The Wrong Side of Eternity

Chapter Three

XXX

They don't sort it out in the morning. Or the afternoon or the evening. The bruises on Sam's neck have darkened and closer inspection has found similar marks on his wrists.

Sam's a nervous bundle of energy, fueled by too much caffeine, bouncing from the laptop to Dad's journal, pouring over his notes from the library and back again as if he'll find some new information by reading through stuff they've already studied at length.

Dean's at a loss. There's nothing. Aside from the haunting that brought them here, the town's clean. No unsolved murders, no missing people. There's a smattering of quirky accidental deaths but nothing suspicious and none of them link to the alleyway or the buildings around it.

It's nearly 2am when Dean notices Sam fighting a losing battle with sleep, despite the litres of coffee he's ingested. Usually he can last longer but Dean figures the kid hasn't exactly been getting a full nights rest lately.

"Sam."

Sam's head bobs up, frowning first at the laptop as if trying to figure out what he was doing with it, then registering that Dean had made an attempt at his attention and turning his bleary gaze to him. "Huh?"

"You need to sleep."

Sam looks at the laptop as if he expects an answer to flash across the screen, "No, I can't. I need to..." He trails off at the sound of clinking metal and turns back to Dean apprehensively. "Dean..."

Dean fingers the handcuffs he's holding. "Look, I don't like it either, but you need to sleep and I'm even less fond of the idea of you getting eaten by something while you're snoozing in an alleyway, so..."

Sam chews his lip. Kid always did have an aversion to being tied up. Dean had never quite figured out why that was, but he remembers a 12 year old Sammy looking downright panicked when their dad had them practice getting out of ropes and cuffs by securing their hands to things. Dean hadn't been a fan of those lessons either, if he was honest, but he couldn't deny that they'd been useful.

"Come on, Sammy," Dean nudges gently.

"Fine," Sam sighs, his exhaustion showing in his easy acquiescence. He moves reluctantly over to his bed, not bothering to change. He just tugs off his boots and over-shirt and lies back.

"It's just until we've got his figures out," Dean says, wrapping a t-shirt round Sam's wrist to pad it before snapping the cuffs into place. "Go to sleep. You wont even notice it."

"Easy for you to say," Sam mumbles grumpily, curling up on his side.

"Yeah, I know," Dean replies distractedly, switching off one of the lamps and moving to take Sam's place at the laptop.

XXX

Dean's not sure when he falls asleep but he knows he doesn't mean to. Even with the handcuffs he had planned to stay awake and research until he damn well found something, and it's not like he was going to trust a bit of metal with his brother's life...

Which was a good idea, or would have been if he'd managed to stay awake, because a glance at Sam's bed yields only empty cuffs and crumpled bedsheets.

"Fuck!" Cursing, Dean leaps to his feet. He's still fully dressed so it doesn't take long to get out to the Impala. Sam hasn't called yet but Dean's pretty damn sure of where he's going to be.

It's not raining too hard tonight, but the air is damp and chilled. Dean's breath mists in front of him as he hurries to the Impala, fumbling keys, and he pulls out onto the street in a screech of tyres, mumbling apologies to the car as he does so. It's Sam, though, so he knows his baby understands the urgency.

The phone booth is empty when he pulls up, which isn't surprising because his cellphone has stayed silent for the whole drive. Dean locks the Impala, hurriedly grabs an assortment of weapons from the trunk, just in case, including holy water, a silver knife and the rock salt-loaded shotgun, and half-sprints into the alleyway.

He spots Sam about halfway down, slumped against the wall of the old factory, head down.

"Sam!" Dean drops to his knees in front of his brother, eyes warily scanning the shadows for any sign of movement but all is still and silent around them.

"Sam." Dean reaches out a hand and shakes him lightly.

Sam's head bobs up, blinking vaguely, "What..."

"Sam? You with me?"

Sam looks around the alley, awareness gradually returning. He turns back to Dean. "Where are we, Jeremy? This isn't my motel."

Worry bleeds into Dean's gut and his gaze rises to Sam's mop of multi-coloured curls, searching for any obvious head injuries.

"Where are we?" Sam asks again. There's something off about his voice, kind of slurred and just... wrong.

"Sam, wake up already," Dean says unsteadily, even though Sam looks pretty awake.

Sam struggles to his feet, Dean rising with him. "This isn't funny, Jeremy. You know I've had too much to drink. I wanna go back to the motel."

"You're not making sense, Sam. It's me. It's Dean." Dean reaches out and gives Sam another shake.

"Stop it!" Sam cries. "I wanna go!"

The inflections are wrong, the pitch slightly higher, and Dean knows - he knows even though he doesn't want it to be true – that it's not his brother talking. There's something speaking through Sam. It's gotta be a spirit. It must have been a spirit this whole time and Dean curses himself for not bringing Sam along when he checked out that previously haunted house. He's betting that if he'd just pointed the EMF detector at Sam, it would have lit up like a Christmas tree.

And how the hell did it get passed the salt lines anyway? Unless it didn't have to 'cause it somehow got Sam to cross them himself...

"Okay. Okay," Dean says, running a hand through his hair as he backs off slightly. He'll work out the logistics later. "Just calm down, okay?"

Sam doesn't calm down, or rather, the thing inside him doesn't. It doesn't react to Dean's words at all, like it hasn't heard them. Instead, Sam reels as if he's just been hit, falling back against the wall.

"What are you doing?" Sam gasps, in that voice that's his but not, a hand cradling his cheek as stunned eyes peer through his bangs at the space just to the left of Dean. "Don't-"

Sam's cut off as he's slammed back against the wall, head hitting with a resounding crack.

"Jesus!" Dean leaps forward to catch him as he falls and Sam's hitting at him, screaming and sobbing, and Christ, this isn't like any spirit possession Dean's seen before. It's like the ghost's not even aware that it's in a new body and it's just replaying events of the past, and if Dean wasn't fucking terrified before, he is now, because the spirit's playing out it's own murder and Sam's the one taking the blows.

It's time for quick thinking. He's got the rock salt-loaded shotgun but damned if he's going to shoot Sam with it. It'll take a minute to get back to the Impala where there's a huge bag of salt but – Sam jerks back again and Dean just barely stops him from smashing his head – it might be a minute Sam doesn't have.

But spending time working out the pros and cons isn't getting him anywhere, and the bag of salt is really the only option he has, so Dean forces himself to move away from Sam and sprints back to the Impala, splashing through puddles as the frigid air stings his face.

The salt's heavy – it's a huge bag – but Dean's carried heavier (his brother included) and it barely slows him down on the way back.

Sam's pinned against the wall, fingers scrabbling at invisible hands around his neck and Dean can tell by the lack of noise that he can't breathe at all.

Dean tears the bag of salt open with his teeth, spitting out the foul-tasting crystals as he up-ends the bag over Sam's head.

The salt hits and sizzles with a hiss and then Sam's dropping forwards, hitting the concrete on his hands and knees as he gasps in lung fulls of air.

Dean tosses the bag aside without a second thought, hands moving to brace Sam's shoulders.

"Sam, hey, it's okay, you're okay. Come on, look at me, Sammy, look at me."

And Sam looks up, still heaving in deep breaths, and Dean knows even before he speaks that he's got his brother back.

"It's okay," Sam rasps, hand reaching out shakily to brace himself on Dean's arm. "It's okay. I know where she is."

TBC

A/N: Just the Epilogue to go now