Dawn – chpt 20.

by: sifi.

--

Please... she whimpered just before the stony foot crushed her body into the ground pressing air from her, leaving behind cracking, dry, splintering feelings and wet gurgles in her chest.

Blood trickled from her mouth as things deep inside were pulverized beneath the weight of the god that stood upon her, Is this better than being torn apart? she wondered as a voice called from behind the opening sixth set of gates.

"Do not interfere Nergal!" came a voice from only the vaguest of shapes outlined by shadows.

The weight released and the trickle out her mouth and nose became a stream as the gallas descended, their talons slicing into her calves as they tore the sandals from her feet leaving her clad in her final garment, the skirt that would be surrendered at the seventh gate.

No... wait, I've changed my mind... she almost thought as the talons sunk through the muscle of her leg and she was dragged through the shadowy opening, the doors swinging silently closed behind her while amongst themselves, and led by their queen, the sound of laughter rang mockingly in her ears.

--

"Dean?"

"S'up Sam?" he asked without taking his eyes from the woman in the tub.

After they'd drained it, Shep and Tom wrapped her into the second sheet per Dean's instruction then left him with her.

"Esther sent the pressings out this morning, according to the tracking number we should have them late this afternoon," he said softy while closing the door and sitting on the edge of the tub, "Do you have any idea what's going on?" he asked, his mouth bowed down sternly, his brows furrowed and his movements tight, betraying the completeness of his anger.

"Do you know the legend of Inanna's journey to the underworld Sam?" he asked.

Slowly the younger man nodded, "Yeah."

Dean turned his head and met his brothers' eyes, "I'm not Enki. I can't save her."

"But you have been Dean, if we can figure out how to awaken Tiamat, and if we can get her to let us use the tablets, and if we can decipher them... maybe we can save her too," the youngest Winchester offered.

"Tomorrow is the third day, if we don't get the veil down before then..." he shook his head.

"I know, she'll probably never be able to return, but if we let it collapse before we're ready for everyone to go their way, then ... he ...can find us...and this..." he motioned to the body, "will have been a waste..."

From the tub came the sound of several cracks, almost like tree branches, both men looked at each other horrified as blood sprayed out of the body's mouth and nose in a small vivid jet before flowing in a scarlet trickle. They kept watching, wondering if she was fighting her way back, wondering just what exactly was going on as stripes of red seeped up from where the sheets were bound around her legs as if something were clawing her.

Dean lowered himself to his knees, his fingers pressing at her throat despite his instincts telling him it was a futile gesture. Throwing a look over his shoulder at his little brother, he shook his head then returned to sitting on the toilet.

"As much as I hate to admit it Mercy has a point Dean, how can she be bleeding if her body's dead?" Sam asked quietly.

"All she wanted was..." he stopped, checked his breathing and swallowed hard, re-building every wall he'd ever had, repairing them one by one with superhuman speed, every wall, every door, severing every connection he'd been able to make; and the youngest Winchester was almost certain it was because of the security his brother had never felt anywhere but in the arms of the woman whose body now lay in a tub. If it hadn't been for what she'd shown him; Sam wondered if Dean would have ever let anyone, other than himself, in.

"I don't know," he shook his head, "Why are you so angry Sam?" he asked scrubbing his face with his right hand and the fingertips of his left, "I mean, I know why I'm angry, but why are you? Why should it matter to you? You've never been a fan of either of them."

But I've always been a fan of yours Dean. "Mercy's not good for you, she never has been," he half smiled, "And yeah, it took me a while to warm up to Laura, but I did..." Sam admitted with a nod.

Dean was defense incarnate, and Sam wanted to scream, grab him by the shirtfront, slam him into the wall and scream into his face that SHE wouldn't want this for him. That the one person outside their twisted and cursed blood line who actually had come to mean something to his big brother, would cry and scream and rail at him for shutting himself down. And yet he knew she would also understand. And in the shadows of his brothers' tortured psyche, his tormented soul, somehow, that one person would find a way to let him lay his head upon her lap. Her fingers would twine in his hair, and her need to give would fill not only Johns' eldest, but through him, his youngest as well.

There was nothing she would give to Dean, save the physical that she would not also give to Sam. And over time Sam had to admit that it was that devotion to him, to the one person Dean loved above all others, and her literally thoughtless understanding that no ONE and no THING stood above Sam in Dean Winchesters' world; that had finally allowed him to accept and begin to trust her.

"Dean this isn't the time or the place..."

"Then when Sam? If not now..." he turned his face away from his brother and bit his bottom lip harshly, "Today? Here? Now? Now is all we have left for sure. So when else can I ask?"

"Okay," Sam nodded seeing his brothers' point all too vividly, "You want to know why I'm angry? I hate this Dean, I HATE this with such a passion that YOU might actually give me credit for being a man!"

He motioned to the tub first then at the door, "I hate the fact that the ONE person who was there with us, who's saved both our lives, on more than one occasion, without... literally without regard for her own is a freaking corpse!

I hate the fact that it feels like the one person who never wanted anything but to... she never wanted..." he breathed and nodded, "I get it okay? There was too much inside and she needed a couple of empty, piss poor sad sacks like us who could receive what she had to give... okay? I get it.

And I hate that... things went the way they did, and that she had so much fear, and I'm sorry that she loved you loved US, so much that she wanted to protect us as much as she could... and that it meant THIS," he pointed to the tub.

"I'm sorry Azazel did what he did and that he seemed to have set this whole thing in motion Dean... if he hadn't... and..." Sam shook his head, his eyes full and glassy, "And I'm sorry it had to be me Dean, cause if it wasn't me then it wouldn't be YOU either! And," he sighed, casting his eyes downward to the floor, "and ... I'm really sorry, but I'm sorry I was ever freaking born!" he blurted without really meaning to.

"Wha...?" Dean lurched to his feet grasping his little brother by the neck, Polaroid memories of moments of their lives, all the moments Dean might not have been able to move through if it weren't for having Sam in them flicked through his mind.

Without someone he could love, someone willing and needing what he had to offer; without a willing recipient of all the caring he could never show their father, that he could never show another human being for fear of being ridiculed as weak, for everything he had inside; without someone to give it all to, he couldn't have lived.

"Sam..." he pressed their foreheads together wrapping his casted arm around his baby, his brother; his boy, his king.

"Don't you say that Sam... don't you EVER say that!" he pressed Sam's head to the crook of his neck and suffered the feel of his breath shuddering in his chest, "You're the best thing that ever happened to me Sam... Don't you ever say that..." he breathed and wasn't sure if he uttered the next aloud, "You're the reason that saw'd off never made it to my mouth..."

Neither man cared how long they stood there, a different kind of Castor and Pollux in a different kind of Gemini embrace, each man needing the other, a simple circle of arms, the sharing of breath, and a synching of heart beats working to gain the attention of a universe in peril.

Dean breathed, the barest hint of voice in his sigh as he looked into the sapphire blue Sam's eyes always turned when he was near tears. Stepping back with a nod and a deep breath, Dean squeezed his little brother's shoulder, "Gary and Jack putting the scaffolding back together for the pyre?" he nearly whispered.

Wordless Sam nodded.

With another nod Dean asked, "What do you think's gonna happen with the demons?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, I have a feeling it's not going to be easy," Sam admitted.

"Have you been working on it?"

"Yeah, we know there are five devil's gates in North America, and that Alana Stebbe's cult members all were performing the same kind of stuff on other folks that they were on you and Laura, thing of it is we have no way of knowing if barriers were cracked at each of those points or if the one WE were at is the only one that they succeeded in opening," he sighed.

"Because they had you?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head, "Not just me. Because they had all three of us, you've heard it as often as I have, I'm the chosen one, you're the champion... and Laura has a direct line to a god. That connection was... obviously... powerful enough for someone who knew how to use it, to get what they wanted."

Dean nodded, "So... what're you going do with your army General Sammy?"

The youngest Winchester sighed, "Track down the members of the Cult of Ninurta and kill them before Nergal can get them under his influence and use them to bust a hole into our dimension. From what Laura told us about the downfall of the sidhe universe, if he can make a big enough hole in the fabric of our space-time and sustain it long enough for it to take hold, we'll have already lost no matter what else we may do," Sam frowned.

"So this is where we start ordering the deaths of innocents huh?" Dean chewed on his lower lip, his windowpane eyes full of pure sorrow, "When do we become the demons then Sam?"

The young hunter shrugged, "I don't know Dean. But if they've done to people what was done to you and Laura, they're no more innocent than anything else we hunt," he looked at his brother reading his expression expertly, "I know," he conceded, "even so, our souls are a small price to pay to keep this universe expanding don't you think?"

Slowly Dean nodded, his hand sweeping a shank of hair off the eyes of the body.

"You want me to make the call?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head, "No, if they're gonna be my army, least I can do is make a phone call."

"Sam?" Dean rose stiffly.

"Yeah?"

"Whatever happens, I'm not gonna let anything happen t'you."

Sam nodded once, no one else on earth could understand the comfort his big brothers' words had just brought him or why, as they left the bathroom closing the door behind them.

--

A cough sputtered out of her lungs bringing with it blood, phlegm and tissue bits.

Amid the somehow metallic sound of broken body bits being hacked up, very much like The Tin man hacking up a hoagie full of metal screws, birdsong made its self heard within and perhaps even above the din.

"Easy there... it's okay... just let it out sweetheart, it's okay," a warm gentle voice accompanied the warm strong arm around her, keeping her from face-planting in the richly fragrant soil.

"Dean?" she asked through a stringy glut of blood and mucous, "S'not real... you're alive at Bobby's... I'm in the underworld... I'm waiting to get torn apart..."

"Yeah," he nodded, stroking her hair from her sweat covered face, "Yeah you're right, except for the whole me not being here thing..." he smirked wiping her mouth clean with the back of his hand, "Not that I don't like it but you're nearly nekked again..." he smiled softly.

Her eyes raked him up and down, taking in the fact that he was naked to his boxers and as half of her mouth cocked upward in a smirk he was all too familiar with, so too did her eyebrow arch expectantly.

"S'cuse me?" she asked shaking her head and fixing her gaze on everything around them, from the towering green trees to the flower filled meadows to the far off oceanic vista. "Dean?" she looked at him, "Tell me you're not dead, tell me you and Sam, and Bobby and everyone... tell me please... tell me he didn't..."

Dean shrugged, "I don't know," he wiped her hair from her face, "Jo and Gary were getting the frames ready to sand cast the cylinder pressings, Bobby was melting some bronze," he shook his head, his brows furrowed and his lips pursed, "and Sam was working on deciphering the notes... " he swallowed hard, "That's all I got right now... I remember something shaking..." his breathing came short and hard, "I promised him I wouldn't let anything happen to him, I have to find Sam..."

"Where were you when...you know?" she asked pressing her hand to his cheek, "You said Sam was in the living room right? Is that where you saw him last? Did you see what happened to him?"

He frowned clearly confused, "No, I don't know... I have to find him." he breathed shaking his head, "Have you seen him?" he asked suddenly curious, "Has he been here?"

"No, I don't know," she shook her head, "I was almost at the seventh gate..."

"Okay, okay," he stroked her hair helping her to her feet, "You can't go through there, I need your help, we gotta find Sam, then we'll go together, the three of us okay?" he looked around, "If he's here he won't be far, we gotta find him," he gazed into her eyes, his forefinger under her chin, his expression almost pleading.

"Of course," she nodded cupping his face, drawing him in, gently taking his lips to her own, "We'll figure it out together..." she asked, her gaze guiding his around the verdant landscape.

"Nothing looks familiar..." he shook his head, "I don't know."

"Okay sweetie it's okay, which direction did you come from?" she asked wondering where this had all come from when the last she recalled was being tossed over the hot rocky terrain of the underworld, toward the final set of doors she had to pass through, This is like... Tir na nog... one does not get to the land of the young without passing through death... I haven't gone through the seventh gate... I can't get to Ana without going through the seventh gate... I have to go! she stopped, her breath catching in her broken chest, No, I have to help Dean find Sam. I have to save my boys, I have to save them first...

He looked over his shoulder toward a small cluster of trees, "I think back there but I really don't know..." he turned leading her back with him, "...I heard you... then here I am," together they picked up the pace, jogging across the green expanse, the sun shining golden over them.

--

From the living room window Sam watched Tamara and Jack wander around outside, each of them holding a small glass vial partially filled with a viscous smoky looking liquid. His gaze quickly returned to the sky and the igigi that didn't seem to know quite what they were looking for as the humans walked around them. Sam had remained inside knowing full well that the hunters would be watching him to see where he was looking rather than testing the concoction the sidhe had helped them whip up. The mixture was literally a gift from them, Cernunnos and Anunnaki, and was supposed to warn of the presence of the igigi. In dim light or darkness it appeared like a faint negative so one could see which way the demon essence was being repelled, and thanks to that essence the piggish creatures tended to overlook the humans nearby in the hopes of a demonic feast.

"It's only gonna be any good at close range, probably within a matter of a couple yards, but at least it's something," Sam had explained, I wish we could trust the demons, they should be here by morning. A wave of dizziness rocked the young Winchester, his legs splayed out from under him, landing him unceremoniously on the couch with a faint thud.

"Sam?" Ellen called from the kitchen, her head came round the corner followed quickly by the rest of her as she crossed to the young man's side, "Sam? What's the matter sweetie?" she sat beside him draping an arm across his strong broad back, humid heat rolling off of him as she pressed her hand to his cheek, "God you're burning up honey... c'mon now back t' bed with you," she draped his good arm over her shoulders and helped him, wobbling to his feet.

"Ellen?" he grunted shaking his head, trying to clear the cotton from it, but he was less steady than either of them thought and the faint side to side motion overbalanced the tall man.

"Dean!" Ellen called sharply, her hands fumbling, trying to keep the young man upright or to help him gently down.

"Yep?" Dean's face appeared as the bedroom door opened, "Sam? Sammy!?" he dashed from the room, his appearance forcing Ellen's jaw wide in shock.

"Ellen what happened?" he asked lowering himself to his knees beside his baby brother, who lay, trembling and looking as if he was trying to maintain consciousness, "Sam? C'mon dude talk to me..." he tapped at the young man's flame red cheeks.

"D..n..." he croaked as a tremor shook him and his eyes rolled back into his skull.

"No Sam, c'mon now... stay with me, stay here..." he glanced at Ellen, "Ellen! what happened?"

Her eyes had been busy taking in the dozens of patches of stitching and barely less than black bruises on the young man's chest, That's downright clever the thought flitted briefly through her mind at the sight of his tattoo before the copious injuries came glaring back at her, My God son, what happened to you? she wondered and gave a quick shake of her head, "I don't know, he just started to go down, his fever's up again."

"Yeah I can feel that..." he crouched at his brother's legs, "Help me..." he grasped the young man's long limbs, feeling them quaking in his grip while Ellen took hold of his torso.

Together they carried him into the bedroom and gently laid him down.

"Cool cloths," Dean ordered. He slid his fingers over his brothers' sweat peppered brow and pried his eyes open one by one as his back arched and strangled gurgles churned in the back of his throat while his hands flailed against the mattress.

"Sam? Oh God Sammy please..." Dean gasped feeling his heartbeat in his throat, adrenaline pouring through his system, sweat beading over his skin he shouted, "Ellen go get Mercy!"

--

tbc.

Please R&R.

Thanks.

sifi.