’s had seemed to grow more... erratic. Dean’s personality hadn’t always been the most comfortable, and becoming a demon had definitely put an edge on his sarcasm and humor, but now there was a new indefinable something that made Sam uneasy. Nothing he could actually call his brother on, just a sort of restless undercurrent, a look in his eye sometimes that reminded him that while Dean might be his brother, he was also still a demon.

Knowing that the search for clues might take years was different than enduring the search, and Sam was starting to give serious thought to starting his consulting business up again. It would give him more contacts and access to more information in barter, and after weeks of domesticity the consistent failure to turn over any leads was taking its toll on Sam’s nerves. That living with Dean was like living with a two-year-old in some respects was just adding fuel to the fire. They didn’t have a lot, a few pots and pans, some glasses and a cheap dinnerware set was all, but it still seemed like every time Sam walked into the kitchen what little they did have was scattered all over the counters no matter how carefully Sam had stacked things away in drawers and cabinets. His favorite was when instead of drug out and scattered, everything was still neatly tucked away -- in the wrong places. Dean’s only response when Sam called him on it was a shrug and a topic change. It was like he was trying to drive Sam crazy.

One afternoon when Sam was slamming things back into their proper places, --again, he heard the squeak of the floor and spun only to be met by Dean shoving a pair of sneakers into his chest. “It’s a beautiful day; go for a run.”

“You aren’t Dad,” Sam snapped, shoving the shoes away.

“You’re right.” Dean shoved back and Sam staggered, his brother’s smile tight and unamused. “I’m not Dad, which is how you know I’m being completely honest when I say if you don’t go burn off some of this anxiety, I will beat you like a drum.”

“I just don’t understand how you can be so cavalier about this, Dean! We aren’t getting anywhere. At this rate, the only way we will free the angels is if we trip and actually land on the damn barrier. It’s your soul on the chopping block! The angels got you out of the Rendering, and they sent you back to... here. I’m grateful, I really am. But I’m going to be less grateful if this little thing they want in exchange turns out to be completely freaking impossible! And as a penalty for failure, I would think after what you went through, you would be taking the possibility of eternal torment at the hands of frustrated angels a little more seriously too!”

Dean crossed his arms, sneakers dangling from one hand. “I told you, human souls can’t be prevented from descending into Entropy if they choose it. The souls stuck in the Rendering are there because they believe the lies the demons tell them, that it gets worse the further they fall. So they linger there until they are as damaged and twisted and demonic as their captors. If they would let go, they would be free. You don’t need to worry about me.”

Sam gave him a truly scathing look, complete with narrowed eyes and twitching jaw muscle. “Gee, Dean. And if I was stupid, that would comfort me. It’s like you think I can’t put two and two together. I remember when you told me that the first time, you said demons couldn’t hold a human soul out of the Rendering. You said no deal with a demon would hold weight against the pull of Creation or Entropy if the soul was unwilling to be held. But I didn’t hear you say a damn thing about angels and agreements with them! Since you know about how the Rendering works, and they told you in the first place, I don’t think they would have made the penalty for not holding up your end of the deal something you could wriggle out of on a whim!”

“Are you finished?” Dean asked once Sam ran out of steam. Sam nodded shortly.

“First of all, that’s the penalty if I fail, but no one set a timer. They’ve been trapped for... ever really, as far as we’re concerned. There’s no clock counting down seconds, and no axe over my head. I’ve got decades, even centuries to work on this thing. As long as I am on this Plane and free to act, I haven’t failed. So get your panties untwisted and stop flipping out. Besides, you haven’t agreed to anything. When you kick the bucket you’ll be free to go wherever you’re supposed to. I hope you remember my little tips about what to do if you go sailing off into Entropy, but other than that nothing about this deal affects you. This isn’t your problem, Sam. I appreciate you’re trying to be helpful and all, but wearing yourself out and exploding isn’t really the kind of help I need.”

Sam stared at him for a moment, then ripped his sneakers from Dean’s grasp, pulled them on and bent to tie them with short, angry motions. When he stood up, he looked Dean straight in the eye.

“The biggest difference between you before you died and when you came back is crap like that. Not my problem?! Ignoring the fact that freeing the angels would save a whole lot of other people from a virtual eternity of torture, the idea that I wouldn’t do anything to save you from that kind of fate... Fuck you, Dean. And stop screwing with the kitchen!” Sam slammed out of the house before Dean could respond, and didn’t know if he was relieved or depressed when Dean didn’t try to follow him.

Next Section

Masterpost

Comments

[amalia21-6.livejournal.com]

Loving this so far. Great start.

[glasslogic.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I hope you enjoy the rest of it as well!

[angeblond.livejournal.com]

Oh yesssssssssss!
As good as fortress
I love their interactions.

GREAT GREAT GREAT .........GREATTTTTT !!

[glasslogic.livejournal.com]

*grins* I'm glad you are liking it!

[auroramama]

Oh, poor Sam. OCD and Entropic Demons don't mix well. I wonder if it bugs Dean when Sam puts everything back? Does Dean still relax by cleaning guns? Maybe not.

[glasslogic.livejournal.com]

*grins* I don't think cleaning guns would help fill this particular need. And yeah, definitely poor Sam!