Drowning not waving
A ficlet.
Many hands were reaching down from the quayside to grab the kid as Dean lifted the limp little body over his head and out of the water, but they didn't linger to help him too, instead whisking the kid away to safety, leaving Dean to use the last of his reserves to haul himself up the rusty iron ladder.
He dragged himself over to the quay wall on his stomach like a clumsy seal, coughing up a lungful of sea water before rolling over to prop himself up, setting his back to the rough surface. He was so cold he'd stopped shivering, and he knew that was a bad thing but he was too damn tired to do anything about it. He stared uncomprehendingly at his hands where they lay lax in his lap. Something wasn't quite right with his left hand, but his brain seemed to be firing too slowly for him to work out what it was that was bothering him.
He remembered pain, a sharp agony when the adaro had gnawed at his fingers where he had gripped the child tight; he remembered stubbornly clinging on nonetheless, while he had brought the silver knife round with his right hand, stabbing and slashing as best he could through the resistance of the murky water. All the while he'd been fighting to hold his breath for longer than he'd thought possible.
He remembered that the pain had stopped as the adaro's poison had taken hold, and the thought of that poison triggered the tiniest soupçon of concern. It sparked through him for a second then fizzled out, lost in the chilly lethargy that gripped him tighter than he had gripped the little boy.
His heavy eyelids drooped shut and he slumped forward, hair drip-drip-dripping into his up turned hands.
The lore about the adaros had been vague in the extreme, but there had been no mention of them having a taste for small children, or lying in wait for kids in the depths of quiet harbours in pretty little US tourist towns. On the contrary, lore spoke of them living inside the sun and travelling on rainbows to kill people with poisonous fish – all of which had sounded so ridiculous, Sam hadn't even managed a slight moue of distaste when Dean had expressed his complete disbelief in no uncertain terms to Bela when she'd outlined the case to them less than a week ago.
That should have been their cue to skedaddle the hell out of there, straight away, the fact that Bela Frigging Talbot was pointing the Winchester brothers at a case, but Sam's web research had corroborated her tale with missing children in two unimaginatively named coastal towns in Maine (Northeast Harbor and Bar Harbor), so they had to at least investigate.
Dean's eyelids fluttered open, his righteous anger at the duplicitous ways of the British thief infusing him with a new brief energy. He stared down at his lap with a new focus.
Fingers. That was the problem. That fucking monster had chowed down on his fingers and – shit. It looked like the adaro had mangled at least two of his fingers pretty good. No blood though, which was a bit weird. It made his hand look like a prop from an old black and white horror flick, kind of grey and anaemic.
So maybe Sam could just sew up those loose flappy bits of finger that were hanging on by the thinnest threads of flesh and tendon. Right?
Right. Sam had awesome skills with a needle, had had lots of practice. Little bro would fix him up, no problem.
It took Dean a few moments more of staring at his strangely bloodless hands to spot the most obvious flaw in his plan. Sam wasn't there.
His head tipped back to rest against the sea-wall with a dull thunk. It felt heavy and clumsy as he turned to scan over the crowd of people gathered round the little boy he'd rescued, and the joyful weeping mother. Everyone was ignoring him, all wrapped up in the rescued kid he supposed, and Dean couldn't see how wrong that was. What? He knows that he's not important so it didn't surprise him that other people thought so too.
The paramedics were there, and the blue and red flashing lights from their ambulance strobe lit everyone, reminding Dean of another, darker and more terrible time outside Sam and Jessica's apartment in Stanford. Maybe that's why his brother wasn't here, maybe it had brought that grief back to the surface again.
Then Dean spotted a shaggy mop of hair and broad shoulders towering over everyone else and his heart gave a little skip.
"Sam!" His voice came out as a croak, barely audible. He tried again, louder. "Sammy!"
But it wasn't Sam who answered his call.
"Oh, there you are, Dean." Bela crouched down beside him, smiling. Her bright red lip-stick glistened. Dean blinked.
"Well, you managed to save little Billy, so congratulations, Dean. You are a hero yet again. What a shame no one can see you to thank you, eh?"
Bela's hands were busy while she was talking, prising Dean's cold numb fingers off the silver knife that he was still gripping tight in his right hand.
"Whaddya mean, they can't see me?" Dean mumbled, frowning. "And whaddya doin'?"
Bela waved the knife in front of his face.
"Taking what I came for, of course. Oh and I planted an obfuscation charm on you, so that you could do your macho heroic thing while flying under the radar. Much easier to sort out everything while nobody's watching too closely, eh?" She rolled her eyes at Dean's blank look. "I see adaro poison doesn't improve intellectual capacity. What a shame, yours could do with a boost."
"Y'knew about the poison, you bitch, you set us up..,"
"Again, yes, I did. Some of us know how to do research properly, you see, Dean. All that bullshit about rainbows and fish? I knew it was bollocks. But I needed some muscle to barrel in there and bring me out the knife with the adaro's blood for my client, and you Winchesters are always so – obliging."
Her eyes flicked to Dean's mangled left hand and a calculating expression fleetingly crossed her face, swiftly replaced by artful sympathy. She carefully lifted his hand, grimacing in distaste at the worst damaged fingers.
"Oh dear, this doesn't look good. How fortunate that adaro poison anaesthetises as well as paralyses or you'd be in terrible pain right now."
Dean tried to pull his hand away, but his muscles wouldn't work. His brain might be muddled and confused right now, but he wasn't liking the calculating look Bela was giving his wounded digits. He liked it even less when she took the silver knife she'd just prised out of his other hand and touched the shining edge to the ravaged knuckle of his pinky finger.
"Do you know how much I could get for the bones of the killer of an adaro? Severed with the knife that still has the creature's blood on it?" Her voice sounded almost reverent as she made the cut, the knife blade flashing as Dean's finger detached and dropped into her lap. She gave his ring finger a considering look and almost involuntarily Dean made an incoherent sound of protest.
"Oh really, I am too soft-hearted. All right, you can keep that finger; it doesn't look as damaged as the other one and I suppose it might be salvageable if Sam can get you to a hospital in time. Which reminds me."
She slid a warm hand into Dean's soaking wet jean's pocket and fished out a slim metal disk etched with symbols Dean couldn't quite make out.
"I'll take this charm now, and don't think about coming after me because you won't be able to see me after I say the words over this little baby. But look on the bright side, once I take over the charm's power myself, Sammy over there, who is so desperately searching for you right now, will be able to find you, and maybe he will be in time to administer this."
She took a vial of a lurid purple liquid out of her purse, and carefully wrapped the frozen fingers of Dean's right hand around the small bottle.
"This is the antidote to the adaro poison. I haven't tested it, obviously, but my sources assure me it will work."
"F'k you, Bela," Dean managed to squeeze out past his rapidly numbing tongue. Bela just laughed and patted his cheek affectionately.
"Ah yes, our unfinished business! Don't think I've forgotten how delicious you looked all scrubbed up, Dean Winchester, but I think I'll pass on the fucking right now. You are really not looking your best, darling."
She rose to her feet in one elegant motion and gave Dean a wave. "Au revoir, a bientot!"
Dean heard her mutter something else that he couldn't quite make out, and though his tired eyes were fixed on her he found that he couldn't see her any more, even though he knew without a doubt that she was still there. He assumed the obfuscation charm had done its work and swore in frustration.
"Dean!" Sam practically fell over his brother as Dean seemed to materialise out of nowhere. Sam was on his knees in a flash, hands skimming over Dean's sodden clothing checking for injuries.
"S'm. P'sn." Dean was mumbling, his voice barely audible. Dean's face was bleached so white it would have put the best hotel's cleanest sheets to shame, the day old stubble dark shadows on his cheeks, the freckles standing out stark against the ashen skin. Sam's gaze landed on Dean's lap and the mangled wreckage of his left hand and he blanched.
"Shit Dean, your hand!"
Sam looked around, frantic, yelled for the paramedics who were still fussing over little Billy and his hysterical mother. One of them spotted him and nudged his colleague, who picked up the first aid bag and headed over towards the brothers. Their progress was arrested by Billy's mother who grabbed them and Sam growled when he saw her gesticulating and shrieking about them taking care of Billy.
It took him a second to realise Dean was trying to get his attention, his breath coming in short gasps as he desperately struggled to speak. Finally he managed to string together a few coherent words.
"Poison…antidote…hand…" Dean rasped, then his head fell back against the sea wall, obviously exhausted.
Sam realised belatedly Dean was grasping something in his good hand, and found the vial. Now blessing the paramedics' delay, he held Dean steady as he tipped the contents of the vial down his brother's throat and massaged his neck to help him swallow it down. The effects were almost immediate. Dean's body went rigid and his eyes rolled back, and then suddenly colour flooded his face as the blood started flowing again. He moaned as pain flooded through him, riding on the blood flow round his body, and he was racked with shivers. Belatedly, Sam realised Dean's mangled hand had started bleeding freely, the dark blood soaking into Dean's shirt and jeans.
Sam swore and quickly raised Dean's arm above his head to slow the flow. Fortunately one of the paramedics saw the state of the injured man's hand and was galvanised into action. They firmly but politely set Billy's mother aside and both men came running.
Dean was burning up with cold and fire and anger and fear all at once and it was almost too much to bear. But he could feel again, and that was important because Sam was holding him tight while the paramedics fussed over him, and Sam was refusing to let go, which meant that Dean could.
So he did. He let go and unconsciousness washed over him, and it was so much gentler than the green glassy darkness of the sea that had swallowed him earlier.
A/N (From wikipedia)
The Adaro were malevolent merman-like sea spirits found in the mythology of the Solomon Islands.
Adaro is a unique creature that lived in the Pacific Ocean. It is friendly and dangerous. Said to arise from the wicked part of a person's spirit, an adaro is described as a man with gills behind his ears, tail fins for feet, a horn like a shark's dorsal fin, and a swordfish or sawfish-like spear growing out of his head. Adaros live in the sun and travel to and from Earth by sliding along rainbows. They are dangerous to humans and can kill them by travelling along rainbows and shooting them with poisonous flying fish. They may also travel in waterspouts.
I had this weird nightmare about nearly drowning, saving a child then finding half my fingers had been severed so obviously I though I had to try and do something similar to Dean...