I've got ham but I'm not a hamster (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} thisdistance) wrote,@ 2006-06-02 19:35:00 |
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Written for Eso, because I am her bitch.
Some are born to sweet delight
Some are born to endless night
i.
Every night, Dean dreams of Trouble. Not your everyday, run-of-the-mill, oh-god-demons-are-trying-to-kill-us trouble, but glowering dog-faced Trouble that haunts his every step and lives for no more joy than to destroy the fragile equilibrium that keeps him and Sam together. He's waiting for the day that it happens, that he looks up and sees that expression on Sam's face, the same one he wore when he shipped out to college and didn't come back.
Every time he doesn't see it, it's a relief.
Every time he looks away, the fear it'll be there when he looks back is almost overwhelming.
This may be why he misses it.
Later, when the details are a mess so garbled that he can't untangle them, he has only one picture of Trouble in his head, and she's about five two, with hazel eyes, a mass of shiny black hair, and a port wine birth mark on her left cheek.
Sam sees her first, stumbling down the side of the highway in the pouring rain in soaked jeans and hoodie, extending a hesitant and unexpectant thumb as the car barrels by.
“Stop,” says Sam.
“What for?” Dean, oblivious to Trouble in its drenched hoodie, doesn't stop.
“There was a girl.”
“Sam, we're not picking up a hitch-hiker.”
“It's pouring!”
“We're not picking up a damn hitch-hiker!”
“Dean, it's pouring, she's probably a hundred pounds soaking wet, what's she going to do against two armed men?”
“I'm not stopping for a hitch-hiker.”
“Come on! What can she do?”
“Sam,” Dean says disgustedly, “did you meet Meg? Short, blonde, probably a hundred pounds soaking wet? Remember her?”
"Yeah, and ninety nine point nine percent of the population don't even believe in ghosties, ghoulies or things that go bump in the night," Sam points out.
"Which leaves…" Dean pauses to think, "almost three hundred thousand who know they exist."
"It's raining."
Dean opens his mouth to argue, but catches a glimpse of the expression in Sam's eyes in the rear-view mirror and shuts it again. He veers into a u-turn, letting the tyres screech, just to show he's pissed off, and drives back towards Trouble, who is soldiering on in the rain, her head bent to keep it off her face.
"Hey!" Sam calls out the window. "Want a lift?"
Trouble raises her head and reveals a pale heart-shaped face. Her eyes flick from one to the other of them, and Dean is irritated to realise that she's weighing them up. A second passes, and she opens the door, heaves her backpack into the car, slides in after it, and says, "Thanks."
"No problem," says Sam, and flashes her his million dollar grin. "I'm Sam."
"Ella," says the girl, and looks at Dean expectantly.
"Dean," he mutters.
"Hi," she says, pushing wet hair from her face. "Thanks. It's unbelievable out there."
"Then why are you out in it?" Dean asks her. Sam shoots him a look that's just full of Dean, you jerk, and smiles over his shoulder at Ella.
"Ignore him," he says. "He's grouchy."
"Grouchy?" Dean mouths, outraged.
Ella just shrugs. "No biggie. I'm the one walking down the highway in the rain. In answer to your question, it started raining when I was on the road. It's not like there's anywhere to hide, and I've got miles to go."
"Where are you going?"
Ella shrugs again. "I'll know when I get there."
Oh great, Dean thinks, one of those. We've picked up a hippie. He glances at Sam, who is still looking at Ella over his shoulder, with an expression of, dear God, intrigue.
"Seattle," Dean says.
"That'll do me," Ella says, and twinkles at Sam. Sam grins back and the faintest flush colours his cheeks.
And that's when Dean realises that Ella isn't just some drowned rat of a hitch-hiker on the road to nowhere – she's what he's been dreaming of, and not in the naked-girls-in-whipped-cream-fights way. She's Trouble.
Then Trouble takes her shirt off.
"Whoa," Sam says, and swings back to face the front, but Dean can see him glancing in the mirror.
"Sorry," says Ella. "I'm drenched, I need a new top."
Sam is glancing in the mirror, and flushing slightly, but Dean doesn't bother to hide the fact that he's looking. Ella doesn't look up and doesn't seem fazed. Definitely a hippie, Dean thinks. She changes her shirt matter-of-factly, and even when she catches his eye in the mirror, the only reaction he gets is the quirk of an eyebrow that suggests that she's laughing at him.
Definitely Trouble.
Trouble hangs around to have dinner with them, and both she and Sam seem completely oblivious to Dean glowering in the corner. Ella asks him questions from time to time, but can't make much of his spat-out monosyllables, and after awhile she doesn't bother to try any more.
Trouble takes Sam back to her own hotel room, and Dean can't hear the two of them because they're rooms away, but the chorus of moans and whispers in his head does the job just as well as thin walls would have.
Dean masturbates without relief, and sleeps fitfully, dreaming of Trouble straddling his brother and laughing at him.
The next day, Dean is beyond exhausted. His eyes are grainy and hot, his head feels like nails are being hammered into it, and he can't concentrate for more than a couple of seconds at a time. Ella looks concerned and Sam downright worried.
"Dean, are you sick?"
Dean growls and the other two back off. He deigns to let Sam drive, though. Even Dean isn't stubborn enough to drive when he feels like this. So he sprawls inelegantly in the back seat and listens to Sam and Ella flirting, and imagines the things they might have been getting up to the night before. He tells himself he is just being a good brother, that imagining Sam's face between Ella's thighs, or Sam lying tied to the bed writhing as Ella rides him and slaps his face, is just a symptom of worry about his brother picking up a hitch-hiker. And then fucking her. Over and over again, in every possible position, every possible perversion.
He catches Ella's eye briefly in the rear-view mirror, and finds that he's scarlet to the roots of his hair all of a sudden. Ella holds his gaze a second longer than necessary and he's the one who drops his eyes, sure she knows what he's been thinking about.
"What's wrong with you?" Sam asks him in the bathroom at a rest stop, and Dean mumbles nothing and he doesn't know. Sam gives him the I don't buy a word of this look.
"What were you doing last night?" Dean asks, glaring at his own reflection and refusing to look at Sam.
"Last night?"
"You were in Ella's room all night," Dean says, and feels prickling heat wash over him from head to toe.
"So?"
"So what were you doing?"
Sam laughs, exasperated. "Come on, Dean, what?"
"Did you fuck her? Not that I'm complaining, it's time you got some pussy."
"Does it matter?" Sam's cheeks are delicately pink, and Dean reads this like text that says Yes, Dean, I fucked Trouble, I fucked her in every way known to man and a few that I hadn't even heard of before. And then, Dean, then she fucked me."
"No, man, no," Dean tries for casual, but his mouth is dry, and Sam and Ella are fucking in his head again. "It's good for you to get some."
"As it happens, I didn't," says Sam, looking slightly embarrassed, and Dean hates himself for the leap in his chest. "I only just met her."
"So?" The word is out of his mouth before he can stop it. "Sammy, you're on the road, you don't have time for candlelight and roses. You gotta fuck 'em while you have the chance."
"Nice, Dean," Sam says in disgust, and Dean has to agree. Not that he doesn't wholeheartedly believe in this sentiment, but he knows perfectly well that Sam doesn't.
Sam finishes washing his hands and leans against the wall, looking at Dean, who avoids his eyes.
"Actually, we talked," he says. "We have a lot of things in common."
"Come on," says Dean. "You and her?"
"She's psychic," Sam says simply. "She sees things. We had a lot to talk about."
He turns his back on his brother and walks out of the bathroom, and Dean leans over the sink and tries to concentrate on his breathing and not on the pounding in his head.
Back in the car, Sam and Ella are going on as before, only now they've put on music. Not decent, respectable music, either, some weird groovy thing that makes them both bounce around a bit.
Dean realises that he has no idea what kind of music Sam actually likes. He listens to Dean's collection of what he won't stop calling cock rock, mostly without complaint, but they've never had a conversation about Music Sam Likes. Suddenly, he feels horribly left out.
“What is this shit?” he asks. “You kids today and your crazy music.”
“Dean,” Sam is laughing at him. “This is from 1992. And the music you listen to, I should point out, was mostly released before you were old enough to jerk off.”
Ella flicks Dean another one of those knowing looks, and laughs. And she's not laughing at him, she's laughing at Sam, a happy, understanding laugh that hits Dean in the gut.
He tries to grin and understand with her, as though that will take away from the pain in his head and make him part of the little psychic circle. But he doesn't know what she's laughing at, not really, so it doesn't work, and just leaves him feeling like a tool.
By the time they get to the next town, still only on the way to Seattle, Dean feels sick as a pig. His head is both spinning and pounding, his stomach feels full of nails. Sam goes into the hotel to get room keys, and Ella sits there in the car looking at him.
“What?” Dean tries for attitude, but he's pretty sure he looks as lousy as he feels, and Ella, psychic or not, is not an idiot.
“How're you feeling?”
Dean, still trying here, grins, but it turns into a grimace.
“That good, huh?”
“Super. But while I've got you alone...”
Ella raises her eyebrows, but doesn't say anything.
“What's with the psychic bullshit you're giving my brother?”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, he's a good-looking guy, you're...not so bad. You can get in his pants without getting in his head.”
Ella makes a face. “Wow. That's just...basic. Unsurprisingly.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means, Dean, that I know more about you than you'd ever tell me if we were locked in a box together for a hundred years. It means that the psychic bullshit isn't bullshit, it's just the way it is, for him and for me. And if you think it even factors into getting into his pants, then you really don't know him very well.”
She speaks quite casually, and without looking at him, but he can see the flash in her eyes and the deepening of the colour of the stain on her cheek. When she does look at him, it's with an expression he can only think of as 'kindly'.
“I understand,” she says, with a softening of her voice. “I do. More than you think. But Dean, I'm not the enemy here. And I'm temporary, you do realise that? There's no need to focus your fear on me.”
Dean, outraged, gapes at her. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You're sick,” she continues, as though he hasn't spoken. “There's something wrong with you.”
“I am not!” he bursts out. “It's just a...I can't help looking out for him!”
Ella frowns. “What?” Her brow clears as she realises what he means. “Oh. No, Dean, that's not what I was talking about. There's an actual illness involved, the type that makes you clammy and feverish and like hell on wheels. Something...” she pauses and looks at the air around him. “Well, I don't know what it is, but your aura is seriously fucked up. What the hell were you doing before you picked me up?”
Waves of panic and nausea are washing over Dean, but he just shakes his head.
“Oh, right, family secret,” says Ella, with a roll of her eyes, “Dean, this is serious. You look like shit.”
“He told you?”
“No, I told you, Dean, I'm not the kind of person you can keep secrets from, much as we may both regret that. Something's wrong. I'm getting Sam.”
“You fuck him over, I'll break your face in, even if you are a hundred pounds soaking wet...” He hadn't meant for it to come out that way, or, indeed, at all, but there it is, croaking out through gritted teeth.
Ella, in the middle of opening the door, turns back to him and stares. “Well, that's to the point,” she says, “But really, unnecessary.”
And with that load of cryptic nothing, she gets out of the car and slams the door behind her. Dean groans and slumps down in the seat as the darkness rolls in.
He hears the noises before he comes to consciousness, little painful whimpers, no, not painful, worse than painful, little whimpers of pleasure, and he knows exactly whose throat they're coming from. He does not want to open his eyes. Not at all. Not one little bit. But he can't help it.
And there they are on the bed beside him, naked as the day God made them, Ella on her hands and knees, Sam behind her gripping her hips so tightly his fingernails are white. Sam's eyes are closed, his concentration total, but Ella looks over her shoulder at Sam, her eyes dark and glowing, shoulders shaking as Sam thrusts in and out of her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Dean gasps.
“Oh baby,” she purrs. “He didn't want to leave you alone.”
“So you're fucking on my bed?”
“No, not really,” Ella bites her lip and sighs with pleasure. “We're not here at all.”
And then Ella isn't Ella at all, but Sam, on his hands and knees, arms locked and tense as someone pounds into him from behind.
“Sam?” Dean hates himself for the tremble in his voice.
And Sam looks at him with heat in his eyes, and says, “Wow, you're just everywhere tonight, aren't you, big brother?”
And Dean lets his eyes trace up the long line of Sam's back to see who's making his brother shake like that.
And it isn't Ella. Dean chokes and closes his eyes, but he can't close them fast enough or tight enough, not before he's taken in the whole picture.
Dean sobs, in mixed panic and desperate envy, and hides his face. But even when he's turned away, flickering on the inside of his eyelids he still can see his own face, his own fingernails turning white from gripping Sam's hips so tightly.
Next time he opens his eyes, it's difficult, because his eyelids seem to be sticking together. He lets out a whimper that becomes a sob, and hears someone move over to the bed. Someone puts a cold, wet cloth over his eyes and he clutches it with relief and wipes away the salt that's gluing his eyelashes to each other.
Unfortunately, when he opens his eyes, it's Ella.
“Oh God,” he says, and closes them again.
“Don't get all mushy,” Ella says drily. “He'll be back.”
“What are you still doing here?”
“Well, you're in quite a situation here,” says Ella. “You'll be surprised when you get out.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means it doesn't much matter what I say, you're not going to know if I'm really saying it or if you're dreaming I'm saying it.”
“Well, what does that mean?”
“You need to eat something,” Ella says.
“That's not an answer.”
“No, but that's all you're getting. Food.”
“Where's Sam?”
“He's researching.”
“Researching what?”
“You, dumbass.”
Dean opens his eyes again, and Ella is sitting, stark naked, on the edge of the bed.
“You know,” he says, “you're naked.”
“Am I?” Ella looks down at herself. “Right. You definitely need food.”
Food turns out to be a cold Big Mac and fries and a warm Coke. Ella is apologetic, but, actually, Dean has never been so hungry or so grateful for food, and it tastes like it might feed the gods.
“God, you really are delusional,” Ella says, when he remarks on this. Not naked now, she seems to be wearing a black lace wedding dress, veil and all, and an inch of black eyeliner. Dean decides to ignore it.
“Why are you still here?” he asks again.
“I go where I'm sent,” she says.
“Who by?”
“I think you mean 'by whom',” Ella says. She sits down on the edge of the bed again, and she's wearing jeans and a shirt that Dean recognises as one of Sam's.
“You're wearing Sam's shirt.” Dean speaks around a mouthful of Big Mac, which seems to be filling him with strength as he swallows it.
“Yes,” says Ella, “I need to do some washing. Would you have me actually naked?”
Dean, feeling so much himself again, waggles his eyebrows at her, and laughs at himself for being so idiotic about the girl. She's harmless. Harmless, and kind of cute, and definitely nice. She doesn't have to be here at all.
“So,” he says, “who sent you?”
“I'm not sure where it comes from,” she says, “I don't get written instructions, just...pictures. You and Sam. And a following cloud.”
She doesn't look at him as she speaks, and Dean wonders what she's thinking.
“We've always got a black cloud,” he says. “It's the nature of the family business.”
“It's not that,” Ella says flatly, her fingers lightly grazing her birthmark. “It's not that at all. That's just...stuff. This is different. It's you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know yet.” Ella sighs. “Sam's looking.”
And as she forms his name with her lips, Dean sees red, and not just metaphorically. Rage rides him, that this stranger says Sam's name so casually, so familiarly, so possessively, and the world literally glows with red. He lunges towards Ella, throwing punches wildly. Ella darts away, and Dean falls off the bed, hitting his head a blinding crack on the floor and blacking out.
When he comes to, he's back in bed, and Ella's got the cloth over his eyes again, and is holding his hand in hers, running a thumb gently over the back of it.
“Is there a lump?” he asks.
“Huh?” Not Ella, Sam. Sam sitting by his bed, holding his hand.
“A lump on my head,” Dean tries to sit up, and to his surprise his head doesn't hurt at all.
“Um, no,” says Sam. “Dean, you shouldn't get up. You're not well.”
“Yeah, she said, and a black cloud is following us or something.”
“Who said?”
Dean pulls the cloth off his eyes. Just Sam, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking serious and worried, with shadows under his eyes that suggest he hasn't been sleeping, wearing jeans and the same shirt that Ella was wearing.
“Ella,” says Dean. “Ella said. Where's she gone? Did she leave after that? Because...well, it was my fault, but you know...”
“Who's Ella?” Sam looks confused as all hell.
“Who's Ella?” Dean echoes. “What do you mean, who's Ella? Ella, Ella, I don't know her last name! The psychic we picked up on the highway! The one you get on so well with!”
“Dean, we didn't pick anyone up on the highway,” Sam says gently. “And I really think you should lie down.”
“I feel fine,” Dean says, getting up off the bed. He vaguely realises, as he does, that he's naked, and that's weird, but probably Sam just took his clothes off to put him into bed, and that's perfectly normal, right? Yes. But what isn't normal is the disappearance of Ella. “But I don't understand what's going on.”
“You've got the flu,” Sam says. “Badly. Hallucinating and everything.”
“Yeah, but...are you saying I dreamt her? I dreamt two days worth of a total stranger being in our car, in our hotel room, in your bed?”
Sam's expression says it all.
“I dreamt her,” Dean repeats. “That's insane.”
“You've been really sick.”
“Yeah, but...” Dean looks at his brother, who just looks mildly puzzled, but also very sure that this is just the babbling of the delusional.
“You look better now, though,” Sam observes, walking around the bed towards Dean, and Dean notes, almost clinically, that Sam is now naked as well.
“You took your clothes off,” Dean says, swallowing and licking his suddenly dry lips.
“Well, yeah,” Sam grins at him, the happy grin of a ten-year-old who's just discovered he has money for candy, “You said some things while you were out of it...”
“Um...what sort of things?”
“You know what sort of things,” says Sam, his hand stroking down the length of his body as he comes towards Dean. “You've been thinking about them for ages, haven't you, Dean? All this time I thought it was just the usual brother crap, but no. It's not, is it?”
“Sam...”
“Oh, hey, Sam,” says Ella, closing the door behind her and stepping into the room, wearing Sam's shirt and tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Hey,” says Sam, but he keeps moving slowly, seductively, towards Dean, with that same grin on his face, and Dean just knows who's the candy in this situation. “You're back early.”
“Am I?” Ella looks down at her empty wrist, “Yeah, I suppose I am.”
“I was thinking of fucking Dean senseless,” says Sam, his eyes steady on Dean's. Dean's own eyes flick towards Ella, who is eating cold fries from Dean's bag.
“Hey,” he says weakly, “Those are mine.”
“Don't let me stop you,” says Ella, then she drops the bag and says, “Jesus, Dean, when I said sick, this really wasn't what I meant. Sweet delight, you know?”
Sam is nearly on him now, and Dean stumbles back until he hits the wall, looking frantically at Ella as Sam advances with lust in his eyes.
“What the hell is going on?” he shouts. “He just said you were a dream!”
“Ah,” says Ella, sprawling across the bed and stuffing fries into her mouth, “Well, it's all about the dreams, isn't it? Some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to endless night.”
Sam is pressing his naked body to Dean's now, and Dean struggles against the tall form of his brother, and tries to stay focused, even as he can feel Sam's cock hardening against him. Sam bends his head and licks Dean's shoulder. Dean gasps.
“Some are born to sweet delight,” says Ella again, happily.
“Delight,” agrees Sam, looking down at Dean hungrily.
“No, no,” says Dean. “No, no, no, no, this is all wrong. Two seconds ago, you didn't remember she existed. So this has to be a dream.”
Sam pulls back and gives him wounded puppy dog eyes. “Dean, isn't this exactly what you've dreamed of?”
“Not exactly,” Dean stammers. “For one thing, there wasn't a girl lying on the bed eating fries...”
“I think that adds a certain Je ne sais quoi,” says Sam, the grin creeping back onto his face, and frankly, it's really getting creepy.
“Yeah,” says Dean, “a certain Je ne sais what the fuck is going on?”
“Shouldn't that be Je ne sais pas?” Ella asks.
Dean scuttles sideways away from Sam, who is coming in towards him again, and shouts, “Why the fuck am I dreaming in French?”
Sam sighs. “Oh, Dean, I was hoping it wasn't going to come to this.”
“Come to what?”
Dean backs off again as tall, naked Sam starts to lumber towards him, really lumber, which is weird enough, because Sam's got a kind of loose-limbed grace to him most of the time, and he runs into Ella, who kicks him in the back of the knees, knocking him onto the floor, and puts him in a headlock.
“Dearie dearie me,” says Sam, whose face seems to be writhing and melting as Dean watches, “you're such. A lot. Of trouble.”
His fist comes down and Ella's arm tightens around Dean's neck, and Dean blacks out. Again.
This time, he sits straight up, and regrets it straight away as pain pounds spikes through his head. He groans and lies down again, pulling a pillow over his eyes to block out the light.
“Does your head hurt?” Ella asks sarcastically.
“Am I here or is this another dream?”
“How should I know?” she says crossly.
“You're mad. I attacked you.”
“Well, duh.”
“Nice going, Dean.”
“Shit,” says Dean. “He's back?”
“Ye-es,” says Sam. “He's back, and what the hell is going on?”
“I don't know,” Dean says. “It's very confusing.”
“Well,” Sam sounds grim, “you've cracked yourself a good one on the head, and you're apparently losing your mind as well.”
“I told you, Sam,” says Ella, in the background, “I think it's...”
“I know,” says Sam, still grim, “but I don't think we should let on, because whatever it is, it's clearly in Dean's head. AREN'T YOU?” he shouts, ripping the pillow off Dean's head.
“Sam!” Ella yanks his arm back. “That won't help.”
Dean covers his face with his hands and mumbles, “Are you guys naked?”
“What?” Sam just sounds stunned now.
“No,” says Ella. “Should we be?”
“I'm just checking,” Dean mutters, and wishes he was dead. “Just...don't start fucking, ok? I can't take any more of that.”
There's a silence Dean can only describe as pregnant, and he takes his hands away from his eyes to find Sam and Ella staring at him in horrified astonishment.
“Ok, this has to be real,” he says, with a grin that tries to be cocky, but feels grotesque.
“Well,” says Ella, “I guess there's some serious psychological disturbance there.”
“Right,” Sam agrees, “serious.”
And both of them are trying to sound detached and clinical, but that's frankly worse than if they just sounded horrified, because it means...well, he doesn't know exactly what it means. Something Freudian, probably. If this is the real world...Jesus fuck.
Dean covers his eyes again and prays for death.
“You need to eat,” says Sam after another moment.
“I had a Big Mac,” says Dean.
“When?”
“I...oh. Right. I'm dreaming food?”
“You're dreaming Big Macs?” Ella asks, and he can hear her trying to repress a laugh.
“I'm dreaming everything,” Dean says, and sits up. “Look, is this real?”
“Insofar as anything is,” Sam says, and picks up a paper bag which he drops on the bed. Then he sits down beside Dean and looks at him out of big worried eyes.
Dean looks at Ella. “Is she psychic or not?”
“She is,” says Sam, exchanging a glance with Ella.
“So she knows, right? Knows about us? Because to be honest, Sammy, I'm so fucking confused at the moment, I can't start editing things I'm saying if she doesn't know.”
“Well, if she didn't, she'd certainly be curious by now,” Ella says, drily.
“Right,” Dean smiles grimly. “I don't know what's going on. I keep having...hallucinations, I suppose.”
“We've noticed,” says Ella.
“You've been coming in and out of it for days,” Sam says.
“How many days?”
Another of those quick glances between Sam and Ella that says there's a lot more going on than Dean realises.
“Four,” Sam says eventually. “Since we left...” He breaks off. “Look, Dean, there's something going on here, it's not just the flu, I think it's the Sandman.”
Dean laughs. “The what? Exit light, enter night?”
“That's the one,” Sam lets out a humourless bark of a laugh. “Only real. I think the demon that we thought we had pegged, the one after Amy Warren, I think we were wrong. I don't think it was a standard possession. I think it was the Sandman, and we threw it out, but you can't kill it, because it's not a demon, not really, so it just looked for a new home...And you were there...”
Sam looks as though he wants to say more, but he stops and looks at his hands.
“Huh,” says Dean. “So what do we do?”
“I don't know,” Sam admits. “I don't have a clue. We can't destroy it.”
Ella makes a very slight noise, and Sam gives her a quelling look. Dean looks from one to the other and says, “What?”
“It's nothing,” says Sam, his eyes on Ella. “A bad idea.”
“Right,” says Ella. “Because yours are so effective.” But she doesn't sound sarcastic, only sort of sad and resigned.
“What?” Dean asks again.
“We could try to get into your hallucination,” Sam says. “I mean...Ella could. I don't think I've got it under control enough yet.”
“Got what?” Dean feels rising panic again. “What under control?”
“The, uh, psychic thing. Look, I don't know, I don't think it would help.”
Dean's lips are dry and he licks them, thinking frantically, mostly about the abject terror he feels from the toes on up about the idea of having Ella in his head.
“But,” he says, looking at Ella, leaning against the door to the bathroom, her arms crossed over her chest, “you do. Think it would help.”
“I don't know,” Ella says, holding her hands up, palms open. “I don't know what would help. But we can't see it, you see. I mean...we don't know how much you're even with us now. We don't know what it's doing in there, what you're seeing. It might let us.”
“It tends to feed off your, uh, darkest fears and fantasies,” Sam says, looking at the floor.
“Oh,” Dean's head pounds and he lies back down. “Hell, I don't even know if this is real. I guess I'll know when one of you takes your clothes off.” He laughs feebly, and Ella echoes him, but Sam is still staring at the floor.
“The problem,” Sam says, “is that we don't know if Ella could get hurt in there. Or if she'd just end up in your hallucination. Or if the Sandman could cross over. And I'm not sure it would really achieve anything anyway, because just knowing how it's getting to you...Maybe that's not enough.”
“Do you have any other ideas?” Dean asks him. And Sam looks up, his eyes pools of fear.
“No,” he says simply. “None. We could expel it, but it would just go into one of us, or the people next door, or down the street. It can't be killed, Dean, but it'll drive whoever it takes mad, then go on to the next one.”
“Why can't it be killed?”
“Because it isn't a demon,” Ella answers. “It's a human thing. Avatar of fear of the dark, fear of the subconscious, who knows? But it's ours, it's not other. You can't make people go away.”
“And if we expel it, someone else will get it,” Dean says, considering. There are no good choices here. He doesn't want Ella in his head, if the dreams he's been having are any indication of, well, anything. The thought of anyone knowing about that makes him prickle with shameful heat. But on the other hand, the alternative seems to be...nothing.
“Dean, I'm so sorry,” Sam says, almost inaudibly.
“Don't be stupid,” Dean snaps. “What happens if we don't get it out of me?”
Sam drops his eyes back to the floor, so Dean looks to Ella.
“You go mad,” she says, almost tranquilly. “Completely. Then you die. Usually of starvation, but sometimes it's suicide. Sometimes you take people with you.”
Dean looks at Sam, his hunched shoulders, his downcast eyes, the very picture of desolation, and he knows what he has to do.
“Do it,” he says to Ella. “There's nothing else. You have to try.”
“It might get to her too,” Sam says, his voice cracking. “I can't do anything...”
“It might not notice me,” says Ella. “I'll blend in, look like your dream.”
“And if it does?”
“We both go mad,” Ella shrugs.
“Can it hear this?” Dean asks. “I mean...this conversation?”
“We don't know.”
“If it can, you're already screwed,” he says.
“Probably,” she agrees. Dean meets her eyes and wonders what kind of person she really is, this stranger he's inviting into his head, what kind of person could face this kind of action and its possibilities with such calm.
“Can you see what's going to happen next?” he asks her.
She shakes her head. “I'm terrible at my own future.”
“How about mine?”
Another shake of the head.
“It's either this or I just go mad without a fight,” Dean says. “That's what you're saying.”
“You may anyway. But yes. This is the fight. It might...” she swallows. “It might give us a clue.”
“Then you have to do it.” He looks at Sam. “Sam...”
“Don't say it,” says Sam tightly, and Dean can see tears along his eyelashes.
“Sammy,” he says firmly, “I love you.” He looks over at Ella. “Do it.”
Ella comes over to the bed and sits between him and Sam. She takes his hand in hers.
“I already am,” she says, kindly.
“What do you mean, you already are?” Dean demands, staring at her. “What the hell does that mean?”
Ella shrugs, and Dean realises she's naked again.
“Are you my hallucination or are you just looking like it?” he hisses at her.
“It's a question of openness,” says Ella, stroking his hand. “It's a question of you letting me in.”
“Holy God,” says Dean. “You're the Sandman!”
He springs back from her, tumbling off the bed and falling heavily onto the floor. Ella sighs and leans across the bed so she can look down at him on the other side.
“You have a strong mind,” she says, sweetly. “Not bright, but strong. I almost regret not going for the little brother. Much brighter than you, and the intelligent have such complicated neuroses. But on the other hand,” she smiles, and all around the smile she turns into Sam, leaning naked over the bed to stare down at Dean, a smile such as Dean has never seen on his face. “On the other hand, yours are so tasty.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Dean stammers, as the naked figure of his brother crawls across the bed towards him, then down over the edge of it, peculiar catlike movements that show off Sam's body quite beautifully, but aren't meant for human bodies to perform. “Wait. Is Ella real or not? Was that real? Are you really the Sandman, or something else?”
Sam's face just smiles at him and crawls across the floor as Dean scuttles backwards until he hits the wall. Sam follows and crawls up Dean's body until his face is inches from Dean's, and he has Dean pinned down by the hands.
“Hello, sweetie,” he purrs. “Isn't it nice here?”
“Get off me,” Dean struggles, but the Sandman is strong, stronger than Sam. “Get the fuck off me, you freak!”
“But this is where you want me,” says Sam, smiling down at him. “Isn't it? I don't make up the things I find in here. This...this dirty little secret, isn't it wonderful? I'm right here. You can have whatever you want. Turn me around and fuck me till I scream, if that'll make you happy. That's all I want, really. The two of us, happy...”
“I don't...” Dean pants.
“But you do,” says Sam, laughing in his face. “You do, so very badly, and it's so far down inside your macho little psyche that I'm not surprised you're having trouble with it, but, oh Dean...” Sam breathes against his ear, and licks his neck. “Dean, you know you want me.”
“No,” Dean heaves upwards with his shoulders. “I don't. Want. YOU!”
He headbutts the Sandman and hurls him forward violently so that Sam's body lies sprawled across the floor in front of him. Fully clothed, bruised, and looking up at Dean with fearful, wounded eyes.
“Dean...” Sam croaks, and it's Sam again, really Sam, and Dean knows he's just broken his baby brother's neck.
“Oh God.” he drops to his knees, “Sammy...”
Sam's eyes turn resentful and hooded, and he hisses up at Dean.
“You want him more than me? But I am him!”
Dean springs back as Sam, unbroken, gets to his feet and comes for him with those weird lumbering steps that are so un-Samlike.
A movement in the corner of the room catches his eye, and he backs towards it as the Sam-creature stalks him, and finds himself against the bathroom door.
“Dean, Dean, Dean,” says Sam, shaking his head. “There's nowhere to run. We're inside your head here.”
“Right,” says Dean, his hand on the bathroom door. “Well...”
The door jerks open behind him, and a hand seizes his and yanks him into the bathroom with surprising force, then slams the door behind him and throws a handful of salt at it.
“Hi,” says Ella. “Look, we don't have much time.”
“That isn't you,” says Dean. “If you even exist, which I'm beginning to doubt.”
“Dean, don't be stupid, we don't have time for this.”
“The thing is,” says Dean tightly, “it was you before, you and Sam, and we all had a nice little chat about how you were going to come into my mind, and I said you could, and then you turned into It. So you'll have to excuse me if I'm a little suspicious.”
“Dean.” Ella grabs his face with both her hands and looks directly into his eyes.
And Dean looks back into Sam's eyes.
“Dean, t's me,” says Ella, in Sam's voice. “It's me.”
“What the hell is going on?” Dean shouts, jerking back.
“Ella's a conduit,” says Sam, through Ella's mouth, “That's all. But she has better control of her abilities than I do. I couldn't get here. I tried. Look.”
“I don't know that I can trust you,” Dean backs up against the toilet. “It keeps turning into you. Into her. Why is it turning into her? I hardly know her...”
“Envy,” says Ella, and this time it is Ella. “Look, Dean,” as Dean starts, “Don't get distracted. You had feelings about me before this started, and they were about Sam and how he reacted to me. I'm just a symbol, don't fixate on that.”
“So you do exist?”
“DEAN!” Ella shouts with Sam's voice. “Stop getting distracted. It can be fought.”
“You said it couldn't.”
“It can,” Sam's voice insists. “It's not invincible. It wants you to accept it.”
There is a world-shaking bang as something huge hits the bathroom door. Dean stares at Ella.
“It wants you to accept it,” she says, Ella again. “All we can do is remind you is that you don't want it. You want Sam. Not some replica.”
“He'd better not be here now,” Dean says, because even in the midst of this panic, even as the Sandman slams itself against the bathroom door again, he still feels full of hateful shame that this is the weakness it can exploit.
“Dean,” says Ella, just Ella, taking his face in her hands again, “love isn't something to be ashamed of.”
“Oh no?” says Dean, his voice cracking, as the Sandman drives its fists into the bathroom door, cracking it from top to bottom.
“No,” says Ella. “It can exploit shame and fear. But Dean...”
She turns her head towards the door and screams as the Sandman, tall and naked and Sam, bursts through the door, and then she vanishes.
“Dean,” says Sam. “Are you all right?”
“What?” Dean blinks, confused.
“You broke the door down,” says Sam.
“Uh, no,” says Dean, “That was you.”
“Why would I break the door?” Sam looks genuinely confused.
“Because you're not you!” Dean shouts.
“I think you've had a bad dream,” says Sam, putting out a conciliatory hand. “It's okay. Come on.”
“The thing is,” says Dean, fear rippling through his neck and chest, “the thing is, Sammy, I know that's not you.”
“It's me, Dean, c'mon. Of course it's me. Who else would it be?”
And he's so Sam, and he's so sweet and calming and fucking beautiful, standing in the bathroom light, and the truth is, Dean really wants to give in to this, because the idea of not giving in to it is painful, and because he's so goddamn tired, but.
But.
“You're naked, Sam,” he says, wearily.
Sam looks down at himself. “Huh,” he says, “I guess I kicked off my clothes in the night. It happens.”
And it does too. Sam used to do it as a kid, quite often, and wake in the morning stark staring naked.
“Dean,” Sam goes on, “seriously, you're freaking me out. Come back to bed.” He turns his back on Dean and walks back into the bedroom, and Dean, unwilling but unable to resist, follows him.
There's a double bed. Just the one. And naked Sam is climbing into it and patting the space next to him.
“Come on,” Sam says, with a little sexy smile. “Come to bed, Dean.”
Dean, half-hypnotised, walks towards him and starts taking his clothes off.
“Bad dream,” says Sam, as Dean slides into bed beside him. “It's okay. We'll have to pay for the door, though.”
Dean lets Sam draw him close, and kiss him gently on the lips. “I love you, Sammy,” he says.
“What did you say?” says Sam, drawing back slightly.
“I love you,” Dean says simply. “Always have. Always will. You, Sam. Not some spook in my head. You. Just you.”
“Noo,” says Sam, looking slightly panicky. “No, no, this isn't something we can just talk about. It's...it's not right.”
“Maybe,” Dean shrugs. “But there it is. I love you.”
“Dean,” says Sam, beginning to struggle backwards, but Dean holds him firm.
“I love you.”
“Nooo,” says Sam, and now his face isn't quite so much Sam as it was.
“I love you, Sammy,” Dean says again, and as he says it he knows, for sure this time, that he's free. The Sam-creature in the bed beside him struggles faster, and Dean holds tighter. “I love you,” he says.
And opens his eyes to find Sam, the real Sammy, looking down at him with tears in his eyes. “I love you too,” Sam says.
“Is this real?” Dean asks.
Sam nods.
“No, really, really real,” Dean persists.
“It's really, really real.”
“You're wearing clothes,” Dean says, “That's a good start.” He sits up.
“Dean, maybe you'd better...”
“Where's Ella?”
“Who?”
“Ella! You know, psychic girl, birthmark on her cheek...”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“She was here...” Dean leaps out of bed.
“Dean, I don't...what the hell are you doing?”
Dean doesn't answer, just flings the door open and races outside. A tiny part of him says, outside, that's a good sign. The rest of him just runs, he's not even sure where or why, but he has to find Ella.
And he does, standing a hundred feet down the road, pack on her back, thumb out.
“What are you doing?” he shouts, racing towards her. “Where are you going?”
Ella shrugs. “What are you doing?” she asks him, “After all that...Jesus, Dean.”
“Where are you going?”
“I'm not sure,” she says. “I go where I'm sent.”
“I thought that was a dream.”
She shrugs. “Some is, some isn't.”
“You told me, didn't you, you told me not to be ashamed.”
Ella doesn't reply, but looks at an oncoming car and smiles as it pulls over. She gives the driver a swift, penetrating glance, then looks at Dean.
“I have to go,” she says simply.
“What are you?” he demands.
“Sometimes you live to fight another day,” she says, "and sometimes you don't." She kisses him gently on the cheek. “Good luck.”
“What the hell is going on?” Dean shouts as she gets into the car and it pulls away from the curb. But Ella's gone, and he can't ask any more questions, so he swears vigorously and turns back to the motel, where Sam is waiting in the doorway for him.
“It was an incubus,” Sam tells him later. “Demon.”
“I know what an incubus is,” Dean says irritably. “What about the Sandman?”
“That's a fairy tale, Dean, you know that.”
“You said it was the Sandman,” Dean mumbles. “In...my dream.”
Sam looks sorry, as though he wishes he could be more comforting.
“So how'd you get rid of it?”
“I don't know,” says Sam, looking slightly bewildered. “I tried all the usual things, it didn't seem to be working, then you just...came to.”
“So I got rid of it.”
“What did you do?”
“I...” Dean searches for the words, can't find them, gives up. “It doesn't matter.”
“Who's Ella?”
“Hallucination,” says Dean, briefly.
“That's it? You go chasing down the street after some girl, who kisses you, and then you say it's a hallucination? Dean, I'm not stupid.”
“I have no idea who she is,” says Dean, and he looks at his brother's face, which never was any good at hiding Sam's feelings, and he sighs. “Okay,” he says, “But I don't think you're going to like it.”
Every night, Dean dreams of Trouble. Every night, the nightmare fades a little, and the details get more mixed up, until all he's left with is dark hair and hazel eyes and especially the port wine birthmark on her left cheek.
And every night, when he wakes from this dream, he turns over and flings a casual arm around Sammy, who's lying there by his side, and he wonders, in the darkest part of his mind, if this is still a dream.
And Sam grunts sleepily beside him and snuggles in, and Dean thinks, Love isn't something to be ashamed of, and then, Some are born to sweet delight.
