Have to... something... watching me... hurts... blood on my skin... on my tongue... something hating me... somewhere someone's screaming...glass, shattering like water... it's me, screaming... flying, free fall... hands always there to catch me... put me back together again... Alastair... Sam... Sammy.
"S'my?"
I can feel him there beside me, even if I can barely hear my own groan through the ringing in my ears. I blink my eyes, but nothing happens, feels like something's gluing them shut and trying to pry them open wakes up the deep, down-to-the-bone ache in my face.
Alastair.
Demon punches hurt.
The thought stirs an old itch, just above my left eyebrow, the tiny scar that had already faded away before... well. Before. Shame Cas couldn't take away the memory of all-too the familiar fist along with it.
Trying to scratch it sets my left arm on fire, and I hiss in a breath that makes my ribs join in the party. I groan again, then all the hurt goes away as the fist resting against my elbow moves, clutching feebly at me.
"Sam?"
He whimpers something that sounds vaguely dirty and I grin, wince and try to keep a straight face as I lift my right arm and smear the blood in my eyes away.
The sunlight is blinding, searing straight through my skull, but before I close my eyes again I see something that lingers against the dark.
The shattered window, and a figure standing inside, turning away as something in his hands glittered in the light. Adrenaline smashes through me, picks me up and drags me to my knees before I can think, then it lets go, cold bitch that it is, and I sink into a heap on the cold, smooth surface underneath me.
"Dean?"
I try and lift my head, but moving it sets off a couple tons of TNT in my shoulder, so I settle for mumbling back at Sam. I can hear him shifting around, the ground bouncing a little with a familiar kind of wobble, and I realise what we landed on just in time to hear him roll straight off the roof of the car and down the windshield, kicking me off the hood.
The three and a half feet feel more like thirty when I hit the parking lot, but for once my luck doesn't totally suck and the world disappears in a flare of white before I really have time to feel the fresh tsunami of hurt that explodes in me.
Have to run... the statue, weeping... I can feel him coming...he watches me... hates me... tears of blood... my blood on his knuckles again... run... have to run...
A large hand rests against my jaw, one long thumb steadying my head as another hand gently pats down my arms and legs and chest. They shake, less gentle than either of us would like and press too hard against ribs that grate softly together, against my shoulder, making it shift in ways it really shouldn't.
"Hnn..."
"Sorry. 's 'k. I go' ya."
From the way he's slurring, it sounds like he needs to be looked after as much as me. It hurts, god it hurts, but I blink my eyes open and see a vague, fuzzy outline against the sky. The shattered window over his shoulder sends my heart tripping over into double time before I realise it's empty.
"Y' 'k D'n?"
He wobbles as he says it, reaching out to the dented car beside us and I see blood smeared across his face.
"Yeah. You?"
"Yeah."
He bites his lip, hard, as he braces himself against the wing with one hand and grabs my arm with the other. It doesn't take much effort to resist his pull, but it still leaves me in a cold sweat. Then again, that could be the second glimpse I get of that damn window, the one that isn't quite as empty as I thought it was. Far back in the shadows, over by the statue marked with bloody tears, there's a glint of light, a shape I know instantly.
The edge of a blade.
The adrenaline rush is so strong this time it hurts, literally burns in my veins, clearing the ringing from my ears, my skin turning over-sensitive to the weight of his eyes on me as he watches me from the back of the church.
A demon in a freakin' church. I laugh, breathlessly, painfully, feeling the panic in Sam's hand on my arm but I can't take my eyes off Alastair and I don't need to be able to see him to know he'll be smiling that same old smug smile.
It's sickening to think that I've known that grin longer than my brother's.
"Dean?"
I drag my gaze back to Sam's slightly blurry face. He's frowning, and I can't decide if that's because he's worried, pissed off, or hurting. Or all three.
"Up."
It's about all I can manage right now since that damn window keeps sucking at my eyes like an undertow. He braces himself again and this time I let him pull me to my feet, grabbing at him without thought as he starts to go down and almost screaming as I discover the hard way that instinct used my left hand to catch him.
"Y'kay?"
I nod, nudge him with my right elbow and he shrugs with a wince.
"'m good."
Maybe if we're both lying to each other, it cancels itself out.
I stare at the car for a moment. It's some imported piece-of-crap SUV, all cheap plastic and aluminium and feeling the ground under my boots, I know damn well it saved us serious injury. Which, way things are at the moment, would pretty much sign the death certificate for at least one of us.
Sam sways, knocks gently against me and leans into my side and I could laugh, if it didn't hurt so much. Who am I kidding? One of us goes, the other follows. That's how it is now. Way it's always been, I guess, though I never noticed before...
Yeah. That again.
Every time I think it, it sticks in my throat, digs its claws in and won't shift. I told Sam I'd never talk to him about it, but it feels like there's something growing, deep down inside, something with talons and fangs, knives and guns and I can't hold it in forever.
I'll talk. Soon.
Put it off as long as I can, hide it, bury it under the blazing, stunning pain in my shoulder, pretend that that's enough to eclipse it for a while as we stumble, leaning on each other, perpetually falling our way to the car.
Which is on the other side of the damn parking lot. Of course it is.
Halfway there, we fall into a symbiotic kind of shuffle, me holding us up, driving us forward while Sam steers and watches, since his legs are still too wobbly and my vision has whited out in the face of the sun igniting in my shoulder.
We couldn't outrun a friggin' turtle, and my skin is crawling, like millions of ants skittering across the back of my neck, every brush of wind against the fine hairs standing on end the first touch of the air turning solid and brutal.
I let it go, let slip the certainty that he'll be there, smiling that smile again, getting in my face the way he always did but it simmers just under the surface. It always does, trying to drag me under, the soft whisper that so suits the damn paediatrician, boiling away in the back of my mind.
Forty years isn't easily forgotten, and Alistair was a constant in an otherwise infinitely changing, shifting world.
For once, the metal in my hand is cool instead of burning, solid instead of intangible as my fingers close into a fist against it. Sam sounds as surprised as I feel as he mumbles,
"We made it."
I blink at my shoes, scuffed and marked against the dirty concrete. It's reassuringly solid, and I lean against the Impala, letting the coolness seep into my aching bones. Hands pluck at my jacket, digging in the pocket until I slap them away awkwardly.
"I'm driving."
Sam huffs, and it's never irritated me as much as it does right now.
"I'm fine, Sam. And I'm driving. Get the hell in."
"Dean..."
"You're seeing double and I drove from Duluth to Dakota with a bullet hole in my shoulder, Sam. I'm fine."
Soon as the words cross my lips I want to snatch them back. He flinches, drops his head too late for me to miss seeing the hurt flash across his eyes.
"Sammy. Come on. Lets just... lets get the hell out of Dodge, ok? Find a motel, patch up."
He nods, still doesn't look at me and it hurts, more than the shoulder, almost as bad as the memories I can't quite shake loose. But there's nothing I can say. We're not who we used to be, far more than four months or forty years between us now, and I don't know how to make it all okay anymore.
I can't fix this.
He slouches around the car, and for the first time he doesn't try to hide the blood-soaked sleeve of his jacket, the ragged tear in it gaping open onto skin and glass. It's just another sign to drive home how much things have changed. Once, he wouldn't have been able to hide it from me and never would have stopped trying.
I hate feeling useless.
There's nothing to say, nothing to do but climb in behind the wheel but halfway there my wobbly knees give out and dump me into the bench seat with a thump that almost shakes a scream loose. The world goes white again; a searing, infernal blaze that centres around that damn shoulder and I know it's only going to get worse.
"Fuck."
Sam huffs out a breath, irritable and grouchy but lets me breathe through the agony in silence and damn if I don't miss him mother henning me right now.
The grumble of the engine I built is a poor substitute for the kid brother I used to have, forty-odd years ago, but it'll do and by the time we leave the town, the flaming agony branding the inside of my shoulder is oddly distant, disconnected, throbbing down the length of my arm where it's cradled in my lap.
It's not so difficult, driving one handed. The impala's a big, solid hulk of a car, but the steering's as light as I could make it and the automatic drive means all I have to do with my arm is turn the wheel.
The road slips by, sliding underneath us, sometimes blurring, twinning itself. First time that happened I looked over at Sam, see if he'd noticed the tarmac doing things it shouldn't be doing but he was asleep or passed out against the window, slouching down in his seat, legs all tangled together under the dash.
He's pale, his reflection is at least, squashed up against the glass so the shadows bruising his eyes are too close to miss. So I don't say anything, just turn back to the road and who-the-hell-knows how much later I catch sight of myself, reflected in the windshield, squinting suspiciously at the road.
That's far enough, kiddo. Stand down.
I almost look in the mirror, stop myself just in time, not sure which would be worse, seeing the worn, seamed face and scruffy beard reflected from the back seat, frowning worriedly at me.
Or seeing nothing at all.
Instead, I wait and watch for the next motel sign, suddenly tired, the vicious throbbing blaze in my shoulder roaring at full force again. I can't hold back the sigh of relief when the familiar yellow and red logo comes around a corner.
"'n?"
The weight I hadn't even noticed missing drops back on me, a weary grin plastering itself automatically across my face.
"Mornin', Princess."
"You okay? Where are we? What time'sit?"
"Uh, just outside'a Richmond. Motel coming up in a couple miles. Been about two, three hours, I guess."
"Good."
He hisses as he straightens in the seat, one hand clamping gingerly around his arm, just above the gash the window sliced in him. As exits go, it had to be one of our most dramatic.
"And stupid."
I didn't realise I'd spoken aloud until he grumbles an answer.
"Didn't see you coming up with another plan."
He huffs, winces and curls his injured arm around his ribs.
"Guess you're rubbing off on me."
I grin before I remember it's a bad idea, but it's bittersweet at best. Once upon a time, I would've been stoked to hear him say that, wouldn't've minded rubbing off on him, would even have been proud to. Once upon a time, I wasn't... what I am now.
Falling apart. Dragged under by the memories of the things I've done. A demon in the making.
I lean sideways, deliberately letting my elbow slip off my lap and the jolt of fire that blazes through me drives the memories away again.
"Dean?"
"'M fine."
Fine.
Through the haze I wondered if I'd ever been fine at all as I turn the wheel and steer us down the exit ramp, leaving the I64 behind. Bypassing the more expensive chain motels and slipping into the late afternoon traffic on West Broad Street, I can feel him watching me in the glass, worry and something else setting my teeth on edge.
"What?"
"I... nothin'."
We're both lying again. I know damn well what's bothering him. there's no way he missed Alistair's 'greeting', no way he missed the moment of recognition that churned my stomach and brought the stench of fire and roasting meat to my tongue again.
And from the way his fists are clenched so tightly they're shaking against his legs, it ain't nothing. It bothers him, not knowing, not being able to find a way in to my head, same way it bugged the hell out of him not knowing what happened while he was at Stanford.
Turning into the parking lot, killing the engine and reaching awkwardly over to open the door, the bright flare of pain that blinds me is a welcome distraction.
I leave my brother behind in the car.
That's nothing new, it's something we've done more times than I can count but sometimes, I hate it. He's too bloody to come into the office, even the gory mess on my shirt will likely raise a few eyebrows, the swelling discolouration I can feel where the paediatrician's fist's landed more difficult to hide than a dislocated shoulder.
But the blood still running freely down his arm, the bright glitter of the shard buried in his bicep is impossible to conceal, so I walk away and leave him there and hope, as I do every time, that he'll still be there when I come back.
There've been just enough times that he hasn't to make the fear real enough that I can't shake it.
The clerk glares suspiciously at me as I fidget in line behind an elderly lady, blue rinse and flat shoes and that 'old' smell, then the twitches crawling down my spine fade as I realise for the first time that I should have that smell, should be wearing powder blue golfing trousers and off-white loafers or whatever.
That I should be old.
"Yes?"
I hear the clerk call me, see the old lady shuffle back out of the door but it might as well be happening to someone else for all the impact any of it has on me. I ache, right down to the bone and beyond, and suddenly I'm so tired I'd sit down here if I could work out how to make my knees unlock.
And I feel every single one of the thirty years I lived and the forty that I died, plucking at me, dragging me under again.
Seems like everything in my head wants to drown me these days, in memories or whiskey or in plain old hurt.
"Can I help?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I... I need a room. Twin."
Hey, back of the line buddy!
I almost growl it out before I realise I'm the one speaking.
"King or queen?"
"Queen."
I hand over the credit card, scrawl something that could maybe look like Dean Gulli and take the keys without saying another word.
I can't breathe until I see the passenger door creak open, the familiar complaints of car and brother settling in against me like a second skin, but it's a fraction too tight now, almost crushing me. The world sinks into a lazy spiral around me, my head throbbing in time with my shoulder, the bruised ribs I'd almost forgotten about waking up in the cool air.
"C'mon."
I push myself to make it to the trunk and can't quite figure out how to juggle the room and car keys to unlock it. Biting down on the inside of my cheek, one of the splits in my lip opens again, the sting on top of everything else almost bringing tears to my eyes as blood slides over my tongue.
My knees turn weak, threatening to dump me on my ass in the middle of the parking lot until I lean over the trunk, brace myself against it with my good arm and try not to notice it trembling.
"I gotcha. Come on, inside."
The arm that settles carefully around my waist is strong, stable when I feel like the world's slipping away from me and I can't hold on anymore. So I let him pull me away from the car, stumbling together across the lot, not caring how it might look to anyone watching us.
Sam snatches the keys from my fumbling hands, jams them into the door and hustles us both through, staggering a little as we squeeze through the narrow gap. I kick out at the door, slamming it behind us, feeling the tremors work their way through his arm, smelling the too-familiar ripeness of blood, his and mine as it fills the room.
He dumps me on the nearest bed, the mattress bouncing nauseatingly beneath me as I let my head drop forward, sucking air in through the nose, forcing it out between bleeding lips as the burning fog swallowed me whole again.
Have to run... followed... hunted... he'll never let us, me go... far enough kiddo... dad?... stand down... no. run, have to... the statue weeping but whose blood is it?... have to run... stand down... have to... run... stand... run... dad?...
"No. No, Dean it's me. It's Sam."
"Crap."
He laughs, sounds enough like Dad that my foggy brain stutters for a moment.
"Right back atcha. You awake?"
"I hope not."
But I blink, stare up at a bland ceiling, cracks badly painted over snaking their way through my sight. The mattress bounces again, creaks softly as he sits beside me with a sigh. It hitches at the end, and I can hear his teeth grinding together so I lift one heavy hand and grab hold of his shoulder to pull myself up.
He flinches away from me and for a moment I wonder if he broke most of a lifetime of habit and sat with his injured arm towards me, but there's no blood on my hand and there would be, I remember enough of the glass buried in the wound to be certain of that.
"Sam?"
His shoulders tense up visibly and I can feel the urge to pull back trembling through him. He doesn't look at me again, keeps his head down, staring at the blanket, scrunched up between us as I hover, halfway to sitting, halfway to falling, muscles shaking with the strain of holding on.
"Sammy?"
I can see his mouth twist, a bitter smile that's got nothing of my baby brother in it. then it smoothes away and he looks up at me at last, and all I can think is that we're lying to each other again.
"C'mon, Sam. Lemme see that."
I guess I'm still thinking about Dad somewhere, 'cause it comes out enough like him to make me almost look over my shoulder. But it works; Sam twists around with a wince and hisses as I touch steady fingers to his arm, spreading them above and below the gory mess.
I swallow hard, the glass winking at me buried deep into his flesh until the lips of the wound almost close over it.
"Here."
His voice is rough, fingers shaking as he holds the tweezers out to me. He drops his hand to mine, cradled in my lap again, oddly gentle as he squeezes it when I dig the points of the tweezers into his arm.
"Sorry."
The grate over the glass and he shudders, twisting as far away from me as he can without losing hold. I force down the voice in the back of my head, the one that whispered and whispered until I climbed off the rack and picked up tools slick with my own burnt blood.
The shard explodes in the trash can as I drop it, rubies scattered across rusty, stained metal, blurring into one another as my vision goes yet again. I rummage one-handed and blind through the first aid kit on the bed, realise I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to thread the suture needle and say nothing as he takes it from me, eyes dark and reluctant, skittering over the bruises and the misshapen swelling where my shoulder used to be.
I leave him threading it, lever myself to my feet and shuffle over to the bathroom, abruptly sick of the taste of blood in my mouth. He gasps, muffles it quickly but not fast enough.
I should be the one stitching him up. My job, my responsibility, and I can't finish it. Sure, there've been times when I've been hurt before and he's had to stitch himself. Hell, I've seen the scars of wounds I don't remember him getting, the ones I wasn't there for.
I sigh, hating the shake in it as I lean hip-shot against the sink, filling a plastic cup with tepid water and downing it, over and over until it sloshes uncomfortably inside. Because as guilty as I feel for not being the one taking care of my kid brother, I'm glad of the reprieve.
Longer it takes before he can pop my shoulder back in, the longer I've got with the distraction.
I jump a mile as a small missile blurs past me to crunch limply onto the counter and stare down at it, uncomprehending.
"For the shoulder."
It's curt, etched with pain but I smile weakly at the reflection behind me as I pick up the tiny, pathetic ice pack and almost pass out when I press it against my shoulder.
As I hold on to the counter and listen to him chuckle softly, bitterly behind me, the same old thought crosses my mind again, nothing new in it at all.
Maybe, if we're both lying to each other, it cancels itself out.
Maybe.