Letters From the Dead 11/20
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water4willowsCharacters: Dean, Sam, Various OCs and a smidgen (like blink and you'll miss it) of Cas
Genre: hurt/comfort, casefic
Pairings: None
Rating: PG-13 for some violence and language
Words: ~100,000
Warnings/Spoilers: Deals directly with the events of the 9x13 The Purge, goes slightly AU after that episode
Summary: Sam's words cut him deep and in the confusion and anger of their aftermath, Dean flees. He thinks some time apart might do them some good. How very wrong he turns out to be.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Supernatural and the characters (except for my original OCs) depicted in this work of fiction are the property of the CW.
Chapter 11 - Back In Black
Sam jerked awake in the darkness of a room he didn't recognize at first. His dreams had been chaotic, full of blackness and Dean calling for him in the dark and at first he thought he was still dreaming until he noticed the moonlight cutting a swath of silver across his hand on the pillow and he remembered. He was in Doris' apartment above the diner in Oriskany, Dean was asleep on the pullout couch unfolded beside him and he was sprawled on the air mattress Doris had set up for him because no matter how much Dean needed him right now there was no way he was sleeping up there on that bed with him. Relaxing back onto his pillow, firmly anchored back into knowing, Sam tried to chase sleep back down. He knew it would be elusive, he'd only just fallen asleep a few hours before and he wasn't really sure how he'd even managed that. Dean had been constant restless movement to his right and Sam had been unable to fall asleep, the fear that Dean would have another muscle spasm or a coughing fit keeping him tense and on alert for the slightest sound of discomfort from his brother. Thankfully sometime in the night Dean's breath had evened out and he seemed to fall into a deeper sleep then he'd been able to find earlier. Sam knew his brother's experience down in that bed and breakfast's basement had left him with nightmares that plagued him even in the daylight hours but finally around 1am, after Sam had woken him for another round of pain medication, the nightmares seemed to release him and he was sleeping quietly.
Sam lay in the stillness of the room and tried to shake the anxiety that his dreams had brought. If someone had told him a week ago that he'd be laying on an air mattress in some old lady's house nursing his obstinate brother back to health all while trying to patch up their broken relationship with duct tape and superglue and trying to track down a child killing vengefully spirit, he probably would have laughed. Yet here he was, wide awake in the dark, straining to hear if it was time to feed his brother more little white pills and feeling more conflicted and exhausted than ever.
When he had gotten Doris' phone call all those days ago, he'd immediately assumed it was Dean calling him to bail him out of some mess with the locals with his tail tucked firmly between his legs. What he hadn't expected was to hear from a stranger that his brother was in the hospital on a vent again with 800 miles and 12 hours of driving between them. He hadn't been on a plane in ages, not since that demon who was taking down flights 9 years ago, but he'd caught one out of O'Hare after he'd gotten Doris' call and it had been the worst 5 hours of his life.
The plane took forever to take off then the endless hours in the air passed by with all the speed of a rheumatic giant turtle and by the time they'd landed in the tiny Syracuse airport terminal he was climbing over people in his haste to get to the rental car kiosk, the thought of Dean being dead before he got there propelling him forward. He'd left that car in the hospital parking lot knowing it could never be traced back to him and he bet it had been towed by now. It was a shity Ford Tempo, the only thing they and left, and it had wheezed him down the interstate on fumes so strong he had to hang his head out the window just to keep from throwing up. Then to add insult to injury he was accosted by a tiny woman in her 70s who knew more about them in one sitting than most people got to know in a lifetime. He'd been exasperated with her at first but now he didn't know what he'd do without her. He could only guess at what power she'd used to pull those words from him in that hospital room but he'd told her things he hadn't said out loud in years and it came naturally and there was no denying that she was as much a part of this hunt and he or Dean was now. She fit somehow and he was still trying to wrap his head around how.
Sam shifted his position in the darkness and tried to get comfortable but the nagging anxiety in his stomach had him sitting up to check on Dean. It had been far too long since he'd heard a sound from his brother and it was nearing the time he'd need another few pills but when Sam looked over at where Dean's sleeping form should have been, he found the pullout couch empty. Immediately on high alert Sam's eyes flickered to the dark hallway that lead to the back rooms of the apartment scanning to see if Dean had somehow managed to get to the bathroom on his own but there was no box of illumination around the bathroom door. It stood open and empty as if to say 'nope, no brother here.' He scanned the rest of the room but didn't see his brother anywhere and in a panic he lurched up from the air mattress, sending it sliding across the floor a few feet.
"Dean?" He called out as he rushed for the switch for the living room lamp on the far kitchen wall, praying that Dean wasn't lying somewhere, maybe on the others side of the pullout, bleeding to death on the floor while Sam had laid slumbering only a few feet away, oblivious. He flicked the switch with his forefinger and the weak light blazed to life illuminating the upright figure of his brother standing with his back to Sam, facing the front door.
"Dean?" He called out tentatively but his brother didn't respond. There was a time long ago when they were kids when their father had disappeared for 3 weeks and the money had run out and Dean had gone hungry so Sam could eat until it landed him in the hospital with dehydration and a bleeding ulcer from the stress of it all. How their father had gotten them out of that one Sam would never know but Dean had come home from the hospital still vomiting blood and with a serious case of sleepwalking. They had never spoken about that time since and Sam was surprised he even remembered it at all but what Dean was doing now was so reminiscent of that experience, Sam couldn't help but recall the memories. One thing came through clearly enough though and that was the memory of the first time he'd shaken Dean awake during one of his episodes. He'd gone down so hard and so fast and Dean was over him in a flash, fingers wrapped around his throat screaming at the phantom demon inside Sam to get out. He'd barely been able to pry his brothers fingers away from his throat to plead with Dean that it was really him. It took forever but eventually Dean's had mind cleared and he'd gotten off Sam, crying and pulling him up off the floor, apologizing profusely for what he had just done. Sam had calmed him down and gotten him back to bed, their big brother/little brother roles reversed for once. It happened again a few times after that and Sam had learned how to steer Dean carefully back to bed without incident until the episodes stopped all together. So he approached his brother cautiously so as not to startle him and put a tentative hand on his shoulder. If he was gentle and spoke softly Dean would follow without any problems.
"Dean, come on, let's get you back to bed." Sam tugged gently on Dean's shoulder but his brother refused to move. Amazed that Dean even had the strength to stay vertical in that moment, Sam used a little more force to get his brother to move and finally Dean began to turn.
"That's right, come..." the words choked in his throat and time stopped dead and Sam couldn't help the involuntary step he took backwards. Dean rounded on him, the green of his eyes gone and replaced by a sickening white milkiness that had the color draining from Sam's face.
He froze.
"Get out of him," he said the first thing that came to his mind and the thing smiled, wide and toothy, the skin of Dean's face stretching grotesquely with the unnaturalness of it.
"Let. us. out." Dean's voice was gone, this was a hiss, animalistic, snake like.
"Get the fuck out of my brother!" Shock wearing off and regaining his nerve Sam took a menacing step forward. Dean's arm shot out palm up and Sam was lifted bodily from the floor and sent sailing across the room to land on the flat of his back on the table before sliding then flipping and crashing over the side to the floor, taking a dining room chair over with him. The small of his back screamed out in pain and he tried to catch his breath and sit up. He heard the unmistakable sound of socked feet pattering over carpet and as he looked up the thing inside Dean launched his body on top of the table to land in a crouch in the middle of it, swaying back and forth and growling in the back of its throat.
"Let. us. out." It repeated, starting at Sam with those milky blank eyes.
"Dean? Dean, can you hear me? You gotta fight her man!"
Dean's body lunged forward to the edge of the table and Sam backpedaled wildly to get away but it stopped perched on the edge still staring.
"Sam, what the hell is going on?" He looked up to see Doris in the hall, sleep disheveled and rubbing her eyes.
"Doris, don't move! Stay where you are!" The sheer panic in his voice stopping her dead in her tracks. The thing inside his brother flicked it's white eyes in Doris' direction, tilting Dean's head at an unnatural angle. Sam needed to act fast before the thing caused irreversible damage because he wasn't about to lose his brother to some vengeful spirit.
"Who are you?" It was all he could think to ask to get the spirits focus back on him and the thing turned Dean's head slowly back, the smile again on its face.
"Let. us. out."
"No way in hell, not until you let my brother go." The thing didn't seem to be able to communicate very well, but Sam could see it process and understand what he was saying.
Before he knew what was happening it was taking Dean's hands and pulling the t-shirt from his brother's torso with relative ease, the sound of ripping fabric filling the air. Sam watched in sick horror as it tore the bandage from Dean's skin then took the fingers of his hand and pushed them past the line of snitches to disappear them into the flesh of Dean's chest. It pulled.
"STOP IT! STOP IT YOU STUPID BITCH!" Sam bellowed and he launched himself bodily at Dean. They fell in a heap to the floor, Sam able to surprise the thing enough with his attack that it didn't know what to do at first and it struggled madly beneath him. Sam needed salt, he'd gotten that high school bully out of that girl with a mouthful of salt, maybe it would work with Dean. Sam opened his mouth to call for Doris to help but the body beneath him suddenly stilled but Sam didn't dare release the precarious hold he had on Dean. There was blood everywhere and his arms slipped and slid along Dean's skin.
"Oh god...Sammy... god wait... she'll kill me... let her out," Sam let go like he'd been scalded and Dean was looking back at him, green eyed and face contorted in pain.
"Dean, just hold on, I'll get her out!" But Dean didn't hear him and Sam watched his brother's eyes roll back and the white return. The hand came up again and this time it sent Sam slamming into the wall beside Doris, his body leaving a hole in the drywall as stars erupted behind his eyes.
"Let. us. out!" The thing screamed, springing up. It stood there crouched again dripping Dean's blood out onto the floor and Doris helped Sam to his feet.
"My God, Sam! What do we do?" She was near tears and wringing her hands, every wrinkle on her face standing out in stark contrast with the shade of white her face had gone.
"We've got to let him out Doris, or she'll kill him."
"But how did it get in him in the first place?" Her brow was knit with confusion and terror
"I don't think it ever left after he was attacked."
"What!?" But Sam didn't have any time to explain his theory. The thing took several jerky steps in their direction, the movement wrong and unnatural. It raised Dean's hand again and went for the stitches.
"Stop! Stop! I'll do what you want," But Dean's hand continued its motion. "Damn it, stop! I said I'd let you out!" The hand stilled and Sam put his own hands up in the universal sign of surrender, then stepped towards the door giving the thing a wide birth as he circled it. It followed him with its white eyes and for a moment he was worried it would twist his brother's neck all the way around as it tracked him, but Dean's lower body followed soon after. He knelt down to the salt lines, never taking his eyes off his brother, contemplating trying to use it somehow to stop what was happening, but he couldn't risk the thing hurting Dean anymore than it already had. His best bet was to do what the spirit wanted and then follow and see if he could get it out of his brother some other way. Sending up a silent prayer just in case Cas was out there somewhere listening, knowing that his prayers would go unanswered as they had been for days, Sam brushed away the salt from in front of the door and hoped that his gamble would pay off.
With a flick of the wrist, Sam was sent flying again and the thing crashed him onto the floor and into Doris. He took the older woman's legs out from under her but managed to cushion her fall with his body though it knocked the wind out of both of them. Sam sat up just as the spirit used Dean's hand to yank the door open and disappear into the night.
Sam was instantly on his feet and flying out the door to give chase, Doris calling after him as he tore down the stairs ignoring the snow on the ground and the arctic temperatures freezing his bare skin. He could see Dean in the distance, the thing floating him along a few inches off the ground with more speed then he could ever have thought possible. He followed, doing everything he could to keep his brother's body in sight as Dean was spirited away. He knew where they were headed and soon the crumbling ruins of the old bed and breakfast loomed ahead and Sam watched his brother's shape disappear into the hole that used to be the front door. There was thankfully no one around, the sheriff's men no longer guarding the place since it had collapsed in on itself and Sam ran in after his brother.
Moonlight streamed in through the hole in the building's ceiling, casting the only light in the place and Sam stopped suddenly in front of the basement door. It was wide open but the darkness down below was complete and impenetrable. Even the moon couldn't illuminate the space and Sam stood staring down into the unending blackness finally understanding what Dean had gone through. To wake up in that emptiness with no idea where you were must have been horrifying for both his brother and the spirit's two other victims. There was no way he was going to find Dean down there without light and he sprinted back over to the floor's main room to try and find a flashlight. Most everything had been removed along with the debris from the collapsing structure and he let out a curse when there was nothing there to help him. He nearly ripped Doris' head off when she appeared at his elbow.
"Oh Sam, thank God I found you! Here," she shoved a coat and his boots into his hands and in that moment he could have kissed her.
"Help me find a flashlight, Doris. It's too dark down there," he said, frantically fumbling off his frozen socks and pulling on his boots and coat then resuming his search, but her hand on his arm stopped him.
"Sam! Look!" Doris was pulling at him and pointing and Sam turned to see what she was gesturing at. The basement doorway that had been pitch black moments ago was aglow in the unmistakable flickering orange of firelight. He looked over at Doris who was standing both transfixed and terrified by the light.
"Where do you think it's coming from?" She asked starting to shake visibly.
"Only one way to find out," he said grimly and he led them down into the unknown.
He took the stairs slowly and one by one, body tense and Doris crowding in close behind him clutching at his shoulder. He didn't mind it, he welcomed it in fact, her presence behind him calming his nerves a little. The placement of the stairs offered no view of the room so they peered around the corner like some awful parody of a Three Stooges episode to look for Dean and find out where the light was coming from.
The room was lit by candles suspended above the ground along the walls by iron fittings. A fire roared in the hearth across from them and the musty old basement that had once been filled with nothing but construction equipment had been hurtled back into the past to take back up its former glory. Tables were set up in rows and Sam could almost hear the sound of voices and the chink of china. There was no one in the room except Dean who was in its direct center on his hands and knees hammering mercilessly at an ever growing hole in the floor. The movements were still not his own, jerky and awkward, and Sam could tell he was still possessed. Ectoplasm dripped from his earlobes in globs of black that splattered onto the floor in time with his hammering and ran from the corners of his mouth in inky black rivulets and Sam thought he could make out the barest flicker of a female form around his brother's own masculine one but he couldn't tell if it was real or a trick of the light.
Not exactly sure what to do, Sam approached his brother cautiously, Doris not far behind, and they watched as Dean made the hole larger and larger until it was big enough for the spirit to reach Dean's hand through, then it pulled up a sack from beneath the stone. It was old, ancient looking really, and the spirit let it fall to the ground when it stood back up in Dean's body.
"Please let me out." it pleaded suddenly, sounding like nothing more than a poor lost soul, and Dean's body crumpled to the ground and the lights disappeared, plunging them into blackness.