A/N: Crazy week, and then some. Sorry it took me so long to update. These last two chapters are gonna come quickly, much to someone's relief(thanks, TraSan!) and they belong to the one and only Skag Trendy. She knows why. Thanks, my friend. Smother that beautiful puppy with hugs!
Chapter 8: A Dead Man's Touch
Joshua stared as the man crouched over Sam stood, keeping his back to the hunters. Sam lay on his injured side, face turned into the carpet, laying over a sigil looking like a mirror reflection of two side by side pyramids that was burned into the fibers, the smell of singed nylon and sulfur filling the air in the room. Soot smudged over Sam's bare shoulder intensified the paleness of his skin.
"Turn around you sonuvabitch!" Dean growled. The man turned, yellow eyes glinting even in the dim lighting. Dean grunted, his cry echoed by Joshua as they were both taken off their feet and propelled into the wall on either side of the door. The opening slammed shut, the jarring of the door banging into the frame being felt throughout both their bodies. Thunder overhead made the walls rattle.
"Nice t' see ya again Deano."
"Gee…" Dean ground out, steeling himself and plastering a sarcastic smirk on his face as he looked at the demon he'd spent his entire life with his dad trying to find. "…wish I could say the same."
"Aw, you don't wanna hurt my feelings, do ya Dean?" Yellow Eyes said, looking down at Sam's unmoving form with intent clear on his face.
"You leave him alone!" Joshua bellowed.
"You're not a part of this conversation." The demon said, waving a hand at Joshua, whose head slammed into the wall. Josh slumped but remained upright, pinned to the wall in the demon's touchless grasp.
"Don't hurt them!" Dean cried, his eyes roving over Sam's back, the only part he could see of his brother. He didn't see the movement that he desperately wanted to, the movement that told him his brother was alive.
"Don't worry. I'd never hurt Sammy. He's my favorite." The demon taunted. "You on the other hand…what would little Sammy do without big brother…" Dean watched as Sam's back moved, his shoulder blade lifting enough to let Dean know his chest was still expanding and contracting with breath.
"The…the salt…"
"You think that hurts me, stops me? You really have a lot to learn. You, your daddy, way outta your league when it comes to somethin' like me." The demon walked right up to Dean, waving a finger and forcing Dean's head to turn to lock eyes with him. "I should turn you into a grease stain." Dean swallowed. The demon stepped back, smirking. "Well, it's been fun, but I got what I came for." He said, looking down at the youngest Winchester again. Lightning made his eyes glow as it brightened the room.
"NO! Don't you take him!"
"Take him? I don't want to take him. I want him right here. This is his path, and he's right where he's meant to be. In the very steps he's meant to walk. You really should thank me though. While you were outside playing with the other kids, he almost gave up the ghost." Yellow eyes clucked sympathetically. "Poor kid. Nasty sick if you ask me…too weak to roll over and keep from choking on his own vomit."
Outside, lightning lit up the sky, thunder cracking off before the purplish white light even faded. Bobby's strong voice continued with the last phrases of the exorcism. Dean and Joshua fell free of the demon's grasp, the older hunter remaining motionless, as it disappeared in a ball of flame. Bobby's voice stopped and a sound like a cross between hurricane winds and a swarm of locusts filled the air. The light in the room flickered repeatedly, the shade shaking, before it finally stopped, casting a halo of light around the stand it sat on while the rest of the room remained in shadow. Dean quickly checked on Joshua, finding him alive, slumped half upright at the base of the wall he'd been pinned to. He rushed to his little brother's side, gently rolling him. Sam's pale face was smooth, free of pain lines, the color normal, not the flushed, over brightness of fever. Dean looked over Sam's face, neck and chest, seeing the absence of the bruising that had been there. A dark line of soot lay in the area where his wound was. Dean brushed a finger gently over it, the ash crumbling away to reveal flawless, cool skin.
"Mnn, Dean?" Sam muttered, eyes opening clear and unconfused.
"You okay?" Dean asked him, a hand on his shoulder.
"M'fine. Why am I on the floor?" Dean's answer to Sam's question was interrupted by Bobby bursting through the door looking like a wild man, hat askew on his head, his vest undone and arms held poised to fight.
"You boys alright?" He asked, as he looked them over, seeing Dean with the bruises and swollen places and Sam looking like he'd just woken from the most peaceful nap of his life.
"Peachy." Dean muttered, running a hand back over his head as the other arm steadied Sam while he sat up. Joshua groaned where he rested against the wall, chin lifting from his chest as his hand went to the back of his head, probing the several bumps that were developing. He looked from Dean to Sam then turned his head to Bobby.
"What kept ya, Singer?"
"Don't start with me, Army." Joshua stood, stretching his back. He groaned again.
"Glad you're here. These two…they can be pains in your ass for a while."
Dean stood and heaved Sam to his feet, walking him three steps to lower him back to the bed. Dean sat beside his brother, turning to look him over again, his knee brushing Sam's thigh.
"You sure you're alright?"
"I think so. I feel better."
"You remember what happened?"
"Bits and pieces. Everything was dark, forever it seemed like. Like I was underground or something. Everything reeked." Sam's face paled just a bit before he continued. "I fell through the floor, tryin' to get out. I thought I was goin' crazy." He whispered. "Dunno, must've got sick or something 'cos everything up until now is muddled. Dean, please tell me we can get outta here?"
Dean was just about to answer when Joshua cursed.
"Damn it!" Joshua barked as he stood beside the window, looking out. He stalked across the room and was halfway across the lot before Dean could catch up. He saw what Josh was headed for, a red cargo van with the driver's door hanging open and a form laying only yards from it, the man's neck bent at a very wrong angle.
"Josh, what?" Dean asked as he saw his friend kneel beside the body and futilely check for a pulse. The ex-soldier lowered his head, long hair hanging down his back.
"It's Ben. Goddamn demons got him. Sulfur on his neck where it's broke."
"'M sorry man."
"Me too."
Sam stood between Dean and Bobby, clad in Jeans and a black hoodie, hands tucked in his pockets, his face a little pale yet. Firelight warmed them as Joshua lit the pyre where his friend rested. The long haired hunter stepped back, hand cutting through the air on a brisk salute.
"He was a damn good soldier. Saved a lot of people. Deserves to go out like a hero, like a hunter." The ex-army man said before he turned to walk to the Winchesters.
"Follow you guys back to South Dakota? I got wind of a hunt in Seattle anyhow."
"You're welcome at the Salvage yard any time, Army, y'know that." Bobby said.
"Don't go all mushy on me, old man." Joshua said, elbowing the older hunter in the ribs.
He walked to his big black truck and slid up into the cab, firing it's V8. Dean walked with Sam to the Impala parked inside and Bobby headed across the lot to the armored truck. They heard the diesel fire up and Josh led the way to the interstate.
Inside the car, Dean flicked on the wipers, clearing the windshield of the mist that was steadily falling. "You're quiet." He said to his brother, not a question but a statement.
"I just need some time, man. Then I'll talk." Sam said, turning his face to the window as his head rolled back to rest on the seat back.
"I know." his brother answered, his way of letting Sam know that he was all ears when Sam was ready.
"I remember it all."
"Know that too." Dean responded, not coming down on Sam for lying. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam's hand shoot up to his right cheek and brush away the moisture that he heard in Sam's words.
"Bobby must've been seriously bored to come up with that rig." Dean said, looking in the rearview as the box truck merged onto the freeway behind him. Dean flicked on the radio just in time for the opening strains of Nothing Else Matters.
A\N: I'm putting the next chapter up now, because I just don't know if I'll be able to get back into anything for a while. I have so much to do and not enough time to do anything. Enjoy the finale. And please review. Let me know I haven't lost you to the void!