Sorry for the short delay in posting. This was a hard chapter to write, and I should probably warn that some of the images are rather disturbing, but necessary to the storyline. Although this is definitely not a death fic, this chapter does hint at character deaths. Thanks for reading and for all the great responses. Hugs, Ember
Chapter Ten
It was a stupid bet. A stupid ten dollar bet. One I couldn't afford to lose and Jimmy Gaffery knew it. See who could climb to the top of the old maple tree the fastest. Simple enough, and I really wanted – no scratch that – I needed to win. Dad had been gone for well over two weeks, and we were out of money and really low on food. I knew Dean had been going without so I could eat, and I just couldn't stomach the sight of him pretending not to be hungry any longer.
For the record I did win, but I never saw a dime of Jimmy's money. I got to the top of that damn tree, and I'll admit I was kinda celebrating my victory . . . I think I even broke out singing 'We are the Champions' in a croaking voice so hideous it would have made Freddie Mercury shudder, but hell, I was only nine at the time and really didn't give a rat's ass what anyone thought. I'd won, and the look on Jimmy's face at that moment was worth a little embarrassment on my part – well, that is until the branch I was standing on snapped under my weight.
Long story short, I fell out of the tree and broke my arm. Jimmy took off and left me there, and I never did see him again after that day. We had to move in a real hurry after that night.
Dean took me to the hospital, and within a few hours my dad showed up to take us both home. My dad was real good about getting around the Social Services people, and we probably could have stayed so I could have finished out the year in Belmont Elementary School if it hadn't been for that stupid tree.
When we got back from the hospital, Dean grabbed an ax and without a word headed out to the side lot near our rented home. I followed and watched in silence as he struck blow after blow against the Maple I'd fallen from. By the last few swings of the ax his hands were blistered and bloodied, but he didn't stop until the tree toppled . . . landing on the roof of the house next door. Needless to say, we were packed inside of an hour and out the door before the neighbors got home, and the police got involved.
Later that night as we lay in our beds at some cheap motel room, I asked him why he did it, and I'll never forget his reply for as long as I live – or not live as the case may be.
You're my little brother, Sammy, and I don't care if it's a monster or some damn tree, I won't let anything hurt you and get away with it. Cause that's what big brother's do."
As tears filled my eyes, I took another long pull on the bottle of whiskey. Although I had drank over half the bottle, I wasn't even slightly drunk. God, I wish I was because I could hear Dean's voice echoing throughout the room as if he were standing right here with me.
Do you remember asking me why I cut that damn tree down, lil' brother, and what I told you?
I knew it was my mind playing tricks on me. There was no way in hell he would be recalling the same memory as me, but his voice sounded so real that for a split second I actually thought I saw him pacing back and forth in front of me. I couldn't answer. I wanted to – God, how I wanted to, but once I stepped over that edge, my mind would be gone. I'd go crazy. Hell, maybe I already am.
Come on, Sammy, you know the reason. Just say it – Just say it so I can hear your voice again. His voice called out to me once more, and I swear I could see him searching the room in desperation to find me.
It took only another moment for me to give in, and respond to him. "You said you didn't care if it was a monster or some damn tree, you wouldn't let anything hurt me and get away with it cause that's what big brother's do," I shouted, heaving the bottle at the wall. "So where are you, Dean? I need you so you better damn well keep your promise."
I'm right here, Sammy," came his voice again after a brief pause. I leapt from the couch, and even though I knew he wasn't there, I searched the entire house for him. You know damn well I'd never leave you, lil' brother. I'm gonna find you . . . you hear me, Sammy? Whatever it takes, I'm gonna find you!
With my head dropping forward, I pressed my eyes closed, and drew in several deep breaths. I needed to pull myself together. Dean wasn't here. No one was here. But my heart hurt so badly with the need to believe Dean would find me that I couldn't help shouting back, "I'm gonna hold you to that, Dean!"
"Do you really think he's gonna come for you, Sam?" came a voice from behind me, and startled by the familiar sound of it, I jumped, and then swung to face him.
My gut clenched, and I stared at him in disbelief as every memory came rushing back to me. The car accident. Being thrown in the back of an SUV. The old house with a leaky roof and the rooms that smelled of strong incense and stale cigarettes. He was the reason why I was dead. He'd been the one who spoke to the man with silver eyes – Jayson. The Shifter. They'd killed me, and the Shifter had taken my place.
"Dean doesn't know how to quit, so you can bet your ass he'll find me." I searched my mind, and came up with a name for the man who had stolen my life. "An' you know what, Devin, I sure as hell won't let him quit, so it's really only a matter of time before we come hunting you down."
"You remembered my name," he said with an unconcerned smile.
"I remember everything – the house, how long it took to get there, all those little details that'll make it damn easy to find you."
"Why not just kill me right now, if you're so hellbent on it?" he asked with a quirk of his brow. Within a blink of an eye he was at my side. Leaning in, he whispered in my ear, "And to what end would it serve, Sam?" He pulled back slightly and looked me in the eyes. "Hasn't your father's foolish quest for revenge taught you anything?"
"You don't know a damn thing about me or my father," I snarled, hands balling into tight fists as I trembled with scarcely controlled rage.
"Oh, that's where you're wrong," he chuckled. "I know all about you, your father – I know what your brother is going to do, and also know how it will twist in your gut until you're nothing more than the monsters you hunt."
I'm not even gonna pretend I had a clue what he was talking about. "So you killed me before that could happen?"
"Why would I want to see you dead, Sam?"
Okay, so about now is when I should be opening up a can of Winchester whoop-ass on him, but my arms refused to budge from my sides, and my legs weren't all that eager to move either. At first I'd believed it was more of his hoodoo magic that kept me glued to my spot, but the squirming feeling in my gut warned me loud and clear that he was something well beyond a hoodoo priest. My best guess – some sort of demon. But which one? And if he didn't want to kill me, what did he want?
"So I'm not dead?" I had to ask, and held my breath waiting for the response.
His eyes narrowed on me as if contemplating the thought of murdering me right then and there, and then he shook his head. "No, that would only serve to speed up the course of events."
"What events?"
"Events that once begun can not be undone."
Ever get the feeling like you're the only stupid one in the room, and everything is going way over your head? Well, multiply that feeling by a hundred and that's exactly how I felt at the moment. "What do you want from me?"
"I want you to die, Sam, and I want you to stay dead – but your brother won't let that happen. Not when you're wrapped so firmly around his brain."
"Well, seeing as I don't want to die, I guess I'm pretty damn lucky I have Dean as brother."
"Not lucky, Sam." With a twirl of his wrist, a crystal goblet appeared in his hand, and my stomach flip-flopped at the sight of the deep crimson liquid inside the glass. He held the goblet to his lips, smiled at me, and then downed a healthy portion of what could only be blood. The heat rushed from my face as thick bile rose in my throat, and I hastily swallowed it back down. "Would you like a taste," he held out the glass to me, and swallowing hard again, I shook my head. "Oh, that's right, you haven't acquired a fondness for it . . . yet."
"I'm never gonna drink blood."
"What are you talking about, Sam, it's only wine." He smiled as I looked at the glass again and my eyes widened considerably as I saw a blush pink wine had replaced the crimson liquid.
Either my eyes were playing tricks on me or he was playing with me, and my money was bet on the latter of the two."There was blood in that glass. I saw it."
"Just like you saw Bobby here?" He smoothly countered with a gloating grin. "Or like you keep hearing Dean's voice even though we both know it definitely not possible?"
"You're trying to make me think I'm crazy, but it's not gonna work."
"No, I'm trying to show you how badly this will all end for you and your brother if you refuse to let each other go. But I guess there's really only one way to do that properly." With a heavy sigh, he twirled his wrist again, and in a cloud of hazy smoke, Dean appeared.
"Sammy!" Dean made a move toward me, but with another flick of Devin's wrist, he was thrown backward into the wall and pinned there by an unseen force.
"Let him go, you sonuvabitch!" Muscles straining, I struggled to break free of his hold on me, to no avail.
"Relax, Sam." Devin raised a hand and as he slowly lowered it my legs gave out on me and I dropped to my knees in front of him. "You wanted to see your brother alive and in the flesh, and there he is." He splayed out an arm to gesture to Dean. "Brothers united once more – enjoy it while it lasts." And with that warning still hanging heavily in the air, he disappeared, Dean tumbled to the ground, and I face planted into the ground.
"Sam!" Dean scrambled to his feet, rushed to me, and hauled me up off the ground. Wrapping his arms around me, his hands fisted into my shirt as he pulled me closer. It was such a Deanlike gesture, and it felt so damn real, I gave in to the unreasonable hope that he was real and not another figment of my imagination and hugged him back. He pulled away and gripped hold of the front of my shirt with both hands, almost as if he were afraid to let go in fear I would disappear. He looked me over, and then cursed under his breath as he touched his fingertips to my forehead, pulling them away to reveal blood. "Let's get you fixed up, then we'll figure a way to get you out of this place."
"It doesn't hurt, Dean, so let's just get the hell out of here while that thing is gone."
"That's the problem, little brother. It should hurt like hell, but you're acting like you don't feel a thing," Dean said after a moment's hesitation as he looked me over again with a more critical eye. "Your head's bleeding like crazy, your arm's busted up pretty bad," he gripped hold of the hem of my t-shirt, and pulling it up, he pointed to my abdomen and ribcage, "and that's more than just a few bruised ribs."
My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach."So what are you trying to say, Dean . . . that I'm dead?" If he believed I was dead, then maybe I was, and if so how could he possibly hope to get me out of this place? "I'm not dead."
"I never said you were, Sammy," Dean hastily replied, but I could see the doubt shine through in his eyes that he tried so desperately hard to hide. "I'm just saying that what you're not feeling right now, is gonna hurt like a sonuvabitch when we get back to Bobby's. So we need to take care of whatever I can fix right now or you might not make it – and since I don't plan on letting that happen, you're gonna sit down, shut up, and let me take care of those damn injuries. Got me, little brother?"
Dean was in full-on big brother protective mode, and for as pointless as it seemed to me, it brought a huge stupid goofy grin to my face. I'd been so afraid I'd never see him again that it was the only pain I felt. It had filled me so completely it made it almost impossible to breathe let alone think of anything else.
"So how'd you get here?" I asked, taking a seat on the couch as I watched him head toward the bathroom to get the first aid kit.
"Astral projection," he called out after a lengthy pause, and I could just imagine him rolling his eyes at how hokey it sounded.
"Seriously?" I chuckled. "How'd you manage to sit still long enough to actually project yourself here?"
"I was sitting in the Impala," he said as he came out of the bathroom with supplies in hand, and made his way back to where I was seated.
At the sight of his face blushing pink in embarrassment, I let out a laugh. "Dude, only you would try astral projecting yourself from a car."
"It worked, Sammy, so shut the hell up about it."
Dean fell silent as he worked to stitch the wound on my forehead, and I'd decided right then and there that I hated the echoing sounds of silence between us. His eyes said so much – they always spoke his true feelings, but this time there was so much pain in their pale green depths that I hadn't seen before my car accident. It was if he had lost a part of himself – that spark of light that gave him direction and purpose in our chaotic lives.
"Dean, what's wrong?" I asked to break the unbearable quiet between us, and heard him heave a weary sigh.
"What's wrong?" he uttered incredulously, and with a lift of his brow, he splayed out a hand to gesture around the room. "This is all wrong. You trapped here. The Shifter. That hoodoo freak who keeps getting inside my head and makes me see and feel things I don't wanna see and feel. It's all so screwed up, Sammy, and the worst part is I don't know how to . . . ." His voice trailed off, but he didn't really need to finish his line of thought as I already knew what he was going to say.
"We'll figure it out." Although I said the words with as much conviction as I could muster under the circumstances, we both knew there was a real good possibility there was no way out of this situation.
Pushing to his feet, Dean raked a hand through his hair as he set to pacing. "I'm not gonna let you die, Sammy. I don't care what it takes, you're coming back with me."
"What about Bobby?"
Dean turned on his spot to look at me. "What about him?"
"You can't leave him to deal with that Shifter himself."
"No, what I can't do is leave you here," he argued, voice raising as he closed the distance between us. "It's my job to protect you, Sammy – it's the one thing dad entrusted me to do, so leaving you here dead," his lips curled as he shook his head, "it definitely isn't gonna happen."
I opened my mouth to argue, but snapped it shut as the ground beneath our feet began to tremble and quake. A loud crack resounded above my head, and I glanced up in time to see the ceiling begin to buckle.
"Sam!" Dean gripped hold of my arm, hauled me to my feet and dragged me out the front door a split second before the roof caved in.
"And so brings us to the final act in the unfolding Winchester drama," came Devin's voice from behind, and I swung around to find him leaning casually against the crumbling wall. Taking a long drag off a cigarette, he flicked his ashes on the ground, and then smiled. "I hope you don't mind I included Sam in this, Dean, but I thought he might enjoy this last part of the story as he does play a key role."
He went on to say more, but neither of us were listening any longer. Our eyes and minds were locked solely on the immeasurable destruction and utter chaos set out before us. Fiery ash rained from above and danced along the ground, burning everything to blackened soot in its swirling cyclonic wake. Molten heaps of what were once cars and trucks, dripped steel blood into a flowing river of crimson. Torn, mutilated bodies lay strewn in what was once Bobby's salvage yard, and countless more piled on top of each other formed a wall to replace what was once his fence.
"They jokingly refer to this place as sort of a shrine," Devin said, and no longer able to stand the sight of the hellish landscape before me, my eyes were drawn back to him. "And I'll show you why." With a twist of his finger, the three of us were transported outside the wall of bodies. All along the outer flanks of the human wall, steel rods pierced through another river of blood, and impaled on each and every one of them with spikes rammed up through their battered skulls were bodies.
"Hunters," he said in an almost reverent manner, "and this," he waved a hand at the long line stretched outward from both sides of us, "is mockingly called the last line of defense of a falling civilization."
"He's messing with our minds, Sam," Dean shouted above the blistering wind, "This isn't real."
I wanted to believe him – God, how I wanted to believe him, but my gut and the bile rising into my throat to make a hasty exit, knew what I was seeing was real. Knees buckling, I dropped to the ground, and doubled over as I heaved up the contents of my stomach. Stomach slightly settled, I glanced through shaggy bangs and noticed a broken wheel of a wheelchair peeking up through the murky crimson river. My head fell back onto my shoulders, and I looked into the sightless eyes of Bobby. His face so bloated, charred and torn, I hadn't even realized it was him at first, but those unseeing eyes – those were his eyes.
"B-Bobby!" I leapt to my feet, but before I could even think to make a move toward the older hunter, Dean rushed past me, nearly knocking me off my feet again. But my brother's thoughts and determined movements through the knee deep blood weren't on Bobby. No, his sights were set firmly on another man nestled between what looked to be a young blond haired girl with her gut torn open, and an older auburn haired woman.
"Sam, help me!" came Dean's anguished cry as he reached the post, and wrapped his arms around the dead man's legs, desperately trying to lift him off the steel rod.