Supernatural Fan Fiction ❯ A Sea of Waking Dreams ❯ Little Talks ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 4

 

Dean didn't even bother questioning whether or not to call Cal to come stay with Sam while he went out to investigate the lead he'd found. He was starting to get used to having limited choices, and recognizing a useless situation when he saw one. And with Bobby more than a day out and Missouri or Ellen even further, this definitely qualified as a circumstance of limited choices.

 

This, though, he couldn't do in secret, obviously. This would involve actually leaving the motel grounds and taking the Impala with him. It would be disappearing on Sam if he didn't tell, and obviously that was never happening again.

 

But the first thing was to get hold of the Leandros brothers.

 

It turned out to be surprisingly easy, which was a good thing because Cal's response to his call was somewhat unsatisfactory.

 

“Hey. I thought you'd left town.”

 

That was it, and he didn't sound all that surprised, even when Dean asked his favor. All he said in reply to the question and its explanation was, “Sure, I'll hang out with Sam. Wanted to talk to him if I got the chance anyway.”

 

“Really?” Dean said, trying not to sound suspicious. “What about?”

 

“Oh, ya know,” Cal said vaguely. “Just catching up. I'll be over pretty soon.”

 

And then he hung up, without giving Dean a chance to get another word in.

 

Dean rolled his eyes as he closed his cell phone. Niko was all right, he guessed, but Cal pretty much fit every description of an annoying little brother—in his book, at least, though he was pretty sure he wouldn't be mentioning his opinion to Niko anytime soon.

 

His own pain-in-the-neck little brother was sitting up in his bed, waiting, when he stepped out of the bathroom where he'd made the call. When he came out, Sam asked without preamble, “Why do you want Cal to come here?”

 

Dean glanced back at the door behind him, then at his brother. “And here I could've sworn I put Kryptonite in your cereal this morning, Superman.”

 

It was a lame joke, probably one even the old Sam wouldn't have acknowledged, but Dean hadn't told a joke in a long time and the simple act of it just felt good.

 

Sam, though, didn't even seem to notice. He just said, “The walls are thin. Where are you going?”

 

Dean sighed a little and went to sit down next to Sam. “I got a lead on a hunt, right here in the city. I need to go talk to some people.”

 

Sam cocked his head to the side a little and said, “I can't come.” Dean was about to reply when Sam surprised him by following up the question-not-question on his own. “Because I can't act like a cop or anything like that. It wouldn't work.” He looked up at Dean and asked, “You have to go, don't you? I don't know why, but you do.”

 

Dean shifted on the mattress and said, “Well, yeah. I guess I do. But don't worry, kiddo. Cal'll be here, and I'll have my cell. You can call whenever you need to, okay?”

 

“Are you leaving now?” Sam asked.

 

“Uh…no. I'm waiting `til Cal gets here.”

 

“Oh. Okay. I hope it works.”

 

“You hope what works?” Dean asked, confused.

 

“Whatever you want this hunt to do for you and me. I hope it works,” Sam said sincerely.

 

Dean shifted again, more uncomfortably this time. Sam was a little too perceptive these days, even for him.

 

“Yeah, Sammy. I hope so, too.”

 

XXX

 

Sam was watching public access television with the distinct lack of interest he'd been putting to everything when Cal and Niko turned up. He looked up when Dean pulled open the door and raised his splinted arm in greeting, then turned back to the screen.

 

“Hey,” Dean said a little awkwardly as he closed the door again. “Thanks for doing this, guys.”

 

“Oh, he's not doing it,” Cal said with a gesture at his brother. “He's going with you.”

 

“Um…what?” Dean asked.

 

“Well,” Niko said, in his carefully polite way, “Cal told me what was happening, and that Sam needed some company. I had nothing on the radar, and I thought to see if you needed company, as well.”

 

And it'll make Sam feel better to know I have some backup.

 

The idea occurred to Dean without any warning, and he wondered fleetingly—before dismissing the idea as ridiculous—if it had occurred to Niko, too. It obviously hadn't, but it was still the truth. Even if all he planned to do was interviews, it would still make Sam feel better if he knew Dean wasn't doing any kind of hunting-involved work by himself.

 

So, reluctantly, Dean glanced over at Sam, and then looked back at Niko and nodded.

 

“Fine.”

 

XXX

 

After Dean and Niko were gone, Sam went back to staring blankly at the screen. He wasn't exactly ignoring Cal—it was more like he'd forgotten he wasn't alone.

 

For a while, Cal just stood where he was, shifting from foot to foot, bored out of his skull and wondering why he'd agreed to this in the first place. But then Sam shifted uneasily on the bed and sort of half-reached for the cell phone on the nightstand, and he remembered.

 

As if the idea had only just occurred to him, he went over and sat down at the foot of Sam's bed. He dangled one leg over the side and crossed the other, and asked casually, “So, how're you doing, Sam?”

 

Sam looked at him, openly and obviously surprised. He seemed to think hard on it, and then said, as if speaking lines from a memorized script, “I'm fine.”

 

“Really? Huh,” Cal said thoughtfully. “And here I was thinking you were completely crappy.”

 

Sam looked puzzled then, as if by saying what he did Cal had gone off the script. “I'm fine. Isn't that what I'm supposed to say? I thought it's what I always say…”

 

Cal rolled his eyes. “Dude, you're not an actor. You're not supposed to say anything.”

 

“…Oh,” Sam said. “Well, I knew that was how it worked with Dean. I didn't know I was supposed to tell you the truth, too.”

 

With that Sam turned his attention back to the TV, as if the matter was quite closed, and for the moment Cal didn't see any choice but to do the same.

 

He just really wished that hunters, as a whole, weren't so certifiably nuts. If he were anyone else, he might even have found it disconcerting.

 

XXX

 

Niko was actually a less annoying tag-along than Dean had anticipated. He seemed pretty willing to just follow along while Dean did his interviewing at victims' homes, at the police station, and at the county office, all without saying a word.

 

But here was the thing—Dean didn't like doing this with other people. To most hunters, the job was a deeply personal thing, the same way the story of how they got started was deeply personal. You hunted with family or friends, and occasionally had outside contacts, but they didn't often interfere.

 

That was usually Dean's way. He always hunted with Sam and sometimes he hunted with Bobby or, very rarely, Ellen. Except for a couple of extreme circumstances, that was it. It just went too deep to open to anyone else.

 

Except, apparently, Niko Leandros.

 

And how had that even happened, anyway? He'd only meant to rope Cal, who he found annoying but who Sam seemed to like and trust—which had, after all, been the whole point. But apparently, the Leandros brothers were a package deal, and somehow, by getting one, he'd also ended up with the other.

 

Well, whatever. At least Sam wasn't left on his own. And it wasn't like Niko was the chattering type, or interfered with the work at all. In fact, most of the time he just sat in the car and waited.

 

But…well, there was this one thing—this subtle thing that Niko did every time Dean got back in the car. He would get this look on his face—kind of like the look Sam would get when they were littler and John would ask them questions about creatures they hunted, and Sam knew the answer to every question but wanted to give Dean the chance to answer for a change. It wasn't smug, it wasn't condescending, it wasn't even really that irritating—just…knowing.

 

But for the life of him, Dean couldn't figure out what Niko could know that he didn't.

 

Maybe he didn't know anything. Maybe Dean's suspicions were just being confirmed.

 

Maybe Niko and Cal really were just crazy.

 

XXX

 

“Ya know, I sent assassins after Niko a while back.

 

Sam looked away from the screen at that, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “You did what?”

 

Cal shrugged, carefully keeping his voice from trembling as he went on. “Yeah. I tried to have him killed, and George, too. And…well, a lot of other people, but they're the ones who stick out in my mind.”

 

“But you love them,” Sam stated, without a trace of embarrassment. “You love them more than anyone else in the world.”

 

Cal felt himself reddening a little. “Yeah. That's why I sent the assassins in the first place. I was possessed—by something called Darkling. Not a possession like the kind you hunters work with—not a demon. It was more than that. It was like…me, only distorted. I remember it like it was me—I remember doing those things and liking it. Hell, I loved it.”

 

Sam shook his head. “I know what you're trying to say. But it still wasn't you, no matter how you remember it. It's not the same thing at all.”

 

“No,” Cal agreed. “I know. But that wasn't the point I was trying to make. My point was that it wasn't my fault. Took me a while to get it, but I know now that it wasn't. I didn't want to kill my brother, any more than you did.”

 

Sam gave a little start and looked at him again, this time accusingly, like he suspected Cal of reading his mine—or of having it read—again.

 

“Well? Isn't that what you've been thinking?” Cal asked, as if the answer wasn't plain. “That if you'd just been paying more attention you would've seen trouble coming in time to stop it?”

 

“Yes,” Sam said frankly, as if he was only surprised no one had figured it out before.

 

“Sam, Darkling came out of my bathroom mirror. I saw it for weeks before it possessed me, and I didn't do anything to stop it. I didn't even try. You tell me, is that my fault?”

 

Sam looked away without replying—but the very fact that he did avoid answering was proof that something had gotten through to him.

 

After a couple of minutes, Cal sighed inwardly and turned his attention to the infomercial that had been playing for the last fifteen minutes. Sam turned to watch it, too, and Cal gave an inward sigh. Maybe he'd gotten through to Sam and maybe he hadn't but either way he felt like he'd run ten miles. Playing the therapist was just plain hard.

 

Was this how Niko felt all the time? Because if it was, maybe he had a reason to be so cranky…

 

XXX

 

When Dean got back in the Impala to head back to the motel after his last interview, Niko had that look again, and Dean finally cracked.

 

“What?”

 

Niko raised an eyebrow slightly and said mildly, “Excuse me?”

 

“C'mon, man. I know you've been thinking something all day. Why don't you just say it instead of…looking like that?”

 

“I wasn't aware that I could change the way I look. If you possess the secret to that, perhaps you could enlighten me.”

 

“So you can joke. I'd act impressed, but this whole thing with Sammy has worn my patience a little thin. Just tell me what you're thinking so we can go.”

 

Niko shook his head. His hand flashed momentarily, and then a knife appeared in it. It was a pretty impressive weapon, actually, and Dean would've said so if he felt at all like paying compliments.

 

“Telling you would be too close to passing judgment. It's not for me to question the way you do your work, especially since your life is so different from mine.”

 

“Cut the fortune cookie crap. I've been talking to uncooperative people all day and I just want to go back to the motel.”

 

“You didn't have to,” Niko said suddenly. “Talk to uncooperative people, I mean. That's what I've been thinking. I could have gotten you the same information in about an hour.”

 

“Oh, I would love to know how.”

 

“I have…contacts,” Niko explained. “Contacts who could tell you all you need to know, since they keep their ears quite close to the ground. They aren't hunters, but you wouldn't have to explain to them or make up stories, either. But you have your ways, and I have mine. Both seem fairly affective.”

 

Dean barley heard the last part, though—he was too caught up in Niko's definition of “contacts.”

 

He looked out the windshield and spoke as if to it. “You're right—our lives are different, and I won't judge you any more than you judge me. But this is my hunt, and I'm doing it my way. And I don't work with monsters.”

 

He really hadn't meant for it to come out that way—so harsh and immediate—but he couldn't exactly go back now.

 

There was a flash of silver, and Dean looked over to see Niko twirling the blade almost idly, flipping it fro hand to hand almost negligibly. When he spoke, he sounded perfectly calm—just a friend advising a friend.

 

“I wouldn't recommend you ever say that again.”

 

XXX

 

Victory was so close Michael could almost taste it from where he crouched, his eyes locked on the door that was the only thing standing between him and Becky's killer. He'd already surveyed the place and decided he could get a dart through the tiny window if he could find the right angle. And the boy Dean couldn't stay there forever, as he'd already proven. He'd leave again, and then…then Michael would strike.

 

And then the low-down murderer would disappear, and no one would ever come looking for him.

 

Michael would make sure of it.

 

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Author's Note: Well, I did it! I put down 1984 long enough to write this chapter! Never thought it'd happen, much less in one week! Anyways, I hope you all like it, and that I managed to keep on writing Cal and Niko okay.

 

I am sorry about the limited brother-to-brother interaction in the chapter. It won't last, though!

 

Also, one more thing. I couldn't remember if Darkling actually did have an L in it. I'm pretty sure it did, but my best friend borrowed my books and so I couldn't look it up. So if I spelled it wrong, I'm sorry!

 

Well, that's all! Review, please!