I'm not sure if anyone is still reading these stories I wrote a long time ago, but I made a promise to myself to finish each one that has been left incomplete. I got discouraged and depressed with life and walked away from writing fanfiction. So I figured I'd start with this story and then move on to Silence when this is complete. Thanks for reading...bambers2
Chapter Twelve
Sam couldn't look away, wouldn't look away, holding Jake's gaze, burning the image into his memory to mingle with all the other gruesome deaths Charlie had caused. Another quarter turn, Jake screamed again.
"Save him, Sammy," Yellow-Eyes goaded, folding his arms across his chest. "What will Dean say when he finds out you let his friend die when you could've saved him?"
"He doesn't have it in him," Charlie said, dark eyes gleaming in the candlelight. "If not for Dean, the Winchester hunting line would've ended with John."
He's right. Without Dean I wouldn't have saved anyone and now Jake's going to die, too.
"Hold on, Sammy," a soft feminine voice whispered in his ear, a gentle breeze ruffling his hair, and with it came the faint smell of spring flowers. Your father's on his way.
Mom? I'm losing it. Whether from blood loss or his mind had finally snapped, he knew he was losing it. Heat warmed his skin, the deep cuts sealing themselves and vanishing as if they were never there to begin with, and for the first time in a very long time Sam didn't feel a twinge of pain.
Yellow-eyes didn't notice, too focused on Charlie's gruesome form of torture. It was a delusion, his mind's way of protecting him from what was about to happen. A few more twists of the screw and Jake would be dead.
Be ready, Sammy. The locks on the cuffs snapped open with the softest of clicks. No one harms my son and gets away with it.
Beside him flames burst to life in the form of a human - his mother, the poltergeist that had haunted his old home. Torture forgotten, Charlie eyes lit up at the sight of the fiery creature. No concern, no fear, his face lit up with excitement.
With a twist of his hand, he tried to throw her back into the wall. Nothing. His brow pulled together as he tried again with the same results. She placed herself in front of Sam, a mother's fiery shield to protect her child. Her fury burned brighter. Save him, Sam.
Sammy, this time it was his father's gravelly voice whispering through his mind. While we distract them, you take Jake and run. And whatever you do, don't look back.
It was a command, the likes of which he'd heard countless times, but instead of being angry or resentful as he had been in the past, a sense of stark relief rushed through him.
"Well, well." Yellow-Eyes smirked. "Momma and Papa Winchester come to rescue baby Sammy."
"What?" Charlie uttered, and for once he didn't seem unfazed by the news. "You said there'd -"
Now, Sam! My father's voice shouted through my mind.
Sam pushed off the wall, flames parting to let him through before they exploded behind him. Run, Sam, his mother whispered through his mind. Take the tickler with you.
Why she wanted him to take the cruel torture device with him, he couldn't begin to fathom and didn't have time to ask. His father appeared in front of him bathed in a fiery glow, and with a smile his way, he turned on Charlie, throwing him across the bunker into the wall.
The screw unwound of its own accord, the metal cuffs clicking open from around Jake's wrists. Without waiting to see if he was okay, Sam snatched up the Spanish Tickler, hefted Jake over his shoulder and rushed for the exit. He didn't listen - couldn't listen, glancing over his shoulder to see his father locked in battle with Charlie, vengeful spirit against demon wannabe, and poltergeist against Yellow-Eyes, orbs of glowing light bursting as they struck the powerful demon, and he wanted to join the fight. Wanted to be the one to kill Charlie.
"Go, Sam!" My father shouted, and this time his voice trembled the ground beneath Sam.
Heart pounding hard in his chest, Sam raced up the stairs and out of the bunker, and didn't stop running until his legs turned to trembling rubber. An explosion rocked the ground, and glancing behind him, Sam saw a plume of black smoke and flames rising high into the sky.
He didn't dare to hope Charlie was gone for good, his deal with the Yellow-Eyed demon demanded that he be the one to kill Charlie without Dean's help, but there was nothing in the wager that said his mom and dad's spirits couldn't lend a hand. It was a loophole, one the Yellow-Eyed demon hadn't considered when making the wager, and it saved not only him but Jake as well.
He liked to think his parents were looking out for him and came to his rescue. That wasn't the case. If it was, they would've interfered when Charlie almost killed him a year ago. No, their arrival to save Sam had something to do with the first time Charlie entered his family's lives and his father beat him.
Breathing hard, he set Jake down in the wet grass to access his injuries. He was still breathing, albeit raggedly, but after thinking Jake would die in front of him, Sam's shoulders sagged with utter relief. Fishing through his pocket for his phone, he jabbed the button to call Dean.
Dean answered before the second ring. "Where is he?" he growled into the phone, the panic in his tone unmistakable.
"Dean, it's me."
"Sammy?" Panic turned to doubt, and Sammy could hardly blame him for being suspicious.
"You're never gonna -"
"Sammy," John said, materializing in front of him, flickering in and out of view. "You can beat him." He faded away only to reappear.
"Sammy!" Dean shouted into the phone. "I'm almost at the bunker. Where are you?"
"Use the Tickler," his father said, speaking over Dean as if he didn't have much time. "Missouri has the answers you need."
"Sammy?" Dean spoke up again. "Who the hell are you talking to?".
"Give me a minute, Dean." He pulled the phone away from my ear, and looked to his dad once more. "What answers does Missouri have? Why can't you just tell me yourself?"
"I can't, Sammy...Go to Missouri." He flickered again. "Ask her for the journal - she'll know what you mean."
"How did you know I was in trouble?"
"It's in the journal - everything's in the journal." He faded away again and this time all that remained was the stench of sulfur.
John's disappearance seemed perfectly timed to the rumble of the Impala heading toward him. Sam jabbed the button on his phone, pocketed it, and hooked an arm around Jake's shoulders, lifting him up off the ground to carry him to the backseat of the car.
Dean stumbled out of the car, rushed to open the back door, and once Jake was in the backseat, he framed Sam's face in his hands, looking him over for obvious injuries. Then he fisted Sam's shirt. "Who's blood is this?"
"Mine," Sam stated calming, prying Dean's fingers loose from. "We need to get moving, Dean."
Sam waited until they were in the car to share what had happened, leaving the eldest Winchester dumbfounded. It wasn't that he didn't believe Sam, but it was almost impossible to wrap his mind around the idea of their parents breaking out of Heaven and Hell to save either one of them.
"I don't understand it any better than you do," Sam said, glancing over his shoulder at Jake's unconscious form, and his brow furrowed in concern. "We have to get him to the hospital, Dean."
"Where do you think I'm headed now," Dean said, white-knuckling the steering wheel as they raced down the road. "He didn't give you a clue as to what's in the journal?"
"Nope." Sam glanced down at the Spanish Tickler resting on his lap, and shoved it onto the floor. "He just said everything we need to know is in there." Lifting his hand, he studied the unmarred skin on his palm, eyes narrowing to where there should have been horrible scars. "They're gone, Dean." He showed Dean his hand. "I don't know how, but the scars are gone."
Dean glanced at his hand then grabbed it to take a closer look. "Mom, did that?"
"I don't know - I don't think so." He couldn't explain it, but he felt as if there was another presence in the room, some other powerful force that kept the Yellow-Eyed demon from stopping him from leaving the bunker with Jake. "Do you think it's possible -"
"If you mention angels I'll pull over and make you walk to the hospital." Dean returned his sights to the road. "For all we know this is just another game Charlie's playing to make us feel safe before he attacks again."
"Well, there's one way to find out if it is." Sam pulled out his phone, scrolled down until he found Missouri's number, and pressed call. She answered on the third ring. "Missouri, it's Sam. I -"
"I know it's you, boy," she huffed, and Sam could picture her pressing her lips together, and praying for the Lord to give her the strength to deal with him and Dean. "You're lookin' for your daddy's journal," she added, not a question, and he briefly thought to ask how she knew, but they were pulling up the emergency department, and it wasn't as if she would give him the chance to speak anyway. "I had a feelin' you boys would need it so I sent it to Bobby."
"What do you know about Two-finger Charlie?" Sam asked as Dean ran to get a wheelchair for Jake.
"The short version is that you were abducted by that evil man while your Daddy was on a hunting trip. Your brother took it hard - real hard, and took it upon himself to find you. John came back to get you boys and found a note from Dean with blood splattered on it. Charlie finished the letter with the words 'come find'em, Johnny...come see what I've done to your pretty boys'." She paused to take a deep breath, and as she did Sam noticed Dean coming back to the car with two interns in tow. "John went half out of his mind searching for you boys. It was no wonder with Charlie taunting him with notes stained with blood and locks of yours and Dean's hair...read the journal, Sam. Everything you need to know to beat him is written within those pages."
Reminded of how Charlie chopped off a lock of his hair while torturing him, Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The flurry of activity coming from the backseat helped calm his jittering nerves a little, but Dean yelling at the doctors to get their asses moving didn't help matters.
"You there, Sam?" Missouri's voice brought him back to the problem at hand.
"Yeah," he whispered, focusing on Dean rushing inside the hospital with Jake. He needed to get inside, to be there for Jake as he'd been there for them, but he couldn't let her go without asking about his parents. "My parents were there - in the bunker." Tears filling his eyes, he swallowed hard. "How was that possible? My mom was gone, you said so yourself. Why now?"
"There was a spell," she said as Sam pushed open the door and got out of the car. "Charlie mentioned making some sort of deal with a demon...John thought he killed him, but found him gone when he went back to salt and burn the body, and so your Daddy hunted down a powerful witch by the name of Rowena to place a spell to find you no matter where you boys were or he was. Of course the spell was very specifically worded - if ever Charlie and a demon were both present and your life was in imminent danger not even death would stop him from saving you or Dean."
"He should've told us," Sam said, making his way over to where Dean was filling out paperwork for Jake. Glancing down at his unscarred hand, he balled it into a tight fist. "I felt another powerful presence in the bunker," he added as Dean flipped through the forms, and Sam noticed how his hand trembled as he put Margaret's name down on Jake's contact information. "The scars on my hands are gone. Not just gone, but it's like they were never damaged to begin with."
"Without bein' able to enter the bunker, I'm afraid I can't help ya, Sam." After a long pause, she added, "Go with your gut, boy. You were right about your old home not bein' safe, trust your instincts."
"We gotta go, Sammy," Dean interrupted, nudging his head toward the sliding double doors then tipped it toward the two police officers talking to one of the doctors. "I'm guessing they don't get too many head injuries like Jake's." He didn't want to leave Jake and neither did Sam, but there was no way they could explain the broken bones in Jake's face or the deep cuts littered across his body. "He's going to be okay," he added as they made for the exit, and once outside hurried to the Impala. Having been dragged under by Charlie, neither Winchester believed Jake would fully recover from his injuries, but it needed to be said. "This needs to end, Sammy," Dean said as they drove away from the hospital. "No one else is going to die because of us."
"Bobby has Dad's journal," Sam said, looking down at the Spanish Tickler. "He told me I could kill Charlie with it."
"Killing him with his own torture device is a plan I could really get behind." Dean cast a glance in his direction, and a faint smile pulled at his lips. "But this time, we're not going anywhere until his body is salted and burnt to ash."
"And we're gonna take those ashes and spread them across the whole United States so he'll never be able to come back."