CHAPTER 34

"Sam!" John shouted as he watched his youngest son get forced across the room. "Bobby!" John yelled as he watched Sam hit the wall and fall to the ground. "Bobby, Sam!"

Bobby turned to see what was happening.

"I got him." John said, holding Dean down against the bed. "Check on Sammy."

Bobby instantly stopped his drawing and went to Sam's side.

Dean tried to grab his dad, he clawed at him as he held his arm against his bed. The leather cuff was broken, so John had no choice but to use a metal handcuff that was nearby. He cuffed Dean's hand down and worked on restraining his waist.

Dean continued to growl out threats and hatful words. He didn't even seem to acknowledge what he had done to his brother. John was sure that Dean was no longer Dean. Whatever had taken over his body had him locked away and had taken control.

Bobby knelt beside Sam, pressing a towel he had grabbed to the back of his head to stop the bleeding.

"Sam?" Bobby tried to get a response from him. "Hey, Sammy. Can you hear me?"

"You're not going to win this! You will not destroy this family!" John shouted to the thing controlling Dean's body.

Satisfied with the fact his son was once again restrained, he made his way to Sam. "I got him, Bobby. Go finish that damn drawing. We gotta get this taken care of."

Bobby nodded, letting John take over the pressure on the back of Sam's head. He stood and without a word to Dean or anyone else, he started working on finishing the symbol.

Dean continued to scream and fight as Bobby drew. Once he had completed the symbol and moved to the next one, Dean didn't seem to be calming down any. In fact, he seemed to intensify in the anger he was displaying. The force he was using had them afraid he would break through another cuff.

Bobby had paused long enough to double cuff Dean. He placed a metal handcuff around his right wrist and both ankles. If he broke through the leather cuffs it would give them time to restrain him before he would be able to break the metal ones. He then tied rope around his left wrist, giving him a double restraint on that arm as well.

Tired of hearing the screams and threats come from Dean Bobby put a gag in his mouth, quieting the words and anger of the thing controlling him.

John sat on the floor, his back against the wall. He was positioned so he could keep an eye on Dean and Bobby, to make sure everyone stayed safe. He held Sam's head in his lap, keeping the pressure needed to stop any bleeding against his head.

Sam started to come back around, moving his head slightly and adjusting his body against the hardness of the floor.

"Take it easy there, son." John said. "You took a nasty hit to the head, just lay still."

Sam fluttered his eyes open against the pain and the light. He grimaced at the pain in his head and reached his hand to touch the back of his head. John stopped him, pushing his hand back down.

"You hit that wall hard, busted your head open pretty good. I think we got most of the bleeding stopped, but you need to take it easy, don't try to move around too much."

Sam mumbled a few words that John couldn't understand before his speech started clearing. "Dean doing okay?"

"The best as can be expected, I guess." John replied.

"Bobby was right?"

"Looks that way."

"When this is done, he'll heal?"

"Don't know for sure, but that's what we're hoping."

Sam just slightly nodded his head. He couldn't move it too much without the pain shooting through it.

"You wanna leave? Go back upstairs? Away from this?"

"No, I wanna stay here with Dean."

"May not be safe."

"Obviously." Sam said sarcastically, motioning to the back of his head.

"Yeah, kiddo." John replied.

They both stayed where they were at, watching Dean fight and struggle, trying to get the gag out of his mouth so he could spit out more hate. Bobby continued to draw the symbols.

"He alright?" Bobby asked John after him and Sam finished talking.

"Yeah, he's a Winchester, he's got a hard head." John joked, patting Sam on the shoulder.

"I'm fine!" Sam said. "Just have one hell of a headache, that's all."

Bobby nodded, continuing with his mission to cure Dean.

That was Bobby's boy laying on the bed, restrained against a possession that was trying to take over his body. His wrists were sore and red from pulling against the restraints. His face blood shot from trying to scream through the gag. He was hurting and Bobby was causing it.

Bobby loved Dean like he was his own child. He had watched that boy grow, he helped raise him while John was out hunting the supernatural. There were so many times John had sent those boys to his house and instead of treating them like the soldiers John wanted, he'd take them to the park to throw a foot ball or run and play.

He loved Sam just as much. Both boys were like the kids he never had, the kids he never knew he wanted. Bobby was so afraid of having kids. He never had any desire to be a dad. He had a fear of turning out like his own dad. And, there was no way he could treat another human being the way his dad treated him. He guesses that's why he would take Sam and Dean to play when they were little. He was giving them the childhood they never got the chance to have, the childhood Bobby never got the chance to have.

He could relate to Dean more than Sam, that's never been a secret to any of them. He knew how it felt to have the responsibility of keeping his family together. He knew how much it hurt, more mentally than physically, to put yourself in the line of fire to protect your family. So many times, Bobby would step between his parents, taking the blunt of his dad's beatings, saving his mom from his fists of rage.

He did what he could to protect his mom. The woman who should have been protecting him instead. But, Bobby was the one responsible for holding everything together, the same as Dean had been. Dean should have been taken care of. He should have been watched over, but instead, he was the one who cared for Sammy and his dad. He was the one who would reassure John when he felt down. He was the one who would dry Sammy's tears.

It should never have fallen on Dean's shoulders. He was just a kid, still a baby himself. But, John never saw him that way. He only saw him as someone he could train to fight in his crusade, someone who could help him hunt and kill the thing that killed his wife and their mother.

Dean took on the responsibility, sacrificing every part of him in the process, and, never once did any of them every hear him complain. Never once did he refuse or argue about the fact that he had everyone else's weight on his shoulders.

Now, here he was, torturing the one person who deserved it the least. He was causing his own son pain, adopted or not, he was still his, Bobby would never not claim him as his own. Dean was struggling, fighting against an unseen force that he had been fighting for far too long.

Dean felt like his body was boiling, it was boiling from the inside out. The pain was almost too much, okay, it was too much, but he wasn't in control of his body. The thing that had taken over could obviously handle more than Dean could.

Bobby had stopped drawing the symbols, taking a moment to make his way to Dean. He knelt beside the bed. Dean's body was soaked in sweat, it was dripping from his hair and face from the struggle his body was fighting. Bobby removed the gag. Dean's lower jaw was trembling, his muscles tightened, his teeth shattering against each other from the trembling. He sucked in air with a groan.

Bobby placed his hand on Dean's forehead, taking a long look at his broken boy. Dean's eyes, at that moment, were all Dean. The fear and pain that were deep in his eyes, the begging for Bobby to make it stop, it was all Dean. The thing that was trying to take over was gone from his eyes. Tears dripped from them, running down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, boy. I gotta finish this. You need to hold on for me." Bobby spoke quietly and gently as he rubbed Dean's forehead and wiped the tears from his face.

Dean groaned in pain, his body stilled while under Bobby's touch. His normally dark, deep green eyes were clouded and tear filled. His body trembling from the pain that was boiling through his blood. His forehead crinkled, his chin still trembling. Small moans of pain escaping through the breaths he struggled to breathe.

Bobby gave Dean a sympathetic look, apologizing for what he had to do in order to save his life. Putting the first items together, he started preparing for the first ritual chant. As he started, Dean's painful screams filled the air. The calmness that was just there was gone as he struggled against the restraints and boiling inside of him.

As Bobby continued with the next chant the boiling started showing on his skin. His arms and face started showing signs of boils and blisters. If he wasn't fully clothed, it was certain they would have seen several other spots cover his body.

Dean's voice became weakened, leaving him with pitiful cries of pain.

Sam buried his face in his dad's chest. He couldn't handle this. He couldn't handle his brother in so much pain. He had witnessed it, he had seen it just a couple months ago, when they were held captive. He watched Dean get beaten and tortured, heard the painful cries of his brother. And now, it was happening again.

Sam's tears soaked through John's shirt. His sobs causing his body to shake. The memories of them being held captive running through Sam's mind. He wasn't sure what was real anymore. He wasn't sure what was causing his brother pain. He just wanted it to stop. He need it to stop. He needed Dean to quit screaming and crying. He needed to not be able to hear his brother's pain.

As long as he kept his face buried in his dad's shirt, he couldn't see the pain that was too real. He couldn't see what his brother was going through. He couldn't see what was real and what wasn't. He grabbed fistfuls of John's shirt.

"Dad, I can't, make him stop, please." Sam cried in his dad's chest.

John rubbed his son's back. "Sam, it's okay, son. He'll be okay. We gotta let this happen. We have to get him healed."

Bobby continued his chants, continued the rituals that were required. Dean's body weakened with every moment. Every fight, every struggle was weaker than the one before. Tears streaked his face, his breathing was ragged and hitched. At times, he found it nearly impossible to take a breath.

Growls of evil would escape his lips, but the words were so weakened they couldn't be understood. They were sure if they could understand him, he would be shouting threats of death and injury to them. The boils on his arms started boiling and opened up. A greenish color puss started oozing from them. With each word Bobby spoke Dean's body reacted. His clothes soaked up the puss that oozed from his body.

Dean released the last of the strength he had, letting out the most horrible, painful scream any of them had ever heard. Dean felt as if his body was boiling apart. Like the life was draining from him. He felt as if every word that was spoken stabbed a knife deep into him.

His body started having convolutions. His eyes rolled toward the back of his head, then they would roll back, flickering with light and darkness. Evil growls and changes in facial expressions possessed him. His left hand pulled against the metal cuff with enough force it was bending. His body looked as if it was trying to lift from the bed, unable due to the restraints.

His waist pressed against the leather strap that crossed over him, pulling it so tightly that the places it was attached to the bed was bending with the force. He felt like his stomach, like every organ in his abdomen was going to be pressed out of him. Like the force was turning him into a flattened pancake against the restraint. It was making it too hard to breathe.

He suddenly started vomiting everything that was inside his stomach. The force that was being pressed against it, forcing it out. Dean started coughing and choking as it came up, with no where to go but into the air above him, falling back onto his face and chest and into his mouth. Adding with the rising volume of vomit, causing him to choke and gag even more, sucking the breath out of him. He could feel it burning his lungs and he tried to suck in a breath, only to allow vomit to fill them instead.

John rushed to Dean's side, turning his head to the side, and holding it against the bed. The vomit pooled onto the mattress around his face, giving it a new place to escape besides inside his lungs. His body shuttered uncontrollably under his dad's touch.

John's touch brought a piece of Dean back, and suddenly he found himself fighting for control over the thing that locked him away into his own body. The fight only caused more convulsions but had stopped the pull against the restraints. The force behind it had weakened with Dean's struggle for control.

Sam curled in on himself in the corner, fear of the memories. Fear of the pain and screams. Fear that he would lose his brother. Fear that this would be his last memory of the one thing, the one person, who has been his constant. The one person who he thought would always be there, no matter what. He couldn't lose him, not like this, not now, not ever!

Three hours after it started, with Bobby's final word, Dean's body fell limp and unconscious. John instantly checked for a pulse and breathing and released the breath he had been holding when he found both.

The room fell silent, no more words being chanted. No more screams and cries. No more growls and evil hatred. Calm, quiet filled the room.

Sam pulled himself from the ball he had curled into. "Is… is he… is he alright?" He questioned, afraid of the answer.

"Yeah, he's alive." John replied with a sound of relief.

"Come on, help me get some towels and water to clean him up." Bobby stated as he leaned his exhausted body against the wall. "And Sam, you need to get that head of yours stitched up."

John and Sam both nodded. John and Bobby headed out of the room to gather soap, water, and towels for Dean. But, Sam couldn't seem to move. The men didn't say anything, they knew what had just happened was hard on all of them, and Sam wasn't as mentally prepared for it as the older hunters had been.

John and Bobby had seen a lot in their lives. They knew how hard and exhausting it would be. They weren't prepared for the added difficulty of it being one of their own, but still they were prepared for the worst. Sam hadn't been a part of things like that before. He didn't ever want to be involved in the difficult things. He had a lot to process, so the men allowed him to stay in the room, watching his brother, and processing the events that just happened.

John grabbed the first aid kit and items that both boys would need for medical attention. Sam needed stitches and Dean needed to keep infections from the wounds that had formed. They weren't completely sure what his injuries were, but they knew it was important to keep infection from setting in. Dean was already weak, and no doubt this made him weaker. There would be no way his body would be able to fight anything more, not for a while.

They still had a week left, at least. Judging by the reaction they received from Dean, they were both concerned it might take longer than a week. Bobby had made up the first batch of brew that they would need to give Dean as soon as he woke, but for now, they needed to get him cleaned, wash off the green puss that oozed from his body and vomit that had stuck to his face and chest. They needed to rid his body of the sweat that coated him and dripped from his hair. They needed to make Dean as comfortable as possible and make him feel safe again.

They reentered the room to find both boys in the exact places they had left them. The fear in Sam's eyes said it all. John needed to get his youngest son out of the room. He needed to give him a break from the horror that laid in front of him. He needed to be away from the fresh memories of what just happened.

Grabbing the stitches and medical supplies he had brought for Sam, he knelt beside him, placing a gentle hand on his son's shoulder. "Come on, let's get you out of here, get that head taken care of."

Sam hesitated, giving resistance against his dad, but still allowing him to help him stand and walk out of the room.

"I don't want to leave him." Sam pleaded.

"We won't go far, just out of this room so I can take care of your head. We'll be right outside the door." John assured him, looking back at Bobby who nodded in understanding.

John hated leaving Bobby to clean Dean alone, but he knew it was important to remove Sam from the room.

John sat Sam in a chair that was in the basement outside of the panic room and started tending to his head. He washed the blood from his hair and scalp and carefully stitched the gash.

"You okay?" John questioned.

"I… I don't know." Sam answered honestly.

"I know, that was a lot, what just happened in there. But, it had to be done."

"Yeah, I know. It was just… I don't know… not what I expected."

"Well, there really isn't a certain thing to expect or not expect when it comes to stuff like that."

"Is he going to be alright, Dad?"

"Sam." John knelt in front of his son. "I honestly can't answer that. He's alive, so that's a good sign. Everything Bobby did has worked so far. We still have to give him that brew stuff, finish getting whatever it is out of him. So, things are looking good, yes."

Sam nodded, tears filling his eyes.

"Look." John added. "I'm not saying it's going to be easy, because it's not. Dean still has a long road ahead of him. I don't know what to tell you. No one knows what to expect. What Bobby did, it could have gotten rid of everything and Dean will have a week of resting and drinking something that tastes like dirty feet."

Sam chuckled.

"Or, it might still be in there, it might still have strength and if that's the case it's not going to go easily. It'll fight us, the same way it just did. And, Dean's going to have to stay strong and fight against it. It's lost part of its strength, there's no doubt about that. But, it may not have lost all of it."

Sam let out a sigh, he didn't want to see Dean have to fight anymore.

"Or, it could still be just the remnants of it. He might need a good detox then be fine."

"It's not fair." Sam sobbed. "He's fought so hard already, why does he have to keep fighting?"

"Because, he's doing it for you. Because you're worth it to him."

Sam flung his arms around his dad's neck, burying his face in his body and letting the tears flow. He had so many emotions he didn't know how to handle them. So much concern for his brother and now his dad had just told him he was fighting for him.

John stayed where he was and held his youngest son. Letting the tears flow and the emotions release.