Oh my gosh guys. Stuffs gettin' serious. Hope you like the chapter!
Dean woke up slowly, making the motion to rub his aching head when he realizes his hands are tied behind him. Now, Dean's senses are in full alert. His eyes snapped open as he took in his surroundings. Tied to a chair, his range of vision wasn't extraordinary, but he was able to notice two very disturbing things. One, Claire was tied to another chair across from him, unconscious, and two, the thieves were nowhere to be found.
Then he heard a voice behind him, breathing hot breath in his ear. Dean flinched. "Hey, Sugar. Glad you woke up." He cackled like a witch and strutted to Dean's front. "My friend Seamus and I have a little something to settle with you." He pulled out a knife and began toying with it. "You see, I heard you were following us. I must admit, I was confused at first, but then I thought, 'Oh, that's right. He's from the robbery!' Tell ya, man, we just wanted the car. You made it a lot harder."
Dean struggled in his bindings, feebly attempting to loosen it's hold. Another man, the one with the knife, began circling him.
"I don't believe you've met Syd? He's new." Syd grinned a horrid smile with black and missing teeth before sitting on the couch to clean his nail beds with his razor blade.
"I didn't mean to hurt your brother, Dean." The thief went on. "Yes, I know your real name." He added. "But you got in the way, and it was so... easy. Like he was ready for me. Already injured and everything."
Dean shot him dagger eyes as he subtly worked at the ropes. "My friend? He'd say, 'Why not confront him now? Why wait 'till Las Vegas, Buck?' but I thought, nuh-uh!" Buck walked over to Claire and crouched down, tracing her lips with the tip of his blade. "He's got a pretty little girl with 'im now. Pretty, indeed."
"You stay away from her!" Dean spat. Buck raised his eyebrows in mock surprise at Dean's outburst. He whistled. "Well, well. Someone's got a thing for sleeping beauty..."
Dean slipped his wrist out of the rope, secretly smiling in triumph. "Hold on, Dean-o. I have an important call to make." Buck said. He turned towards the door, his back to the hunter, and Dean quietly set to work on his ankles. Prying at the rope with his fingernails, he cursed under his breath. Finally, the rope loosened enough for him to slip his foot out. After following the same process on the other foot, Dean sat up as if nothing had happened just in time for Buck to turn back around.
He kept his eye on the gun that laid forgotten on the floor by Claire's feet. "It's ringing," Buck whispered, as if Dean cared. "Hey, Seamus. Look, he's-" Buck stopped as Dean rolled to the floor, grabbed the gun, and landed on one knee, the pistol cocked and aimed at Buck's head.
Crazily, Buck didn't seem the least bit worried. In fact, he laughed. "Before you shoot, Dean, let me put my friend on speaker." Hands up in surrender, he pressed the speaker button on his cell.
"Kay, Seamus. Fill him in quick, he's got me at gunpoint."
Dean's hand tightened nervously on the trigger as Seamus's muffled voice began speaking. "Guess where I am!" He said. Dean heard nothing, just rustling. Then he listened closer, the sound of soft snoring filling the room. He heard mumbling, like someone talking in their sleep. "Mmmm... Nn'd. Mmm... 'De..." It wasn't. Couldn't be. "Dean..." Sam breathed in his sleep, and Dean's breath caught.
"Sammy!"
"He's got it!" Buck cried sarcastically. "And my buddy's managed to get him alone. So... You might want to think twice before firing that gun at me. The second Seamus hears that gunshot... Well, he's got a little deal lined up for little Sammy. A crossroads deal." Dean lowered his own gun with a frustrated sigh, but kept his finger on the trigger. He risked a glance at Claire. Her eyes were closed, her breathing deep. Still out cold.
Buck smiled. "That's more like it. Drop the gun." It fell to the ground with a clunk. "Kick it over." Dean slid the gun to him, where Buck leaned down to pick it up.
"How the hell do you know about demons?" Dean sputtered in confusion.
"Daddy dearest used ta fight 'em. Then he died." He paused. "You know what they say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" He played with the gun, spinning it around his finger masterfully like a cowboy era gunslinger.
"They sent Pop up in record time. Twenty five years? Pretty low time to be spit back out as a demon. Couldn't keep that wild son of a bitch contained, I guess. But why am I tellin' you this?" He got back to the matter at hand as Dean focused on seizing his moment of opportunity when it arrived, after Sam was safe and Buck had hung up. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.
"Alright, go ahead and seal the deal." Buck broke the silence and Dean's thoughts. Dean heard the faint sounds of kissing through the phone before he realized what was happening. For the moment, he ignored the fact that he had no weapon, and the curiosity of how Seamus actually managed to get the crossroad's demon into the hospital room.
"But- I gave you the gun!" Dean protested, torn over how to react. Buck just shrugged. "Couldn't have made Seamus drive all the way up there. You know how much gas costs right now?"
Dean growled and threw himself at Buck without thinking, overcome with rage. The surprise worked to the hunter's advantage and Buck seemed dazed as he fell back into a cement edge, his neck cracking horribly. Dean crawled towards his knife, fingers inches away when a shadow crossed over him and Claire screamed.
Eyes wide now, her gaze darted from Dean to Syd to the knife in his hand. "Don't move," Syd threatened. "Or Girly, here, gets it."
Dean took a deep breath and froze, but something in Claire's eyes told him not to listen to the jerk. They said to go for it, and Dean listened, landing a punch in Syd's jaw.
The man stumbled back and Dean scrambled for his gun, aiming at Syd just as he pulled his knife-clad hand upwards in preparation to stab, meeting Claire's terrorized eyes with vicious intent.
"No!" Dean roared, watching with satisfaction as the bullet lodged in Syd's chest, just below the neck. He fell back empty-handed onto the floor. Dean watch his wide eyes, his throat gurgling sickeningly as his teeth turned a tinted red.
Syd died, arms frozen like claws on the carpet. Dean turned back to an unconscious Buck, emotionlessly emptying his gun into the man's body before he covered him with a sheet so he didn't have to look at the ugly face of the man so cold hearted that he would send someone back to Sam as leverage to mess with Dean.
Sam. Who knows what that deal was about. He just hoped that wherever Bobby happened to be, he was back now and watching over Sam.
A groan brought Dean back down from his troubled thoughts, and he glanced over at Claire. "No!" His eyes were wide as he stumbled over to her. "No... It's okay, Claire. Everything's alright."
The hilt of the knife was visible in her stomach, but Dean couldn't fool himself. She wasn't going to survive a knife wound that seemed to go through her lung.
He untied her quickly and picked her up gently, tightening his hold as he walked on unsteady legs to the bed. Claire whimpered as he set her down, and Dean saw her eyes glistening.
Claire looked down and touched the bloody area. "D'n..." She whispered. She held out her hand and he took it, ignoring the stickiness. "Right here."
"D'n..." She repeated one more time, and with a strangled breath looked at the ceiling, her hand that had been squeezing Dean's turning limp.
"Claire." Dean shook her, but nothing happened. She was dead. He ran his hand over her hair and down to her face, closing her eyes.
He lay back against the headboard and closed his eyes, taking in everything that had happened in a matter of minutes.
Now the room was quiet.
He thought about Claire. She wasn't really a part of this. She said she had no family but her grandpa, had lived with him and run the shop. She was just like that old man. Both innocent, both dragged into this deadly mess by the Winchesters.
He'd salt and burn the bodies, burn the bloody sheets, get rid of any evidence that he'd ever been there. Then he'd pack up and head towards Sammy, no matter what the consequences. Whatever had happened, he needed to be there.
Dean was snapped out of his thoughts by Metallica, rolling off the bed and lunging at his phone spastically before it turned to voicemail.
"Go."
"It's Bobby, Dean." Bobby sounded horrible, or horribly scared.
"What's wrong?" Dean choked out, but he already knew. It's Sam, Dean, he's dying but you can't be there. Won't be there.
"It's Sam." Bobby hesitated. He sounded like he was going to cry, which really put Dean on the edge. Bobby was no crier.
"It's Sam," He said again. "He's really bad."
"I'm on my way." Dean pulled the knife out of Claire slowly, cringing, and wiped it clean of prints, pinning his phone between his shoulder and chin to use both hands.
"D'ya even know what'll happen if you do?"
"Hopefully nothing," Dean thought. "It might've just been to get me away. Sammy might've been wrong about the consequences."
Bobby sighed. "Let's hope so. Just hurry, idgit. Your brother's waiting for ya. And be careful." He hung up, and Dean continued with his tough task if destroying the evidence.
...
Dean dropped the last of the bodies with a grunt, covering them with the sheets. He'd put Claire to the side. He'd give her a proper burial.
He quickly doused the remains and sprinkled them with salt, before flicking out his lighter and setting them aflame. He watched it burn from his remote spot in the woods off the highway, where the smoke would be passed as a small forest fire.
Dean turned to Claire, salting and burning her, too, but with more care than was really necessary for a dead body.
He wished Cass would come. Come save the day like a guardian angel and for once forget about the devil-God crap and realize his friends needed him.
Deep down, he knew it wouldn't happen. Whenever Castiel went to heaven for "Revelation" he came back totally different. Dean's hopes weren't high in the winged department.
He was back on the road in record time, counting down the minutes until he reached the hospital and his brother.
Dean looked for signs of illness at fifty miles, twenty five, ten, two, and even on the elevator ride to Sam's floor, but he felt no different. No witchy symptoms at all.
Bobby stood when he walked in, face painted with worry and compassion as he walked towards Dean. Dean flew past him, acknowledging him with nothing more than a nod as he made his way to Sam.
"Dean?" Sam looked up with confused, feverish eyes.
"Yeah, Sammy, it's me." He took in Sam's pale face, his sunken eyes, and the way his arm lifted feebly to beckon Dean closer.
"You shouldn't be here." He whispered, the soft voice turning into a wheezing cough as he tuned away.
Dean smiled sadly. "Couldn't miss my baby brother's first near-death experience."
"This isn't my first."
"Yeah, well, I wish there never had to be a first at all."
Sam chuckled and lay back, closing his eyes and groaning. Dean sat down, stood up, watched the room spin, and sat back down again.
"You okay?" Bobby asked from his spot across the room.
"Yeah, fine." Dean said, but he swore the room was, like, a hundred degrees. It reminded him of when he'd taken Sam to the beach when he was nine. He'd just wanted to sit and relax, but Sam kept going farther and farther out to sea, and Dean didn't like that much separation.
"Don't go too deep!"
"What?" Bobby looked up from his newspaper. Sam mumbled in his sleep and gave a feeble cough.
"Nothing."
Bobby gave him a suspicious glance.
Dean needed to get some air. "I'm going to grab something from the vending machine out front." He informed, standing up. The room spun like a carousel.
"Don't use up all your tickets on one ride!"
"You sure you're okay?" Bobby questioned. Dean waved him off and swayed out the door.
The hallway seemed to tip as he walked, so he held onto the wall to keep himself from falling.
He made it to the elevator when it dinged. Just as Dean went to board the crowded car, he coughed, and out came blood.
The elevator's contents were horrified, and as Dean's eyes rolled back and he fell forward, a woman screamed shrill and high.
His eyes flickered as he looked up at bright lights and frightened faces. One smart man had the sense to call for help.
"Help! Doctor!" He called. "Doctor!" The dramatic woman with the previously white, now red speckled, suit began to cry, her eyes wide as a fish.
Dean smiled. "Don't eat fish, Sammy. You don't even like seafood."
So... Watcha think?... Thanks for any reviews last week, too!
P.S. To Judyann, whose review was never replied: Glad you couldn't wait for more. Here it is!