I really should be working on the last chapter of Black and Blue, but my muse wouldn't let me anywhere near it until I had got this little piece out of my system.
This was written purely as an excuse to have Dean wrapped up like a mummy, and to try writing something a little bit shorter. It may be nothing more than inane rambling, but I thought I'd post it anyway! ;)
Hope you enjoy! :)
Note: Mulberry, Wisconsin is of course, completely fictional.
Summary: Dean knew it was only a matter of time before he suffocated. Knew, because that was how the whole friggin' debacle had started in the first place. Set early Season 1 - for no particular reason, it just turned out that way!
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.
That's a Wrap
It was several seconds before Dean Winchester realised that he couldn't move. That no amount of strained muscles, wriggling, or rolling around on the dull, unforgiving coldness of the floor like a fish dying out of water was going to offer him any freedom to manoeuvre.
It took several seconds more before Dean realised that the reason he couldn't move was because his body had been inextricably wound and bound several times over in tautened, clinical smelling bandages. The soft, musty wrappings held his crossed wrists tightly to his chest, and he wouldn't have needed the advantage of the sight that the bandages further deprived him of to imagine the morbid image he presented.
Portrait of a man being mummified alive.
At least the stupid kids hadn't bothered with trying to recreate the friggin' embalming process. Dean figured he ought to be thankful for small mercies. Having his brain mashed to into a congealed blob and yanked out through his nostrils would not have been his preferred activity for a Friday night. Though this experience wasn't rating highly either.
Shifting slightly, he felt the gauze whisper gratingly across skin that was apparently bare almost from top to tip. The only attire left to him, it seemed, consisted of his boxers and the amulet that dug uncomfortably into his chest from the pressure of his bound wrists.
Friggin' frisky bitch!
Sammy was going to have years of blackmail worthy material stored up after he found him...If he found him.
Dean struggled to take a breath, feeling panic begin to build within him the foundations of what was likely to become a colossal skyscraper of fear as the stale air fought through the many layers of dressing gagging his mouth to reach his flagging lungs. The paltry offering barely managed to inflate his protesting organs, leaving him with a woolly feeling of light-headedness that did nothing to improve his sense of impending doom.
"Dean!" The sound was faint, so wispy in his consciousness that Dean wondered if his starved brain was beginning to conjure up the kind of sound it knew he most wanted to hear; an auditory oasis in a desert of hopeless noiselessness.
But the sound frightened him too. His little brother was out there alone with one thoroughly pissed off spirit. And if she had been angry enough to go after Dean...
"Dean! Can you hear me? Where are you?" The terror in his little brother's voice was unmistakable, carrying sharply even in the muffled, foggy words that reached Dean's covered ears. "I swear to God, you bitch! If you've done anything to him, you're going to be begging me to salt and burn your ass!"
Anger now, in Sam's words. The hot, uncontrolled fury driven by sheer force of panic rather than the cool, restrained rage that forethought could shape and mould for maximum effect. Huh. Hot, uncontrolled fury seemed to sound a lot like Dean himself. Maybe he ought to think a little more before he opened his mouth.
Frustrated at his total helplessness to perform the big brotherly role of providing Sam with his heart's desire, Dean let out a loud shapeless groan of need, of urgency; trying desperately to find some way of alerting his little brother to his location. His morale took a sharp nosedive when the sound failed to carry beyond the layers of gauze shrouding his mouth.
Dean knew it was only a matter of time before he suffocated. Knew, because that was how the whole friggin' debacle had started in the first place.
"C'mon Sammy, we don't have time for your usual primpin' and preenin' routine. I wanna actually get to Mulberry sometime before Hell freezes over" Dean checked his watch for the umpteenth time, knowing the action was entirely wasted on his brother; Sam being still sequestered within the bathroom as he went through whatever routine he seemed to feel it was necessary to complete before they checked out of the motel room.
Dean snorted as he imagined Sammy standing before the mirror, trying by force of will alone to tame his unruly hair into submission. Good luck with that!
"Sam!" He called again, impatience giving edge to an appellation that normally held nothing but fondness.
"Okay, okay!" came Sam's petulant response as he yanked open the bathroom door and whooshed out into the motel room, indignation trailing behind him in a tangible slipstream. "Jeez, why are we in such a hurry anyway?"
Dean frowned. Sam still hadn't settled back into the hunting regime to the extent that his big brother might have hoped. That, and his little brother seemed to have latched onto the idea of searching for their father with an intractable enthusiasm that Dean found both wearing and warming. He knew, however that the only reason Sam wanted to find John Winchester was for purposes of exacting revenge on whatever had killed the two women in his life rather than to play happy families with their wayward father.
"The five stiffs up in Wisconsin ringin' any bells, Sasquatch?" Dean turned from the motel doorway to send his brother a significant stare. "You know, found practically naked and suffocated in their homes...not a mark on 'em...one of the wives now settin' up home in a padded cell cos she said she saw her husband literally disappear before her eyes...Do I need to go on?"
Sam sighed in submission, dragging his feet as he slouched over to his bed to hoist up his packed duffel. "No...I just thought, you know...Dad"
"Dad would want us to follow this up, you know that!" Dean threw up his hands, tired of having to explain the concept of 'saving people' and 'hunting things' to Sam on seemingly never ending occasions.
"Yeah" Sam agreed reluctantly, but Dean chose not to call him on it; thinking that the car journey would be a lot easier if they were actually talking to each other.
Dean had filled Sam in on the details he knew during their ride in the Impala. From what he had gleaned from a sketchy newspaper report and online hearsay, it appeared that five victims in the small town of Mulberry, Wisconsin had died under identical circumstances over the space of as many days.
Three men and a woman had comprised the line up; all the same age, all apparently having attended the same high school together four years prior. Given the size of the town, it was a complete no-brainer that they had known each other. But that had been the extent of the link that the elder Winchester had been able to establish from research alone.
Their first port of call upon reaching Mulberry had been the institution where Michelle Connolly had been admitted for psychiatric evaluation after apparently telling a flabbergasted police officer that her husband had vanished before her eyes.
The brief flicker of an FBI badge had been enough to give them unquestioned access to the young woman, along with her psychiatric casefile. Sam had quickly perused the information, summarising the Psychiatrist's conclusion that her condition was one of a trauma-induced delusional state. Whatever that meant.
Michelle Connolly sat hunched on her hospital bed in a bland, beige room - bony arms encircling her knees and hugging them desperately close to her chest. Her eyes stared vacantly through the two hunters as if they were temporary apparitions; as if they were features of her imagination that would simply fade away if she removed her gaze. Pale, almost translucent skin papered gaunt features, and her eyes sat recessed in deep hollows.
Dark, straggly hair hung in knotted ropes from her greasy head. The shadows clinging to the walls of the room seemed to give life to the strands, lending her an almost Medusa-like appearance.
"Mrs Connolly?" Dean asked, half tempted to wave a hand experimentally in front of her eyes to see if he could provoke some sort of reaction.
Sam shot his big brother a cautious glance before inching forward to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed. "Mrs Connolly? We're not here to judge you. I understand how difficult this must be for you, to lose your husband and to feel like you're losing your mind. But we just want to know what you saw"
Michelle seemed to respond to something in the younger man's tone – as people frequently did. Sam had always appeared to possess some kind of magical empathy that drew victims and perpetrators alike under his compassionate spell.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you" She slurred slightly, a sudden shudder rippling through her petite frame. "Is this some kind of trick? You're not going to report any of this back to Dr. Fleming?"
"No! No, I promise. This is just between you and us"
The young woman gave a slow blink in acknowledgement as she seemed to assess Sam's sincerity. Apparently it passed muster.
"It was two weeks ago. Patrick and I, we had just finished dinner. I'd made his favourite pot roast because he'd been working late. He was a builder you know, and one of our neighbours was getting an extension, so he'd been putting in extra hours for them. He was so good like that" She glanced up at Sam, looking like she wanted to cry but couldn't amass the energy.
The younger Winchester, for his part, merely nodded encouragingly at his cue.
"Patrick went through to watch TV while I cleaned up. I'd just put the last dish in the machine when I heard him yell"
Both hunters tensed simultaneously, not daring to exchange a glance lest they lose Michelle's precarious trust.
"I ran through to the living room and he was there, on his feet, staring at something by the staircase. But I'm telling you, there was nothing there. He looked at it like it was something terrible, something too horrible to put into words. I'll never forget that expression. I dream about it. I see it every time I close my eyes"
Sam tentatively laid a hand atop hers, gaining confidence when she did nothing to dislodge it. "Then what happened?"
"The room got freezing, so cold I could see my breath in the air. Like a Winter morning, you know? I called out to him, but it was like he just didn't even hear me"
"Think real hard Mrs Connolly, did he say anything?" Sam pressed gently, leaning forward to maintain eye contact when Michelle would have looked away.
Her gaze flicked to Sam's so quickly it nearly left the elder Winchester reeling dizzily as he watched. "He did...He said, and I just couldn't understand it. He said: 'Please. No. I'm so sorry'. It was so strange. Like he knew what he was seeing, but...it doesn't make any sense. And then he just...vanished. One second he was there, and the next...gone"
She paused, swiping at an invisible tear. "I found him upstairs a half hour later. Lying on the bed. He was...all he had on was his underwear. And he was so still"
Dean had decided to let Sam continue to have free rein with the interview, recognising his brother's talent for inspiring confidence in even the most distrustful. His little brother had gathered from the young woman a spider's web of information about the life and times of Patrick Connolly, looking to pinpoint any kind of reason for the presence of what was clearly a vengeful spirit in his life.
Patrick and Michelle Connolly had met when the young woman had moved to Mulberry to tend to her ailing grandmother, both neurological decline and infirmity hindering the older woman's ability to live independently. They'd fallen in love quickly and married within a year of their first date. She hadn't known much of his life before, but he had always been close to a group of friends he'd had since high school; four of whom were now also dead.
Michelle had been able to think of no reason why they would all have been targeted. And by what anyway? She'd demanded wildly. They'd thought it best not to answer.
The case had been starting to look cut and dried when they'd discovered an old newspaper report about the disappearance of a young woman named Olive Coleman during her senior year at the local high school. The journalist who had compiled the article had been largely of the opinion that the young girl had run away from home in the aftermath of a messy break-up with one Patrick Connolly. Quotes in the text from several of their friends - including the four other victims - had suggested that Olive Coleman had been pathologically obsessed with Patrick, and that she'd been unable to cope with the end of their relationship.
There had been no sign of foul play, according to local police. That sort of thing just didn't happen in a small town like Mulberry. So a runaway she had stayed, who – surprise, surprise – had never been seen or heard from again.
Of course, knowing the identity of their vengeful spirit, and the likely name of the person who had killed her had left the brothers no closer to finding out where she might have been buried. After all, not only had Patrick Connolly apparently already suffered the consequences of his actions, most of his friends had too.
Most, but not all.
Marlene Roberts was about as plain as they came, Dean couldn't help thinking as she opened her front door. The tentative, instantly forgettable smile she offered would barely have made enough of an impact as to be described as welcoming.
Mousey, lank hair had been cut into an uneven shoulder-length helmet that did nothing to mitigate her almost perfectly spherical head. Grey eyes danced from elder Winchester to younger, never lingering for longer than a second, and an over-large, pale bottom lip quivered as they announced their 'identities'.
"This is about Patrick and the others isn't it?" She queried with a voice that creaked like contracting floorboards, resignation settling onto asymmetrical features. "I thought it would only be a matter of time before Jim called in the Feds"
Jim being the head of the local law enforcement; a lanky, hirsute man of questionable ability and intellect. He hadn't been able to tell them anything of use, and Dean had found himself wondering more than once if the man hadn't simply come by the job by way of picking names out of a hat.
Marlene's house was as unassuming as her person. She led them to a tepid living room, all pale colours and thrift store furniture. Dean had ended up on a worryingly unstable looking wooden chair, while Sam with his Jedi puppy-dog eyes had attained the coveted perch of sagging armchair. Marlene herself stood before them in the centre of the room, wringing her hands agitatedly.
"It's just awful what happened" She trotted out, the words having the insincere ring of over-preparation and rote repetition.
"How well did you know them all, Marlene?" Sam began, leaning forward and clasping his hands together.
She huffed out a small mirthless breath. "Well...we all used to hang together in school. We were close, you know? But then everything with Olive happened, and then...well I didn't have much to do with them after that"
"Olive? That would be the girl who ran away after breaking up with Patrick Connolly?" Dean cut in, wanting to mirror his brother's actions but frightened that his chair would overbalance at the motion.
Marlene's gaze shied away once more. "Yeah. She...was so in love with him. Uh, she was totally devastated when he broke it off. Unstable...really"
The brothers shared a loaded glance, Dean giving a slight nod of encouragement to his younger brother.
"Marlene..." Sam pursed his lips, "We know that's not what really happened"
"What?" came the squeaked response. "Of course it is!"
"Marlene" Sam murmured in entreaty. "We know she's dead"
"S-she is? You finally f-found her?" Marlene was overtly quivering now, and Dean could see that it wouldn't be long before she cracked. "What happened to her? Where did she end up?"
"We know she never left Mulberry, Marlene. And we know that you know that she died here" A quick glance to Dean, gauging his support for the half-truths he was spouting. The elder Winchester levelled his gaze, tacitly giving his consent.
"And, we know that what happened wasn't your fault, Marlene. But we know you were involved"
Neither man expected the screeching sob that suddenly erupted from the young woman; the booming noise completely at odds with the size of her frame. Dean recoiled backwards at the sound, nearly tipping his chair as he startled. Sam however, twitched slightly but didn't waver.
"It was so awful!" Marlene whimpered as tears began to drip liberally from her reddening eyes, flowing in rivulets down her rounded cheeks. "You have to know that it was an accident!"
An accident? Where had they heard that before?
In one swift, fluid motion Sam was on his feet. He wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder and drew her across to his own vacated seat. Settling her gently onto the listing chair, he crouched before her, tissue in hand.
Marlene took the proffered handkerchief gratefully, dotting blindly at her streaming eyes.
"Can you tell us exactly what happened?" Sam peered under her hooded lids, reinforcing their connection.
"I've never told anyone this. We made a pact...but now they're all dead" She began with a sniffle. "We were messing around...Patrick was really into movies. It wasn't long after his eighteenth, and his parents had gotten him a video camera that he was just desperate to try out. He'd always had these ideas about trying to get into film school, so he wanted to try making a movie"
Dean folded his brow in confusion. This was heading in a direction he'd never expected.
"He wanted to make a horror movie, with us as the cast. All about a serial killer who, uh, mummified his victims. He and Olive really were dating at the time, and so she got the starring role. It's funny...or not funny at all, really, but I had so wished it was me. I had the most ridiculous crush on him. But as it turns out, I was lucky"
"Why?" Sam quizzed gingerly, and Dean knew the younger man was trying not to spook her into clamming up.
"Because...well, we'd set up the shot where the killer wraps his victim up in bandages in preparation for being buried alive. Olive's father was a doctor so she'd been able to sneak us a whole load of supplies. Patrick had wrapped her all up...really tightly. Had to make it look realistic after all. And he set up the camera...called 'action' and that's when it happened"
"What?" Sam continued to coax.
"She was rolling around, struggling...making these horrible noises. And we all just thought she was, you know, acting; getting into the role" Marlene paused, a tremulous sob heaving her entire body. "But she was dying!"
"She suffocated?" Sam questioned, shooting Dean a horrified expression. The elder man himself was starting to feel slightly nauseous.
Marlene merely nodded, lips pressed tightly together as tears continued make salty tracks down her cheeks.
"When we realised she was dead...we just...panicked! We were going to call Jim and tell him what really happened. But then Patrick, he flipped out; told us we'd all get done for murder, and that we'd have to get rid of her body. 'We can tell everyone that she ran away' he said, and he was almost...crazy with fear. We were just kids, we didn't know what to do, so we found a spot...and we buried her"
The two men had quickly realised the extent of the danger Marlene Roberts had been in; the last remaining member of a group of people responsible for causing the death of a vengeful spirit. It didn't matter that the death had been an accident. Olive Coleman wouldn't rest until she'd completed her spectral vendetta.
Dean had spent a brief moment wondering how and why her spirit had been awakened, before concluding that the question was utterly dwarfed in importance by the need to get rid of her before she finished her retribution and started moving on to unsuspecting innocents.
The urgency in banishing Olive Coleman's ghost had only become heightened when Marlene had admitted to noticing cold spots and strange noises around her house. Knowing that the only way the young woman could protect herself was by remaining within a rocksalt prison while Olive Coleman's remains were dealt with, Sam had come clean about their real purpose for being in Mulberry and for investigating the teenager's disappearance.
She'd been predictably sceptical about the Are You Afraid of the Dark? nature of their explanation at first, but when they'd relayed to her Michelle Connolly's story the change had been astonishing. The fact that all of her old friends had died in exactly the same way seemed to have lit the fire of fear beneath her, sending her level of panic sky-rocketing like a firework display.
She'd listened carefully to all of their instructions, hanging on to the words as if they represented the very air she breathed. Perhaps they did.
Olive Coleman had, as it turned out, been buried somewhere within a craggy patch of woodland that sat coterminous to the local cemetery; her grave apparently having been marked by a flat stone bearing her initials.
Really.
It was actually astounding that no one had ever stumbled across her, and Dean had marvelled at the new depths to which his opinion of the competence of the local police force could sink. Jim clearly having been as much use to his team as a glass hammer.
So it was that, after lining windows and doors with thick furrows of rocksalt, the hunters had left Marlene Roberts with strict instructions to stay put until she heard from them. They'd also made it clear that they expected her to tell her story to the police. Olive Coleman's family deserved to know what had happened to her, and no matter the true level of Marlene's culpability in the accident, she had still played her part in covering it up.
Olive Coleman, though now a murderous, vengeful spirit did deserve to have the horror of her fate known to the world.
Those conditions having been covered, the brothers had travelled to the cemetery to establish just how friggin' obvious Olive Coleman's grave had been.
"So you think Olive was bringing her victims here?" Sam quizzed pensively, shifting in the Impala's passenger seat to give his brother a deferential look.
At Dean's easy nod, he continued. "You think she was recreating her own death? Making them live through it too?"
The Impala drew to a halt outside the shadowy cemetery, gates ominously closed in a display of lofty protectiveness. Both men had been to hundreds of them throughout their lives, but Dean had yet to visit one that didn't have a creepy eeriness to its depths. There was a slight fogginess to the space, drifting across the tips of crooked tombstones with horror-movie predictability. Not that the presence of the cliché made the image any less unearthly.
"I'd say so" He turned to regard his little brother. "Disappearin' like that? Reappearin' asphyxiated and without their clothes? Yeah"
He sighed, trying to imagine how Olive must have felt; suffocating, yet unable to convince the people she trusted that her life was slipping from her grasp.
"Poor girl" Sam murmured with predictable pathos – not that Dean had been feeling any differently himself.
But they had a job to do.
"Yeah, well...I'd have a lot more sympathy for her if she wasn't goin' round gankin' everyone, Sam. You know we have to put a stop to her"
Sam nodded mutely, disapproval engaged in a deep battle with duty across his soft features. But Dean knew duty would win out in the end. It was the Winchester way.
Or at least, it had been before Sam had abandoned the family ship for Stanford. But Dean wasn't going there right now. His brother was with him, back-up and partner alike, and that was all that mattered to him.
They'd gathered the usual tools for a salt and burn – the staple equipment of their livelihood – along with a shotgun filled with rocksalt shells for use in the event that Olive decided to rouse from her slumber and join the party. Neither man had thought she was likely to welcome them to her resting place with open arms.
The cemetery gates had proved to be as much of a barrier as a crumpled paper bag to hunters well-versed in circumventing them, and the modest size of the hallowed land had lent haste to their journey, allowing them to reach the edge of the tangled looking woodland with a minimum of fuss or effort.
Dean shuddered slightly as they passed a truly spooky looking mausoleum; stepping from the cemetery's painstakingly manicured lawn into the tufty mess of long grass buffering the gnarled tree trunks that marked the woodland's boundary. It was a cold, grey structure redolent of faded majesty; with crumbling stone and veins of ivy snaking across the walls like a road map of decay. He noted the heavy padlock that guarded rusty gates, as old and crumbling as the walls. But no doubt still effective at keeping out unwanted visitors.
"How far in did she say again, Sam?" Dean turned back to track his brother's ambling gait as he followed the elder hunter.
"Not far. A few metres, she said"
Dean let his gaze traverse the knots of grass and root that chaotically marred their path. "Awesome. Maybe I was a little harsh on Sheriff Jim. Findin' that stone's gonna be a bitch!"
"Well, then, guess we'd better get started" came the somewhat grumpy response. Dean couldn't blame him. He wasn't exactly feeling like Mr. Sunshine either.
Their torch beams wove a merry and complicated dance across the woodland floor as they patrolled in tandem; checking every nook and cranny and well...leaving no stone unturned.
Dean was so saving that one for later.
"Dean!" Sam's dampened voice reached him through air that seemed rank and mouldy in the cool gloominess of the woodland. "I think I got it"
The heavily weathered stone his little brother held was labouring under the burden of a heavy moss blanket; the hastily scraped inscription slipping by almost incognito beneath its protective layer.
"How the hell'd you pick that out?" Dean tossed out, feeling a little piqued that the kid had beaten him to the prize.
"Cos maybe I'm just a better hunter than you!"
"In your dreams, Samantha. I could've found that thing with my eyes closed"
"Except you didn't!"
"Shudup, and get diggin'"
"Why me?"
"Cos it's your turn, Sammy" Dean returned with a cocky grin, trying not to think of the many solo, lonely salt and burn routines he'd completed over the past few years while Sammy had been at college and his father had been...somewhere else. "And because I say so, bitch"
The muttered "jerk" and other unintelligible grumbles that issued from the kid's scowling visage brought a fond smirk to the elder hunter's face. He was pretty sure Sam had invoked some kind of ancient and unpleasant curse upon him, but he was just so damn happy to have his brother with him that he didn't care.
"Put your back into it, dude!" Dean settled back against a lumpy tree trunk, shotgun in hand, to stand guard over his little brother.
The answering curse had him laughing heartily. Where had the kid learned that one anyway? It couldn't have been at Stanford.
Sam had been shovelling dirt in great, flying heaps for close to an hour before Dean felt the air change, a minute drop in temperature that instantly had him straightening the gun in his grip; sudden tension making his body hum like a radio receiver straining to pick up the faintest signal.
"Sam" He murmured, listening for the cessation of his brother's digging.
"She here?"
"I think so. But keep diggin'. I got this"
"Just be careful" Dean felt his heart squeeze at the concern radiating from Sam's grubby form, his forlornly bedraggled appearance neatly extinguishing any sarcastic response that the elder hunter might have dredged up in answer to the heartfelt plea.
"Whatever happens, just keep diggin'" Sam looked like he might have protested, but after a few seconds of silent disapproval he turned and rammed the shovel down into the dirt; concern for his big brother apparently opening up a previously untapped mine of strength.
The cold air seemed to seep right through Dean's clothing, trickling uncomfortably down through his skin to settle grumpily in his bones. He glanced down at the frost that had been steadily spreading inexorably across the surface of the tree trunk, frowning as his breath froze mistily in front of his eyes.
"Where are you, you bitch?" He muttered under his breath, eyes systematically scanning his surroundings for the slightest movement.
He'd been expecting it. He was always expecting it. But somehow it came as a total shock when his wandering pupils finally landed on a shuffling figure lurching towards them from behind where Sam was continuing to dig.
The young hunter had never seen anything like her. The way the muddied bandages wound around her - restricting her to all but the most jerky of movements - would almost have appeared comical it hadn't been so damn macabre. Many of the reels of fabric had frayed from her body, giving glimpses of skin patches that were rubbery and tinged blue from decay. Her face remained covered apart from her eyes; soulless orbs that stared with deadly blankness straight at Sam.
Straight at his kid brother.
"Hey!" he yelled without forethought, raising the gun with lightning speed. The only instinct driving being him the one that had been his most primal since it had been handed to him at four years old.
Protect Sammy.
But Dean didn't even manage to get a shot off.
And so there he was. Bound and gagged tightly in this unknown chamber to face Olive Coleman's fate; his little brother frantically screaming his name in the distance.
His arid mouth dragged at the gauze blanketing it, trying to suck any remnant of air from its depths to appease his agonised lungs. Blinking feverishly, he felt the tips of his eyelashes brushing against his blindfold, creating an unnerving sensation of cloying claustrophobia.
It felt like he was drowning; immersed in nothingness.
But Sammy drew him back to the surface once more.
"How do you like that, huh?" The triumph in Sam's voice was belied only by the wavering current of fear that that flowed strongly under the surface. The fear that Dean could recognise only too easily in the little brother he had raised almost single-handedly.
Sam had to have completed the salt and burn.
So why hadn't anything changed? Why hadn't he been freed? Why did the bandages still feel so frustratingly unyielding to his frantically labouring muscles?
"Dean?" Sam sounded so small now, like the little boy Dean had let – always with ostensible grouchiness, since he did have an image to maintain – share a bed with him whenever he'd suffered nightmare. It was the utterly lost tone that always drove a stake right through his heart; the one he'd have done anything to remove.
Suddenly, Dean heard his cell ringtone explode into the darkness. Vibrating cheerfully somewhere nearby, he could tell. In the same room?
But whether it had been loud enough for Sam to hear...
There was a rumbling, pregnant silence as Dean tried to haul in another breath. Blooming spots and squiggles were dancing around in front of his closed eyes as his level of oxygen provision once again failed to satisfy his greedy brain. He wasn't going to last much longer, and he knew it.
And then it suddenly dawned on him, exactly where he was. And he could have kicked himself for missing the sheer obviousness of it. Not that the knowledge would do him much good unless Sammy figured it out too.
"Marlene?" A panicked once voice reached him once more, the words tumbling out of Sam's mouth like they were evacuating a burning building. "She's gone. She's gone, but she took Dean. And he didn't come back after I burned her remains. I can't find him, and I don't have much time...if he isn't already...I need to know where Olive died. It's important"
Of course. Why hadn't he thought of it before? Why hadn't they checked? This must have been where she had taken all her victims; letting them feel her cold desolation, the ebbing of life from her fluttering heart, the slow decay of conscious thought...
"The mausoleum?" Sam shouted in disbelief, sounding as chagrined at the knowledge as Dean had felt.
He heard his little brother briskly thank the girl and hang up, feeling his limbs turning to lead as each tiny movement sent a sharp stab of pain arcing up through his body. Though his eyes remained closed, there was a darkness that teased at his mind, an abyss that floated towards him with the engulfing inevitability of a black hole.
Dean's heart juddered frantically in his chest as he heard the approach of Sam's heavy footsteps, followed by the hollow rattle of the rusty chains.
"Dean! Just hang on, man, I'm coming!"
The elder hunter gathered up his remaining air and tried to force it out through his gag, but it caught in his throat, unwilling to leave his body. His throat seemed to close over as he tried frantically to hit reverse gear and draw the air back inside him.
There was a muffled curse, before the cacophonic blast from the shotgun reverberated through the small chamber. Dean tried to curl away from the auditory explosion, but he was held immobile, unable to tell from any of his senses whether his brother's action had been successful.
But his senses seemed to be packing up and absconding with urgent haste, leaving him floating dreamily into nothingness. He turned from wakefulness and looked towards oblivion, screaming lungs begging him to give in and end their misery. He knew he didn't have the power to resist any longer.
"Dean! Oh, god, Dean!" Hands suddenly grabbed at him, large paws that scrabbled wildly at the bandages covering his face. "Don't you dare check out on me, man!"
And just like that, his mouth was free.
His desperate lungs rejoiced as they heaved in a gasp of air, the momentum sending his body arching painfully upwards. But Sam's hands were there, supporting him as the the need for oxygen drove his lungs into overdrive.
"Thank god!" Sam exhaled, arms gripping his shoulders gently. "I thought you...Hey, you're okay, Dean. Slow breaths, man. Fainting wouldn't do anything for your manly image, huh?"
"Sam?" Dean forced out through his stinging throat, one fundamental question standing out above all other thought. "Y'okay?"
The younger man's resulting chuckle was bordering on the hysterical. "Yeah, I'm fine. Are you all right?"
"I will be when you get me out of these things!" Dean finally managed to bring his breathing back under control, feeling warmth start to spread out through his body; a heat he didn't think owed its origins entirely to the renewed availability of oxygen. Not that he'd admit how comforting, how anchoring it felt to have Sam with him.
"Oh, sorry!" Sam sounded mortified now, hands immediately finding purchase on Dean's face once more and dragging the gauze from his eyes.
Dean felt his heart constrict once more when he caught his first glimpse of his brother. The kid's face was covered in patches of dirt marred starkly by clean lines that looked suspiciously like tear tracks. The soil had further collected in his hair, giving him the look of a wild, rambling mountain man. He might have laughed if it hadn't been for the haunted concern that had pooled intensely in the younger man's eyes.
Sam had thought he was dead. Of that he now had no doubt.
He watched as his little brother withdrew a knife and began sawing through his bindings with aching care. "Are you sure you're all right, Dean?"
The older man sighed, feeling his muscles register their deep protest at the movement. "Yeah, Sammy I'm okay"
There was no way he was telling the kid how close it had been. He didn't even want to tell himself how close it had been. As a hunter confronting death on a near daily basis he just couldn't have those kinds of conversations with himself.
It took several long moments before Sam had managed to remove the wrappings in their entirety, and before Dean had managed to suppress the quivering fear that lingered disruptively in his system like a poltergeist.
Dean tolerated his brother's help in manoeuvring to a standing position, notions of practicality rather than desire for help staying his usual dismissal. Refusing Sam's aid would only have resulted in his body crumpling to a heap on the recently vacated stone floor. He hadn't been especially keen to be reacquainted with it.
But as soon as he felt his balance retain its equilibrium, he shrugged out of Sam's protective grip – ignoring the disapproval the action ignited on his brother's pursed features. "Aw, man, where the hell are my clothes?"
The whine in his tone had been audible even to his own ears, and when he turned back to face his brother, he caught Sam's twitch of amusement before the kid had been able to suppress it.
"Oh, you think this is funny, huh?"
Another twitch. "Of course not! They've got to be around here somewhere, Dean. I'll go look"
Dean levelled a dangerous stare at the younger man, daring him to make a joke. The elder hunter was somewhat put out when Sam merely offered his own jacket to keep his big brother warm while he searched for the missing garments.
"You kiddin' me? After you've been rollin' around in the dirt? Think I'll pass"
"This is not negotiable Dean" Sam stepped forward, peeling the jacket from around his shoulders and attempting to drape it over his big brother's.
"I got it, Sam. I was the one who taught you how to dress, remember? Although you'd never know, to look at you" Dean swatted at Sam's reaching hands but grudgingly accepted the jacket. Practicality was a real bitch.
"Cute, Dean" Sam scowled back, though the twinkle in his eye somewhat ruined the effect. "Okay, wait here, and I'll search the rest of the place"
It turned out that Dean's clothes had been dumped in a pile somewhere at the back of the mausoleum, along with what looked like items belonging to Olive's prior victims. "Guess she wasn't much of a neat freak" Dean muttered as he grabbed his clothing from Sam and retreated into a corner to begin the process of dressing himself.
Sam watched intently, looking as if he was just itching to step in and assist, especially when the residual lack of coordination left over from the extended period of oxygen deprivation nearly caused Dean to overbalance spectacularly on several occasions. But a death glower from Dean was always enough to halt him in his tracks.
It wasn't however, enough to stop Sam from grasping him possessively under the arms and manhandling him swiftly from the chamber once Dean had donned his clothing. And no amount of wheedling, or whining, or complaining would convince him to let go. Dean's flagging strength prevented him from making any serious attempt to wriggle free; so he was forced to endure the coddling, wondering again why he'd wanted his brother back on the hunt with him.
Quite how they managed to negotiate the cemetery gates on their way back to the Impala, Dean found he couldn't quite recall; and was pretty sure he didn't want to. Being practically carried from the mausoleum had been enough humiliation for the day.
Or so he'd thought.
"So, I guess that's this case all...wrapped up, huh Dean?" Sam glanced down at him, lip bitten against the laughter Dean could tell was expanding within him like a balloon.
"Oh shut up, Sam" was the best retort he could come up with under the circumstances. He had known this was going to happen after all.
"Don't worry, bro...mum's the word on this one!"
"Let me know when you're gonna start bein' funny Sammy"
"No need to get so wound up, Dean!"
Maybe Sam could hitch-hike back to their motel?
Thanks for reading! Hope this wasn't too silly!
Any comments welcome! :)