Sorry for the delay but my life kinda fell a part for a little bit. I rewrote this chapter after I had a lot of trouble trying to make the original work. I think this works better. Thanks for Faye for being patient with my previous drafts. I really tried but I just couldn't fix it the right way so I've totally changed it. I hope this works better. This is unbeta'd. I wanted to post the chapter before I lost my nerve. So I'm sorry if it ends up disappointing you.
Unnatural
Chapter 3
Sam's face was blue. A horrible, bloated blue and as Dean retched, hot tears streaked down his face and he shook his head in disbelief.
What had he done? He'd desecrated his brother's grave…
How stupid had he been to believe the demon? Demon's lie…
The demon hadn't brought Sam back. Sam was still dead.
"Damnit", he gasped, "GOD DAMNIT!"
He felt a hand on his shoulder and shrugged it off. He didn't want Bobby's comfort or sympathy. He wanted his brother. He wanted Sam.
"He said…" Dean sobbed; his voice desperate and broken. It felt like he'd just lost Sam again. Oh God, how much more of this can I take? "He said he brought him back…"
Bobby moved away from him and the distraught hunter knelt down next to the open casket and buried his face in his hands. "I'm sorry, Sam. I am so sorry."
"Not your fault," the older hunter tried to comfort. "Sam wouldn't want you to think that."
"Sam… wouldn't want to be dead!" Dean shot back angrily even as he asked himself why he was yelling at Bobby. He looked at the other man and this time his voice was pleading. "I want him back, Bobby, I really do."
And as if in answer to that very question, Sam suddenly gasped loudly and his eyes shot open!
Startled and no little unsettled, Dean jumped back and stared, unable to believe what he was seeing. He heard Bobby's, "Oh my God," somewhere to the side of them.
Sam coughed harshly for a few moments, his chest rising and falling like someone who had just run a marathon, before he seemed to get the hang of breathing again. He looked around, his head turning slowly as he blinked lazily without really seeming to focus on anything; incomprehension warred with indifference for precedence on his still too blue young face. But with every breath he took, it seemed to become easier and his face rapidly changed to a rather sickening shade of grey. But grey was better than blue.
His eyes finally locked on Dean - really saw Dean – and the older brother felt the breath still in his chest.
"Sammy?" he whispered, desperate for this to be real but terrified it wasn't. Sam blinked. Slowly, carefully, Dean crouched. He wanted to reach out and grab his brother, to feel him alive beneath his fingers but he couldn't yet. He was too afraid. Bobby shifted behind him. "Is it you? Really you?"
A thin smile twisted the grey lips but the young man didn't say anything and something twisted inside Dean. All his fears about something else coming back in place of Sam threatened to suffocate him –
"Breathe," Bobby hissed beside him and Dean felt a hand on his back. He shrugged it off.
"Sammy?" he repeated and blinked furiously as his vision blurred. Not now damnit. Not when he needed to drink this in. Not when he needed to see more than he needed to breathe –
"Dean?" the word was hoarse and barely a whisper but Dean heard it and his heart leapt. His brother was alive. Really alive!
Smiling broadly, Dean extended a hand, "Only on the good days."
His attempt at lightness seemed lost on Sam who just stared up – from his casket – at the offered assistance and then slowly, with the coordination of a newborn calf, he clasped his brother's outstretched hand.
Dean gasped at the coldness of Sam's touch… and the strength as his younger brother cautiously sat and then tried to stand.
Sam listed and dropped back but then Dean was in the casket next to him. "S'kay, Sammy," he promised, "I got ya."
The younger man bowed his head for a moment breathing heavy and seeming taxed by the mere effort of sitting up. Dean looked up at Bobby for help. He didn't even have to ask as the older man reached into the grave towards them.
"C'mon, Sam," Bobby grunted, "let's get you out of there."
Between Bobby and Dean – and what little help Sam could offer – they got the young man out of his grave.
Dean turned around and stared at the now empty casket, his soul shivered. It had been too close. Way too close. Sam had been dead for frickin' sake and he vowed it was something he could never go through again.
"Dean," Bobby's voice was a welcome distraction from the darkness of his brother's grave and he looked at the older man as Sam hung heavy, his body too weak – from being dead – to support his weight yet. "We need to get Sam somewhere warm."
It was only then that Dean realized just how cold his brother was. Sam's body felt like ice and it propelled him into action. Awkwardly, he shrugged out of his coat, trying not to jostle his brother too much, and then wrapped it around Sam's shoulder. A slight raise of a head was recognition and Dean took what he could, knowing it was all his brother could give right now. And then he and Bobby carefully, but quickly, moved their precious burden away from the grave.
Around them the world was quiet and empty, as if they were somehow being shielded but Dean didn't stop to wonder about that. He might later, but not now.
Now when he had just gotten his brother back from the dead.
Sam was asleep by the time they lowered him into the backseat of the Impala and Dean was ready to pass out. As the adrenaline rush of getting his brother back alive weaved out of his system, his myriad of ignored injuries took him down and if not for an intuitive Bobby's quick reflexes, the exhausted and hurting hunter would have done an embarrassing face plant. As it was, Bobby manhandled him into the backseat with Sam, told him to stay there and then got behind the wheel of Dean's precious baby.
How he got the keys out of Dean's pocket was beyond Dean.
However as they drove away from the cemetery and towards the promise of a soft motel bed, to a safe rest under the scrutiny of a man who'd become a second father, Dean couldn't begrudge Bobby whatever method he'd used. And in the end, he got to lay in the backseat with his brother. With his alive and breathing brother. And to Dean that was worth what it cost – whatever that price might be. The demon hadn't really named the figure…
Too tired to think, Dean closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around his cold brother and let sleep finally take him down.
In the morning, they'd have to deal. But for now, they'd just be.
To be continued
