Supernatural - Chapter 50: Settling In (Patreon)

By their ninth day in the new house, the brothers had more or less adjusted to sleeping in separate rooms.

It had felt strange at first, of course. They'd spent most of their lives in motels, sharing one room with two beds and a lamp between them that never seemed to work properly.

Even at Bobby's, things hadn't changed much. They could tell without opening their eyes when the other rolled over or stayed up reading.

On the first night, Dean came out of the shower and almost went to Sam's room out of habit. His hand was already on the doorknob when he remembered. Unfortunately, Sam was awake and looked up from his book as soon as the door opened a crack.

“Your room's over there.”

“I know.”

Dean closed the door again without the slightest change in expression.

Within a few days, both had discovered the advantages. Sam no longer had to listen to Dean rummaging around in the middle of the night. Dean no longer had to lie awake at one in the morning, irritated by rustling pages. They could shut their doors and enjoy the quiet.

When Murphy heard them agreeing for once, she offered a single comment. “Congratulations. You learned how to sleep in separate rooms before turning thirty.”

Dean looked up at her. Sam paused with his coffee in hand.

Murphy swallowed her laugh in time. Her ribs still weren't fully healed, and she'd become quite good at knowing when to stop.

Dean pinched the back of her neck as he passed, a little delayed payback. Murphy tried to smack his hand, but he'd already moved on, leaving Sam laughing across the table.

Since their drive together, Dean no longer bothered inventing excuses to hold her. Kissing her had become just as easy.

There hadn't been room for much of that in the hospital. But once they came home, Dean quickly picked up where they'd left off.

Sometimes he'd steal a kiss as he passed the couch. Other times, when Dean was about to leave, Murphy would catch his shirt and pull him down.

It all felt so natural, as though they'd been doing it for ages. Oddly enough, neither of them had actually asked what they were to each other.

...

Now that they truly lived there, the house looked nothing like it had on the first night.

There were familiar shoes by the entrance, Dean's jacket often hung over an armchair in the living room, and Sam's half-read research occupied a permanent corner of the dining table.

Without ever discussing it, they'd each claimed a favorite place on the couch. A few days were enough for everyone to know who sat where.

The kitchen changed even faster.

Sam gradually took over the shopping list. He nearly always noticed before they ran out of milk, coffee, or laundry detergent.

Dean concentrated on filling the refrigerator with things he liked. Beer, bacon, and other calorie-heavy food soon took up a huge amount of space.

Murphy's snacks and a few bottles of seasoning with labels neither brother could decipher slowly squeezed into whatever room was left.

They never even sat down to assign the chores.

If a door hinge squeaked, Dean fetched his tools. If a bill was nearly due, Sam made a note of it. Murphy couldn't do much physical work yet, so she took charge of the internet, shopping, and some of the accounts. Anything that could be handled online rarely troubled the other two.

She settled into the arrangement quickly. The real problem was boredom.

Usually the three of them were either driving somewhere or investigating a case. Even on their rare days off, Murphy could always take on a technical job.

Now her doctor had temporarily taken her off the hunting roster. She couldn't so much as pick up a gun until her shoulder healed, and after organizing the studio, she suddenly had hours of empty time each day.

So gaming found its way back into Murphy's life.

At first, it was simply something to pass the time. After spending a few days messing around with the Wii in the living room, she remembered something she'd always thought sounded fun but had never seriously tried.

Recording gameplay videos was perfect for her current situation.

She could do it sitting down. No trips outside, no lifting equipment, and certainly no fighting demons for her life. She could edit the footage and audio herself afterward, and the studio had plenty of room for everything.

Once the idea took hold, Murphy started setting things up that very afternoon.

Dean carried in the monitors and heavier equipment, and Sam helped pull the desk out a little. Then she got to work on the cables, computer, and recording software, which quickly went beyond anything either of them could help with.

Dean watched from the doorway for ages.

“So you're planning to make a living playing video games?”

“It's a hobby, not a job.”

“People actually watch somebody else play?”

Murphy looked up with an expression that said he clearly didn't understand. “They do.”

Dean didn't bother hiding his skepticism.

...

The next afternoon, Murphy began recording her first gameplay video.

Dean came over out of curiosity. He managed to stay quiet at the door for a few minutes before forgetting completely that she was recording.

“Left.”

Murphy ignored him.

“Murphy, there's something on the left.”

She kept moving forward.

Dean couldn't stand it any longer. “You saw it! Why didn't you pick it up?”

Only then did Murphy pause the game, pull one side of her headphones away, and turn toward him.

“Dean, I'm recording.”

He blinked, clearly remembering that fact at last. Then he shrugged. “So cut this part out.”

For once Murphy couldn't think of an answer. She just pointed toward the hall. “Out. Go on.”

Dean agreed readily enough, but as he walked past he glanced at the timer on her screen and kissed the corner of her mouth.

“Don't sit here too long.”

“I know.”

“And,” Dean added from the doorway, remembering what she'd skipped, “your boyfriend still thinks you should go back and grab that thing on the left.”

Murphy had already put her headphones back on. At that, she stopped moving.

“Hold on.”

Dean looked back.

“Who said you were officially my boyfriend?”

He stared at her for two seconds.

“...You didn't?”

Murphy barely kept herself from laughing. “Did you ever actually ask?”

Now he was speechless.

When he thought about it, she was right. He'd made his intentions perfectly clear. Lately they'd been hugging and kissing, and they treated much of their relationship as a given. But neither had formally said what any of that meant.

Dean stood at the door looking at her. Then he grinned.

“All right.”

He turned and came back, stopping in front of her.

“I'm asking now.”

Murphy raised her head. “Go ahead.”

“Be with me.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Aren't we already together?”

“Murphy.”

His tone warned her quite clearly not to play dumb.

She finally laughed.

“Approved.”

Dean smiled too and leaned down to kiss her.

It was a brief kiss. When they parted, he stayed bent over her and checked, “So I can call myself your boyfriend now?”

“If you want.”

“Good.”

Dean straightened with satisfaction. He'd almost reached the door when he turned back and pointed at her screen.

“Don't forget to pick up that item on the left.”

“Dean,” Murphy said, her voice turning dangerous.

The door shut immediately.

Once the studio door closed behind him, everything inside soon fell quiet.

Dean stood in the hallway for a couple of seconds before going downstairs.

In practice, nothing had changed from a few minutes earlier. Murphy would still kiss him, and he could still hold her. They'd simply put a name to something that had gone unspoken.

He was thoroughly pleased about it.

Sam came back shortly before dinner with a few groceries the house needed. As the brothers put things away in the cupboards and refrigerator, Dean remembered what had happened that afternoon.

“Oh, by the way. Murphy and I are officially together.”

Sam stopped halfway through putting away a carton of milk.

“You weren't before?”

Dean glared at him. “You're annoying.”

Sam couldn't help laughing.

He'd seen how those two had been acting lately. But if Dean had gone out of his way to announce it, the word officially obviously mattered to him.

“All right.” Sam closed the refrigerator. “Congratulations.”

Now Dean was satisfied. “Thanks.”

...

Murphy's first gameplay video took longer to finish than she'd expected.

Naturally she had to cut Dean's interruption that afternoon, and several later sections needed their sound and video adjusted. After dinner she returned to the studio, finished the last edits, and finally had something ready to upload.

She'd registered the account the day she set up the equipment, under the name 404notfound. Murphy had no intention of using any identifying information. Even the profile picture and homepage were almost blank. Since the videos would show nothing but gameplay and her voice, she wanted to leave as little of her real life online as possible.

Sam passed the studio and brought her a glass of water. He happened to see the upload page as he came in.

“404notfound?”

“Yeah.”

“Why that name?”

Still checking the settings, Murphy said casually, “What's wrong with not being found?”

Sam understood at once. Given the way they lived, it was actually a pretty fitting choice.

“Fair point.”

He set the water beside her desk and left her to it. Once the upload finished and she confirmed the video played properly, Murphy closed the page.

Her first video sat there quietly, with only a handful of views at the start.

Murphy checked it once, then left it alone. She was bored while recovering and wanted something fun to do. Whether anybody watched made no difference to her plans to keep playing.

...

Bobby called halfway through breakfast the next morning.

Sam was spreading jam on his toast when he answered. As soon as Bobby mentioned the ritual array, he put the phone on the table and switched to speaker.

Bobby had been digging through more old books and had found several passages in even earlier records that corroborated one another.

There hadn't been anything wrong with the array itself. What happened to Sam when they activated it the first time really was connected to the old deal.

Dean had traded his soul for Sam's life. From the moment he signed, the two sides of the exchange were bound together.

If one side was forcibly removed, the other would be affected as well. That was why Sam's fatal wound had reopened the moment the array began undoing Dean's contract.

They'd already worked out that much on the night itself.

The part they hadn't understood came afterward.

“We got those lines wrong before,” Bobby said. “When they talk about breaking the deal, it's the exchange that matters.”

All three listened closely.

In the different versions Bobby had found, the same condition came up repeatedly. A contract formed through an exchange could only be broken completely once the basis for that exchange no longer held.

During the first activation, they'd still been trying to cancel the bargain. Dean wanted his soul back, but that meant taking back the life Sam had received in return. They'd had no choice but to stop the ritual.

What happened afterward was different.

When Dean walked out of the protective circle, he wanted to save them and knew he might die. But he hadn't bargained with anyone, or offered his life as a price to guarantee somebody else's survival.

By then, Dean actually wanted to live.

That was the meaning they'd missed all along.

The array had already acted on the contract. That final condition was all that remained. Once Dean genuinely fulfilled it, the bond that sustained the exchange broke on its own.

Dean was quiet for a while.

They'd come up with plenty of explanations over the last few days. The real answer turned out simpler than any of them.

He soon asked what mattered most to him. “What about Sam?”

“He's completely free of it,” Bobby replied. “Your contract doesn't exist anymore, so his life isn't tied to whatever happens to you.”

Sam, who'd been listening silently, went back to spreading jam.

Dean checked again. “You're sure?”

“Everything I've found points that way,” Bobby said after a pause. “I can keep looking if you want. But as far as the evidence goes, it's over.”

By the time the call ended, breakfast had cooled. They sat quietly for a while before each of them went back to eating.

Murphy could see that some of the tension had finally left Dean.

He didn't celebrate. In fact, when he finished eating, he collected his cup as usual and disappeared into the garage.

After living under the threat for an entire year, he couldn't simply switch gears because it had vanished. For so long, he'd woken every day knowing May 2 was coming. Now the date was behind him, and Bobby had told him there would never be a second one.

It would take time for that to feel real.

That evening, Sam came downstairs and found Dean still in the garage.

For once, the workbench wasn't covered in scattered tools, and Baby was parked in her usual place. Dean had turned on only a few lights near the car. He sat behind the wheel listening to music with the door open.

Sam leaned against the open door. “No work today?”

“How much work do you think there is every day?” Dean shot him a scornful look.

Sam rolled his eyes, dragged over a chair, and sat beside the car.

They listened to the music in silence. Sam knew his brother had already gotten the reassurance he really needed.

“Bobby said it's all right,” he reminded him.

“Yeah.”

A little later, Dean reached to the side and tossed him a beer. Sam caught it and found the bottle cold. Dean must have stocked the portable cooler before coming down.

It wasn't as if they'd never enjoyed quiet moments together before.

When they were exhausted from driving, they'd sometimes park Baby in the middle of nowhere or by a highway and drink in the car. On clear nights they could look at the stars. If neither wanted to search for another motel, they could lean the seats back and sleep there.

But those breaks never lasted. Morning meant hitting the road again, moving on to another town, another case, another room that belonged to somebody else.

This was different.

Baby's engine had been off for hours, and she was parked in a garage of her own. Upstairs, the brothers each had a bedroom. Sam's books were spread out in his study, and Murphy was probably still tucked away in her studio.

When they finished their beers, they could go upstairs and sleep. Tomorrow, everything would still be right where they'd left it.

Sam settled back in his chair and took a slow sip.

It was unfamiliar, but he liked the feeling.

Dean evidently did too. For once, he didn't seem in any hurry to tinker with something. He nursed the same beer for ages and only got up to change the record after the music ended.

...

As they settled in, each person's habits slowly began to leave their mark on the house.

Dean's were most obvious in the garage. Only days after hanging up the tools he'd brought from Bobby's, he could tell which screwdriver Murphy had borrowed because she'd returned it facing the wrong way.

That didn't surprise Sam. Once, when they were children, he'd touched one of Dean's tapes. Dean had punished him by making him listen to what Sam considered his noisiest cassette for three days straight.

After hearing the story, Murphy decided it was something of a miracle the two of them had survived growing up together.

Sam developed a new habit of his own in the attic.

His study was close to Murphy's studio, and both of them tended to stay up late.

Long after the lights downstairs went out, those two rooms were often still lit. Usually they worked separately. Occasionally they'd step out for air and discover the other was still awake.

One night, Sam was heading downstairs for water when he passed the studio and saw Murphy still at her computer with headphones on.

“Still awake?”

Murphy glanced at the clock. It was nearly one.

“You're awake too.”

Sam scratched his head. She had him there.

After going downstairs, he filled a second glass and left it on her desk on his way back. Murphy was editing a video. She only glanced up to thank him before returning to the screen.

At some point, neither could have said exactly when, it became routine.

Whoever went downstairs first usually brought something back for the other, whether water, coffee, or a little food. They never discussed it, but the attic slowly developed a nighttime routine of its own.

Murphy adapted easily. So did Sam.

One night, Sam brought her water as usual. He'd just opened the studio door when he heard her mutter something at her screen.

He could tell it was Murphy's native language, but he hadn't understood a single word.

“What did you say?”

Murphy was irritated by an audio track that refused to line up. She looked up. “Chinese.”

“I know it's Chinese,” Sam said with a smile. “I meant what does it mean?”

“Kids aren't allowed to learn swear words.”

Murphy clearly wasn't going to translate it. She went straight back to dragging the timeline around.

Sam made a face at being called a kid and lingered in the doorway.

She almost always spoke English with them. Hearing her switch back to Chinese, with a different rhythm to her speech, was unexpectedly interesting. He tried to recall the sounds she'd made but couldn't make them out.

Maybe he ought to learn a little someday.

The thought was casual. Sam set the water down without disturbing her further, then returned to his study.

Murphy was too busy fixing the sound to notice his expression.

When she finally finished fixing the audio, Murphy sent the file to export and opened another set of notes she'd been working on for days.

Ever since May 2, she'd kept wondering what had caused Sam's power to erupt the way it did.

The source of the power itself wasn't difficult to guess.

Azazel had interfered with Sam when he was still a baby. Both the prophetic dreams and his ability to move objects without touching them had appeared long before Ruby or demon blood entered the picture.

What troubled her was how far he'd advanced in a single leap.

In the original course of events, Sam hadn't been able to drive demons out by force, much less kill them, until much later. By then he'd been through Ruby's training and started using demon blood.

Yet on May 2, he'd had none of that. He'd still come close to ripping Lilith straight out of her host.

At first that had made Murphy place too much importance on demon blood. But after going over everything she could remember, she was beginning to suspect she'd got the order backward.

Ruby herself had eventually admitted that the power had always been inside Sam. Demon blood could make it grow much faster, but it didn't create the ability out of nothing.

There had even been an early version of the story that was never used. After Dean went to Hell, Sam would have continued strengthening his dark powers, even attempting to use them to enter Hell and rescue his brother.

That version never actually happened, but it gave Murphy another way of looking at things.

Maybe Sam had never lacked power. What he lacked was the willingness to use it.

Among the other children Azazel had chosen, Andy had learned to control people's minds early on, while Ava had eventually been able to command demons.

Sam, by contrast, had always recoiled from his gift. He hated where it came from and feared what it meant. If he could avoid using it, he almost always did.

May 2 had left him no choice.

Murphy remembered every detail. She went down, Bobby was hurt, Dean had stepped beyond the final protective barrier, and Sam was watching Lilith prepare to go on attacking.

With fear and anger pushed to their limits, he hadn't had time to reject that part of himself.

It had burst out on its own.

Murphy wrote a new line in her notes.

[An emotional loss of control can trigger a surge in ability.]

She thought for a moment, then added something beneath it.

[Deliberately accessing it may also cause it to grow rapidly.]

That second possibility was the one that truly worried her.

If Sam only lost control in extreme situations, she at least knew what to guard against. But if he discovered that he could actively train the power, that would change everything.

Because the ability really was useful.

It could drive a demon out without injuring its host. Once strong enough, it could even kill the demon outright. For a hunter, it was difficult to imagine a more tempting weapon.

Sam might even learn faster than the other special children. After all, Lucifer had wanted him from the beginning.

Murphy studied the line on the page. Then another image surfaced in her mind.

Sam, his eyes turned completely black.

She frowned slowly and set down her pen.

Sam brought it up the following evening.

He'd known for several days that Murphy was investigating, but she hadn't given him a definite answer. When he passed the studio this time, the reorganized notes were still spread over the desk, with May 2 written at the top.

“Find anything?”

Murphy followed his gaze. There was no point putting it off.

“A little.”

She gave him a brief account of the conclusions she'd reached the night before.

As she'd expected, Sam's first question went straight to the heart of it.

“So I can still do it.”

It wasn't a question this time.

“Probably,” Murphy said after a pause. “But I wouldn't advise trying it just to prove that you can.”

Sam frowned. He knew she wasn't going to judge him for having a power that came from demons, which made her answer all the more troubling.

“Why? Did you discover something else?”

“Not exactly. I don't have enough evidence to support what I'm thinking.” Murphy closed her notebook. “I'm fairly certain the ability can grow stronger. What I don't know is whether, as it grows, it might change you too.”

At least, along this altered timeline, she had no idea where the boundary might be.

She wasn't about to mention demon blood, either. Sam had no idea it could strengthen his powers. Murphy wasn't going to hand him the most dangerous possibility just to support a theory.

Sam sat quietly for a while, clearly thinking back to May 2.

The power was dangerous, but it had also saved them. Lilith had overwhelmed them all. Without Sam's sudden surge, no one could say what would have happened.

And then there were the people the demons possessed.

“If I could control it,” Sam said slowly, “I could at least exorcise them without hurting the host.”

Murphy understood.

With a traditional exorcism, the injuries a demon left behind didn't disappear when it did. Some hosts didn't even survive long enough for the ritual to finish.

Sam's ability could reach the demon directly, inside the person. In that respect, it was cleaner than most methods they had.

That was precisely what made it so enticing.

“If there's absolutely no other option, I won't stop you using it,” Murphy said. “But I don't think you should try to train it.”

Sam looked up. “You think it'll change me?”

Murphy was silent for a moment before nodding.

She couldn't explain any further. Those were all the facts she could be sure of, and anything more would rely on what she knew of the future.

Sam plainly wasn't satisfied. He turned his cup between his hands for a while before asking, “What if I can't control it next time, either?”

“Then we find a way to make sure you don't always have to be pushed to breaking point before you can use it.”

Sam looked surprised. “Isn't that still studying it?”

“Studying you isn't the same as training that power.”

As soon as Murphy said it, she realized how odd it sounded.

Sam caught on too. He tried not to smile. “Studying me? That sounds a little scary.”

“Hey! I'm not Frankenstein!” Murphy glared at him.

Fortunately, Sam wasn't actually looking for an argument. He stood to return to his study and carried her empty glass away with him.

Murphy opened her notes again and drew another line beneath the words 'deliberately accessing it'.

...

The following morning, Sam remembered the question he'd left unfinished the previous night.

“If it was a rush of emotion that triggered it,” he said, holding his coffee and thinking it over, “what about the headache and the nosebleed? Were those normal?”

Murphy truly couldn't answer that.

She'd listed several possibilities in her notes, but had no proof for any of them. Using the ability might put a strain on the body, or the problem might have been the sudden release of so much power the first time. Whether it would get worse with continued use was even less clear.

Dean had been eating breakfast. As he listened, he gradually stopped.

“Hold on.” He looked between them. “When did you two start talking about this?”

Sam hesitated.

Murphy didn't see any reason to keep it from him, so she briefly explained what they'd concluded the night before.

Dean responded almost before she finished, leaving Sam barely any chance to speak.

“No.”

Sam frowned. “No what?”

“This isn't up for discussion. You're not using those weird powers of yours anymore.”

Dean's eyebrows drew together. He looked completely serious.

Sam hated it when Dean made decisions for him. “Dean, if I hadn't had them that night...”

“I know what happened that night,” Dean interrupted. “And you remember the headache, the nosebleed, and the way you could barely stand, don't you?”

“But Lilith got away. We're still in danger.”

“Then we'll find another way next time.”

Sam fell quiet for a moment. He was angry, but kept his voice low as he explained. “If I can control it, I won't have to wait until I lose control every time. And I can exorcise demons without hurting the host. That alone...”

“Sam, I don't care how convenient it is.”

That told Sam there was no point continuing for the moment.

Dean's aversion to the power was practically instinctive. It came from Azazel, from demons, and from everything Dean had feared for his little brother over the years.

Whether it could save people or protect possessed hosts was never going to outweigh that fear in his mind.

Sam lowered his head, took a sip of coffee, and said nothing more.

Murphy, sitting beside them, watched both brothers closely.

She actually agreed with Dean on one point.

She wouldn't support Sam deliberately training the ability, especially before they understood the consequences. But Dean's blanket refusal would only push Sam farther away.

“All right.” She nudged her plate forward. “Nobody's planning to drag a demon in here for Sam to practice on. You can stop worrying about that for now.”

That last remark was for Dean.

Then she turned to Sam. “And don't assume that being able to control it makes it safe. I still don't have an answer to what you asked me yesterday.”

Sam nodded.

Dean still wasn't happy. “So the answer is not to use it.”

“The answer is to investigate first,” Murphy corrected, picking up her coffee again. “Once we've worked it out, you two can go back to arguing.”

She had no intention of refereeing between the brothers at breakfast. She understood why Dean was worried about Sam.

Sam had seen what the power could do firsthand. A simple order from his older brother wasn't going to make him forget it.

Sure enough, Sam didn't mention it again, but his expression showed he was still thinking about it.

Murphy noticed and chose not to say anything.