Chapter 13
The coolness kissed his skin and Dean let it caress, ease him down from the jolting pain which had encompassed him as his brother had carried him bodily from the hut.
"Dean…" Hands touched him, not checking or probing but giving comfort, almost but not quite stroking. "Dean you with me."
"Yeah… Yeah, I think so."
Jeeze was that him? Man he sounded weak as a kitten… 'What the hell?' Frowning in puzzlement he pawed ineffectually at the thing obstructing his nose and mouth. Sam leaned over and Dean could see that Sam's face was similarly masked.
"Dude you look like the Lone Ranger."
The skin around Sam's eyes crinkled with a smile. "Does that make you Tonto or the horse?"
Dean lifted his head making a derisory noise and instantly regretted it. The dull pounding throb which had become the norm upgraded to hammering and a groan escaped before he could clamp his lips closed. Tugging on the corner of the material covering his features Sam revealed the grin that went with the wrinkles.
"Hurts bad huh?"
"Listen to Mr Understatement."
Sam chuckled and leant over him again, fussing, pulling the fabric from Dean's face and using it to dab at the contusion on his head. Dean feebly tried to pushed Sam's hand away the last thing he needed was Sammy in freakin' nurse mode.
"You're bleeding again." Was all the explanation he got as his brother continued his ministrations.
Angry snarling followed by a yelp cut off Dean's further protestations. He glanced over at the hut apprehensively, wincing at even that small movement.
"Is that …"
"…the Racoon, yeah…" Dean felt Sam's arm slip under his shoulders as he spoke. "It's trying to get the Command Bracelet off. I trapped it in a Containment Circle as well but it's not gonna last long."
"Bracelet?" Allowing his brother to haul him into a sitting position Dean tried to wrap his tired brain around the fact that the racoon was wearing a bracelet. "Is it a good look on him."
"It's probably burning into its skin by now."
"Ouch!" Dean's exclamation could have applied to the racoon or to his wildly pounding headache; he really didn't know or care because… "S'mmy gonna…" He retched violently, moaning at the same time, ribs grating and choked.
Everything went fuzzy for a while, wrapped in pain and a struggle to breathe but gradually Dean became aware of Sam's hand rubbing slow circles on his back.
"Okay?"
Dean went to shake his head, managed to stop himself but created a whole new round of painful throbbing as he did so. "Sonofabitch" and he was about to add 'F**k' when a loud crashing splintering sound came from the hut and the fastened door visibly bowed outward.
"Damn it…the circle's broken." Sluing backwards Sam reached out to grab his rucksack. He dragged it nearer and opened it up.
Dean found a renewed anger at the object; Sam was f**king in love with that thing.
"What you gonna do stuff it full of Granola Bars?" He sounded bitchy, he knew, and the irritation was more directed at his own helplessness than Sam's Boy Scout readiness but he couldn't help resenting, however irrational, the damned bag.
"No." Sam's lips pressed into a firm line. "I'm gonna torch the sucker."
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"YOU THOUGHT IT WAS PAINFUL BEFORE BUT I WAS PLAYING, YOU DEFY ME NOW AND I CAN MAKE YOU AND YOUR BROTHER SUFFER FOR ETERNITY, YOU'LL BEG ME FOR DEATH, BEG ME!"
Ignoring the creature's threat Sam squeezed the small yellow can in his hand squirting the lighter fuel over the half-rotten wood of the hut. The racoon, when the door refused to budge had thrown itself again and again at the wooden planked walls yelling threats escalating in malice and cruelty as the creature found itself still bound by the spell Sam had woven.
Sam, silently praying that the bracelet would hold the deity in the shack a little longer, worked quickly covering the base of the hut, spraying the accelerant in wide curving arcs over the white grains of salt he'd already scattered. Then stepping back he felt for the lighter in the pocket of his jeans.
Swallowing, he hesitated thumb on the flint-wheel but suddenly unable to bring himself to make the spark. He'd done plenty of missions where the final end game had been Salt and burn but never with a live subject. Plus the fact that he had no idea if this was gonna work? In theory, the practice should apply, his father had always said that lieu of silver or beheading, fire was the way to go. It wasn't ideal but it should kill the thing but this was a deity not some ordinary shapechanger.
The irony of calling a shapechanger ordinary was not lost on Sam and he tightened his grip on the lighter. Damn it, he couldn't let his idealistic sensibilities, the fear of failure and the retribution it would bring turn him from his course of action but then if this didn't work was he condemning himself and Dean to a life of captivity at the mercy of a capricious and now thoroughly pissed jailer.
"You're overthinking it Sam, just do it." Dean was right behind him voice low but firm and full of steel.
"What if I make things worse?"
Dean huffed a laugh. "Sammy if things go any further south we'll be in the f**king Antarctic."
A hand curled around his own, steadying it, a thumb pressing down, applying pressure and suddenly the flame jumped into life, gutting and flickering at first but then burning brightly and steadily.
Throwing the lighter Sam watched it tumbling, almost as if in slow motion, towards the hut until it thumped into its surface. A blue tide of flame ran over the soaked wood, curling and spreading so fast that Sam was unable to follow its path. In seconds the whole hut was ablaze.
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The surge of adrenaline that had invaded Dean's system, suddenly left and he sagged forward, leaning heavily onto Sam.
"Dean…hey, hey."
Dean could hear his brother but he was so tired and his body was so heavy. His knees buckled but he never hit the ground Sam's arms went about him, held him and took him gently to the forest floor where he lay dazed, head pulsing painfully. Slowly he became aware that Sam was talking.
"Dean…come on man no sleeping on the job."
He tried to open his eyes, he really did but the lids felt as leaden as the rest of him and refused to rise.
"M'nt slping."
His mouth felt kinda weird, not working properly, tongue too big, lips loose and numb and even as the flames heated his cold and clammy skin Dean could feel everything slipping away from him, distancing itself, telescoping away to a tiny pin-prick.
Whispering, hissing, creepy words insinuated into Dean's black world. His breath hitched catching in his throat as the depraved diatribe continued its assault. Dean's muscles twitched and jerked in their struggle to physically shy away from the voice's execrable insults.
"Humans are debris but you Dean, you are so much worse. Hateful, beyond contempt, lower than the insects which crawl around my forest floor; loathsome, pitiful and weak."
Sweat soaked through Dean's clothes each beaded bubble running, joining, pooling in the hollows of his body as he mumbled incoherently trying to break free from the hold the deity had on his mind.
The smell of wet fur, damp and corrupt, infected his nostrils clawing its way into his throat and lungs, smothering him with its stench.
"Redeem your putrid existence and I will be merciful."
Starved of oxygen, Dean abruptly arched back, bowing, arms rigid. His body tore from the safety of his brother's grasp, falling to the ground where he lay jerking uncontrollably as he tried desperately to suck air into his constricted passageways.
"Dowse the flame, tear down the door, …RELEASSSSS ME."
"Nnn..ooo." Teeth grinding together Dean tried to stem the shaking. Inside him, protected, was a small core of defiance unaffected by the deity's insurgence and he found that he could resist. He gave a silent whoop for Sam's geekiness in knowing about the clothes reversal and knew that there was no f**king way this sonofabitch was getting out of that hut. However, Dean was also aware enough not to add, even in his own mind, 'Over my dead body.' The reality of which was becoming more and more valid as the grey edges of unconsciousness closed in around him.
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Unprepared for the sudden jolt and flex Sam hadn't been able to keep his grip on his brother and Dean had rolled from him.
"Dean."
Heart pounding he scrabbled forward and laid his hands on his sibling's agitated form, pressing him to the damp ground in an effort to still the quaking and twitching. Something was seriously wrong and Sam's brain raced trying to equate the symptoms with what he knew about concussion but nothing fitted.
"Oh God Dean, please…" He stopped, it seemed for a moment to Sam that elder hunter had heard him because Dean quietened and mumbled turning towards him but then his brother's body tensed, head going back, mouth open wide and Sam realised after a long terrified pause of panic that Dean couldn't breathe .
No, no, no, no this wasn't happening; for the first time since he and Dean had set out on the hunt he felt the weight, the true horror of their situation. They were off the designated trails as far from civilisation as they could be and out of communication with no back up or the prospect of getting any, basically up s**t creek and then some.
"Dean." Sam quickly pulled his brother onto his side facing away from the burning hut and for an instant thought he could smell the racoon. He glanced up and around a little freaked. Had it got out of the shack? The area between them and the wooden building was clear but he couldn't see past the dancing shadows at the far edge of the orange glow. Uncomfortable and with the worrying fear that the creature was free he glanced down checking his brother and then back up to rescan the area.
Sam had to get Dean away but at the same time he couldn't leave. He had to know if the racoon had escaped, had to know because he couldn't let it remain to kill others and he couldn't let it catch him out in the open, vulnerable and virtually helpless.
The back to front folklore had proven effective in hiding his thoughts but Sam had no doubt that it was no defence against the deity's actual power. It had been the Confinement Circle that had protected them up until now but with that broken there was only the bracelet holding the creature. He'd hoped the racoon would have been forced to stay within the hut's floor space but you couldn't guarantee spell work there were too many variables. Now, as he watched the blaze dance and reach, he feared that as soon as the creature realised there was no limitation upon its power it would come after them fury and revenge bristling in every cell of its body.
Sparks spat out from the flames showering the grass with a myriad of tiny glinting flares. Deeper cracks and groans came from the structure as the roof caught alight sheeting flame across its sloped surface. Sam gagged as smoke thick and grey curled down from the burning wood enveloping him and Dean.
Eyes stinging and full of tears Sam felt for the mask discarded earlier, fingers blindly scrabbling in the dirt, groping for the wet fabric, the foul smog filling his throat and lungs, cloying, irritating his bronchial tubes until he choked unable to draw in a clean breath.
As Sam struggled coughing and retching an eerie wailing rose above the roar of the flames. High pitched and acute it occupied the whole clearing with its uncanny timbre. Sam blanched as it invaded his skull growing in intensity and in magnitude. He screwed his eyes, shook his head but he couldn't rid himself of the discordant cadence.
Lifting his hands from Dean's body he clamped them to his ears, covering pressing down hard in an attempt to block out the penetrating sound but it did no good. The cry continued in his head, amplifying in its potency, its strength and fury beating on him as surely as any physical blow.
Light abruptly flushed the clearing, bright and fierce with a searing heat. The flames roared leaping higher stretching up to the overhanging branches above licking the leaves with orange tongues and still the clamour grew.
Sam bent over Dean protectively his body shielding his sibling from the roasting heat but nothing could blot out the menaced howling. Beneath him Dean shivered and groaned head thrashing as he dragged in wheezing breaths, writhing, squirming to get away from the pain. Sam felt some relief that his brother was still alive but that rapidly dissipated as the elder hunter tried to curl in on himself blood trickling from his ears.
"Dean." Fighting the pain feeling the blood seeping from his own ears Sam unable to hear his own voice over the dissonance in his head screamed his brother's name over and over. "DEAN, DEAN," until his throat cracked with the rawness.
Suddenly the blaze collapsed in on itself sending a flare of flaming fragments into the blistering air. Planks fell and crumbled throwing up yet more fiery chips high into the canopy where they slowed, hung motionless and then rained down. Sam arched as the sparks scorched into his skin burning through the thin material on his back. Grabbing the hem he pulled his shirt up and over his head using the bunched cotton to brush frantically at the flaring embers which continued to pepper his torso.
The stench of burning flesh overwhelmed his senses, rising up at him from below and he realised with horrified comprehension that Dean's clothing was alight. The woven threads dissolving outwards in red smouldering circles spiralling tendrils of smoke as the plastic coloured emblem imprinted on his brother's shirt melted onto his flesh.
With brutal force Sam ripped the T from his sibling's body. Dean screamed thrashing catching Sam with his fists as he flailed wildly, unknowing of the danger, aware only of the burning pain. Beating at the charring, glowing cinders with his bare hands Sam smothered the smoking patches of singed skin, thankful for the bandages around his brother's chest. They had taken the worst of the heat only leaving Dean's shoulders and waist directly exposed to the searing wooden fragments.
Grabbing Dean under the arms ignoring his brother's pained cries, Sam heaved and dragged the injured hunter away from the blaze, hauling him bodily along the leaf littered floor until stumbling he fell.
Sam half lay across his brother waiting for his thumping heart and breathing to return to something like normal. Closing his eyes he cradled his head in his arms too exhausted to begin again. In the last few hours he'd used up the last reserves of his already much depleted energy, now his tired limbs felt like rubber and his body ached with an interminable soreness. Yet he had to get Dean away to safety.
Lifting his head Sam wearily pulled himself to his knees but was immediately assaulted by a renewed cacophonic screeching climbing and rising in pitch. Worse than before the clamour escalated and with dismay Sam saw within the heart of the blazing hut the ghastly configuration of the racoon rising, its shape rippling, rolling with the dance and sway of the jumping flames.
The creature's mouth was open stretching vilely wide as its voice howling and baying in agonising vehemence continued above the roar of the fire. Sam stared, a constricting terror holding him immobile half fascinated by the grotesque sight and half appalled that the thing seemed to have survived the inferno.
The incandescent beast still shrieking its wrath and pain dominated the hut's space growing larger and larger indistinguishable from the burning surroundings until it filled the fire, was the fire, became the fire.
Advancing small blue and yellow flares licked towards the two hunters, eating the distance inch by inch, gathering pace, rolling, expanding, cavorting in a joyous onrush until surging upward and outward it expanded, bursting, detonating in a scalding explosion of heat and flame.
Scorching air flushed Sam's skin, singed his hair, seared his lungs and spread agony as his blood broiled in his veins.
"Dean." It was barely a whisper a soft sigh of exhalation as Sam's eyes closed and his body folded, slowly collapsing down, losing the fight for consciousness.
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"Dude…" Dean lifted his hand and smacked lightly onto his brother's back. He'd come too struggling for breath both from the pain and from an unfamiliar and excessive pressure on his torso. It had taken him not a small amount of time and a slight panic before he realised that his brother was laid over him.
"S…Sam, c..can't breathe." He smacked again harder and tried pushing but with no result. He was too weak and jeeze it hurt like a bitch.
"Sam…" It was only then that Dean's exhausted brain registered that this was anomalous that Sam was shirtless, didn't usually sleep draped across him and that Sam had to be unconscious or so far past exhaustion that he couldn't rouse. Dean huffed what little air he had from his lungs and smacked his brother on the back again.
"Sam, wake up."
Man, his brother was a dead weight, a freakin' huge dead weight. He braced his hands onto his Sam's side and applied pressure but the angle was awkward, the tall hunter was laid too high on Dean's chest for him to get sufficient leverage to push with anything like the effectiveness he needed.
Dean tried to wriggle free, slide out from under but the way Sam was planted across him there was little room for movement and the rough ground dug into the sore smarting skin across his shoulders making him grit his teeth with the added pain.
Stopping, consciously calming his breath Dean tried to take stock. They were outside the hut, which was a good thing. He hoped. He was in one piece although his skin felt sensitive, hot and taught, tight like a stitched wound. He tentatively flexed his muscles afraid that any slight movement would rip and tear him up and groaned. Dean's body still felt like it had gone ten rounds with a grizzly not a racoon and finally on the inventory on his body to add to his misery his recently ever present headache was ever present in s**t-loads.
He lay for a few moments trying to decide what to do and came to the conclusion very quickly that there wasn't much he could do until he managed to shift his brother.
"Okay Sammy let's have a look at you."
Talking partly to affirm to himself that he really was alive and partly to give himself a measure of comfort, something tangible in the chaos plaguing his head. Dean sighed and tried to take a deep breath slowly drawing in the air expanding his lungs bit by bit rather than the panicky shallow breaths of previously. It didn't clear his head of the pain but it defogged some of the hazy confusion.
Bending his neck he brought his head up along with a hand which he ran over his brother's skull checking for contusions, depressions and egg-like swellings. He knew that Sam was breathing because every breath his brother took pressed down on Dean's damaged ribs hurting like hell. Pulling his hand downward he felt for Sam's pulse aware that as he did so his fingertips became sticky.
Straining his eyes, squinting down he made a visual check. There was blood, small thin trails running from Sam's ear, tracking down the skin and disappearing into the deep brown curls at the nape of his brother's neck. Dean's newfound composure skipped out.
"Sam…Sammy." His pushes became frantic, worry curling in his stomach. His brother was obviously hurt. "Sam." The smell of burnt…something, the flush of red on his sibling's skin… "Sam." Although his intention was to increase the volume of his voice his yell came out as a husky rasp. "Sonofabitch." He pushed again. "Sammy."
Panting with the exertion and with the pain which had now begun reasserting itself with a burning fierceness, Dean had only the vaguest notion of what had happened after he and Sam had set fire to the hut. He remembered falling but the rest was a blurry confusion, apart from the sound.
It had been eerie, preternatural, he shuddered at the memory and it had penetrated his already pounding skull joining the discord, increasing his disconnection until it had grown so much that it overwhelmed all sensation. Delicately Dean's fingers went to his own ear and found the telltale dried rivulets adhering to the small hairs of his neck.
"Sammy." Again he smacked trying to roll his brother but pain sharp and white hot shot through is chest; he was pinned, helpless. Leaving his hand on his brother's back he rubbed and tried to keep the desperation out of his voice. "Come on Dude, suns up, rise and shine." It wasn't until he'd spoken the words that he realised that it was true. It was daylight or as light as it got under the forest canopy and he could see the trees on either side of him. He also became aware of the pungent smell of burnt wood in the air overlaying the other weird odour.
He squirmed, biting his lip as stones ground into his sore shoulders and strained up to see over his brother's back towards the centre of the clearing where the hut stood, only it wasn't there. Dean's eyes scraped over charred stumps breaking upwards from the smoking embers while the stone fireplace, scorched black, stood stark against the carpet of grey and white ash. A breeze disturbed the flakes wafting them idly to and fro shifting small piles, tumbling them into new softer shapes as they settled once again to blanket the floor. There was no sign of the racoon.
Sam stirred shifting his body.
"Ow..ahh Sam …stop. S**t Sammy…"
Dean heard his sibling groan and his body rolled compressing Dean's ribcage further. Gasping, desperate now for Sam to lift the crushing pressure Dean tried again to wake his brother.
"S..Sam? SAM." He became more insistent. Sam seemed to be getting heavier and his weight pressing down onto Dean's damaged ribs and hip was becoming unbearable. "Sam, pleeease…. wake up." He smacked his hand down again on his sibling's broad back for good measure even in his abused and bone-tired state he didn't want to sound like he was begging even if he was.
Once more pain lanced through Dean as Sam's head turned making his body shift position yet again.
"Sa…m…Sam." It was excruciating. "Dude… you GOTTA GET OFF ME."