E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
RATING: PG-13
POSTED: May 10, 2006
SUMMARY: Sam knows a little more than Dean would like.
NOTES: Post-Nightmare, but pre-Provenance. Written for Monkie, who rather depserately wanted mindreading!Sam fic. Ta muchly to Pouncer and Ossian for the look-see.
DISCLAIMER: Read
It started with staring.
Not every morning, but enough of them that when the sensation pulled Dean awake that morning to see Sam sitting there in his own bed just looking at him, he pushed himself up, and scrubbed at his nose and mumbled, "Dude, if you drew on my face again..."
Sam snickered, and Dean blinked his eyes clear enough to grab the busted alarm clock off the nightstand. He threw it left, into Sam's dodge, and grinned when Sam muttered, "Shit," and flexed his arm, holding onto his elbow.
"Try mixing those moves up a little, kiddo," Dean told him as he shoved back the sheet.
He would've gotten the bathroom door closed before the clock hit his ass if Sam's bed hadn't been in the way.
~~
The question that afternoon started edging things toward freaky.
He and Sam used a lot of the same words when Sam wasn't thinking too hard, always had, but these weren't just words.
"Do you have ice cream?"
While Dean eyed his brother -- who hadn't touched ice cream since that time in Niagara that even Dean tried not to think about -- the waitress finally smiled for real, wiping away at least a couple of the years put on her by the "don't you push me today" look she'd been aiming at everyone in the place.
"Of course, hon. What'cha want? We got vanilla, chocolate, mint, coffee--"
Sam broke into that quick listing, his eyes wide. "Do you have soft-serve?"
Dean's eyes narrowed further, but the rest he controlled. He didn't move, didn't twitch, not even when Sam sighed at the waitress' "Oh, sorry, no," and said, "That's a pity. Maybe next time."
It was a coincidence. Maybe at Stanford Sam had discovered that it was only regular ice cream that made him... Yeah.
Dean headed off any questions about what he wanted with a curt, "I'm good." And he didn't watch anything but the ice shifting in his glass as she walked away, her legs looking absolutely nothing like the smooth, tanned ones on the brunette yesterday, the ones that had looked long enough to wrap around all kinds of things as she licked at that cone for a good fifteen minutes outside the Spring City library.
~~
It was almost sundown when things really went sideways.
The repetition was what did it. The third time Dean raised his head from the latest bound collection of totally useless newspapers to check out the person walking in the library door, and Sam looked at him and shook his head, Dean broke.
"What?"
"Huh?"
"Shhh," hissed the librarian, a guy who probably slept tucked between the magazines and the microfiche. For all the traffic it was getting, there wasn't enough room between the stacks in this place for anyone who didn't sleep standing up, and the guy had never seen sun, Dean was betting, not with skin that gray.
Dean rolled his eyes and scooted his chair back from the table, shutting the book with a snap, just because.
"You want to keep searching the last century worth of weather reports, knock yourself out," he told Sam as he pulled on his jacket. "I'm going to go talk that priest into handing over the death records, because if there is a pattern to these drownings, it sure isn't the moon."
Sam shrugged one shoulder, and reached over to lift Dean's book and put it back on the "to-read" pile. "She won't be out there, either," he said.
Dean scowled down at Sam's bent head for a full two seconds before snapping, "Who?"
With a soft noise, Sam flipped a yellowed page. Then he looked up, and there was just a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth, and Dean felt his scowl deepen before Sam said, "The brunette." Like it was obvious. Because who else would he be talking about other than the girl who Dean couldn't get out of his mind, who he hadn't been able to keep from hoping he'd see again as it got more obvious that there was nothing but dust in these books, and who Sam had damn well never seen.
Dean leaned down and slammed Sam's book shut, grabbed Sam by the elbow and hauled him up, and got them across the room and out the door before the librarian could recover from the noise or the treatment of town property.
That all only worked -- oh yeah, Dean was really aware -- because Sam was cooperating. Wasn't putting up a fight, anyway. Not even when they got to the car, and Dean demanded, "Okay, spit it out. New trick?"
A smile spread across Sam's face. "Yeah, I guess so," he said, and it was only the amazement in his tone that kept Dean from slugging him, because visions, okay, fucked up, but they were there, done deal. And moving shit with his mind, that seemed to be a life-or-death thing, hadn't happened again no matter how much Dean had prodded, and Dean had no plans on dying again to kick it back into happening, so fine, whatever. This. This was his head. And...God.
"And you were going to tell me when?" he asked as quietly as he could, not waving his hands as wide as he wanted and really giving away how much this new little wrinkle was freaking him out. "Or were you just going to beam it to me?"
Sam let out a sharp sigh. "I...I don't think it works like that. I wasn't even sure if it was working at all. They're flashes. Images. Those just started today and you didn't...you kept acting so..." He shook his head and relaxed against the side of the car. "You can be an inscrutable bastard when you want to be, you know."
"'Inscrutable.' Great." Dean grimaced. What were the chances that worked for his head as well as his face?
Those just started... As that repeated in his head, Dean sucked in a breath. Those. He cocked an eyebrow at Sam.
"So all you're getting from me is a picture of this girl I saw?"
He didn't expect to get a nod, not with what he was beginning to suspect, but he really didn't expect to get Sam ducking his head and...son of a bitch. Dean fell back, but then stepped right back up into Sam's space. "What? What else did you see?"
Sam cleared his throat before he looked up and met Dean's eyes, and he wasn't blushing, he was smirking, eyebrows raised high and everything. "Do you have that dream every night?" he asked.
Dean stared at Sam for a moment, his mind truly blank. Then he grinned and slapped at Sam's head. "You little pervert."
"Me?" Sam protested, his hands coming up too late as he started really laughing. "Hey, I'm not the one who's spent the last week dreaming of a woman who likes licking that many things."
"And why not?"
Sam's eyes went wide. "Because!"
"Man, that's the reason to do it, not the other way around," Dean sneered. Familiar ground was a hell of a lot more stable. He knew better than to wonder what Jess liked to lick, so he stuck with, "Did Stanford teach everything that backwards?"
"Whatever," Sam said, and he turned around to open the passenger door, ending that conversation like an adult.
Dean snorted, but headed around the other side. As he slid in behind the wheel and started the engine, he kept one eye on Sam's face.
"So this thing, it's got an on-off switch?"
Sam shrugged. "I don't know." He sounded fine about that, but then Dean saw the small frown that never meant rainbows and puppies form between Sam's eyebrows. "I hope so."
"Yeah."
Sam shot a look his way. "You don't think..."
"I think we'll find out," Dean said calmly. "Just don't go treating me like your personal guinea pig, and I won't have to kill you in your sleep."
"Right."
There was just enough "yeah, right" in that response that Dean started to relax as he pulled out, and as he took the corner onto the street that would take them right to the church. They'd find out, eventually, and he would do his damnedest to not think too loud.
All the same...
"Okay, I'll let you have a couple more dreams," he said as they pulled into the church parking lot, like he was granting the biggest favor since flipping Sam the car keys. "You know, just until you're ready for a big-kid bike again."
Sam's startled laugh was the best thing Dean had heard all day.
~~
This was going to be "normal" if Dean had to beat it into place.
Two hours of research back at the motel, and Sam hadn't even gotten halfway through the pile of records of in front of him, and that, Dean decided, was his cue.
"You been getting anything off anyone else?"
Sam's head shot up, but the look he gave Dean wasn't surprised -- he was frowning.
"No." He straightened and stretched back in his chair, holding the tension for a moment before letting go with a sigh. "I mean, I wasn't even sure that I was getting anything from you until the library, so I wasn't exactly trying..."
When the pause kept on going, Dean waved a hand, encouraging. Sam just shrugged and crossed his arms over the photocopies on the table in front of him.
"I don't know what to try, Dean," he confessed. "Staring really hard doesn't work, or at least it didn't on Father Wright."
A huff of laughter escaped Dean. "I wondered." Sam winced, and Dean nodded.
"Yeah. You're lucky that me asking him about the close quarters in the burial plots got him going for five minutes. Not as obvious as the head-grabbing-and-grimacing, there, Sammy, but..." He let that trail off as Sam dropped his head onto his arms and groaned.
Well, if it wasn't that easy to pick stuff out of people's heads, that was almost a relief. Still didn't answer how Sam had gotten that dream and that girl out of Dean's head, but that just put this in line behind the rest of the Psychic Wonder mess. Not dangerous, not helpful, and not going to be obsessed about by Sam.
"You know," he said, looking intently at Sam's head, "one of these things isn't like the others."
Sam's laugh was muffled, but it was there. "You're not a priest?"
"Thank God," Dean said, and it was good to hear Sam snort. "But that's sort of my point. Use a little of that big brain, Sam."
With a deep sigh, Sam lifted his head far enough to prop his chin on his wrists. "You. A priest. I'm not seeing much else to analyze, here."
Dean tsked. "What did you get from me, and what did you not get from the priest?"
Sam's eyes narrowed as he thought. Dean raised his eyebrows when that took more than a moment, because if Sam wasn't getting this...
"Oh, God," Sam gasped, and his face twisted as he sat straight up.
"That's my boy," Dean chuckled.
"I'm picking up sexual thoughts?"
Still smiling, Dean leaned forward across the table and tried not to grin too wide at the way Sam couldn't quite hold onto his righteous horror; that twitch of his mouth was about the opposite of horror.
"Think you could use that power for good?" he asked with a leer.
Sam tried to scowl. "Shut up."
Dean spread his hands. "I'm just saying..."
"Seriously." Sam got up and glared down at him. "Shut. Up."
"We'll stay clear of malls for a while," Dean mused, as Sam shook his head and turned away, pulling his bag up onto his bed and digging through it. "Wouldn't want to shock you."
"Shock me?" Sam shot that glare -- which hadn't gotten any weaker -- over his shoulder. "As long as you don't dream about being tied to the bed and fucked, I think--"
"Huh." Dean tilted his head at that. "Picked up on that one, too?"
Sam slowly turned all the way back around, gaping.
After a second that actually was shocked, Dean gave in and laughed, hard and loud.
"Oh, for God's sake." Sam dropped onto his bed, and then fell back, hands clutching his head. "Shut up."
"Oh, no. No, I don't think so," Dean gasped. He was trying for control, but it was a lost cause once Sam reached over his head, and then blindly threw a pillow in Dean's general direction, and it landed in front of the door.
It took clearing his throat a couple of times, but when Dean finally pulled himself together, he picked up the pillow and walked over to toss it back at Sam's head. "You've been holding out on me. Come on, Sam. Share. What have you been up to?"
Sam's eyes were closed, but he lifted a hand and gave Dean the finger.
Snickering, Dean patted Sam's knee. "Okay, okay, I'll buy you dinner first. I need coffee, anyway, if we're going to get through the rest of those records before morning."
Whatever language Sam spat out at that, it wasn't English. Sounded a lot like the curse that medicine woman had thrown at dad before they left Arizona, actually; Sam had only been ten at the time, but his mind always had been a sponge in a steel trap. The curse probably wouldn't work any better now than it had then, but Dean kicked Sam's foot on principle.
"You've got five minutes, bro, and then all you're getting is peanut butter crackers from the machine."
Sam aimed his disgusted grimace at the ceiling, but the threat got him to sit up. "Just, don't ask--"
"Yeah, whatever," Dean said, waving off Sam's warning finger as he headed into the bathroom. "I've got time."
##
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