Camp Chitaqua
Author: Cheryl W.
Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from this story.
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Chapter 4: Asset
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The problem with scampering around bombed out cities was, sometimes the friggin' city fell on you. Well, part of a building fell on you. Left you pinned to the cracked pavement like a bug on a kid's science project board. Course no grinning croats usually eyed up the bug. Dean wasn't that lucky.
Try as he might, he couldn't wiggle out from under the weight of the concrete, could feel his legs, even shuffle them around a bit but none of that was helping him get free. And his gun, it was trapped down there too, out of his reach. And the two croats were enjoying his predicament, were all smiles with teeth that hadn't been brushed since they got turned. Who needed dental care when you were zombies, right?
"Well, here's a willing new recruit," The older man chuckled as his companion, a twenty something woman, smiled. "Haven't had one of them for a while. To just…lie down and welcome our gift."
"Yeah, about that. Sorry. I'm gonna have to pass. My mom told me not to take gifts from strangers," Dean wisecracked even as he frantically searched for something within his reach that he could use as a weapon. However, unless he wanted to try and topple them with pieces of concrete the size of pebbles, he was screwed. He warily watched as the woman croat pulled a knife and cut her forearm even as the man crouched down beside Dean.
Never truly weaponless, Dean used his hands, punched the male croat away from him and had no qualms at punching the girl if she got within striking range. Would hold them off or kill them with his bare hands if he had to. But that surge of confidence faltered when another croat joined the party, suddenly was on the pavement by his head, was pinning his arms over his head onto the ground, was using his zombie strength on him, was easily squashing his efforts to break free.
And the girl, she was getting all kinky on him, was crawling up the concrete trapping him to the ground like it was part of a seduction routine. Maybe she was a stripper in a past life, when she didn't have bald patches in her slimy brown hair, clothes that stank and dirt caked on her face. She was putting more pressure on his trapped legs he didn't appreciate any more than her attempt at a come-hither look. Then she was at the edge of the concrete, peering down at him, nearly oblivious to the male croat pinning him to the ground, making their little interlude not so very private. With the knife gripped in her right hand, she suddenly seemed uncertain whether she wanted to turn him or stab him to death.
Choices. Choices.
Before she made her final decision, a shotgun blast shattered the seductive mood and Dean's date was knocked off the concrete slab and she wasn't getting back up, ever again. The croat pinning Dean spun around, was making a charge to whoever was wielding the shotgun but another boom of the gun had him dropping to his knees before collapsing face down, giving Dean his first look at his rescuer: Chuck Shurley.
"Hey, Dean," Chuck almost shyly greeted, still a little intimidated by the older hunter. Which was kind of sad considering they were in the middle of an apocalypse with zombies trying to kill him. One of which popped up just then on the other side of Dean. With clumsy motions, Chuck broke down the shotgun, dug a badly shaking hand into his pocket, retrieved the shotgun shell and ..dropped it on the ground.
Realizing that Chuck needed a moment to get his crap together, Dean ran interference by reaching out and grabbing hold of the croat's ankle. Got a kick to the face for his trouble but he still hung on through the ringing in his head and the pain shooting up his cheek. Then there was the blessed sound of a shotgun round being emptied into croat flesh and he released the ankle as the croat toppled to the ground.
Then Chuck was looking down into Dean's face with concern, but before he could ask if Dean were alright, Dean asked, "How?"
Chuck didn't bother trying to pretend he didn't get Dean's question, had expected it all along. "Dream…two weeks ago. I was afraid I was going to be too late."
"Just in time," Dean praised, would grill Chuck later on what other dreams/prophetic visions he was having. "Help me get this thing off me," he gritted out even as Chuck joined his struggle to lift the concrete. And with their combined strength, they managed to give Dean room enough to pull his legs free before letting the concrete slab crash back onto the ground.
With Chuck's assistance, Dean lurched to his feet, grimaced as he rubbed his right thigh but his legs were taking his weight and that was good enough for him. Giving Chuck's shoulder a squeeze, he beckoned, "Come on…" had taken two steps before he realized Chuck wasn't following him. Turning, he read the uncertainty in the prophet's unguarded expression. "What, you have a condo with girls to get back to?" he quipped, didn't know where the prophet had come from but by his shredded shirt and torn pants, long hair, full beard and wild, bloodshot eyes, he wasn't off living the highlife.
"No but…I know you've formed your own little army," Chuck stammered, didn't say more like that explained his hesitation.
But Dean's expression clouded with confusion. "You a pacifist all of a sudden," he jeered, made a point to look down to the three dead croats on the ground, courtesy of Chuck. Toed the one guy before meeting Chuck's gaze. "This guy wouldn't believe that."
Chuck shuffled on his feet, hated to admit this to Dean Winchester. "I'm not a soldier."
In protest to that statement, Dean made a dramatic show of looking down again to Chuck's kills.
"Ok, yes, I killed them but…." Chuck began, but then remembered that Dean knew he was a coward at heart. At their initial meeting, he had refused to help him or Sam, was content to just sit back in his house and write their life story. It was Dean who had dragged him into the face off with Lilith. So there really was no measure of pride that he could lose in Dean's eyes. So he just admitted it all, right then and there. "I'm close to hurling and I only did it because you were…she was…" his eyes dropping to the croats on the ground before meeting Dean's eyes again. "I wouldn't be an asset to you."
Instead of disgust, Dean smirked at the prophet's declaration. "You just saved my life, Chuck. I think that puts you in the asset column."
"But…"
Dean held up his hand to stop Chuck's continued self-depreciation. "Honestly, I've got enough grunts but I really could use a quartermaster, a supply guy. Someone to keep the camp running on all…well, all one cylinder that it has. You up for that?"
A relieved and happy smile broke across Chuck's face. "Yeah. Yes. Definitely." Then Chuck almost ran to come to Dean's side.
But Dean reached out, put a hand on Chuck's chest and practically loomed down at the shorter man as he warned without a trace of his earlier warmth, "One rule: my past is nobody's business but my own. If you can't keep your mouth shut…."
"I've been a jerk, making a profit off your past. Well, never really a profit but…"At Dean's darkening glare, Chuck held up his hands in submission. "I won't tell anybody anything. They can torture me and I won't say a peep, will be a mute…"
"Ok. Ok. Let's get out of here already." They made quick work back to Dean's car and as he navigated out of the quarantine zone, Dean fought down the urge to ask Chuck if he'd had any visions about Sam, if Sam were alive. But he couldn't bear to even say his brother's name. Sam had been a forbidden topic and he couldn't break that silence now, not even to hear good news. Trading off watching the hole puckered road and Chuck, Dean chastised, "You do know it was stupid for you to come out of whatever hole you were in, travel who knows how long just to get in the middle of a croat execution party."
Chuck stared down at his dirty fingernails, fidgeted in the seat, and purposefully didn't face Dean. "I let you down, was too scared to tell you the visions I had about the opening of the Cage. I didn't stop any of it from happening." But then he raised his eyes to Dean's, was actually proud of his next statement. "So the very least I owed you was to be there when you needed someone to save you."
Dean nodded, swallowed a lump in his throat as memories resurfaced, of coming for Sam at the convent but getting there too late, of he and Sam working together to off Ruby, of them standing there, clutching onto his each other as the Cage released its long held prisoner. "I probably wouldn't have listened to you anyway," he said aloud to Chuck. Back then, he would have never believed Sam would pick Ruby over him, would nearly choke him to death in a motel room and look at him with such hatred.
'Seeing is believing,' he bitterly thought and knew then that he couldn't be blindsided again, had to face things head on, had to accept the way things were. "Don't suppose you've got any insight into what comes next?" his question vague enough to not be about Sam, even if it was about Sam.
But there was regret in Chuck's tone. "No, I haven't had a vision in over two years. Nothing after the Cage opening and then…a couple days ago, I had the one about you. I figured it meant something." 'Was my chance to redeem part of myself, to save someone worth saving, to not die as a coward.'
A spike of trepidation went through Dean at the real possibility that this "vision" was given to Chuck by Zachariah, that the angel was using the prophet to locate him. Was another trap for him so they could brow beat and torture him into saying yes to being Michael's Sword aka meatsuit. But he didn't pull the Impala over, couldn't dump Chuck on the roadside, had set up the camp because he wanted to save people. 'And if I can't save the people I care about…friggin' camp's a full out failure.' And somewhere, somehow, Chuck Shurley, Prophet of the Lord and author of the Winchester Gospels had come to be someone he cared about.
Dean didn't let himself dwell on the sad fact that, if Sam came knocking, he wasn't sure if he'd let his brother into the camp. That when he had established the camp, it was never with Sam in mind. That his parting words to Sam, he meant them. That they should pick a hemisphere, stay away from each other for good. That their brotherhood, it was a thing of the past.
As if his thoughts conjured up Sam in Chuck's mind, the prophet said, "You can tell Sam I won't even bring up your past in private. I'll scrub it from…"
"Sam's not with me," Dean gruffly said and there was a well of meaning and finality in the statement.
Too stunned to read Dean's keep-out signs, Chuck apprehensively stammered, "He's not…"
"We went our separate ways. No one knows about Sam and it better stay that way," Dean lowly threatened, eyes again stealing away from the road to skewer Chuck.
Chuck thought the world as he knew it was dead and gone when the croatoan virus went widespread but hearing Dean deny Sam, it put a new spin on the world going to hell in a handbasket. All he could do was numbly nod his agreement even as Sam's words from almost six years ago rang in his head.
"Dean's not..He's not Dean lately. Ever since he's gotten out of Hell. He needs help. He's looked after me my whole life. I can't return the favor?"
Suddenly it felt wrong to Chuck, that he was the one that had saved Dean's life that day, that Dean was alone in an infected city, that Sam wasn't looking after Dean. That when Dean needed help…Sam wasn't there. That wherever Sam was…he was alone.
'And wouldn't that make a crappy ending to my book series.' Because the heart of each book was the bond, the brotherhood between the Winchesters, and if that were truly lost….But he couldn't believe that, knew the brothers too well, was too vested in them to give up, to not cling to hope that somehow, someway, they would be brothers again. Because, when it came down to it, he was a sappy, happy ending kind of guy and if he had any say in the matter, that's exactly how the Winchester Gospels was going to wrap up.
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TBC
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Thanks so much for every single person who's offered me support for this story! Thanks also for the silent readers out there.
Have a great day!
Cheryl W.