CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Overdue
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Dean had stopped screaming, but his body was still rapt with silent agony as the Braken continued its attack from within him.
"Daimonion xenos diaspao ginomai duo! Aphorizo!" Sam shouted. It was one of the hardest things he had to do, to stand there attacking with only ancient words while his brother was being torn apart in front of him. But he knew it was the only way.
Sam knew it wasn't exactly a walk in the park for John either. His father pouring a wide circle of salt around himself and Dean to trap the demon in when it was expelled from Dean's body. Because the Braken was so strong, John had to enforce the circle with liberal splashes of Holy Water.
"Bleteos apostrepho!" Sam finished.
John uncuffed Dean and dragged him out of the circle and out of danger as the demon was torn, kicking and screaming, from his body. Sam rushed over to Dean, his job done, and John stepped back and began to recite the banishing ritual. With nowhere to go, the Braken, in all its disgusting glory, thrashed around inside the circle, its form floating just above the ground.
Sam dragged Dean's unconscious body further away from the chaos, but suddenly felt a pain inside his head. Not unlike the pain that came when he was getting a vision, it started small and built up quickly. He turned to see the Braken glaring at him with flaming eyes.
"You think you can hold me? You think you can destroy me?!"
Sam could hear the voice inside his head, accompanied by a stabbing pain behind his eyes. He screwed them shut, trying to block it out, but to no avail.
"I've been taking souls for a thousand years, and I'll take them for another thousand! Nothing can stop me!"
John watched Sam fall to his knees as the Braken somehow attacked him from inside the circle. But he knew he couldn't stop the spell.
"Inritus inter universitas vindicatum. Vos quod vos ero irretitus illic cetera of vicis!"
Sam opened his eyes and looked past the Braken. As John read the incantation, a black hole appeared in the middle of the warehouse. He had never seen anything like it. It began as a small sphere of darkness, and grew with crackling energy, stretching and pulsing until it was at least three metres wide. For a minute, Sam thought it wasn't going to stop growing, and consume the whole warehouse, Winchesters and all.
"You think you can stop me?" The Braken screamed inside Sam's skull. A drop of blood dripped from Sam's nose. "You're nothing!"
John shouted the final line of the incantation with savage ferocity. "Vos filius a meretricis!"
"If nothing can stop you, and I'm nothing..." Sam whispered as the breach reached its apex. "You do the math."
The Braken followed Sam's gaze to see the black void and let out an ear-piercing wail in protest. Debris from the floor began to gravitate towards to void as it sucked anything in the surrounding area into its core. Sam and John looked on as the demon was thrown against the invisible wall that the salt and Holy Water circle had created. At first it was stuck there, suspended, crushed between the force of the circle and the sheer power of the void. Then as the salt was drawn into the void as well, the Braken started to come apart.
As the grey dust of its shroud was stripped from the demon, it cried in horror and agony. It clawed at the floor, desperately clinging to the reality it wanted to stay a part of, but the pull of the breach was too powerful. The demon's manic shrieking grew to a crescendo as it was finally drawn into the darkness.
When it was fully engulfed, the void disappeared, collapsing in on itself. The warehouse fell silent.
For an endless minute, nothing moved.
"Sam, you alright?" John finally asked, rushing over to him.
Sam wiped the blood from under his nose and ignored the question, scrambling to his brother's side. Dean wasn't moving.
"Dean...Dean, can you hear me?" Sam asked tentatively.
John knelt down beside them and checked Dean's pupils.
Sam put his hand over his mouth but couldn't take his eyes off Dean's still form. "It didn't work..." he breathed.
"Calm down, give it a minute," John ordered calmly, but in truth he was just as scared.
"I mean, the reaction should have been instant, right?" Sam said, rambling. "He should be back to normal, he should be okay. It didn't work..."
Sam looked up at his father and knew that he believed it too.
John looked from Sam back to Dean. This wasn't happening. Not like this. Dean wasn't gone, he couldn't be gone. "He's exhausted. He hasn't slept or eaten in days, he's been drinking, and he's just been through a serious trauma. He's just...he's asleep."
Sam hadn't realised it, but that was all he needed to hear. "You're right," he said. His inner defences kicked in with a healthy dose of 'this ain't over 'til it's over' and Sam nodded to show his resolve. "We should get him to a hospital...but Dean said he hurt someone. The cops will be keeping tabs on the city hospitals."
"Then we'll get out of town. Come on, help me get him to the truck."
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Several hours later, John was carrying two polystyrene cups of coffee along a hospital corridor. He made his way back to Dean's room, a thankfully private one that they had managed to swing, probably because all three of them looked so drained and pitiful.
He entered to find both of his boys still asleep.
Sam had been utterly exhausted after the events that had taken place over the previous days and weeks. After they had arrived at the hospital, he wouldn't leave Dean's side until he was told by three separate doctors that they wouldn't be sure what was wrong with him until he woke up. Finally John said he would stay with Dean while Sam got his shoulder looked at. He came back with a sling twenty minutes later and had been by Dean's side ever since.
He'd fallen asleep a couple of hours ago, and John let him be. Dean was still out of it, so there wasn't much point in waking him, and Sam really did need the rest. John could have done with some sleep himself, but he would deny himself of it until he knew both his boys were okay. John looked over at Dean. His eldest son was battered and bruised, and his skin was pale. It was too early to tell if he would wake up or not. John had known when he'd entered the hospital that the doctor's wouldn't be able to tell them. They had never been sure what was wrong with the Braken's other victims, just that they would know more 'when they woke up'.
John didn't think less of Dean for taking the Braken's deal. In fact, he though more of him. Every time he looked in on his boys, they gave him more reasons to make him proud. Of course John would have rather Dean hadn't made the deal, because John was supposed to be the one protecting his boys, not the other way around. But doing stupid things to spare the people you love appeared to be a Winchester family trait. It was one of their more noble qualities.
Sam stirred in the corner chair. He was clearly still tired, but forced himself to sit up from his slouched position. "How long was I out?" he asked groggily, shortly succeeded by; "How's Dean?"
"A couple of hours, and there's no change," John replied, handing Sam one of the cups. "Docs say they'll now more when he wakes up."
"If he wakes up," Sam corrected, dejectedly, and took the coffee.
"Sam..." John started, but Sam cut him off.
"You said the demon was going to be trapped, and starve to death. What if Dean won't get better until the Braken dies?" Sam asked, his weary eyes on Dean.
"Then we'll wait," John said simply.
Sam took a few sips of the coffee and looked up at his father. "And if he never gets better?"
John walked to the other side of Dean's bed and sat down. "He will."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I can't. But I have to believe it. Try to think positive."
"Think positive?" Sam scoffed weakly. "With our family's luck?"
John couldn't really refute his point with any strong evidence. "I phoned the police station and the city hospital. The people Dean hurt, they're going to be okay. And they were all too drunk to give tallying descriptions of their attacker. So that's something."
"Yeah," Sam replied dolefully. "I guess that's...something."
They were quiet for a few minutes more. John thought about all the times they had wound up in a hospital after a hunt gone wrong, or even after a hunt gone right. He was supposed to keeping his boys out of danger, and yet they'd seen enough hospitals to last three lifetimes, and they were still young.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," John found himself saying.
"For what?" Sam asked.
"For giving you that ultimatum. For being a drill sergeant first and a father second. For leaving Dean, for ignoring your calls. Take your pick. I'm sorry for it all."
Sam sat for a moment, bewildered, taking in his father's unexpected openness. "You always looked out for us, the best way you knew," he said finally. "And that's what me and Dean were doing when we were trying to find you."
"I know," John conceded. "I guess we're more alike than I thought."
"Oh yeah, we're carbon copies," Sam said, smirking.
John smiled. Sam matched it. He had almost forgotten what it felt like, to see his father's smile or to smile himself, for that matter. It had been a long time. And then they were quiet again, listening to the beeps of the medical equipment that was monitoring Dean's vitals.
Sam sighed. "All the hospital's we've been in, you'd think we'd find one that had decent coffee."
"You want something else?"
Sam looked at Dean. "No. Maybe the smell will snap him out it," he said, only half-kidding.
"I'm going to get some air," John announced, getting up. "Let me know if anything changes."
Sam nodded and was left alone with his brother.
With nothing else to listen to and nothing else to watch, Sam focused on the rhythmic sound of Dean's heart monitors and the slow rise and fall of his chest. It was almost hypnotic, slipping Sam into a sort of meditative trance. Of course, the fatigue might have been a contributing factor. If Dean woke up he'd probably make fun of him.
Sam didn't know what he would do if Dean didn't wake up. He didn't even want to think about it, but that didn't stop him. There was always the option of going back to college. But the more he thought about, the more he realised Dean had been right when he'd lashed out in the alley. He might have been out of his mind, but he had a point. Sam really was cursed. How could he go back, see him friends, pretend everything was normal? Life wasn't going to allow him to have normal. Besides, reuniting with his old friends would be all kinds of awkward. He could hear it now...
'Hi guys, long time no see. Where have I been? Oh, you know, the usual. Hunting demons, spirits, your general evil. Looking for my missing father who was searching for the demon that killed my mother when I was two months old. I found him, but only after my brother told me that he sold his soul a couple of years ago, and took off to protect me from the demon who was trying to take it, and from the dangerous psycho version of himself that he was going to turn into while his soul was sucked from his body.'
Sam was torn from his tired inner ramblings when he heard a change in the steady beep of Dean's heart monitor. At least he thought he did. He got out of the chair and moved towards the bed, studying the still unmoving features of Dean's face, and the slow rise and fall of his chest. His eyes were still closed. Maybe Sam had been hearing things...
"Dude, personal space?"
Sam laughed out loud. "Hey!" he said, practically gushing as Dean slowly opened his eyes.
Dean tried to blink the sleep out of his eyes. "Hey."
"How are you feeling? Are you alright?" Sam questioned.
"You tell me," Dean replied drowsily. "What the hell happened?"
"The Braken's gone, banished," Sam began, on a high now that Dean was awake and not a raving psychopath. "Man, Dean, you should have seen it, it was intense. There was the black hole, and it sucked the thing into it kicking and screaming. I thought you were gone, I mean, at first we couldn't - "
"Woah, okay, slow down there," Dean said, attempting to sit up. "I think I'm going to need coffee for this."
Sam grinned wider than his mouth would normally allow.
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End
of Chapter Fourteen
Next
Chapter: And Here I Stand (Final Chapter!)