Eye of the Storm
Disclaimer: Don't own. 'Nough said.
Author's Note: An attempt at angst is made in this chapter. I may have been angsting already, but in this chapter I was actually trying to do it, whereas, if it's happened previously, it was merely story material. Hope I did well.
Review Answers:
FireZombie – Thank you, thank you, thank you, here it is.
Spuffyshipper – Yes, miscarriage has been planned since… well, actually, it's been planned since I knew I was going to put Haley and Sam together, which was, like, chapter something-teen of Heart of Gold. Yes, Meg survived, and in answer to the first time you said you wanted Meg to survive, there is going to be Dean/Meg romance. Don't know how deep it's gonna go, but it will be there.
Ghostwriter - That's good. The answer's in this chapter.
AnimeFan918 – Yeah, it is. Here it is.
Anonymous – Since your don't have a name, I'm just calling you Anonymous. Glad it was, yeah, it seemed like the kind of thing she'd be able to do.Thank you.
Miss Meehan – Thanks you, glad you think so.
EmSyd – Thank you, nice of you to say so.
Chapter 11: Grave
The demon led Dean through the seemingly endless passageways beneath the graveyard, and possibly beneath the entire town. And Dean was careful to memorize each turn. He felt he might pass out from overuse of his brain later on, but he did it. He'd need to know later on should he need to make a quick escape.
Thankfully, they didn't take too many complicated turns. And it only took them about ten minutes to reach the place where Dean expected to find Sam. Except the only person in the overly large room was the last person Dean wanted to see right at that moment.
"Laura." He growled. Her hands had been around a large goblet, but as soon as she heard his voice, Laura turned to look at him, leaving the goblet on the table.
"Dean, how nice to see you again," she said. "Although, I have to tell you, I'm not particularly fond of your tour guide." The demon standing in front of Dean cringed as Laura turned a withering gaze on him. Withering being the ideal word, as his whole body began to twitched and shake, falling to his knees. For a split second, he looked up pleadingly at the woman standing in front of him. Then his head snapped clean off his body.
Dean took a startled step back as the decapitated body slumped to the stone floor, its head lying beside it. The smoky substance that he guessed was the demon evaporated as it was ejected from the body it had inhabited moments before.
"Now, onto more pressing matters." Laura said, and Dean turned his attention back to her. Without hesitating, he raised the gun, but was thrown clear across the room before he even had a chance to shoot it. He hit the floor hard, not to mention empty-handed.
The gun had landed some dozen or so meters away. Of course, even as he half ran half crawled towards it, it was lifted off the ground, levitating for a minute before gliding over into Laura's outstretched hand. Dean froze as she pointed it at him.
"A gun?" she asked incredulously. "That's what you expected to beat me with? Do you even know who I am?" Dean gave her a knowing smile.
"I have a fair idea." Without waiting for Laura to wonder what he meant by that, he pulled the second gun from his belt and fired once, twice, three times, each time hitting his mark dead-on.
A startled gasp came from Laura, and she staggered back a couple of steps as the three bullets penetrated her chest, the stolen gun clattering to the floor. She stared down at the bloody holes in the front of her dress for a few minutes, and then gave a deep, over-exaggerated sigh.
"I thought we just went over this," she stated, looking up at Dean and shaking her head in disappointment. "You can't kill me with ordinary bullets." Dean continued to smile in that mocking way he'd adopted of late.
"Who said they were ordinary?" He asked. Laura blinked, and then looked back down at the bullet holes. They were bleeding. She looked back up at Dean, clearly shocked.
"What-?"
"Haley's blood." Dean said. "Those bullets were covered in it. Sam's may restore you, but Haley's has something of the opposite effect, doesn't it?" The Demon growled at him, her eyes changing to a sickly yellow.
She turned from Dean, towards the altar where she had left the goblet. Dean put two and two together, and quickly ran forwards as she started towards her only chance of restoration.
His fist connected with the back of her head and she fell forward, while Dean rushed passed her, reaching the table and grabbing the goblet which, as he'd guessed, was filled almost to the rim with blood. And he had a sneaking suspicion he knew whose blood it was.
"No, wait!" The Demon shouted in a deep voice that didn't fit with the person whose lips it used. He hesitated for a second, turning back around as she got slowly to her feet. "I know where your brother is." That got Dean's attention. Laura's eyes narrowed, and Dean had a feeling he knew what the Demon was trying to do.
"It won't work." He said. "The blood neutralized your powers." The Demon snarled at him, clearly irritated by the side effects of the poison. But then the snarl twisted into a wicked smile.
"Maybe so… but I wasn't lying." She stated. "True, you could let this blood kill me…" There was an uncomfortable look on Laura's face; it was clear the blood was taking effect. "… but then, how would you ever find your brother?"
Dean's frowned, staring hard at the Demon. He'd wondered all his life what he'd do if it came to this; here was his chance, to kill the Demon he'd been raised to hunt. But at the risk of losing his brother forever? For years, he'd worried about it, wondered what he would do. Now, standing here, the choice was obvious.
"Tell me where he is… and I'll give it to you." He said. Laura's eyes narrowed, but it was obvious, even without supernatural senses, that Dean was telling the truth. She smiled.
"You humans are so predictable." She said. "Take someone you love… and you'll dance to whatever tune we want."
"Where is he?" Dean all-but growled. "Tell me! If he's dead, I swear to
god-"
"God?" Laura scoffed. "Tell me, Dean, what can you and god do against me? A god, as I recall, you don't even believe in." She scoffed again. "You can't expect help from something you don't believe in or don't want. Not without consequences anyway."
Dean sniffed, but didn't say anything. That smile returned to Laura's lips, and Dean almost dropped the goblet of blood purely out of spite. But he pushed that desire to the back of his mind. If he had to spare the Demon to save Sam, well, that was what he was going to do.
He once again almost rethought that choice when he heard what the Demon said:
"We buried him."
He stared, horrified, while the Demon continued to smile.
"You… what?" He choked out.
"He's in a steel coffin, buried somewhere in the cemetery." The Demon said. "That's all I can tell you; I wasn't present at the burial." Dean felt as though he'd been punched. "I'd hurry up if I were you; who knows how much air he has left." That got Dean's attention. Without stopping to think, he dropped the goblet. Whether the Demon got to it in time to drink from it, he didn't wait to find out. He fled the room, with just one thing on his mind: getting out to the cemetery and finding where Sam had been buried before he ran out of air. If he was even still alive.
Not five minutes later, Dean was at the top of the stairs leading up into the crypt. It wouldn't be too hard; get outside, and try to find where the earth had been disturbed. That was all there was to it. Or so Dean thought; he'd forgotten about the rain.
He was reminded as soon as he exited the crypt and discovered that the cemetery was a muddy wasteland, any chance of finding where Sam had been buried washed away by the suddenly torrential rain. Dean just stood, frozen, staring out at the downpour. This couldn't be happening. This could not be happening to him, not right at this minute. But no matter how much he tried to deny it, the rain continued to pour, continued to wash away the evidence that Sam had been buried alive somewhere in this cemetery.
"Sammy…" He muttered, looking out desperately. Then he thought of something. Sure, the rain had made it impossible to tell if the ground had been dug up recently, but a large portion of the cemetery was grass-covered. Maybe if he could find a patch that no longer had grass…
Fill with a new resolve, Dean didn't hesitate in leaving the shelter of the crypt, plunging out into the open, where the rain soaked him to the bone in about ten seconds. Ignoring the sudden chill biting at his skin, and squinting to try and see through the downpour, he began the task of searching for a bare patch of ground where someone might have recently buried something.
-;-
"Sammy…" Sam's eyes snapped open, at the voice.
"Dean!" He cried out, but momentary relief replaced by panic when he neither saw nor heard his brother nearby. For that matter, he didn't see anything, or hear anything besides his own quickening breath when he realized he was once again in some small, enclosed space barely large enough to house something (or someone) his size. Naturally, the first thing Sam did was start trying to kick and punch his way out of there.
That got him a couple of bruised fists and a near-panic attack when he realized whatever he was being held in was made of thick steel, and there was no way he was going to be breaking through that.
With a sigh of resignation that came out as more of a strangle sob, Sam let his hands fall to his sides. Maybe he should have been a little relieved by the fact that at least he was no longer tied up, but he thought that that fact said something about the expectancy of his chances of escaping, so it was little comfort.
He tried to recall what had happened before he'd passed out. He had a vague recollection of being angry. No, that was an understatement. Saying he'd been angry was like saying Dean saw the impala as just another car. But aside from that, not much made sense. That seemed to happen a lot when he used his gifts.
Wait. What? Sam was confused for a minute. Then memory reach him through the fog. Yeah, that's right. I used telekinesis on that altar to stop… He froze mid-thought. Had he been soon enough? Were Haley and Dean alive? Yes, Dean was alive, of that Sam was almost positive. But what about Haley?
And what happened after I used telekinesis? he wondered. Closing his eyes, he tried to think. But his brain felt like a water-clogged sponge, and, try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to remember what exactly happened after the altar was dealt with.
He lay there in a pool of misery for a while, before he realized that something on the side of his neck was, and had been, itching like mad for quite a while. Without thinking (well, right now thinking was more of a chore then anything else), he reached up to scratch whatever was irritating him, and let out a pained yelp when his fingers scraped a not-quite-open wound. Of course, as soon as he'd started scratching, the wound had been opened again. He wasn't sure if the lack of extreme bleeding was a good thing or a bad thing.
But his mind wasn't exactly focused on that (if focused was the right word). The pain had brought back what he'd been trying to remember. And for a minute he wished desperately he'd left it where it clearly belonged; buried six-feet-under his subconscious.
Teeth. That was the first thing that came back to him. Not sharp vampires fangs that at least went in and out without too much trouble Blunt, human teeth biting into the side of his neck, the owner of said teeth taking their sweet time, like they were enjoying his suffering.
"Another appetizer…" The Demon's words echoed in his mind. Right after that, she'd put that cold goblet to the side of his neck and let the blood seep into it, and then…
Then, he wasn't sure. Maybe that was when he'd been knocked unconscious (again) and put in here. Another thing the demons and their allies seemed to be fond of doing to him.
He couldn't stop the hoarse, mirthless laugh that escaped him right at that moment. He wasn't even sure what had brought on the laugh, but something about his situation seemed to warrant it. Hey, it was better then another panic-attack, right?
The laughter died down after a little while, and then he felt like crying. Why did everyone constantly find it necessary to stick him in these small, dark spaces? With a final sigh of resignation, he let out a strangled sob and then lost all control of his body's water works (in more then one place; not a pleasant experience). He began crying, rather loudly (because, come one, who was going to hear him?), wishing Dean would just come and rip the lid of the box and tell him everything was going to be okay because he was there to save him and that he was going to be okay now.
More then a couple of things were wrong with that scenario, but in the state of mind Sam was currently in, it didn't really matter.
Sobs soon became coughs, and then a momentary struggle for air, before he finally managed to settled down into silently crying while he reached the conclusion that he was beginning to run out of air. Panic threatened to take over once more, but he managed to hold it at bay. Panic would only cause him to use up what little oxygen remained even faster.
Hurry up and save me, Dean, he thought desperately.
Dean trudged around the cemetery for who knew how long. So far, all he'd managed to find was grass, grass, and a whole lot more grass. And all the while he knew Sam was slowly running out of air.
And that wasn't the only problem. He had no idea if there was more then one place where the grass had either simply worn thin, or for that matter been dug up to bury someone who was actually dead anytime recently. Plus, he had no idea how deep Sam was buried, so even should he find the right place, it could take him far too long just trying to dig him up.
This only strengthened Dean's resolve to find his brother, and fast. As if the fates were, for once, on his side, he was suddenly standing right in front of a patch of muddy ground, just long enough for someone about as tall as Sam to be buried beneath.
Without hesitation, he dropped to his knees and began digging. Sure, it was almost a useless gesture, trying to dig with his hands, but at this point he was quite beyond rational thought, focused only on getting Sam safely back up to ground level. Besides, he had nothing else to dig with.
He had been digging (if it could be called that; he wasn't have a whole lot of success) for only a few minutes when, without warning, someone came up out of nowhere and tackled him to the ground. He struggled, and managed to flip them over so that he was on top. His eyes widened when he saw who had attacked him.
"Elkins." He gasped. Then he saw his eyes. Deep, black, soulless eyes. "Not Elkins." The older man punched Dean in the jaw, to which he responded by landing a few of his own punches. "I really don't have time for this," he snarled at the demon-possessed hunter.
Elkins caught his fist as he was about to land yet another blow. Before Dean could so much as think about responding, his other hand came up and slammed right into Dean's arm.
He cried out in pain as he felt the bone of his arm snap. With Dean's focus diverted, Elkins managed to kick the younger hunter off of him, backwards into the mud, where he laid still, his only movement the fast rise and fall of his chest, and the painful attempt at cradling his broken arm.
He groaned inwardly when he heard the sound of a gun cocking. Looking up, he saw Elkins on his feet, with Dean's gun pointed right at him.
"Get to your feet." Elkin said. Dean didn't move. He laid there in the mud, thinking about Sam, how his brother was probably just a few feet below him. So much for the fates actually being on his side for once.
"On your feet, now." Elkin said, a bit more forcefully. To emphasized his point, he fired a warning shot that hit its mark mere centimetres from Dean's head.
Reluctantly, and with a look of resignation on his face, Dean climbed to his feet. He remembered Sam saying once that things could never be easy for them. He was beginning to think he'd been right.
"A little birdy told me I could get a hefty reward for putting an end to you." Elkins said. Dean swallowed, backing up slowly. He couldn't stop himself, and he kept backing up until he was flat against one of the crypts. The older man smile in a somewhat bizarre way, the stolen gun levelled at Dean's chest, as he stepped forward.
"If that birdy had yellow eyes, I wouldn't count on it." Dean said, remembering what had happened to the last demon that had come into contact with him. "It's not in the habit of paying up unless it's a life and death situation, usually its life and death." Elkins gave a rather unnerving laugh, looking away from Dean for a minute, and the young hunter suddenly had the suspicion that the demon possessing the older man wasn't entirely sane. Of course, of all the demons that could have possessed his father's mentor, it had to be one that was in the process of losing its mind.
He was brought abruptly from his thoughts when the Elkins pulled the trigger of the gun. Dean gave a startled jerk, and a sharp pain shot through his body as the bullet penetrated his chest. Another shot sounded, causing Dean to fall back against the crypt wall as the second bullet tore through his spine. The third bullet fired went right into his heart.
Sam gasped in shock as his eyes snapped wide open. In his mind's eye, he saw the bullets in slow motion as they crossed the distance between the shot gun and his brother, as they tore into his body. Again and again the images played behind his eyes. In the dark, they were all he could see.
He was striking out at the metal box before he'd made a conscious decision to even try and move. He'd almost-literally ripped through the foggy haze that had settled over his mind in the first second after he'd seen the vision. His mind felt sharper, clearer, then ever before; only one thing mattered, and that was stopping the vision from coming to pass.
He realized in his panicked frenzy that there were dents beginning to form in the steel lid of his prison, but they weren't from his fists. He stopped beating at it, feeling the power rushing into his like a violent river opening up into a lake. Raw, untamed power for him to bend to his will.
The groan of the steel metal stretching to its limit as he pushed outward against it was music to his ears. Slowly, ever so slowly, the lid was beginning to bend upwards, straining against the pressure being forced against it. Ignoring the fact that his head felt like it was about to explode, Sam continued to push, continued to draw in the power that, just hours earlier he'd been afraid to even consider using. He was still afraid. Terrified, in fact. But no one- no one- hurt his brother, in the present or the future, and got away with it.
-;-
"If that birdy had yellow eyes, I wouldn't count on it." Dean said, remembering what had happened to the last demon that had come into contact with him. "It's not in the habit of paying up unless it's a life and death situation, usually its life and death."
"Oh, you think you're funny, huh?" Elkins asked.
"No, I think you should put that gun down," Dean stated coldly. "If my brother dies, then I will kill you. I will tear you apart, even if I have to come back from the grave to do it, and don't think I won't do that." Elkins gave a rather unnerving laugh, looking away from Dean for a minute, and the young hunter suddenly had the suspicion that the demon possessing the older man wasn't entirely sane. Of course, of all the demons that could have possessed his father's mentor, it had to be one that was in the process of losing its mind.
He was brought abruptly from his thoughts when the Elkins pulled the trigger of the gun. Time seemed to slow down as the bullet erupted from the barrel of the gun. It came forward about an inch maybe, and then the ground seemed to explode from beneath the clerk.
Whatever had caused the sudden eruption of mud and, to Dean's surprised, steel, somehow caught the bullet before it could come any further, bouncing it backwards away from Dean and at Elkins, even as he was thrown backwards by the explosion which somehow had no effect on Dean, aside from showering him with yet more mud.
He stood there, in shock, for a few seconds, not quite sure what to make of what had just happened. And then he realized; Sam had done it. Sam…
Dean practically threw himself forwards, forgetting momentarily about his broken arm and landing painfully on it as he scrambled forward towards the hole in the ground the explosion had caused.
"Sam?" He called, looking down into the hole. "Sammy!"
His brother was lying in the steel coffin, his eyes open but blank, his face bruised and bloody, his clothes filthy and torn in several places, not the mention the fact he was now soaked through by the torrential rain.
And he wasn't moving, didn't give any hint of response to Dean's cry. So, without any hesitation at all, Dean dropped down into the coffin with his brother, feeling on the edge of panic.
Straddling Sam's waist, he reached down with his good arm and put two fingers to the side of Sam's neck that wasn't covered in blood, and, to his utter relief, felt a reasonably strong pulse beating beneath his fingers. So why wasn't his younger brother responding to him?
"Sammy?" He whispered softly, reaching down and brushing the side of his brother's face. "What's wrong? Where are you?" Still no response, just that blank stare. With a cry of anguish, Dean moved off of his brother, and then, using his good arm, he lifted Sam up into a sort of half embrace, cradling the younger man against his body, trying to get through to him. "Come on, I know you're in there," he whispered softly, thankful that the tears pouring from his eyes blended so well with the bucketing down around them. "Don't go yet, Haley needs you. And… I need you. I need you here with me, Sammy… please… please don't go. Don't leave me here alone." He was sobbing, burying his face in his brother's shoulder, Sam's head resting against his own.
"Dean…" There was a cough, and Dean pulled back a little ways, staring at his brother. The younger man blinked, trying to see the figure holding him through the hazy rain.
"Sammy?" Dean gasped.
"You… you're really here?" Sam asked in a quiet voice that could barely be heard over the rain.
"I'm here, Sammy," Dean whispered, holding Sam to him again. Sam's response was to wrap his arm around his brother as tightly as he could and begin sobbing into his jacket. "I'm here." Dean repeated, tightening his hold on his brother.
"Don't stop, Dean…" Sam sobbed. "Don't ever stop…" Dean had no idea what his brother meant by that, but he held onto him, trying to reassure him. In the back of his mind, he knew they should be trying to climb out of the make-shift grave, but between his broken arm and Sam holding onto him like he never intended to let go, Dean doubted they'd get very far. So he ignored that part of his mind, and focused all his attentions and making sure Sam was okay. Of course, right at that moment, all he needed to do to do that was make sure Sam knew he was there and wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. So he just knelt there, his arms wrapped protectively around Sam, nothing else in the world mattering.
-;-
A/N: And that is another difficult chapter done, though I must admit I enjoyed writing this one a lot more then the previous one. I've had that brotherly love moment planned since chapter three I believe, and I've been fine tuning it ever since. Hope I did well, trying to make sure Sam and Dean and their brotherly relationship still get as much spotlight as Sam and Haley's relationship. How'd I do? Review and let me know. Also, I hope the vision wasn't too confusing. I didn't want anyone to know it was a vision until the the gun was shot (and even then, I'm hoping I managed to covince someone I'd actually let it happen), so that that way it'd be even a little bit of a surprise to suddenly find out it hadn't actually happened. Oh, and the reason there was extra dialogue, etc, between what Dean said and the trigger being pulled then there was in the vision is because the vision only actually started for Sam at the point where Elkins pulled the trigger. Hope that makes sense. Next chapter's the recovery from the last few chapters, with more then one surprise. Until then, Cyas.