Let Me In

Let Me In
Date of Scene:	23 August 2017
Location:	New York
Synopsis:	As Dean races away to forge his dark deal with Crowley, Fred confronts Sam about all the secrets he's been keeping.
Cast of Characters:	Winifred Burkle, Sam Winchester
Tinyplot:	Blood on My Name
Tinyplot2:	Tayaniye

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Winifred Burkle has posed:
As the Impala reverses and the Bon Jovi blasts, Fred starts to move toward Sam. There’s nothing she can do now to stop the car, she knows that. Her own expression matches his - grim.

The sudden appearance of the dark haired man in the passenger seat causes Fred to blink, studying that face with her own look of surprise. “Who is that?” she asks. She has a theory, of course, but she wants to know if Sam already knows the person who randomly appeared in Dean’s car.

Sam Winchester has posed:
“No idea, but I aim to find out,” Sam says grimly.

Of course. There’s no way to do that here, and now, and he hasn’t been too successful thus far, all things he’s well aware of as he steps off the road and sits down with his back to a tree. They’re stuck there till Dean remembers he’s basically stranded them. Until he’s done doing what he wants to do.

His adrenaline was pretty high, and he is breathing a bit heavily, but he rests his elbows over his knees and looks down, shaggy long hair concealing his eyes.

“This was,” he adds, “exactly what I wanted to talk to you about, yes.”

He knows very well that he has fucked up. Capital F, capital U.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
The pair of them are rather stranded until they can either hitch a ride - unlikely - or Dean returns for them. Following his example, Fred steps out of the road and moves to sit next to him.

“I can see why,” she says softly. It’s hard to tell whether she can see why he concealed all this from her or whether she can see why he wanted to tell her. There’s a sigh, a lot of her earlier anger expended in her recounting of what happened to her on Pylea. There’s still frustration, there, though. There’s fear.

“How long have you known about all this?”

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam half shakes his head.

“I got it in pieces. I--”

He tries to figure out how to explain it to her, how to put the timeline together.

“I found out about Dean’s contract, that I died, right before we faced those vengeance demons. But you were so upset that night that I didn’t want to get into it then. The rest...sort of in bits and pieces. I never heard the name Azazel till tonight. I figured out what Hydra was injecting me with, and…”

He lowers his head again. “Fred, all of this gets worse, and every time I tried to figure out how to put it into words I just felt so…”

He shakes his head, but his body language perhaps says it for him, because he looks rather like someone who thinks he’s shit on the shoe of the world.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
There’s a delicate line to be walked here. Fred sits next to Sam, looking first to him and then to the empty road in front of them. While she doesn’t lean against him right now, what she does do is reach out a hand, attempting to take his in hers.

For the moment, she doesn’t excuse the concealing. Instead, she pauses. It’s so easy to see that he’s in pain and the last thing she wants to do is add to that. There’s not much she thinks she can say in order to assuage him. So, she simply says, “It’s okay, Sam. You can tell me.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam Winchester takes the hand of the woman he loves, and for a long moment that’s all he can do. He swallows and he looks out into the distance.

“They were injecting me with demon blood, Fred,” he says.

He shivers. “I started looking forward to them. Because they felt good. They washed pain away, they made me feel stronger, they made the hunger not matter as much. Gave me a rush of pleasure, like heroin. And it’s crazy, because that’s not anything demon blood does to people. You inject the average person with demon blood, they just...it’s nothing. It’s just gross and unsanitary. But the Yellow Eyed Demon...Azazel, I guess...did something to me.”

He swallows.

“After you guys got me I still didn’t know, but I started fantasizing about it. I couldn’t stop. And by the end of the week I was trying not to show it, but I was in terrible pain. Like every muscle was cramping up, like a full body migraine, like I was hungry but nauseated at the same time...so I found a demon, went on a hunt, got some and tried it and it...It was what I needed. It was fantastic.”

He squeezes her hand in a way that warns there’s even more.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
For a little while, the two of them just sit there, holding hands at a crossroads. When Sam finally does speak, she doesn’t say anything. There’s clearly surprise on her face and then a glimpse of anger returning, then shock.

They injected him with demon blood. It does something to him, meaning whoever Azazel is changed something inside of him. The Winter Soldier not only took Sam, but they experimented on him. The anger returns, this time directed at the man chained up in Mercy’s garage. There will be words. She’s thinking through what can be done with that when Sam drops the last bomb.

The shock is clear on her face as he says that he found a demon and then used its blood. That he is addicted to it. However, the hand doesn’t attempt to pull out of his. Nor does she look disgusted by him or like she is about to run away. When he squeezes her hand, she nods, not trusting herself to speak, but indicating that he should continue.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam swallows hard. The fact that she accepts him means more than he can even express. It brings a few tears to his eyes, though they remain unshed. He drops his gaze again after a brief, sick, sad, and loving one in her direction.

He exhales.

“I captured one of those revenge demons instead of banishing it. As far as I know they only shape human bodies out of their magic rather than possessing one-- though my lore sources are fuzzy on that point-- and it seemed ideal. Because that way a human isn’t held captive right along with the demon. She gives me a.” He clears his throat. “Well. A predictable supply. She’s well secured, but…”

But it’s sick, and wrong, and strange, and awful, and dangerous. And Sam knows it. Yet he doesn’t have a better solution, either.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
The last bombshell that Sam drops is quite the doozy. For a long while Fred doesn’t speak, though she squeezes his hand. The surprise returns. She’d never expect him to do something like that. It’s...so cold and calculated. There’s silence as she tries to figure out what to say.

“Sam…” she sighs, shaking her head. Her other hand reaches out to take his. “We’re going to figure this out.” Her words are a bit halting as she tries to think about what to say before she actually does so. “But...keeping a vengeance demon…” she trails off again, trying to say the right thing. “That’s not the way. You can’t do that. That’s not you.”

Her voice remains soft as she continues, “I’m sorry I didn’t see you were in pain like that for so long. I thought you needed space after everything. I know you’ve told me that you were taught to hide everything, but I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me. You’ve gotta let me in.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
“I told you I was fine 600 times, I don’t know why you’d apologize for believing me,” Sam says quietly.

He plucks up some grass and tosses the stems to one side with his free hand, glancing up at the sky. “I’m trying, Fred. I’m letting you in right now. I’ve felt like there was something wrong with me all my life. Getting confirmation hasn’t been...easy.”

He looks off down the road. “What Dean is doing-- it’s-- he shouldn’t have.”

He looks back at her. “I was drunk that night,” he explains. “When I thought to summon the crossroads demon for myself. I was drunk, and all I could think was that all I’ve ever done is ruin everything for Dean, and that I was supposed to have died 9 years ago, and how much better off Dean would be on virtually every level if I were gone. But I was rash, and wrong, and I should have talked things out with you.”

Winifred Burkle has posed:
“‘Cause I /didn’t/ believe you,” Fred tells him. “I knew something was wrong, but I thought it was...I know how it is, when something bad happens. Sometimes you need to be by yourself for a little bit, sometimes you need to lie to yourself. You can’t get through it ‘cause it’s too fresh. I thought you saying that you were fine was helping.”

Fred continues to hold Sam’s hands and she squeezes them. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” she tells him. “Something was /done/ to you and we’re going to find a way to fix it.” As for Dean, she shakes her head. “He’s trying to protect you and he’s being a bullheaded jerk without thinking about any of the consequences.”

The mention of the night he tried to trade his life for Dean’s is met with a look downward. “The pair of you,” she puffs out. “Both of you are just willing to jump in front of bullets for each other without thinking of pulling the other out of the way of it. As Dean’s said, I don’t really know him, but from all he’s doing I’m pretty sure his life wouldn’t be better without you and I know for sure my life wouldn’t be.”

This wasn’t where she meant to say it or how, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anyone any good with her trying to find the right time. “I love you and I wouldn’t know what to do if you disappeared.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
He swallows as she says the words he had actively refused to let himself think about hearing her say. “I’d jump in front of bullets for you too,” he murmurs, which is, at the moment, his way of saying ‘I love you too.’ Though he’s smiling, cause he knows two things:

One, that she’d probably prefer he pulled her out of the way.

And two…

“Said it first,” he teases, even as he comes in for a kiss. It so doesn’t matter who said it first, but her saying that is the first bit of happiness he’s felt in days, and it comes out like sun darting out from behind dark and dire clouds. He wraps his arms protectively around her, even though right now there’s nothing in particular to protect her /from./

Winifred Burkle has posed:
“What’d I just say?” Fred can’t help but smile a bit at that. It’s welcome after such an intense few hours, a moment of levity.

She readily turns her face upward for the kiss, conceding the fact that he did say the words first. However, as he pulls her into an embrace, she winces and pulls back a little - the wounds from being smacked away and then slammed against a car are twinged.

“Sorry,” she says softly. Instead, she shifts a bit so she can lean against him while they sit and wait.

Sam Winchester has posed:
“No, I’m sorry, I forgot how badly you got hurt,” Sam says softly.

He looks back up the road, towards Mercy’s garage and rubs a hand over his face. It’s all a huge mess. The Winter Soldier, with Bucky Barnes buried deep within. His own changed nature. Dean’s by now completed deal, something that has to be dealt with at this point, rather than stopped.

He keeps one arm wrapped loosely around her, but only loosely, adding, “It was less than an hour ago at that junkyard and I already feel like it was weeks ago.”

That’s what happens sometimes when the world goes mad, he supposes.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
“It’s alright,” Fred assures him. A bit tiredly, she rests against him. Now the the adrenaline is wearing off not only from the junkyard fight, but from the verbal - on her end - crossroads one, she’s starting to feel the ache, the pain and the exhaustion.

“Time dilation,” she explains, thoughts immediately going to physics and math. “Observers of different points experience time at different rates even if time is moving at a constant. From the frame of reference of a moving observer traveling at the speed v relative to the resting frame of the clock...”

She pauses, serious even after reciting parts of time relativity. “I know it’s hard, but you can talk to me, Sam. Don’t feel like you’ve gotta hide. My best friend is a vampire. That’s actually a good idea, we should talk to Angel about it.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
His attempts to get off the subject have been called out, and Sam looks down again.

“I can do a lot of good with this you know. I figured out I can force the smoke demons out of bodies. It is easier on the vessel than an exorcism, which means I was able to use it to save someone’s life. That telekinesis just saved your life. The precognition has saved several lives.”

He frowns at the crossroads. “It’s not what I am that defines me, it’s my choices, right? So...maybe it’s not as big a deal as it seems. You all got me away from Hydra before they were able to make me use it to harm anyone, or whatever they were after. And I’m not trying to be-- calculating-- by hanging on to her. It’s just...If I’m going to die without that stuff, and that’s what it feels like, then it makes sense to have a reliable supply that doesn’t harm anyone else. And she’s evil so...I guess it’s not much different than taking a long swig of pig’s blood.”

He shrugs uncomfortably, aware that there is both logic, and self-justification, in his tone.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Resting her cheek against him, Fred stares at the crossroads, too, while she listens to Sam. There certainly is logic there that she can hear. What’s happening to him saved lives - it saved her an hour ago. There’s a furrow in her brow as she starts, “I know it has…” helped people.

There’s a sigh and she reaches an arm to wrap around him. “A demon’s not a pig, though. A pig can’t talk or ask to be let go. Maybe she’s evil, but that doesn’t mean she should be kept someplace and used as food. We can figure something else out. That’s why I want to talk to Angel - he had to do this, too. Keeping her....wherever you’re keeping her? That’s a choice, too.” That’s something they’ll have to talk about, too, where is he keeping this vengeance demon?

Though she’s frowning, she holds tight to Sam. She’s worried, that’s clear, but she’s not running for the hills. “We’re not going to let you die and we’re not going to let you hurt anybody. I know you wouldn’t.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
“Not willingly,” Sam says quietly, looking back in the direction of Mercy’s garage. He’s thinking suddenly about the Winter Soldier. About Hydra, subtly changing his name. “I don’t have any compulsions to hurt others, at least. I feel pretty much exactly the same as I ever did.”

He leans back, placing his head against the tree he’d originally leaned against, and looks up into the branches.

“They still want me, you know. The Soldier knocked me aside when he could have ended me then and there. That means they still have some sort of design. I don’t know how we’re going to navigate all this. Dean’s deal is already done, so he’s going to be forced into some terrible positions, Hydra’s still out there…”

He exhales. Shakes his head.

“I guess all we can do is keep tackling what we can. Moving forward.” Grimly moving forward without becoming too bogged down is one of his actual skills; compartmentalizing and working on one problem at a time has helped him before. He is worried about whatever Hydra wants with him: they did, after all, spark his transformation...but he can’t do anything about it now.

His phone beeps, and he has a text. He looks at it. “Darcy Lewis of SHIELD is coming to pick us up. Don’t take anything she says seriously.”

Winifred Burkle has posed:
“So, Dean’s not coming back?” That much is obvious if Darcy is going to pick them up. Fred sighs.

Hydra still wants Sam. “I know,” she says softly. She knows they still want him, that he wouldn’t hurt anyone willingly. As he lists off all the things that they’re facing, it certainly does seem insurmountable when all laid out like that. There’s so much in front of them and none of it is small potatoes. It’s all large and twisted and worrying.

In the face of it, she just keeps her arms around Sam, holding him - in her own ways trying to protect him from it all. “We’ll just...handle it as it comes up. First, the Soldier and while that’s going on, we’ll figure out how to break Dean’s contract. We can do this together. I know we can.”