1709/In Your Dreams

In Your Dreams
Date of Scene:	28 July 2017
Location:	The dreams of one Sam Winchester
Synopsis:	Fred Burkle uses a dreamwalking spell to try to reach out to Sam Winchester in the hopes of gaining details about his location, captors, or anything else that can help.
Cast of Characters:	Winifred Burkle, Sam Winchester

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Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred has multiple different people on the search for Sam Winchester. It's a comfort to know that there are many groups on the look out for Sam for both his sake and their own reasons. The building with Mercy and the reassurances from Angel have been a steadying force in her own determination forward to find and rescue him.

However, as a scientist and a stubborn woman, Fred is nothing if not persistent and a believer in multiple different tactics are necessary to find the proper path forward. There is Mercy with her scent, Angel with his investigations, Harry with his magic. Now it's Fred's turn to try something she saw in one of Wesley's magic tomes. A Dream Walking Spell is a difficult working and one that might be dangerous, but one she undertakes immediately and without second thought. It's taken her awhile to find all the ingredients and she has told no one about her intentions in case they might attempt to stop her, but finally the night has come.

With the thick and waterlogged tome open on the floor in front of her, she pulls out and mixes all the different herbs, branches and stones that she has gathered over the course of the week in a bowl. Setting it down in front of her, she closes her eyes to focus for a moment. Then, she opens them and looks down to the book in her lap and starts to recite the words in Latin. As the spell gathers strength, she can feel the shiver of energy around and through her. Finally, the last words are spoken and she can feel the rush of power leave her. Her eyes flutter for a few moments and then she slumps to the side, fast asleep.

Blackness stretches into the void for miles - or what might be miles, it's hard to tell in an astral space. But, then, things start to form, as if appearing through a dark mystical fog. The landmarks are hard to make out to her, but she walks forward, determined.
"Sam?" she calls out, hoping this worked and that she hasn't just trapped herself in a sleeping world, unable to wake up.

Sam Winchester has posed:
The darkness resolves itself into a hot, muggy night. A night with humidity deep enough and oppressive enough to feel like one is breathing through a wet blanket soaked in boiling water. Whirring cicadas forge a symphony in the air. There are no streetlights, but the wind whistles through cypress, pine, and oak. These trees crowd together, thick, oppressive, with roots rising through the ground. Somewhere, the smell of water is in the air, and dark curls of Spanish moss brush at Fred's forehead, looking like the hair of some old hag.

And then the night erupts with calls, jeers, and cheers. A pack of something terrible, hunting.

She calls for Sam, and he doesn't answer, but abruptly she sees someone running through the trees. The wind briefly splits the shifting shadows of the leaves to allow the moon to illuminate him. Floppy haired, tall and rangy, dressed...not much differently than he dresses now...but pale, scared, and young. This Sam can't be more than 15 or 16. He leaps over a fallen log with a machete in hand just in time for a vampire-- the teeth are fairly obvious-- to leap out and snarl at him. He grits his teeth and twists his body, slicing at the thing's neck. The head goes flying; he's covered in blood, and the kill does little to dampen his fear. There are more out there.

The vampire head stares up at Fred. Lanky grey hair. A scarred face. Beard, and pale, watery blue eyes.

The young Sam doesn't appear to see Fred right away. He looks left and right, snarls, withdraws a syringe of dead man's blood, and shifts directions like a Marine, clearly trying to turn the hunt on //them//.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
The vampire head careens and lands practically at Fred's feet. This is not the vampires she is used to - the ones that turn to dust when staked or beheaded. There are bodies left behind, there are things to bury. A bitten back shriek is swallowed as Fred stares down at the lifeless eyes that look back up at her unseeing.

This is what Sam talked about. This is what he dreams about - has nightmares about. Fred looks about her with a gulp, though her throat is suddenly dry.

Through the moss and the humidity and the trees, Fred steps out and closer to the young Sam, hands up and trying to look as unthreatening as she can. In this, at least, she has an advantage. Her large brown eyes and Southern accent tend to make people think of her as a woman to be protected than one that has steel in her veins.

"Sam?" she says again, this time from a short distance away. "Hey, it's...hey." She glances behind her to make sure the dream vampires aren't closing in. "This is gonna be a little hard to take right now, but you know me. And I can help you, okay?"

Sam Winchester has posed:
"Fred?"

Young Sam draws close to her, panting. His machete is dripping with blood, and then it's just gone. Something /hisses/ in the distance, and he shrinks, but the dead man's blood is gone too.

He's not 16 anymore. He's 21 and he looks like crap. A scruffy near-beard has taken over the lower half of his face. Lank, unkempt, unwashed hair frames either side of it. His high cheekbones are a little more pronounced, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He's dressed in filthy jeans and a filthy t-shirt...the same stuff he was wearing when he left, only the plaid shirt and SHIELD-issued leather bulletproof jacket are missing. He looks like a mess of bruises. They march across his face and down his neck, they disappear under his shirt. They are layered. Red over purple, purple over green, green over yellow, yellow over blue. Trackmarks march up and down his arms too, livid. The moon illuminates them perfectly, and it suddenly turns cold.

The bayou is replaced by stone.

He rushes to her, hazel eyes wild with fear.

"No, no we have to get you out of here, they're going to hurt you." He tries to gather her into his arms. "You can't be here, you /can't/, they'll-- " He can't even say it, what he fears they'll do. He just swallows hard, looks left and right, desperate to get them out.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
The scenery changes and Fred glances about her as it does, unsure of what that means. However, then, Sam ages upward to the man she knows. He looks hurt and unkempt and it hurts Fred's heart to see him. There are trackmarks and who knows what else he has been through in this hellhole of concrete and torture.

"Sam!" The relief to see him again is clear in her voice. Fred's eyes glass over with unshed tears. The woman he rushes toward feels real: he does not pass through her. She's solid and wraps her arms tightly about him in a tight and gripping returned hug. Thought this is a dream, there seems to be some substance here.

"I'm not really here," she says, ashamed even as she says it, though that might actually be reassuring to Sam in this moment. "This is some sort of spell of I found in one of Wesley's books. We're in a dream. I've been trying to find you." There's no use to ask how he is, because she can see the wear of his treatment. There is a poorly hidden anger that seeths through her as she holds Sam close. "We're going to get you out of here, I promise. Gut we might need your help. Do you know anything about where you are?"

Sam Winchester has posed:
"I know you can't be here," Sam says stubbornly. "I mean-- I know you're not here now, you just said so."

He understands dreamwalking well enough, though holding on to such thoughts is hard. But he buries his face in her hair and holds her close, taking comfort in even this much. Tears roll slowly down his face, and dampen the crown of her dark waves.

It's unbidden, the flicker of The Chair behind him, with its cruel shackles that collar even the throat. The sneering voice, shouting very dire, very specific threats. Threats against /her/.

He snarls, and he tries to push her against the wall, tries to step in front of her. It's his dream, and while he understands it, he's still not entirely with it. There's a gun in his hand, but he's firing at nothing. He's firing blanks. They just disappear in the darkness, leaving him to gasp and pant.

He's got one singular thought on his mind. "We have to get you out of here, before they find you."

Winifred Burkle has posed:
The dream flickers, the chair appears behind him. The dream is unstable and, from what she read, that is either due to a mistake in the spell or the clarity of the dreamer's mind. Fred holds even more tightly about Sam, even though she knows this is just a dream - this is an astral version of the Sam she is searching to rescue.

As the tears roll down his face and he holds her tighter, she doesn't flinch or gasp, she holds onto him. "I'm coming to get you Sam," she tells him, softly, assuringly. "We'll rescue you. I promise."

The sudden movement happens and she is shoved against the wall, whispered voices threatening her in very specific ways. A shiver runs down her spine and she recoils a bit. How can she not be effected by that? However, she keeps a hand on Sam. "I'm not here," she reminds him, as gently but firmly as possible. "They can't get me. They're not going to get me, Sam."

A hand reaches up to touch his cheek to bring it down toward her. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I haven't found you yet, but I will. You're going to be okay, okay?"

Firmly, she recites his full name, something she's never done before. "Samuel Winchester. Listen to me." The other hand reaches up, attempting to cup his face, trying to calm him in his dreams even she can not yet reach him physically. "We're going to get //you// out of here. Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself and they haven't gotten me yet. They won't. Just stay strong for me."

Sam Winchester has posed:
She says his name.

There is power in Names. A great deal of power. Especially now, when someone is trying to demean him and belittle him by calling him other versions of his name, teasing him with the eventual loss of his own identity.

She cups his face. She says his Name. He has not, like most supernatural creatures, thought to hide it. By chance or simply by virtue of the bond they are forming, she says it just right, every syllable correct, using Samuel, the name of his hunter-grandfather, instead of Sam or Sammy, hitting on every note.

It makes his eyes widen, reverberates through his soul, snaps them into somewhere safer in the dream. It's a weird sort of safety. They're in the back of the Impala now. His arms are around her. He's clean, showered, shaved, fresh. They're at some sort of drive-in movie theatre, though nothing at all is playing, and nobody else is there. Nobody uses them anymore, but abandoned ones are still scattered about the country. They are safe places to park a car, to sleep, if one can't find a safe hotel or campground. Safer than a rest area.

A little green army man is shoved into the doorframe, in the handle, wedged in, impossible to move. Someone has defaced its arm with a grey marker.

For a moment he just holds her there, calmed by the scents of vinyl seating, of the Turtle Wax that first his father, then Dean, always insisted on using inside and out of the well-loved, well-cared for car. The only home he's ever known.

"They have an army," he murmurs into her hair. "I don't know where I am. Somewhere cold. My Dad would call this a do-not-retrieve scenario."

He's calmer now, though hints of despondency thread through his tone. "Even if I weren't scared for you, he'd call it that."

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Again, the scenery changes. Now, she finds herself in an old car, an Impala. This is a new place for her: the set, the smell, the entire feel of it somehow conveying its personal importance despite her own ignorance of the significance of this space. Unlike the other shifts in the landscape, this was a blink. In one moment they were in the concrete room and now they are in the backseat of a car at an abandoned drive-in.

For a brief and perfect moment, she returns the hug. Her arms tighten about him, forehead pressed against his shoulder. There's a deep intake of his shirt and cologne, if it even is cologne. He smells like firewood and car wax and gunpowder, even here.

"We'll get through it. Mercy and I have been inventing." She doesn't pull away. Instead, her words might even be muffled against his shoulder as she holds him tight. "I don't care what your father might have called it. We're going coming to rescue you." She was hoping he might be able to give them some form of insight as to where he is, but the very fact that she has connected with him means that this spell has been a success in her mind.

"Don't you dare give up."

Sam Winchester has posed:
It is, as it happens, aftershave, brisk and simple and as woodsy as the firewood scent. The kind of thing that is ubiquitous in every CVS across America, easily obtained and easily forgotten. He keeps his arms tightly around her, taking forbidden solace in her unexpected presence. She tells him not to give up, and he remembers long hours, laying on the floor, regretting that he didn't say something when he had the chance.

Fred has granted them that chance now.

"I love you," he says. "I am one hundred percent, over the moon, crazy in love with you, Winifred Burkle. No matter what else happens, I want you to know that."

His arms tighten around her, as if he could shield her from all the world, even as he finally remains calm enough to keep the dream steady and stable around them, keep them somewhere safe and meaningful, keep the horrors from creeping in. It means he remembers there's something else he needs to tell her, something important, but for the moment his thoughts are still sliding around in one's head as they do in sleep.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
There's a silence. He loves her. Fred doesn't know what to say in response to that just yet. She cares so deeply for him and will go to extreme lengths to assure his safety. But love? That's a word she never thought she could even partake in for years.

She does not yet vocally return the sentiment, she is not quite there yet in her own convictions. However, it is clear in the tightness of her hold and the kiss against his forehead that this is not a passing fantasy for Fred. In fact, she is protective and caring about him, enraged by the idea that she has not yet found and rescued him yet. Her own response to this confession is a soft and simple word. It's heartfelt and filled with caring: "Sam."

The arms clutch about him and then she angles upward to kiss him. This is a dream, but people kiss in dreams! She knows this for a fact and his confession of love certainly spurs her forward, despite her own inability to say the words.

She has no idea that he might want to tell her something else important. For now, she is only focused on keeping him bolstered, on trying to find him. "We're close. You just have to hold on. I can't lose you, Sam. I can't."

Sam Winchester has posed:
It doesn't matter. It's not a thing that has to be reciprocated, and what she gives him is more than enough. Indeed, he'd rather she say it in her own time. He knows how he feels. The fact that she cared enough to run a dangerous spell just to talk to him says volumes too. He kisses her wildy, deeply, passionately, his fingers tightening in her hair, his eyes closing as he inhales her scent in turn.

He kisses like he may never get to do it ever again. A slow tear rolls down his cheek. She's fiesty. She wants to find him. She's doing all she can.

But what if he's not 'him' anymore, when they're reunited once more?

He breaks the kiss as he remembers. "Fred. They have someone else. One of the women. I think it must be Mercy, or Claire..."

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred reciprocates the kiss just as fiercely. While Sam fears hat he may never see or kiss her again, she is attempting to exhibit that she will never leave him there by himself. Even in the dream, Fred smells like lavender soap and ink and old books as she presses herself against him.

She doesn't know what the are doing to him, doesn't know they are attempting to change him and that the torturing techniques have a very singular purpose. Instead, her focus is in him and his rescue once the pull slightly apart.

"It's Claire," she tells Sam softly. "He texted us from her phone. We're coming for her, too." She assumes that Claire is in the same facility as Sam, of course.

Sam Winchester has posed:
"Poor Claire," Sam says, his face collapsing into a look of pure empathy. Poor whomever it might have been. There was no good answer for that, but somehow it seems even worse, in that moment, that it's the healer of the little team. Guilt rockets across his face. He encouraged this nonsense. He should have gone straight to SHIELD.

As it happens, Sam isn't even sure what's happening to him. He is no help on that front. He is, however, intent on inhaling the scent of old books and lavender soap on her skin. Smell is a powerful trigger of memory, and he wants to fix hers in his mind so he can recall it. He says no more on the matter of her reassuring him that they're coming. A shiver runs down his spine, and shadows cast across his eyes, cast over the car in a slow subtle chill, the jacket and flannel that he's wearing are gone once more, if clean, but he makes no more protests. It all feels of terror, approaching, impending doom, but he leaves it unspoken.

And then, softly, "Dean? Is he still out of touch, in Virginia? They told me they were going to kill him."

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred feels that guilt. Her focus has mostly been on Sam, despite the fact that she knows that Claire is also captured. Apparently she may have priorities that she may feel guilty about later. "I know," is her response. "We'll find her." Much like she is committed to finding Sam.

The shadow cast over the car is felt through Fred. The shivers, despite herself and looks up at Sam in the backseat of the Impala. The doom, the fear, it's easily felt now. Even if Sam is attempting to leave it unspoken, it doesn't need to be said. It lingers.

There's a shiver and it passes through her. Her shoulders shake for a moment, but she holds on to Sam. "I called him. He hasn't gotten back to me yet. I'm sure he will when he can" Kill him? She shakes her head. "As far as I know, he hasn't been taken." But then again, the man hasn't at all talked to her. It's entirely possible he's been kidnapped without her knowledge.

There's a long pause, but she cannot help herself from asking, "Are you okay?" She knows they have been hurting him, she's seen the brusies. But, she has to ask.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam is silent as she asks the question. He finds he wants to reassure her, hidden away in his dreams as they are. Ever since the Winter Soldier brought Vodka they haven't bothered with sleep deprivation, allowing for this one window in time to see her. He wants to reassure her, but it's ridiculous to lie to her. At last he says grimly, "I'm surviving. They don't want me dead. They want...something else from me. I don't know what."

He curls in on her, holding her close, kissing the top of her head, taking so much comfort in her presence that the shadows are chased away once more, leaving only cheerful bugs buzzing in the inexplicable lights over the giant, quiet screen above them.

"I may have given more information than I should have. I don't know. Everything they ask seems really inconsequential. It feels like they already know everything anyway. Maybe you should go to SHIELD, Fred. Maybe this is bigger than a bunch of scrappy street fighters and Hunters. Agent Melinda May."

And then: "Are you? Okay? Are you taking precautions? They know about you, Fred, they might know the Hyperion, they might find you and take you." Anxiety makes the lights above pop, casting them in darkness once more.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
As Sam nestles into her, Fred rearranges herself to make it easier for him to do so. "I'm sorry," she tells him, though she knows it is hollow. The only way she can make it better is by finding him in the waking world, to rescue him from this place.

As for the information he maybe shouldn't have given, she shakes her head. "It's okay." Fred is certainly not about to give him grief about giving away SHIELD secrets. That's not a place she feels particularly loyal to. Between Sam and SHIELD? She would advise Sam to give up the information every time.

"I'm okay," she reassures him. "Angel and I are on the case. We've also got a good invasion force." As for them knowing about her, a shiver runs through her shoulders. He can probably feel it, as pressed together as they are. However, she shakes her head at the notion. "I'm doing what I do. They haven't come for me. Even if they know who I am, they're gonna have to go through Angel. No one has even tried."

Sam Winchester has posed:
It's not SHIELD, it's everyone else, but the truth is it wouldn't matter. He feels disloyal to any of them. Her apology creates a shake of his head, a mute denial, stubborn-- some of his strength coming back. "What the Hell do you have to be sorry for? You told me not to chase him. I did. You told me not to try to save him. I did. You weren't even there when it happened. You were 40 minutes up the road. Sorry for what? That you haven't yet outsmarted a group of international terrorists that have outsmarted everyone since the 1940s?"

He's angry, but not at her. The anger makes red lines and hazes float across the outside of the Impala. It is an island in an emotional storm. Trees whip around, and thunder rolls above the theatre screen, but none of it touches them inside the car. This is his safe place: with her, in this car. Everything can rage outside, but it can't hurt them. In the dream, it's easy to feel that nothing but the love he professed is aimed at her, golden and warming his skin against hers. He's angry at himself, furious, angry at them, filled with deep shame and fear and helplessness he doesn't want to express.

And there's something else, something lurking in the shadows, something that's been with them all along, watching them all along.

She says nobody's even tried, though, and he relaxes, marginally, his arms tightenening as if by doing so he could make sure it stays that way. "I'm glad you have him," he says, impotently.

The fear and despair are back; chilling rain falling outside the car, a hundred thousand droplets of anxiety all splashing on the gleaming black hood.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
The storm passes around the Impala, Fred observes it, but does not yet comment. This is his dream and she intruded upon it. "Because I think I know you now and I know you'd still try to help him. Because I should have been there."

Inside the car, there is peace, but she can witness the violent reactions to the environment about them despite their own sanctuary. But, she can still feel the rage, the emotion, the malice flying about outside the Impala, pressing up against the windows. The pressure is low, but affecting her ears like take off on an airplane. Something is there, trying to make her pop her ears.

As rain now falls outside the car, rain droplets crashing against window and frame in a melodic sort of tune, she focuses on Sam. He's starting to grow a bit more faded now as she attempts to focus on him.

"I'm glad to see you," she tells him, even if this is through some form of spell and magic. Even if this is not real. "I'll find you," She promises.

Sam Winchester has posed:
"I'm glad to see you too," Sam says softly, realizing that it's coming to an end. Maybe it's the spell fading. Maybe it's the cold seeping back into his bones, forcing him to wake up, toss, turn. Maybe it's the subconscious awareness that they're coming to wake him with another kick or a punch.

He grabs for her desperately, one more time, another kiss locking onto her lips. He kisses her until he's transluscent, then transparent, then an outline as ghostly as those things he has spent a short lifetime trying to put down. The feel of his lips linger even when he doesn't. And then he's simply gone, the dream fading all around her, all around the both of them.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred kisses Sam as much as she can and for as long as she can until Sam fades. He does so slowly. The dream moves away from her despite the fact that she attempts to cling to him.

After awhile, Fred presses herself up off the floor after waking up and finding herself on her hotel floor and not the leathered backseat of an old car. There's a breath and another look of determination.