Sorry for the wait on the update. Things have been...off...lately. As always, I don't own the boys. I don't even own the cave. Please review.
Sam's scream stopped Dean cold. He had just crawled free of the tunnel into a small, dank cavern, his boots splashing into a few inches of water. "Sam!" He turned back toward the passage, stomach clenching. "Sam!"
"I can't move!" The panic in his brother's faint voice made the hair on Dean's neck prickle. "I'm stuck!" He sounded for all the world like the little boy Dean used to carry around piggybacked.
"Calm down, Sammy," ordered Dean, taking a deep breath of his own. "Just take a second and calm down. I made it through, and you're skinnier than me…you can make it." Dean knelt, ignoring the water that wicked through his jeans, and poked his head back into the tunnel, shining his light down into the blackness. "Can you see my light?"
He heard Sam make a little noise, a strangled whimper. "Yeah, I see it."
"Just crawl toward it man. I promise, you can make it." Dean let out a little sigh of relief when he heard Sam start to scrabble in the dirt, grunting with exertion. "Come on, man, crawl to my voice." He sat back on his heels, his heart drumming. His brother was scared, and he couldn't get to him, couldn't help him. It was a feeling he hated more than anything. And then it happened.
He felt it before he heard it. A cracking, crashing rumble that shook his bones and stopped his breath. He screamed for his brother but couldn't hear his own voice over the noise. A choking wave of dust rolled out of the passage and he gagged against it, retching against the pain and suffocation. The grit coated his eyes, scratching and burning, sending involuntary tears streaming down his cheeks.
The rumble subsided, diminishing to the occasional clatter of rock on rock, and then there was silence. "Sam!" Dean's voice was rough, gravelly, and he coughed out a glut of mud. "Talk to me, Sammy!"
A small, muffled cough answered him. "Dean…" Sam's voice was faint, soft.
"Are you okay?" Dean's heart began to hammer again. His brother sounded strange, words thick.
"Stuck…" The word was weak.
Dean was on his feet without another thought, scrambling back into the tunnel, army crawling as fast as he could back toward his brother. "I'm comin', Sammy," he grunted, ignoring the rocks that stabbed at his elbows and knees. "Hang on." The farther he crawled, the thicker the dust in the air became. He squinted against it, ignoring the sandy scraping every time he blinked, but then gave up and shut his eyes altogether, scrabbling his way along by feel.
Then, as Dean despaired of ever finding his brother, his hand brushed warm skin. "Sam!" he coughed, clutching at the hand he had found, grasping the fingers. "Talk to me, Sam…"
Sam made a muffled gurgle, his fingers closing around Dean's. "M'Okay," he mumbled. Dean managed to wrestle his flashlight to the front and shone the light on Sam's face. A large gash had been opened on the bridge of Sam's nose and was pouring blood, painting his lips and teeth.
"Look at me," ordered Dean, shining his light directly into Sam's eyes. They were bleary and confused with what was clearly a concussion, and Dean's heart clutched. "Can you crawl to me?" Sam replied by wriggling slightly, shifting his hips from side to side.
"Foot's stuck," he whimpered, lifting his free hand to swipe blood from his face. "Think a rock is on it."
Dean sought his brother's eyes. "Listen to me, Sammy. You've got to crawl with me. You're not going to be able to crawl backward the way you came, but I think I can. We'll go back to the room where this tunnel comes out and see if we can find another way back."
"Foot's stuck," Sam repeated obstinately.
"Well, you'd better damn-well unstick it and get your ass moving, understand me?" Dean's bellow came out of his mouth before he could stop it, and he cringed. Channeling Dad, that's a great way to get Sam to cooperate, he berated himself. But even as he thought it, Sam gave a little groan and started rocking his hips again, pulling himself forward on his elbows. "That's it, Sam, come on. You can do it, it's not far."
Dean began shimmying backward, inch by painful inch. The press of the rock walls was a torment, a claustrophobic, suffocating embrace. Only the fact that he knew freedom was just beyond, behind his boots, kept him from panic. He kept his eyes on Sam's face, watching as his brother grimaced and groaned his way forward, occasionally spitting blood.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, Dean felt his feet fall free of the confines of the passage. He slid backward, out into the blessed open space of the small cavern. He then reached in and grasped Sam by the hands, pulling him forward and delivering him from the tunnel like a baby. Sam collapsed to his side, puffing with exertion, his hands still clasping Dean's. "Good job, Sammy," Dean gasped, his own efforts catching up to him. "Good job."
They sat together on the stone floor for a few moments, steeping in the cold water, allowing their breaths and hearts to slow. Finally Sam let go of Dean's fingers and pushed himself to a sitting position. Dean grabbed a wad of tissue from his pocket and handed it to him, and he pressed it against the bridge of his nose.
"Any chance of going back the way we came?" Dean's tone didn't hold much hope.
"I don't think so." Sam's voice was muffled by his hand, and he pulled the now crimson-soaked tissues away from his face. "It felt like an awful lot of stuff fell back there." He dropped the tissues into the water beside him. "This is bad."
"Yeah." Dean turned away from Sam, hands clenching into fists. Idiot, he railed at himself. He told you not to come in here. Now look. "We're going to have to find another way out."
Sam nodded wordlessly, casting his flashlight around, examining the room. Then he gave a weak chuckle. "Well, there's one bright side." Dean turned with questioning eyes, and Sam directed his light into a corner. Propped against a rock wall, curled into a twisted lump, there was a tiny, mummified body.