Tempest
House bends against the wind, shuddering under nature's ire. Windows rattle in the pane. It's a flimsy shield against the storm that's beating on them like an unwelcome visitor. Glass dulls the noise from outside. Mutes the agony of the outside, magnifies the agony of the inside. Windows, shields against the world. See-through shields, delicate, have surprising strength.
Inside it's all quiet calm. Not the right kind of calm, though, it's a strange, silent, sitting-on-the verge-of something-more type of calm. It's eerie, like the eye of the tornado, safe for now, so close to torment. It speaks of insufferable loss made clinical by routine, like a morgue. It's unspeakably tense, the second when the pliers touch the wire of the bomb, praying it will defuse and not detonate. It's the regret when the burst of rage that smashes delicate ornaments on the floor suddenly deflates. It's all bundled into a moment of calm against the shuddering storm.
Wind howls against the walls, they quake back. They have a strength that's being tested. Can't tell if they're going to be blown over until they are. Nothing to do to strengthen them, just have to wait and prop them up with hope. Hope can't plug the gaps though, and wind whistles through them like a train through a tunnel. Shoots out of the mountain side and into the blinding sun. Can't look. Pretend it's not there.
Dean is on the floor. Road kill on the side of the street. Soldier on the battlefield. Tree felled for Christmas, lies on its side. Without all the baubles and tinsel it looks empty. His kid brother watches expectant, wait long enough and the tree lights up. Can't though. Storm cut the power. Storm cut the power, can't call for help. Can't do anything but wait and hope. Hope can't plug the holes.
Blood is spilling onto the floor, like water dripping off the limestone walls of a cave, like tears leaking from eyes. It hits the cold cement in steady rhythm. It's the sound of a leaking tap, the clock ticking on the wall. Count down. Count down to what? The final performance, the last hurrah. It keeps up the steady rhythm of a heartbeat.
Heartbeat. Heart beats. Drum reverberates. Walls wail in agony, it's just a matter of time. Time, counted by the dripping of its own doom.
He moves, shifts. The word shifts too. Kid brother is drawn to him like moth to flame. Dances closer, afraid to come too close and afraid to be too far, he edges across the floor.
Dean's eyes open. Darkness. Feels like a fish out of water. Fish out of water and into blood. Puddle of red paints the cement. Hands scrape through it, tries to hide it from Sam. Fingers coated in blood. He's used to it, hands were always red. Red with agony and betrayal, red with lives he couldn't save. They always slip through his fingers like water through a sieve, like sand through an hourglass. Blood sticks, stays on after life is long gone.
Kid brother, Sam, is kneeling in the puddle, knees bloody but not scraped. Tears, dripping like blood, fall to the ground and splash into his life as it flows away from him. Red mixes with clarity, overpowers, taints. Stains like ink on paper, soot on white clothes.
"Dean?"
Words hover in the calm bubble. The voice is so quiet against the storm, so loud into the darkness. Child seeks an answer, student a lesson. The abandoned seeks shelter. Turns to his big brother, only father he's ever known.
Dean reaches a hand, touches Sam's. Warm skin meets cold. Fire quenches ice. Carbon dioxide smothers the flame. Light splutters, flickers. He holds his breath so it comes back.
"I'm here Sammy." Manages to breath out the whole sentence without gasping and can't quite contain the smile the breaks onto his lips as a result. Sun peers out from behind the clouds.
"Dean?" Kid brother shuffles forward on his knees, wide eyes don't understand, can't see in the darkness. He doesn't need to see, too young to watch the movies of this, much too young to see it in real life. "I'm scared."
Words hit him like a freight train. Mack truck ploughs right over him. Bomb detonates. Ears ringing as the fallout starts. Rushing in his ears and he can't speak. Muted. Cat got his tongue and ran away with it.
He squeezes the tiny hand in his, pretends it's a connection. Pushes his strength through his palm, wills it into his brother. He wants it to be true so badly it has to be. No other solution. One result allowed. Can't run the experiment again. No do-over.
Silence between them is broken by the wind screaming through the cracks in the walls, windows rattle against their frames in protest. Temperature drops. Maybe just his. Warmth is trickling away, like a candle burnt to the wick, like his coffee when Sam distracts him.
The sound of a car door slamming outside makes their eyes turn to the door. Prayers answered. Angels descend from the heavens. Sounds just like laughter, like summer breeze, like the affirmation to the hesitant question. Tension gone, cut like the strings of a marionette. He doesn't have to hold Sam up anymore, someone else to help him. It's his turn to fall. Falls apart like the pieces of a puzzle when fingers rake through it. Fractures, breaks.
"Boys?" A call into the darkness, confused. Eyes can't see in the darkness. Eyes are old enough to know without sight, flash of silver as gun is whipped out.
Light from a torch comes from the doorway. It was dark, now it's light. No change-over. Just blink and suddenly everything's easy to see. Illuminated like a flash of lightning, freeze-frame like the paused television. Nothing moves. Can't move, takes too much effort.
Blood still dripping. Walls still buckling. Windows still protesting.
Hope can't plug the holes.
Silences can't either.
A heartbeat passes. Heartbeat. Heart beats. Drum beats. Feet pound on the cement. Thunders rolls outside.
"Oh God! Dean!"
Kid brother is speaking words far away. He smiles up to Sam, so proud. Solider reports to his sergeant, paramedic to the doctor, child to a parent, student to teacher. Father, saviour, runs his hand over his face, trying to rub away aches and pains. Wipes the slate clean.
"Dean?" Voice is soft like feathers, caresses him like a mother used to, it eases into the silence like a melody from Heaven. "Hey, champ?" Walking on egg shells, he tiptoes carefully on the edge of a blade.
He watches his father with detachment, inside his body but can't feel it. He's watching a documentary of himself. "Yes?" Calm despite the storm outside.
"It gone now?" Shuffling, kid brother is gone briefly; he's talking in a far away room as his father takes control.
He doesn't have to wonder what he's talking about. Enemy is gone, has vanished into the night taking a chunk of Dean with it. Nods, because he can't speak. Demon isn't the only one with a piece of Dean tonight, cat still has his tongue. Ran away with it and can never come back. Curiosity killed it.
Eyes wander to the ceiling. Cracks run in the plasterboard there, gossamer strands of a spider's web, rivers in the face of the Earth. Stares at them long enough the blur into one another, he can't look away. Patterns in the rippled plaster captivate him. It's like cloud watching in a storm. Rain is making it hard to see.
Tears rain down his cheeks; leave little tracks on his skin. Scars of pain he can't bleed away. Hands still holds his kid brother's tightly. He can't remember when Sam came back, cell phone in one hand, Dean's hand in the other.
"Stay with me." Sam is begging over and over. It's the request to watch Saturday morning cartoons, to have cereal for dinner, pop-tarts for lunch, check the wardrobe for demons, walk him to school but don't hold his hand?
Can't resist his brother's voice, Sam's grown up now, he'll get teased by his friends if he knows that his brother holds his hand when he walks him across the main street to get to school. Now their palms are pressed together, welded like iron.
Something is pressing on his side. Leans down his body like the wind on the walls, the rain on the windows. Hope can't patch the holes, but John Winchester can. Can't he?
Pressure brings him back into his body, eyes roll, back arches. He twists against the pressure like a contortionist in a circus, like paper folding in on itself as it burns.
Screams, yelling. Cat hasn't got his tongue, he finds words to shout, beg and plead for relief. Emotions wrack his body like fists on a punching bag. The bag wavers, hangs by a thread, can't withstand the assault for long.
"Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me." Chants echo in the room, bounce off the walls.
"Shhhh." Father soothes a child, ocean soothes the mind, wind plays in the leaves.
Lights outside the windows, flashing like lightning. Colours race across the room, red and blue, red and blue. The colour of blood as it pumps through a heart. Red and blue. Colour whips across the white ceiling in vibrant flashes. It plays a parody of the darkness. Colour drains away too. A world washed in greyscale.
Door pushes open again, tempest from outside bursts in. The bubble of calm is broken. People burst in the door like a tidal wave. The walls are quaking, a window shatters somewhere.
More people are in the room than he remembers; someone new is talking to him
"...hear me, Dean?"
"Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me."
Hands grip his; connections forged in the dark persevere in the light.
Lights shine in his eyes, someone his moving him, lifting him. He floats along. Rain hits his face, slides down like tears, then something his shielding him, protecting him.
He grips the hand in his a little tighter. It returns his strength, lets it flow back, fill him.
He lets his eyes droop. Darkness entices and he slips into it. Embraces the emptiness for now, knows the hand won't let go, won't let him go.
The windows shattered, but the walls are still strong. Can't do anything to prop them up but hope. Hope can't patch the holes, but John Winchester can.
- FIN -
I'm trying a different style of writing, and would really appreciate feedback.
Please review! :)