Title: Get Off Of My Cloud
Summary: "Al Basti was pretty much the last thing he wanted to run into this lifetime. If she got hold of Sam, there'd be no recovery for him. And Dean? Oh, Dean would be an all-you-can-eat buffet for the thing." Dean knows guilt well. Mid S2.
A/N: I've been banging out short, but relatively good stories lately. I decided to take some time and put a bit of effort into my next one. This is gonna be all Dean whump, brotherly love, angst, hurt/comfort, and all those other similarly lovely things. Please R&R. Putting my heart and soul into this one. :)
He's running. His feet feel heavy, his ankle is throbbing. He hears something bellow behind him and he doesn't turn. He runs faster. Grave markers roll past his vision like lines on a highway. The otherworldly noise echoes behind him again. Against his instincts, he turns. A half-visible woman hurdles towards him, arms outstretched, face twisted in rage. He trips backwards, falling hard against a tombstone. His head rings and his vision tilts. He can see that the ghost's eyes were blue in life, close as she is. As her shriek wails through his dimming hearing, he hears his brother shout his name. There's more fear there than usual.
"Sam!"
"Son of a bitch!"
The frustrated curse echoed through the motel room, though it was partially muffled by the closed door. Sitting at the small table oh so generously provided, Dean grinned widely. It wasn't often his little brother cursed, so it was hilarious when it happened.
Of course, it wasn't often his brother helped him drink half a fifth of tequila, either. So he figured he ought to let it slide.
"About finished in there, Barfing Beauty?"
Or not.
Dean had the strange suspicion that the next cuss thrown through the air was directed at him. Smirking, he dropped his eyes back down to the car magazine in his hands, losing himself in the techs and specs of one seriously awesome looking three fifty, four barrel engine. The sleek metal gleamed on the page, and Dean toyed with the idea of hanging around the area for a few days so he could do some work on the Impala. Almost before the thought materialized, he dismissed it. Sam was all geared up for a hunt, one that would apparently take them from Alabama to Pennsylvania.
"So, a haunted graveyard? Really? Like we haven't heard that one before..." Dean said, his voice trailing off as he rolled his eyes. The jibe did the trick, though. There was the sound of a flushing toilet, running water, the just-barely audible shwink as a towel was pulled from a metal rod, and a deep, long-suffering sigh. A few moments later, Sam appeared, trickles of moisture rolling down his cheeks. He wiped his hands on a small towel and gave his brother a disparaging look.
"It's not just a haunted graveyard, Dean. People aren't just getting some bumps and scrapes there. Something else is happening. I don't really know what, but four people went into that cemetery on the night of a new moon and didn't come out the same."
Dean glanced up at Sam's words, the intensity behind them making an involuntary shiver course down his spine. There were very few things in the world that actually scared him. He was determined that the haunted graveyard wouldn't be one of them.
"It's not exactly an ancient cemetery, and it's in the middle of Philadelphia, Sam. What makes you think Laurel Hill's actually haunted? Could just as easily be thugs that got the drop on some creepy midnight well-wishers, beat the crap out of them, and gave them some admittedly severe cases of PTSD. What's got you convinced?" the older hunter asked as he reluctantly dropped his magazine to the table beside him.
Sam sat down on the edge of the bed closest to the table, his eyes taking a bit of a vacant look. He said nothing for several seconds. Unfortunately for him, Dean was fluent in Sammy Speak.
"You had a vision about it, didn't you? That's why you got plastered with me last night. That's why you're dead set on going to Philadelphia even though you don't have a ounce of proof that something supernatural is going on there," Dean snapped, his voice rising as his anger and worry got the best of him.
Sam opened his mouth but then thought better of whatever he was going to say and closed it, shaking his head. Growling low in his throat, Dean jumped up from his seat and yelled, "Dammit, Sam! How many times are we going to have to go over this? You have a vision, you tell me. No matter how bad it is, who dies, what it means. You freaking tell me. That's the only goddamn rule we have in this screwed up, rapidly-shrinking family of ours and you can't follow it." Sam's eyes were on his brother's movements, and he unconsciously pulled into himself a bit as Dean stalked close to him, his green eyes flashing.
Dean froze, though, when he saw Sam flinch. Taking control of his anger with one deep breath, he exhaled sharply and took a seat next to his younger brother, his motions slow and easy. Shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee, Dean sighed silently. This was the way life was supposed to be: smoothing over roughed-up feelings, patching his brother up after a poorly-fought bar fight.
Not visions and tension and fear. Not secrets and stitches.
Not death.
But they weren't normal. Life would never be anything but what it was for them. They were all they had in the world. Oh, they each hated that fact, with a hidden passion. Both wanted nothing more than to be a family again, parents and children together, the way nature intended. The way things were before the Demon had showed up. And that was what left Dean with his insecurities, his fears, his anguish and fury; the truth was, Sam would have very little to do with him if he'd had the option. And that truth led to the anger that normally drove their fights. Fights like this one.
Sam cast his brother a hooded look, one Dean met with his own gaze easily. Taking responsibility for his actions was something Dean had always, and would always, be good at. That lesson had been beaten into him following Sam's encounter with the Shtriga. John had rarely raised a hand against his oldest son, and never against his youngest. But Dean carried scars from those few encounters, and every hit had branded rules across his mind. The first and foremost: protect Sam. Always.
Even if it was the same Sam that was insisting they take on what was apparently a dangerously haunted graveyard.
Reality dumped its ice cold bucket of water over Dean's head and he steeled his nerves for the hunt. He had his brother. If he had anything to say about it, he always would. And damned if he fought with him over some unavoidable vision and a grassy field full of headstones.
"All right. What did you see in your vision, Sam?" Dean asked, his voice pitched in a way that revealed no anger. His brother's hesitation frustrated him, but he kept his mouth shut. Sam glanced at him again, and Dean swallowed reflexively, hating the sudden pensiveness in the room. He gave a small smile, one of his real ones, and smiled just a little bit more when he felt the stress dissipate slightly. Yes, he would always have his brother.
"I was running in the graveyard. My ankle was sprained. I was being chased by something – a ghost or spirit, I'm not sure which – and then I fell. She was almost on me. I heard you yell. That's it," Sam murmured, his tone that low and deep timber it took whenever he was scared. Nodding uselessly (because really, what did that little bit of information really tell him?), Dean clapped his brother on the back and stood.
"All right. Haunted, it is. Take us about two days to get there, taking back roads and driving in shifts. We've got about two weeks until the next new moon, if that's in any way significant," he said as he moved around the room, pulling together their stuff in way-too-practiced a fashion. Sam stayed where he was for a moment, his eyes on Dean's movements. As he watched his brother toss an arsenal of weapons into a well-worn duffel, he broke his silence.
"When did our roles change, Dean? When did I become the one calling the shots?" he asked quietly, no teasing in his words. The other man slowed and glanced over his shoulder, easily identifying the emotions in his brother's words. "Nothing's changed, Sam. I'm still the dashingly handsome, gun-loving older brother who makes your life hell when you're hungover. You're still the geekishly tall, library-stalking younger brother who makes my life hell when I'm hungover."
Dean paused what he was doing for a moment, his back to Sam, and he leaned heavily on the small table in front of him. Sam's words had opened a raw wound that had only just began to scar over, a wound that had been festering ever since the death of their mother. His only purpose in life was to protect Sam. That's all he was put on the earth for. His mother had extracted his lisped promise of protection when he was three and a half years old. His father had demanded it on a daily basis for the past twenty three years. Had demanded it with his final words to his son. All Dean knew how to do was shoot first and ask questions later, if he even bothered to ask questions at all. And if Dean had to kill every supernatural son of a bitch in heaven and hell to do so, he would keep his brother safe.
"Our roles will never be reversed, Sam. There's no changing of the guard, not in this lifetime. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Never," he said quietly, fresh blood pouring from that still-tender part of his soul.
If you can't save him, you are going to have to kill him.
"Not ever," he whispered. There was a handful of breaths passed between brothers before Sam nodded silently towards Dean's bowed head, his older brother feeling the tension leaving his charge. He was still for one more moment before he turned, a hundred watt grin spread over his face. Sam stood, his hands reaching for his own equipment, and he returned the smile.
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
The familiarity of the exchange was a welcome balm to Dean's heart. Even months later, he was still shaken from the incident at the asylum; he still had nightmares about staring at the barrel of his favorite handgun, his brother's hands shaking with rage. Every once in awhile he swore he could still hear the hollow click of the hammer striking the empty chamber. And sometimes, the scars from the rock salt shotgun blast still ached as fiercely as they had that night.
'You really hate me that much?'
Dean went through the motions of packing his belongings, his fake high plummeting. Glancing sideways at his brother, he wondered if Sam really realized all that he had done for him. Sure, protecting his little brother from the truth of what they hunted and their father's obsession was a given. But Stanford was its own chapter, as well. John checked on Sam at the college every chance he'd gotten, that was true. But Dean...well, Dean had taken it a step farther.
In between every hunt, no matter where he was, he drove to Stanford to check on his brother, knowing he'd find no rest until he knew Sam was safe. He kept an eye on his brother's bank account, hustling extra games of pool and slipping the money in the bank when things got tight. If the kitchen was stretched a bit thin between paychecks, Dean would sneak an extra bag or two of groceries into the apartment while Sam and Jess were in class. He performed routine midnight maintenance on the piece of crap car that Sam had chosen to drive at college; he'd even changed the oil and fixed a radiator leak on Jess's Jeep one time. On the very few occasions Sam's grades started slipping, Dean would bribe the best private tutors in the area to call on his brother and give him some one-on-one attention. Once, when a leaky sprinkler system had ruined two of his brother's favorite books, Dean had bought him new ones online and had them shipped overnight to his place.
'You really hate me that much?'
All he had done, and none of it really seemed to matter anymore. Sam didn't have a bank account anymore; they both lived on fake credit cards. Kitchens and home cooked meals were a thing of memory. The car Dean had regularly checked and fixed was a block of scrap metal in a junkyard. Sam would never have a future in any kind of academia, stellar grades or no, with the way he'd dropped out. The books Dean had bought were a river of ashes in the sewer.
So Sam was riding shotgun in the Impala, rushing headlong into any danger they could find, caught up in their father's hunt, the family business, The Obsession.
And in all ways, Dean felt like he had failed.
'You really hate me that much?'
Sometimes, Dean thought he probably did.
Several hours later they were in Dean's beloved muscle car, her engine purring like a cat high on catnip as she tore through the midday summer heat. Inside the car, AC/DC's Back in Black screamed through the stereo speakers, both brothers rocking to the tune, the older belting out lyrics as the younger watched him and laughed. It was these moments that made the hunt and the blood worth it. Every successful job meant they could laugh together again, argue, worry about each other, and bitch and moan and complain about everything else in the world. It meant other people – potential victims of the things they hunted, those caught in the crossfire – could do the same things too. It made it all worth it.
Dean cast a glance at his brother as his hands skimmed over the steering wheel, a distant part of him realizing the leather was scorching hot from the heat. He found he could still forget that his little brother wasn't a kid anymore. Wasn't so little anymore, either. Sam had a good three inches on Dean in height, and he was fairly certain that gave him a speed advantage, too. Sure, Dean was better in a fight, all muscle and agility, but Sam could hold his own if he had to. Amongst Dean's private frustrations, that was one of the biggest: that his brother even had to worry about fighting.
A muscle in his jaw twitched as he gripped the scalding steering wheel a little harder, some core part of him relishing the pain. Pain was real; it was tangible; it was something he could confront and defeat. Emotions were another animal entirely. Generally speaking, they tended to destroy him, not the other way around.
"So, I did a little bit of research between the vision and getting plastered last night," Sam suddenly said as he turned down the radio and simultaneously reached for a black leather journal. Dean glanced at the tome with interest; Sam had started keeping his own journal shortly after the visions had first started. He filled the thing with everything they came across in their hunts, his writing style a little less Yoda-esque than their father's. Sam flipped open the book and thumbed through the pages, about half of them filled with writing, newspaper clippings, maps, pictures, and a few photographs. Dean glanced out his rearview mirror and smiled slightly. Sam reminded Dean of their father before the fire, back when learning was fun, not life threatening.
Back when their mother was alive.
"All right, geek. What did you find out?" Dean asked as he shifted a little in his seat; there was a spring busted in the seat back he needed to fix. Sam practically buried his nose in the book and started on what his brother had deemed the 'Sammy Rationalizing Danger Speech'.
"Laurel Hill Cemetery. It was established in the 1830's and it's in western Philadelphia on the Schuylkill River. It's massive, and it's still in use. It looks like all of the incidents happened near a pretty famous sculpture at the grave of Helena Schaff. She died in 1857 at the age of thirty four. She was born in Neustadt on the Rhine, she traveled around most of Europe and parts of the Middle East with her job, and she died in Philadelphia. She was married to a man named Henry Dmochowski-Saunders. She was a concert pianist, and he was a famous sculptor. She had two kids with him; the first was stillborn in 1855 and she and the second child died in labor. He spent a year and a half carving a memorial to her, which has her and two kids on her lap. He went home to Poland afterward. There are two inscriptions on the statue. The first says 'Her children in repose with her'. It doesn't say whether their remains are actually buried there. Then there's a kind of poem on the base of it."
Dean rolled his shoulders as he tried to get more comfortable. Damn, that busted spring was killing him. But his attention diverted immediately a moment later.
"We live in deeds, not years. In thoughts, not breaths. In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time in heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."
A split second later, the Impala almost ran into a ditch. Cussing loudly, Dean whipped the car to the side of the back road they were on, slamming on the brakes. His fingers were in a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel as he stared sightlessly out the windshield. He was vaguely aware of Sam shaking his shoulder, demanding to know what was wrong. But it's not like Dean could tell him.
It's not like Dean could tell his little brother that their mother had put him to bed with that poem as a nightly prayer for the first four years of his life.
"Dammit, Dean! What the hell is wrong?" Sam asked, his voice revealing he was a little too close to panic. It was the scared tone that cut to his brother's awareness. Blinking quickly, trying to hide the sudden rush of moisture in his eyes that begged to flow down his cheeks, Dean mentally scrambled for an acceptable excuse.
"What? You didn't see that huge-ass deer that just bolted across the road? Damn, dude. Thing was massive! Would've totally destroyed the entire front end if I'd hit it. My poor baby!" Dean melodramatically wailed as he hugged the steering wheel. Sam glanced out the car windows uncertainly. "A deer? Dean, are you sure? I didn't see anything."
Glancing at him sideways, the older brother scoffed and responded, "You had your nose buried in that damn book. You should've seen this thing! It was massive!" Rolling his eyes, Sam twitched his wrist in Dean's direction, his fingers waving in a 'well, let's get going then, and stop hugging your car cause it's creeping me out' gesture. Swallowing hard, Dean pulled back out onto the road, halfheartedly listening to his brother's description of the attacks. He had a sneaking suspicion this hunt wasn't going to be quite open and closed.
"Now that you're done trying to stuff a deer up your radiator, let's get down to the details. I haven't gotten a hold of anyone who was actually attacked – we'll have to wait until we're in the city to do that – but I did get a few police reports and the news reports. There have been four victims so far, all male, varying ages. Two Caucasian, one African American, and one Asian, so apparently our ghost isn't racist. Two were there making legitimate visits to the cemetery, while two were on a dare to spend the night in the cemetery on the night of the new moon without a flashlight. They were all found at dawn by a groundskeeper at the base of Schaff's statue. The news reports are pretty sketchy, but the police reports state that the victims were all pretty much catatonic when they were found. They are all currently at Roxborough Memorial Hospital in the psychiatric ward."
Dean pushed away the open well of memories he'd accidentally stepped in after hearing the poem and tossed a confused look towards his brother. "You said they were catatonic. Why not the ICU or coma ward?"
Sam gestured towards his journal and tilted his head towards his brother. "I said they were found catatonic. Shortly after being found, they all started having intermittent psychotic episodes. Sometimes they get violent. Doctors haven't found a cause yet. The weird thing is, no medication is having any kind of effect on them."
Dean frowned and asked, "Sedatives? Tranquilizers? Viagra?" Smirking and shaking his head, Sam answered, "No, nothing. There's no biological reason for them to not work, except the fact they don't. So the three victims-"
"Wait, you said four a minute ago."
Sam nodded tightly and turned towards his brother. "The first victim died two days ago, right after I had my vision. His cause of death was listed as complications from dehydration, malnutrition, and sleep deprivation. This is after he was pumped full of fluids, fixed with a feeding tube, and given every sedative known to man. So whatever's killing them isn't playing by the rules of physics. Leaves one thing. Supernatural."
Dean reached behind him and fumbled for a snack from his overflowing bag of junk food in the back seat while he thought. After one particular hunt had gone spectacularly bad several years before, he'd spent six long weeks in a lonely hotel room, healing up while his dad had continued hunting, telling him to catch up when he was able. To work through the sting and the fear of the abandonment, Dean had turned his energies to a medical overview course from an online college. He'd soaked up everything he could, especially things that could help him treat injuries in the field. While learning about hypothermia, concussions, broken bones, and blood, he also took some time to study up on hormones and chemical balances. For all his admittedly rapidly-gained knowledge, he couldn't remember a single condition which caused human beings to be immune to the best sedatives a hospital could offer.
"All right, so we've got three people who are probably going to die in the next day or two from exhaustion, malnutrition, and dehydration, against all conventional medical wisdom and intervention. We don't know if this is a one night stand. Wait – do we?" he asked as he ripped open a bag of Twizzlers with his teeth.
Huffing slightly at Dean's completely predictable and completely inappropriate humor, Sam flipped through his journal and said, "Well, there haven't been any other attacks so far. But it wouldn't be the first time we went up against a spirit tied to lunar cycles. Maybe it only attacks on the new moon? That your thinking?" Dean nodded as he chewed on his candy, his eyes on the road while he mentally thumbed through his rather vast stores of knowledge. "All right. So, a creature tied to the lunar cycle. What about an air spirit? We haven't had the pleasure of hunting one of those for almost ten years, you know."
Sam rolled his eyes and kept his attention focused on the stolen police files in front of him. "Well, whatever it is, it isn't worried about being subtle, and it sure as hell isn't worried about being caught. Vengeful spirit?" Dean cocked his head. "The graveyard does tend to suggest that a bit. What about the woman at that statue?"
"Schaff? It's possible. Nothing in her history suggests she'd be vengeful...wait a minute," Sam muttered as he read a police report again. He was quiet for a moment before he said, "There are multiple reports of a 'ghostly woman' appearing in the cemetery, apparently to warn people. One woman saw the ghost and subsequently saved her son from stepping in front of a moving hearse. Another was so startled by her he stopped walking, just barely avoiding pushing his grandfather's wheelchair into an open grave."
Snagging another Twizzler, Dean tossed out, "Death omen?" Sam nodded slightly. "Could be. Fits a lot of the patterns of one. But if Shaff's doing the warning, who's doing the killing?"
Dean munched thoughtfully on his snack, the gears in his head turning a mile a minute. John had always made him play word association games, crossword puzzles, and trivia games, timing him on how long it took him to get the right answer. Speed chess was one of his father's favorite teaching tools, as well. He had been constantly pushed to make the correct decisions in as little time as possible, to come up with the tiniest tidbit of detailed knowledge at the drop of the hat. John had groomed his oldest son into a master tactician, a super soldier, a demon-hunting Marine. For all Dean's silent wishes of a life other than the one he had, he would admit he had received no better training for the one he lived.
"What if she's doing both? Warning those she decides to warn, killing those she decides to kill?" Sam paused in his perusal of his research, considering the option. "Maybe. It could explain why the incidents, good and bad, are all occurring around the statue. That poem, too. It's a little eerie. The thing is basically a meter to measure the life of a man. It specifically mentions the male sex." Ignoring Dean's whining, "Bros before hos, dude," Sam continued, "Maybe...maybe she's testing these people. Saving those she deems good, killing those she deems less than worthy."
Dean scarfed the rest of his snack and tossed the wrapper in a trash bag and thought about their newest theory. "All right, say we run with this idea. The big question is, why did she attack four people in one night? Construction at the graveyard? Been a really long time since 1857 and she was looking for a little bit of action?" Sam shook his head as he reviewed the newspaper articles he'd pulled on the cemetery. "No, nothing but the usual grave digging, which goes on a few times a week. And other than the last four victims, there haven't been any other reported attacks or mysterious deaths. It looks like it all started two weeks ago on the new moon."
There were a few seconds of silence before Dean reached for the radio. "Well, I think that's about all the useless speculation we can do for now. We'll hit Philly in about seventeen hours. Should get there about ten in the morning. We'll hit the newspaper, then the police station, and then the psych ward. See if we can't figure out this thing before Philadelphia starts looking like a reverse China." Sam nodded and started pushing his journal back into his duffel as his brother flipped on Metallica. Settling back against the seat and that damned broken spring, Dean forced himself to focus on the music. Even as he tried to lose himself in the tune, he found those words coming back to his mind, voices overlapping in his head, his mother and brother's whispers filling his skull.
"We live in deeds, not years. In thoughts, not breaths. In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time in heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."
If the dull ache in his bones was any hint, this wasn't going to be an easy hunt in any sense of the word.
Dean tried not to give away his annoyance as they walked towards the hospital's main entrance. Both the newspaper and the police station had been relative busts. The newspaper had refused to release any further information, even with Dean flirting outrageously with the hot assistant editor. The police station hadn't gone too much better. The city was so large and had so many different precincts, the brothers had figured they could pass themselves off as fellow officers from across the city. They'd had no such luck, though. Their IDs had been spotted as fakes almost immediately by a startling eagle-eyed, ancient, beast of a decrepit officer. Fortunately, they were mistaken for reporters and booted out of the station with nothing more than a stern warning.
"This is friggin' ridiculous, Sam," Dean muttered lowly as he fought the urge to scratch at the collar of his starched dress shirt collar. He cast a heated glare at his equally dressed up brother, the same brother who was giving him a rather sheepish look. "Well, you didn't have a better idea, Dean. If you've thought of one, now's the time."
Practically growling as he stalked across the parking lot, Dean pulled at the tan sweater vest that he was wearing over his white shirt. Beside him, Sam looked at ease and comfortable in his black suit. "A psychiatrist and his doctorate student? Are you kidding me? And what the hell were you thinking, putting me in a sweater vest? I look like Mr. Rogers..." Sam laughed out loud at that, and Dean hid his small smile. Maybe it was worth wearing the damn thing if it meant his brother would laugh more.
"Look, if it gets us in...and the sweater vest lends credibility to our story." Dean groaned and pulled at his collar again. "Couldn't I have been credible in something that doesn't make me look like a PBS show reject?" he hissed, lowering his voice as they walked through the doors. Sam didn't answer, but a quick glance showed that he was smiling slightly. As they walked up to the main desk, Dean could practically watch his brother slip into his new role, the transition seamless; the older hunter would readily admit he was proud.
"Hi, I'm Doctor Sam Whitman. This is my doctorate student, Dean Porter. We're here under state orders to interview the three surviving victims of the Laurel Hill incident. Where are their rooms?" Sam asked, his stance easy, his lies flowing like honey. The middle aged woman behind the desk raised an eyebrow and glanced at them, her gaze softening slightly when she saw Dean's sweater vest.
"Doctor of what, Mr. Whitman?" she asked, even as her fingers reached for two visitor passes. "Psychiatry. The mayor's under significant pressure to determine who carried out these attacks." The woman nodded as she handed over the passes, her eyes straying to Dean's clothes again. "It's a dark day when the living can't even visit the dead in peace, for sure. Second floor, hon, rooms thirteen through fifteen. There are plenty of orderlies up there to lend you a hand if they get violent, but they don't have much time left, I'm afraid. They're about as weak as kittens, at this point."
Sam nodded, his solemn affect not faked in the least, as he clipped his pass to his lapel and handed the other to his brother. Dean had to keep himself from snatching it as they nodded their thanks to the woman and headed towards where the elevators were marked. Once out of earshot, Dean jabbed Sam hard in the ribs with his finger and threatened, "If you ever tell anyone that I not only wore a sweater vest but that some lady actually felt sorry for me while I was wearing it, I swear I will kill you in your sleep."
When Sam just grinned, Dean tugged at his collar again and smashed the button for the elevator, waiting impatiently for it to arrive. The building was old, the elevators older, and the minute long ride to the second floor gave the older hunter enough time to get his emotions under control. A few more smooth lies later, they were standing at the hospital bed of the victims. The withered shell of a man that lay cocooned in the bed was barely more than a corpse. An almost-corpse in restraints, Dean noticed. He leaned against the wall farthest from the man and crossed his arms while Sam took a seat next to the bed; his bedside manner was an entire planet away from his brother's.
"Mr. Jameson? Ricky? My name is Sam. Can you hear me?" the younger brother asked, his eyes searching for any hint of movement in the apparently comatose man. The answer came a moment later as the man's eyes jerked open and his body surged up, his wrists snapping against the restraints as he started shouting.
"Get her away from me! I didn't mean to! It was an accident! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Just stop her, please! I can't take it anymore! Please!" he begged, his voice grating. Sam stood and spoke quickly, knowing that with the screaming heart monitors, they wouldn't have long before the room was flooded with nurses.
"Listen to me, Ricky. Tell me exactly what happened out there. Tell me what happened and we can kill it," Sam ordered, though his heart was on his sleeve as he did so. Dean stepped forward as the man fell back against the bed, his energy reserves depleted. Ricky's haunted eyes remained on Sam, and his cracked lips struggled to form words.
"She was there, at the grave. Then she was in me, feeling through my head, and I could see her weighing me. She's keeps killing me, punishing me. I can't take anymore! Please, God, let me die!" he whispered, his eyes lifting heavenward. Sam glanced over his shoulder at Dean, who, despite the dress shirt and sweater vest, looked severe. He jerked his head towards the door of the room as three orderlies filed in quickly. Sam moved out of the way of the nurses and gave the man one more glance before he left. Ricky's eyes were still lifted up, his mouth moving with silent words, possibly a prayer. Whether it was a prayer for deliverance or forgiveness, Sam wasn't sure.
"All right, Dean. Spill. You've been jumpy since the hospital. You're out of those clothes, you're in a nameless motel, you've got your gun and your Bowie. So just spill."
Dean barely heard his brother's frustrated words as he flipped quickly through John's journal, his fingers finally stilling on one page. He reread the short piece of information for the hundredth time, his mind connecting dots he wished didn't exist. He felt a muscle in his jaw twitch from the strain he was exacting on it as he ground his teeth. This was one thing that he wished to never run into, something he'd give his right arm to avoid hunting for the rest of his life. Because this creature may well just be the death of him. Sighing silently at his oh so lucky luck, Dean tossed the journal onto the table between him and Sam, the book open on the page he'd been reading.
"Her name is Al Basti, or Al Kardai, depending on your preference. There's lore going back to her all the way to Sumerian times. She's an ancient female spirit and is the personification of guilt. She's basically a PMSing ghost who likes to drag people through the mud and the muck of past mistakes and failures. In Turkish folklore, Al Basti is said to visit men who have a guilty soul, or have committed an unpunished crime. She's supposed to be some kind of hellfire creature; appears as a pillar of fire, Medusa-like snake hair, brass fingernails, iron teeth, brings fevers on anyone who sees her. She also apparently likes dark and damp places, hence a quiet grave on the edge of a river," Dean summarized, his words tasting bitter on his mouth. No way in hell was he looking forward to this.
"Why would she be attached to Schaff, though? What's the connection?" Sam asked as he started skimming over the page Dean had read. The older hunter leveled himself down on the bed carefully, part of his mind going over every preventative measure they could implement while the other part of him pulled up the information Sam wanted.
"Schaff visited Armenia when she was touring as a pianist, right?" Dean asked, though he already knew the answer. At Sam's incredulous nod, he answered, "In Armenia, Al Basti is a demon of childbirth. She causes fetal defects, stillbirths, and miscarriages in women who have gone unpunished for crimes. So, put it all together and what do you have?"
Sam read over the journal and was silent for a moment, staring straight through Dean as he connected those same dots Dean was damning a few minutes before. After a moment, his eyes blazed their comprehension.
"She visited Armenia or Turkey after she'd already committed a crime. Al Basti was attracted to her for that reason. Instead of tormenting her, Al Basti followed her; even ghosts like a change of scenery. So Al Basti kills her children, and her, in punishment of her crimes. But because she's a Middle Eastern spirit, she can't stay on foreign soil. She's trapped, attached to Schaff's ghost. She's continuing to do what she did in her homeland; she's punishing the guilty." Dean nodded and added, "I talked with a few orderlies on our way out of there. Ricky's been talking about how he killed a guy in a hit and run about fifteen years ago. They're putting it down to delusion. My thinking is, that's the biggest pool of guilt that just happened to walk over Schaff's grave in the last hundred and fifty years. So she wakes up, goes into a killing spree. There haven't been anymore killings because people are actually being halfway intelligent for a change and they're staying the hell out of that graveyard at night."
Sam nodded slightly, distracted, and he reread the journal again. Finally, he looked up at Dean and asked, "How do we kill it?" Sighing, Dean ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know. Dad's journal is the only place I've ever read anything about this thing. We thought we had a hold of one once, about six months after you went to college. Called everyone about it. Dad's little blip of information was the only information anyone had on it. No record of how to kill it, repel it, subdue it."
Frowning, Sam closed the journal and asked, "So what do we do?" Sighing, Dean stood and pointed at Sam's laptop case while he headed towards the door and the mid-afternoon bustle of downtown Philadelphia. "You get online and find a way to kill the damn thing. I'm gonna go and get some supplies."
At Sam's nod, Dean slipped out the door and walked mechanically towards his Impala. Al Basti was pretty much the last thing he wanted to run into this lifetime. If she got hold of Sam, there'd be no recovery for him. His brother felt constant guilt over their mother's death, over Jess's death. He refused to believe there were people they just couldn't save. And Dean?
Oh, Dean would be an all-you-can-eat buffet for the son of a bitch.
Sam knew he was dreaming the second he opened his eyes. He looked around slowly, trying to determine where he was. Doing a full one eighty, he found his brother behind him, sitting on a metal chair, head bowed, elbows on his knees, muscles locked, one hand holding his favorite pistol, the other clutching what appeared to be an old photograph. Everything was dark, but a spotlight shone down on Dean. Sam tried to take a step forward, but found himself frozen. He tried to speak, but found himself mute. He didn't know how long he stood there, watching his brother not move, barely breathe, but then the silence was broken.
"I'm just a step away. I'm just a breath away. Losing my faith today, I'm falling off the edge today. I am just a man, not superhuman. I'm not superhuman. Someone save me from the haze."
Sam blinked as rock harder than he was used to hearing echoed through the area, emanating from Dean like he was a speaker. Sam tried call his brother's name again, but still couldn't talk. The tune changed, though he realized that the back beat remained the same.
"They fall in line, one at a time, ready to play – I can't see them anyway. No time to lose, we've got to move, steady your hand – I am losing sight again. Fire your guns, it's time to hunt, blow me away. I will stay unless I may – after the fall, we'll shake it off. Show me the way. Only the strongest will survive. Lead me to heaven when we die. I am the shadow on the wall. I'll be the one to save us all."
The words filtered through Sam's mind, and he swallowed painfully. It couldn't be...he thought, his stomach queasy. He had the distinct impression he was listening to his brother's song, the melody of his life. He'd heard of shamans and Native American medicine men listening to the soul, hearing the joy and sadness of the heart in the beat of a song. But he never believed it could be like this.
"I, I won't justify the way I live my life. 'Cause I'm the one living it, feeling it, tasting it. And you're just wasting your time trying to throw me a line, when you're the one drowning. I like where I'm at on my back floating down in my own riptide. The water is fine."
These lyrics caused Sam to blink as the music changed again, from the happier cadence to a darker song.
"The secret side of me I never let you see; I keep it caged but I can't control it. So stay away from me. The beast is ugly. I feel the rage and I just can't hold it. ...I feel it deep within. It's just beneath the skin. I must confess that I feel like a monster. I hate what I've become. The nightmare's just begun. I must confess that I feel like a monster."
Sam found he could move if he put enough effort into it, and he started staggering to his so-still brother as the music changed again, the bass beat in the back remaining the same.
"It's taken a lifetime to lose my way, a lifetime of yesterdays. All the wasted time of my hands turns to sand and fades in the wind. I'm fine in the fire. I feed on the friction. I'm right where I should be. Don't try and fix me."
It was like walking through waist-deep mud, Sam realized, but he kept going. Every instinct in him was screaming for him to get to his brother.
"I tell you all the things you wanna hear. You ramble on about how I'm that fire. But if you knew how far this is from real – you walk away knowing I'm that fire. Nothing's changed; another day has gone. Full of lies, I only told what you want. You've hit the wall and I can tell cause you're giving into your weakness. You're so naïve. You're so naïve."
Sam absently wished he had never heard the saying 'so close and yet so far.' The music that surrounded him was overwhelming, echoing through his bones, and all he could think about was getting to Dean.
"Now that we're here, it's so far away. All the struggle we thought was in vain, and all the mistakes one life contained – they finally start to go away. And now that we're here, it's so far away, and I feel like I can face the day. I can forgive, and I'm not ashamed to be the person that I am today. These are my words that I've never said before. I think I'm doing okay, and this is the smile that I've never shown before."
The emotions that were rolling off Dean were like a roller coaster in their effect. Sam could feel his brother's conflicting desires as though they were his own. He felt that if he looked hard enough, he could see Dean's spirit roiling just under his skin.
"I'm so sick of me, being sick of you, and the way you look, all the things you do. You drive me crazy, drive me crazy. Sick of being broke, can't pay the rent. I'm about to snap, I can't handle this. I'm doing crazy, doing crazy. If you're sick like me, there's no stopping now. Try to break it up and just let it out. If I was sick like you, I would feed the fire. I would light it up and watch it all drop down."
He was still a few feet from his brother when the music changed again, this time with a cymbal clash that made him jump and his breath catch in his throat. The direction of the music changed as well, the noise sounding towards Dean instead of away from him. The song's tone synced perfectly with the dark waves flowing from Dean, and Sam realized with a start that he was listening to the full song of his brother's soul.
"Keep holding on when my brain's ticking like a bomb. Guess the black thoughts have come again to get me. Sweet bitter words unlike nothing I have heard – sing along mocking bird. You don't affect me. That's right. Deliver it to my heart. Please try and deliver it."
There was sudden desperation in the air, so thick Sam thought he would choke on it. The back beat grew increasingly loud as the song continued, the words hurting the innermost parts of Sam's heart.
"Wait, I'm coming undone. Irate, I'm coming undone. Too late, I'm coming undone. What looks so strong, so delicate? Wait, I'm starting to suffocate, and soon I anticipate I'm coming undone. What looks so strong, so delicate?"
Another emotion came across the room, this one an uncontrolled mixture of fear and self-loathing, the latter spiking at the word 'delicate'.
"Choke, choke again. I thought my demons were my friends. Pity me – in the end, they're out to get me. Since I was young, I tasted sorrow on my tongue, and this sweet jerky gun does not protect me. That's right: trigger between my eyes. Please strike. Make it quick now."
Sam didn't want to think about the meaning behind those words, even as he watched with detached fear as the gun in his brother's hand started to move, barrel shaking, as though the usually-reassuring weight of the weapon was too much for him to lift. Sam immediately resumed his struggle to get to his brother.
"Wait, I'm coming undone. Irate, I'm coming undone. Too late, I'm coming undone. What looks so strong, so delicate? Wait, I'm starting to suffocate, and soon I anticipate I'm coming undone. What looks so strong, so delicate?"
Dean's face raised with the gun, slowly, in increments, and Sam felt a stranglehold on his throat as he found himself staring into his brother's reddened eyes, tears slipping silently down his face. The gun was still moving.
"I'm trying to hold it together, and it's like I'm never better. Looks like I'm not getting better, not getting better."
Sam felt like every step he took towards his brother actually moved him ten steps back. He tried shouting his outrage at the song, at the anger and terror and guilt that rocked the area, Dean the epicenter of the shockwave. But he was still mute. And then, suddenly, his body was frozen once again, and he couldn't move.
"Wait, I'm coming undone. Irate, I'm coming undone. Too late, I'm coming undone. What looks so strong, so delicate? Wait, I'm starting to suffocate, and soon I anticipate I'm coming undone. What looks so strong, so delicate?"
The music grew louder and louder, and the bass beat picked up slightly in tempo. Dean locked hollow eyes on his brother's, the misery and mental agony in his gaze drawing what little breath Sam had from his lungs.
"Sammy."
Then time froze, sped up, froze, the world moving like a stop motion film. Sam saw the gun move again, and a flash later it was at Dean's temple.
Dark. A thunk as the hammer slid back.
Light. One more view of defeated eyes.
Dark. A sharp inhalation.
Light. A shockingly loud explosion in what was suddenly too small and too quiet a space.
The music cut off immediately and the back beat started to slow, and Sam abruptly, unerringly knew it was his brother's heartbeat. His brother, who was sprawled in the chair, a grotesque mask of blood and gore coating his face, the gun dangling from one hand, red dripping from the barrel. His grip of the picture loosened and it fell to the floor, just so that Sam could see it.
Mary, eyes smiling. John, pride evident. Dean perched happily on their laps, clutching a baby Sam maybe just a little too hard. And words written in childish handwriting that was achingly familiar.
Protect Sam.
The beat grew slower, and slower. But the blood still flowed, the tears still streamed. And with a small, quiet sigh, the beat faded away completely, leaving Sam standing in horror as the ground became slick with red life.
Sam finally found his voice.
Dean cast a worried glance at his brother for the tenth time in a minute, not even bothering trying to hide it this time. It was a slight understatement that Dean was concerned for his brother. The night before, he'd returned to their rundown motel after his supply run, only to find Sam asleep on the bed, laptop askew on his chest. Dean had decided to give his brother a break, let him sleep, and do most of the research himself. He'd made calls, searched the internet, and reread half of John's journal by midnight. And just like Cinderella, at the stroke of twelve, all hell had broken loose.
Sam had started screaming in a voice that Dean had never heard before, and never, ever wanted to hear again. He had scrambled from the bed in the dim lighting and pressed himself into a corner, his hands over his ears while he mumbled the most heartbreaking words his brother had the displeasure of hearing.
"No, Dean. Don't. Not for this. Why? Coming undone...don't fall apart. Don't fall. Don't fall. Can't always protect me."
Thinking something along the lines of, "The hell I can't," Dean had thrown caution and all other macho bullshit out the window and had just become a brother. He'd sunk to the floor in front of Sam and grabbed him tight, held him close. He didn't know how long he rocked his brother on the floor as he whispered nonsensical words of comfort and rubbed small circles on his back. He didn't know what his brother continually whispered into his shoulder while he silently cried. He did know that sometime around dawn, his little brother's murmurings had fallen silent and he'd passed out.
Then he'd wrestled Sam's lanky body onto the bed, pulled a chair close, and simply watched over him throughout the rest of the night, his right elbow on his knee, his fingers resting over his lips, a sure sign of his worry. He was sure to move away and begin his usual morning routine as soon as Sam showed signs of waking. Sam hadn't said anything, but he'd been practically dead silent throughout the entire morning.
Which led to Dean trying to decide on a course of action.
Sighing, he looked out the windshield of the Impala and tried to massage away the migraine that pulsed behind his eyes. His dark sunglasses – the Hangover Blinders, as Sam had christened them – did little to shield him from the too-bright sun outside, and the aspirin he was popping like candy wasn't helping. A rather disconnected part of him realized that his migraine had started right around the time of Sam's freak out.
"So, are we checking out this cemetery or not, Sam?" At his brother's mute nod, Dean pulled the keys from the ignition and got out of the car, wincing as the harsh squeak of the door grated across his hearing. Sam followed his lead silently and Dean snagged his duffel and headed towards the graveyard. Hunts usually pulled Sam out of whatever funk he fell into. Given his brother's silence, Dean was fairly certain it had been a nightmare, not a vision. Vision Silences were different than Nightmare Silences, and damn if Dean was sick to his stomach that he knew the difference.
"The grave's this way about a quarter mile," he said, not unconversationally. He was running out of tried and true methods to get Sam out of his shell. Unfortunately for him, talking usually worked. It was also pretty much his last ditch effort.
"Well, that's what the tourist map said. Who has a tourist map of a graveyard, anyway? They really that desperate for tourists?"
Are you really that desperate for his approval?
Dean stumbled before he could catch himself, his head ringing, his vision tilting. He was staggering under the weight of those emotions, those fears, the ones his brother had so skillfully brought to the surface with a few choice words and a rock salt shotgun shell.
"I'm going to enjoy this, Dean Winchester."
Whipping around and bringing up his gun without a care for witnesses, Dean's eyes darted around, taking in his surroundings with a hunter's calculating eye. He was vaguely aware of Sam going stock still beside him, his sawed off shotgun at the ready, immediately following his brother's lead.
"What the hell...?" Dean whispered, his own words scratching painfully deep gouges across the back of his eyes.
"Oh, sweet nectar. Yours is the sweetest by far."
His vision spun again, and this time Dean fell to his knees, his gun clattering to the pavement, the chrome glinting in the sun. He breathed harshly as he heard a cacophony of voices and music in his head. He felt his brother's hands on his shoulders, his light touch almost bruising.
"Get out of here, Sam," he ordered gruffly, his voice low as he bent over, one hand snaking up to his head as the other fumbled for his dropped gun.
"We live in deeds, not years. In thoughts, not breaths. In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time in heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."
That poem echoed through his head in that same sickly sweet voice, and he broke out in a cold sweat. He knew he wouldn't measure up. He never would.
"Oh, yes. I will enjoy this immensely, Winchester."
He didn't know he'd passed out until he woke up in their motel room. For a split second, he couldn't hear, which meant he couldn't hear his brother breathing, which meant he didn't know if he was alive or dead, in the room or not.
Protect Sam.
Jerking upright in panic, Dean's eyes snapped open as he tried to call for Sam. At the same time, a freight train of pain raced through his body and he fell back on the bed with a startled gasp and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Easy, Dean. Don't move. Hang on a second – let me get you some water."
He felt a hand pat his shoulder and there was quick movement and soft sounds. A minute later, a warm hand snaked around the back of his neck and leveled him up, a glass of cool water pressing against his lips. Drinking deeply, Dean pushed away his current embarrassment and forced his brain to work. He remembered driving to the graveyard and a woman's voice echoing in his pounding head. He remembered falling to the hot asphalt of the parking lot. His eyes flew open as he abruptly remembered slamming himself against the Impala, bashing the side of his head on the fender, dislocating his own shoulder and spraining his own wrist as he fought with Sam.
He remembered grabbing his brother's gun and putting it to his own head and pulling the trigger.
"Dean, you've got to calm down or I'm going to have no choice but to put you out again," came his brother's tired voice.
Dean blinked, his vision going white and then gray before colors started to focus. He saw his exhausted and worried brother sitting on the bed next to him, a half-empty glass of water in one hand, his other resting on Dean's forearm.
His handcuffed forearm.
Dean blinked again; his confusion must've been obvious, because Sam immediately launched into an explanation. "You went crazy at the cemetery. You tried to smash your head in on the Impala, and when I tried to stop you, you hurt your left arm pretty good. Then you tried to blow your brains out with my gun." The tightness around Sam's mouth was telling, but he kept going. "I knocked the gun away in time and then knocked you out. Got you back here. You've been unconscious for three days. You kept trying to hurt yourself, so I had to lock you up. That didn't last longer than a few hours, so I had to drug you. Are you feeling okay?"
Dean took slow stock of his body. He felt his left shoulder and wrist scream in pain, and he felt tightness at his temple that spoke of stitches. There was a localized burning sensation on his face, and Dean knew he'd scratched his skin up. He glanced down and saw white bandages around his right shackled wrist, tinted pink; his left wrist was wrapped with a brace. The handcuffs were attached to the wooden frame of the twin bed. Dean swallowed and felt guilt claw at his soul. He'd scared Sammy. He'd scared him bad.
"What did I say, Sam?" The blankness in his brother's eyes wasn't fooling Dean. "Sam, what did I say?"
His brother looked away for a moment as he breathed deeply, and when he turned back, his eyes were glossier than normal. "You were begging, Dean. You were begging for it to stop. What 'it' is, I don't know. You kept apologizing. You wouldn't stop. Even when I had you so drugged you couldn't even move, you kept talking."
Dean swallowed again. He knew it. Al Basti was a goddamn bastard.
"Fine. She's got her hooks in me. We'll deal with it in the usual way: we kill it. Did you find out anything about how to cut her loose from this plane?" he asked casually. Sam blinked at his nonchalant tone and immediately launched an incredulous fit.
"What? Are you kidding me? Dean, she's killing you. Water's not going to help. Food's not going to help. Considering I gave you a pretty good dose of tranquilizers an hour ago, drugs aren't helping now, either. I haven't had time to research anything." Dean slipped into his role of 'cocky and arrogant older brother' instantly, knowing Sam was desperate for normalcy.
"Yeah, she's killing me. Probably a good reason to kill her first. So get these handcuffs off me and get researching, Mother Hen. I won't try and off myself," Dean said, ignoring the welling feelings of suicidal desire seeping through his mind. Sam regarded him quietly for a minute, his mouth hanging open slightly, and Dean rolled his eyes.
"Seriously, dude. S&M is really not my thing. The cuffs, now."
It took another minute, but Sam managed to close his mouth, unlock the handcuffs, and sit mutely on the bed at Dean's feet. Rubbing his shoulder carefully, acutely feeling his small and lower intestines trying to eat each other and the sharp sting of thirst, even after his recent drink, Dean set a timetable.
They had a week and a half. If Al Basti wasn't toast by then, Dean was dead.
Three days later and they were no closer to finding out how to kill Al Basti. Every contact had been called, every resource had been thoroughly exhausted. Just about as exhausted as Dean was. He had grown rather skilled at hiding sleeplessness, starvation, and dehydration during an intense hunt with his dad when he was twenty. Three and a half weeks in the burning desert hunting a chupacabra had left their mark on Dean in more ways than one. Still, while the intense rumble in his gut had given way to silent but painful spasms, the thirst was harder to ignore. Out of habit, Dean was still drinking as usual, trying to assure Sam that it wasn't all that bad. On one hand, Sam seemed to accept his death mark with his regular grace. On the other hand, he was working furiously at his research, calling in every favor he could.
And at the end of three days, they still had nothing.
Oh, they'd found wards, for sure. The usual salt at the doors and windows, pentagrams and various Armenian symbols on the walls. But they usually only worked for several hours, half a day at most, before her powers would somehow grow beyond their protections and she would find Dean again. Then there was another rapid-fire search for anything and everything that could help them. One that Sam usually had to do alone, since every time Al Basti found Dean, he would go into a suicidal rage. He already had a new leg wound from where he'd stabbed himself with his Bowie, intent on severing his femoral artery. Last second mental struggling had left him with a simply nasty slice on his thigh instead. So they started taking precautions that were against the nature of duty for Winchesters; weapons were stored away, bindings were readily available, and duck tape was on hand for when the screaming got really bad.
"Can't have the neighbors wondering, can we, Sam?" Dean had asked, eyebrows arched suggestively; Sam hadn't graced that with a reply.
So they were still searching.
Sitting silently on his bed, his feet on the floor, hunched over and resting his chin on his hands, Dean watched Sam end his phone call with a frustrated sigh. "Dead end again, huh?" he asked, voice hoarse and gravelly from lack of sleep and water. He mentally winced at the rasp, seeing Sam flinch at his tone. But his brother dropped his cell phone to the table and scrubbed a hand over his face. "I don't get it. There's got to be some kind of information on this thing, somewhere. Why has no one heard of this before?"
Dean shrugged and resisted the temptation to stretch his weary muscles, knowing they'd burn if he did. He ran a hand through his hair and thought hard, exhaustion muddling his thoughts, but his attention diverted as Sam spoke up. "All right. We've ruled out salting and burning Schaff's bones, why, again?" Sam was aggravated, and Dean knew damn well why. He ticked off his points as he spoke.
"One, we can't get to the grave; she's buried under a three ton marble statue. Two, all your research leads us to believe that if we somehow do that, the bitch will just fly back to Armenia, ready to terrorize anyone else she comes across. I'm not willing to put anyone else through this." Mumbling something under his breath about stupid-ass heroic brothers, Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Three, I don't think we could do it without detection. That's a pretty busy graveyard and it's a friggin' tourist attraction. And once the hubbub dies down about this last incident, people are going to start coming back, increasing the likelihood that she'll snag someone else in this trap. We really don't want to risk that. We haveto kill her."
Sam frowned and was about to say something when Dean's vision went white and his hearing went mute. Inhaling sharply, Dean snapped, "Handcuffs, Sam. Now!" He didn't know if his brother was moving or not, but abruptly, he couldn't find himself aware enough to care.
"I found you again, Winchester. You keep hiding from me."
Gritting his teeth, Dean thought, Go to hell, bitch.
There may have been a chuckle in the background, but the sudden lancing agony searing through his brain made it difficult to tell. He fell back onto the bed, breathing harshly, and he fought the sudden urge to rip his ears off his skull.
"You think you can keep fighting me? Your soul is so filling. Your pain is exquisite. Your guilt is simply beautiful. How wonderful a wounded creature you are."
The desire to scratch through his eyeballs with his fingernails surged, and he gasped as he tried to ignore the feeling. "Sam, where the hell are those handcuffs?" A second later, he felt his hands being pulled from where he'd shoved them in his pockets, his body being straightened on the bed, and a moment after that, he was secure against the mattress. Dean didn't feel the pull on his shoulder or the ache in his wrist as he mindlessly fought the growing need to hurt himself.
"Oh, you are easy, Winchester. You want to tear yourself apart. You want to taste the iron in your blood."
Dean flinched at that, memories rising unbidden in his head at the words. He was suddenly back in that cabin, pinned against the wall, watching his dad torture him with words and invisible blades. He shook his head harshly, desperate to dispel the image. No. This isn't real. This isn't real. I'm not here.
"Not where, Dean? You still fighting the truth? You still think this family needs you?" Dean felt his face flush in anger and fear as he found himself staring at his possessed father. Eyes wide, he shook his head, immediately struggling against the wall. "No, this isn't real."
Grinning widely, John leaned forward, his yellow eyes intense. "Want me to prove it's real, Dean?" Swallowing hard, the hunter didn't answer. Instead, he turned his eyes to find his brother, who was pinned against the far wall, just as he'd been that night. Strange, though; he didn't seem to be struggling or angry. "I think you need a demonstration, Dean. I think I need to prove to you how real this is."
The agony was worse, this time. It wasn't bearable the first time around, but this time he was swept away by it. He felt the scream rip from his throat as hidden knives tore through his chest. He looked down, pushing aside the feeling of deja vu, and saw blood rolling down his chest. Gasping in pain, he dimly realized there was more blood than he remembered. Half of him wanted to start pleading with his father for his life, begging him to help him live. But he suddenly had the feeling that it wouldn't help. So he settled for crying out his pain, his mental torture at living through these words, these memories, again. In the background, where should have been Sam's desperate shouting, was silence. Forcing open his eyes against the fire tearing through his chest, he looked over at his brother. Instead of fear, Sam's face was covered with what would best be called serenity. He was even smiling. He could see Sam's lips moving, and knew instinctively that he was goading their father on.
"Sam...help. Please."
Then his brother laughed, sick humor evident in his voice. Dean pinned betrayed eyes on the person he would die to protect as John leaned forward and whispered, "You see, Dean? They don't need you." The knives seemed to double, and Dean felt detached from himself for a moment. Then, between one breath and the next, he felt his heart explode. Stunned, silent, and frozen, Dean stared at his dad, Sam's face in focus behind him.
"Just die now, Dean. Lay down and die like a good dog."
Dean's eyes slid shut, and at Sam's satisfied sigh, he felt his soul escape his body. He stood there, unmoving, soundless, crazy and sane and aware but dead, for what felt like years.
"Dean! Dammit, dude. Open your eyes, NOW!"
Those words were followed by a stinging slap to his cheek, and Dean jerked his head, breathing heavily. He blinked, trying to focus, and the first thing that came into view was his brother's face. Eyes wide, Dean desperately tried to pull back from him, his most recent memory of Sam a bad one.
"Son of a bitch – Dean, stop struggling! You're going to open your wounds!" Sam shouted, reaching forward to pin his brother's shoulders to the bed. The secure hold on Dean's left shoulder made him cry out, and he closed his eyes tight, words slipping from his mouth unbidden.
"I'm sorry! God, I tried! Please, you've got to understand I tried! Don't. Please don't," he whispered. The harsh grip on his shoulder eased, and Dean whimpered in relief. "Dean...you're scaring me, man." That was a tone of voice the older hunter hadn't heard since his brother was seven. He immediately opened his eyes, his suicidally strong sense of brotherly duty forcing his movements and words.
"I'm okay, Sammy," he murmured, trying to put strength in words that were rote, memorized, practiced, and a crock of shit. But the world was spinning, his low blood sugar evident, and his tongue was too thick in his mouth. Sleep pulled at him, but he knew it would never let him in. "I'm okay."
Sam gave a choked sigh and swallowed hard. "Dammit, Dean. You're not okay. You haven't even been to the grave. How does she have this much power over you?" Rubbing his eyes with an abruptly uncuffed hand, Dean hazarded a guess. "She's more powerful than we guessed?"
Trust Sam not to pull any punches.
"Or you're more damaged than you let on, Dean."
Groaning, Dean rolled over and curled in on himself, wrapping his arms around his stomach. His gut was killing him, and he was half-tempted to bite off his tongue so it wouldn't feel so large in his mouth. His eyes darted over to his brother, and he bit off a gasp that threatened to climb out of his throat as his eyes scratched the back of his eyelids. Sam was sleeping, not very restfully, but sleeping nonetheless, huddled under the covers on the second twin bed. And Dean didn't have the energy to feel jealous. Worrying his chapped lips with his teeth, he turned his thoughts towards trying to figure out how to kill Al Basti.
"All right. Think, Dean. She's said a couple things. One of them caught your attention. What the hell did she say...? God, I'm too damn tired to think," he moaned quietly as he tried to find a more comfortable position. But he heard his father's growled demand for answers echo through his head, the voice a common thing in his thoughts. Exhaling sharply, he rolled over and stared up at the ceiling, forcing his eyes to track the patterns in the paint even through the painful grittiness in them.
"She said I was filling, that I tasted good. Okay, so she eats the guilt? She doesn't absorb it, she eats it. That makes sense. So, assuming that's right and everything, how can I use that against her? I can't poison her, I don't think. Don't even know how I would go about doing that. I can't starve her; fairly certain her claws are deep enough in me that she'll be able to feed no matter where I go. So that leaves...gluttony? Gorge her? Can spirits explode from eating too much? That one Sunday buffet someplace in Indiana – that food was amazing! I thought I was gonna bust a gut. But focus, Dean; you're rambling. Probably a side effect of dying!" Dean snapped softly as his thoughts kept wandering.
Frowning in the dark, he gave his theory a good look from every side. He was fairly certain his idea made complete and total sense, but he knew he was a bit addled. Glancing over to the other bed, Dean thought about waking up Sam, asking him what he thought. But that would bring up a whole host of problems that Dean didn't want to deal with. Mainly, Sam's completely predictable revulsion to his plan.
So Dean did what he always did. He took action.
Rolling off the bed and staggering to his feet, Dean clutched his left shoulder with his right hand and squeezed his eyes shut. His leg throbbed in time with his heartbeat, and he did his best to push the pain away long enough for him to get to the handcuffs sitting on the table next to Sam. Snagging them with his good hand, Dean turned and limped towards his brother, jaw set. Holding his breath against the fear that coursed through him, he carefully, quietly, and slowly pulled Sam's right arm from under the covers and handcuffed him to the bed frame. Sam stirred slightly, but didn't awaken, testament to his own exhaustion.
Exhaling slowly, Dean limped towards the corner of the room farthest from Sam and backed into it, sliding down to sit on the floor. He glanced at the clock; it was a quarter past four in the morning. His brother would be waking up soon. Sighing, Dean pulled his flask from his inside jacket pocket and took a healthy swig of whiskey. He winced a bit as it burned its way down his throat, and didn't wait until the taste was gone to take another swallow. Half the flask was gone before he realized that there apparently was one thing that still worked through Al Basti's charms. That was good news for him. He definitely needed to be drunk to do what needed to be done. With that in mind, he took another draw from the bottle, shifted in his corner, and waited.
It was just a bit after five thirty when Sam started to stir, his gentle rise to awareness giving way to startled panic when he realized he was cuffed. Dean watched him from his shadowed corner with a sad smile on his face. Sam's wide eyes bounced around the room until they landed on Dean, his eyes becoming infinitely wider.
"You remember the time when we were in Flagstaff, Arizona? You were in second grade. You were complaining that someone at school was bullying you for being a geek. You made me promise not to do anything about it."
Sam blinked at his brother's floaty voice. "Dean, unlock the cuffs, okay? Just toss me the key."
Dean looked at him, eyes distant. "I lied, of course. When is anything I say the truth, anyway? I went down to that school and I beat the crap out of him. I had him begging for his mama by the time I was through. Kid never talked quite right after that."
Sam tugged experimentally at the handcuffs; yes, the steel was just as strong as he remembered it was.
"One time, we were hunting a werewolf in Michigan. You were bragging about this gun that dad had gotten you for your birthday. I was so jealous, so angry. I never got anything new. Everything I had, from my clothes to my weapons, were hand-me-downs. But you had this sleek, shiny new Glock. It was a thing of beauty, man. And what did I do? Heh. I tossed it in one of the Great Lakes. Then you got hurt real bad on that hunt because you didn't have your backup weapon. Dad figured out what I'd done. Beat me half dead that night. Only time I think he came close to killing me," Dean whispered, his confessions tasting acrid on his tongue.
Swallowing another mouthful of the liquor, Dean turned a blind eye to his brother's struggles. He knew it was only a matter of time before Sam got free. He just hoped it would be over by then.
"I've always failed you, Sammy. I couldn't save mom. I couldn't save dad. I couldn't save Pastor Jim or Caleb. Half the people I meet end up dying. The other half end up running in the opposite direction."
Sam blinked in the growing light of day. "Dean, you've gotta stop this, man. What the hell's gotten into you?"
Talking like Sam hadn't said anything, Dean suddenly said, "You know, I don't exist. Not really. There's me, but I'm not...me. I'm a mirror, Sam. A broken one, at that. I reflect everything – dad's life, your needs – and that's all there is to me. I think I died awhile ago. I think I died when mom died. Cause since then I haven't been any part of my own self. I'm just a broken mirror. I show everyone what they want to see and the shards cut me up inside every time I move." Sam flinched, and Dean made sure to notice; the more guilt he felt the better.
Dean chugged the last bit of the whiskey and tossed the flask aside, wincing when the movement pulled at his arm. Clutching it close to him, he leaned his head back, hitting the wall with a dull thunk. He stared at his brother with half-closed eyes, and the asylum incident came back to mind. Swallowing back thirst and hunger and weariness, Dean broached the topic he begged would open his soul enough to kill Al Basti.
"In the Roosevelt Asylum...after Ellicott got to you...you shot me, Sammy." There was a sharp inhalation from his brother, and Dean swallowed again. They'd never actually talked about it. "You shot me, but that didn't hurt like I thought it would. I mean, rock salt to the chest isn't pleasant, don't get me wrong. But what you said...what you almost did...that's what hurt, man."
Sam's fumble at the cuffs slowed, his mouth working, mind grasping for words. But Dean shook his head, that sad smile still on his face. "You know I wanted you to do it, Sam? What you said, it cut to my heart, you know? And, God – I was so selfish. I just wanted you to shoot. I wanted you to kill me. If anyone ever does it, I want it to be you. So I gave you my gun, Sam. And you pulled the trigger. And until it clicked empty, I completely forgot I had unloaded it. I was begging you to kill me, Sammy. Cause God knows I'm tired of all this."
Sam blinked, silent tears tracing bright lines on his face. Dean gave a half-dead version of his usual grin. "I wanted to be done with the responsibility. I wanted to be done with fighting everything; fighting monsters, fighting cops, fighting the best intentions of the ignorant. Fighting with you about dad. Hell, I wanted to be done with dad. I wanted...I wanted to be done with you."
Dean had to drop his eyes, then, old guilt festering with new guilt, the memories of his feelings mixing with the shock he could feel flowing from his brother. "I wanted to be done with worrying about you, with trying to save you all the time. I wanted to be done with your anger, your impatience. I just wanted to let you put a bullet through my head, Sam. I just wanted you to end it all. And I'm sorry."
He raised his gaze again, and flinched at the look of abject betrayal on his brother's face. He closed his eyes, shutting them tight, and forced one more thing from his mouth. "I'm sorry, Sam. But I just can't do this anymore."
In one swift movement, Dean brought his gun up to the side of his head, fixing hollow eyes on his brother's face, his soul swimming in guilt at the fear and panic he saw there. That last little bit was all it took.
Even as his finger tightened on the trigger, Dean felt the familiar white hot pain flash through his head, and he heard an awful scream in his mind. He cried out and threw himself to his side on the floor, clutching his head, the barrel of the gun banging against his ear. He vaguely heard his brother shout something, and though he tried to respond, the best he could get out was a guttural moan as he writhed on the floor. Then, the pain started spiking, and he felt blood slip down his face from his eyes, his nose, his ears, and the hot coppery liquid pooled at the back of his throat, choking him.
"You will not kill me, Winchester!"
Grinning despite his agony, Dean whispered, "Don't count on it, you son of a bitch." Then he wrenched his eyes open and saw his brother pulling wildly at the cuffs, tears on his face, blood on his wrist, Dean's name on his lips. The guilt that slammed into Dean made him squeeze his eyes shut again, and he turned in on himself as the pain reached a crescendo.
This is for all the people I couldn't save. All the pain I've caused. All the people I've had to kill, innocent and guilty alike. This is for my mother, who always taught me the true measure of a man, a measure I'll never make. This is for my father, who gave his life for my sorry ass. And for my brother...who I've always failed.
Without giving himself time to balk, Dean fought through the pain, brought the gun under his chin, and pulled the trigger.
He didn't know how long he'd been out. Usually, he could base his calculations on how gritty his eyes were, or how thirsty he was. This time, not so much.
Blinking at the plain white ceiling above him, Dean laid still for a moment, relishing that brief moment when his mind was awake and all the aches and pains in his body hadn't realized it yet. But the moment was over far too quickly, and he clenched his eyes shut as the whole of his body throbbed in agony. Exhaling sharply through his teeth, he took stock. His left shoulder and wrist ached deep in the muscles, and twin bands of heat above his hands spoke of how he'd rubbed them raw on the handcuffs. The gash in his right leg beat in time to his heartbeat, though the telltale itch on his skin told him it was starting to heal.
His head was killing him in every sense of the word. He could still feel the stitches from where he'd busted his head open on the Impala. There was something new, though. He felt a sharp sting at the bottom of his jaw and on the left side of his face, just below his eye. Now that he tried it again, he found blinking was painful.
"How are you feeling?"
The voice was pitched low so he didn't startle, but Dean wasn't built that way. His left hand immediately darted under his pillow in a vain search for a knife that wasn't there as his eyes snapped towards the voice. His brother was sitting at the side of the bed, a soft smile on his lips, a bottle of water in his hands. Dean zeroed in on that and with no prompting Sam helped him sit up enough to drink the contents. When his thirst started to die down, the older hunter choked on the water and coughed hard.
"She's gone?" he asked, voice rough in his shock. That soft smile remained on Sam's face, one that spoke of weariness, happiness, pity, and understanding. "Yeah. You killed her. Almost did the same thing to yourself, but you got her."
Reaching up a tentative hand to his face, Dean touched the heavy gauze padding on his chin and felt the stitches underneath as he asked, "What happened?" Sam's face tightened a bit before he smoothed his expression. "Think the end of Fight Club." Dean blinked, surprised at either the through and through in his chin and cheek (that somehow miraculously missed his tongue) or the fact that Sam knew the movie Fight Club.
"So it's over? She's dead?" Sam nodded, and Dean relaxed against his pillow, breathing deeply. Fingering the bandages on his face, he searched backward through his drink-hazed memory and swallowed hard at what he could remember. Casting a dark gaze to his brother and seeing the questions on his tongue, Dean made a choice.
"Sam, I'm sorry for what I said. I had to do that, to kill her. You know, gorge her. It was the only way I could figure to kill her," he quietly said, fresh guilt washing over him as he saw bandages on Sam's wrist from where he evidently almost skinned himself getting free from the cuffs. Sam nodded slightly and stared at his hands.
"Dean, you know - " Sam stopped short as his brother held up a hand, green eyes bright as he fixed them on his brother. "Dude, I know you mean well, but I've fulfilled my entire year's quota of chick flick moments in the last week. So why don't you do me a favor and drop it, all right? And go get me some food. And some pie. Don't forget the pie."
Dean watched a myriad of emotions work over Sam's face, and his gut clenched at the overwhelming pity that covered all of it. But then content acceptance settled over his features and Dean sighed silently. Sam rested his hand on Dean's forearm for a second before he stood, nodding. "Bacon double cheeseburger, large fries, coke, and some pie. Anything else, Dean?"
Eying him hesitantly, Dean shook his head, watching with curiosity as his brother slipped soundlessly from the room. Blinking, he thought hard, hearing John's voice echo tightly in his head. What're you missing, boy? Think. Think like your brother's life depends on it.
With a jolt, Dean jerked upright in bed, his quick inhalation having nothing to do with the screaming of his nerves. The vision. How could I forget his vision? It hasn't happened yet; we didn't even make it into the graveyard. So either he was wrong – which he never is – or Sammy's aiming for some payback. Son of a bitch!
It was all he could do to haul himself out of bed and stumble from the room. He didn't care that it was thirty degrees outside and he was shoeless and in a thin tee shirt. He didn't care that the world titled alarmingly as he slammed the door behind him. He didn't care that he had to destroy some of the electrical system in the dash of the Impala to hot wire it (because God knows where the keys had ended up).
All he cared about – all he let himself care about – was his brother. He'd be damned if that wasn't the only thing on his mind.
So he shagged ass to the graveyard, blessedly missing each and every single cop car that just had to be waiting somewhere in the shadows. His mind swam in heat and pain, his vision wavered in time with his pulse, but still he drove. He made it to the cemetery in what had to be record time and didn't even bother with a weapon. He didn't have a plan. He couldn't bring himself to even consider one. Planning took time, time he knew instinctively he didn't have.
Stumbling through the graveyard in the middle of the night – I was asleep all day? Damn, no wonder the kid's looking for blood. – Dean followed an intuition he didn't know he had, and abruptly found himself face to face with his brother's vision.
At the edge of the clearing he could see the famed statue, chunks missing from it, courtesy of a familiar crowbar resting nearby on the ground. Dragging his eyes around, he saw his brother running from a shrieking apparition, his gait uneven, his eyes wide. Dean's breath hitched as he saw Sam turn, trip, and slam into an unforgiving granite tombstone, the ghost of the enraged Schaff speeding closer.
"Sam!" The shout was filled with enough emotion to sound inhuman to his ears, and without thinking, he ran forward, brotherly love and instinct giving him the energy needed to place himself between Sam and the ghost. He didn't feel his limbs throb or his nerves scream. He didn't feel the overwhelming nausea flow over his system. He didn't feel the ghost plunge into his body and search through his skull.
"We live in deeds, not years. In thoughts, not breaths. In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time in heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."
And then, abruptly, he was on his back, eyes staring at the stars so dimmed by light pollution he could barely tell the constellations. Sam was there, tears and fears and apologies slipping from him like a leaking sieve. But Dean was smiling, chuckling, even, his brother's scared rambling speeding up as he helped his brother to a sitting position.
"God, Dean! I'm so sorry! I didn't know...I didn't think! I forgot about the vision. I forgot. All I could think about was making her pay for putting you through that. Jesus, Dean. I'm sorry." Sam's words trailed off and he looked at his brother, confused.
Dean smiled wide, an echo of the ghost's dying screams whispering in his skull even as that now-blessedly-sweet poem slipped through his mind in his mother's voice. She sounded older, the memory newer, and he swore he felt a touch of feathers on his cheek. Suddenly, he didn't feel so guilty, so heavy. He felt light, clean, and whole.
"Where's Schaff's ghost, Dean? What did you do?"
There was dawn creeping up over the edge of the world, somewhere. It wasn't in Philadelphia, but it felt like it to Dean. Staring at the half-busted statue that held all of his guilt, Sam's anger, and the culminating effects of the screwed-up, weirded-out lives they had, Dean grinned, hating and loving the feeling of the stitches pulling at his skin.
"I did the thing she least expected, Sammy. I measured up."
Well, there it goes! Hope it was enjoyable in one way or another. Wrote the last section stream of consciousness, so I hope it came out all right. Please R&R! Would love some feedback on this. Worked hard, dontcha know!
Song List:
Hero, by Skillet
Blow Me Away, by Breaking Benjamin
Riptide, by Sick Puppies
Monster, by Skillet
Fix Me, by 10 Years
That Fire, by Black Tide
So Far Away, by Staind
Sick, by Adelitas Way
Coming Undone, by KoRn