Title: The Blood Harvest
Author: Coleharley (Me)
Rating: PG-13 or Maybe R (some really graphic scenes)
Characters: Dean and Sam (some Oc's thrown in too)
Summary: The brothers go to a small town to investigate the ritualistic murders of children taking place there.
Warnings: Blood and Death (nothing too bad though)
Authors Note: I do so love to torture the Winchester brothers, so be warned, there's some major owies coming up in the future chapters.
Disclaimer: Don't own them (wish I did)
The Blood Harvest- Chapter 3
"Where the hell could he be?" Sam asked aloud, pacing nervously in their room. "He didn't leave a note or anything! That is so not like him."
"Look man, I'm sure he's fine." Ian said calmly. "He knows what he's doing, right? I mean, you told me that you guys are always prepared for anything, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I did, and we usually are, but Dean's sick and taking that medicine practically knocked him out and, I don't know... something just doesn't feel right." Sam replied, frowning.
"Have you stopped to think that maybe he went to grab some food, or.. " Ian smiled and snapped his fingers as he said," Maybe he called up Becky. "Yeah, I bet that's where he is, getting a booty call!"
"Well, that does sound like something he would do. He probably thought we'd be gone longer than we were, and he could slip out and get back without us ever knowing." Sam said, shaking his head, and grinning at the thought.
"Your brother is the man." Ian commented, as he pulled food from the bag they'd picked up on the way back.
"Ian, exactly how old are you?" Sam asked sarcastically.
"Twenty-four, Sam. But let me say in my defense, you'd have to be gay to not appreciate the fineness of Nurse Becky Timms." he replied.
"I've really got to see this woman then." Sam said. "Maybe she has a sister or something. Who says Dean gets to have all the fun anyway?"
"Oh, she has a sister, Sam, and I'm sure if you wanted her, you could get her real easily." Ian said with a snicker, then added, "because she weighs like five hundred pounds, and has warts on her face!"
"You are not funny." Sam replied, glaring at him, then a thought came to him.
Why don't I just call Dean's cell, he always has it.
He picked up the phone from the bedside table and dialed his brother's number, then listened as it rang and rang until finally Dean's voice came on with his recorded message saying to leave a number and he'd call back.
Sam hung the phone back up with a frustrated sigh.
"Ian, I need to go check around and see if I see Dean's car parked anywhere. He's not answering his cell, and he always answers it. And seeing as how I don't have a car at my disposal, I have to ask you if you would mind paying taxi for a while." Sam said, smiling hopefully at Ian.
"Well, since I don't have a job anymore, and the only thing I had planned tonight was working, I think I can help you out. My fiancé lives near Becky and we can swing by there so I can tell her where I'll be, and you can see if your brother's car is at Becky's. Kinda kill two birds with one stone, and no, I don't have to report to Mandy everything I do, it's just something I consider a common courtesy." he added when Sam smirked at what he'd said.
They reached Mandy's house fairly quickly, and Sam left him the couple alone for a few minutes while he walked three houses down to where Becky lived.
Seeing only a silver Miata in the driveway, he started to head back, then decided to go ring the doorbell and ask the woman if his brother had been there at anytime tonight.
He pushed the buzzer and shortly heard the sound of someone opening the door, and then a woman appeared.
"Hi there." she said, in a silky voice, and Sam momentarily forgot why he had come as he stood there grinning.
Dean and Ian had not been exaggerating in the least, Becky was a hot one. She had long, curly, dark brown hair, green eyes, and a mouth that Sam thought looked just like Angelina Jolie's, with a killer body to boot. That fact greatly accentuated by the spaghetti strapped camisole and short skirt she was wearing.
"Hello." he finally said in return, "Becky?" he asked.
"Yes, and who are you?" she asked, looking him slowly over.
"Sam Winchester, um...I believe you met my friend Dean today at the doctors office, and was wondering if you've seen him tonight." he said quickly.
"Dean? Hmm... Let me see. I do remember him at the office today, he's kinda hard to miss, you know." she said, with a giggle. "And though I did give him my number, he hasn't called me, so, no Sam I haven't seen him tonight." she said, with a pout.
"Oh, well thanks for talking to me." Sam mumbled.
"My pleasure, Sam, its not like I had anything else to do since I'm here all by my lonesome self." she replied, then smiling suggestively at him, asked "Would you like to come in and have a drink?"
"Would I ever." he let slip out, then smiling in embarrassment said quickly, "No thanks, Becky, but um… when I find Dean I'll make sure to tell him to give you a call." and turned, walking quickly down the steps, almost tripping on the bottom one.
"Bye now!" she yelled, and, smiling to herself, went back in and closed the door.
Sam walked back into Mandy's yard, still grinning, and Ian and his fiancé immediately started laughing.
"Told you she was hot." Ian said, earning him a hard punch in the gut from Mandy, who, in Sam's opinion, was quite hot herself.
"What?" Ian asked, looking at her innocently, and then he turned to Sam. "Well, has he been there?"
"No, she hasn't seen him since this afternoon." he replied, beginning to worry.
"Well, we passed through everything in town on the way here and didn't see his car. So where else is there to look?" Ian asked.
"I don't know." Sam replied.
"What about the lake?" Mandy suggested, and when Ian and Sam looked at her said, "Well, Ian told me the whole deal while you were gone, and seeing as how your brother said he gave Jeff the phone number to his room and his cell number just in case anything happened and he needed to call, it would make sense to check the lake to see if that's what happened since you can't find him anywhere else."
"See why I'm marrying this woman, she's a genius and she's hot." Ian said proudly, lifting her from the ground in a tight hug.
"Yeah, thanks Mandy, that's a great idea, I should've thought of it myself." Sam agreed, grinning at the woman.
After telling Mandy bye and listening to Ian promise her they would be careful, they got in the car and headed towards the lake.
"There's his car!" Sam exclaimed when they pulled into the parking area. They quickly got out and Sam rushed over to see if Dean was in it.
No.
"Dean!" Sam yelled several times, cupping his hands around his mouth. When he received no answer, he opened the car door, and saw that the keys were still in the ignition, which meant whatever Dean had been doing, he was in a hurry.
"Come on." he instructed Ian, and unlocked the trunk to the car, revealing the small weapons armory they had stashed there.
"Pick one." he said to Ian, who after getting over the initial shock of seeing what was in the trunk, picked up a shotgun.
"This I know how to use." he said with a smile as Sam chose a handgun and after making sure they were both loaded, started into the woods, making their way slowly, and carefully, to where the killings always took place.
"No one's here." Ian said when they came out into the empty clearing.
"But his car's here, so he has to be around somewhere." Sam stated.
"This is a small place, Sam, and if he was here, he'd have heard your yelling and answered." Ian said.
"Unless he couldn't answer me." Sam said quietly.
"Hey, what's this?" Ian asked, bending over to pick up a something black from the ground. "It's a gun." he said, in almost a whisper.
"Let me see that!" Sam demanded and jerked it from his hand, shining the mag-lite he'd brought with them on it.
"It's his. It's Dean's." he said slowly, and then shined the flashlight around on the ground to see if they could find anything else.
"Hey, shine it on the ground, over near that tree again." Ian instructed, pointing at the tree he was talking about.
Sam did so, and they both walked over to where the light was illuminating the ground, and a large puddle of water.
"Yeah, so? It's water, Ian; we're at a lake you know." Sam stated, sounding annoyed, and he started to move away.
"Wait, Sam!" Ian said, and with a frustrated sigh, Sam turned back around in time to see him putting his hand into the puddle.
"This ain't water." Ian said, raising his hand, and Sam shining the light on it, gasped when he saw the thick red liquid dripping from Ian's fingers.
"Is that?" he asked in a whisper.
"Blood." Ian replied somberly. "And it's only been here a couple of hours at the most. It's not coagulated yet."
"Oh god, Dean…" Sam said, sitting down heavily on the dirty ground, and putting his head in his hands.
Taking the flashlight from Sam, Ian found a small trail running from the puddle. "Looks like whoever did it, dragged the person down this way." Ian stated, shining the light on the groves dug into the ground by Dean's legs, and following it to the parking area, where it disappeared.
He returned to where Sam was, still sitting with his head in his hands. "Come on, Sam, we don't even know for sure it's Dean's blood." Ian said, kneeling beside him.
"Then who's is it, Ian? And why else would my brother leave his car sitting, with the keys in it? Not to mention the fact we found his gun!" Sam yelled, "So tell me officer, if it's not him, then where the hell is he?"
"Calm down, Sam! Whoever did it, dragged the person back to his car, and must have taken them with them to wherever they were going, so even if it was your brother, he must still be alive or they wouldn't have bothered, now would they?"
Sam sniffed and wiped his eyes on his coat, and Ian realized the younger man must have been crying, but pretended not to notice.
"So who was it then? Who would've gone to the trouble of getting Dean out here and then taking him with them?" Sam asked.
"Who knows for sure? One of the kid's parents maybe? We need to go back to the Inn and work out a plan before we go barging from house to house playing vigilantes though. We will find him, alive." Ian said, putting his hand on the younger man's shoulder, and they walked back to the car.
Dean lay, shaking in the dark cellar, singing to himself, in an attempt to remain optimistic, and ignore the pain in his stomach.
"Seventy-nine bottles of beer on the wall, seventy-nine bottles of beer. Take one down and pass it around, Seventy-eight bottles of beer on the wall." he sang and then just stopped. "Who am I kidding?" he said aloud. "I'm gonna die down here." He knew his only hope for rescue would be his brother, and he had been so stupid as to not leave a note or anything stating where he was going.
And tomorrow, that bastard of a sheriff was going to let that thing murder his son, and the knowledge that he could do nothing about it, coupled his pain, and the onset of delirium caused by blood loss, and infection, was more than Dean could take.
He did something he hadn't done in years.
He started crying, feeling loss, regret, helplessness, and many other emotions piled on him at the same time.
Who would take care of Sam, and help find their father?
His brother was strong, he knew that, but he would never be able to do it alone.
And Dean didn't want to die, especially in a dark cellar all by himself.
He rolled over onto his side, and pulling his legs to his chest. He lay there, shaking and sweating.
He must have passed out again at some point, but was pulled back into consciousness by the sound of the cellar door opening. Squinting against the unexpected light shining on him, he couldn't tell who it was at first, but as the small figure drew closer, he realized it was the boy.
Carrying a backpack, after closing the door behind him, Jeff raced down the steps.
"I'm so sorry, Dean." he said quietly, sitting the pack down and lowering himself to a spot beside him. "I promise I wouldn't have called if I'd known what they were going to do to you. When I finally realized, it was too late. You just have to believe me." he pleaded.
"S'okay, Jeff." Dean said shakily. "I know it wasn't you. You shouldn't be down here." he added, trying not to let on how grateful he was just to see another person at this point.
"The devil had to make a run to town, and his wife must be feeling kinda bad about the whole, monster's going to kill me tomorrow thing, because she let me come down here. And I brought some stuff." the boy explained, opening the backpack he'd brought, and pulling out a roll of gauze, bandages, tape, and alcohol." I hope it helps."
"Good job, buddy." Dean said, smiling gratefully at the boy.
"Oh yeah, and I brought you some drinks and stuff too." Jeff said, pulling them out as he spoke.
"Thanks." Dean said, taking one of the drinks, but his hands were shaking so badly he couldn't open it, so the boy did it for him.
"I need you to call my brother." Dean said, after taking a big swallow of the drink.
"I already tried to, but my dad's done something to the phones." the boy replied with a frown, glancing at Dean, who'd struggled into a sitting position, and was now leaning against the wall.
"Oh." Dean said quietly, lowering his head in defeat.
"This is all my fault, I got scared and pulled you into this and now you're hurt, and my crazy dad has you locked in our cellar, and there's nothing I can do about it." the boy rambled on miserably.
"No, don't even think about blaming yourself for this. You're only 10. You should be watching the Smurfs and playing with your friends, instead, you're watching your friends die, and waiting for your turn. And that's just not fair." Dean said, putting a cold hand on the boys arm. "This is my own fault, I'm the one who ran off with guns half cocked, and didn't even leave my brother a note or anything saying where I was. So don't even sweat over that, Jeff." he added, laying his head back against the wall, and closing his eyes with a sigh.
Yep, Dean, you're really screwed this time, he thought, holding a hand to his still bleeding stomach, and laughing bitterly.
"You know what, Dean? You're right; it's not my fault, or yours. It's these wacko people that we kids had the luck of landing as parent's fault. But you know what else? Number one, the Smurfs is a totally gay cartoon, and I wouldn't be watching it if I could, and number two, we're not giving up." he said, looking at him with determination. "And hey, I just realized something." he exclaimed looking at Dean accusingly, "You said that other guy is your brother! I thought he was your partner. You're not really even in the FBI are you?"
Why bother lying anymore.
"No Jeff, I'm not in the FBI, neither is Sam."
"I knew you were to dumb to be a FBI agents." the boy proclaimed.
"Gee thanks." Dean muttered, closing his eyes again, and wincing.
"You okay?" Jeff asked, and then said quickly, "Wait, don't even bother answering that stupid question, of course you're not okay."
"It's really hard to believe you're only ten, being so perceptive and all." Dean replied sarcastically, then trying to move into a more comfortable position, only succeeding in causing himself more pain, and let out an involuntary moan.
"I brought you the bandages and stuff for a reason." Jeff stated.
"Oh, really? I thought I was just supposed to look at them." Dean retorted lamely, but he was hurting pretty badly, so it was the best he could do at the moment.
"So, shouldn't you use them already?Preferably before you bleed to death." Jeff suggested.
"I'm getting to that; I just need a minute here, if you don't mind." Dean said crossly.
"Okay then, I guess I have to go back in before my dad comes back, I don't want him to know I came down here and all" Jeff said, standing up and brushing his pants off.
"No, wait!" Dean said frantically, "Do you have to go?"
He knew he sounded like a pathetic whiner, but he really didn't want to be left alone in the cellar again, so he didn't particularly care about his macho image at this moment.
"I have to, Dean, but I promise I'll be back as soon as I can. My dad leaves periodically throughout the day to attend to "business" as he calls it, and as soon as he leaves again I'll come, okay?" Jeff said, feeling badly about leaving the wounded man in the dark cellar alone, but it was for the best. If his dad found out he'd come down to see Dean, he would get really mad, and who knows what he might do then? "Here, you can keep my flashlight, it's a really good one." he
offered, and with a pathetic attempt at a smile, Dean took it from him.
"Thanks." he muttered.
"See you soon, okay?" the boy asked. "Okay?" he repeated when Dean didn't immediately answer.
"Okay, now get out of here before your dad gets back." Dean replied finally, giving the boy a forced smile, which he returned and quickly ran up the steps.
"Alone again, naturally." Dean sang to himself as he sat the flashlight on the ground and struggled out of his shirt, getting his first good look at the gash in his stomach. "Well that's definitely gonna leave a scar, but luckily, women dig scars." he said aloud, taking the top off of the alcohol.
He was glad he had waited until Jeff left to do this, the boy had seen enough blood and gore in one week to last a lifetime.
"This is so gonna hurt." he said, biting his lip in preparation for pouring the alcohol on his wound. He didn't even like putting alcohol on a small cut, much less a huge gaping one, but it was necessary, so taking a deep breath, and he poured it on.
And despite any mental preparation he thought he'd given himself, he screamed. He couldn't help it, because it was like his stomach was on fire, and he wished he would just pass out, but it just wasn't going to happen, so all he could do was wait it out until it receded to a more bearable throb, leaving him gasping momentarily, before continuing his task.
I guess patching Sam up all those times did teach me something, he thought as he wrapped the bandage around his stomach and taped it down.
Finally finished with his task, he put what remained of his shirt back on, and then he pulled his coat back on too, zipping it all the way up for warmth.
That should help me hold on a bit longer, he thought, but knew it was inevitable that it wouldn't last. Though he had succeeded in temporarily stopping the blood flow, he knew he'd lost too much already, and would soon go into shock. His wound was probably already infected, so his efforts would most likely end up being futile, but he had to try.
If he didn't, no one would be there to help the boy when his time came to face the Reverend, and most importantly, he had made his father a promise many years ago that he wouldn't let anything happen to Sam, and he'd be damned if he wasn't at least going to try and keep it.
If only he'd left a note or something.
Jeff couldn't even call Sam for him.
Hey, wait a minute, dumbass!
Your cell phone, why hadn't he thought of that earlier?
Turning the flashlight on once again, he dug frantically in his coat pocket where he kept his phone. He almost cried in relief when he felt the familiar shape of it and pulled it out.
Seeing the light flashing that meant he'd missed some calls, he remembered he'd switched it to manner mode when he'd gone to meet Jeff.
The number that had called was Sam, and he'd tried to reach Dean, not only once, but four times, and he hadn't even known it.
He looked to see how many bars he had. Two, not too great a signal from the ole cellar, but it was better than nothing.
He made a silent decision to call the people who made the "can you hear me now" commercials and tell them their promise of being to get a full signal from anywhere was a bunch of bullshit, if he got out of this alive that is.
He luckily remembered the number to the hotel room, and after dialing it, waited with held breath to see if Sam answered.
After five rings, the phone was picked up, and he heard the familiar sound of Sam's voice.
The phone beeped at that moment, signaling the charge was moments away from running out, so he hurriedly said what he needed to his brother.
"Sam, it's me. I'm locked in the sheriff's cellar, I've been stabbed, and I'm hurting badly. I need your help." was all he got out before the phone competely died.
He threw it against the wall in frustration.
Well, Dean, it looks like you're just going to have to wait and see if he got all that.
Then as pain ripped through him once again, he finally fell into the welcome arms of darkness.
TBC