Disclaimer: See Chapter One
A/N: I hate author's notes. This chapter is a little long, but necessary as the towns folk explain what they are doing on this mountain, who they are and what is out there beyond their village. God, I just hope Sam wakes up soon…
Chapter Three – Under a Raging Moon
His heart resonated in his ears, thickly disguised as percussions packing his head with the musical sounds of a drum-line. Boom-Boom. Boom-Boom. He tried to open his eyes but they resisted, wanting to stay closed, away from the light he could feel shimmering on the other side. It was always the same feeling he had when his body woke this way, vulnerable to what he could only hear on the other side of his lids, not knowing what or who matched the sounds. He had woken this way before, more than once in his fast life, woken to find his life in trouble, woken to find himself alone. He hated this part. His eyes flittered, lights danced hauntingly, shapes formed, swirling into wolves, spirits, distorted faces with yellow eyes…
"There he is. I think he's coming around." The voice sliced through the pain, the worry, the fear, and the boom-boom of his heart. He felt his shoulder settle, felt his toes tingle, the flicker of his lashes curling on his cheeks. It was the voice he would fight for, the voice he would kill monsters for, the voice that he would open his eyes for. The voice of the only person who mattered, his brother.
"Hey, Sam." Dean was smiling. Sam focused on him as the rest of the room warped into unfamiliar surroundings around him. Dean turned his head to the side and acknowledged someone, but Sam didn't dare look away, everything was spinning on the fast cycle and he could keep his stomach from heaving if he just concentrated on one thing at a time. The voices were still coming and going, assaulting his tympanic membrane like the beat of his heart. "so tired… scared us there… Fish fixed you up… glad to have you back… look at me… hurt?"
Sam nodded. God, he hurt. He hurt so bad. What was that? He reached over to the side of his chest and felt something round and plastic sticking out. What the fuck? He wrapped his fingers around it and gave it a weak pull. It didn't budge. God, it was killing his side. He had to get it out. He gripped the tube tighter and prepared to give it a good yank when he felt someone's grasp on his wrist, pulling his hands away from the tube.
Sam looked up and saw dark eyes staring back at him, a wrinkled face leathered by the sun. His mouth was moving, speaking softly to the younger Winchester. Sam frowned at him, trying to decipher the words. "Can't touch. You have to leave it alone."
Sam licked his lips. He was parched, his tongue was dry, his mouth was chapped and it felt rough against his dry licks. There was something not right about his lips. They felt too big, too big for his face, too big to form words but he tried anyway. "W- is it?"
The older man bent down closer to Sam. "It's called a chest tube. You were injured, this is helping you to breathe."
Dean, I can't breathe. It rushed back to him. The car. It crashed. Tree. Dean pissed. The cold. The snow. Blizzard, no, snow shower. Dean had it under control. The pain. He couldn't breathe. There was something looking at him…
Sam turned his head to Dean. "Vampires."
Dean nodded. I missed it, Sammy, I should have seen it. "Yeah."
Sam closed his eyes in a long blink. When he opened them again, he saw his brother's head, low, his eyes diverting to the ground. Sam swallowed hard. "Dean," his voice was raspy, sandpaper. Dean looked up and Sam could see the wordless fear. "No more vampires."
Dean gave him a half grin. "I hear ya, little brother."
Fish Sticks walked around the bottom of the bed. "Your blood pressure is better, fever is down. I think you're gonna actually pull through this." He sounded as though he were giving stats on a personal accomplishment. The old man was proud of himself.
"Cheese and rice, it's alive!" another voice joked. John Joe broke into the door from the hallway, cleaned, shaven, dressed in a flannel shirt painted with colors of red and green. He waved a hand at Sam. "Remember me, Snapper?"
Sam's eyebrows came together in a bushy mess over the bridge of his nose and he shook his head.
The bearded man shrugged it off. "Course you don't. You were half dead." He grabbed hold of Sam's big two and shook it fiercely. "I'm John Joe. We stumbled upon you and your brother last night, got you up that hill and, well, brought you here. You sure had us all scared shitless. I don't think Whipper thought you were gonna pull through it!"
Sam looked at Dean, obvious confusion growing across his face.
Dean exhaled. "I'm Whipper, you're Snapper. Just go with it." He pulled one shoulder up and rolled his eyes.
Sam nodded back to John Joe.
"And this is Fish Sticks. He's our Doc Holiday. He brought you back from half dead to… mostly alive."
Sam looked over to the older man. "Thanks," he managed. "It hurts."
Fish turned to get the syringe ready. "You can have more pain meds…"
"No," Sam whispered, "makes me sleepy. I don't want to sleep…"
"Sam, take the medicine," Dean's voice commanded. He rubbed his hands roughly together, something only Sam knew he did when he was nervous.
"Just Tylenol," Sam ignored him.
Fish Sticks wavered a moment between the two brothers, one protesting, one demanding. He slowly placed the syringe on the countertop and grabbed a bottle. He shook out two pills and handed them to Sam, pouring him a glass of water. "Vicodin," he stated. "Stronger than Tylenol, but won't make you sleepy like the Dilaudid."
Sam took the meds and grabbed the water. He inhaled the liquid in two fast gulps and held it out to Fish, his eyes begging for more. The medic immediately replenished the cup and chuckled as Sam finished it off, holding the flimsy plastic out of more. "Slow it down," he cautioned. "You keep this up, you'll throw it up out your nose."
Sam sipped the third glass at that warning. He'd been there before, didn't want to do that today. He put the glass down on the table beside him and took in a deep breath, feeling the stitches pull on the chest tube and the plastic shift under his skin. He winced, hissing through his teeth and felt his brother's eyes fall upon him. He sucked in the breath, let it out and pulled it together. He needed Dean to be reassured, needed Dean to be okay. Sam needed to mask it, show him he'd get through this. They'd been through worse. Sam swept the room with his eyes, looking at his two rescuers, they were both grinning, staring back at the young hunter. Sam looked around the small office. Medical equipment was sparse, some of it outdated, a calendar hung across from him, pictures flanked the clock on the opposite wall, one of a ferocious wolf, the other of a mighty bear. There was a red and blue rug thrown on the floor in front of the door with green diamonds embedded in it, handmade, Sam thought. Next to the bottle of Vicodin, herbs and incense stacked on a small shelf.
"What tribe are you with?" Sam asked. Dean shook his head. Leave it to his brother to take his observations and put them where his mouth was.
Fish and John Joe looked at each other and shared a hearty laugh. Footsteps were heard coming up fast behind them and Del Bert's large body hovered in the frame behind the smaller bearded man. He leaned into the room and steadied his gaze at Sam. "Hell Bells," he commented. "Kid looks good."
Sam made a face. It was odd how they all knew him and he recognized no one. He smiled sheepishly, a little unsure of exactly what had transpired since his arrival to this destination.
Del Bert pulled up his sleeve on his right arm, sporting a black tattoo of a rattlesnake, its head proportionally larger than the rest of the reptile's body. "Arikara. We're from the Arikara Indian Tribe."
Sam nodded. "All of you?"
"All of us. All of us that live 'round here." Del Bert sat down on a high stool in the corner of the room, it let out a scared creak from under his rear. He folded his bulky arms and leaned back, bringing his big boots to rest on the silver bar at the bottom. "We're all from blood lines of great men who lived Arikara." His eyes sparkled behind the sentence.
"So is this a reservation?" Sam asked.
John Joe laughed. "No, no, Snapper. Our tribe is dying, well, dead. None of us are full blood descents. We're all mixed. Our grandfathers, grandmothers they moved, married Americans, Asians, Africans. Then their children, our parents, also married others not of Arikara. We just evolved into a Heinz 57 of Americans. A small group of us settled here when the land was given back to the tribe a few years ago and we moved up on this clearing…"
"Yeah, lots of room here, it's big and long and doesn't grow a damn thing," Del Bert interrupted.
"We have come from many walks of life to live here, trying to reconnect with the lives of our ancestors. There have been many stories told which we didn't believe when we settled here. But, we have learned many things and one thing is certain our land has had the unfortunate burden of being inhabited by evil spirits. Probably for many years now." John Joe sighed.
Sam turned his head to his brother. Dean had been so quiet sitting in the rickety chair. He turned and lifted his eyes towards his younger brother and for a few seconds, Sam just held the stare, not saying anything. Boom-boom, his heart played on inside of his head. "There was something looking at me. In the car."
Dean nodded. He glanced up to John Joe, looking for help for the word.
"Kitsune." John Joe knew what he needed.
"Yeah, that. Soul stealer." He said it like it was a cow and they could just go out and tip it over, kill it and then make hamburgers later on for lunch.
"Well, not just any soul stealer," Del Bert stated, gloomily. "I mean, it'll take any soul, if it is desperate enough. I've seen people… adults after it's gotten them. It takes the essence from them and then leaves them, in a shell, their body, alive. And they start to change. They become… empty, like walking zombies, and then…the succumb, they fall asleep and they don't wake up. They can't ground themselves, I guess. It's horrible to watch. Only takes a couple of days for them to… surrender to the dark… without their soul." The brothers watched as the large man, looked away in thought of things his eyes had seen. "But the Kitsune it doesn't prefer an adult's soul. It's hungry for the new."
"Children," Dean responded.
Del Bert shook his head. "Newborns."
Dean lifted his eyebrows into inverted V's. "Newborns? You mean… babies?"
Del Bert looked at the young man. "Yeah, babies. We've lost a few here, but we've protected most of 'em. But right now, this snowstorm, we can't get out and we got ourselves a real pregnant gal. She went into labor last night and the Kitsunes came to claim their prize. That's where you fellas come in to play. We chased 'em, shot at 'em, they ran. But Jewel, she never had that baby. And if it comes before we can move her to a hospital, the other one'll come back and it'll get her baby. And it's mad now."
Dean watched the large man speak. He was quickly reminded of the legs, the pregnant belly that he had accidentally spied on last night in the other room. The chase down the hill, the men had congregated to protect the unborn. Dean remembered the eyes of the animal, the human feeling it held there, the skin on it's cheeks and they way it shrieked at the brothers through the glass. He had the machete packed, he could hunt it today, find it, cut it's head off and make it back in time for corn dogs and French fries.
"Why is it mad?" Sam's voice interrupted his scheming.
John Joe looked at Del Bert. They held a moment of silence and then the blue-eyed man spoke quietly, but sternly. "You killed her mate."
"Her?" the brothers asked in unison.
"Yeah, the one you pinned with your car, it's the smaller one, the male. The female, she's bigger, more powerful, more… vicious. She, she got a look at you, right?" His eyes focused on Sam and then Dean.
Dean shrugged. "Yeah, I mean, through the window…"
"She has very good sight, very good smell. They can smell when a baby is here, they can smell a woman going into labor, when the mother's water breaks, they go wild."
Visions of terror filled the brothers' minds, images of new mothers screaming out in pain from laboring for a child and then the tears of anguish as a creature fought to take the child away from her after months of hard work. Dean noticed Sam's gulp, his hands clench.
"The Kitsune may decide to seek you out, you killed her partner. She will want revenge, want you to pay, want your soul to devour. She will know you, when she looks at your eyes. She sees your aura."
Del Bert took over the conversation for his friend. "We killed one once, long time ago. It was small, too, a male. The guy who killed it was being hunted by the Kitsune, it advanced on him and he was able to attack him with his knife, cutting him, slicing him to pieces. But in the process, he sliced his own hand, his blood mixing with the monsters and when the female came across her lover, she knew exactly who murdered it by the smell of his blood, what she could see there, taste there. She came into the village, walked right into the church…"
"What?" Sam's voice exclaimed. "How did it walk right in?"
"It changes forms, can look very… human. She walked in, she was tall and beautiful, long dark hair. We were all staring at her, she captivated us. And she reached where Owen sat, turned to him… she moved so fast none of us even saw the actual act." Del Bert stopped for a moment and slid eyes to Fish Sticks, he was standing quiet, shaking his head.
Fish took in a deep breath. "She pulled out his heart, it beat in her hands. Owen was still sitting there, smiling and then she squeezed and the heart stopped. Fur grew on her arms, her hands turned to long nails and a huge tail swept up from underneath her dress. She placed her mouth to Owens and sucked, liking the blood from his mouth, from her body. We were all frozen in disgust, fright. But when she was done, she just left. She was there for a specific purpose, a specific person."
The three men stopped their story. Dean and Sam nodded, looking at them, absorbing what they had said. Lately it seemed that no matter what the did, no matter where they went evil had a way of turning up. It was as though they were being watched, someone keeping tabs on their every move. Just when one job finished, another job was already erupting. Evil was tracking them. Trying to keep them busy, perhaps, keep their minds off finding ways out of deals with demons. Ways from keeping certain people from squealing out of things that are only sealed with a kiss.
"I hate shape shifters," Dean announced.
Sam nodded. They'd dealt with them, too. Chock it up to the list and counting. "But this one, it can be killed. With a knife, cutting it's head off…"
"I just got to get close enough." Dean commented.
"We," Sam corrected. "We've got to get close enough."
Dean scoffed at him. "Oh, for God's sake, Sam. Look at you, you've got tubes hanging out of you, you're on pain killers, you were barely breathing last night…"
"That was last night." Their eyes met and Sam narrowed his.
"You look like shit." Dean growled.
"So do you, scarface," Sam bantered back. Each brother took a breath. Sam glanced up to the medic. "When can I get this tube out?"
Fish Sticks laughed. "Not today." His answer was not to be argued with, Sam could feel his sincerity.
"But it's not attached to anything but a glove so can walk around, right?"
Fish didn't know what to say to this. The kid just woke up from a trauma-induced coma and was ready to race up and down mountains covered in ice and snow. "You can walk around the hallway, the clinic, but you shouldn't go outside."
Sam looked at Dean, satisfaction across his face.
"What?" Dean mused. "He just told you no."
"He said shouldn't."
Dean looked away. On so many levels, they were so much more alike than he or Sam would ever admit. "Let's just wait," Dean said carefully. "This woman isn't in labor right now and if the…" his eyes fell on John Joe.
"Kitsune."
"Yeah, that. If it wants us, it knows how to find us so maybe we should just wait the day and see if you can get that tube out, 'k?"
Sam could hear the worry in his brother's voice. He knew he was more than concerned, afraid even, if Dean's advise was to wait. Shoot first, ask questions later. That had been Dean's motto, his normal thought process. The fly by the seat of his pants kind of hunter that he normally was, was not present now. That didn't comfort Sam, he felt his stomach twitch and thought the pills and water was going to make a reappearance, but he was able to swallow hard, force it back down and nod at his brother. "'K."
Dean looked to the other men. "So, this bad ass bitch, she alone?"
John Joe shrugged. "Unless they had puppies."
"They can do that?" Sam asked.
Dean thought about what John said about this area - evil nests, sets up home, plays house…
"I don't know, but we've killed one, you've killed one and there's still one out there that we know of." John Joe breathed heavily. "She, this thing… she was once a real woman, you know."
"They usually are," Dean quipped.
The bearded man shifted his weight slightly under him, watching as his black boots left a dark mark on the white vinyl. "Long, long, long ago she came over here from Japan, she was suppose to be a mystic, someone who held powers of good. She married the son of one of our great chiefs and he brought her to his people. They didn't feel she was a mystic at all, but feared she held powers of that of a witch."
"Someone's gonna drop a house on your sister kind of witch?" Dean pried.
John Joe nodded. "Yeah. Real mean. Her husband died young and the tribe would not allow her to stay, would not grant her the power of her title, they stripped her of everything she had, cast her out into the woods. They took her children and bound them, roping them together and threw them from the cliffs down to the rock below. It is said she screamed so loud, so horrible that those who heard her went deaf. She came back to the village, she cursed the land and she drank the blood from her dead children, saying she would gain power from their souls, they would enable her to keep living, to keep the Arikara from continuing on. They say she walked away from the tribe and swished a massive tail behind her as she left."
"But how would there be more than one?" Sam wondered aloud.
Del Bert bent forward. "She was with child."
A hush of silence fell over the small room in the clinic. Dean rubbed his hands over his face and looked over at his brother. Sam was thinking, Dean could tell, catching things Dean had missed, reading between the lines.
"So, the souls of children, newborns, the young feed her power," Sam stated back, nodding. "She's the only one that can shape shift?"
Fish Sticks held his palms out. "I don't know. Think so, though."
Sam frowned. "So the female holds the power. The males, they just distract, help with the terrorizing, but she does the killing, she takes the souls."
The three Arikara's were quiet for a moment. "Huh," Del Bert sounded. "Never put that together before."
John Joe shook his head. "Yeah, me, neither."
Dean smiled. "That's my Stanford brother. He's wicked smart."
Sam glanced over to Dean. "I didn't learn any of that at Stanford."
Dean smiled a moment and then felt his shoulders sag, plummeting him forward. He looked at the clock - 10:30. The morning was going by so slowly and yet he was still so tired. The three men talked amongst themselves for a few minutes, telling tales they had heard over the years about the Kitsunes and people they had taken from the village. They described to the brothers how each of them had returned to the land of their ancestors to claim the land that was once their people, the land they inherited, all of them thinking the stories were just legends buried long ago by people who wore head dresses and danced to the moon. The men in front of them now were not Native Americans at all. They had all came from different states, Fish and John Joe had went to college, they all had regular jobs, families, they drove cars and had DVD players. None of them truly understood what taking this land back meant until they arrived, each with a personal quest to discover more about where they'd come from, who had conceived them years before. Now, they agreed, they were bitterly disappointed.
"I never even knew there was so many words for tree or sun or love or hate," Del Bert was saying. "There's so much depth, thickness, layers our people lived in. My dad was a fireman, my mom was a homeroom helper at my school. We didn't smoke peace pipes or pray for rain. We never even talked about things like that."
A bell rang from down the hallway and John Joe snuck a look. "Think you got a customer for lunch, Fish." He announced.
Fish Sticks groaned. He looked at the two boys before him. "I'll bring you in some corn dogs and French fries."
Sam's stomach turned. He held up his hand. "Just toast, thanks."
Fish Sticks nodded. He turned towards Sam, snipped the surgical glove off and held it up so Dean could see, not as much fluid, but the fingers of the glove were still full. The medic grabbed another glove and attached it to the end of the tube. "Not coming out yet," he said, placing a firm hand on the younger Winchester's shoulder.
Sam glared away. Not what he wanted to hear, not what he wanted his brother to hear.
"Well," John Joe spoke up, "Del and I we'll go on out and help Fish out at the grill. Let you boys rest a bit. I'll sneak you in some ice cream later on." He flashed a smile while Del Bert creaked off the forgiving stool and gave the boys a friendly wave.
"Snow has stopped for now," Del stated. "I'm gonna take the tow down the hill this afternoon, see if I can move your car from that tree."
Dean winced back and nodded. His baby, out there, left smashed against the tree. With that thing bleeding all over it. It made him sick. 'I'll go with you," Dean said.
John Joe motioned towards Sam. "Really. It won't take long. I'll go with him. I think you should just stay here and… be with your brother." He placed his hand over his heart and tapped it twice for Dean, reminding him of the night before, Sam's heart rate accelerating when Dean had left the room. The older brother caught the flap of the hand and paused a few seconds.
"Yeah," Dean agreed. "I'm just anxious to see her." The two men smiled and exited the small room. Leaving the brothers alone again. Dean looked around the room, catching the artwork he had missed before.
"What was that?" Sam asked.
Dean looked over. "What?"
"Dude, your car is smashed. You should go down the hill and get it. You don't have to stay here with me. I don't need a babysitter." Sam's voice was edgy, Dean heard it, but he refused to acknowledge it.
"No. I'm just... I'm tired, Sam." He motioned towards the door. "Those guys, they know what they're doing. I just want to…"
Sam waited. He watched Dean swallow, his throat working against something that he wasn't letting his brother see. "Want to what? Protect me? Save me? You've got just over three months left…"
"You don't have to remind me…"
"And you're making this about me." He scooted in the bed away from Dean. "When the hell does it stop, man?"
Dean tilted his head and drew in his breath, he should have wanted to yell or scream or even curse at his brother, but Sam was right about one thing. He had over three months left and he didn't want to spend it fighting, butting heads. He wanted to be sure his job was done. The promise he made. He let out his breath and looked at Sam, his eyes showing the younger Winchester that this was Dean, this was his brother. He would always protect, always save. Especially when it came to Sam. And Sam knew.
Dad said that I'd have to save you. And if I couldn't save you, I'd have to kill you.
Sam turned away, feeling flashes of hot, quick anger and guilt rush his body, his face flushed. He refused to look at his brother, refused to give him an apology spoken or seen flooding in his eyes. Most days Dean could read him like a book. So Sam turned away, not wanting to give anything to him.
Dean folded his arms across him and brought them out, laying his enveloped arms across the thin mattress Sam laid on. He turned his head and placed his head down, closing his eyes, feeling the tops of his spiky hair brush against Sam's blankets.
"Dean, there's a bed like two steps behind you," Sam pointed out.
Dean huffed. "Too tired."
"Don't got to sleep here."
"Not gonna sleep, Sam. Just need to rest my eyes."
And you can't protect me. Sam's words echoed in his head and Dean remembered looking at him and answering back, I can try.
He heard Sam mumble something about personal space and then felt his brother's hand lay on his shoulder. Dean didn't jerk it away, he just let it be . Sam was sorry, he could feel it and the rest his eyes needed soon turned into a temporary slumber.
www
He felt a small tug on his shirt. Dean wiped his face across his arms, noticing Sam's hand still lightly pressed on his shoulder. Dean shook it off gently, seeing that Sam had fallen asleep along with him. He felt the tug again and looked over to his right catching sweet innocent eyes of a young girl looking at him, Dean guessed she was five or six. She had short dark hair, drawn up in a blue ribbon and held a plate out with a corn dog and French fries. Dean looked down at the plate and came up with both hands, taking it from her.
"This is for me?" He asked, kindly. He gave her a shy smile and become aware of Sam stirring in the bed next to them.
"Hey," Sam's voice was tired and raspy again, surprised to see they had a visitor.
"Hey," came a voice from the hallway. The brothers looked up to see a dark haired woman standing, holding a plate of toast. She had blue eyes and was enormously pregnant. She smiled at the boys and at the little girl, holding out the plate to the excited child, she pointed to the table next to Sam and directed the girl to place it "over there". She ran over to Sam, skidding to a stop and put the plate on the table for him.
"Thanks," Sam sincerely spoke to the child. "What's your name?"
The little girl gave Sam a smile, showing she was missing a front tooth. "Garnet."
"Garnet?" the brothers said in unison. Sam and Dean looked at one another and then Sam turned back to the child. "That's a very pretty name."
She turned her ankle back and forth, grinning at the younger brother and attempted to move the table closer to him. Sam helped her out and then scooted himself up in the bed on his elbows so he could reach the toast better. Garnet ran back to the woman and wrapped her arms around her legs, giving her a big hug, crushing the woman's thighs against each other.
"Oof!" The woman called out! "Okay, that's enough. Go see what daddy's doing." The little girl held her arms up and the pregnant woman bent down, with great difficulty, and kissed the child on the mouth. "Go." Garnet sprinted down the hallway, her footsteps becoming softer the further she got. The woman turned and smiled at the boys, her cheeks breaking into two deep dimples, flanking her mouth. "Sam and Dean?" She pointed to the brothers, matching their names correctly. "The guys who hunt things, bad things." She gestured to the hall. "The boys out there, they've been talking. They say you guys killed the little Kitsune and are planning on killing the last one." Sam and Dean nodded at her. "I'm Jewel." She rubbed her protruding belly. "And this is Topaz. I thought we should meet."
The boys nodded together. "Garnet and Topaz," Sam commented. "Like…" it suddenly dawned on him, "ah, like the jewels."
Jewel walked in and sat on the stool that Del Bert had sat on earlier in the day. It creaked under her weight as she hoisted herself on to it. "Yeah, my husband is Dave… Diamond Dave, the one with the tattoo." She circled her head with her finger.
Sam shook his head, Dean nodded, looking over to his brother. "Oh, he has this tattoo around his head, kind of like hair, but he doesn't have any of that… on his… head."
Sam frowned. Dean gave him a look.
"Anyway, Diamond Dave, Jewel, we just thought it would be fun to name the kids, you know, the names of stones. We've also got Turquoise, Sapphire, Onyx, and Jade. This one's going to be a boy so I thought Topaz would be nice."
Dean nodded, not sure if he really agreed with their logic. "Yeah, wow, this is your…"
"Sixth."
"Sixth? Kid?" He looked at Sam. "You look so… young. How old are you?"
Jewel flashed him one of her winning smiles. "Twenty-six. I started when I was eighteen."
"Jesus," Dean scoffed. "I'm twenty-seven."
"Twenty-eight." Sam reminded him.
"Whatever. Six kids?"
She nodded. "I know, it's a lot. But it suits us." She looked out the window for a moment. "The snow stopped, but the roads are covered. We're not suppose to get any sun until tomorrow and I don't know how much longer I can keep this baby in me. I keep talking to him, telling him to wait, don't get impatient, just stay right where he is, but at night the pains start and they've been getting worse. I'm so scared." Her eyes flew to the brothers, both staring at her, feeling her words hit them. "I know, six kids, but he is just as important to me as the first one. I can't imagine what I would do, what I would become if anything happened to him. To any of them. I need them all."
It was the plea of a mother and they more than felt it. They took it in, made it their own. It didn't happen very often, a person standing in front of them pleading for their help. By the time anyone usually wanted their help, they were already running for their lives, screaming for two knight and shining armors to come and rescue them. It was rare that they already had the victim-to-be standing in front of them, calmly aware of what could happen, what could be. Her eyes were much more different than what they were use to, still, sad… helpless and hopeful all at the same time. The fact that she was so full of life wasn't helping the Winchesters from feeling the wrench they were experiencing in the pit of their stomachs.
Sam cleared his throat, allowing himself one glance at his brother. Dean was still staring at the pregnant woman, his eyes glossy. "Yeah," Sam started, "your baby is important to us, too. We want him… both of you, to be safe. You're both our priority."
Jewel nodded, smiling back. She blinked and two small tears fell down her face. She quickly reached up and wiped them away. "Oh, hormones," she lied and jumped down from the stool. "Thanks. It was nice meeting you both." She motioned to Dean. "Your fries are getting cold." She turned to walk out and then turned back to them. "But, they're better cold." She smiled again and disappeared from the frame.
Dean looked down at the plate, he reached down and picked up a fry and chomped on it. He swallowed it down and took a drink of the water Fish had poured for Sam. "Damn," he said, looking at his brother, "that is one good cold French fry."
www
Del Bert had brought Dean's baby up the hill. It had taken the big man over two hours to get it all the way up, his tow truck tracking a mile and sliding back down half a mile. The snow had stopped, but had topped at 21 inches, John Joe reported. The ice that fell was under the snow and mixed in with the blankets, phone lines were down, they never really got good cell phone coverage and things were still very cold.
Dean met Del outside the clinic, staring as the Impala was drug by him. She looked like shit, her front end was crumpled, stained with blood from the Kitsune, snow caked all sides of her. Dean swore he could hear her calling out for help. He hadn't seen her look like that, well, since the accident. It had taken him two weeks to get her back on her feet after that. He gulped and met Del Bert's eyes, the large man smiling at the elder Winchester.
"It's been a long time since I've had one in this condition," he remarked. "What a beauty."
Dean realized then that the condition he was talking about was how respectful he had always been to his car, loving it, taking as good as care of her as she did him.
"I'll get her goin'," he continued on, "Me and my boy, we need something like this right now. Tired of doing oil changes and rotatin' tires."
Dean shook his head. Del Bert was actually looking forward to this, he laughed to himself.
Sam had been up walking in the hallway, slowly strolling around the clinic. He had stopped at the ice cream parlor and looked at the menu chalked on the over head board, stating the flavors of ice cream they had to serve. The grocery store adjacent to it was very small, displaying only necessities for life - milk, bread, butter, toilet paper –simple things until someone was able to make it to a bigger town for supplies. His side ached, but he only took the Vicodin. The pull from the stitches made him itch and it was hard for him to keep his fingernails from clawing at the site. The last glove Fish Sticks had removed still had fluid in it, but there was less, filling the fingers up about half full. Fish had shook his head at Sam when he begged him to pull it out. He'd give him until morning, but the medic thought it would still be at least another day before they could remove it.
The night had met them quickly, Sam had fallen asleep first, exhausted from fighting to stay awake all afternoon. The pain had affected him more than he wanted to let on, the walk had left him short of breath more than once, but he had stopped, commenting about Jewel's kids eating ice cream when it was below zero outside and while Dean made wise cracks, Sam was able to compose himself. He couldn't let his brother see his weakness right now, he wouldn't let him see. This time it was Sam's turn to save Dean and they were running out of time and stuck in the snow. They had ate dinner out in the parlor and retreated back to the small room shortly after, Fish checking Sam's vitals, letting Dean redress his forehead. The radio played quietly in the background, making up for the silence that had settled between the two hunters.
I was bruised and battered, and I couldn't tell what I felt. I was unrecognizable to myself. Saw my reflection in a window, I didn't know my own face. Oh brother are you gonna leave me wasting away on the streets of Philadelphia.
"Have you heard any Aerosmith on this station?" Dean complained.
"It's Springsteen, man" Sam replied.
"This is not Springsteen."
Sam laughed. "Yeah, it is, Dean. From that movie."
"This is not Rosie come out tonight Springsteen this is Born in the U.S.A. Springsteen. After he became a sell out. This station sucks."
"It's eclectic." Sam yawned.
Ain't no angel gonna greet me, it's just you and I my friend... "It's pathetic, is what it is." Dean snapped. His brother couldn't help it, Sam realized. His baby was smashed, he was like a caged animal in this room, the weather wasn't helping his mood and he had no classic rock to keep his beat, keep him in rhythm.
They worked mostly at night, but neither preferred it. They actually liked the day, the light, the sun. People weren't usually afraid of things that went bump in the day. But since the collision with the Kitsune, the night had been a welcome change for the boys - sleep. Something they didn't normally get the chance to catch up on. Dean's head had hit his pillow and he was out, falling into his dreams. He had turned the radio off, with a curse word, turned the lights off and had climbed onto the small hospital bed, with his body sticking to the thin mattress below.
"Dad. No, Dad."
Dean's eyes flew open and he turned his body around. Through the shades of gray that lie between them, he could see Sam's arm, extended out into the air, his hand clenched in a fist. Dean eased himself up on his elbows, he could make out some of Sam's features from where he lay, his lips were pushed out, his eye brows coming together. "God dammit…"
"Sam." Dean's voice was low, calm.
"Dean." He was still caught in his dream.
"Sam, I'm here, you gotta open your eyes." Dean sat up more.
"Dad!" Sam screamed out. "I said NO!" Sam's voice caught on the last word, his voice breaking into a growl. Dean felt his skin crawl, his heart quicken.
"Sam!" he hollered and started the throw his legs over the side of the bed when he heard Sam gasp and is upper body elevated off the bed, falling to his right side on his elbow. Dean froze on the side of the mattress, looking at his brother, his face twisted and lost. Dean waited a few seconds, watching as the young man recognized where he was, who he was and Dean felt his back hunch forward a little. "Sam," his voice was much softer this time.
Sam's eyes darted up and rested on Dean's. "What?" Irritation weaved through his vocal cords.
Dean shrugged. He climbed back under the covers and pulled them up. "Forget it."
"What do you want? You woke me up."
Dean sighed. "Dude, you were dreaming."
Sam sneered at his brother's direction. "Yeah, well I was sleeping. That's usually what happens."
Dean shut his eyes and shook his head. "Yeah, well you were giving me a play by play of your dream. I had to wake you up, you were keeping me awake."
There was silence from the other side of the room and then Sam simply breathed, "Oh."
Dean tossed in the bed, the sheets strangulating his calves. He kicked at them, reached up and tried to straighten them back out again. He could feel the tension quietly drape itself between the two beds, ridiculing them both as it greedily consumed words they wouldn't say to one another. Of course, in the black of night things have a way of appearing different than they do during the day. Sam sighed in his bed, the jerk of the tension gnawing at him, but it was masked by frustration. The frustration that they were stuck with only a little of three months left and the man felt helpless in his promise to save his brother. Dean felt the tension mount, building towns, skyscrapers all around his body but it was masked by guilt. Guilt he carried with him every day to save his brother, protect his brother, don't let wooden stakes fly through the air and strike your brother.
Sam sighed again. "Dean?"
One skyscraper collapsed. "Yeah, Sam?"
"You know, Dad made it out of the gates." His voice sounded so much younger than he was.
Dean nodded in the darkness. "Yeah, it looked like he did. He looked free." He remembered his dad's expression, staring at his sons, the pride behind his eyes, tearful.
"Do you ever think… Dad is going to, you know, change?" Sam turned his head in the direction of the opposite bed.
Dean swallowed hard. "I dunno, Sammy."
Sam waited, hoping there was more. But there wasn't. Dean didn't know. No one knew. Sam felt a hitch in his breath and a stab of pain burn down his side. It felt icy hot and he hissed between his teeth.
"Is that what you've been dreaming about?" Dean's voice filtered over.
"What?" Sam asked, breathing again, short and shallow.
"About Dad. Last night you called out for him, but I thought it was because you were… sick. But then right before I woke you up, you were dreaming about him again, but you were mad." He ended his sentence with a sharp tone.
Sam shook his head. He knew that Dean thought Sam was always mad at his Dad, but that wasn't the case. Not really. It just seemed that the anger was what Dean remembered the most. "I dream…" Sam stopped, second guessing himself, "I dream that Dad turns into something bad. Something we have to fight." He was telling the truth, just not the whole part. He didn't want to talk about how their Dad fought with Sam, taking Dean into the black beyond that Sam wasn't allowed to go. Not allowed to follow.
"We don't have to fight Dad, Sam. You saw him, he still remembers what it's like to be human. He can still end up free, maybe redeem himself." Dean tried to sound reassuring but he didn't believe Sam bought it. He didn't know if he bought it himself.
"What if I can't save you…"
"We, Sam. We have to save me."
"Yeah, well, what if we can't save you. What if you go to Hell and become something else. Something that comes back and I have to fight you, send you back."
The city of tension had left Dean and the layers of tension were snapping from the blankets separating them. It was so simple to diffuse and yet so hard to get to that place. Dean closed his eyes, a quick reminder of his own mind's eye flashed behind his lids. He remembered what he was to become in Hell. His face streaked with scarlet, deep black eyes, his voice, only darker, his body, only stronger, sadder, hollow, lonelier, without... "That's a lot of ifs, Sam."
"I know, but it's what I've been dreaming about."
"Just dreams, right? Not visions?" Dean asked cautiously.
Sam shook his head. "No, not visions. Just dreams. Bad dreams." His voice trailed a bit.
"Everyone has bad dreams…"
"I mean, don't you think it's ironic?" Sam sounded strained, Dean looked over to him, Sam's face looking back in the gray, his eyes dancing at his brother, needing an answer. "You and Dad always fought to save me from going darkside and Dad ends up in Hell and now you… you're going to Hell, too. I'm the one that was suppose to have a one way express ticket but both of you are the ones riding the roller coaster down under."
"Jesus, Sam!" Dean barked out. "You weren't just suppose to go to Hell, you were suppose to lead some Goddamn army of… creepy crawly things to take over world domination!"
Sam laid quiet for a minute and then let out a laugh. "World domination?" He laughed again.
Dean's scrunched face started to lift little, turning up and then breaking out into a grin. He laughed back. "Well, yeah. You're a regular Dr. Evil, I guess."
Sam laughed, grabbing his side. "Ow," he said and laughed again. "If I'm Dr. Evil, you're Fat Bastard. Jerk."
Dean laughed back. "Bitch."
There was a tippety-tap at the window and Dean turned his head in the direction, peering outside as best as he could. Snow and wind. It blew hard against the glass, grasping a branch, rapping it against the window. The moon in the background seemed to quiver from the outside elements, raged from the blinding flurries. Dean sighed and relaxed back into the bed. "Sorry, man," he said, the laughter subsiding from him.
"What do you have to be sorry for?" Sam asked, quietly regaining himself, his hand placed on his side to keep the tube from pulling against his skin.
Dean glanced over again, Sam was looking back, the light from the moon glittering through the window and making his brother's face beam back, easy to see. "Vampires."
Sam smiled, his face soft. "No more fucking vampires, man."
Dean nodded. "I didn't see that one."
Sam locked his eyes with Dean. "I know."
"I missed it."
"'S'okay. Really."
Dean felt the sincerity, knew his brother meant what he said. "I should have…" He stopped. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Sam, noticing the shadow that started to waif over his brother's face in the soft moonlight. It moved like a person would, shadowing Sam's features, but Dean could see his brother's eyes widen with terror as the tippety-tap, tippety-tap behind him on the window grew louder. Dean turned his head upward and saw her dark hair whipping in the wind. Her dusky eyes seemed to look at both brothers at the same time, the smoky white skin pressed taught against her cheeks, her lips full and bright crimson dripping from them as she opened her mouth and shrieked, shocking the boys' ears, horror gripping their chests, rattling the window between them. She pressed her face onto the glass and screamed at them in Arikara:
"Hunahatk na hunax!"
Translation: Hunahatk na hunax - Lost and found!
Song List: Streets of Philadelphia from Bruce Springsteen
A/N: Okay, now we head into Chapters 4 and 5 (which are my husband's favorite because guns and knives come into play)! Let's see if the brothers can bring the bitch down!