Contradictions

Chapter Six

"Sam!"

Sam Winchester heard Bobby Singer's warning shout but even as he heard it he was already moving to throw his body to the side before rolling to his feet with his Taurus raised and aimed as soon as whatever lunged at him landed on the floor after missing her strike at him.

The hunter wasn't really sure what he expected this hybrid to look like now after nearly 19 years had passed but what he saw when she landed in a hunched crouch, claws from her hands and feet digging into the dirt while her green scaled face had teeth and fangs bared to lunge at his throat again while also showing fury that her prey had actually moved away.

"I will kill you!" she screamed, starting to jump only to fall back with a shriek as his weapon fired and the bullet supplied by Bobby struck her in the upper chest instead of the heart where he'd been aiming.

"You can try but I've gotten 16 more rounds and another few magazines for this thing," Sam replied, struggling not to look at the alcove where Dean's weak, choked voice had come from last but he knew if he looked now that she'd lunge at him.

That was when the hunter was reminded that he hadn't come here alone as Bobby unleashed two more rounds into the hybrid woman's back which caused her to falter forward before whirling to hiss and spit at the older hunter.

"Sam! Go for your brother! I'll keep little Miss Mean and Green busy!" Bobby told him, backing away in the hopes that he could keep the creature focused on him and off the boys. "Go!"

Sam debated for only a second before nodding and bolting for that alcove with the hopes that Bobby would be able to stay away from those claws or the monster's speed while he hopefully found his brother alive and…

Running into what normally would have looked like an everyday teenager's bedroom if it hadn't been in a cave underground and belonged to some nightmare mutant half reptile girl, Sam's eyes moved quickly to the bed where his stomach lurched at the amount of blood he saw on the pink covers. He chose to ignore the sex toys he also saw while spinning around and feeling panic start to overwhelm him at not immediately seeing his brother.

He was sure this was where his brother's voice had come from, but yet couldn't see… then he looked towards a back corner and froze before bolting forward. "Dean!" Sam shouted after seeing what looked like some type of moving, almost blob or plasma-like creature with green fluid moving inside it, moving and trapping his brother.

The half lizard girl had been the weirdest thing Sam thought he'd see or deal with up until right this second as he watched with horror as her cocoon seemed to be folding itself around his brother.

"Dean! Hang on!" Sam went to push his hand into the thing only to scowl when it seemed too thick for that. "Goddamn it!" he cursed, hearing Bobby's shotgun going off multiple times and knowing his time to free Dean was limited if it wasn't already too late.

Grabbing for the machete he'd brought along in case he got the chance to cut the creature's head off, Sam strained to see how deep Dean was or how deep he'd have to cut when he got a look at how lifeless his brother looked and just took a chance and thrust the tip of the machete blade into the top of the cocoon.

The second he felt it begin to give and he saw green fluid start to seep from the slit, Sam gave a hefty pull of the blade to cut a large gap in it. Then he was shoving both hands into the warm, slimy fluid until he felt them finally touch…

"Dean! Dean! C'mon, Dean, come outta there," Sam knew he might be babbling but by this point he didn't care as he dragged his brother's lifeless looking body out of the damn thing and laid him onto the cold, bedrock floor to quickly cut the ropes tying Dean before feeling for a pulse in his neck.

Sam worked hard to ignore the obvious bruises on his body, deep gashes, cuts, and bites on his brother's naked body while willing for there to be a pulse in the side of his neck that wasn't covered in dried blood from the severe bite wound.

"Dean?" Sam called, head looking up as more shotgun blasts were heard and he also heard Bobby shouting for him to speed it up a little. He was almost afraid there wasn't anything to speed up when finally, after moving his fingers, he felt a weak pulse. Then he laid his hand over where he knew his brother's heart was and held his breath until he felt it beat under his hand.

Releasing the breath he'd been holding, Sam quickly grabbed the bag he'd brought with him to pull out a blanket he'd rolled up since he refused to allow anything in this damn place to touch his brother.

"Dean? Dean? Hey, come on. I need you to open your eyes a little for me," Sam spoke, raising his voice in the hopes that as he quickly worked to wrap Dean in the blanket for both warmth and to ward off any further shock that it also might help his brother to stir enough so he'd know he was safe and that Sam would be reassured that he hadn't been too late after all. "It's okay, Dean. It's Sam. I've got you and I promise, I swear this time I will not lose you again," he muttered mostly to himself, seeing how deep the bite on Dean's neck was as well as the needle tracks on his arms and silently feared that between the drugs, mixed with any possible venom that his brother had slipped too deep and might be in a coma.

Remembering Bobby had packed antivenom syringes even though they didn't know if they'd work on whatever type of venom this creature might have, Sam reached for one to quickly inject it into Dean's thigh muscle as Bobby had told him to do if he used it before they could hook up an IV for the stuff if they needed to.

"Sam! Get your ass out here!" Bobby shouted, almost down his last shotgun round and knew he'd need time to reload but would have to have Sam out here to keep the damn thing's attention while he did.

Sam didn't want to leave Dean but he knew he had to help Bobby too so with a sigh he reached to lift one of Dean's cold, limp hands into his to give it a quick, reassuring squeeze just in case his brother might be drugged but still be alert since he suspected that damn old man would be cruel enough to do just that.

"Hey. I have to go help Bobby a minute with that bitch. Then I'll be back and I'll get you the hell out of here," he told his brother while starting to push to his feet but stopped the second he felt weak fingers move as if struggling to close around his. "Dean?" Sam shot a look back down and almost went back to his knees with a sob of relief at the sight of long lashes fluttering before he finally saw a hint of glassy green as Dean's eyes slowly opened to slits. "Dean? Can you hear me?"

It had been the shaky, fearful voice of his little brother speaking near him once he'd gotten free of that damn cocoon thing that had started to bring Dean back around after he thought he'd passed out from trying to hold his breath so that green fluid didn't invade his mouth and lungs as it covered him fully and the cocoon sealed itself.

The fluid had burned his skin at first, and when it stopped the hunter feared whatever was in it had finished numbing and paralyzing him again. Dean could hear Sam's voice distantly but couldn't find the strength to fight to free himself and had just started to lose full consciousness when he felt hands suddenly grabbing him to pull him free.

He felt numb and more than a little disconnected from his own body which freaked Dean out if he was honest but at that second as he forced his eyes to open he looked up to see his brother kneeling beside him and as far as Dean was concerned that was the best sight he'd had since he opened his eyes in a warehouse in Joliet after the Djinn mess.

Now that he was out of that thing, Dean could hear the shotgun blasts as well as Bobby shouting curses about goddamn lizard skin bitches rotting in hell along with her sick as fuck God playing daddy.

"S… Sammy," he mumbled, still barely able to form words past a throat that didn't want to work and a tongue that felt thick enough to choke him when he saw Sam inject another needle of anti-venom into his other thigh before his brother dug out a pair of jeans from that duffel to help him slide on just so he wouldn't be naked. "H-Hard to… move. Drugged."

Sam nodded shakily after pulling a flannel shirt onto his brother, grabbing the duffel to throw the strap over his shoulder while reaching for Dean's one arm to slide it over his shoulders before standing and helping to support his brother while also trying to keep the blanket wrapped around him. "I know. I figured he drugged you for her. We'll cope with that once we get you out of this damn cave and back to the car or back to a motel in some other goddamn state," he looked down to see his brother struggling to move his fingers to at least hold the blanket closed. "I'm getting you out of here."

Dean didn't have a problem with that. He was more than ready to never see the inside of a cave again for a long time. He just wasn't sure how easy it would be when he and Sam stepped from the alcove to see Bobby still keeping Loralei at bay with his machete but could tell the older hunter was tiring. "Sam…"

"Bobby! Take Dean!" Sam shouted, raising and firing his Taurus at the creature that had abused and hurt his brother this badly. "I'll cover you until you get him out of the cave!"

Bobby had been growling under his breath about crazy mad scientists and stupid lizard people as well as stubborn Winchesters going to be the death of him when he suddenly heard that order and frowned at the same time as Dean did. "Sam?"

The hybrid woman had looked and hissed when she saw Sam supporting Dean and realized he planned to take him. "No! I said you will not… ugh!" she shrieked again when this time his round did hit her heart only it merely knocked her down, stunned.

"She's got some God almighty strong healing ability or something," Bobby told Sam as he quickly moved towards the boys. He took in how sickly pale and injured Dean looked, to the hard set of Sam's jaw to understand why the younger boy had said what he had. "You can't take her on alone," he warned.

"Get Dean out. Then you can reload and come back in. Something we do has to be enough to kill her," Sam replied, carefully easing Dean's trembling arm off his shoulder and around Bobby's even while firing another round towards the half reptilian creature.

"Sammy, don't," Dean gritted, surprised to feel pain but guessing he would be feeling a lot of that once all those drugs wore off. He felt Sam's hand squeeze his shoulder before stepping away from him and Bobby to face a now furious Loralei. "Sam!"

"Don't you go trying to be a damn hero, boy!" Bobby snapped at him before starting to move with Dean towards the start of the tunnel exit. "This thing climbs a bit so if you need to stop or rest or…"

"Leave… me," Dean gasped, shaking his head when a sudden burst of dizziness hit him. "Go back, Bobby. You have to help him. Sam… Sam can't take her out himself."

"Hell, Dean, I don't think all three of us can take her out with the way she seems to heal!" Bobby shot back in frustration, leaning Dean against the wall right by the door to quickly reload his shotgun. "These damn bullets are coated with enough snake, rat, other poisons that it should have taken her out with a shot to the heart but I cut her damn hand off with the machete and she grew it back!"

"Let me sit here. Go help him," Dean repeated, forcing his sluggish arms to pull the duffel Sam had also passed to Bobby closer to him while Bobby stayed between him and where Sam seemed to be rapidly losing ground.

Blinking his still blurry eyes, the hunter gritted his teeth in pain and frustration. "Bobby… did you happen to make any of those… those coated rounds for my .45?" Dean asked, refusing to lose consciousness again when he heard his words slur at the same time as he felt his weak, tingling fingers close around a familiar item in the duffel.

"I didn't know whose gun Sam had or what he'd be using or what might work so I coated a bunch of different types of bullets with that shit!" Bobby told him at the same time as he fired into the ground to keep Loralei from slashing Sam's face after he'd lost his footing once and got off balance. "I should have brought some goddamn C-4 and blew this cave down around her."

"She'd probably still crawl out," Sam muttered, avoiding another slash while also firing his last round and swearing under his breath. "Damn it! Bobby! Get Dean…ugh!" he grunted when he felt a solid weight hit him mid-chest, knocking him down to hard ground to both knock the wind out of him and crack the back of his skull against solid bedrock.

Loralei was fast to follow her attack to quickly use her body to pin the hunter to the ground before he could get up, reload, or reach for his machete. "You thought you could come here and take my mate away from me, boy. You've failed," she sneered, raising her claws to rip them across Sam's throat. "I'm fast. I can catch up to that old man and kill him before bringing my toy back here for more venom and more of my father's drugs. You should have been dead before but now I'll kill you and keep you for…"

"Hey!"

The sudden unexpected deep, if still hoarse, voice that snapped from barely six feet away had the hybrid whirling to see Dean standing, with Bobby's support, with his Colt held shakily in both hands.

"You will obey me or I'll kill him!" Loralei shouted furiously, starting to reach a hand back as if to grab for Sam's hair or slash his face when suddenly the cave was filled with the loud sound of the .45 firing.

"No, bitch, you won't ever touch my brother," Dean murmured, watching as she fell back away from Sam with the single round in her forehead.

Sam winced but managed to scramble to his feet. He stared down at the unmoving creature and then over at his brother. "Dean…" he reached out a quick hand to help Dean stay on his feet when he stepped closer to him. "You… are you…"

Dean looked down at the half human/half reptile woman that had haunted his nightmares as a kid and now might haunt them as an adult. He glanced over at Sam to see his brother's worry as well as too much fear, and Dean raised Colt to fire the six remaining rounds in the chambers into its forehead and face.

"Now cut its head off and burn the body," Dean said this to a wide-eyed Bobby who'd been watching this take place. "Wrap the head up in something, put it in a bag cause before we leave this town it'll be dropped off someplace else because I made a bastard a promise that I intend to keep," he added in a mutter, blinking rapidly while thinking he had reached out to clasp his weakening fingers around Sam's arm. "Sam?"

"Dean?" Sam watched his brother do this, but he was more concerned at how pale Dean was becoming again as well as how much he now seemed to be trembling when he leaned more into him. "Hey? You okay?"

"Nope. Not even close, baby brother," Dean murmured, looking over to make the three versions of Sam's face come together so he could look at him as if trying to gauge how he was. "Are you okay?" he asked softly after forcing himself to swallow and looking forward to a time when those drugs would be out of his system fully.

Sam smiled shakily but nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, Dean. I'm okay. Now," he told him, hearing Bobby's low voice telling him to get Dean up and outside while he dealt with the body.

"Okay. Then I'll be as good as I can be for now," Dean mumbled, hearing his voice drop, his words slur, and felt Sam's grip tighten on his arm. "Sammy, don't freak out but I'm crashing."

"Huh? Oh! Shit!" Sam swore as he quickly moved to support his brother as Dean's eyes rolled back in his head and barely kept him from dropping to the floor of the cave. "Bobby?"

Bobby muttered sourly about idjits but waved a hand. "He's fighting drugs and any venom left over, Sam," he told the worried hunter. "I'm shocked he worked past what he did to move like he has or actually used his Colt without knocking himself on his ass but he did that because she threatened you," he sighed, eyeing the corpse before looking back at Sam. "I'll help you get him back to the cars where you can start checking these wounds. Then I'll come back and take care of all of this like he said to," he went on.

Sam nodded grimly, still eyeing the dead hybrid as if expecting her to heal again or wake back up. "I guess we just didn't shoot her in the right spot," he sighed, but still relieved she was dead and no longer a threat to his brother.

As he and Bobby helped to move Dean out of the cave and back to where their cars were parked, Sam kept looking at his brother's face to see how tight it was and knew that while the danger was over and Dean was safe, the hardest parts were yet to come including one final piece of business that needed handled.

TBC