billmurrayandghostbusters | lois's apartment } { the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

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lois's apartment } { the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

Sam was starting to settle into his new life in Smallville rather well.

He still didn’t remember any more than he had the first day he woke up there, and Lois, in her own special way, tried to help him, but whatever this was, it wasn’t going to break anytime soon. The doctors weren’t sure what it was, other than a pretty severe case of retrograde amnesia, and since it wasn’t causing any major health problems for him, they were willing to let it be for now. He was just the man who couldn’t remember. Given that he wasn’t around people who were claiming he knew him? He can’t really say he minded. He was sure that if there were people, telling him that he should be remembering things that he wasn’t he would be pretty frustrating, but in Smallville, no one seemed to know him, or claim to know him. He wasn’t expected to remember. He could just be Sam.

That didn’t mean that Lois wasn’t trying to find out who he really belonged to. She was determined, almost like a pitbull in that respect. “No one has no one, Sam,” she’d say to him every time he teased her for it. “There’s someone looking for you somewhere. We just have to find them. And then you can go home, and I can get back to life as I know it.”

(At first she was serious. Now when she said it, there wasn’t as much heart in it. He pretended that he didn’t notice, but when it came to Lois, there was little that he didn’t.)

Regardless of Lois’s opinions on the subject, Sam wasn’t looking forward to leaving anytime soon. Despite being near nothing familiar, he was learning new things about himself every day. He was good with computers, good with research. He actually liked research, which lead to Lois getting him a job as a fact checker at the Daily Planet. It wasn’t the most interesting work in the world, but it was something for him to do during the day, other than watching daytime soaps.

(He didn’t know why he was so drawn in to All my Children. There was something about it that made him feel nostalgic and sad, all at the same time. Even when he was working, he slipped it onto Lois’s TiVo anyway—he wanted to keep feeling that feeling, to try and figure out what it meant.)

Still, his life wasn’t much more than work and home, up until the night when Lois burst into the apartment like a bat out of hell, looking Sam over with a critical eye. “Well, come on, Sam, are you just going to sit there? Shake a leg.”

Sam glanced over at her from his spot at the kitchen table and frowned. He was missing something. He was missing a lot of things, usually, but in this situation he was definitely missing something. “Are we—going somewhere?”

“Only to the biggest monster truck rally in a fifty mile radius,” Lois sighed as she dropped her bags down in the living room and headed back into her room to change. “Clark bailed on me, as per usual, but thankfully, I happen to have a built in date.”

“You do?” Sam still wasn’t following her. He was lost on the fact that Clark was standing up Lois again, and there was a small bit of him that was angry about it. Clark didn’t like him, and Sam was starting to find that the feeling was mutual. You could only stand up a friend of his so many times before he started to question your character. And he didn’t like Sam. What was there about Sam to not like? He couldn’t remember most of his life.

And then Sam was distracted when Lois strutted back into the living room in daisy dukes. His throat went a little dry for a second and it was after a minute that he noticed she was talking. “Sorry, what?”

“We need to hit the road if we’re going to be there in time to get good seats.” Sam didn’t know if there was such a thing as good seats at a monster truck rally, but he did as he was told, grabbing his jacket and getting to his feet.

“Why are you taking me again?”

Lois turned back and gave him a critical look. “I swear, Sam, sometimes you’re worse than Smallville.”

Sam decided it was best to just leave it at that.

***

For all his protesting, being at a monster truck was actually a lot of fun. Senseless destruction along with a lot of people cheering on and enjoying that senseless destruction was cathartic. It was probably the most relaxed both he and Lois had been since he wound up on her couch. The worries of the week went out of their minds and they just relaxed and cheered on the giant trucks crushing the tiny cars.

They settled back into their seats after one particularly good explosion on the field, and Sam glanced around to check the state of their snacks, before leaning in closer to her. “I’m gonna go get another beer. You want anything?”

She did her own glance around and nodded. “Grab me another one, too. And some chili cheese fries—make sure they don’t skimp on the cheese.”

“Got it,” he sighed as he pushed up and headed up the stadium to where the concession stands were.

(It didn’t occur to him that he should be paying attention. He didn’t know what he was supposed to be paying attention for.)

He was waiting on line for the concession stand, when someone slams into his shoulder to shove himself ahead of him. Sam was pretty easy going, but they didn’t need to practically beat the crap out of him. “Hey, buddy,” he said, straightening and grabbing him on the shoulder. “Back of the line.”

The guy whipped around, eyes pitch black, and Sam startled back in surprise. All it had taken was one flash of those eyes and there were flashes running through his mind—flashes that were covered in blood and darkness, that burned into his mind. He didn’t even realize that the man is leaving. The next thing he actually notices, he’s on his knees on the ground and the woman behind him has her hands on his shoulders.

“You okay, sweetie?”

No. No, Sam definitely wasn’t okay, but he didn’t know why he wasn’t okay. Instead, he just pushed up to his feet. “Yeah. Sorry. Got a little lightheaded there for a second.”

“Too many beers?”

“No.” He took a breath. “Just need something to eat.”

“Let’s get you up to the front of the line then.” She was a sweet woman, if nothing else. She got him to the front of the line, and Sam ordered the beers and the chili cheese fries, before turning on his heel and carrying them back to Lois. He was still in such a haze, that she must have seen it on his face as she took the beer from him, and he settled back into the seat.

“Where have you been? That took forever.”

“Really long line,” he lied, not looking at her as he settled into the seat. “Sorry.”

He knew that Lois had instincts like a pitbull, and she wasn’t going to back down easily, but he didn’t know how else to put it. He wasn’t even really sure if that was him actually remembering anything. She studied him carefully for a moment before actually speaking.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, taking a sip of his beer.

“Sam—”

“I’m fine,” he said, turning and giving her a small smile. “Really.”

“ … Okay.” He could tell she wasn’t really buying it, but she was letting it go for now. She took the chili cheese fries from him, eying it skeptically for a moment, before turning back to him with a look. “Sam.”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s the extra cheese?”

… Oops.

***

By the time they got back to Smallville, Lois was exhausted. She took a quick shower to get the smell of beer and exhaust off her, and the collapsed into bed and barely said a word to Sam in the meantime. Sam did the same, but sleep didn’t come as easily.

He still couldn’t make sense of the things he had seen. Those flashes were gone almost as soon as they started, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t draw them back to the surface to try and make sense of them. He knew that the harder you fought for things, the less likely you were to get them, but he needed to know what they were. He didn’t have anything else.

He closed his eyes as he laid stretched out on Lois’s couch, trying to quiet his thoughts long enough to let him sleep, but that wasn’t helping either. There was something nagging at him. Something that he knew he should be doing. Something about that man at the rally was triggering something in his instincts to do, he just needed to figure out what it was. He took a breath, calmed himself down, and waited.

After a minute, his eyes opened and he pushed to his feet, making his way into the kitchen and going through Lois’s cabinets until he found the salt. He then turned and started to salt every entry way to the apartment, doors and windows. The only time he paused was when he was standing in the threshold to Lois’s room. He knew that she wouldn’t understand why he was doing this. He didn’t understand why he was doing this. But there was something inside of him that told him she would be safer this way, and that’s what he wanted more than anything else.

For Lois to be safe.

He moved quickly, pouring the line across her window before putting the salt away, and heading back to the couch. This time, when he closed his eyes, he felt safer. He relaxed against the couch, exhaled slowly, and drifted off to sleep.

Lois may question it all in the morning, but for right then, it was what he needed to do.

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Lois woke up feeling surprisingly good. Still the usual groggy, but good. Yes, Clark Kent had stood her up again...but she had a pretty good time with Sam. A really good time, actually.

Even if he forgot the extra cheese.

That didn't mean she was going to admit it to herself. Denial, denial was her friend. She didn't need to get any more attached to him than she already was. (Not that she was attached. Nope.) Eventually they were going to find who he belonged to and that would be that. No more Sam making her coffee or watching soaps on her couch.

Or spreading condiments all over her apartment.

She'd been looking out at first light, stretching her arms above her when she'd noticed it: a thick line of white on the seal of her window. She pause, then reached out and drug a finger through the line.

She cast a worried look in the direction of the kitchen, where Sam would be every morning when she walked out her bedroom door.

Something really must've happened to him last night.

Lois pulled herself together a bit before going to make sure he was alright--and in the kitchen where he should be.

Sam was there. He was just starting to wake himself up, so he hadn't left the couch yet, but he was there. The events of last night were starting to fade to distant memory in the back of his brain, but he knows what he did. And they were both safe.

At least as far as he was aware.

He looked up when he saw Lois coming out of her bedroom, and flashed her a smile as he rubbed his eyes. "Hey. Sleep well?"

"Yeah."

Her answer was simple, but there were reasons. One, he's still in her apartment and not another cornfield trying to signal the mothership. Two, she was surveying the scene for anything else that might be amiss.

Which is how she noticed the ring at the doorway.

She looked back at Sam with that same 'what the hell' expression.

"You know eating someone out of house and home is just an idiom, right?"

There was a sheepish look at that as his hand came up to rub the back of his neck. He didn't know how to explain this to her. He didn't know how to explain it to himself.

"I do. I ... that wasn't what I was trying to do."

"So what's up with the salt? And it had better be salt because first of all, sugar is not something you waste, and second of all, my landlord, who is also my boss, by the way, is going to kill me if this place becomes infested with any sort of crawly and/or furry critter."

Explain, Sam. Explain.

"It's salt."

That was all he said at first, because he wasn't really sure how to explain the rest of it. He took a breath and leaned back against the couch as he tried to figure out where to start.

"Okay, so ... I wasn't completely honest about last night. While we were at the rally, I went to go and get us the beers, and there was this guy with weird eyes on line in front of me, and when I saw them ... "

It wasn't even remembering, really. It was just jumbled flashes that scared the crap out of him.

"You what? Stumbled back and hit your head on something?"

"No," he sighed. "I remembered something." There was a beat, and before she could interrupt. "It wasn't anything ... about me. I don't even remember what it actually was. It just ... freaked the hell out of me."

Now she was even more worried than before.

Lois cleared a spot on the couch and sat. "What do you remember?"

Sam paused for a moment, before closing his eyes and chasing the memory again. "It was mostly flashes. Darkness and ... people with black eyes. I can smell ... I think it's gunpowder and rocksalt."

And the smell of skin burning, but he didn't think that was a good idea to throw that in there.

It sounded like a lot of crazy talk to her, but Sam seemed to be taking it really seriously. That and the things she'd witnessed since moving to Smallville were enough to keep her from writing it off and calling the doctor.

"You said you saw a guy with weird eyes last night. Were they black?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Completely." There was another beat and he shook his head. "The salt thing -- it made me feel safe. I don't know how, or why, but I just ... went with my instincts. Sometimes it helps things come back to me."

"Don't move." Her tone said that was clearly an order, as did the finger she pointed at him.

Not half a minute later she was sitting beside him again, typing 'salt protection' into the Google search box.

"Well," she said after glancing over the results, "I think it's safe to say your instincts might be onto something."

Sam didn't move. He knew an order when he heard one. He let her google, and sat up a bit straighter when she said he was on to something.

"Why? What'd you find?"

"Apparently salt is protection against evil. Supernatural evil." She turned the screen toward him so he could see for himself.

He shifted so that he could see better, and he frowned as he took all the information in. "Ghosts? Demons? That kind of stuff is ... real?"

"Not really my area of expertise, but your subconscious apparently is." She wasn't on board with it just yet, but at least now his strange behavior was starting to make about as much sense as it was going to.

Sam sighed as he flopped back onto the couch with a sigh. "This amnesia thing really sucks."

"At least you have some idea of who you used to be. That's good, right?"

"It is, but what does it mean," he replied, looking over at her with a worried expression. "Am I ... insane, or am I superstitious? Do I think I'm Buffy the Vampire Slayer or something?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say you're a paranoid professor of weird."

That was meant as a compliment, no matter how it sounded.

There's a half laugh at that. "That doesn't sound healthy."

"Hey, my cousin went through a paranormal phase and she's turned out just fine. Besides, the important thing is you're remembering something. Maybe if you stay with it, you'll remember something else."

"Maybe." He sighs heavily before glancing back over to the door, then glances back to her uncertainly. "But, uh. Can we leave the salt up? Just for now."

"Go fix the line in my room," she answers after a beat. If it helps him, she can put up with it.

Sam nods in agreement, getting up to go do just that, before turning back to her with a very grateful look.

"Thank you."

He won't say much more than that, and he won't wait for a response, either. Just turn and head back into Lois's bedroom to fix the salt line.

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