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.
Sam had just collapsed on Jacob's grave… Now on we go…
Chapter Five
Dean dropped to his knees beside Sam and felt for a pulse. His skin felt… wrong, dry. Dean kept his fingers at Sam's neck long enough to decide that his heart rate was steady, but oddly sluggish.
Dean clenched his teeth to keep from swearing, long and loud. Exposure. Everyone had died in the cemetery from exposure.
People liked to think they couldn't die just from being outside too long, but human bodies were beyond fragile. A little too much sun, or cold, a bit of dehydration, not quite enough food, a person could sit down and just not get back up. It was painfully easy. Of course, the victims hadn't actually been outdoors long enough to cause them any real problems. Jacob had sped up the process.
"What's wrong with him?" Bud demanded, looking about them nervously.
Dean stood again and grabbed Sam's feet, dragging him away from the grave. He pulled him into the open space a few yards away and then hurried toward the bag that Sam had dropped. He rummaged for the salt and then jogged back. He quickly folded Sam's outstretched arms into his body and then looked up at Bud. "Come stand over here by him."
"Huh?" Bud didn't budge. "You… you shot Jacob at the shop, but he keeps coming back. Shouldn't he be dead? More dead? Whatever you call it."
"Dude, I don't have time to explain. Now, get over here," Dean ordered, already pouring a line of salt around Sam. He paused briefly for Bud to walk around him and then continued making a circle around both of them.
"What are you doing?"
Dean sighed. "What did I just say?"
"What are you doing?" Bud said, panic and anger mixing in his tone.
"I'm making sure Jacob doesn't kill you two before I can dig him up. Now shut up!" Dean finished the circle, and stood back to make sure there weren't any breaks in the salt. "Civilians," he muttered under his breath. "Don't move outside the circle. You stay inside the circle, you live. You step outside, Jacob kills you. Got it?"
Bud stared it him in disbelief, but he nodded. "Yeah, ok."
Dean moved back toward their supplies and picked up a shovel. "And make sure Sam doesn't move out of it either or I'll kill you."
He heard Bud swallow heavily. "Got it."
"Good." Dean grasped the shovel in his hands and dug into the grave without hesitation. It was a relatively fresh grave, which made for easier going. Digging graves was never easy work, but compared to a fifty year old, time-hardened and compacted grave in the dead of winter, this was child's play. Not that children should be digging up bodies. Not normal children anyway. He'd had to help his dad a couple of times when he was a kid, but that had been the exception rather than the rule. His dad hadn't taken him hunting until he was older. The grave digging had been relatively safe and he'd only done it because his dad had been too hurt to manage it himself.
Dean felt the muscles in his chest and back loosening as he began to shovel in earnest. Marigold was sitting on the lip of the grave opposite the edge he was shoveling dirt onto in case Jacob decided to show again. He concentrated, however, on the digging. It felt good. It was plain and simple, refreshingly simple. Grunt work, really.
No matter what else might be going on, a grave was a grave. It was dirt, stone, a coffin waiting for him at the bottom. It didn't require thinking. It was just a man and a shovel, physical exertion in its simplest form. He didn't have to worry about making decisions that would affect his future, or Sam's. He didn't have to worry about what the Demon wanted. He didn't have to think about his dad's orders, about killing Sam. He didn't have to think about where his Dad was right now, all because of him.
Which was all a lie of course. Digging was so simple, it meant that he had nothing to do but think about all of that. Grave digging was only a soothing occupation when he was able to get his brain to shut up, and if there was ever a time he wished he could get his brain to shut up it was now. Unfortunately, the second their dad had given the order to take Sam out if it became necessary Dean hadn't had a moment of peace since.
Tired. He was so tired.
Suddenly the shovel felt ten times heavier than it had and Dean grunted as he tried to raise it to throw the dirt out of the grave. He gave himself a mental shake and ordered himself to focus on the task at hand. Salt and burn Jacob so he wouldn't kill Sam. That was Dean's job. Kill everything in their path so that, no matter what it was, it wouldn't kill Sam.
Nothing was going to get the chance to kill Sam. Nothing. Not even him. Dean hadn't been lying when he said he'd rather die than kill Sam.
You're borderline suicidal.
Dean wasn't suicidal. Not really. He might be if he took the time to think about it, but he didn't. Sam. Save Sam. Dean didn't have time to be anything but on guard duty, including from himself. Sam was the one in trouble right now. He was the one with the target on his back. Sammy was the one who was marked.
Dean focused on the shovel as it bit into the ground beneath him. He concentrated, shutting out everything but the rhythmic sounds of his breathing, matching it to his shoveling. As he continued, he realized there was another sound, also working in time with what he was doing.
Footsteps.
Dean turned to see Jacob was pacing, walking in a circle around the salt line. "Thanks for the heads-up, Bud," Dean said angrily.
Bud wasn't paying him any attention whatsoever. He was staring in horror at Jacob as he circled them, a shark swimming around its prey.
"Marked. Devil's spawn." He pointed at Bud. "Your mark will choke the life from you."
In the darkness, Bud's tattoos appeared to nearly writhe against his skin, as always, threatening to grow up and over, covering the last bits of unaffected flesh.
He was marked, his future inescapable… Eventually it would cover everything and the man beneath would be lost, eaten away…
"Both of you." Jacob's accusatory finger shifted to Sam. "Tainted. The devil's own workmanship."
"Watch who you're calling tainted there, Mr. Walking-Dead." Dean picked up Marigold and aimed it toward Jacob.
The ghost paid him absolutely no mind. He just kept pacing around the circle as if looking for a weakness so that he could get to his victims.
If Dean had to guess, he'd say that Jacob had gone after anyone who'd come to the cemetery that he recognized as "marked." Dean imagined the victims would have been coming to the grave to visit whatever person their tattoo had been memorializing. Jacob had gone after them and the people had simply passed out and died on the grave they'd come to visit.
As for the one victim who'd been outside the Jewish cemetery, Dean now understood that too. He'd taken a look at the small temporary marker on the grave before he'd started digging. Jacob Aaronson. If the guy was Jewish it would explain why he hadn't allowed that victim to remain in that part of the cemetery. Tattoos were a big no-no and he wouldn't have wanted a "marked" person left in the graveyard, even dead, so he'd dragged him and dumped him with the rest of the gentiles.
Dean supposed it made some sort of sense. It wasn't like Christians had a lock on being ghosts… or being nuts for that matter. Dead people with issues were dead people with issues, no matter what their beliefs might have been. Schizophrenia was no respecter of persons either when it came to religion. Brain chemistry problems didn't really care where you went to pray. Frankly, Dean didn't either. A ghost was a ghost and nuts was nuts. At the end of the day, everybody just needed to be put to rest.
That was all anybody really wanted.
"Hey! Jacob!" Dean called again, seeing if he could get the ghost's attention, but Jacob still ignored him, his sights firmly on Sam and Bud.
Warily, still facing the other group, Dean returned to digging with renewed effort. He only had enough salt left for the body once he got to it and, without climbing out of the grave, he only had the salt shells that were already in Marigold. He'd rather save them for later if Jacob wasn't really doing anything yet, so Dean just kept digging. He was better than halfway to the casket.
As he watched, Jacob altered his course slightly. He moved toward Dean and the grave. Dean snatched up Marigold and aimed her steadily, but Jacob just moved past him. He circled around the back of the grave and then walked back toward Sam. He circled around Sam, and Dean realized that Jacob had changed his path to make a figure eight around the grave and Sam's protective circle.
Sam groaned. Dean looked past Jacob's flickering form to see his brother try to turn on his side.
"Sam, stay inside the circle," Dean shouted.
"Dean? What's going on?" Sam asked uncertainly.
"Jacob put the whammy on you. He tried for the exposure thing, but the salt's doing its job, so don't move."
"You ok?" Sam very carefully worked his way to his knees, swaying slightly and Dean knew it was his head giving him grief. He really should have left him at the motel.
"I'm fine, Sam. How's your vision?"
"What?"
"You seeing double?"
Sam paused briefly, then answered, "Not anymore."
"Good. Catch." Dean waited until Jacob was behind him and then threw Marigold to Sam who caught her easily. "Shoot Jacob if he tries anything. I'm almost to the coffin."
"Why are you protecting him from me?" Jacob suddenly rasped, although he continued his circuit around the grave.
"Because he's my brother," Dean answered, already throwing another shovelful of dirt outside the grave.
"He's marked. He belongs to the devil. His mark covers his skin, his soul. I can see it."
"Yeah, well, mark or not, Sam's not gonna agree to anything that bastard has in mind, so it doesn't matter. Just because the devil's after you, doesn't mean you have to let him win."
"Once you're marked, it's too late."
"It's never too late," Dean grunted. "Never."
"He's MARKED," the ghost shouted angrily, as if to bully him into agreement.
"He's not marked," Dean roared, so furious he could barely see straight. "He's MINE."
"Yours." Jacob turned every bit of his attention on Dean.
"Mine," Dean said with finality. He was tired of every freakin' thing on the planet trying to rip Sam away from him. Viruses, Gordon, Meg, the Demon, the djinn. Dad.
Sam was marked. Sam was his brother. Sam was his responsibility. Sam was a freakin' Winchester and the supernatural bastards of this world and the next better never forget it.
"Dean, are you insane?" Sam demanded. "He's gonna think-"
"You're him." Madness burned in Jacob's dead eyes.
Yeah, ok, not what Dean had been going for, but… whatever.
So Jacob thought he was the devil. Maybe Dean was. He'd sent his father to Hell, after all.
Everything around him died, just as much as around Sam. Evil surrounded him on all sides, pressing in. Everything he touched turned to crap. Everyone that had any sense ran from him, or left him behind. Even Sam ran for it when he had the chance. Dean had told him the truth about what their dad had said and the very first thing Sam had done was run. From him.
Dean was supposed to kill his own brother. If that wasn't the devil's work he didn't know what was. Dean killed and killed. He brought death. He was dead. Dead inside. He just so happened to still be walking around.
Dean kept shoveling, focusing on the job. He was almost there. Sam had Marigold. He was watching Jacob.
Dean finally felt the shovel hit something besides dirt and began clearing the last of the earth away. The ground felt squishy now beneath his feet as he worked and he realized it was the casket. If you died on the government ticket, they didn't spring for wood or metal. You got a nice crepe coffin, cheap, degradable. You were basically the world's biggest papier-mâché project.
The coffin, such as it was, had melded into a mass, and Dean had to concentrate to break through it with the shovel. It was a month-old body he was looking for as well, which just made this job even less inviting. He put his back into it as he brought the shovel down again and again, until finally the stench of a freshly decaying corpse hit him with enough force to knock him back. Dean ordered himself to ignore it, fighting the urge to gag as he brought the shovel down again, punching his way through the heavy paper coffin.
Had to get the casket open enough to salt the body. Had to salt the body. Burn it.
Tired. He was so tired.
Save Sam. Sam was in trouble. Sam was marked.
Dean heard the report of the shotgun from behind him. His hearing went out and he assumed Jacob had been making some sort of move and Sam had been forced to fire. Dean just kept going.
Just had to finish the job. He could rest when Sam was safe. He could relax when the job was done. Not now.
Wasn't over yet. Not done yet. Almost.
Dean distantly felt hands. Arms reached around him, locked around his chest and hauled him out of the grave. He'd worked up a sweat, he'd been digging so feverishly and he felt cold as the night air brushed against his skin. He realized he was lying flat on the ground beside the grave, vaguely registered the heat as flames rose from the pit next to him.
Voices. No. A voice. Sam.
Too tired to answer. Throat hurt anyway. Thirsty. Too tired to go get a drink.
Sleep. Rest. That was all he needed.
Sleep.
And we'll wrap this up tomorrow…