Dean walked the perimeter of Evergreen Cemetery, idly wondering what had gotten into his brother. He could never recall a time when Sam had lost his temper so quickly. A time, that is, that didn't involve their father.
What bothered Dean even more than Sam's outburst was the look of sheer panic he saw in his baby brother's eyes. What was it that Sam had seen? It couldn't have been a human being. According to Sam, the potential threat had been right in front of them, and there was no way an ordinary person could have disappeared so quickly in the wide open cemetery.
Dean highly doubted it was a spirit. Spirits usually did their thing at night, and Dean had been hunting with his brother long enough to know that it took a lot more than some garden-variety ghost to spook Sam.
He glanced over at his brother and sighed as Sam continued to thrust the dirt out of the hole.
Dean began to wonder if maybe Sam's Spidey senses were tingling and the kid had had a vision or something, like the premonitions he'd had about the Miller family back in Michigan. It was possible, although Sam's current behavior just didn't quite fit.
Back in Saginaw, Sam had been virtually incapacitated by his waking nightmares. The kid had barely been able to walk immediately following a vision, let alone sprint halfway across a cemetery. And Dean clearly remembered the sheen of sweat that had covered his brother's face after envisioning the Millers' deaths, and today, Sam wasn't even perspiring.
Dean stopped in his tracks and wiped the moisture from his brow.
Sam wasn't perspiring.
The blazing August sun had raised the heat index to a whopping one hundred and fifteen degrees, and Sam wasn't sweating.
Sam had sprinted halfway across the massive graveyard when he'd thought they might be in danger, yet there wasn't a drop of moisture on the kid's sun-burnt flesh.
Shit. Had it even been sunburn?
Dean's memory took him back to when he was a teenager and Pastor Jim Murphy had joined them on a hunt. They'd been tracking a creature in the Minnesota woods not too far from the priest's home when Jim had suddenly collapsed, and John had carried his friend the short distance back to the car.
Dean distinctly remembered the parched, red look their friend's skin had taken on, and his stomach twisted when he thought back to the events leading up to Murphy's collapse.
The hunters had entered the woods fully intending on locating the creature and emptying a round of silver into its heart. After hours of hiking with no sign that the enemy had even been there, the foursome had decided to call it quits and return the next day. It was then, Dean recalled, that Jim began pointing frantically to a clearing in the woods.
The priest claimed to have seen a dilapidated shed in the distance, stating that the creature had most likely taken shelter inside. When the other three hunters followed Murphy's gaze, they hadn't seen anything more than a few trees.
John Winchester had accused his friend of hitting the Communion wine a little too hard that morning, but the clergyman was insistent that the building had been there.
It wasn't until Jim had collapsed that John had realized that his friend's hallucination was a warning sign of his impending heatstroke.
Dean shook off the unpleasant memory and took a deep breath to calm his fraying nerves. He chanced a look at his brother, praying that the kid was simply sun-burnt and pissy, though Dean knew it was a long shot.
He felt the bile rise in his throat as he turned to face Elizabeth Howard's tombstone.
Sam was nowhere to be found.
Dean would never know how he covered the distance from the graveyard's iron fence to Elizabeth's tombstone in such a short amount of time, but in a few short strides, he was there.
Dean reluctantly peered into the shallow hole, knowing immediately what he would find.
There, on top of the dirt and roots and their shovel, lay Sam. If it hadn't been for the rapid rise and fall of Sam's bare chest, Dean would have thought the kid was dead.
OhGodOhGodOhGod…
"Sammy!" Dean crouched down into the partially dug grave and clutched his brother's face. "Sammy?" He lightly slapped Sam's cheek, doing his best to ignore the dry, red skin beneath his strong hands. "Come on, man. Don't do this." Dean tried to ignore the way his voice caught on that last statement and lightly slapped his brother again.
Sam remained perfectly still.
Oh God, Sammy, I'm so sorry.
Dean tried to bring himself back to that day in Minnesota when Pastor Jim had fallen ill. His mind struggled to recall what his father had done to rouse their friend, but all Dean could think about was his lifeless brother laying limply across his lap. Because of me.
Focus, Dean. Sammy needs you.
The older brother closed his eyes and took himself back to that day, back to Jim's prone form and his father's heroic actions.
"Come on, boys. We've got to keep him cool." John said as he inserted the thermometer into his friend's mouth.
"How, Dad?" Fifteen-year-old Dean asked. "We already got him in the air conditioning and he's still hot!"
John looked anxiously around Jim's living room for any source of relief for his suffering friend. "Icepacks," he finally decided. "Go see if Jim has any icepacks in the freezer, Sammy."
As the eleven-year-old sprinted off to the kitchen, John turned to Dean. "Go get the bath running. Warm water. I don't want him going from hot to cold so quickly."
Sam returned with three blue icepacks just as John removed the thermometer from Murphy's arid mouth.
"One hundred and two," John began. "If we can get his temperature down, he shouldn't need a hospital."
Dean blinked the present day back into focus. All he had to do was get Sam back to the motel, cool him down, and pray that his high temperature would drop on its own.
Before he could do anything else, Dean first needed to get his brother out of the open grave.
Fortunately, neither sibling had made much progress with the shovel and the hole was still fairly shallow, but Sam was still a dead weight. Dean considered lifting his brother in a fireman's carry, but with nothing to grasp onto with his free hand, they would both be as good as stuck.
He rubbed his face with both hands and paced the narrow hole. Think, man.
Taking a deep breath, Dean decided his best bet would be to climb out of the hole himself and hope he could lift Sam from his vantage point on the grass.
He gently pulled his unconscious brother to a sitting position against the wall of the tomb before lifting himself out. From up on the grass, he was able to secure his hands firmly beneath Sam's armpits. He then dug the toes of his boots into the mud and braced himself the best he could before taking a deep breath and pulling.
The muscles in Dean's bare back strained with the effort of lifting over two hundred pounds of dead weight, but adrenaline coupled with sheer determination allowed the older brother to heave Sam's upper body over the edge of the shallow grave. From there, Sam's legs dragged easily.
He carefully maneuvered Sam's head into the crook of his arm before securing his other arm behind his brother's knees. Using whatever strength he might have had left in his legs, Dean lifted his brother and headed toward the car.
The car. Parked on the street at the far end of the cemetery.
Dean honestly didn't know whether or not he'd be able to support Sam's dead weight until they had reached the Impala, and if he collapsed from exhaustion as well, they'd both be as good as dead. And it would be all my fault.
Pausing briefly to look around, Dean spotted the shallow stream that ran parallel to the graveyard. It was a hell of a lot closer than the car, and maybe he'd be able to cool Sam off.
Sam's head began to loll and Dean held him tighter and cradled his brother's head in the crook of his neck.
"Hang on, Sammy. I gotcha," Dean assured, gently lowering Sam's prone form to the riverbank.
Dean immediately retrieved his shirt from the back of his pants, dunking it in the stream and squeezing it out over Sam's bare chest. When Dean was satisfied that Sam's torso was saturated, he laid the wet shirt across Sam's chest. He carefully removed his brother's t-shirt from the back of Sam's jeans and tossed that into the creek as well. Once the clothing was soaked, Dean squeezed the water out over Sam's arms and face. Despite the overwhelming heat, the shade from the trees kept the stream water cool, and Dean hoped it would be enough.
Dean repeated the motions of saturating their shirts with the cool water, hopeful that Sam's body temperature would be coming down but still leery of the kid's rapid pulse. It hadn't slowed much since Dean had found him, and the older brother worried that if it didn't steady itself soon, Sam could go into cardiac arrest.
Dean considered calling for an ambulance before remembering their reasoning for being at Evergreen in the first place. The police would surely question him, but he'd risk it for Sam.
He pulled out his cell phone and was waiting for a signal when Sam's eyelids began to flutter.
Dean flipped the phone shut and ran a hand through is brother's hair. "Sam? Come on, buddy. Time to wake up."
Sam blinked rapidly and continued to struggle for air.
"Hey, hey," Dean soothed. "You've got to calm down, Sammy. You're okay."
When Sam responded by darting his eyes frantically around the cemetery, Dean pulled him into his lap and rested Sam's back against his chest.
"Come on, Sam. Breathe with me. In and out, just like me."
Sam clutched the fabric of his brother's pants in an attempt to steady his breathing, and as he listened to Dean's strong, calming voice, his pulse finally began to slow.
"That's it, kiddo. Nice and slow." Dean worked to keep his breathing as steady as possible until Sam was able to get his bearings.
Sam's grip on his brother's jeans finally loosened as he slowly inhaled and exhaled, keeping time with the rise and fall of Dean's chest against his back. Swallowing to try and moisten his parched throat, Sam made an effort to speak.
"Wha--" he managed to croak out.
"Shh," Dean whispered. "Don't try and talk. You passed out from the heat but you're gonna be fine, Sammy. I've got you." I need to fix this.
Sam attempted a nod as his head drooped against Dean's shoulder, his eyes slowly slipping closed.
"Sam? Hey," Dean gripped his brother's chin and turned Sam's head to face him. "Stay with me, man."
When Sam's eyelids fluttered in response, he carefully placed two fingers on Sam's neck and felt the steady rhythm of his pulse. Sam's breathing had finally regulated after several agonizing minutes, so Dean concentrated on the fever.
"Okay, buddy. I'm gonna take you to the car, okay? We'll go back to the motel and everything will be fine." Dean gathered both their shirts and placed them both in the creek one last time, squeezing them both out over Sam's chest and face before attempting to lift his brother once more.
This time, he managed to gather Sam into his arms in a fireman's carry before collecting their t-shirts and heading for the Impala.
TBC
