Divergent Horizons, Chapter 5
Sam pushes his car to the limit getting to Saybrook. He doesn't remember the trip, just vague flashes piercing the fog surrounding him. A cop tries to pull him over at some point, but he leaves it behind. He thinks he may have turned every traffic light green and shattered all of those facing the opposite direction.
He's reaching for Dean, but there's some sort of psychic interference between them; he only gets bursts of feeling like a staticy telephone call. Sam grits his teeth. It's Mer keeping them apart, separating him from Dean. The power is tinged with feminine energy. Every hole he tries to punch through is blocked and Sam can swear he feels amusement from her every time.
Every taste he gets of Dean is tinged with angry desperation. And then he goes completely off grid and Sam lurches. The world around him hitches and folds and then straightens out at the end of Finn's street.
Sam doesn't question this, just speeds down the street and stops in front of Finn's house, wheels squealing. It seems like the house is lit up from within, every window spilling light into the night. Sam moves on automatic; he knows this scene. He's dreamed this for the last thirteen years.
The front doors explode in, shattering into kindling with barely a thought. Sam doesn't hesitate, steps over the splintered wood and takes his first right. He bursts into the den where he sees his worst nightmare made flesh.
It's exactly like he dreamed it.
Mer points the gun at him, almost an afterthought, not even looking at him as she watches Dean fight for life. Dean, oh god, Dean's throat has been cut and there's blood everywhere. Mer turns to face him and her lips curl into an infuriatingly smug smile.
"Atta." The name enrages him, breathes air on the coals of an anger he's been fighting for too long now. Sam reaches down deep and summons all the power he can manage and then digs deeper. When he's holding so much it burns he steps forward.
He throws everything he has at her.
Mer slams back against the wall and screams. The hated knife that's haunted his every nightmare, red with Dean's blood, skitters over the floor. Sam destroys it with a thought, watches it crumple into nonexistence. Mer blinks at him, eyes unfocused and blood dripping down her face.
Sam ignores her and turns to Dean. His heartbeat has slowed and his breathing is uneven. He's hovering on the threshold of life and death and Sam will not let that happen. Sam could heal him if he had enough power.
"Atta—" Mer gasps but he's not interested in any more of her lies. He shoves a psychic gag over her mouth and turns his attention inwards.
There's a part of himself he's been running from. A primal, dark drive that he's been scared of for a long time. No longer. He pushes deeper, spirals downwards. He rips the barriers and fences he's put up over the years away and he knows—he knows—that he'll be strong enough to defeat anything when he's through. The power reaches up for him even as he reaches down for it, just one flimsy barrier keeping him away.
The dam breaks and Sam is consumed.
The little curl of demonic darkness that Azazel had buried deep in Sam, that had survived by feeding on Sam's petty frustrations and formed into a sea of pulsing anger, explodes outwards. It spreads like an infection, warping and twisting and taking over. With it comes a rush of tainted power, seductive and overwhelming.
Sam vibrates with power. He can see it sparking off of him, feels it humming through his veins. He could do anything. Anything at all. And nothing on this earth would be able to stop him.
Sam reaches out for his brother. Dean isn't breathing. His eyes stare up at the ceiling, empty and lifeless. He looks dead, but Sam can see a small spark flickering in Dean's chest, fragile and fading, but there. He knows he can save it.
Sam places his hand on Dean's chest and sinks his power into the body he's spent years learning. He knows these nerve endings—what makes them flinch or sing with pleasure, where they're sensitive and where past traumas have deadened them. He wraps his will around everything that is Dean's physical presence in this world and makes the body breath, makes his lungs expand and contract. He pushes Dean's blood through his veins, orders his cells to replicate and live. He brings Dean back to life on a cellular level and moves outward. The torn skin of Dean's throat knits back together. Sam erases the wear of age, puts Dean together better than he was. Sam keeps pumping power through him; he has so much to spare. All the glass in the house shatters but Sam's senses are filled only with Dean.
Dean arches beneath him. He's alive, wonderfully alive, green eyes wide and his red lips open. Sam keeps pushing. He wants...he wants to give Dean a part of him. If he does that, there's nothing in this world that could take him away from Sam.
Sam leans down and presses his nose to Dean's neck, inhales deeply. He stores away the scent; he'll never forget it, and he'll always recognize Dean.
"S-sssss..." Dean can't make his throat work, but Sam understands. He hears the plea in Dean's voice; he wants more of what Sam's offering.
Dean sucks in a lungful of air and tries again, "Ssssssst—top. Staaah!" Sam hears Dean's cry of pain as an outpouring of exquisite pleasure.
"Never again," Sam promises. Dean's soul burns Sam's eyes, a riot of incandescent colors. Sam reaches out and touches it. It hurts him in the best ways. "Never."
Sam runs his fingers over a gold thread in Dean's soul, and Dean arches like a bow, eyes squeezed shut. So beautiful. So alluring, even newly recovered from the brink of death. Sam can't see his own soul, but he imagines it sings in counterpart to Dean's, complimentary in every way. He couldn't be farther from the truth.
Mer's chest burns with every breath and her head throbs; she can taste blood in her mouth and swallows thickly. She pushes up on her knees and fights down the urge to vomit; the room around her swims drunkenly. She can't remember—something important and—there's blood on her jeans. Her hands. What—
She looks up and gasps. She's never seen a possessed person before, but Atta has to be. She sees him like double vision, human flesh with a seething mass of darkness underneath it. Even at his angriest Atta's never looked...like that. It's wrong on a visceral, human level.
A tendril of darkness extends from Atta and reaches out for her father. It touches him and subsumes the light, colors withering and fading wherever it goes. She has to stop it.
Sam's so immersed in Dean he doesn't sense the attack until it's too late. The statue connects solidly with his temple and knocks him out cold. Mer stares at the deep gash on his head, seeping blood. Something in her just...stops processing. This is not happening, this can't be happening. This can't—
"MER."
"Dad." She grips his arms and stares at him. He's alive. There's blood on his neck and soaked into his shirt, some in his hair, but he's alive and breathing and not bleeding. They need to leave. Now. "Dad. We have to go, we have to—" Mer tugs on him weakly, every little movement burning painfully, but he won't move. The room tilts dangerously and Mer realizes dimly there's something very, very wrong with her.
"Not without Sammy," Dean says, swaying on his feet. They can barely keep each other upright, and Dean staggers when Mer falls into him.
No, that's wrong. Mer closes her eyes against the throbbing pain settling in her head. The image of eyes that glow with a menacing, angry green hue swims across her vision. They can't take him; if they take Atta, bad things will happen. They have to go alone, they have to run far, far away.
"Dad," Mer pleads. She can barely form a sentence. There's something loose in her head. She pulls her father around to face her. He looks wild and unkempt and completely frayed. "Dad. It's not Atta. It's not him. We have to go. He's too strong."
"I can exorcise—"
"It's not a demon! It's something else! Stronger, spreading, Dad, please." Dean looks from his daughter to his Sam. He's exactly where he never wanted to be, forced to choose between the two of them. They're his to protect, and he's failed them both. Sam's possessed by some super demon and Mer's hair is dark with blood, she can barely breathe, and there are tears carving a path down her dirty cheeks. "We can't fight him if he wakes up."
"I'm coming back for him," Dean says, agony in every word. A dull ache spreads through him. Jesus, he's going to leave Sam here. Mer nods, choking on her tears, tugging him towards the door. "I'm coming back." He grabs her arm and hauls ass out of the house.
John and Finn are nowhere to be seen. In Dean's experience that means they're probably dead, but there's nothing he can do for them right now.
Mer's not doing well. She starts stumbling, leaning more and more on her father for support, unable to coordinate her various limbs. The world fades in and out of focus on a whim.
"Mer? Mary!" Dean leans her up against the Impala and checks her eyes. Her pupils are blown and reactions sluggish. "Jesus, Mer, not now. I need you to stay with me, baby girl. Come on."
"M-migraine," Mer slurs, trying to focus on him. It's a gross oversimplification of what's currently going on in her head but it's the best she can do at the moment.
"I know. I know," Dean soothes. He lays her carefully on the back seat and pulls a rumpled, long-forgotten jacket over her. Her skin is clammy and she's pale; it's possible she's going into shock.
Dean gets the Impala started and peels away from the cursed house. He needs...a plan. A course of action. He needs Mer safe so he can go get Sam. Dean pulls out his cell phone and starts dialing.
"Hello?" a sleepy voice answers.
"Where are you?" Dean asks Whit tersely.
"Home. What—"
"Get the emergency bags. Meet me at the Ashton safe house." He hears Whit's startled breath but she doesn't ask questions. They've been prepared for this eventuality for years; they all know what to do. Dean ends the call and tries to get Mer to talk to him.
"You and Whit are going to the safe house, Mer-bear. I know Sam knows them, so whatever's got him knows them to, but he doesn't know which one so you should be okay. You hear me? Mer? Come on, give me something, baby girl. Let me know you're awake back there."
"'s Atta in parts," Mer mumbles; Dean can barely hear her. "Shrapnel trynna be a whole."
"What was that? Mer?" He hits a pothole and Mer screams in pain. Dean speeds up.
The safe house looks like an old, run-down barn from the outside. On the inside it's heavily warded and stocked with emergency credit cards, canisters of gas, medical gear and hunting equipment. Whit's already there when Dean pulls up, one of her hospital-improved first aid kits with her. She gasps at the sight of Mer, glassy-eyed and obviously in pain.
"Mer! Jesus, Dean, what happened?" Whit assesses her with efficient competence. She's practiced her skills on the Winchesters more times than she can count over the years, but never on Mer. It makes her hands shake as she gently checks her pupils and reactions. "Dean, I think she's in shock."
"I was afraid of that," Dean says grimly. "Let's get her inside." Dean picks his daughter up and follows Whit into the safe house. Together they wrap her ribs; several ugly bruises are already starting to show. When they're done Whit bundles her in all the blankets she can find and stuffs it full of chemical warming bags.
"I've got to go find Sam," Dean announces once they've tucked Mer away. He swats Whit's hands away and uses a towel to wipe himself down.
"Where is Sam?" Whit asks, watching Dean arm himself with enough firepower to take on a small army.
"Sam's possessed," Dean says flatly. He ignores Whit's dismayed gasp and the emotions that want to fight through the shields he's had up since he first felt Mer's overwhelming terror. "This place is protected against demons but not...not whatever has Sam. You don't tell anyone where you are, you hear me? Not even Damien."
"Yes, right. No outside communication." Dean grabs an anti-demon kit and moves towards the door. Whit stops him with a hand on his arm. "Whatever happens, you come back, Dean Winchester."
"I'm going to save Sam." Dean's tone dares her to say anything to the contrary. Whit stares him down, lips pressed into a thin line.
"That little girl needs you too," Whit reminds him. Dean swallows and finally nods once, decisively. Whit's eyes water and she pulls him into a fierce hug. Dean stiffens for a moment before hugging her back just as strong. It's a testament to how shaken they both are that they let the moment go without comment.
"We'll see you soon," Whit orders. Dean walks to his car and doesn't look back.
Sam goes from unconscious to alert without anything in between. He touches his temple and the skin underneath his fingers knits together. He stands, testing and flexing each muscle...and liking what he feels. He raises his hand and studies it like he's never seen it before. He hasn't, not like this. He sees his hand, but he can look deeper than normal human senses. He can see the muscle and the bone; the rush of blood in his veins; the power that flows through it.
He extends his senses outwards and he finds Dean easily. He calls to Sam and stands out like a beacon against a dreary, worthless world. He's coming to Sam, which makes Sam's job a lot easier. Bless his predictable, overprotective older brother. Satisfied Dean is alright, Sam searches for Mer. He growls, frustrated, as he comes up with nothing. He should be able to find her taint as easily as he found Dean's brilliance. He switches over to Whit, knowing she's the first person Dean would call, but Whit's gone too. Fucking tattoos. There has to be a way.
Frustrated, Sam casts about for something, anything, the smallest clue. His mind soars over Saybrook, covering miles of ground in mere seconds. Even with his powers that's inefficient and time consuming. Frustrated, Sam forces himself to calm down. Thinks logically. If he were Dean, what would he do? Where would he go?
A safe house. He'd go to one the safe houses, even if Sam knows where they are. Sam starts checking them one by one. There are five fully functional safe points within a reasonable distance. He jumps from one to the other, searching them, tearing down wards that are laughably flimsy, but comes up empty every time. They have to be in one of them, he knows Dean and he'd believe the safe houses were their best option, particularly as he's out driving around Iowa looking for Sam. He starts over, more slowly this time. He's on the third house when something glimmers on the edge of his awareness.
Mer Bear. It resonates with an echo of Mer, faint but very real, at the house on Ashton Drive. Perfect. He hooks a mental tracker into the bear, a thread that will lead him straight to it wherever it might go. Spreading out, he finds something that dully feels of Whit—her car. Within the car is a cell phone that he marks as well. You can never be too careful. Sam smiles to himself. Soon. They'll be free soon.
But for now, he has to make sure Dean stays out of the way. Wouldn't do to have him hurt himself because he doesn't understand yet.
Whit obsessively checks Mer's bandages even though she knows they're fine. She hates feeling helpless. Mer whimpers and the skin around her eyes and mouth tighten. Whit would love to give her a shot of painkiller but they can risk Mer being insensate if something attacks them.
"It's okay," Whit murmurs, running her hand lightly over the curve of Mer's skull. Mer's eyes flutter open but they don't focus on any one thing. "It's going to be okay."
"The clocks of the long now aren't ticking," Mer says. Whit can't say why, but the words send a chill down her spine.
"Mer, my lovely, you aren't making much sense." Whit tries to keep her tone light. "Try to get some sleep."
"Last sleep forever," Mer agrees, and her eyes slide shut. Whit frowns because that sounds unnecessarily ominous. Mer whimpers and grabs Whit's shoulder. Her grip is so weak. "He knows."
"I don't...you're not making any sense, Mary." Mer opens her eyes and Whit gets lost in them.
Whit was standing in a silent field. The landscape around her was...infected. Veins of dark, diseased soil wound through healthy ground. Where the taint touched, vibrant plants of unimaginable beauty withered and desiccated.
"How do you stop a flood that's already here?" Whit started and spun around. Mer stood regally behind her, hair golden blonde and falling gracefully to her shoulders. She wore a green dress and looked...older. Where she stepped the infection faded into nothing. She brushed past Whit, looking at something in the distance. Whit turned and followed her gaze—
They were standing under the tallest tower Whit had ever seen. It rose into the sky without end. Beyond it, she could see two other towers rising in the distance, one blue and the other gold. Mer had once said that's how she saw Whit and Dean. Could...three towers, three parents... Whit turned back to the dark tower.
It had large cracks running up the side and was the same oily black as the diseased ground. A loud groan came from above. A strong hand reached out and pulled Whit back as a huge stone fell from the sky. It hit like a drop of water, splattering into pieces when it struck the ground. With horror, Whit realized the tower was the source of the wrongness in this landscape, the dark stain spreading even as she watched.
"Pollution is a serious problem in the twenty-first century." Mer was decked out in military fatigues, her hair in a tight bun. There was a scar on her forehead where she was hurt in the real world.
"Is this...is this Sam?" Whit asked, voice catching on the words. Mer tilted her head to the side and gazed up, up, up.
"Not anymore." When she looked back at Whit her scar was longer, curving down around her eye. And black. With every heartbeat the taint spread, the darkness spidering outwards through her veins.
"Samael," Mer breathed. The word made the world around them shudder. The air became so cold Whit's breath was thick in the air; ice coated her hair and frost covered the ground. Mer seemed untouched.
"Why are we here, Mer? What's going on?" Whit asked, drawing in on herself for warmth.
"He knows," Mer answered, and touched two fingers to Whit's forehead. Images crashed through Whit's mind, tumbling one over the other. She saw Sam's eyes turn black, then yellow, then white. Mer Bear with a fishing hook through its head, the line leading away. Whit's car with a hook through it too, and her cell, and Mer's cell, all caught by the same fisherman. Mer plucked the line and they zoomed along it till they reached the very end where—Sam. It was Sam, looking at Whit with knowing, vicious yellow eyes.
Whit comes back to the real world with a scream. Sam knows exactly where they are.
Dean heads back towards Finn's house because it's the last place he saw Sam and the only lead he has. If he's lucky, Sam will still be out cold on the floor. Dean's never been particularly lucky, though.
"Hey, Dean." Dean swears and swerves off the road. The Impala dies with a stuttering cough.
"What the fuck, Sam?" Dean demands. He looks over at his brother, somehow materialized in the passenger seat, and freezes. Sam's eyes are yellow.
"Don't worry, it's not permanent." Sam pets the dashboard soothingly, almost apologetically. He shoots Dean a sardonic little smile and Dean can almost convince himself this is his Sam. "I just need you out of the way for a while. So I can make everything right." A chill runs down Dean's spine.
"What...what does that mean?" Sam smiles at him pityingly. Dean forces himself not to flinch back from the sight of those eyes. Sam leans over and crowds him back against the door. Dean closes his eyes.
Sam still smells like Sam, warm and earthy. Sam's lips ghost against Dean's, and that's familiar too. His hand running over Dean's chest, the way he touches...all of it is Sam. But when Dean reaches out, just a tentative psychic brush, it's emphatically not Sam that he feels.
"You're not going to like the answer," Sam says. "Don't think about it."
"Sam," Dean says desperately, filled with foreboding. He gets a flash of violence, of Mer dead on the ground, and his heart races.
"It's for your own good." The air warps around Sam and he disappears.
"SAM!" Dean yells at nothing. "SAM!" Swearing, Dean scrambles out of the car. He pops the hood of the Impala and starts trying to fix whatever Sam broke.
Dean screams obscenities at the air and kicks a tire. Whatever Sam's done to his car isn't something Dean can fix. He'd better not have done what he did to the circuitry of Dean's phone, which looks like someone poured acid on its insides.
Dean slumps against the side of the car. He looks up to the sky, a thousand points of light twinkling merrily away.
"If you're up there listening, now would be a REALLY FUCKING GOOD TIME for some divine intervention!" Dean starts as his car suddenly roars to life. "Holy shit." Dean's not one for looking a gift horse in the mouth while his brother is insane and his daughter is in mortal peril, but he does file the incident away for later review.
He spins the car around and heads back to the safe house as fast as the Impala can go.
"I'm sorry," Whit mutters under her breath, coaxing a few more miles per hour out of her car. "So sorry, Mer-bear." This has been her chant for the last ten minutes, speeding away from the safe house in a blind panic. She drives like Hell itself is on her ass—which it very well might be. She's going too fast when a figure materializes in front of the car and she swerves instinctively to avoid it.
She wakes to the smell of burning plastic.
Whit stumbles out of the car. There's blood running down her face and she thinks she may have a mild concussion.
"Hello, Whitney." Sam's still standing in the middle of the road, hands shoved in his pockets. His eyes glow in the dark. Fear tries to take over, but Whit forces it away—she has to keep her wits about her.
"'Hello, Whitney?' THAT'S all you have to say to me?" Whit glares at Sam and he has the audacity to smile bashfully at her and scuff the ground with the toe of his shoe.
"Sorry about the car. That was an accident."
"The...the car?" Sam remains silent and gives Whit a challenging look. "I'm not sure I buy that."
"I don't need you to," Sam says dismissively. "Give me Mer."
"Why are you doing this?" Whit asks plaintively.
"Mer killed Dean. I brought him back. I won't let her do it again." Whit shakes her head in denial.
"Mer would never—"
"I'm sorry you'll have to see this, but I promise to make it quick." He moves for the car but Whit steps in front of him.
"Sam, you have to see how crazy this is," she reasons desperately. "You're...you're infected and it's warping your thinking—NO!" Sam shakes her off like an annoying bug. Whit remains silent as Sam approaches the car. He looks into the backseat and pauses. He reaches in and pulls out Mer Bear.
"I don't want to hurt you. Dean wouldn't want that," Sam says conversationally.
"And Dean wants you to hurt his daughter?" Whit asks incredulously. Sam glares but Whit thinks she can detect a hint of the real Sam behind the angry facade. "Dean will never forgive you if you kill Mer. I don't care what you are to each other. You can't come back from that, Sammy."
"She's dangerous," Sam counters, reaching up to touch Whit's cheek. He sounds almost...sad. Apologetic. "And wrong. Mer's like a rabid dog. I can't leave her alive; she'll destroy him. And I won't have that." A tear escapes Whit's rigid control.
"You're already doing a pretty good job of that yourself, Sam." Whit feels a sense of calm come over her, looking at Sam's unnatural eyes. She doesn't know what's happened to him, but this is not the Sam Winchester she knows and loves. Where ever that Sam is hiding, she hopes he'll forgive her for what she's about to do. "I'm not going to let you hurt my little girl."
"I know," Sam says, and he sounds almost sad. Not about killing Mer, rather about how it's going to affect Dean and, to a lesser extent, herself.
Whitney's been a nurse long enough to know that second chances don't come often. When she lost her family she built a new one, strange as it might be, and she swore to keep them as safe as she could. Which is why long ago, when she was still dealing with the idea that evil creatures existed and her protector had powers, she did research. To understand what was out there, what could threaten the people she loved. To know how she might protect them. Her research led her to a man named Marcus whose powers had driven him to seclusion, who had acquiesced to her demands because he knew her determination and her heart.
She had always known she was the weak link in the Winchester's armor. Even when Mer was a kid she instinctively protected herself and those around her. Dean and Sam lived and breathed the supernatural. So Whit had taken it upon herself to ensure that she could never be used against her family. Though she'd never thought she'd be protecting them from Sam.
I love you, Mer-bear, she thinks with all her might. Never forget that. She thinks she feels some kind of acknowledgment from very far away, but Whit isn't paying attention. She's going to buy Mer and Dean the time they need to get away. Whit closes her eyes and dives into herself, searching for the little bundle Marcus had left in her mind.
"Dean's going to need you," Sam is saying, "but you'll both understand when it's over." Whit finds what she's looking for and pulls it open. The mental grenade explodes out, sending Sam hurling deep inside his own mind.
Whitney Steton's last act on Earth is tinged with bleak satisfaction.