Chapter 8
Sam paused only long enough to snatch up the gun, then he was out of the room and pounding down the corridor that led outside. As his treacherous legs repeatedly buckled, he careened off the walls, stumbling to a knee, but then he was up and smashing through the back door. It was dawn, or maybe dusk, time had totally lost its meaning, but the crepuscular light cast long shadows. Illumination was irrelevant, however. He wasn't navigating a known path to his brother, but following a crow-flies line, pulled as an iron filing to a magnet by the ritual-created link to Dean.
Through a mostly abandoned garden, hurtling abandoned flowerbeds, weeds brushing the soles of his shoes. Faster. He was screaming an alarm mentally, but not aloud, no oxygen to spare from powering recalcitrant limbs. A ditch loomed before him, and he tried to take it in a flying leap, but he stumbled on the opposite bank, scrambling onward. Faster, faster. He plunged ahead, up a small hill, the ground sloping cruelly upward, his heart thumping as though it would burst, but long legs hit their stride, eating up distance, scaling rocks as if they were steps. Still faster. The wide open space now bordered a quarry, and he was forced to swerve off his path, skirting the edge of the sharp cliff before diving into the woods beyond.
Closer now. He caught his ankle on a root, but it didn't change his headlong rush. Only a few gleams now lit the tree trunks, but he was already blind in his terror, stumbling and tripping over unseen obstacles, striking his face on low-hanging branches. He was torn and bleeding, twigs scratching at his face like a striga's claws, but his feet kept pounding. He swerved past another tree, chest heaving, lungs straining. Then the harsh blast of a shotgun discharge palpitated through the air, and Sam skidded to a halt, freezing into immobility as the sound echoed over the topmost branches like a bitter wind and the birds roosting on top took flight. His knees folded, refusing to obey his commands as he threw all his energy into listening, hoping for some sign that Dean was still fighting, but a languorous silence settled over the scene and, even internally, he'd lost the sense of his brother. Where before he could touch Dean's obstinacy, taste his determination, feel the rasp of weary determination contrasted with the pure smoothness of selfless protectiveness, there was now nothing - just the stillness of blank, silent space.
Dean couldn't be dead; he just couldn't. Even before this connection had been created, Sam had always believed he'd know if anything happened to his brother, a belief that had comforted him during many sleepless nights at Stanford. Dean was his foundation. He had built himself on the sure steadfastness of his brother's presence, established his sense of self on the firmness of Dean's unswerving care. During a peripatetic and uncertain childhood, Dean had been his home, his security, and it was that certainty of forgiveness that had allowed him to leave for college. But if a foundation is removed, even the strongest house will crumble.
Powerful muscles bunched in an agony of denial then exploded into renewed motion, now brushing aside branches like matchwood. A kernel of hope nurtured by faith in his brother's survival abilities forced his waning sanity back in his brother's direction. Tree trunks gave way abruptly to the stunted curves of tombstones. The dim light reflected eerily off the stone, but to Sam it was as commonplace a sight as cubicles and desks were to the average man.
It was a small cemetery, only family members buried there since the plantation was established in 1762. Sam swerved unthinkingly past all obstacles, aiming for the far right corner. He already knew what he was going to see - the picture as clear as if presented in a vision, so why did the sight of the body crumpled by a half-dug grave freeze him into immobility?
Goddamit, he hated it when his brother looked small. Dean Winchester was larger than life, and only brotherly one-upmanship plus the view of the older man's hairline told Sam that his brother was the shortest in the family. Dean's sheer presence dominated any room he was in, and his brash confidence attracted all eyes, so small wasn't a word Sam would ever have considered using to describe his brother until he had seen him in a hospital bed under a de facto death sentence by electrocution. It was too dark to identify the colour of the stain that covered Dean's face, but Sam could recognise the sweet copper-penny smell of blood from yards away.
Sam must have transported himself or levitated to his brother's side, for he certainly never remembered moving there. He was only aware of the soft, grainy dirt cushioning his knees as he fell gracelessly beside the body.
"Dean, please." They were the same words he'd used as a three-year-old to beg for more ice cream, as a four-year-old for another book at bedtime, and as a five-year-old for the last bowl of Lucky Charms. He had understood their potency, their magic at an early age. Dean had rarely denied him anything he truly wanted, not so much as indulgence, but because the older boy wanted to grant him the only thing in his power - a happy childhood. Now Sam just wanted one more thing, and he'd never ask his brother for anything again.
He reached out a tentative hand to shake Dean's shoulder gently. The groan that met his ears at this maneuver was the sweetest sound he had ever heard, and he shook again in hopes of a repetition. The tickle of his brother in the back of his mind burst out as if he'd bitten into a Dean-flavoured chili pepper, and the older hunter stirred weakly under his hands.
As Dean's eyes finally opened, Sam was seized with the strong desire to pull his brother into a hug and an equally strong urge to slap him upside the head. Maybe Dean read both of these conflicting impulses, or maybe he didn't have a single square inch of skin that didn't hurt, for his first words were, "Don't touch me!" However, he didn't complain beyond the occasional grimace as Sam assisted him into a seated position, the side of a tombstone propping him up.
"You're bleeding." Dean squinted at him in bleary concern.
"It's just scratches."
The older hunter lifted a hand to verify that diagnosis. "Dude, it looks like a kitten mistook your ugly mug for a ball of yarn."
Sam brushed at his face unthinkingly, surprised by the sting of broken skin. "Yeah? Well you look like the slowest runner in a horror movie."
"Nice, thanks." Dean leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a minute. Sam hovered, wanting to touch, wanting to help, but knowing his brother was too vulnerable to allow it. Suddenly Dean's eyes popped open again. "So what the hell part of 'stay put' don't you get?"
Sam had expected that diversionary tactic and retorted quietly. "The part where I have to save your ass."
"My ass is just fine." Dean gestured vaguely around at the absence of spirits. "I think I got him at the same time he got me."
Sam nodded, remembering hearing the shotgun blast. "But, he'll be back."
"Yeah, he's the gift that just keeps giving. Well, it's too dangerous for you to be here." Dean shifted as if he intended to get to his feet, but subsided with a grimace.
"Bullshit, it's you he wants to kill," Sam stated bluntly.
"And how is that different from any other day of the week? Sam, things want to kill us all the time. This bastard wants to commandeer you, and he'll use me to do it."
"And how is that different from any other day of the week?" The brutal words were gently uttered, and Sam got no satisfaction from seeing Dean flinch, but he took advantage of the temporary silence to issue some orders of his own. "You sit here and shoot Marston when he shows up again, and I'll dig up his bones."
He handed Dean the shotgun and, picking up the shovel, he jumped into the half-excavated grave. He was surprised Dean had achieved as much as he had, considering his injuries and the hard-packed state of the soil. Quickly, he fell into a long-practiced rhythm, minimum effort for maximum result - thrust, scoop and swing, an exhausting pace, but one he could maintain.
The gibbous moon was rising on the mostly concealed horizon when he felt the cold, creeping sensation that warned of Marston's approach. "He's coming!"
"Okay, I got it." A quick glance showed him his brother on his feet, watchful and alert, shotgun held half-raised in both hands. Sam redoubled his efforts, though he estimated it would be another foot before he reached the coffin.
A chill wind howled into the clearing, whipping around their heads and sending streams of debris in their faces. Sam hunkered down, trusting his brother to watch his back. He heard a slight thunk as the tip of the shovel struck the top of the casket, but it was too late. The winds were circling as if corralling them closer to the grave. Numbing cold stole feeling from his ears and whipped a further warning from his lips.
He could sense the imminent release of power and knew exactly where it would be directed. He was scrambling out of the grave in a desperate attempt at a diversion when, like a psychic punch, the energy whiplashed towards Dean, catapulting him through the air. If his trajectory had ended with a tombstone, it would probably have killed him, but, for once, there were no solid objects to arrest his fall, and he landed with a lithe roll, coming up on one knee with his gun raised. "Where is he? I can't see him," he cried urgently.
The storm had stilled abruptly, and the silence was as ominous as the former howling had been. Sam scanned the area frantically, before realising that Marston had chosen not to materialise. How the hell were they supposed to fight an invisible enemy? He closed his eyes and felt himself at the apex of an unbalanced triangle. The warm, supportive strength of the bond he shared with his brother stretched in one direction and a nebulous tug, more like something had been ripped away from him, turned him in another. He pointed, "There!"
The blast of a shotgun echoed his shout, but the entity had already moved. "No, there!" But the angle between them was too great to allow for any accuracy. Dean had no way of knowing how far along the indicated line of sight Marston was standing.
Dean ejected the shells and started reloading, but an irresistible force slammed him back against a gravestone and held him there immobilised. Marston materialised in front of him. He now looked the picture of a Civil War soldier, complete with long sideburns and drooping mustache. He stared at Sam with pleased anticipation. "One rib at a time," he reiterated. The words were echoed by a pained grunt from Dean.
"No, don't!" Sam was out of options. He couldn't fire at Marston because, while the bullet would hopefully dissipate the spirit, his position directly between the brothers would mean the bullet would then drive straight into Dean.
Sam spread out his hands at both sides, looking as harmless as six foot five can. "What do you want? Do you want me to beg? I'll do it. It's me you want. Just take me, there's nothing to stop you."
"Sam, no!' Sam wasn't sure if Dean's dismayed cry meant he'd forgotten the sigil, or if he was simply adding verisimilitude to the deal. The younger Winchester was banking on the fact that Marston's feverish greed to possess him would override his sadism. He licked his lips, which remained dry as ashes, trying to figure out how to look more enticing.
There was a moment's indecision, then Marston flickered towards him like a defective film on fast forward. Sam held his ground, arms still outstretched. He was peripherally aware of Dean scrambling for his shotgun, then the entity was on him. There was a brief, searing sensation centered on the sigil painted on his belly, followed by Marston screaming, an unearthly, frustrated howl - Golum deprived of his ring. His prey was in his reach, yet incomprehensibly was still untouchable. Sam whipped his gun from the small of his back and shot the hovering spectre right between the eyes. It appeared to shatter into a million sparks, each blood-red, which fizzled out like dying fireworks.
Sam's shoulders slumped in relief, his heart slowing from a racing gallop to a more acceptable trot. Dean, gun hanging limply by his side, was looking at him in astonishment. "What the hell did you just do?"
Sam tucked the gun back in his pants. "I coated the bullets with that concoction you left," he confessed.
"Not bad, little brother," Dean nodded approvingly.
Praise from his brother still had the power to warm him, and Sam ducked his head to hide the pride he felt. "There are only trace amounts on each bullet, so we probably don't have long before he's back. We need to hurry."
They both resumed their previous positions, though Dean's decision to hitch his rear on a convenient tombstone betrayed his deteriorating condition. The casket was heavy cast-iron, a peculiarity of the period, so it couldn't be smashed through, but had to be carefully excavated, and the hasps undone. Opening it was a bitch, since it was too far down to release the catches from ground level, even with Sam's longs arms, and it required contortionist maneuvers to open from inside the grave itself. But, finally, they were looking down on Marston's corpse. It was remarkably well preserved, either the ritual or the coffin mummifying him so that his features were easily identifiable as the entity that had so ruthlessly pursued them.
Dean hadn't moved, but was still leaning, hunched over, both his posture and stillness testimony to his injuries, but there was no time for first-aid now.
"Salt?" Sam asked tersely.
"Bag," came the equally laconic response, Dean swinging the shotgun in a minimal arc to indicate the location.
This time, there were no preliminaries. Sam had only taken one step towards the bag when, with the shock of ice sliding through his veins, he became aware of Marston's presence. He dove desperately for the salt, but as he neared arm's reach, the bag sprang towards him, telekinetically impelled by the entity, and one of the multitude of hard objects contained within impacted forcefully with his face. His head snapped back, and he landed in a confusion of tangled limbs, dazed to the threshold of unconsciousness.
He heard the shotgun discharge once, then again, but it was muffled and strangely distant as if his ears were stuffed with cotton wool. He was completely disoriented. He flashed back briefly to the time when he was eight and had had his appendix removed. He had woken up from the anesthesia convinced he was lying on his stomach. Trying to push the oxygen mask of his face, his confusion had been complete until his brother, sneaking into the recovery room against orders, had called his name.
Now, as then, Dean's cry of 'Sam' reoriented him, a compass needle seeking north. To his surprise, he was lying on his back, though feeling like a stranded turtle as he attempted to flop onto his belly as a prelude to gaining his feet. Blood from a cut above his left eye obscured his vision, and he scrubbed frantically to clear it, succeeding just in time to see his discarded shovel rise off the ground, sleek, gleaming and quivering with eagerness before slicing through the air with lethal velocity towards his brother. Sam screamed a wordless cry of denial or warning, unable to affect or influence the course of the implement. Somehow, Dean slipped aside at the last moment, the sharpened blade clanging viciously against the tombstone, sending sparks and chips ricocheting.
For the first time, Sam noticed his brother had lost the shotgun somewhere in the proceedings. Dean's hands were empty, and he swayed like a willow in a storm, and a sudden sense of his brother's vulnerability hit Sam like a pile driver to the gut. It would take him approximately 30 seconds to salt, douse and flambé the corpse, but Dean didn't have that long. He wasn't alone in that knowledge. He could sense hopelessness intertwined with Dean's customary defiance and a sense of finality in his determination that said the older Winchester intended his death to buy Sam enough time to finish the job and save himself. He'd always known the lengths that Dean was willing to go to protect him, his willingness to sacrifice himself, but it was absolutely unacceptable, and it was now time to deflect Marston's attention back to himself.
"Marston, you sniveling rat-bastard, where are you? Show yourself you cowardly worm." He flailed around for some insult potent enough to sting the spirit into abandoning his best advantage. "Are all Confederates like you, cowering behind the bodies of children?"
He saw Dean take a step towards him, but that forward momentum was abruptly reversed. His legs shot out from underneath him, his arms windmilling wildly, and the air was forced from his lungs in an agonised grunt as he slammed against the tombstone that had just protected him. His feet scrabbled for purchase in the ground below in a way that defied gravity, indicating psychic restraint. His back was bent at an unnatural and clearly painful angle over the top of the granite.
"Dean!" It seemed to be the only word left in Sam's vocabulary, encapsulating his world. Stumbling forward, he struggled to focus as waves of his brother's pain crashed to shore in each nerve ending, the phantom pain of ligaments stretched to snapping point and bruised and cracked ribs forced cruelly against unyielding stone, the frantic pounding of an overstrained heart. The sparkling haze that blurred his vision could have been Dean's or maybe it was a mutual condition. It was becoming harder to tell. It took him a minute to realize that Marston had materialised again, this time using Dean as a shield.
A translucent arm was wrapped around his big brother's throat, and the analytic part of Sam's mind wondered why. Was it a pointless bleedover from the entity's human past or did it somehow reinforce his psychic hold? Aiming his gun at Marston meant pointing it at his brother, and Sam couldn't bring himself to do that, so he held it firmly in both hands, muzzle directed harmlessly in the air. He edged sideways, trying to get a shot without endangering Dean, but the spirit turned with him, still warding off any possibility of shooting.
"It's the end of the line, Sammy-boy." The southern accent was thick, cloying to each word as a sticky threat.
"Yeah, end of the line for you," Sammy retorted, trying to project calm conviction. "You kill him, and you've lost every hold over me. You'll be nothing but a greasy memory seconds later."
"Shoot the fucker." Dean's rasping voice cut into the confrontation, oddly vibrant and insistent through the half-strangulation.
With no way to inform his brother he couldn't take the shot without also tipping off Marston, Sam elected to ignore the interruption. "This is a no-win situation for all of us, but we can make a deal."
"I don't think so. We've had this conversation before. How long do you think it will take before you drop the gun when I do this." There was no overt sign of violence, but suddenly Dean choked out a wet exhale of breath that was eerily reminiscent of the time he'd been pinned to a wall in a dark room, blood rippling down his shirt as he was torn apart from the inside out.
The sound slammed into Sam like a punch, rage exploding in a shrapnel flash in his brain, annihilating everything in its path. "Let him go!"
"Drop your gun!"
"Let him go!" The roar of adrenaline-fueled fury was as deafening as the confusion of simultaneous shouting. Time slowed, the elasticity of sheer terror stretched into slow motion, sight tunneling to Dean's struggling form. Somehow, in the confusion, he could see his brother's lips move and, though no sound reached him, he could hear the words, each one a silent drop in the ocean of tumult, yet they carried the impact of a small nuclear explosion once their import pierced the wall of bleak incomprehension.
"Shoot me."
This was all wrong. Dean was supposed to be the voice of reason here, the cohesive force in their intense, centrifugal family. Shock whiplashed through Sam's spine, intertwined with burgeoning anger - stupid, suicidally self-sacrificing bastard.
The shouting echoed unpredictably off the slabs of stone before slipping over the trees to be lost in the night, but the clamour still didn't drown out the quiet insistence of Dean's repeated command, "Shoot," and this time the meaning seemed to pour out of him and seep into Sam's mind. Dean wanted him to shoot Marston through his brother's body. Sam's rejection of the plan was visceral and instinctive. This was no salt gun, peppering the skin with a stinging bite. He had grown up around guns and had more than just theoretical knowledge of the damage they could inflict on human flesh. Dean's plan was feasible. The bullet would punch through skin, explode through muscle and bone with brutal efficiency and probably obliterate the entity behind his brother, but at what cost?
Sam's heart was kicking like a go-go dancer, and he felt dizzy as if the air were getting thin. He had shot his demon-possessed father without hesitation or compunction, driven by anger, revenge and, above all, the relief at finally taking action. He would have done anything at that moment to prevent the yellow-eyed demon from torturing and killing his brother. In many ways, the circumstances were little different now. He had to take the shot to protect Dean - he knew that academically - yet there was no tidy limb shot available; the tombstone concealed Dean's legs and his torso was a much dicier target. Vital organs packed the area, making the likelihood of killing Dean just as possible as that of saving him.
With each pulse of blood through his veins, Sam could imagine a different horrific scenario, his brother dying at his hands. He had to starve his imagination, his actions had to be mechanical. He was trained; his hands needed to move automatically, confidently, as clinical in their rhythm as Dean's when he stripped and cleaned a gun. He tried to calm the irregular stutter of his breath, then Dean made a little noise in the back of his throat that should have been a scream, but strangled half-formed, and the gunshot split the air. Something exploded in a fountain of odd colour. For a moment that lasted a lifetime, Sam thought it was all his brother's blood, but it dissipated and vanished. The flash temporarily blinded his dark-accustomed eyes, and when he blinked away the flare-inspired tears and the smear of confused after images, nobody was there. Panic slammed into his brain like a punch with the fear that Marston, in some inexplicable spirit fashion, had taken Dean with him into the temporary, ghostly nonexistence.
"Dean!" the scream was involuntarily wrenched from his throat.
The cataract of adrenaline subsided not one iota as he spotted a foot sticking out from behind the gravestone, and he realised that Dean had collapsed on the ground, hidden behind the slab of rock.
"Dean," he cried again, his vocabulary still reduced to just his brother's name, as if it were the only thing that mattered. He rounded the tombstone in an agony of anticipation, skidding to a halt at the sight that met his eyes - Dean struggling to push himself into a sitting position with one hand, the other tightly clasped around his side. He met his kid brother's gaze, a smirk twisting his lips. "Nice shooting, Tex," he quoted, his voice raspy and perilously breathless.
Sam's eyes followed the curve of his arm instinctively to where Dean's hand was clamped tightly. Even in the dark, there was no mistaking the viscous liquid that seeped between his fingers, dripping rapidly on his thigh. "Oh God, how bad is it? Let me see."
He reached out, but recoiled guiltily as Dean swatted as his hand impatiently. "Dude, get off me. What are you thinking? First things first."
Sam blinked at him stupidly, unable to think about anything that took priority over his brother right now. His blank incomprehension obviously showed on his face, since Dean's expression softened. "Salt and burn, kiddo," he said gently. "I'm so not up to another round with Sparky right now."
"Marston." Sam had truly not given any thought to the impermanence of the ghost's disappearance, relief that Dean was alive running through his body like morphine after a serious injury, slowing his thought processes and numbing his reactions. He stumbled back to the open gravesite, snatching up the salt and sprinkling it with uncoordinated movements. The lighter fluid received even shorter shrift. He poured in a generous helping, and he'd already turned back to his brother when the match ignited it with a loud whoomp that would undoubtedly have removed his eyebrows and left him bald if he hadn't been moving away.
Dean was now seated, leaning nonchalantly against a tombstone, but the fact that he wasn't already on his feet spoke volumes to Sam.
"Okay, let me see," he demanded tersely, brandishing the bandages he'd snagged from their bag in passing.
Dean's hand reluctantly fell away, through acquiescence or exhaustion Sam wasn't sure, but he was able to see the damage he'd wrought. He should have been gratified to see that he'd hit exactly where he'd intended, just above the hip, but below the ribs, hopefully missing the intestines.
The older Winchester seemed to read the thought, if not the mood behind it. "I couldn't have done it better myself; it was a damn good shot."
"Don't," Sam cut him off, "Just...don't." He couldn't bear to be praised for this, congratulated as if it had been a bulls eye on some paper target. The taint of self-loathing must have showed, because suddenly blood-stained fingers were fumbling for his own. Dean's grip was not as firm as usual, but still eloquent in its rebuke.
"Sammy, you just saved my life, so unless you want me to get the wrong idea, you don't get to mope about that." There was aslight shake, the slip-stick of coagulating blood.
Sam attempted to extricate himself without hurting his brother, but Dean merely tightened his clasp. It always amazed Sam that the self-professed chick-flick-hating hunter was so willing to initiate an emotional moment if he believed his kid brother needed it. Moreover, he was surprisingly good at listening and saying just the right thing. Sam did feel a little better, the thick block in his throat whittled down to a small pebble.
His intellect had already acknowledged the truth of the situation, but it would take longer to convince his heart that it hadn't been an act of betrayal, that if he had been faster, smarter, better he couldn't have found another way that didn't involve his brother oozing blood under his fingertips. However, now he just needed to convince Dean that he was fine so he could patch him up.
"Yeah, I got the memo. Shooting family members is occasionally necessary. It's no big deal."
"You can't bullshit me right now, Sam. Not only can I watch you angsting and emo-ing, now I can actually feel it." He coughed and shoved his brother's hand aside weakly. "It's draining my testosterone, and I think I might hurl."
"You're the one fainting like a little girl," Sam grumbled, but it was an automatic response as he concentrated on a professional wrapping of bandages. Dean gave a terrible half-groan, half-gasp, and Sam had to fight the instinct to pull away, hating the fact that he was causing his brother more pain.
"You're the girl." Dean batted ineffectively at his brother's hands, but allowed his head to loll back when Sam ignored him. Dean was starting to list badly despite the support of the stone behind him and, worse, Sam could feel him slipping away in his mind, as if someone had pressed zoom-out on a camera and turned down the volume simultaneously. He wasn't sure if this was an indication of approaching unconsciousness or something more threatening that he didn't even want to label, but that sensation of his brother falling away, losing ground, was terrifying.
"Don't you wuss out on me. Wake up!" He reached out and shook Dean's shoulder roughly. He had forgotten the bruising caused by the falling statue and was surprised by the violence of his brother's reaction, thinking at first that the abrupt recoil was a result of some type of flashback of the possession. However, recognition shone from the older hunter's eyes despite the disorientation, and he tried to sit up against Sam's restraining hands.
"Marston! Is he gone? Did you finish him?" For a moment, Sam was tempted to lie. He knew that Dean never quit on a hunt, however drained his reservoirs of resilience. As long as danger threatened, he would dredge up reserves from somewhere to keep going, and Sam needed his big brother on his feet now. It had to be at least a quarter of a mile back to the Impala, and Sam doubted he could drag his own sore legs; he certainly couldn't carry anyone. But despite the sound strategic sense behind it, he couldn't bring himself to lie and increase the burden on Dean's shoulders.
"Yeah, we got him. The last Confederate soldier finally bites the dust."
"Well...good." Dean's eyes slid shut again.
"Hey, man up!" Sam tried to keep the atmosphere light. "I'm not carrying your lazy ass back to the Impala."
There was an incoherent mumble that might have indicated agreement.
"I mean it. There's no way, with your injuries, that I could transport you fireman style. I'd have to carry you like a blushing bride. Think of your image."
The next murmer was more coherent and definitely more pornographic in nature, with a clear suggestion of what he could do with his wedding rituals.
Sam hauled the older man up to his feet, bracing him when his knees buckled.
"OK, get your mitts off, I'm fine," Dean muttered unconvincingly, but he made no further protest as Sam got his shoulder under his brother's and propelled them both forward. "Oh yeah, this'll work," he complained. "Tectonic plates move faster than us."
Their halting progress seemed unavailing, an unending nightmare of pain and confusion. The contrast to Sam's earlier headlong rush couldn't have been more marked, and he found that he remembered none of the physical features he'd passed earlier in a blur of urgency, blindly following the gold thread of his brother's life force. Without that to guide him now, he could only hope he was heading in the right direction.
The moonlight glimmered off the sickly sheen of sweat that covered Dean's face, chalky lines between lurid patches of blood. He was silent save for the continuous hoarse gasps for breath and the occasional bitten-off grunt at an unexpected jolt from the uneven ground.
Sam kept up a littany of encouragment, but he was unsure if Dean was capable of processing any input. He kept monitoring that internal sense of his brother, but it was like prodding a raw nerve in a cracked tooth. As exhaustion dragged him down with heavy hands, the glow of Dean's consciousness had dwindled down to a distant spark that corresponded to the slowing of his physical movement, so Sam had some warning when that embattled spark blinked out with a horrifying finality and his brother became dead weight in his arms.
In counterpoint to the numbing silence in his head, Dean's pulse beat out an assurance of life against his fingertips, but it was a feeble, frantic, ineffectual thumping that reminded Sam of the fluttering wings of a sparrow he'd seen trapped beneath a glass ceiling, the bird weakened after repeated, futile efforts to reach the freedom it could see but not attain.
He looked around automatically for help, but the realisation soon hit that they had seen not a single live soul since arriving at the plantation, at least nothing larger than a crow. It was all down to him, the responsibility that Dean so willingly shouldered was now transferred, and he'd be damned before he failed his brother. He took a moment to gather his energy, feeling Dean's shaky breath against his neck, his own breathing almost equally jagged and shallow. Then, careful of his brother's injuries, he heaved him to his feet, locking his arms around the other man's chest. In that position, he half-carried, half-dragged him until, finally, he saw the glint of light off the black sheen of the Impala.
