C&W—Chapter 6
Dean watched the headlights of passing cars slide over Sam's face, shadows deepening the worried creases in the drawn lines of his skin. Sleep didn't look restful or peaceful for his brother, brows knitting and relaxing, the soft moans of discomfort or nightmares—Dean couldn't tell which—slipping past his lips. Face pressed up against the passenger side glass, head resting on a shirt Dean had donated as a makeshift pillow, Sam had been sleeping since Toledo. They were almost to the dunes, and Dean was having gnawing doubts about dragging Sam along with him. The doubts had been there since the motel, and had chewed a ragged hole through his certainty long before they'd reached the lower west side of Michigan.
Then again, Dean couldn't leave Sam alone. And it wasn't as if they couldn't pretend they hadn't stumble upon a forty-year-old, unfinished hunt and leave it open for the next hunters to come along and find forty years later. What were the odds that this would fall into their laps now? Dean's mind was still grinding away through the things they'd learned from Colt's journal. They were bound to a path the moment they'd opened that book. The course of their journey was out of their control, and Dean wasn't sure he liked that feeling. As a matter of fact, he hated it.
Their unwavering sense of duty drove them forward, but Sam's fitful sleep, the fever he'd been battling, the way he looked too young and too small folded in on himself against the door was making every motel they passed a resolve-breaking temptation.
A short, sharp intake of breath drew Dean's gaze back toward Sam as he stirred, bleary eyes turning to Dean for a moment, unfocused.
I wasn't going to wake up…
"How you holding up?" Dean asked, pressing down Sam's confession and its cohorts of guilt and pain.
If I hadn't come when I had…Sammy…
Sam curled up tighter against the door, hoodie re-covering his eyes, subsequently masking the truth. "Fine. Think that second fever broke about an hour into the trip."
They were coming up on another lakeside inn and Dean took a chance, already knowing the response that he would get.
"Maybe I should take this one alone…"
A scoff slid out from somewhere beneath Sam's hood. He uncovered his head, revealing sweat-soaked bangs; fever-worn eyes suddenly alight with fight.
"You're the one with the bum leg and I'm the one who should sit this one out?" Sam challenged.
"You did see that thing, right?" Dean replied. "Freaky ass son of a bitch…like that creature in Pan's Labyrinthwith the eyes in its hands…but it's in its feet and it moved like…like that janitor from Silent Hill, legs contorted up over its head so it can see. And did you see its teeth? It moved too fast for a dude crawling along its his hands."
Sam snorted. "You watch too many movies, man. And if that was supposed to convince me to stay out of this, you need to work on your scare tactics. 'Cause that's even more reason for me to come. Especially since I've seen geriatrics move faster than you're moving right now." His He went silent for a moment, eyes back out onto the road, the dunes looming on either side of them. Realization dawning, he huffed out a laugh and turned skeptical eyes back to Dean. "You actually sat through a Spanish subtitled film?"
"Oh, that's why I couldn't understand a thing they were saying," Dean returned.
"They broke the mold with you, Dean."
"Is it that hard to believe that I'm a cultured guy?" Dean asked, feigning hurt, poorly by Sam's I'm not buying it smirk.
Sam's eyes danced in challenge as he quirked up the side of his lip. "Is pop a real, legitimate culture?"
"I can speak Spanish," He contended. "¿Donde está el baño? Un tequila más por favor. Err…sometimes that has to be in reverse order."
Sam laughed, smiling softly to himself before turning toward the window.
I wasn't going to wake up…
Dean closed his eyes breifly against the image of Sam curled up on the floor of that shack, rain soaked and cold, barely breathing…
"I did see it, Dean. And you're not facing an aigamuxa alone. My cold can…" He stopped and coughed into the sleeve of his hoodie, sniffing up the remnants miserably. "…go screw itself…"
A cold? Dean mused to himself. Is that what we're calling this now?
Dean rolled his shoulder, stretching out the tightness that had bound it up, the heat there spreading with a pull of pain. He could feel Sam's eyes on him as he suppressed a reaction, jaw taut against the reverberation along his synapses. He was afraid to move his leg. He'd dressed it this morning, cleaned it out…
"How close are we?" Sam asked, almost suspiciously.
"Almost there." Dean admitted, knowing that would get him in trouble, bracing himself for the lecture.
"I was supposed to drive the last half, Dean."
He ticked up a shoulder. "You needed sleep."
Sam's eyes held his disdain for that answer, reminding Dean: I'm not the only one.
"How's the leg?"
"Never better."
"God, you're so full of it."
Dean loved Sam too.
Sam reached for the folder he'd brought with them, information he'd gathered about the hunt. He hadn't been feeling up to looking through it all at the start of their trip, but with some of the sleep afore-argued as necessary, Sam was back and ready to tackle this.
Watching Sam slide back into routine, laying out the hunt, making sure they were both on the same page caused a warm pride to build in Dean's gut. He'd missed this. Even if he hadn't been gone that long by this world's clocks, and he couldn't remember what happened to him down there, he'd have moments where something would fill a void he hadn't been fully aware that he had…
This moment was one of them.
"So, the aigamuxa—"
"Gesundheit."
Sam raised a brow. "German too?"
"What can I say? Jack of all trades."
"Master of none," Sam muttered lovingly. "Like I was saying, forty year cycle for this thing, and as luck would have it, if I calculated the cycle right, we have tonight—"
"Of course we do."
"—to get rid of it, make sure it doesn't kill anyone else, and disappear for forty more years. Because then…then we have to come back and kill it when we're in our sixties. Well, you'll be seventy…"
Dean didn't miss Sam's barely rueful grin. Dean's thirtieth was coming up, and he was frequently reminded of that fact at Sam's amusement.
"If we don't kill this thing and if I make seventy, that aigamuxa's got one hell of a mean-ass seventy-year-old coming for it." Dean stated.
"If you make seventy?" Sam started, and Dean heard the underlying questions there. How long do you think you'll live? Will I have to live without you again? If one of us has to go before the other…you think it will be you, Dean?
Leave it to Sam to load so friggin' much into one simple four-word inquiry.
"Not exactly likely, Sam. Considering…you know…both of us has already died before thirty."
"I know…just…we're here now, and…" Sam had started to wall up, seemingly trapped between a confession of his dependence and trying to shrug off Dean's indifference.
Dean shrugged up a shoulder. "You want to be doing this when you're old?"
"No…not really," Sam admitted, and Dean watched defeat settle into the sad sag of his shoulders through this slip.
"I haven't exactly heard of many retired hunters," Dean added.
The only one he had met hadn't exactly painted a pretty picture. Rufus. According to him, you either died young or turned out some lonely, embittered bastard with only your Johnny Walker Blue to keep you sane. Seeing Rufus through Jake's eyes, when he was younger, just accepted into college, when his eyes held purpose…the comparison to Sam at that age was staggering.
It was hard to imagine the same bitterness embedded in his brother's eyes. No. He could see it, had seen it; the deadness of light and hope. And he never wanted to see it again.
Sam was curling the edges of the papers with his fingers, lost in thought. The silence ground away inside of Dean, knowing he'd caused it, and he sighed to clear it from their presence.
"Let me just put it this way then, Sammy…if it's between chasing kids off my lawn or coming back here after this thing, I hope I'm pulling up to the dunes with a shotgun."
He watched the folds of Sam's mouth tick up a little, deepening the dimples that made him seem still so young to Dean. Sam made a quick jerk of his head toward the dashboard. "Think she'll make the return journey?"
"The Impala? Hell yeah. She'll still be kicking ass and taking names in forty more years."
Sam shook his head, the mental picture seemingly as absurd in his brother's mind as it was his, but it had softened the creases of worry around Sam's eyes. He was flipping back through his notes and looked to be chewing over something he wanted to share. Dean waited, still wondering how they were going to kill something that had taken a consecrated slug to the skull and was still around forty years later to show off the scar.
"Uh, I wanted to try something," Sam started.
Try something didn't exactly invoke a heaping amount of confidence for the outlook of this hunt. There were a few times Sam had 'tried' things, that might have worked, that left Dean wondering if his brother liked using him to test out theories. A certain possessed truck that almost gunned him down in Missouri came to mind.
Evil spirits cross over hallowed ground; sometimes they're destroyed…so…I figured…maybe…that would get rid of it.
Maybe? Maybe?! What if you were wrong?
Huh? Honestly…that thought hadn't occurred to me.
Dean could have strangled his brother right then and there. With all the love he possessed of course.
"Let's hear it," Dean replied, bracing himself.
"Jake and Ben used consecrated rounds, which worked to weaken it, but were not enough to kill it. Was looking through the lore before we left, and there was one story about a Jackal trickster defeating it with tobacco."
Tobacco? Really? That was new. Dean huffed, amused by the suggestion. "Won't find that on the Surgeon General's report." Dean remarked, grinning. "What do you know? Smoking does kill."
"Especially creatures of KhoiKhoi lore that have their eyes in their feet."
"Can't believe that thing crawled out of an art museum in the sixties. See that—that is why I don't go to places like that. There's no telling who touched what, what spirit or demon or whatever is attached to all that old world crap. Venkman 101 teaches you that." Dean shuddered again at the reminder of the placement of the eyes. "In its feet, had to be in its feet…that's wrong on so many levels."
"You really have a kink about feet, don't you, Dean?" Sam snorted.
"They're feet, dude! Surprised the thing's survived as long as it has…"
"It's had time to adapt, learn how to contort its limbs." Sam shivered a little himself.
Dean rolled his neck, trying to lengthen out the muscles there, to ease a little of the pain running rampant along his back and shoulders. He wasn't going to let this slow him down, and if Sam knew how limited he was right now…Last thing he wanted was for his brother to go after this thing alone.
"I'm gonna assume you already tipped the bullets, filled the shells." Dean directed Sam's attention as he felt his brother's eyes on him again.
"How long have you known me?" Sam intoned.
Dean smiled. That was all he needed to hear. "Good."
Dean was humming.
It had been Dead Man's Curve earlier, which had gained him a punch in the arm from Sam. The sense of déjà vu was creepy enough without his brother humming the same song Jake had. He said he hadn't even realized he was doing it, which gave Sam even more reason to doubt this was a good idea.
Tonight. They only had tonight.
Sam cast his eyes upward to the stars dotting the ink of the night sky, his internal dialog with the universe sarcastic and biting regarding its sense of humor. The moon was full, illuminating the white sands of the beach enough for them to navigate at the water's edge. They'd been walking the seemingly endless dunes for an hour, the water's lull and pull as it slid up against the shore hypnotic, stealing Sam's strength. He wanted to sit down, to fall into the soft bed of sand gripping to his ankles.
Dean was humming When the Levee Breaks now, Zeppelin more was like his brother, but no less helpful to keep back the reminder of what had happened to Jake along these same sands. Sam preferred it to the draw of the lake, however, Dean's breathy rhythm and voice keeping him focused.
Sam had missed it. Missed his brother. Missed his quirks, his smart mouth, his voice, his music, and his stubbornness—to a degree. Sam cast a look back at the two sets of footprints in the sand, in step, side by side, the way they were supposed to be.
Sam knew Dean needed the sound as well to combat the white noise around them, something to keep step to despite his weariness. His pace had slowed considerably since they'd started out. The tremor along Dean's jaw, the sweat sliding along his hairline, the wounded recoil of his step getting more profound, the wince of pain every time he put more weight on it, were all things Sam saw, noticed, took in and wondered who Dean thought he was fooling.
Sam was the one who should go alone, even if he didn't want to, and here Dean had been asking him to stay behind.
Sam had slowed his own pace, keeping shoulder to shoulder with his brother until he knew he had to make Dean rest. Knowing Dean would never stop of his own free will, Sam stopped first, forcing Dean to halt. Relief slid behind a mask of concern on Dean's face as he looked back at him.
"You all right?" Dean asked
I'm fine, Dean. You're not.
Okay, so maybe he wasn't fine. Unless fine stood for freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. 'Cause then, yeah. Sam was fine.
"Starting to wonder if we should head back…Maybe we missed something." Sam began, just as his eyes fell upon a dark shape protruding from the shell white sands, standing out against the dune face. He nudged Dean and nodded toward the derelict shack. "You think?"
Dean ticked up a shoulder. "Only one way to find out."
The door practically fell apart in Sam's hand as he drew it back through the sand, the rotten boards groaning in adamant protest. Dean held the shotgun at the ready as Sam opened the door, preparing for whatever was inside to come at them. The light attached to the barrel fell across the bowels of the small fishing shack, the beam sliding over crates and nets, neglected storage and other remnants of furniture.
Sam moved in beside Dean, his own flashlight passing along the walls and the corners. There were a few lamps Sam lit as they went, trying to give them more light. He looked up into the netting hanging from the ceiling where it was crudely hooked. There was nothing along the beams or crouching behind the coils of rope.
Sam's could feel something inside of him twitching, recoiling, pulling taut in warning. It was here. Even if they couldn't see it.
"The floor's gone," Dean noted.
Sam turned his flashlight downward onto where he'd expect half rotted and moss-covered floorboards, but sand had spilled in from the dune behind, coating the ground. Sam followed the line of crates to the back, stopping when the beam came to rest on a large hole, dug into the back wall. The sand was soaked red around the circumference, and as he got closer he could see claw marks in the sand, what looked like part of a forearm, bloody and exposed muscle, and three fingers still attached by strings of sinew partially buried in the sand.
The smell didn't reached him until he knelt beside the hole, gagging almost instantly at the stench curling up from the dark.
"Oh, god…" Sam breathed. It was permeating his nostrils. He'd been unable to smell anything for days now, but he was sure this would be the only thing he'd be smelling for a while.
Dean was beside him, but didn't kneel—couldn't. He was trying to see the back of the tunnel, barrel of the shotgun aimed right at the mouth.
"So, good chance it's in there," Dean observed.
"That or a land shark," Sam muttered.
"Can't get a good look at how far back it goes…" Dean breathed, trying to put more weight on his good leg unsuccessfully, then smirked. "After you."
Was he kidding?!
"Age before beauty," Sam smiled flatly.
Dean huffed, wiping at the sweat along his brow with the back of his hand. "You just want me to get my face chewed off first so you'll be the good looking one."
A laugh was stunted in his throat as Sam caught the shadows along the wall before him, the dark shape that untwisted from the rafters and landed with a dull thud on the sand behind them. Sam heard the wet rasp of the thing's breath as it opened its mouth, the pop and snap of its refolding contortion of limbs. Sam shot his eyes over to Dean, keeping still, watching every muscle in his brother's body coil as cold realization slid along their spines.
"Dean…"
"Well, hell," Dean muttered, right before he turned and fired at the creature that was lunging right for them.
It collapsed in mid-leap, screaming as it held to its gut. It looked too much like a man, until Sam caught its eyeless face, and it arched its back, bringing its feet up and over its shoulders, one disgusting eye in the instep rolling drunkenly within its socket. It disappeared, the sand parting where its body had been, exploding up as it burrowed away from them.
Dean had hesitated on the second shot, the shell wasted against the flurry before all was still again.
"Did you see that thing? Did you see that butt fugly thing?" his brother was asking as he reloaded, but Sam didn't answer.
He was following the ground with his eyes, knowing from 'experience'—Ben's experience—that it would be back. They'd both seen it before, but the previous encounter had done nothing to lessen the shock.
Holy shit…
The ground dipped suddenly right before them and Sam flailed back, Dean's arm shooting out against his chest, knocking him away from the sinkhole and back against the wall. He'd fired again into mound forming before them, the thing's scream erupting again, shredding Sam's ears. It wasn't stopping its forward surge.
"Get off the ground!" Sam shouted, jumping up and grabbing hold of the netting.
He hooked one foot through, the other balancing on a wooden bureau. Dean had done the same, tossing the shotgun up onto a window ledge and pulled up with both arms. But wasn't able to get his legs solidly planted on anything above the sand. His injured leg rested on a stack of crates that shook as the creature slammed into it repeatedly, trying to break the bottom apart. Sam watched Dean wince as every jarring motion bounded back through his wound.
If the crates fell away…
"Sonuvabitch," Dean growled. "What, is it humping the damn thing?"
Sam hooked his elbow around the coarse ropes, shirking the rifle from his shoulder and letting it fall to the ground. The creature stopped, having felt something fall and started back toward where Sam was hanging. Sam waited as it sniffed the rifle and then licked the metal, its long tongue sliding up and down the barrel, coating it in saliva before it got a taste of tobacco residue and reared back, disappearing once again beneath the sand's surface.
"Dean…" Sam grunted, repositioning himself so he could plant both feet onto the bureau and let himself down. "Hold on, all right? I'm gonna try to…"
There was a low groaning sound building in the structure around them and Sam's eyes shot up to the beams holding their weight. The wood splintered above where Dean was, the beam starting to buckle. Sam watched Dean's eyes go wide before the whole beam collapsed, the hooks breaking loose, and his brother hit the ground in a disjointed heap of limbs and rope, broken wood, and metal.
"Dean!"
Dean had curled in on himself, pushing the ropes and debris away, groaning before drawing his knee up into his chest, holding to his leg. Sam heard the gasp of pain, practically felt it as he watched Dean's eyes press shut tight enough to push out tears.
"Shit…" he heard his brother breathe.
Dean rolled onto his belly, reaching for the rifle that was just within his grasp.
"Don't move! Don't move, Dean!"
When this thing couldn't see, it felt out movement through the sand. Dean stopped, fingertips at the rifle strap, body taut, the tremors in his fingers betraying his ability to mask the difficulty of that request. Sam could hear his own blood pounding against his skull, eyes raptly bound to his brother's form. It was quiet, grinding away at Sam's already frayed nerves, and nothing was shifting beneath the sand.
"Sam…"
Dean's gaze was fastened to the shadows before him, and it was then Sam could hear the throaty rasp and gurgle of breath in the creature's throat as it practically slithered into view. Dean threw himself forward, tearing the rifle back toward him. The aigamuxa felt Dean move, and shot out its disgusting length of tongue toward him.
Sam slammed his back against the wall, feet planted at the edge of the bureau, and toppled it onto the freak beneath him. The aigamuxa screamed, the thud of heavy wood against flesh and bone cracked through Sam's ears with great satisfaction. Jumping down onto the back of the bureau, Sam didn't wait to see if it was coming back. He was down beside Dean, removing the rest of the net threatening to entangle him.
"Can we kill the damn graboid already?" Dean wheezed.
"Come on, Dean," Sam breathed, hooking an arm under his brother's, guiding him to his feet.
Dean's cry, the buckle of his leg, the way he started to fall; Sam thought he'd pushed himself too far, that the wound couldn't take any more abuse, the leg wouldn't sustain his weight. But when Dean was ripped out of the arm lock they had, Sam twisted around as fast as he could, realization stabbing through him with fresh fear and panic, fingers clawing at Dean's forearm, locking around his wrist as they were pulled to the ground.
The thing had its tongue wrapped around Dean's calf, a dark stain—Dean's blood—
spreading along his pant leg as it wrenched and twisted the skin apart beneath his jeans. Sam took hold of Dean's arm with his other hand and tried to pull him back, wincing as Dean swore, the gasp shuddered and pained, his body shaking, stretched between the two of them. Sam was losing his grip…
No. Come on, Dean. Hold on!
The aigamuxa, tiring of the game of tug and war, disappeared, the sands around it and Dean falling away, swallowing Dean's legs.
"Shit…Shit!" Dean ground out, face contorting in pain as he slid deeper into the ground. His own vice grip on Sam's arm was starting to slide along sweat-slick sand.
"Dean! No, no, no."
"Knife!"
"What?" Sam blinked. "I can't let go!"
Dean growled as he was pulled further down, the sand now gathered around his waist. "KNIFE!"
"No!"
"Now, Sam!"
Sam sacrificed one hand, taking the combat knife from his boot, and gave it to his brother, Dean's fingers closing around the hilt just before there was a forceful jerk and Dean was ripped from his sight.
"Dean!"
Sam launched himself at the spot where Dean had been not seconds before, digging through the sand, shoveling handfuls aside, winded before he'd begun to even make a dent, fingers shredded.
No. NonononoNO!
"You can't have him, you son of a bitch! Give him back!"
Sam's bloody fingers returned with nothing, the sand sliding back into the recess he'd just cleared away, causing him to growl out his frustration, tears blurring his eyes. He could blow up their damn television set, but he couldn't defeat sand. The sand caved downward, and Sam startled back, hand going for the rifle behind him.
He'd kill it for taking Dean. He'd tear it apart!
When Dean's hand burst from the ground, Sam grabbed hold, the aigamuxa forgotten as his brother's fingers tightened around his, desperate. Sam pulled, scrambling away from the sinkhole, digging his heels in to get leverage. Dean surfaced, too eager for air, choking on the sand that he inhaled as Sam grabbed his jacket and hauled him the rest of the way out of the ground.
Dean groaned as Sam dragged him up onto the bureau, turning him on his side so he could catch his breath, brushing the sand from his brother's face.
"Dean?"
"Lost…the knife…" he gasped.
Who cares about the knife, Dean?!
"It…lost an eye…"
Sam huffed his amazement at his brother's luck. His eyes were drawn to Dean's leg, to the blood-saturated cloth.
"God…Dean…"
Dean looked like he was about to give Sam the same bullshit about how it was fine when the bureau shifted, the ground rising up beneath it.
"This thing is really starting to piss me off," Dean seethed, voice rough, raw.
Sam hauled up the rifle and Dean rolled onto his back, trying to take deep, controlled breaths.
"Damn thing stays beneath the surface, I can't get a shot…" Sam said.
"Well then… this is going to suck."
"What?" Sam asked as Dean rolled back onto his side.
"Don't cash that rain check, Sammy." Dean grunted, sitting up.
"Wait. What? Why?!"
Dean pushed up from the bureau before Sam could grab him, limping forward into the closest thing to a run he could manage. The slow drag of his injured leg almost caused him to get tangled up on his own feet, and Sam's breath caught as his leg bowed twice, threatening to take him down again.
Dean! You stupid—
The aigamuxa surfaced, and Sam took aim, heart hammering a bruised percussion in his chest. He could hit it or he could hit Dean, the stupid ass. He could miss both and watch the creature tear apart his brother. Whatever he ended up doing, he knew he only had the breadth of the compression of the trigger and the only certainty was death if he hesitated.
The creature leapt for Dean and Sam took the shot, the bullet entering the base of the skull just before it slammed into Dean, taking them both down. Sam lowered the rifle; unable to believe he'd been that accurate, any awe replaced with lung-shriveling fear as both Dean and the aigamuxa lay still, unmoving.
"Dean!" Sam pushed into a sprint getting to his brother's side just the aigamuxa was shoved away into an awkward heap. He helped Dean get the rest of it off of him, both staring at the hole where its face was supposed to be, Dean shuddering in Sam's hold.
"Damn…" Dean swallowed and looked up at Sam. It had been close. Too close. And Sam wanted to kill Dean for the stunt.
"Dean…what the hell was that?!
The aigamuxa's remaining eye rolled up into the foot as the last of its life poured from its skull, and Dean collapse back against Sam in exhaustion.
"I figured…maybe…that would get rid of it," Dean coughed.
"Maybe? Maybe?! What if you were wrong? What if—"
"Huh?" Dean grinned tiredly. "Honestly…that thought hadn't occurred to me."
Dean embraced the winds off the lake water, closing his eyes as they brushed over the fever in his cheeks, cooling the sweat along his brow. There was a storm coming in, he could smell sweet tang of the rain, and every few minutes he could see the flicker of light race along the clouds out over the water, the low rumble of thunder coming into shore on the back of the waves.
The aigamuxa's remains had burned to ash long ago, the driftwood pyre providing some warmth against the cold. Sam was lying beside Dean, shoulder propped up against a log, gaze lost to some middle distance. Dean watched him shiver, wiping his nose on the back of his hoodie sleeve, before drawing his knees back into his chest.
"Wish we had some beer and marshmallows," Dean commented, shifting to find a comfortable patch of sand for his leg. The makeshift flannel bandage was keeping the gash closed; the wound tied it off as best as he could hope for now. He'd have to clean it again, sew it back up…
"Wish I had a pillow…" Sam sighed, turning fever-fatigued eyes Dean's way. "You okay, Dean?"
He nodded taking a deep breath. "Bagged ourselves an aigamuxa...how many other hunters can put that on their resume." Sam's look reminded him that wasn't what he was talking about. "Just need some patching up…nothing serious." He shook his head, brushing away the sand still stuck in his hair. "I'm gonna be pulling sand from places I'd rather not think about for weeks…"
"You don't look so good," Sam noted, gaze returning to the fire.
He wasn't about to admit it. He felt it though. It was too hot next to the fire, but he was starting to get cold where he was sitting. The dull ache in his leg had become a shooting pain, and he felt every muscle when he moved.
"Neither do you, Sam. Come on, we'll get you back." They needed to get out of there before the storm blew in anyway, that or they were going to need to take shelter.
"Hey, Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think they'll try something like Cutter's Landing again?"
It always returned to that. But Dean couldn't blame Sam. It had shaken them both up a little more than either of them were ready to confess. It was the reason Dean had started running in the first place.
Dean shrugged, a bead of sweat falling from his jaw onto his hands. He destroyed the rest with a swipe of his sleeve. "If they try anything else to get to you, they're going to have to get through me. Not worried though…"
"Why's that?" Sam asked, absently.
"I get the feeling I'm the guy they sent to Hell because I was a pain in the ass. They needed me out of their hair," Dean half-joked. "Didn't exactly work out the way they planned."
He watched Sam curl up tighter, eyes cast down into the sand he was nudging with his toe.
Did I say something wrong?
It was hard to read Sam anymore. He was shutting him out, and Dean was continually striking out. Sam would ask him these questions, which came from God knew where, and Dean felt like if he didn't have the right answer, Sam took one step back.
Eyes back to the fire, Dean watched the flames snap and twist. They curled around one another, drawing him in, whispering to him. They grew hotter, the whispers intensifying, and suddenly it felt like the fire was inside of him, the voices in his head.
Dean.
"Dean?"
Dean jerked back a little, pressing his fingers against his eyes until the heat and light burned there faded to black.
"Where did you go?" Sam asked.
"I've been right here, dude…"
What the hell was that?
Sam shook his head, concern laced through the creases in his brow. "You spaced on me, man. Where did you go?"
Dean ticked up a shoulder. "Tired. And so are you. We've got a lot of beach to cover, so how about we get going?"
Getting to his feet was a feat, and staying on them even more of one. He hadn't taken more than a few steps toward their gear when he felt his blood flash hot through his veins. The ground tipped violently, all strength leaving his legs like paper, and they folded just as easily. All sound grayed out to a single monotone, the whine in his ears growing while his vision tunneled to black.
When the fire in his blood went cold, returning his sight, though blurred and shaky, he found he was on his back, head in Sam's lap, panic written in his brother's eyes. A few drops of rain landed on his face, and he flinched at how cold they felt as they slid along his forehead and nose, stuck to his lashes.
"Who moved the ground?" he croaked.
"Dean…you're not okay." Sam's voice was begging the opposite.
No. No he wasn't. But he'd suffered worse. He tried to sit up, but Sam had pushed him back down, ordering him not to move. For a moment he was unaware of his surroundings, head clouded, dead to the rain pelting his flesh, to the soft bed of sand beneath him, to the way his skin shivered to keep him warm. At the back oh his mind he was aware of Sam unwrapping the wound, of what he would find there, the red, angry flesh, the puckering of infection, the product of his reasoning that it would get better, that they couldn't go to a hospital, that he could wait through it healing on its own…just keep it clean, bandaged, tight…
Take care of Sam. Sam was sick. Sam needed him to be there…
Because he wasn't before.
I wasn't going to wake up…
"You stubborn asshole!" Sam cried, his voice like a gunshot through Dean's numbing senses. Sam was by his side now, taking hold of his shirt, fisting his hands in the fabric as they shook. "You're not…you're not invincible, Dean! You think because you're back from the dead you can just…"
"Sam…"
"We don't even know how you came back, what could happen if you…if you…"
Dean took hold of Sam's shoulder, dizzy, needing to steady himself as the world tilted again around distressed eyes and wounded words. "Sammy…"
"No! Don't do this to me again. Don't go get yourself killed because of me. Don't put me first! Give a shit about yourself, Dean. They killed you to get to me!"
Dean blinked back surprise, lashes collecting more rain as it fell harder against them, bringing back sensation to his heated flesh.
Dean had made the deal. He'd been the one to choose his life for Sam's. Where in that equation did Sam see it had been planned out? That the demons had wanted his death to get to Sam?
"How do you—?" He managed, denying it even as he started to ask.
No. It was my choice. Mine, Sam.
"I just…I just know. All right. I just…" He dropped his head, hands slacking. "No. You died and…" The ferocity leeched from Sam's voice, leaving it winded and meek. "They got exactly what they wanted…"
There was a brokenness there, a burden of guilt that Dean never wanted Sam to carry. It wasn't his to carry…
"I'm sorry, Sammy. I'm sorry…"
"Promise me you'll stop this…" Sam begged, and Dean couldn't tell anymore if it was rain or tears dropping from Sam's chin onto his face.
Dean took hold of his brother's shirt, making him meet his gaze. "I'm sorry."
Because he hadn't been there. Because he'd made this worse. Because he was a stubborn ass and he knew it. Because when it came to Sam and putting anything before him…
He couldn't make that promise.