Chapter Five

Stars glittered overhead as the smell of smoke and charred embers dissipated in the air. They lay in the grass, panting, gulping desperately at the clean, smoke-free night breezes.

“You okay?” Sam finally asked.

“Yeah,” Dean’s voice was raspy and laced with exhaustion. “You?” Lying beside his brother on the cool grass, he turned his head. Sam was staring up into the pre-dawn sky.

“Good.” Sam answered. “Dean?”

After a brief coughing fit, the oldest Winchester sighed, “What Sam?”

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh God…” Great, what now? Dean sighed. “What?” He waited for an answer, one minute, two minutes. “What were you thinking Sam?”

“Just… you know.” He really shouldn’t but, “I told you so.”

“Huh?”

“The house,” Sam smiled. “I told you the house wasn’t eating people.”

Sam could practically hear Dean rolling his eyes, “Right.”

The sound of crickets and small nocturnal creatures filled the short silence.

“Dean?”

Dean groaned, “I swear Sam, if you--”

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” That was it. “Dude, are you high? What do you have to be sorry about?”

“I should have found you sooner.”

Dean sighed. “Shut up, Sammy.”

“Okay.” Sam was quiet for all of thirty seconds. “Dean?”

“Dude, I thought we agreed you’d shut up.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Silence hung between them. The cooling breeze whispered through the grass, carrying the still smoking wafts away from their resting place. The stillness soon became too much for Dean.

After a muttered expletive, “What?”

Sam grinned. “You reek.”

“Thanks.” The reply was slurred; sleep tugging at the edges of his rumbling tone. “You too.”

“Yeah.” Sam turned his head and watched his brother relax in the calm fresh night air. Gradually the rhythm of his breathing became slower, the breaths deeper. Sam sat up and leaned his back against the closest tree and just watched his brother sleep.

0-0-0-0

“We’re here.” The truck creaked and groaned as the engine turned off. Sitting in the driver’s seat, Sam turned and watched his brother for a minute. There wasn’t any easy way to do this. He had hoped cutting the engine would revive his brother, but no such luck. Dean slept reclined in the passenger seat of the old pick-up, his face squished up against the window.

“Dean?” Sam called just a little bit louder. Nothing.

Sam gently touched Dean’s arm, and practically had to jump back from the flurry of motion that followed.

“We’re here.”

Where? Dean felt like there was sand in his eyes and cotton in his head. The motel? How the hell? The last thing he remembered was climbing out of the cellar. And where did they suddenly get a truck from?

The passenger side door opened and Sam reached in to help pull Dean out, only to be slapped away.

“Back off.”

Sam stepped back and waited.

Dean didn’t seem to be getting ready to move any time soon. What was the rush? He only just got woken up, none too gently for that matter, and now Sam expected him to just hop up and jog into the motel.

And Sam waited…

Well, screw Sam. Dean was going to do this under his own steam, in his own time. And so what if the pavement looked miles away? His back and shoulder muscles were cramped and aching, his head still wasn’t sure which direction was up. Sam could damn well wait.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” Dean didn’t move.

And Sam waited…

“Want a hand?” Sam didn’t look impatient. There was no tapping of feet, rising of eyebrows, or pinching of forehead signalling the trademark Sammybitchface. Just Sam. Standing and waiting. Looking like a Boy Scout ready to help an old lady across the street.

Well, hell, pride definitely wasn’t getting him out of the truck any time soon, so Dean bit back his first instinct to do it himself and finally nodded. Sam reached up with his left arm and wrapped it around Dean’s back, acting as a crutch so that Dean could climb out of the truck without falling on his face. Even on the pavement things didn’t look much steadier, and he found himself leaning heavily on Sam for support.

Sam kept his arm in place, kicked the rusted door closed, and was stopped again by Dean.

“Sam, dude, where’s my car?”

"It’s still at the house. I'll get it later."

"Hell no, we’re getting it now." Dean started to pull away and head back to the truck on his own, which would have been more impressive if he hadn’t fallen to one knee after the first step. Sam’s arm still protectively wrapped around his waist was the only thing keeping him from face planting completely.

"Damn it Dean. Let’s get you inside first and I promise I'll go back for the Impala."

“But...”

“We’re a mess. It’ll probably be a week before the smell of smoke and whatever fades from the truck, you know? You really want to do that to your car? C'mon, let’s get inside."

Once inside, Dean shook Sam off him yet again and leaned against the wall. The bathroom was to the left beside the TV. “I’m gonna jump in the shower.”

Step one: Reclaim the Dean Winchester independence

“Need any,” the bathroom door slammed shut in Sam’s face, “help?”

Step two: Turn on water.

Another wave of dizziness washed over him and Dean locked his knees to keep from falling and leaned back against the door.

Shit... maybe step two should’ve been ‘make it to the fucking tub without falling over, dumb ass!’ Who knew that step two would require real, actual physical steps?

Eyes closed, he waited for the darkness to stop sparking and oozing before attempting to move again. When he opened them again and the tile didn’t do the tilt and whirl thing, he moved slowly to sit on the edge of the tub.

Part two of Step two: Turn on the water.

Dean stared at the silver knobs, then at his uncooperative hands. Just reach in and turn on the tap. Easy right?

It should have been easy. So what if his muscles were sore? It was nothing. Nothing. Compared to the claw marks, concussions, and all the other things he’d been injured with in the past. Sore muscles should be a cakewalk.

Even as he moved his arm out from his side Dean felt his hand shaking. It took a few tries, but he did get it. The water ran hot from the faucet into the tub.

Step three: Remove clothes.

In natural succession, his gaze travelled down to the buttons of his shirt. The simple act of removing the garment suddenly looked like an insurmountable obstacle. To top it off, he was either hallucinating or the damn things were glaring tauntingly back at him, daring him to move. And he wasn’t moving. Well, fuck me.

It wasn’t just because the buttons were small and his hands were shaking. It wasn’t just because his fingers were swollen and uncooperative. It was because two days worth of damp and dirt were ground into the cotton fabric making his shirt rigid and unyielding.

Dean closed his eyes and wished he could just fall asleep as he was. The steady drone of water in the tub hummed in his ears... and damn he really just wanted to get this done with so he could lie down in a soft warm bed and sleep for a week.

“Sam.” And when that came out of his mouth, even he couldn’t believe it.

Part of him hoped his brother wouldn’t hear him. No such luck. It took all of two seconds for Sam to run to his rescue.

“Buttons.” Dean said, hoping he didn’t have to explain further.

It was a toss up between humiliation or exhaustion, and right then with Sam kneeling in front of him, helping Dean take off his own shirt; humiliation was definitely getting the upper hand. It did, however, help to see that Sam apparently was having no easier of a time with the buttons than Dean had.

After a frustrated grunt, Sam gave up and simply ripped the shirt open.

Dean flinched back as a few of the tiny plastic menaces spun vengefully toward his face. Most, however, clattered nosily off the mirror and various other ceramic surfaces of the small room.

“I could have done that myself genius.” Dean grumbled. Well, no matter, it’s not like the shirt was going anywhere but in the garbage after this anyhow.

“There.” Sam stood back, and had the decency to look awkward. “That should be, uh, is there anything...”

“Get out.”

Sam nodded, spun around quickly and left. For a minute Dean just stared at the door, pissed off at anything and everything.

Pissed off that he’d been stuck in that hole of a cellar for two days.

Pissed off that his wrists were cut to hell from the barbed wire, fucking barbed wire, used to restrain his arms behind his back.

Pissed off with Sam for treating him like an invalid.

Pissed off that his brother had ended up down in the cellar with him, armed only with a stupid plan that had no guarantee of working.

Pissed off that whenever he blinked he could still see the images the spirit tortured him with. Images of Sam splayed on the floor, skin yellowish and bruised, lifeless, rotting. When he let his guard down he could still feel the intruding weight of the spirit as it pushed into his mind, stripping away his resolve, and leaving only weakness in its wake. Leaving him with the empty hollow numbness of being left behind, of being forced to stay alive even after everything he cared about was dead.

Dean kicked his clothes under the sink and stepped under the warm spray of the shower, and as the hot water warmed his body he began to shiver. Here he was, finally warm, safe, home with Sam, and it felt like he was falling apart. Why did everything always have to be so fucked up all the time? He should have fought harder. For two days he’d been helpless. For two days he’d been a victim, vulnerable, weak, and powerless. Feeling nauseous again, Dean sat down and simply let the hot water rain down on him.

Weak and powerless were not words he normally associated with himself. He was a Winchester after all. Winchesters are not victims, they are fighters. Winchesters do not give up. But Dean did, so what did that make him? Eventually the hot water cooled, signalling the end of his shower, and the sudden silence in the bathroom after the tap was turned off felt deafening. Dean pulled back the curtain and tried to summon the energy to get up.

Fresh clothes were waiting for him, a sign that Sam had at some point returned to the bathroom. The soiled clothes he’d pushed under the sink were taken away. Dean pulled on the sweats and loose t-shirt, and walked out to face Sam.

“You okay?” Sam passed Dean a bottle of water and a couple Tylenol. Dean noticed his wallet and keys on the dresser rescued from the pocket of his jeans, but there was no sign of the old clothes.

Dean nodded, still shivering. Sam sat down at the table and started going through the first aide box, setting things aside that he would need. Sam didn’t look so hot either. There were dark circles under his eyes, the filth from the cellar still clung to his clothes and skin, and his wrists were spotted with dried blood.

“You should clean up first.”

Guilt flashed across Sam’s face as he looked up and briefly met Dean’s eyes. “My hands are clean.”

That wasn’t what Dean meant.

Too tired to press, Dean sat across from his brother and held out his wrists. The lacerations were mostly superficial and only a few of them needed stitches. Sam cleaned the wounds, applied the antibiotic ointment, and wrapped them with gauze. There wasn’t much to be done other than watch for infection. Dean would need a tetanus booster in the next couple of days.

Dean yawned. “I forgot to ask where that truck came from.”

“You were kind of out of it.” Sam grinned. “There was a farm about a mile away. I did some scouting while you slept.”

Dean nodded, remembering none of it. “Anyone going to miss it?”

“I’ll take care of it after my shower.” Sam shut the bathroom door, leaving Dean alone.

There were clippings neatly tacked to the wall, illustrating the disappearances of Muriel and Christopher, and then the other two men. Dean toured the room, looking at everything, piecing together what the past two days might have been like for Sam. On Sam’s bed there was a police folder detailing the case and the interviews, with notes interspersed throughout the pages in Sam’s handwriting. Time slipped away as Dean followed the research.

“See anything interesting?” Sam asked.

Dean hadn’t even heard Sam come out of the bathroom. He closed the folder and placed it back where he found it. “Did you figure it out?”

“No.”

“And you did all this in just two days?”

“It wasn’t enough,”

“But it’s a hell of a lot Sam. It’s real thorough.”

“Right.” That tone got Dean’s attention. “Well, nothing is still nothing whether it’s thorough or not. You hungry?” Sam asked, changing the topic.

Dean stopped. There was something off here. “Wait a minute, am I missing something?”

“Only if you’re hungry.” Sam moved to the dresser and grabbed the keys. “And, since you haven’t eaten in two days, the same two days I couldn’t find a single goddamn clue in my thorough wall of nothing, how about I go get us something?”

“Sam,” Dean blinked slowly. His mind was still a little too fuzzy grasp his brother’s sudden change, but he knew something was wrong. “Wait.”

“I’ll be back in about an hour.” Sam called on the way out the door.

“Sam!” Dean tried to catch his brother’s arm, but when the room blurred and his head spun; he barely made it to the corner of the bed. Grabbing for the soft mattress he managed to take a seat.

Staring at the closed door, Dean ran a hand through his close-cropped hair and sighed. Shit. Why did things always have to be so difficult?

0-0-0-0

“Soup.”

Dean blinked sleep out of his eyes and slowly sat up. “Yea.” Rolling his sore shoulders he asked, “How long were you gone?”

“Couple of hours maybe.” Sam opened the Styrofoam container, and passed Dean a spoon. “I wasn’t sure how hungry you’d be. I thought we could start with soup and go from there.”

“How about you?”

“I had a sandwich in the car.”

“Sure you did.” If Dean had a dollar for every time Sam claimed to have already eaten, he’d never have to hustle pool again. The chicken noodle soup looked good, it smelled good. “You hotwired my car, didn’t you?”

The keys landed on the bed beside him.

“I mean while I was gone. The keys were in my pocket Sam.”

His brother only shrugged, and Dean let it pass. “So I’ve been thinking, we should call the cops and leave an anonymous tip about the cellar.” He ate some more soup, and then put the container aside.

“I already did.”

Dean should have known Sam would take care of that part of things, but there was more he needed to know. “The spirit was taking people it saw as a threat to the family wasn’t it? It was trying to protect the family living there.”

“Yeah.”

“So, how you found me... you made it take you too, didn’t you?” No answer was necessary; Dean could see it plainly written all over Sam’s face. “You know you’re an idiot right?”

“Dean, I had to...”

“Shut up Sam.”

Sam shut up.

Dean scrubbed at the back of his neck searching for the right words. “You couldn’t find me, I get that. I see what’s going on, I’m not that dense. The research you did, it was solid Sam, and you did everything you could.” Dean approached the wall and gestured, “But, sometimes that’s how it goes, no matter how smart you are or how good the research is, that’s it. There aren’t always answers.”

It took three steps for Sam to stride past Dean and rip over half the notes off the wall. “Whoever murdered Muriel and Christopher Thompson is, in all probability, still out there and I may have destroyed the last evidence that could have led the cops to whoever did it.”

“Not like we had a lot of options. The rest of it, yeah it sucks. The bastard who killed that kid and turned him into the thing we faced down there, I hope he rots in hell, but that isn’t our job. We did what we came here to do, right? No one else is going to go missing. No one else has to die like that.”

Sam looked away and Dean pressed on, hoping he was getting through.

“The research wasn’t taking you anywhere, so you did the only thing you could, you acted on instinct. You had to stop thinking and ask yourself…”

“What would Dean do?”

“Hell yea!” Dean stopped. “Wait. What?” The sarcastic smirk on Sam’s face answered loudly. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Look, I’m being serious here, what you did, putting yourself in the line of fire like that?” Dean’s mind instantly flashed to the images ofSam splayed on the floor, skin yellowish and bruised, lifeless, rotting. “Man, you had no idea what was going to happen did you? You didn’t even know it wouldn’t just kill you.”

“I didn’t even know if you were still alive. You’re right, I wasn’t thinking. I couldn’t think, and I’d rather,” Sam’s voice faltered a beat. “Man, I’d rather die than live knowing there was something I could have done but didn’t.”

A tense quiet settled between the brothers, both lost in their own thoughts. The spectre of emotions: despair, helplessness and fear that covered the last forty-eight hours. The depth of what each of them would willingly do to save the other, suddenly apparent. It was too much to bear.

“Okay,” Dean offered calmly, the silence finally broken by acceptance. “I get it, I don’t like it, but I get it. Thanks for coming after me. Just,” Dean stopped and swallowed his temper, temper flared by worry... by memories... The empty hollow numbness of being left behind, of being forced to stay alive even after everything he cared about was dead. “Just, tell me you know it was stupid, and if there’d been another way, you’d have done it.”

Sam nodded. “Fine, if it makes you feel better, I know it was stupid and I swear if there’d been any other way, I’d have done it.”

Dean reached over and pointedly started eating the soup again, clearly sending the message that this discussion is over. “So what else did you bring me?”

“Chicken salad sandwich.” Sam pulled the bag away just as Dean reached for it. “Finish your soup first.” The conversation might be over, but that didn’t mean Sam had to stop thinking about it. He knew taunting the spirit to take him to Dean had been a stupid plan, but he’d do it again in a heart beat if it meant saving his brother, and he knew Dean would do the same for him if their situations were reversed. That’s just the way things were. Sam didn’t want it any other way.

The end.

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