Hold Off the Earth Awhile
Summary: Post WIAWSNB. Sam and Dean tangle with an artist whose work is a deadly gift that keeps on giving.
When last we spoke… Sam had just been grabbed by the ghost…
Chapter Four
Dean brought Marigold up, but he didn't have a clear shot. Sam's body blocked the ghost as they vanished into the dark interior of the store. There was no delayed reaction this time. Dean ran for the opening where the shattered window had been and vaulted the low wall. He brought the shotgun up and took aim just in time to see Sam thrown from one side of the shop to the other. He crashed into the side of a wooden table with a padded top, sort of like something from a doctor's office, and slid to the floor in a pile.
Dean fired at the ghost and it dissolved immediately. After another second, the lights flickered back on and he watched in horror as blood began to pool beneath Sam's head.
"Bud, get your ass in here!" Dean bellowed. He hurried to Sam's side and knelt beside him, half-listening for the other man as he entered, glass crunching beneath his feet. "I need a towel, or bandages, whatever you've got handy."
Dean saw that Sam had nicks on his exposed skin and one longer gash on his arm from being dragged through the window where jagged bits of glass were still sticking out from the frame.
"Sammy?" Dean asked, searching for the source of the blood. "Sammy, talk to me."
"D'n?" Sam mumbled. He half opened his eyes, then they fell closed again. He tried to turn on his side and immediately made a horrible noise that was midway between a hiss and a groan.
"Ribs?" Dean asked. Sam made some sort of pained noise and Dean took it as agreement.
Bud appeared at Dean's side and he took the towel from him. Dean spared a second to scan the room again, but the ghost hadn't reappeared. He shoved Marigold into the surprised man's hands, then pressed the towel against Sam's head and used his other hand to try and lever Sam into a sitting position. Sam moaned in half-conscious misery, but Dean knew they couldn't wait.
"Grab his other arm," he ordered Bud.
"What?"
"Your schizophrenic friend is gonna be back before too long, so we need to go!"
"He's not my friend!" Bud snapped.
"Listen, Mr. Concrete-thinker. We don't have time for this. Just grab his arm!"
Between the two of them, they got Sam to his feet. He sagged worryingly between them, but they managed to keep him on his feet, Dean still doing his best to keep the towel pressed to Sam's head. It wasn't exactly easy since his brother was as tall as the freakin' Chrysler Building.
Between the two of them, they walked Sam out to the car. Dean hesitated, torn between his need to drive and his need to look after his brother. He'd already made one concession by letting the guy hold Marigold. Finally, before he could change his mind, he snatched the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Bud. "You drive."
"But-"
"Did you hear an option anywhere in that?" Dean glared at the man furiously and he immediately decided going along was a good idea.
Dean got into the back seat with Sam, still keeping the now bright red towel pressed firmly in place. Head wounds were just nasty, no matter what. Sam groaned and Dean helped him shift so that there wasn't quite so much pressure on his ribs.
"Where to?"
"Motel on the south edge of town. Move it."
Dean sat down with a sigh, his adrenaline-fueled burst of energy fading now that Sam was washed, bandaged and lying on the bed.
Marked. Sam didn't have anything more than a scar or two, let alone a tattoo, but the ghost had taken one look at him and he'd known. Dean had no doubt that Sam was just going to add it to his list of evidence that he was destined for the dark side.
Sometimes Dean wished like anything he'd just kept his freakin' mouth shut that day after the virus thing.
Wished. Dean really hated that word.
If he'd just kept his trap shut Sam wouldn't have run off and nearly gotten himself killed when Gordon caught up. He never would have begged Dean to kill him when the time came. Sam hadn't needed to know about their dad's orders. Dean could have shouldered the burden. He should have. Alone. Sam had already known Yellow-Eyes had plans for him. That was enough to worry about before Dean had to go and inform him that he was carrying a bullet with Sam's name on it, courtesy of John Winchester. For all of his brother's carping that Dean never shared, Dean really needed to keep his yap closed sometimes.
Sam was special. He had visions. The Demon had plans. And whatever all of that meant, it was apparently written all over him, as supernaturally visible as a tattoo on skin. Sam was marked.
Son. Of. A-
"Dean?"
"Yeah, Sammy."
"There a reason you look like someone just shot your dog?"
"Never had a dog," Dean replied absently. Maybe he should have. Normal hunters had dogs. Pets were supposed to be soothing. Granted, most of the dogs they ran into in their line of work were of the eat-your-face-off variety.
"Dean," Sam said, frustration creeping into his tone.
"You ok? How's the head?"
"Dean."
"I'm fine," he finally said, though even to his own ears it sounded uncertain. He'd been crap at hiding anything since the djinn. His normal barriers weren't holding well, and Sam was watching him like a hawk.
"Yeah? Then how come you look like someone just shot your dog?"
Dean actually felt a grin tugging at his lips this time. Dogged. That was his Sammy. "Never had a dog."
"We really gonna go in circles?"
"Got a brother like a friggin' terrier, but no dog," Dean huffed. "Seriously, how's the head? Gash wasn't too big. Just bled like crazy. Your arm was probably nastier." Sam raised his arm that was bandaged nearly from wrist to elbow, then let it fall back to the bed tiredly.
"Head hurts. Arm hurts."
Dean snorted. "Go figure." He didn't bother to ask about the rest. He knew Sam was already bruising from a nice set of cracked ribs. He'd really just needed to know if Sam's brains were scrambled.
"He said I was marked, Dean." Sam's voice was low, troubled, and he was staring at the ceiling.
Dean rubbed a hand across his face and sat back against the chair. His eyes, of their own accord, traveled to the ceiling, and Dean knew what his brother was seeing. It was an image permanently etched into both their memories, no doubt more profoundly in Sam's. Jess had died simply because she was inconvenient to the master plan.
"He said I was marked. He could see it," Sam whispered.
"Yeah, so?"
That got Sam's attention and his gaze dropped to Dean. "What?"
"This whole family's marked. Always has been. Huge target right on our backs. Big deal."
"The ghost didn't look at you and say you were evil," Sam answered.
"He didn't say you were evil," Dean admonished. "There's a difference between a demon keepin' tabs on you and you workin' for one."
Sam frowned, looking perilously close to a certain six year old that Dean remembered frowning when he didn't get the answers he wanted. "Still said I was marked. He said I had to be stopped."
"You do have to be stopped." Dean smirked. "The whining tends to get a little outta hand."
Sam rolled his eyes, but he quit frowning. "Where's Bud?"
Dean's eyebrows shot upward. "Uhh… he's cringing in the corner just where we left him."
"What?" Sam half-sat up and groaned, wrapping an arm around his bruised chest. Dean waited for his brother's head to stop spinning and for him to look up, then pointed. Sam followed the direction and saw the Bud was indeed sitting in the corner as far away from them as he could get and still be in the room. "He ok?"
"Little closer to catatonic than ok." Dean shook his head. "He got a little freaked when I started stitching you up myself."
"How ya doin', Bud?" Sam called, wincing a little, though Dean wasn't sure if it was his ribs or his head. "Bud?"
The tattoo artist finally turned his head, his dazed eyes moving from one of them to the other. "You… you two aren't from the Health Department, are you?"
Dean blinked. And then he laughed. He laughed until he hurt. How long had it been since he'd laughed that hard? He knew the laughter was bordering on nuts, but that was the funniest friggin' thing he'd heard in he didn't know how long.
When he finally trailed off, wiping tears from his eyes, he saw that Sam was looking somewhere between amused and frightened. Dean cleared his throat, embarrassed at his outburst. "No, we're not from the Health Department."
"We deal with problems like Jacob," Sam offered.
Bud went back to just sort of staring at them blankly, so Dean decided to just stick with the facts. "When did this guy die?"
"A m-month ago."
Dean closed his eyes, trying for patience. Bud had gone from bravely fighting the Health Department, to bravely walking back into his shop after being thrown out of it on his butt, to a useless lump sitting in the motel room, too stunned to do much more than drool on himself. Not that he was really drooling. Dean would have pushed him out on the curb if that were the case.
"You really can't remember his name?"
"I told you. Jacob… something."
"Jacob something." Dean clenched his jaw. "A guy harasses you for years and years and you don't even know his name?"
Anger flared in Bud's eyes and he looked more with it. "Mostly I just yelled at him to get away from my shop or threatened to turn my Taser on him if he didn't get away from me. I wasn't really all that interested in talking about the finer points of being marked by the devil!"
"But you went to his grave," Dean observed.
"Yeah. Right after they planted him. It was the only new one in that section."
Dean tried for breathing through his nose so he wouldn't yell. "Can you show me back there?" Dean caught Sam giving him the stink eye for saying me instead of us, but Dean ignored it.
"Oh no," Bud said, his voice rising as panic flared.
"It's the only way we can stop this," Dean assured him. "You point out the grave and Jacob will never bother you again."
"You can't stop him. He's followed me for years and years. He died and he's still following me. Once he decides someone's marked he won't leave them alone."
Dean shot a worried glance toward Sam. "What do you mean?"
"I meant exactly what I said. Once he saw someone who was 'marked', he never forgot it. He practically tracked them if he could. One of the people he attacked, he followed them home and broke into their house."
"Terrific." Dean immediately stood and walked to their bags to find the salt.
"Dean, don't bother."
Dean turned to see Sam teetering as he tried to stand up from the bed. "Sam, what are you doing? Lay back down. I'm not stitching you up again if you crack your head on the table."
"I can see it written all over you, man. You're not going to the cemetery alone."
Dean sighed. "I can handle this. He's not after me. I'll go, dig the guy up and, Bob's your uncle, we all get to sleep in late in the morning."
"You're not going alone. It's not safe."
"Just let me take this one. You can barely stand."
"Yeah, my head hurts, but-"
"Dude, your head is about to fall off."
"And you're borderline suicidal," Sam bit out.
Dean froze, his gaze locked with Sam's. He wasn't suicidal. He wasn't. He was just tired. He was so tired. Tired of this life, this job. Tired of pain, of worrying. Tired of losing things, of trying and still failing. He just wanted it to be over, or at least for there to be some sort of end in sight.
Giving up, however, meant giving up on Sam. And Sam was marked, which meant quitting wasn't optional. Tired or not, Sam needed him to stay in the game. "I'm fine."
"No, you're not. I'm not blind," Sam insisted. He shifted closer, turning to block Bud out of their conversation, and lowered his voice almost to a hiss. "You think I've been sitting here scratching my head for months now? Dean, you were in a near freefall after Dad died. You almost made a deal at the crossroads when she brought him up. You were going to just sit down and die when I was infected. And then the djinn…"
Sam trailed off, his accusing eyes falling to stare at something. Dean looked down and realized that he'd unconsciously brought his hand up to rub his chest, the phantom pain of where he'd stabbed himself returning for just a second.
"Dean, since you woke up, you've been-"
"So I'm a head case. What's new?" Dean shrugged, trying desperately to seem casual. He looked up to see Sam glaring at him, though there were all kinds of worry and fear in that angry stare. "If I let you come with us to the cemetery, will you lay off?"
"Let me?" Sam almost snarled, though he winced as his head reminded him how much it didn't like that kind of thing. When he winced, it set his ribs off and he wrapped his arm more tightly around himself.
Dean grinned smugly. "You need help getting to the car, or you think you can handle it?"
"Let's go," Sam snapped. "Bud, get outside."
Dean kept Marigold firmly in hand as they walked through the cemetery, Bud beside him, pointing the way. Apparently no one had claimed the body and the government had taken care of the burial. The part of the cemetery owned by the city was in the back, away from the plots with easier access for paying patrons.
As they approached the grave, Dean saw exactly what he'd been afraid of. Jacob was standing in the middle of the graves, flickering, watching them as they came closer. Dean raised Marigold to fire, but before he could Jacob disappeared. "We'll pour a ring around the grave to keep him out," Dean said as they hurried forward. He turned toward Sam. "Your ribs are messed up. Give Bud the shovel. We'll put him on grave detail."
Sam nodded and then stopped. He looked up at Dean and panic tightened his expression.
"Sam?" Dean asked, stepping closer to his brother. "Sammy?"
"Dean, I… Something's wrong… I… I don't feel… right."
Sam's eyes abruptly rolled up in his head and he dropped to the ground, landing on his side on top of Jacob's grave.
More soon…