CHAPTER
FIVE
But
No-One Said It'd Be This Hard
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Dean was fighting a losing battle. He wanted to get out of there, but since telling the truth was out of the question, he really didn't have much material to work with, other than: "For the last time, Sam, there is nothing wrong with me, I can handle myself, and I am absolutely, positively, utterly fine. Now can we go?"
Sam stared at his brother for a few seconds before making his decision. Dean was acting like last night didn't happen, which Sam wasn't especially surprised about. It was typical defensive behaviour that he had picked up from John. Sam had it too, to a lesser degree. There wasn't really a way to combat it, but in this case, Sam decided that playing along would be the best course of action. If it never happened, then Dean obviously did want any pity.
"Alright," Sam began, taking a pen from his pocket. He hadn't wanted it to come to this, but Dean had left him no choice.
Dean squinted suspiciously at his brother. From his tone, it hadn't sounded much like a submission. So much for being raw from last night. Oh wait, that never happened.
"You're fine?" Sam asked him rhetorically. He tossed the pen onto the floor, and it landed in the space between them. "Okay. Pick that up."
Dean twitched. He hoped to god Sam hadn't seen it, but he couldn't help himself. When did his little brother get the attitude? Because it sure as hell hadn't been there last time he looked. I must be a bad influence, Dean decided.
"Hand me the pen, and I'll believe you," Sam dared.
"Need to write a shopping list, Samantha?" Dean said, unintentionally pouting.
"Quit stalling," Sam bit back. "I'm not kidding around. Pick it up, or you're not going anywhere."
Dean tore his eyes from Sam's defiant gaze and looked at the pen. It rested only a metre or two from his feet but it seemed to get further away the more he looked at it. You can do it. It's just a stupid pen, Dean told himself, aware of Sam's eyes glaring into him, all superior and pleased with himself.
Pick it up the damn pen and we can all be on our merry way.
Never one to back down from a challenge, especially one from his little brother, Dean took a step forward. Then another.
See, this is easy. Nothin' to it. Now just bend down...
Easier than it sounded. Dean's ribs were beat to hell, and so was the rest of him. It hurt to breathe, let alone undergo the colossal task of actually retrieving something from the floor.
Dean smiled a fake smile and tried to make out it wasn't a big deal. It's not a big deal. Just a stupid pen. You can pick it up now. Any time now.
"This is so petty, you know that?" he said, looking back up at Sam.
Sam shrugged, well aware that his plan was working, and that Dean was buying for time. Unfortunately for him, Sam had all the time in the world. "Humour me."
Okay, here we go, Dean thought, his eyes falling back on the pen. Just a pen. Just a stupid pen.
He cleared his throat and stole another glance at Sam. The smug look on his face was enough to urge him on. There was no way he, Dean Winchester, was backing down from a challenge. He took a deep breath.
Ow.
And started to bend down.
Ow ow ow...
His knees were bent and his back was curved. It was taking a great deal of self-restraint not to curse his head off.
Oh dear god.
Dean was finally in a pen-grabbing position. His ribs were on fire, his muscles seizing in complaint.
Oh sweet Jesus...
He reached with his right hand, the hand that wasn't cradling his poor ribs, and stretched for the pen. Success! Dean's moment of triumph was fleeting, however, as he quickly remember he had to stand back up again.
Son of a bitch!
Knowing Sammy was watching, analysing his every move, he looked up again and gave him a smile. Well, close enough, anyway. This is ridiculous. You're Dean Winchester! This is not a challenge for you. This is pathetic.
Dean had always been his own worst critic. Deciding just to get it over with, to show himself and Sam that he was absolutely fine (which he was, not only fine but dandy too), Dean pushed off from the floor and stood up in one grand movement. Sighing with satisfaction, he took two shaky steps towards Sam.
"See? Piece of cake," Dean grinned, handing over the pen.
Then he promptly collapsed.
Sam caught Dean on the way down, having expected something to the effect. There were very few ways of dealing with Dean when he was being so stubborn, but it seemed Sam had found a brand new one. Sure, he was feeling pretty guilty about it already, but Dean had forced his hand.
In a combination of dragging and heaving, Sam pulled an unconscious Dean back onto the bed. He was out cold, sweating and breathing heavily. Sam decided while he was riding the guilt train, he might as well take a look at Dean's injuries so he could make an assessment that wasn't a stubborn self-diagnosis.
Dean didn't complain when Sam carefully lifted Dean's t-shirt. He really was out cold. A curse escaped Sam's mouth when he saw the shroud of bruises that wrapped Dean's chest and back. A moment of anger swelled, first directed at Dean for saying he was fine, and then at himself for not insisting they go to the hospital.
Pulling the t-shirt back down, Sam's attention switched to Dean's wrist. He hadn't seen exactly what had happened to it, but the bandage wasn't exactly wrapped very well, since Dean must have done it with one hand. Sam got a fresh one ready and removed the old one.
He was met with a disturbing sight. Besides looking as though the wound hurt like a son of a bitch, a large black symbol was burned onto Dean's wrist. What the hell was this? Now Sam was really pissed off. Dean had to have seen this. Just what was he thinking, keeping something like this to himself?
Sam's anger trip was halted when a sudden spark of recognition interrupted it. He'd seen the symbol before...somewhere recently...shit, where had he...the journal! Sam scrambled for the journal and found the entries he had been looking at after he'd had his vision. On the opposite page to the three entries from eight-hundred odd days ago, a symbol was roughly sketched. The same symbol as on Dean's wrist.
Sam had missed it before, thinking it was unrelated to the entries, but apparently this wasn't the case. Instead of dwelling on annoyance at John's inability to organise his scribbles, Sam thought positive. This, at least, was something to go on. The first of the three entries involved a poltergeist. They didn't tend to use symbols, so that left the other two entries; the Braken and this cult. Sam finished wrapping Dean's bandage and opened his laptop. He had work to do.
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Dean heard himself groan as he awoke once again from a deep sleep. Thankfully this time his nightmares had not followed into the waking world. For a while he just lie there, awake, remembering. That damn pen...that stunt was low, and Dean had fallen for it. Note to self; next time don't play the game.
"Sleep well?" Sam said, his voice laced with smugness. But there was something else there too. Was it anger?
Dean could hear Sam typing and looked over. Sam didn't return his gaze, supporting the 'anger' theory. "Great, thanks for that," he replied sarcastically. "You didn't even need that pen, did you?" he said, trying to raise a smile from the younger Winchester. No such luck.
"So, this Braken demon..." Sam said, still not looking up.
If Dean had been moving in the slightest, he would have frozen. As it happened, it hurt too much to move, so his reaction was encompassed by a slight dilation of the pupils, and his breath catching in his throat. It did not go unnoticed.
"Yeah, I thought you might say that," Sam continued, when Dean replied with silence. "I saw the symbol on your arm."
Dean lifted his injured arm and sure enough, a fresh bandage was wrapped around his wrist. Shit. How much did Sam know?
"You wanna tell me exactly what it is, and what it has to do with you?"
Not much then, Dean thought, answering his own question.
It was true, Sam had been researching all night, but found very little on the demon. He had, however, decided that the Braken demon was the winner. Sam had contacted Peter Graves, the man who called John about the cult in North Adams. He remembered nothing about any weird symbols. He had, however, given Sam some other interesting information.
After Sam had established that he wasn't a nutcase or a prank caller, and that he really was John Winchester's son, he and Graves had talked about how he had come to know John, and about the cult job.
"John and Dean really helped me out," Graves had said, after it had been established that he knew nothing about any symbols. "They saved the whole damn town, and I was the only one who could thank them for doing it. Hell, they were exhausted when they got here, let alone when they were done. Seems like a raw deal."
Sam's interest peaked. "Exhausted?"
"Yeah," Graves continued. "They stayed at my Inn for two weeks while they worked on the case and most of the time…well, when they weren't hunting, they were fighting. And when they weren't hunting or fighting…"
"What?" Sam pushed. Graves hesitated, so Sam urged him on. "Please, Dean's in trouble. I think something happened to him before he came to you. Anything you can tell me would be a great help."
"Well…downstairs I run the bar. Dean was there a lot of the time. John had to drag him back to his room on more than one night. Look, I'm not trying to judge or anything, I'd be a rambling cult member or even dead if it weren't for your dad. I just got the feeling they had…you know, issues."
Sam wasn't sure how to feel about that particular information. Dean and John never fought. About anything. Even if he did disagree with John, Dean would never let it show. He was too well-trained for that. Sam couldn't believe how much his brother had changed in the past twenty-four hours. It was fucking scary.
Sam wasn't sure if he really wanted to know the answer, but he asked the question anyway. "Do you know what they fought about?"
"The walls are pretty thin at my place," Graves replied, grimly.
"Is that a yes? Was it about a job?" Sam asked eagerly.
Graves sighed on the other end of the phone. "No. It was you, Sam. They fought about you."
Sam snapped himself back to reality. Dean had just woken up, and he wasn't going to get away with lying about what was going on. No matter what new information Sam had learned since his brother had fallen asleep.
"Dean?" Sam pressed. "Talk to me."
"It's just a demon," Dean told him feebly. Damn it, it just wasn't fair to ask him questions when he'd just woken up. Especially when Sam was the one who put him to sleep in the first place.
"If it was just a demon, you would have told me about it," Sam argued. "And we would have killed it."
"I thought I did. Back when it was just me and dad. Maybe it's not even the same one. I don't know, okay?" Dean muttered. He really didn't know, and didn't want to. But the visit from the so-called 'messenger' had unsettled him. It had sent himself back to hell, which was exactly where it lived. Kind of a pointless incantation, really...more of a free ride home.
"Why the hell you didn't tell me you'd been marked by the thing?" Sam demanded to know.
"It wasn't the Braken that marked me. It was something else, a…messenger," Dean told him. Maybe if Sam heard the bare bones of it, he'd be satisfied and leave it alone.
"A messenger...did it give you a message?" Sam asked. From Dean, the journal and his own research, the pieces of the puzzle were tiny and didn't fit together. Why was Dean making this so difficult?
"Look, how about we have this conversation on the road?" Dean proposed with minimal hope.
"I told you, no. We had a deal, or did you think I'd forgotten?"
"As I recall," Dean said, attempting to swing his legs to hang over the side of the bed. "You challenged me to pick up the pen and give it to you, which I did. Just because I happened to pass out afterwards, doesn't mean I did not succeed," he finished adamantly.
Sam wasn't buying into any of it. "Semantics. We're not going anywhere, so drop it and answer the question," he stated firmly.
Dean rolled his eyes. He finally managed to bring his legs to dangle over the bed, and sit upright. "You know what it told me. 'Time's up'. Not very original, if you ask me."
"So you met this thing eight-hundred days ago, right?" Sam questioned. He had not given up on getting information about this thing. He would protect Dean even if he didn't want protecting.
"Brilliant, Sammy, really."
"And what, it has some kind of grudge against you?"
You could say that, Dean thought to himself. "Well, I did banish it from existence. Or at least, I thought I did."
Sam's eyes narrowed. Dean had said 'I' a lot. If he was hunting with dad, he would have said 'we'. "What did dad think?"
Dean was already tiring of the interrogation. It was better if Sammy didn't know the truth about what happened back then, and what was happening now, but the man was relentless. All Dean could do was stall. "Can we get something to eat? I'm starved."
Sam considered the request, suspecting that Dean was only making it to stall for a little longer. But he hadn't eaten much, so Sam decided to indulge him for a short while. "Fine," he finally agreed.
Dean sighed with relief. Finally, Sam had replied with something other than a question. Somehow he had a feeling it wouldn't last.
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End
of Chapter Five
Next
Chapter: Hide & Seek