Disclaimer: I don't own the Winchester boys or anything to do with Supernatural.
There is a lot of exposition in this chapter, but I promise that after this one, I will get to the good stuff. Hurt!Sammy galore!!
Sam once again returned to the motel room. He hoped to see some sign that his brother had moved, but once again, his hope was in vain. Bloodstained clothing and stubbly jaw were still present and the only sign of life was the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest. He had stopped crying out for Jo and seemed to have retreated even farther into himself.
"I need your help tonight, big brother." Sam knelt before his brother's chair. "This is too big for me to handle on my own. It isn't Death himself, but someone very close to him. It would mean everything to me if you could have my back tonight." Sam barely held back the tears as he pleaded with Dean, but there was no one home in his brother's eyes. "You said you were always going to be around to look after me. Please Dean, I don't want to die." Sam could hardly believe how low he had sunk, trying to blackmail his brother with thoughts of his own death, but even that could hardly get a rise out of him.
"I just get people killed." Dean whispered. "You are better off without me." For a moment, there was life in the form of an unshed tear, then the death once again took over.
Sam bustled around the room getting ready for the hunt that night. He packed an arsenal into his backpack, not sure what to be prepared for. He supposed it was similar to a demon and planned accordingly, but the truth was, no one had ever killed one of these before. They had tried, but Sam had seen the lists of dead hunters that had tried and failed to rid someone of these harbingers of death. Fortunately, they did not show up often. Death had not been walking around the world and had only sent one every fifty years or so, but every time they came, they left a wave of unstoppable deaths in their wake.
However, Sam had found an account written by a survivor, one man, half of a pair of brothers. His brother had sacrificed himself, protecting his barely conscious brother in a ring of salt. He had made it halfway through an obscure exorcism ritual. It had seemed to be working until the being, in one last ditch effort to break away, had leapt forward and shoved the hunter into the wall, breaking his neck and killing him instantly. The brother who survived had been forced to watch, too weak to pull himself to his feet, as his brother died and he did nothing.
Sam was nervous, checking and rechecking that he had everything he needed. He had lots of salt. Holy water apparently had a very minimal effect on the beings, but salt was effective for repelling them. It was really a two man job, but Dean stood staring at the wall as Sam talked aloud to himself, explaining all this, hoping Dean would come to his senses and be ready to stand beside him.
Sam went out and got dinner, double bacon cheeseburgers and fries. He wolfed his own down and left one by Dean's chair, hoping the aroma would tempt him into eating. He reached into Dean's jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone, not surprised to find that it was dead. He hunted around in his bag until he found the charger and plugged it in, also leaving it by Dean's chair. "So I can get a hold of you. . .if I need you." Sam spoke seriously. Again there was no response.
Finally, all his preparations finished, Sam sat on the edge of his bed, leg jumping nervously and flipped through several channels on the TV. There was nothing on, but he watched it anyway, finally landing on Dr. Sexy M.D. It was more Dean's thing, but Sam wasn't really watching anyway. Finally it hit 7:30 and Sam, knowing there was approximately an hour and a half of daylight left, headed out the door alone. Dean still hadn't unwrapped his burger.
XXXXX
I opened the door to the face of Sam Winchester for the third time in two days. I had slept until about 7:00 and I felt more refreshed than I had in ages. I was almost cheerful. I smiled at Sam as I opened the door and I think it threw him for a loop. People always told me that my face was transformed when I smiled. I was moderately pretty by anyone's standards, but I had perfect teeth and full, sensuous lips and I always threw my whole face into the effort of smiling. Many had told me I was truly beautiful when I smiled.
Sam carried a backpack in with him, and the handle of a large bag of driveway salt was clutched in his large fist.
"Is that all we need?" I asked.
"I hope so," he smiled.
"So, what is the plan?" I pulled him toward my kitchen table.
"Wait." he said, grasping my hand in his and pulling me to a stop. "I never did catch your name."
"Leah, Leah Cooper." I smiled as I pushed him into the chair. "Do you need anything to eat or drink? I might have some cranberry juice in the fridge. I also have tea or hot chocolate."
"Just sit down. We don't have much time." Looking into my eyes, he laid out our plan of action.
"My primary objective in this is to keep you safe, but there will be some danger involved in it for you. I need to know if you still want to continue." He looked at me probingly and I nodded, unable to keep the apprehension from my eyes.
"I am scared," I said. "But I want to do this. I need to be free of this."
"Good, because I can't so this by myself. I took a bit of a look around and I think the best place for the confrontation would be your bedroom. You already know how the salt works to keep this thing away, but for tonight we need a little more than a saltshaker clutched in your fist. I am going to put a heavy salt line around your bed. That will be the safe zone for you. As long as you remain inside the circle, it can't hurt you.
"I need to spraypaint some symbols on the floor and ceiling. Those should keep it from attacking me while I say the words that will send it back to its master."
"I am not seeing a huge amount of danger in this." I looked into Sam's eyes. "Why are you so afraid? We both stay in the salt ring and it can't touch us. You say your magic words while this thing is trapped by your symbols and voila, no more bad guy."
"It isn't quite that simple. I can't be inside the salt ring while this is happening and the symbols are only a temporary solution. I only have a short time before it will break out and it will be coming for me the moment it does." Sam spoke carefully. "I won't lie to you. It will be dangerous and I am not assured of the outcome. I won't make you do this, but honestly, I don't think it will work without you here."
"Why can't you be inside the salt line?" I asked.
"For the very first moments of this night, you can't either. This entity kills its victims by forming a mental bond. It found your mind at that block party, just as it found all the others who attended and now it has followed you here. It doesn't have a body, so the only way it can live in the physical realm is if it is linked to a human being. Salt interrupts that link, which is why it couldn't find you last night. You need to stay out of the salt ring long enough to bring it here. Once it arrives, it will latch onto my mind and you can step into the circle. But if I follow you back into the circle, the link will be broken and it won't be able to stay. I can't kill it if it vanishes and it will vanish if I don't leave myself unprotected. And once I begin the exorcism, it will become one pissed off evil minion of Death."
"Sam, no!" I cried. "You can't do that for me."
"You can't live in a ring of salt for the rest of your life and this. . .thing cannot return to Death until it has collected you and it is going to get angrier and angrier as time goes by. Generally these things only act at night, trusting on residual fear to keep you in your place during the daytime. That is why it hasn't already become linked to me. But if you deny them, their anger makes them stronger. It will watch you constantly and eventually you will slip up and it will take you, violently and painfully. I can't just leave you to that fate." I had to stop looking at him. Why did he have to be so darn beautiful and heroic? Worst of all, I knew he was right. I couldn't live like this.
"One thing confuses me." I looked back at Sam. "If this thing only works at night, how were we all infected at the block party in the afternoon? And if it needs to be linked to a human in order to inhabit the physical world, how does it become melded with its first victim?"
Sam smiled at me, impressed. "I like you. You actually think about things instead of taking everything I say on blind faith. There was a thunderstorm that day, right?" At my nod, he continued on. Those storms are like a vehicle for these things. It provides cover from the light of day and transports it to a place where it can form a link with a person. Once the link is formed with the first person, it can spread to anyone around."
"Have you told me everything about the part you want me to play? Do I just have to wait outside the circle until it shows up and then watch as you kill it?"
"I need you to watch my back." I didn't think it was possible for Sam to get more serious. "I am going to give you a shotgun. It is going to be loaded with rock salt. If this thing gets the jump on me and I am unable to continue, I want you to shoot it. Don't worry about hitting me. It'll hurt, maybe bruise a little, but it won't kill me. I have no such guarantee from the being. The shotgun will give you a little bit of time to get out of the circle and drag me back into it. Pulling me into the circle will probably disrupt the salt so you fix that immediately, before helping me.
"Under no circumstances are you to call the hospital. You are putting the emergency personnel in danger if they come and it will come back for me if they remove me from this circle. I brought a first aid kit. That will have to do." I started to shake my head. "Promise me that you won't call the hospital for help." I reluctantly nodded.
"One last thing," he spoke, placing a cell phone gently in my hand. "If things don't go well, I need you to call my brother. He might not pick up right away, so keep calling. His name is Dean. He is the only Dean in my phone. If I don't make it. . ." I gripped his arm and shook my head more fiercely at the suggestion. He tenderly cupped my chin and made me look up into his eyes before continuing. "If I don't make it, he needs to know what happened. Take this key and go to room 314 at the Cozy Kettle Inn and tell him. Go at noon, fill your pockets with salt and drench your hair in salt water. Tell him it isn't his fault. I hope. . ."He looked out the window and I caught again the flash of naked pain and longing that I had glimpsed before.
"Promise me that you will save him if you can." He whispered. I nearly wept.
"I promise."
Sam stood from the table and took a breath, once again becoming the calm and brave man I had seen first. "The light will be gone in fifteen minutes. That will be enough time to put down the symbols, lay the salt line and prepare."
It took thirteen minutes to arrange the room to his satisfaction. The symbols were done perfectly. A single unbroken line of salt stretched around my bed and the shotgun and cellphone sat in the very centre, a harsh contrast to my feminine bedding.
Sam came over to me and, gripping my shoulders carefully, he pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. "Don't be afraid," he said.
I squared my shoulders and, finding a strength within me that I did not know existed, I waited.