Part 2
"A zombie, a real zombie." Dean is ecstatic, grinning like he's a normal little kid who's been told both his birthday and Christmas are coming early.
"I'm glad you're so excited," Sam answers drily as he retrieves the jawbone from where it separated from the head and slid into the kitchen, adding it to the garbage bag. "But would you mind turning some of that excitement into helping me clean this up?"
"I think you got it." Dean nudges a stray bit of muscle with his foot and makes a face. Sam sighs. When it comes to movies, Dean is convinced the bloodier the better. He even liked the overly graphic surgery scenes in Dr. Sexy M.D. and laughed at Sam when he blanched and had to turn away. But when it comes to real life Dean often proves the more squeamish one, and Sam ends up holding the autopsy saw or the severed limps or, in this case, the zombie jaw.
"But a real zombie," Dean repeats. "We've never seen anything like this before."
"I know." Sam sits back on his heels with a thought that's been gnawing at him since he first woke up crawling its way the front of his mind. "Dean. It… it worked, didn't it? What I did?"
"What do you mean?" Dean's joy vanishes at the serious tone in Sam's voice, and Sam hates that he's the one to take it away, that he's always the one taking Dean's happiness away. He looks down at his hands, dirty with blood.
"Did I stop the Apocalypse?"
"Yes." Dean's voice softens and he sits down on the edge of his bed, bringing his face almost level with Sam's. "You stopped it, Sammy. You saved the world."
The pride in Dean's voice is so strong Sam doesn't dare look up, because he knows if he does and sees the same amount of pride in Dean's eyes he's bound lose his shit and he's already acted like enough of a headcase for one night.
"Okay," Sam says quietly, swallowing once or twice just to be on the safe side. "Then what's with the walking dead guy trying to take a bite out of us?"
"Good question." Dean stands up again and stares down at the remains of their attacker. "Witches in town, maybe, getting their kicks by reanimating dead dudes. Or a stray demon trying out a new way of riding humans. Maybe the Umbrella Cooperation misplaced their T-virus. Could be anything."
"Yeah." Sam bags the last of the body parts and rises to stand next to Dean. "I guess we'll be researching tomorrow then." Dean shifts his weight from foot to foot in what Sam instantly recognizes as his 'uncomfortable' stance. "What?"
"We don't have to research," Dean mutters. "In fact, someone's probably heard the commotion and the gunshots. I'm surprised we haven't heard sirens yet. We should just get out of here."
"And what, just abandon Decomposition Dan here on the floor of our motel room?"
"No, obviously we're going to shove him in the dumpster out back." Dean shifts again, not meeting Sam's eyes. "But then we should just… take off."
"And what about the witches? Or the demons or whatever is behind this?"
"Look, Sammy, this might just be an isolated incident. And, anyway, if it's not, there are other hunters out there."
"So we walk away from a job." Sam crosses his arms, staring at his brother and willing him to meet his gaze. "Since when is that something we do? People's lives could be at stake here, since we do we turn our backs on that?"
"Since you got locked in a cage with the Devil and I spent a year trying to get you out," Dean snaps, and he's meeting Sam's gaze now, he's fucking glaring. "You saved the goddamn world, Sam. We don't owe it a thing anymore, okay?"
"Dean, it's not about owing anything, it's—"
"No, shut up, Sam." Dean's eyes are getting wild, and Sam doesn't know if he wants to take a step forward and drink down the light blazing in them, or else make a run for the door. "We have lost everything. Mom, Dad, Jess, Ellen, Jo, even Bobby and Cas would be dead by now if Heaven hadn't been feeling so generous after you ganked Satan. So there's you, and there's me, and I'm done fucking with that, alright?"
"Alright," Sam agrees immediately. He'd probably agree to cutting off his own arm with Dean looking at him like that. "So let's move this guy and then… get out of here."
"Fine." Dean moves and it's like all the air in the room snaps back into place. Sam flinches at the change, his headache giving a dull throb of protest that makes him put a hand to his temple. "Don't think I haven't noticed that either," Dean growls as he shoves his hands under one side of the plastic-covered corpse and lifts. "Grab his feet."
Sam does as he's told, deciding to ignore Dean's final comment for now. They get the body and all its parts safely stashed in the dumpster behind the motel, then leave their keys on the table and close the door behind them. As they do, Sam takes a final look at the room, the shattered window, the ruined carpet, the now blood-spattered fleur-de-lis wallpaper. They didn't even get to sleep here.
Sam doesn't ask to drive, and Dean doesn't offer to let him. He stomps his foot on the gas and sends them flying down the highway, just another bullet shot from his gun, fatally precise. They stay silent for a long time until Sam, awake and itchy-eyed in the passenger seat, starts jiggling his leg with agitation and says, "We should have taken a shower before we left. It takes forever to get rid of this smell."
"Dude, if you make my car smell like corpse, you're washing every inch of her. Twice."
"Excuse me, I'm not the only one who was playing Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots with the zombie. You smell like death even more than I do."
"I smell amazing," Dean declares, and in a move that regresses them both about fifteen years, shoves his armpit at Sam's face. Sam yelps and pushes him away, digging his fingers into the ticklish spots of Dean's ribs and making him squirm in his seat. When they've both retreated to their respective sides of the car— after Sam draws an impressively high-pitched and frantically stifled giggle from Dean, and Dean charley horses him in retaliation— the silence that falls is comfortable and relaxed.
"You don't think we're going to turn into zombies, do you?" Dean asks after a few miles.
"Um, what?" Sam cocks his head, trying to follow this latest train of thought. Dean has a habit of building his own tracks and then running down them so fast he derails.
"Well you know, that thing grabbed us, and we both got cut. Usually that's all it takes in the movies, a little mixing of body fluids and bam! Zombie."
"Gross, dude."
"I'm just saying, maybe we need a plan, if there was some fluid mixing going on—"
"No, you need to stop saying. Particularly stop saying the words "fluid" and "mixing" in the same sentence. We are not going to turn into zombies."
"It'd be kinda cool, though, if we did." Dean throws Sam one of his brightest, most beautiful grins, the kind that make men and women the world over stop in their tracks, old ladies offer to bake him mountains of cookies, traffic cops let him off with just a warning. It makes Sam's throat close up and his skin feel too tight with disbelief that after everything he's been and done, he stills gets to see that smile.
"—and we'll invest in some formaldehyde, and be zombie brother monster hunters," Dean is saying. "They'd probably give us our own show on the Travel channel."
Even though what they're discussing is potentially a very real threat, Dean's playful, giddy side is almost unfailingly infectious, and Sam can't resist giving in to it. He knows Dean's doing it on purpose, some weird misguided attempt at making up for being attacked even though there was absolutely no way it could have been his fault. But in a way that makes it almost more important for Sam to play along. So he rolls his eyes and says with just enough of a laugh, "Or some other hunter would find us and chop our heads off."
"Nah, we'd be national treasures. We'd be like the Kardashians." Dean glances over at Sam, the smile still going full-force. "You're going to need to get a boob job."
Sam finds himself grinning now too, even though his heart breaks a little bit with how much he wants to pause this moment and stay in it forever. "Okay, first, what the hell is a Kardashian? And second, if I'm getting a boob job, then you're getting ass implants."
"What the fuck are ass implants?"
The conversation carries them across a state line and a major river before being lost to the force of their yawns.
"Can sleep if y'wanna," Dean mumbles as they fall in line behind a semi-truck.
"I'm good," Sam tries to answer, but his gigantic yawn spoils it and makes him sound like a petulant three-year old avoiding nap time.
"Yeah, right." Dean swerves around the semi and takes them down the first side road he finds. There's a massive cornfield to their left, lit blue in the moonlight. Dean nearly drives the Impala into it as he parks on the gravel shoulder.
"This is becoming a habit," Sam says as Dean kills the engine and they sit there in the dark, corn stalks swaying gently in a silent dance.
"Sorry." Dean sounds genuinely remorseful. "Just give me half an hour then I promise I will find us a zombie-free motel."
"I didn't say I minded." Sam's already stretching out, tilting his head back and letting the Impala's seat wrap around him like he's wearing Dean's leather jacket.
"Hey!" Dean squawks when he realizes Sam is almost asleep. "Get in the back, Sasquatch. We can't both fit up here."
Sam mutters what he hopes amounts to something close to "fuck you" before settling in further, his upper body sliding into the seat at just the right angle to put his head in contact with Dean's shoulder.
Dean huffs. "Fine, you seven-hundred pound jackass. But next time buy me dinner first."
He kicks his feet into Sam's side of the car, making sure to aim for both of Sam's shins. It only gives Sam an excuse to move closer, settling himself more firmly against Dean's chest. Dean grumbles something about long hair and drool, and then they're both asleep within minutes.
There's no reason Dean couldn't have moved to the backseat, but that doesn't occur to either of them until the next morning. They don't bring it up.
Sam is on fire from his head down to his feet. His skin is crackling with it, turning black and falling off. He tries to scream, but the fire crawls into his mouth and races through his insides. His teeth are melting like molten rock. His intestines shrivel and his stomach bursts. There will be nothing left of him after this, he thinks. Just ash.
Suddenly he's looking in a mirror, and he realizes the truth. The fire isn't burning his body, the fire is his body. He's made of flames, every inch of him, except his eyes which are like two pieces of volcanic glass, polished by the flames and perfectly, flawlessly black—
Sam starts so hard he manages to hit both his funny bones as he claws his way frantically to wakefulness. Dean grunts beneath him, turning his face further into the sweatshirt he's got bunched behind his head. The car is warm, and the smell of rotting flesh is so strong inside the enclosed space Sam gags and nearly vomits, groping blindly for the door.
He stumbles out into the cool morning air, spitting on the ground in an attempt to get the taste of death out of his mouth. The world is spinning around him, misty and blurred. The cornstalks in the field still have a bit of moonlight trapped beneath their leaves, and in the early morning haze they look like an army of ghosts, standing at attention, waiting for orders. Or a leader.
No.
No. Sam pushes that thought from his mind. He'd been near that road before but he hadn't gone down it, and eventually it was swallowed up like so many other things by the Apocalypse and Lucifer climbing into his skin.
But Sam feels different now.
He's been trying to ignore it, trying to pass it off as just lingering trauma and memories from Hell, but he knows he's been lying to himself. There's something different inside him. He felt it when he first woke up. He felt it right before Dean beheaded that zombie and he can feel it now. If he reaches for it, he can even touch it, a seething place in the back of his mind that burns and scratches and spits and begs to be unlocked, to be let out to play—
Dean finds Sam half an hour later, sitting on the hood of the Impala, his head in his hands, pressing his palms against his eyeballs until he sees fireworks explode behind the closed lids.
"Sammy." Dean wraps calloused fingers around Sam's wrists and gently tugs his hands away from his face. Sam looks into his face, and he can tell Dean knows there's something seriously wrong with him. Most people find Dean difficult to judge, his true feelings hidden beneath layers of charm and sarcasm, but Sam's been reading him like a book since he was born. He knows Dean doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, but in his eyes, and when Sam meets his gaze he can see that heart breaking.
He wants to say something, anything, to make it better, but the cloying scent of rotting flesh still coats his tongue and his mind draws a blank.
He leans forward, leans into Dean. There's something there, some flicker of assurance or damnation Sam can't quite put his finger on. Dean's eyes flash, one brighter than the other, and Sam thinks he can feel it too.
Dean holds onto Sam's wrists for a second longer, then drops his hands to his sides.
"Breakfast?" he offers.
Sam nods and slides off the hood. "Breakfast."
They find a small, comfortably worn diner not too far down the interstate with gingham tablecloths and framed black and white movie stills from the 40s on the wall.
Dean orders half the food on the menu, saying things like "They don't have extra thick french toast in Hell" and "Now I know you're missing fresh fruit, huh, Sammy?" Sam isn't the slightest bit hungry but he knows he'll end up eating a little bit of everything just to keep that worried edge in Dean's voice from getting any worse.
While they're waiting for their food, Sam calls Bobby.
"Sam?" He sounds surprised and a little wary when he answers. Sam glances at Dean who is blowing across his cup of coffee.
"Yeah, hey, Bobby. Uh, just thought we'd give you a heads up— we got attacked by um… a zombie last night."
"The Romero kind," Dean adds.
"The Romero kind," Sam dutifully repeats.
"Where are you?" Bobby asks.
"It was at a motel off forty-one in Mercer, North Dakota. We didn't stick around cause it got kinda messy and we're… we're not taking cases. At the moment." Dean cuts him a look over the table but Sam ignores it. "But this thing, Bobby, it was resistant to bullets and silver and rocksalt. Dean ended up killing it by cutting its head off."
"Dean? Is he there right now?"
"Yeah, he's sitting across from me, drawing lewd pictures on the diner napkins." Sam reaches across the table and smacks Dean on the arm. "Quit it."
"Can I talk to Dean, Sam?" Bobby's voice has gone tense and urgent, and Sam sighs. He was starting to wonder how much Bobby knew about what Dean did to get Sam out of Hell, and this only confirmed it was more than either of them felt like sharing with Sam.
"Does he want to talk to me?" Dean asks, correctly interpreting Sam's sigh. Sam waves a hand at him but Dean makes a lunge for the phone and manages to wrest it away from Sam's grip. Sam kicks him under the table just as the waitress arrives with their food. She gives Sam a strange look, and he realizes just how much of a mess he must look. He hasn't showered or changed clothes in two days, he's slept two nights in a car, been strangled by a rotting corpse, and picked up zombie guts from a motel room floor. This poor waitress probably thinks he's some homeless junkie whose crazy brother ordered three different kinds of pancakes. Sam does his best to smile at her in what he hopes is a reasonable, normal sort of way, but Dean chooses that moment to poke him in the knee cap with a fork and the smile comes out as more a grimace.
Dean hangs up the phone as the waitress turns and hurries to her next table.
"Totally out of your league," Dean says, his mouth already full of sausages.
Sam chooses not to dignify that with a response. "What did Bobby say?"
"He's looking into it."
"Anything else?"
"Nope. Hand me the ketchup."
"Dean…" Sam hands over the bottle, trying to catch his brother's eye. "What aren't you telling me?"
Dean hastily shoves more food into his mouth as if he thinks if he makes his words incomprehensible enough, Sam will have to believe them. "Nuffin'."
"Dean, come on. Don't treat me like I'm an idiot."
"You are an idiot." The response is automatic, born from a lifetime of using insults and jokes to deflect far more serious topics. Dean winces as soon as he says it, but Sam's had just as much training in learning to pick his battles, so he ignores it in favor of fixing Dean with his best I-know-you're-lying-I'm-your-brother look. Dean rolls his eyes at him and determinedly returns to his food.
"It's got nothing to do with you, Sammy."
"Oh, sure, it just has to do with Hell, where I happened to have spent the last hundred or so years trapped in a cage with Lucifer. Or did you forget that part?"
"Jesus, Sam!" Dean drops his hands to the table hard enough to make their dishes rattle. The diner goes quiet, heads turning in their direction. Dean leans toward Sam, lowering his voice to a hiss. "Can we not do this here? Please?"
"Fine." Sam leans in too, partially to keep this conversation between the two of them— their waitress is standing by the counter, staring wide-eyed— and partially so Dean has no choice but to look him straight in the face. "But we are doing this. You don't get to keep things from me. Not now. Not about this."
Dean glares at him, and for a moment Sam wonders if they're going to be stuck like this forever. An unstoppable force and an immovable object. Dean has always tried to protect Sam from all the bad things in the world, even when Sam's pretty sure he's one of them.
Then Dean gives a jerky nod and sits back, picking up his fork. The volume in the diner gradually rises and their waitress vanishes into the kitchen. Sam pulls a random plate of food forward and takes a bite. It's his concession to Dean, to counteract winning the argument. Dean scowls like he knows exactly what Sam is trying to do, but he doesn't stay mad for long.
"Try some of the wheat ones," he suggests, face relaxing with each bite Sam takes. "They're your favorite."
Sam picks up the plate and has just enough time to register that Dean has used maple syrup to draw a huge grinning face surrounded by a nest of squiggles which is probably supposed to represent Sam— his hair looks nothing like that, thank you very much— before the window to their right shatters and he drops the plate, sending syrup and pancakes everywhere.
The diner erupts into chaos, chairs scraping, people babbling, several starting to scream. Sam and Dean leap to their feet, staring through the now glass-free window.
"No fucking way," Dean breathes as a hand that's missing a great deal of skin comes over the broken glass and lands in a steaming bowl of oatmeal. Sam catches movement in the parking lot out of the corner of his eye.
"There're two of them, Dean! Go!"
Dean shoves more dishes to the floor then scrambles up on the table and launches himself out the window, tackling the zombie away from the diner and using it to break his fall. Sam dashes into the kitchen, ignoring the screams of the wait staff, and grabs a butcher's knife from a rack before following Dean. The zombie he tackled is flailing on its back like an overturned turtle, spine undoubtedly broken, so Sam tosses Dean the small knife from the holster around his ankle and heads at a dead run towards the other zombie shuffling its way through the parked cars.
As soon as it sees Sam the zombie starts sprinting too, a horrible limping gait that's freakishly fast. Sam barely has time to lift the butcher's knife before he's being thrown against the side of a Honda. The blow to his head and the sudden blaring of a car horn leave him reeling in confusion for a moment and the zombie presses its advantage. Scratching and snarling, it practically drops itself into Sam's lap.
Its arms are unexpectedly strong, clamping around Sam so tightly he can feel bruises forming immediately. Its mouth descends towards Sam's face, breath humid and rancid. Up this close, Sam can see it only has one eye.
He has no idea what it's trying to do to him, bite him or eat him or hell, kiss him, but his adrenaline surges from the sheer repulsiveness of it all and he manages to thrash and buck and send the zombie tumbling to the pavement.
He scrambles for the butcher's knife as the zombie recovers rapidly, shoving itself up with one hand twisted completely the wrong way round. Sam's head pulses without warning, harsh and hot, but he ignores it as best he can and rolls to the side, slashing the zombie's Achilles tendons with the knife as he goes. It flops forward like a rag doll, face smashing into the Honda, bone and teeth ripping through skin. Sam doesn't hesitate, just stands and swings the knife with all his strength. It takes him several blows, then the zombie's head is rolling away beneath the car.
Sam straightens with a grimace, sore and nauseous and wondering what the hell is keeping Dean, when suddenly the car alarm switches off and ferocious, screaming pain rips through Sam's entire body. He stumbles and goes down on one knee, wondering wildly if he's been shot or stabbed.
In the silence rushing around him, Sam can just make out the sound of someone yelling. At first he thinks it might be his own organs, protesting the excruciating torture they're currently experiencing, but then through the haze of pain he recognizes Dean's voice.
If anything could get Sam to his feet at this moment, it's the sound of Dean in trouble. He gropes for a handhold, finds a side mirror, and pulls himself upright. Following the curves of the car with two fumbling hands, Sam gets himself pointed in Dean's direction. And that's when he sees it.
It's shaped almost like a normal human being, a head and torso and all the appropriate appendages, but its age and gender impossible to determine because it's made of something Sam has never seen before. At first he thinks it's smoke, then shadows, then a thousand tiny insects all clicking their pincers and flashing their wings. Within the roiling black mess are two eyes, appearing and disappearing, burning bright and deadly like the hearts of two stars.
This new creature doesn't appear to be doing anything more than standing in front of the broken window of the diner, but Dean is on his knees in front of it, back twisting violently as he claws at his chest and screams Sam's name.
Sam starts running again, heedless of the tremors of pain still slamming through his body. He's got no plan, no idea what this thing is or how to kill it, but if all he manages to do is distract it from killing Dean, then that's enough. Sam's here on borrowed time anyway. Hell is probably waiting to welcome him back with open arms.
He gets level with Dean and yells, something inarticulate and desperate. The creature turns to him slowly, releasing Dean who drops to all fours, gasping and heaving.
He's breathing, Sam thinks. That's good. Then the creature's blazing eyes meet Sam's and he has enough time to think Shit before the world vanishes around him.
All that's left is the dark corner in his mind, the one full of voices and little shocks of black electricity. Sam retches, vaguely aware every muscle in his body has gone rigid.
Open me, a chorus of voices without mouths or tongues begs. Let me out and see what I can do.
Sam is choking, his throat tearing from not being able to scream. The creature in front of him seems to pause, almost as if it's waiting for something, something like orders, or a—
OPEN ME, the voices shriek. Sam seizes, tasting blood and bile. He can hardly feel his body anymore and it's like being back in Hell again. He's a mess of pain and fear and anger, and there are monsters inside trying to shape him into everything he doesn't want to be. The voices in his head are hissing threats and promises, chewing at his brain and ready to consume the rest of him.
But Sam hasn't lost yet. He can still hear his brother yelling, and that's enough to force his way past the voices and back to a tiny part of himself. He manages to raise the hand now locked around the butcher's knife. The voices writhe, surging through him, and Sam brings the blade slashing across his thigh.
This new pain blossoms bright and clean through his mind, and Sam shoves it at the dark hole inside of him. The voices howl with their own torment, recoiling like centipedes from the sun. The contradiction of it all is too much. Sam has about two seconds before he passes out or dies or quite possibly explodes into a hundred million pieces, but he clings to agonizing consciousness just a little bit longer to see the shadow creature burn up like a piece of paper and blow away.
Then Sam is falling andfalling and there's no bottom. Distantly he hears someone coughing and moaning, "Not again."
Dean's breathing is Sam's last thought. That's good.
