Sacrifice – chpt 9 – s.n. fic.
by: sifi
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Dean felt his eye crack open and winced at the dry hot rub of his eyelid scraping over the sensitive cornea. There was coolness at his back and he was in the hallway. Above him on the staircase he could see movement, a barber pole of swirling orange and silver that seemed to dance up the stairs and disappear. He drew a breath and felt his pains come to life. His throat closed and burned even as his diaphragm spasmed and his lungs rejected his attempts to breathe. For a moment he was very much afraid as fuzzy grayness narrowed his field of vision.
Sam? Where'd you go? or was it you Mister Misty? he wondered and tried to make a sound but his throat screamed a warning at him. He closed his eyes and let himself drift once more.
--
Sam cast a furtive glance down the corridor and quickly stuck his picks into the lock, opening the office door deftly and stepping inside before anyone entered the hallway.
The office looked more like it belonged to a corporate executive than an academician, furnished as it was in clean lines of black, slate gray and deep browns. The shelves were orderly and not overly stuffed with artifacts as one would expect, but Sam had seen the pictures of the office. He had an idea of what to expect when he arrived and he had a game plan.
Taking a quick look around he sighed and noticed that he felt lighter. Since he'd spent the last couple hours getting the information in his head sorted and dispersed into files on his laptop, the sense of overwhelming desperation that had been pushing so heavily on his shoulders since this case began, and even a few things that had been weighing on him from as far back as the crash, finally seemed to have lifted a little. All the concerns he'd had about what they were doing and where their lives seemed to be going were on their way to being sorted and rectified within himself instead of swirling chaotically, and it gave him a small measure of relief.
I should've updated the file a long time ago... catharsis can be good... how does Dean keep it all so tight inside? an image of his big brother laying on his stomach in his boxer briefs and a t-shirt, on a motel room bed, with his feet in the air and the back of his pen in his mouth as he contemplated what to write in a diary or journal came slamming through his head and he couldn't help but snicker. That'll be the day... course then again, I didn't know he liked to read either... Jean Auel nonetheless... or watch Oprah for that matter... he shook his head examining whatever artifacts were exhibited on the shelves, trying to find something that appeared to indicate more than just the average appreciation for things Babylonian or Akkadian. There were a three cylinders he noted and one by one began to scrutinize them trying to remember what little he'd picked up from Miss Tilter.
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Dean felt his arm flail and groaned when the back of his hand smacked hard against the marble flooring, irritating his red and burning skin while bringing him back for a brief moment from the fire that threatened to consume him from within. He felt his hair stir in a faint breeze that seemed to carry with it a hint of moisture. Slowly he felt his head turn instinctively toward that soothing cool and as his eyes cracked open once more he saw a cloud of silver moving of its own accord down the stairs to coalesce and hover above him, that face he recognized as the one that had asked him for help, grimaced at the sight he must make and began a slow descent over him until he was safely entombed within the whole of its presence.
He felt his heart tremble just a bit as the cloud descended upon him and even as he breathed it in, felt it soothe his scorched mouth and throat and finally move into his lungs, making the act of breathing just a little more bearable, Dean got his first glimpse of what it might be like when Sam got a vision, the only difference being that his agony wasn't contained to his head and a skull splitting migraine.
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In Emil Fredrick's office Sam was nearly done with the first cylinder. This one relayed information he was already aware of with regard to Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and the progress of his particular tower. Information Sam had actually experienced through the vision he'd been given. I wonder if Mister Misty really IS Nebuchadnezzar or if it's someone else...or someTHING else... he conceded that his big brothers' instincts were more often than not, almost grudgingly accurate when it came to reading people. Sam didn't mind following his lead in the belief that the silvery apparition was at the very least benign, if not benevolent. He scanned the frieze images and found he seemed to understand more than he thought he would. She's a pretty good teacher... pretty good at flirting too...he smiled and moved on to the next cylinder.
The second one seemed to have very little if any bearing on their current situation, it was the story Miss Tilter had told him about Inanna and Ereshkigal and how the Goddess of love had been stripped of her protections bit by bit as she'd moved through each of the seven gates she'd had to traverse in order to pay homage to her sister's lost husband, and once she'd arrived naked before the Goddess of the underworld she'd been harshly judged and torn asunder.
Gruesome...Sam thought upon noting the scattering of the lady's limbs throughout the whole of the cruel sister Goddess' realm. He shook his head, the story was fascinating as were most of the myths and histories he'd encountered regarding these peoples but it wasn't what he was looking for and so moved on.
A cursory examination of the final cylinder revealed a sticker on the bottom, hand written in blue ink was "Syria 1952", and as he ran his eyes over the heavy bronze piece, taking in the images he was now at least somewhat familiar with, that weight he'd been relieved of, began to flow slowly back into his spine. Yeah... that's about our luck... still... we'll find a way... we have to...
Sighing from deep in the heart of his uncertainty, Sam continued his search of Emil Fredrick's office.
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Being that he was, or had been recently pretty much burning from the inside out, Dean wasn't surprised by the fact that even with his body unconscious, his mind was still seeing fire. What surprised him was that he was outside the world; neither standing nor floating, and still acutely and simply aware. He watched black within black spiral in on itself before a gape of orange swallowed the rear tip of black creating what was the first ouroborus. The only break in the circle of turning obsidian was that orange maw that spoke with wordless eloquence of the beginning which both is, and contains, its own end.
He didn't need to be conscious to feel the chill that shook him as within that circle, that perfect and timeless representation of infinity, a tiny spark of flame was nurtured to life, matter and energy swirling in an intricate dance that would inevitably result in the building of the planet he called home.
--
Dean felt his head snap against the steering wheel and squinted, trying to force some focus into his eyes. There wasn't a part of him that wasn't stinging, from deep inside to the hot sunburn-like feeling that was rolling out of his skin and he let himself groan as he put the car in park and looked out the passenger window at the door to their room which stood less than twenty feet away.
Too far... just need to rest a little bit first... there's a bed in there... and a bath tub... the sense memory of cool water sapping heat from him, drawing the excess of it out of his body to help him heal drove him to push open the car door and force himself to rise to his feet. He had no genuine memory of leaving the Turnbull house, nor of how he might have made it to the car and wondered if the bliss of shock might have enabled him to make the escape. He had a vague memory of a painful jouncing over the curb as he midjudged a turn but truly not much else.
Ow... he acknowledged a searing scraping feeling as his shoulder hit the brick wall outside their door and his skin felt as if it'd been ripped off by his t-shirt, that hurts... he stood still for a moment, forcing hismelf to take a deeper breath and doing everything he could to make sure that the intake of cooler air didn't set off a coughing fit that would make him wish he was gargling thumb tacks before forcing him to pass out.
"Dean?" he heard from across the parking lot behind him.
Ah there's my boy... hiya Sammy...I'll just wait for you to get here and give me a hand eh? Boy's got timing I'll say that for him... yay... he felt the sting as his lips tightened in a small smile and his breath seemed to flow a little easier in spite of the burning that was threatening to send him to his knees.
"Dean?" Sam's concern was unmistakable as his clodhoppers pounded across the pavement and he drew to a halt beside him. "Dean what happened?" he asked laying a hand on his shoulder and setting off a chain reaction.
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He looks like he's on fire...Sam thought as he drew across the lot, his concern growing with each step until he drew to a halt.
Dean was leaning against the wall, nearly doubled over and apparently having a great deal of difficulty breathing. Fear shot through the younger Winchester as he recalled the same exhausted, and pained stance when Dean had come to his motel room after checking hismelf out of the hospital after the Rawhead incident.
"Dean?...Dean what happened?" he asked dropping a hand onto his big brothers shoulder without thinking. His heart pumped hard when Dean barked in pain and his knees buckled. Sam barely managed to catch him before he hit the sidewalk, and as his arms clasped hard around him. Dean cried out once more, only piteously this time then slumped completely, all but dead weight in his little brothers' arms.
Sam slid the room key from between Dean's fingers and threw the door open before he hefted him over his shoulder and carried him inside, kicking the door closed behind him.
God he's burning up... is he sick? He looks like he's been... burned... what the hell happened? Sam thought and wondered, Should I take him to a hospital? This can't be good... and decided to play the Winchester Waiting Game. If Dean didn't show some signs of coherence or of cooling down with a few hours of basic first aid then Sam would take him to the hospital.
He knelt beside the bed and gently lowered his brother into an unsteady seated position so he could at least get his jacket off and find out if he was wounded.
I don't like this temperature... this can't be good! What happened? he thought soaking a couple of hand towels in cool water then picking up his head and sliding one behind his neck before laying the other over his forehead.
"Come on Dean... wake up man... tell me what happened..." Sam muttered then looked around the room, his brows furrowed as he checked his watch, "... and where's the kid?"
Once he had Dean situated as best as possible, and when there was nothing he could do but wait, he sifted through Dean's jacket pockets until he found his phone. He knew he'd put Martin's number into memory and he wanted to know where the kid was and why he wasn't here. Sam opened the phone and frowned when the screen came up, or rather didn't come up at all. He turned it on then flipped it over and slid the battery lock but the battery itself wouldn't come out. Sam stuck his nail under the battery and wincing pried it until it popped off and onto the floor. The inner plastic side that was supposed to be smooth was bubbled and cracked and the contacts were either covered with what appeared to be melted plastic, or they'd somehow been displaced. Frowning, Sam pushed the battery back into place with an inordinate amount of effort, then closed the phone and examined it closely. There was no evidence on the outside of the housing that any such internal destruction had taken place. The instrument looked exactly as it should.
Well that pretty much says it all... whatever did this to him was definitely supernatural. And he was at that damned house... with that son of a bitchn' silver mist... Damnit! Did IT do this to him? Or was there something else? Come on Dean... come on Dean? Come on SAM! Think... why would it approach... no it wouldn't... there has to be something else there... whatever it was that tore the servants apart and shattered the family... son of a bitch'n bastard hurt my brother! Why didn't you call me Dean? Why didn't you have a shotgun on you? he wondered frowning and returned his attention to the jacket.
In moments, with an old photograph between his fingers and an, I-knew-it smile on his face, Sam rinsed and reapplied the cool cloths to his brother then set up the laptop on the table and got to work sorting the puzzle pieces.
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"...I said get washed up for bed boys... now!" Marilee Watson, the Farmer Family housekeeper grinned around the door to Josh's room as they sighed their typical 'awwww's and watched for her to leave, then when they realized she wasn't going to, they actually paused the game and did as she said.
Martin dug around in his backpack, his hand closing on something cool and metal and oddly shaped. Well that sure isn't it... he thought and kept digging until he found what he was looking for and dodged for the bathroom, a happy smile on his face at the prospect of spending the night at his best friend's house before what he was hoping would be the best weekend of his young life.
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tbc y'all
What cha thinkin?
hope it's not too… odd…
Please let me know eh?
Thanks
sifi
