With The Coming of the Dawn
Summary
The hunters become the hunted when a creature stalks a remote community, and one of the brothers has a choice to make. Will both brothers survive the hunt and the decision of the other?
DisclaimerAlrighty…still don't own Supernatural, is there an echo in here?
Author's Note
Holy cliffie Batman! Was our reluctant hero killed by Evil Fangirl...read and see...
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Chapter 17Dean's hands trembled violently as he reached towards his baby brother. It can't end like this, he thought desperately too himself. He couldn't lose his brother, not like this. This can't be happening. Please don't leave me Sammy, please.
Even in his darkest thoughts, in the still of the night when doubts would raise their ugly head and fears for the future assailed him, he had thought of the many ways this could end. He accepted his own mortality, courted it sometimes, especially when it came to protecting his family and the innocent. Even then he could not stand the thought of leaving his brother alone and unprotected. But he had never come to terms with the thought of his brother dying, never alone and never before him. If Sam was to die, and deep down Dean knew that it was only a matter of time before one of them did, it should be an earth-shattering event. A final stand where he and his brother would go down fighting - together. Not alone. Never alone and terrified, his final moments guilt ridden, tormented and in pain. And for Dean to be left behind, surviving his brother, with the knowledge that Sam had died for him, this threatened to crush the elder brother.
Dean's bright eyes dimmed. The light, the fire in his soul that drove him to defend those that he loved so fiercely, extinguished. His face hardened and lips tightened in a frightening, ferocious snarl. He was going to hunt this bastard and destroy him. That son of a bitch is going to pay for Sam's death!
Behind him he heard a twig snap. Reflexively he grabbed Sam's fallen gun and spun. It was Missouri.
"Oh, honey, I am so sorry". The older psychics eyes were bright, tears falling as she witnessed the tragic tableau in front of her.
The elder brother lowered the gun, "I failed him - I should have protected him, he is-was my responsibility, it was my job to keep him safe." He voice broke.
He turned back to his brother and once again reached out a shaking hand. He absently brushed his brothers hair away from his eyes "We never did get you that haircut did we Sammy?" His gaze travelled down his brothers still form and along his outstretched arm. He could see what looked to be a leather strap peeping out from the bone white hand and realised it must be his necklace. Why did Sam take it? Dean briefly puzzled.
He realised though that Sam would never have removed it. He still held strong in his childish belief that it would keep his elder brother safe. "As long as I love you it will keep you safe, so if you keep it on, it will keep you safe forever" His brother's words that Christmas came back to him, and something deep within the elder hunter shattered. He drew in a shuddering breath and tears silently fell from his bowed head. He fought from breaking down completely, he knew if he began to cry in earnest he would never stop. He fought as he fought every battle, with quiet courage and a doggedly fierce determination and brought the tears under control.
"What did you go and do a stupid thing like that for Sammy?" He whispered brokenly. "What have I told you about disappearing on your own like that? You're supposed to wait for me." Was his brother waiting even now? What will I do without you kiddo?
The forest was unnaturally quiet; an eerie stillness was drifting round the elder hunter, a haunting eddy in the thickening mist. It was as if the entire world had stopped for a brief moment as if recognising the enormity of his loss. Dean's brother was dead and with his passing he had bereft his elder brother of any warmth to his soul. There was no light left now in the world for Dean Winchester, only the dark, the night, the hunt. There was no joy left, the laughter had faded from his spirit – he had failed the one person he could never forgive himself for failing, the one he should never let down. He had lost the one person who truly knew and unconditionally loved him for who he was- the other half of his soul.
His eyes were drawn to the claws still impaling his younger brother, invasive, mutilating; Dean could not bear to see them any longer; to see the blood dripping down from the wounds. He reached to pull them out then hesitated. The blood was still dripping, his mind was screaming at him, demanding he listen. That meant the blood was still flowing, which meant that Sam's heart must still be beating. With barely contained hope Dean reached out his hand and placed two trembling fingers against Sam's throat and pressed down hard.
A huge grin lit up the elder brother's face as he felt the weak, erratic pulse. Sam's alive! "He's alive Missouri!" He crowed, a joyous laugh bubbling up from the depths of his soul.He leant forward and laid a hand on his brother' chestBreaths that had been previously too shallow to see, he could feel. The laboured rise and fall too shallow but at least there. That's my boy, you keep fighting! Tears again threatened to fall but were quashed once more. Jesus Sam you're determined to get that chick flick moment out of me aren't you? Dean smirked; giddy in the realisation that he had not lost his brother. He had to get Sam some medical attention urgently for his injuries, blood loss and shock.
What was unnerving Dean the most though was Sam's eyes. Blank and unblinking, they seemed to be looking onto a different world, a world Dean could not see and that frightened the older hunter. How could he possibly protect his brother from what he could not see?
"We have to get him some help quickly. There is a doctor in town."
He handed the weapons to Missouri; her face still wet but was now from tears of relief though her face was filled with trepidation. She wasn't going to say a thing to Dean, as she knew he was barely holding himself together but in addition to the obvious wounds, something was very wrong with the younger hunter. She couldn't feel his presence and this terrified her.
Normally she could sense both boys clearly; both auras were pure, bright and vivid. She could always feel an almost tactile imprint of their spirits. – She could sense Dean's courage, his protectiveness and utter devotion to his family. She could feel his strength and determination lightened with a great love and zest for life, and a wicked sense of fun.
Sam's essence normally shone out with a rare purity of spirit, a gentleness and innocence, which despite everything he still held onto. His courage and strength were equal to Dean's as was his love of his family and a fierce need to protect his elder brother. Again lightened with quick humour and lightning fast intellect, he glowed with an intense life that Missouri seldom seen. Sam's burgeoning psychic powers were unusually strong; in fact if he fulfilled his potential, he promised to have some of the strongest abilities she had ever seen.
And to have three such vivid and strong spirits in one family was almost unheard of.
But now, now the purity and warmth of Sam's spirit was missing – the older psychic could sense nothing at all from the youngest Winchester and she should be able to. Even unconscious or God forbid, possessed, she still should be able to pick something up. But there was blankness, as if before her was an empty shell void of the vibrant soul who once filled it.
Dean with a gentleness of belying his normally brash exterior carefully bent and picked up his brother. By the time he got to the car his limbs were trembling and he was sweating profusely. Inside him there was still a chill, a cold serpent of dread coiled tight around his heart and stomach. Sam was completely silent, not a sound had passed his lips although his wounds must surely be agonising. He never blinked, never stirred. Dean was more terrified than he had ever been in his entire life – what was wrong with his brother?
Missouri drove quickly but carefully, tremendously aware of the fragility of both occupants in the back seat.
Dean was sitting with Sam lain across him, his arms around his brother like when they were children and Sam had needed soothed after a nightmare. One hand applied pressure to the wounds on his brother shoulder and chest, the other hand resting on Sam's forehead. Dean brushed Sam's hair back from where it had fallen into his eyes. A shudder running through him at the sight of them. Sam's eyes remained open, but still lacked the life and warmth that normally shone there. There was no sign of his brother in the cold expressionless face. It was devoid of all signs of life and Dean almost obsessively felt the need to confirm his brother was still with him. Even the sense of Sam that Dean always felt when he was near was absent – he had never felt so alone.
"What's wrong with him Missouri? Is it the poison?"
"I don't think so Dean. The venom seemed to have the opposite effect; it seemed to cause the psychic channels to be more active, not less."
"What do you mean - less?" The older brother asked, fear taking a deep hold.
"He's not there honey. I can't feel Sam in there at all." Dean started to shake. "Either…"The elder woman hesitated.
"Tell me"
"Either the Demon succeeded in completely pushing Sam out or Sam has withdrawn so far into himself that he may not be able to come back. You know as well as I do what was said to your brother, the pain those words inflicted. But I would have thought..." Again she hesitated, "honey I would have thought that once you were here, he would come back if he could."
"He had a vision" Dean said reluctantly, he so did not want to be pulled into this freaky mind meld crap but realisation hit, "that son of a bitch used me again" He growled. "Sam had a vision that you and I were killed and that the creature had took something of mine. When Sam saw it he was convinced the vision was real and that it was too late to save us"
The level of loss his brother had experienced had taken Dean aback. If he had ever doubted his brother's love and how much he was needed, he didn't now.
"How do we get him back?" He asked desperately, he had lost Sam once, like hell would he go through that again. He couldn't.
"We have to concentrate on his physical injuries first. If we don't rid your brothers system of the poison, he will die" Missouri was deliberately blunt. "And if what the demon said is true, we only have till daybreak to save him. I have an idea, but you're not going to like it," She warned, she didn't like it never mind Dean.
"I'll do anything"
"Never make promises you may not be able to keep." At his protest she held up her hand, keeping her eyes on the road. It wasn't far now. "The poison seems to act on two levels. Firstly on the physical, causing pain and fever, inflaming the brain, stimulating neuro-receivers and transmitters" At the older brother's obvious surprise, Missouri sighed exasperated. "Do you not think a psychic might research the physical aspects pf her abilities and how the mind works on a physical level?" Not to mention what she had picked up from the demon. "But the life force it leeches away, that is done on a psychic level. So if we stop the source of the psychic drain, release that which has been taken, then it should hopefully be returned – a lot like a Shtriga," she mused.
Dean blanched, reminded of another time he had nearly lost his brother. The cold in his stomach spread when he realised where she was going with this.
"To save Sam, I might have to kill Dad?" Dean sounded far younger than his years. He turned anguished eyes on Missouri. "There has to be another way"
"A standard exorcism wouldn't work on this level of demon" The same as it wouldn't work on the one that destroyed your family, Missouri thought sadly. Dean seemed to understand Missouri's unspoken thoughts. Child there are times when I think you and Sam are far older in spirit than you are in years.
She shook her head at the strange thoughts. "We may have to kill the host"
"That's our father you're talking about"
"And he's my friend Dean. But would you want him to stay that way? It's killing him!"
"What do you mean?"
"The demon has separated your father's essence from his mind. The spirit needs a connection to cling to, or eventually, well eventually you forget your way and the path back fades."
"Great, just great" Dean was losing his whole family. He looked at his brother. At least the bleeding had slowed to a trickle.
"And how do we find him?" he asked the older psychic, his voice deliberately neutral.
"Oh child, I don't think we'll have to find him. We have something it wants desperately" She glanced meaningfully at Sam.
She was right; Dean didn't like this plan at all. Least of all using his brother as bait.
The car pulled in front of Elsie's house. At the hunter's questioning gaze Missouri simply stated. "It's the safest place in town and we daren't risk trying to get him to a hospital – at least not yet. That room was well protected Dean and this town has a very good doctor" She smiled fondly.
"You know Doc Holmes?" Dean sounded incredulous.
"Patrick and I are old friends, and he knows a great deal more about this world that we live in than you think. Now let's get that brother of yours inside"
She opened the car door and Dean eased out, gently cradling his brother to his chest. In a brief moment of weakness he nestled his chin on the top of Sam's head. "Hold on Sammy" he whispered.
He grunted as he lifted him up and quickly hurried to the house, unconsciously mirroring his own arrival.
He laid Sam in the bed he had previously occupied while Missouri called the Doctor. She popped her head around the door " Patrick is on his way" At Dean's helpless look she said, "Talk to him, let him know you're here" She left the two brothers alone.
"Hey Sam, it's time to come back"
No response.
"Look, the hard works over now. I've hauled your heavy ass all the way here. The least you can do is thank me" The lack of even a flicker annoyed and scared Dean in equal measure.
"Listen Francis, if you don't say something soon, I'll set Missouri on you" That sounded weak, even to him. "Or better yet, I'll shave off your hair"
Still nothing.
"C'mon Sam" Dan was starting to panic; he could sense that Sam was slipping ever further away from him.
There was a knock at the door and Doc Holmes entered.
"Well you're looking a lot better than the last time I saw you," He said warmly to Dean. His face paled and fell when he saw Sam.
Missouri had followed him in. The Doctor fired off a ream of instructions for items that he needed and she bustled off. He checked Sam's pulse and responses and his forehead creased in worry. Dean felt his heart rate quicken.
"Doc? He's going to be ok, right?" please.
"Dean, I'm not going to lie to you. Sam's system has suffered a severe shock. The tears across his chest and lower abdomen just need cleaning, stitched and bandaged. But the claws. The claws we really need to remove as soon as we can. If, as I suspect, the claws are hollow and that is how the poison enters the system, then we need to get them removed quickly. If not, they will continue to inject more venom into Sam, and your brother has enough of a fight on his hands as it is. Ideally we need to get him to a hospital. If I remove the claws here, your brother could suffer massive blood loss and other complications – we do not know what kind of internal injuries they could have caused."
"What about the poison already in his system?"
"I took some blood samples from you a couple of days ago and sent it off to a friend in the lab at Mercy Hospital. Missouri is right; it is a form of neurotoxin that stimulates the pathways in the brain. The good news is the toxin itself does not appear to be lethal and should disperse over time though Sam will probably need several blood transfusions. Missouri has told me her theory and it is a good one".
"Killing our Dad you mean!" Dean replied bitterly. How could he do it, even for Sam? Then, a heart-rending realisation hit him that he would probably be able to do it, because it was Sam, What kind of a monster am I? He thought horrified.
The Doctor looked at him compassionately. "Medicine is my field of expertise, dealing with the supernatural I'm afraid is yours".
Missouri re-entered the room with a bowl of hot water and some towels. The Doctor quietly set to work, cleaning, suturing and bandaging the wounds. He gave Sam a broad-spectrum antibiotic and injected an anti-venom his friend at the hospital had suggested. Preliminary tests had shown that this slowed the effects marginally and in Sam's condition anything was better than nothing.
The Doctor could hear a whispering just on the edge of his hearing. He opened his mouth to ask if anyone else heard it when he stopped – a thought had occurred to him.
"Dean – I'm going to try to remove the claws from the creature's hand, and drain the venom from the poison sacks that should be attached to the claws. If we can drain the venom, we could leave the claws in longer with little risk of further harm to Sam. At last it will give us a little more time to get Sam to the hospital." Dean nodded his permission.
The Doctor worked quietly and efficiently, and eventually sighed with relief once the gruesome job was done. The venom had been clear in appearance and appeared to contain a clotting agent that had certainly saved Sam's life. Probably didn't want their prey dying too quickly and painlessly from blood loss, he thought wryly.
He explained this to Dean who had been watching him thoughtfully for some time now.
"Doc, Missouri? Can I run something past you?" The elder brother's eyes never left the poison sacks in the bowl beside Sam's bed.
"I need to reach Sam somehow" He started. "Missouri have been able to pick anything up at all?"
"Nothing. Honey, we don't even know if he is still there, or if he is still Sam"
"He's there – I can feel it" The older psychic looked at him strangely, then her eyes widened in alarm.
"Boy, don't you even think about doing that!"
"Missouri, you said yourself that there was a connection between me and Sam because of the leech stone and Sam's incantation".
Missouri did not correct him on the source but simply said. "The connection is severed".
"Can we not repair it?"
"You're not a psychic Dean."
"You are."
"I cannot forge a connection like that. There has to be an existing path" A binding of souls… she thought, was that what she could sense with these two?" And I cannot make you psychic".
Dean knew he had her. "No but the venom can. You said that it stimulates psychic channels. I could feel Sam earlier; hear his thoughts. He might be able to hear me." Missouri knew what this offer was costing Dean, uncomfortable as he was with the thought of the supernatural being in the family. He accepted it with his brother, simply because it was Sam and Sam needed him to accept it.
"We could end up losing you both!"
"You'll lose us both if Sam dies Missouri" Dean stated bluntly, do you honestly believe I would survive that? He though, knowing and not caring that Missouri could probably hear it.
Missouri knew that to be true. And the leech stone was still connecting them with blood magic, just the psychic connection was broken, not the spell. It was not the blood connection that the demon had severed, it was a bond much deeper than that and it needed to be healed. It could work.
"What if the demon comes when you are doing this?" She asked.
"If Sam doesn't come back there will be no point healing him physically. He would be a hollow shell, a soulless thing. Sam's the one with the brains anyway – he'll figure out a way to do this without killing Dad". He'd better, as I'm drawing a blank, not that we know how to kill it anyway.
The Doctor looked at him – he knew what Dean was going to ask of him. "Do it" A voice whispered. He could not refuse the desperation and obvious love that drove the elder brother to do this to save his brother.
He took out a syringe and withdrew some of the poison from the sacks. " Dean I am going to have to inject a stimulant and blood thinning agent as well as this in order to push it around your system as quickly as possible" The whispering telling him what to do and to hurry grew louder in the Doctor's mind, Missouri threw him a quick glance as if sensing a difference. "You will feel your heart racing and will feel very hot, but if you feel any discomfort or pain in your chest, you must let me know straight away. This will put an immense strain on your heart so we have to be careful."
Dean silently held out his arm and the Doctor swabbed it down before injecting the poison followed by the stimulant. Almost immediately Dean could feel a fire starting to course around his body and he broke out into a sweat. His heart began to pound and already he felt feverish.
"All those years of just saying 'no'", he muttered. Gentle hands lay him on the bed next to his motionless brother. Hands that for a moment reminded him of his mother; the same gentle care and infinite kindness.
"I'm coming Sammy", he thought as darkness claimed him. "Just hold on"
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Author's Note
Um…am I forgiven? Was this too sentimental? Too long or just too darn boring?
I am starting to get the urge to go Dum, Dum dahh...
You didn't honestly think I would kill Sammy off did you? and least not yet mwa ha haaaa! Hmmm, I wonder what will happen to the poor lads now?
Will Dean be able to rescue Sam?
Just who is the Doctor hearing?
and just where can I get a bat searchlight? All this and more in the next installment lol!
please R and R and let me know what you think.
Thanks!
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