Author Notes: My continuing gratitude for all who are reading and reviewing. It certainly helps the muse along. The next chapter SHOULD be the final one, unless these silly boys do something we didn't previously discuss while I'm finishing it up.


Maelstrom


Chapter Eight

It's almost cruel, and almost exactly as expected.

There's a moment of seemingly suspended time in which Sam's mind goes to work doing its typical overly analytical appraisal of the situation even as it's unfolding right before his eyes. He know there's a chance Dean would have been able to hop back to solid ground as soon as the wood started to groan its give, but he hasn't yet had the opportunity to get that missing step back, the one that's had Sam musing over its loss for weeks now. He's been running himself ragged and, worse, Sam's let him. And then piled on top of that, the jerk's been knocked unconscious twice since they've been at Grossinger's. As soon as the wood first bent and second cracked under the strain of his step, Dean didn't stand a chance.

And then the scene returns to full speed, and Sam's pretty sure his heart drops through the floor right along with his brother. He immediately surges forward toward the new broken spot in the hardwood, a cloud of dust rising to briefly conceal the additional hole. The additional hole Dean's body has just created.

"Sam!" Bobby, seemingly frozen in place himself, cautions with a harsh bark, throwing a stiff arm out and stopping Sam before he makes it a single step.

Sam knows the man's right, and he jerks to a sudden stop, breathing hard and feeling frightened and worthless and –

A shock of white-hot pain shoots through him, ripping him in half, dropping a veil of red over his vision and sending him to his knees. "Ah!"

"Sam, what is it?" Bobby's timbre is uncharacteristically high-pitched, his concern and focus understandably split. But Sam is the one he can attend to more easily at the moment, and he uses swift, careful steps to cover the short distance between them, floorboards creaking ominously beneath his heavy boots as he moves. He crouches next to Sam with a strong, chilled hand squeezing his shoulder, and there's some degree of desperation to be felt in the strength behind his grip, because he can't bear the weight of them both.

Sam gasps and doubles over, left hand splayed on the floor while the fingers of his right knead the spot where the shock of pain is radiating under his ribs and through his middle. The agony is real enough, like something is tearing through him sharp and hot and cold and awful, but he finds no wound, no reason for this discomfort, and he gets it, then. He turns wide, horrified eyes to the older hunter. "It's not me, Bobby, it's Dean."

Bobby gets it then, too, and straightens quickly, pulls away from Sam and rushes to the edge of the hole without use for any of those previously cautious steps. His eyes dart back and forth for a horribly long moment before he sucks in a sharp breath that hurts Sam nearly the same as whatever's happened to his brother. "I got him," he says to Sam, then crouches, leaning warily over the opening. "Dean?"

There doesn't seem to be any answer, and Bobby's face makes all sorts of contortions Sam can't find the mental capacity to give much meaning to, but has a general idea that they can't mean anything good.

The phantom pain that had ripped through Sam disappears as suddenly as it came and he pushes off of the floor, lurching upright with a horrified pit in his stomach that is completely his own. If he's no longer feeling the pain, then Dean's no longer feeling the pain…and that's a realization that can lead to new doors that Sam's not ready to open yet. Not anywhere near fucking ready yet.

Heart thudding and tripping all over itself, he moves next to Bobby and inspects the edge of the hole, already preparing himself to climb down as his eyes search the darkness below for Dean, gripping splintered board and jutted, dripping pipe, trying to determine which broken bits will hold his weight and which won't. There's a chance that they're still in a territory of Screwed that is vaguely familiar and yet traversable; Sam goes hurtling headfirst after his brother, and that might be one step too far into uncharted land. He can't see enough of his brother to put his mind at ease, but his eyes catch glimpses of legs, of dirty denim and boots, and maybe one pale, white hand still curled into a pained fist.

"Basement," Bobby says needlessly, breathily. He has a hand propped on his bent knee, and he won't meet Sam's eyes and some part of the man is shaking. Because this wasn't supposed to happen, not yet and not without warning, and they aren't ready.

"How far you think?" Sam doesn't know what pulls the thought from him because he doesn't want to hear an answer. One pipe breaks free of the floor beneath his shoes and nearly sends him pitching over the edge.

Bobby has reflexes and strength his age wouldn't suggest, and he has a fistful of Sam's jacket collar in the blink of an eye, hauling him back from the hole. "Far enough."

Sam doesn't pause, just propels himself forward as soon as Bobby releases him, and his wide eyes continue their search, because he needs to see his brother. His heart thuds wildly in his chest, galloping at a speed that won't be caught and corralled. He leans even further over the opening, putting down a hand to brace himself only to pull it away with a hiss as something stabs him in the palm and the floor protests his weight with another long creak.

A faint scrape below draws his attention, and Sam drops his gaze, catches movement in between the obscuring curtain of shadows cast by the wide pillars lining either side of the pit, a boot kicking and bouncing senselessly against the ground. The hot poker in his side is back, and the agonizing roar picks up in his head once more as Dean starts to come around.

He tries to say something, maybe, but it's nothing either Sam or Bobby can make out from up here. Just an unintelligible sound of pain that escapes him because it's too much effort to hold it back, a confused keening, like a wounded animal.

"Dean, don't move," Sam calls down in a high-pitched, panicked blurt, before he can think to say anything else. He ignores the fire in his side as his fingers wrap around the edges of the floorboards, determining the shortest, safest route to take to get to his brother. He nods to himself, resigned to taking this risk and turns wildly to Bobby, one hand moving to grip the man's sleeve. "The plans you've got for the hotel, there's access to the basement somewhere?"

Bobby squints, nods. "Back in the lobby."

And they don't know if that door will need to be picked or broken down, if a path will need to be cleared. Any of which could take precious moments they don't have to spare. "Okay," Sam says, releasing his arm. When he moves his hand away there's a smear of blood left on Bobby's sleeve, and an ache in his palm to match. Good. Some bit of pain that's his, to ground him, give him a frame of reference as he presses forward through all of the pain that isn't. "Go."

"Sam – "

"I've got this, Bobby." Sam's maybe never been so sure of anything in his life. "But we're gonna need a way out once I get down there. We're gonna need…" He can't possibly begin to know. Maybe everything. "Go."

Bobby doesn't need telling a third time. He's up and gone in a flash, and an oppressive silence falls over the room, like all sound has been suctioned out through a vacuum.

But isn't silent, not really, not entirely. Not in Sam's head. There's confusion and pain and something grazing the edge of hysteria, because those two things don't tend to mix well. "You still with me, Dean?" he calls down into the hole, struggling through everything Dean in his head to keep his voice steady. He steels himself, gripping a firm section of floor with one hand and a thick length of pipe in the other.

Another faint, guttural sound in reply that only exacerbates what Sam can already feel for himself. Another scuff of boot heel that only serves to bring about more pain for the both of them.

He braces himself for the descent, which will be dangerous enough but certainly better than falling. "Good. I'm coming."

Sam lets his instincts guide him through the climb down, figuring speed and agility are going to beat out smarts and overthinking this thing. He doesn't allow himself to stop against any single support for more than a breath, just keeps his body pushing forward in constant motion, and It's not until he drops the last few breathless feet to too solid ground that he realizes he was letting Dean guide him down.

He collects himself, then moves the necessary steps to collapse at his brother's side, paints on a shaky, not-at-all convincing smile as his eyes begin their scan. "Hey, bro."

It wasn't a straight fall, not floor to floor, wood to concrete. It seems as though he'd tangled and bounced and rebounded, as all manner of debris is piled beneath the sprawled limbs of his brother; damp, rotted beams and whatever had been in storage down here. The years and weather have damaged everything beyond recognition, but Dean had managed, more or less, a soft landing. Or a hell of a lot softer than it could have been, in any case.

Dean blinks at him in a horribly familiar way that means he's seeing Sam without really seeing him, vision blurry with trauma and hazy with pain. Sam fights through the echo that threatens to steal away his own visual clarity. He drops a comforting hand to his brother's shoulder, but only for a moment, because even in the admittedly shitty lighting, Dean's complexion is an alarmingly unnatural shade of gray. That shade that takes effect only when one hit becomes one hit too many. But Dean doesn't take that hit, not ever.

Sam moves into action, knows exactly where to look for wounds because he feels exactly where they are, and he finds the blood immediately, glistening in the muted light coming from above. His hand goes without ceremony to the spot in Dean's side, putting on pressure with a wet squish, the blood warm and thick against his fingers. Dammit, Dean. Can't ever do anything the easy way, can you?

No, Dean doesn't do things by halves, and blood is pooling between Sam's fingers at an alarming rate. "Okay," Sam says, swallowing back a bit of nausea. "Okay. Hey. It's not that bad."

Dean snorts, coughs, and grimaces. He rolls his eyes weakly, and his entire body tenses beneath Sam's hands. "Liar."

"You're right," Sam concedes with a tight smile. He has to get a better look at the wound, has to get more effective pressure put on, get the bleeding stopped. He shifts his hands quickly, puts all of that first aid training to work and moves aside layer after layer of wet, tacky fabric without warning his brother. His right hand fishes a clean bandana from his pocket as he gets an eyeful of the nickel-sized hole in Dean's side that travels God knows how deep, and he jams the wadded fabric against the leaking wound, wishing the cavalry would show up. Where the hell are you, Bobby?

Dean makes a series of sounds expressing general displeasure at the pressure Sam applies, and Sam starts talking to cover the noises seeping out of his brother, just as he tries to tell himself the shake in his hands is from the cold. "Anything else givin' you hell, bro?"

"Mmm." Which Sam takes to be an encouraging 'no,' because Dean is the luckiest unlucky bastard on the planet. He might get himself skewered, but he'll do it without breaking every bone in his body like the gift with purchase. Gonna have some interesting bruises from this one, though, that's for damn sure.

Sam nods, stomach flipping at the feel of warm, damp cotton against his palms. "If you don't stop bleeding, I swear I'm gonna superglue this shut, dude," he threatens in a shaky voice, because Dean's not the only Winchester who turns to misplaced humor to distract from his fear.

Dean smiles, maybe, then winces, definitely. "Just gonna…glue your fingers together." His voice is strained, words spoken at a volume so low it's difficult to hear him clearly. Talking only to distract himself from what must be – from what is – an almost overwhelming sense of pain and weakness. But talking, as always, is better than the alternative. "'Member?"

"That only happened once." Sam needs to find some answers for the questions Bobby's going to have when he makes his way to them. There's nothing protruding from Dean, but the hole is wide enough, the wound deep enough; something definitely got him good on the way down. Sam scouts the area, eyes resting on a jagged end of narrow copper piping pointing upward from the rubble pile Dean loosened in his drop, near his feet, its grimy, blood-stained tip identifying it as the culprit. Sam takes that in, gently bumps Dean's shoulder. "So, it looks like you're gonna get that tetanus shot you were worried about."

Dean mumbles a string of pale, incoherent sounds that only might be words, before grimacing and saying a bit clearer, "M'hand."

"Yeah?" Sam encourages, not looking for clarity here, just aiming to keep him conscious and talking for as long as possible. "What about it?"

Dean's eyebrows pull together, and his right arm flops against Sam's leg. "S'it hurt?"

Sam frowns, removes a hand from applying constant pressure just long enough to inspect his brother's shaky but otherwise fine hands, not even a superficial wound to be found. "No, you're good."

"Hurts," Dean grunts, his arm still jumping dully against the cement like a fish out of water.

Sam spares another glance and now spots a smear of blood across the back of Dean's right hand, where he's just touched. He brings his own hand up into a slice of light and finds his fingers shiny with his brother's blood, but beneath the tacky coating there's a tear in his palm, a sliver of a splinter imbedded in the meat below his thumb. "It's not you," he says, somewhat shakily. "It's me."

"Y'okay?"

Sam tries to laugh but chokes on the intention of it. "I'm fine, Dean." Stop worrying about me, you jerk. If you would just stop worrying about me… He wedges the wood splinter between his teeth and yanks it out. They hiss in tandem. "Sorry," Sam finds himself saying.

Dean doesn't respond, doesn't twitch or make a sound, and Sam finds himself rushing to place bloody fingers along the side of his brother's face. They're both cold, and have been for days, but he knows the signs of shock settling in when they're staring him blankly in the face. He's gotten the bleeding slowed, but not completely stopped and he needs to, because there's going to be a moment here soon when the scales tip. But Dean's a fighter, and a good big brother, and he's not going to leave Sam with that mess on his hands.

Not just yet, anyway.

But the thought leads Sam to realize that Dean isn't fighting him. He isn't growling geddoff me or pushing Sam away or struggling to sit upright. He's just lying there, still and bleeding and…resigned. Like, if this is, really IT, that sucks out loud but it's better than claws and teeth. There's only one kind of hopeless inevitability, and dying is dying, any way you slice it.

You son of a bitch.

So Sam fights for him, hoping Dean caught that sentiment loud and clear, and presses once more against the wound with both hands until he manages to draw a gasp from his idiot brother. Once he more or less has Dean's attention, he teases, "Stop being a wuss. You've cut yourself worse shaving." But it comes out wrong, comes out like a prayer or a plea.

Dean blinks at him a long moment, not even trying to say anything. His movements are sluggish and his color is awful, and Bobby is taking too damn long to find his way down to them. Then he says suddenly, "Ghost."

"Yeah," Sam responds automatically, distractedly, looking around for Bobby more than he is listening. He blinks hard, feeling weaker by the passing moment, but it's not him. He's fine. Fuck, but he's fine.

"No." Dean shifts under Sam's hands as panic pushes to the forefront of his mind, as his brother is suddenly trying to shove himself upright, a venture he gives up on rather quickly. "Ghost," he repeats, eyes wide and shiny. "Sammy."

Sam whirls, finds himself face-to-face with the specter. And that's not good, because the damn ghost has been the very least of his concerns, and he hadn't even thought to bring the shotgun with him when he'd climbed down.

"Gun." But Dean had his in hand when he fell, and he's always thinking.

Sam spins, keeping all that firm pressure on his brother's bleeding side until the last possible moment he'll have to tear himself away. He spots the flash of light against metal and doesn't waste any more time. He grasps Dean's cold, limp hands one at a time and folds them over the bundle of fabric staunching the blood flow. "Y'gotta keep this pressure on, Dean. Okay?"

"Gun, Sammy," Dean grits through clenched teeth, nothing less than an order, and shivering through the effort and pain of pushing down on his own wound.

"Yeah, I got it." Sam launches himself to his feet and across the basement floor, skidding across damp cement and closing his fingers around the barrel of the sawed-off. Just in time to be sent the rest of the way across the dark space, careening face-first into a very solid wall.

The room around him goes darker still and Sam blinks the stars from his vision, but can't shake the ringing in his ears that sounds like the high keen of Dean acknowledging and feeling Sam's pain. What's happening with them might not be happening because of this ghost, but Sam's reinvigorated with a fresh desire to end the son of a bitch right now.

He's not going to allow Dean to suffer for him, not anymore. Not ever again.

"Sam!"

The weak cry at his back means, get your ass moving, and is proof that the son of bitch is always there behind him, and Sam has never fully understood the way it feels to be so desperately responsible for another person. For another life. The feeling floods through him, and he knows now the burden his big brother carries. But it's not a burden, not really. It's duty, sure, a chore, but it's a weight worth carrying.

The hunter his father had always hoped to grow and nurture, that fierce fighter bursts from Sam as he locates the dropped gun once more and brings it about at just the right moment to shoot the spook's face full of rock salt.

He holds the shotgun steady, sweeping the basement, breathing heavily and ears still ringing. Behind him Dean is producing sounds of struggle that signal his own renewed struggle – bolstered a bit, Sam would like to think, by the fight in Sam himself that his brother can't ignore or refuse. Sam doesn't spare a look back at Dean, knows there isn't much to be done until this threat is neutralized, and somewhat comforts himself with the morbid fact that he'll know the very moment Dean takes a turn for the worse.

It's quiet but for the sounds of their labored breathing, and a sudden, random scratching from a darkened corner. A sound just loud enough to hear; the kind made when someone or something is trying not to be heard. Sam brings the gun around, just in time to have it wrested from his grasp and tossed far enough to be completely out of play this time, and his hands are left stinging from the unseen strike.

He gets his first good look at the spirit, forgotten and trapped here alone for unknown years and rolled up in such raw, unabashed rage that it barely appears human anymore. It's no surprise Dean hadn't been able to give them any sort of description after he'd been attacked. The outline of a human body is there, with long, slender limbs and an ethereal glow in a shade Sam's never seen before and can't quite put a name to, but no features are easily distinguishable in the face, save two spots in a place where eyes would be, dark and deep as onyx.

Sam has a tendency toward sympathy whenever they're facing an angry spirit, thinking of them as wounded, confused victims, themselves. But not now, not when there's so much at stake, and he's finding that he's not above attempting hand-to-hand with this floating wisp before him, just to keep the danger away from his brother.

He doesn't even get the chance.

The figure bursts into light before it can say so much as boo, seemingly from the damn cement below. Fire licks skyward as it engulfs the spirit, and the warmth reaches Sam's face like a tease, whipping his hair and jacket sleeves flat. An unholy screech starts from somewhere within the entity, gaining traction and speed to match the growing intensity of the fire.

The flames suddenly funnel up and out of the gaping hole over their heads to dissipate in the huge dining room. A blanket of warmth falls, but lasts too short a moment before the now-familiar and clinging bone-deep chill rushes in to take its place. A sizeable pile of ash is left, smoking and glowing like embers just shy of Sam's shoes.

As the retinal flare of the fiery column recedes from his vision, Sam catches sight of a blurry shape emerging from the shadows beyond the spot where the spirit has just burned away.

It's Bobby, his shoulders perched high and unassuming. "Found the bones."

"Bobby," Sam breathes, heart thudding. Son of a bitch. The man's got style, and even better timing.

Sam falls back onto his hands, wincing from the contact of his injured palm against the hard floor beneath him, of grit and chipped concrete working into an open wound. The pain clears the buzz of adrenaline from his head, reminds him that the night's not over yet. Not by a long shot.

He rolls to his side and doesn't even expend the effort pulling himself all the way to his feet, but crabwalks awkwardly across the dirty basement floor back to his brother. With the ghostly excitement of the night well and truly over, Dean has sagged back against the floor, only one hand now limply clutching the bloodied bundle of cloth Sam had so carefully packed over the hole in his side.

Bobby takes his cue silently, meets Sam at the other side of the sprawled and barely conscious Dean, hands hovering without actually touching.

"Got a path cleared back up to the lobby," he says quietly, like he's trying not to worry Dean with the details. "I'll bring back some things to stabilize 'im for the move."

Sam nods, but know there's nothing in any of their bags that can properly stabilize this. "Yeah."

Bobby rises and backs away soundlessly in the direction of the yet-unseen stairs, and Sam sneaks a peek at the oozing hole, curses the worthlessness of the soaked-through bandana.

"S'it that bad?" Dean inquires on a soft exhale, the corner of his lip curving upward.

Dammit, Sam curses himself. Happy thoughts, Sam. "Shaving nick, remember? You'll be okay."

Dean nods, but Sam knows he doesn't believe him. He swallows, and it looks like the hardest thing he's ever had to do. His head rolls to the side, eyes seeming dark and faraway. When he speaks it's a whisper. "S'pretty cold, for..."

"Cold for what?" Sam gets it as the words are coming out of his mouth. Cold for Hell. Not yet, you ass. He presses down hard on the wound, sending a shock through his brother, a jolt of pain to clear the bastard's mind. "Hey," he barks, demanding Dean's attention.

Dean blinks, gags around the pain Sam has caused him, and shifts his roving gaze to his brother's stern stare. "Bitch," he growls.

"Yeah, well." Sam lifts his shoulder, rubs cheek against his jacket. Probably leaving blood somewhere. There's blood everywhere.

Bobby's back then, emerging from the shadows like a godsend. He doesn't speak, just shoves an alarming amount of stark white gauze into Sam's hand. His fingers leave dark smears as he works to secure a tight wrapping around his brother.

Dean's beyond sound or thought or feeling by the time he's tying it off, and Sam feels oddly alone, with his brother lying there staring at him with glassy eyes and nothing moving behind them. Gimme something, man. Anything.

"Sam," Bobby says, quiet but business-like. "We gotta move 'im."

"Yeah, I know." Sam sucks in a breath, and waits for Dean to give them any inclination he's aware of what's happening, or worse, what's yet to come. He blinks, finally, and Sam figures that's enough. "Okay, bro, this part's probably gonna suck."

It would suck for the both of them, but Dean does his brother a solid and passes out the second they go to lift him from the damp, dirty ground.


Somebody's pretty damn scared, but for the life of him Dean doesn't know who it is anymore.

He's in and out, and more out than in, but he knows he's moving. Or more accurately, being moved. Painfully slow and just plain painfully, but it's not as though he has a lot of choice or control in the matter.

Big, cold hands grip him tightly in the places that hurt the least, and gently discourage every attempt of Dean's to set a boot down on firm ground and maybe help this process along a little. No point in dragging out the pain of it any longer than they need to. They're trying to be careful, trying not to jostle, and he knows that, but FUCK.

Fuck, Sammy, he curses, probably silently, gritting his teeth against a flare of pain that steals his ability to do much of anything else.

If this is Hell, then the devil's running one hell of an assisted living program. Dean tries to chuckle at that, but something warm and sticky stuck along the back of his throat stops him even before the searing agony reignited in his middle sends him through the roof once more.

But for just another long blink, because Sam is still talking when Dean comes back down to himself, frantic, panicky.

" – ean, stop talking like…just stop, okay?"

He doesn't think he said anything before the curtain came down, but usually when Sam's taken the reins to this degree, Dean's not got that great a hold on a good number of things, not the least of which is what the hell he may or not be saying.

His head spins with a cacophony of uninterpretable emotions and he winces at the roar, licks dry lips and stares at hazy shadows shifting against the broken ceiling, thinking that whatever those shadows are doing, it looks like it hurts like hell.

Like Hell.

"Dean, please." Sammy's begging again, his head lowered and that hot exhale of breath against Dean's cheek the only warmth to be found in this pit. "Please stop."

Sammy doesn't beg, and that should really mean something.

They stop moving – thank GOD – and it takes about a week for the two of them to get him lowered to a surface much fluffier than the last. Like a cloud. Strong work, fellas, really. Dean could get used to this, could burrow into the softness and warmth and spend a good deal of time here.

But the clouds aren't where he's headed.

Sam's breath hitches above his head and Dean can clearly identify the something fierce, determined and frightened that sprints across his mind. The horrible sharp, pinching pressure is back in his side, like a spear thrown right through him. Sammy pushing, pleading, using the pain as a reference point for them both.

Dean gasps, attempting to wriggle away from it but he doesn't have enough gas left in the tank. He slaps clumsily at his brother's hands. "Sammy, stop," he slurs, confused by the slow, muddy sound that vibrates through his lips.

"Sam," Bobby barks, taking his time in the order but it's sharp and clear when it comes, like the twang of a snapping guitar string.

The pressure eases but the pain stays, really has its claws dug in this time. That ache tells Dean to get cozy because it's here for the long haul.

There's something relieved and unwaveringly smug in Sam's voice and an echo through Dean's head to match as he says, "Bleeding's stopped."


To be continued...