Fake Fan Fiction ❯ The Devil's Sweet Ride ❯ Epilogue: Falling Action ( Chapter 9 )

Garita: I'm sorry, but…yeah. This is the last chapter. I guess it is kind of sudden, isn't it? Well, anyways, thanks so much for reviewing!

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------

 

Epilogue

 

JJ was different.

 

It was a subtle thing, not something you could put your finger on, and most people didn't notice it. He was hyperactive and prone to caffeine and sugar highs. He still did that scary leaping-out-of-the-shadows pouncing thing. His sharpshooting skills had not diminished with his weeks away. In fact, one could say he was a better cop than ever. He'd refused psychiatric counseling but he didn't seem to need it, anyway. He seemed…fine.

 

But he wouldn't talk about the demon, or his capture, or his lost memory, not to anyone. He never said as much, but he seemed able to tell when someone was about to broach the subject in time to steer them gently in another direction—but delicately, so that no one realized he was doing it.

 

JJ was different, but JJ was also the same, and that was why only one person knew how much he was hurting.

 

XXX

 

That first night, Drake didn't ever think he'd get enough of just talking. He and JJ stayed up until three in the morning, curled up in bed together, chatting until their throats were sore. Drake felt his chest swell like a balloon when JJ made no attempt to extract himself from his arms, because that, more than anything else, told him that he really did have his man back at last.

 

But that same night, JJ woke after barely an hour, a shaking, sobbing, pathetic mess that no one ever would have expected he could be. He curled up with his face buried in Drake's chest, and Drake held him, and they remained that way even after JJ had fallen asleep, without saying a single word about what had provoked the storm in the first place.

 

Drake didn't say anything about it on that first night, or on the second or the third, but by the fourth time, he couldn't bring himself to steer clear of the subject anymore.

 

“JJ, this has got to stop,” he said firmly as JJ burrowed into him after that night's dream.

 

JJ pulled away immediately, looking stunned and hurt, and Drake scurried to clarify.

 

“No, not…I didn't mean it like that! I just meant…JJ, this is the fourth night in a row that you've woken up terrified. The fourth night in a row that you've gone mostly without sleep. You've done this every single night since Sam—”

 

“So?” JJ said, in the defensive tone that he usually reserved for when Berkley Rose was lecturing him about decorum in the workplace. “It's not like it's affecting my work or my abilities or my waking life at all—”

 

“Yeah, and that's exactly what worries me,” Drake cut him off. “You're not dealing with any of it. I mean, I know you're usually Mr. Nothing's-Wrong-With-The-World-At-All, Mr. Everyone-Else's-Life-May-Suck-But-Never-Mine, Mr.—”

 

“God, Drake, do you need directions to get to the point?” JJ said, only he didn't sound like JJ at all. He sounded…angry.

 

“My point is that this is way too much for even you to repress. It isn't healthy.”

 

“Thanks for the life lesson, Dr. Phil,” JJ snapped in that voice that wasn't his. “Now can we please go back to sleep?” And he laid back down, as far as possible from Drake's side of the bed.

 

The sight tore at Drake's heart, and he almost obeyed the not-quite-order, but then he remembered Sam's words during the conversation that seemed so long ago now.

 

“What he won't do is talk about it, so you're gonna have to make him.”

 

He laid back sown, too, and let the silence spiral before he spoke.

 

“Look, babe. I know I can't possibly understand what you went through. That's what this is about, right? Well, fine. Don't talk to me.” The words actually gave him a sharp, physical pain in the vicinity of his heart, but he forced himself to keep talking. “But you have to open up to someone. Sam, or Dean, or…hell, Rose, if you must, even though I can't see how he'd get it any better than me. Just…please, baby, don't shut it all away. It'll kill you. And I…I can't lose you again. And…I love you.”

 

Still JJ didn't say a word.

 

“Well…that's it. That's all I've got,” Drake almost whispered, and then he turned over on his side and closed his eyes, forcing back the tears.

 

He'd almost finished into a restless sleep when JJ's body pressed up against his again, his hair tickling Drake's chin. Automatically, Drake's arms slid around him, and JJ hugged him back.

 

“I'm sorry,” JJ said thickly. “For scaring you so much, and for being so…emo, are they calling it these days?” He giggled, an unbelievably welcome sound, and was quiet for a moment before continuing. “It's not that I don't want to talk to you. I do. It's just….I'm sorting it all out. Trying to put it back in order. And when I do…you'll be the first to know, okay? I promise.”

 

It wasn't perfect, but it was a start.

 

XXX

 

Sam and Dean left town the week after JJ's rescue, and the only question anyone had about it was why they'd stayed so long.

 

The answer to that was simple enough—Sam wanted to stick around. The way he put it, he and Dean still had business here, but what it basically came down to was that he wanted to make sure JJ was all right, he wanted to stop by Mother Maria's orphanage to see the Winchesters' friend Morgan, and Derek was still in New York.

 

So, the Winchesters had spent their week in a state of R&R that had been, until now, unheard of in their lives. Dean had been allowed to sleep as late as he wanted, Sam regained the strength he'd lost fighting JJ's mind rather more quickly than he otherwise would have, and the two of them got along remarkably well, courtesy of the time they were able to spend out of each others' hair.

 

The third day, the brothers went to the orphanage with Dee, who'd wormed his way out of work for the occasion, and the old nun Maria and the homeless teenager and child, Morgan and Sari, were delighted to see them—to a point that it actually made Dean, for one, just plain uncomfortable.

 

The two enormous meals they'd had there made the massive amount of hugging worth it, though.

 

Dean spent the fourth and fifth days hustling pool at several different bars, and Sam accompanied him with Derek. The two sat by the hour, downing beers and catching up, and Sam had never known how good it would feel to share his life with someone so close to him.

 

And Derek was an impressive audience, too. Once he got over the first shock of it, he was surprisingly steady about the whole affair. He had questions, and no small amount of them, but he seemed to consciously keep them mostly to impersonal things, rather than forcing Sam to relive painful memories.

 

Then again, even in the short time he'd known her, Sam guessed that it would take this level of tact and calm to stay in a relationship with Nikki for so long.

 

Still, he couldn't help but wonder what other facets of his best friend he'd ever seen.

 

Then again, maybe, now, he would have the chance to find out.

 

But regardless of all of this, the Winchesters couldn't stay in one place forever. Time and jobs were flying by, and presently even Sam had to admit that it was about time they went back to work.

 

XXX

 

“Why do you two always leave so early?” Dee grouched, standing on the sidewalk with his arm slung around Ryo's shoulders, nursing a large Styrofoam cup of coffee in his free hand.

 

“Ask him,” Dean griped, gesturing toward Sam, who was deep in discussion with…well, pretty much everyone at once, because Sam was good at that.

 

Dee's grumbles continued as the three of them went to join the rest of the group, but at a quieter level on account of Ryo had just smacked him across the back of the head for being impolite.

 

“So we'll meet up at my parent's place in Washington Depot at Christmas,” Derek was saying. “I want you to meet my family.”

 

“And you're going to make it to Connecticut even if you're on the west coast Christmas Eve, because I have friends in the CIA and I can have you killed,” Nikki added.

 

“Uh…thanks, sweetie,” Derek said into the sudden uneasy silence.

 

“You're welcome!” Nikki said brightly.

 

“Can we go now?” Diana asked, sounding even grumpier than Dee or Dena. Then again, her mood could have stemmed from the fact that she'd gotten a call from a superior this morning, and apparently several people back in L.A. were screaming for her head. “Our flight leaves in an hour.”

 

She looked so formidable, standing there in today's bright red miniskirt, arms crossed, spiked heels tapping on the ground, that even Nikki—who, after all, did have some sense of self-preservation—didn't argue.

 

Sam felt a sharp stab of sadness as he watched Derek climb into Diana's rental car, but he reminded himself firmly that this wouldn't be the last time they saw each other, and then he forced his eyes back to the four people left.

 

Dee and Ryo, being due at the 27th Precinct, didn't stay for longer than it took to shake hands and perform the ritualistic goodbyes, but even as they left it became clear that Drake and JJ weren't leaving, and Sam actually preferred it that way.

 

All it took was a raised eyebrow in Dean's direction, a head-tip toward Drake, and then his brother was drawing Drake off, leaving him alone with JJ.

 

They stared at each other uncomfortably for a moment before Sam asked, “So…how are you?”

 

JJ shrugged. “Oh, you know, everyone's treating me like glass and Rose tried to force a shrink on me, and I'm still trying to figure out how crazy I really am on a scale of one to ten—”

 

“You're not crazy,” Sam said gently. “My brother would say differently, but it's true. You're completely sane, even if you wish you weren't.”

 

JJ stared at him. “I don't—”

 

“Yes, you do. I wish the same thing sometimes, and I've dealt with this kind of thing all my life.”

 

JJ chuckled at that, but there was obviously still something on his mind, and Sam's suspicion was confirmed when he blurted out, “You're sure my…abilities…are gone, right?”

 

Sam hesitated, wondering, then said, “No. Not gone. But they're locked down, yeah. They won't be coming back to bother you.”

 

JJ's features relaxed in his usual thousand-watt smile. “Yay. `Cause I didn't like `em so much.”

 

XXX

 

“So he's safe now, right?” Drake asked Dean nervously, glancing over at JJ and Sam. “That…that thing will leave him alone?”

 

Dean shrugged. “Well, he's pretty useless as a psychic now, so I'd say yeah. Sam pretty much took care of it.”

 

Drake nodded, and leaned against the brick outer wall of the motel the Winchesters had just checked out of. Dean did the same and asked off-handedly, “So has he talked to you yet?”

 

Drake lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Little more every day. He doesn't remember the month he was gone—I don't think he ever will. He's still freaked out by the whole thing. He still hasn't talked to me about the whole psychic thing. But…we're getting there.”

 

Dean gazed at his brother, deep in conversation with JJ, flashing that reassuring grin every once in a while, and the words came, unbidden, before he even realized he was thinking it.

 

“Maybe I am, too.”

 

XXX

 

Sam watched JJ and Drake until they'd turned into little sparks in the distance, and as he faced forward he asked, “Think they'll be okay?”

 

Dean looked sideways at him, wondering yet again what he was feeling about his role in all this. They'd never really talked about that, except the bare facts.

 

“Think you will?”

 

Sam glanced over, and smiled a little. “I'll answer yours if you answer mine.”

 

Silence fell over the car, and neither question was answered.

 

And as always, that was somehow okay with both of them.

 

For now.

 

XXX

 

Despite a defeat that never should have happened, the Yellow-Eyed Demon was really rather pleased with this whole experience. Sam Winchester may have beaten him in this battle, but he'd also reached the next level of his power.

 

Things were falling into place at last.

 

Soon, Sammy. Soon…

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------

 

Author's Note: Well, that was either a very long epilogue or quite a short chapter. I'm sorry, guys—there was more to cover than I thought, and I'm still not sure any of it actually makes a lick of sense.

 

But anyways, that's it! It's done! Thanks to you guys who stuck with me through the whole thing!