I would like to thank those who reviewed on the first chapter. Thank you so much! Special thanks to Faye Dartmouth for all her kind compliments and ahemgentle ahem prodding to get this chapter out.
Also, the "add ruler" bar on my previewer isn't working, so the "ooooooo" will have to do to seperate scenes. Frustration, frustration, frustration.
Thanks, and enjoy!
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When Dean woke, it was to the harsh warmth of blood in his mouth and throat, the ice cold dirt beneath him, and the ache and cramp of muscles that had been unused for a time. It wasn't like any kind of awakening he'd had before. It wasn't the slow, easy rising to the surface of sleep-waking, nor the quick, sudden jerk of injured-waking. It was simply that one moment he was not awake, and the next he was. He rolled onto his side and spit, expelling what seemed like a literal mouthful of blood onto the ground. It was dark, so he couldn't tell how much, exactly, had been in there, but the taste lingered as he stumbled to his feet.
"Dad?" He said, feeling slightly out of breath. Not surprising, really. After all, he'd have to have sustained quite a wound to spit up that much blood. He ran his hands quickly over his torso. They came away sticky and wet and his knees started trembling slightly. Yeah. Definitely something there. He wiped his hands on his jeans. He needed light. A proper inspection couldn't really be done in the dark.
Speaking of which, it had been light last thing he'd remembered, and Dad had been there, and Sam too. They'd been here stalking that Demon, and they'd almost called it a night…and then he'd been here, covered in blood from a wound he couldn't feel he'd sustained. But, Dean reflected, Dad wasn't here, and neither was Sammy. His head snapped up in sudden realization. If he couldn't feel a wound, how likely was it that it was his blood at all?
"Sammy!" He called, and his voice echoed off the dense pine trees that towered over him, swaying slightly with the breeze that swallowed some of the power of his voice. He swore quietly and took off through the underbrush. Dad had parked his truck nearly four miles up the road, a distance that seemed far, but his soldier mind knew how important it was he get there..
Check the most likely place, check the truck. Find Sammy, look for Dad. If they're hurt, that's where they'll go.
That Demon wasn't about the get its filthy claws on his family. Not while he was still breathing.
Dean ran possibly harder than he'd done in years, his hands stretched out in front of him to create a barrier between himself and any trees that might make a sudden appearance. He stopped only occasionally to check his position, correct it if his direction had gotten off. He made good time, the best time he'd ever made, in fact. It was when he'd ran nearly all the four miles that it hit him.
He was barely out of breath.
An odd thought, maybe, but still, it warranted a moment of his time. Come to think of it, his legs didn't burn with exhaustion. In fact, if anything, he felt fairly invigorated with the exercise. Better to be safe than sorry, oddness notwithstanding, so just to make sure he was getting enough oxygen, he dragged in a deep breath.
And found he couldn't.
He could feel the night air smooth on his tongue and brushing his lips, but none of it seemed capable of entering his body. He instinctively stopped, put his hands to his neck, and felt his mind burn with panic.
He could feel slices deep enough to put his finger into almost up to the knuckle, and he could feel the hard ribbing of his windpipe hacked in two. He sought out his jugular, found it severed and dripping wet. Panic gave way to confusion. Was he dead then? He didn't feel dead. In fact, he couldn't feel much of anything. Poking around his wounded neck didn't elicit any pain, just a vague sense of discomfort. But he had to be dead. People didn't just walk around with their necks hacked open perfectly okay. But, as always, his mind couldn't stay on himself for long.
Sammy. If the Demon, who wasn't even after him, had managed to cook up this little surprise, imagine what he'd done to his real target.
Dean ran faster, but kept one hand on his neck.
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"Dean?" John choked. His heart screamed with need to touch, hold, cradle, but his mind retorted, shoot that monster, your son's dead, shoot it!
Dean's eyes, wide with question, slipped past his shoulder to look at Sam, propped loosely against the seat's back. "What happened here?"
" A lot of things." Dean took his hands away from his neck, and John couldn't help but gasp. Everything from Dean's muscle to his windpipe was completely stripped of its covering, and the latter was severed almost entirely. John had seen it when the wound had been inflicted, but somehow it was more horrifying now that Dean was…standing there, looking so impossibly young…
His mind closed off the emotion. That wasn't his son. Dean was dead. "Christo," he said, loudly and with as much authority he could muster. Nothing. No flinching. John was immensely relieved. If the Demon possessed his son, he wasn't sure he'd have the guts to shoot it.
Dean came forward, reached across John's lap to touch Sam's forehead gently, sweeping his hair out of his eyes. "What's the matter with Sammy, Dad? That Demon had better not have--."
John cut him off. "Where's my son."
"What? Dad, we have to get Sam somewhere, he--."
"You stop using my son's body, or I swear, I'll tear you apart."
"Dad, it's me." Dean sounded hurt. John the Father hated that. John the Hunter ignored it.
"What color was the dress Mary wore on the picnic we had for Dean's fourth birthday?" He reached into his back pocket and readied the pistol hidden there in an instant, had it cocked and aimed at the spector's heart before the body it inhabited had chance to react. His son's body stepped backward.
"Blue. With flowers on it. She had her hair in a ponytail." Dean said quietly. He stepped back from the truck. "Dad, what's going on?" Sudden wariness flashed across his eyes. "Christo," he said reluctantly. No reaction. Dean looked relieved.
John sat frozen for a moment. That picnic was one of Dean's few memories of his mother that hadn't faded with time. It had been their password forever. But how could he honestly trust a corpse? But then, even if Dean was some kind of apparition, there was almost no chance it would be hostile. Some spirits needed a little more time with its family before it moved on for good, which is why there were so many records of people seeing their loved ones at home while a hundred miles away they had died in a car wreck hours ago. If getting in the truck was going to make getting to Mary any easier for Dean, John was willing to do it. And then there was always the possibility Dean was actually here, and not dead at all…
His heart seized control of his limbs anyway and tucked the pistol back into his pocket. "Get in, Dean."
"Yes, sir." He scrambled around the passenger side door, slamming the door behind him as John skidding onto the road. "What happened?"
"The Demon showed up. He and Sam…they argued for a while, and then…well, they had a battle of wills, you could say."
Dean turned his head to look at him, shifting Sam into his arms. "You mean with the Shining?"
John laughed humorlessly. "Yeah. Something like that. Anyway, Sammy got beat, it looks like. All I know is I shot that thing and it left Sam crumpled in a heap on that mountaintop."
They were silent for a while, Dean holding Sam close to his chest, John trying as hard as he could not to stare at Dean's exposed throat. His oldest son finally looked up at him. "So…it did this to me?"
"Yeah. It came out of nowhere. We didn't even know it was there until after…" John trailed off, his words leaving an acidic taste in his mouth.
"After it killed me."
"No. You can't be dead, Dean, at least not all the way." He was reaching for any explanation, he knew it. It didn't stop him from hoping, though.
"No, I'm dead. I can tell."
John's heart beat hard and fast in his chest. "How?"
"I can't really feel much. I'm a little out of breath, for obvious reasons, but I'm not feeling oxygen deprived. Not tired, which I should be, with how much blood is everywhere."
"But it's not possible."
"We're Winchesters. Anything's possible. Besides, haven't you ever seen Night of the Living Dead?"
"Not funny, Dean."
"Seriously. I don't know what it is, but I feel…disconnected. I'm not sure what's going on. I'm just not…all here, I guess."
"Not all here?"
"Yeah, like, the lights are on, but nobody's home."
John's heart beat impossibly hard, thudding in his chest frantically. "We're stopping at the motel. You can't come with us. Too many questions."
"Yeah, okay." Dean cradled Sam's head in the crook between his neck and his shoulder, resting his chin in his brother's hair. He closed his eyes, and for a long stretch of road, he wondered if his dead son was asleep, an oxymoron of epic proportions. He snuck glances at his children more frequently than he watched the road. Sam was still unconscious, unmoving, his lips parted slightly, with that comforting cycle of inhale-exhale maintaining itself. John had no such comfort with Dean. No breath stirred from his eldest's lips, and there was always that throat…
The oldest Winchester pulled into the motel parking lot with a squeal of burning rubber. Dean opened his eyes, and instinctively John knew Dean hadn't been sleeping at all. "We're here. You go in, salt everything. The doors, windows, and then do two circles around your bed. Lock everything, and you keep this pistol on you at all times. Loaded with silver bullets dipped in holy water. Didn't kill the Demon, but it'll scare it off. You stay in one place, understand?"
Dean traded his father's pistol for the Colt, casting Sam one more glance as he handed it over. "Yes, sir."
"Good. Anything happens, you call me. I mean it, Dean. You're not exactly in your prime, and I don't want any heroics."
"Yes, sir." Dean lay Sam back against the seat. He kept one hand on his brother's shoulder and flicked his eyes up to meet his father's. "Please take good care of him, Dad."
"Yeah. I will Dean. Don't worry."
"I still probably will." He smiled wanely, and John noticed there was still traces of blood on the corners of his mouth. "Call me?"
"Sure." Dean stepped back and closed the door, and John waited until he saw room seventeen's door close before he pulled away. He glanced at Sam and gently straightened the angle of his head with one hand before he disappeared in a cloud of dust and exhaust, his foot pushing the gas pedal all the way to the floor.
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"What do you want?" Sam faced the beast in front of him with nothing but accusations and hatred coursing hot and full in his veins.
The Demon smiled, a glint of teeth in the black and white of what was left in Sam's mind. "Well, I just dropped in. It's not a crime."
The saliva in Sam's mouth turned acidic, burning his tongue as he spoke. "Get out. Or I swear I won't give Dad a chance to find you. I'll just kill you myself. I'm not quite as forgiving as he is, either."
"Oh, yes. We all saw how well that turned out last time, didn't we?" The Demon grinned patronizingly. "If you'd like to try again, I suppose I can manage to kill your father in front of you too. Takes care of my problems."
They stared at each other, the flaming gold of the Demon's gaze trying to subdue the frigidly tense hatred in Sam's. Neither made a move toward the other, locked into whatever strange rules this place abided by, which apparently stipulated limited physical movement.
The Demon finally spoke. "So, what should we talk about? We do have some time before you wake up again. Quite some time."
Sam's body shook with expressed disgust.
"All right, then. Movies are a good topic." A pause, the Demon chuckling quietly under his breath. "Ever seen Night of the Living Dead?"
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Please review!
--Kim Who Knows