Fic: House of Cards: The Darkness Before The Dawn, 9/12
~~HoC~~
I'm one step from forgiveness,
and two steps from my grave.
We're all just passing through.
I'm three steps from redemption,
four from the devil's door.
:: :: ::
The lights flickered again, came on, buzzing fitfully, the air heavy with the smell of wet grass and hot stone. Sam stared at his hands, curled into fists against the tiled floor, the veve he'd drawn across the pristine white burned away until only a faint shadow remained, hardly visible.
He knew the Loa was gone, the terrible weight of its presence lifted with the dark. Behind him, Tom gasped suddenly, sucking in air as if he'd never tasted it before. Sam just crouched, frozen, the echoes of his brother's scream still ringing in his ears. He felt the doctor lean on his shoulder as Tom scrambled to his feet, saw his shadow flicker over his hands as the older man stumbled to the bed, but he couldn't move, couldn't look up to see his brother bleeding, broken, torn apart all over again.
"Sam?"
The hoarse croak didn't register with him for a moment.
"Sammy?"
His breath caught, stopped as his hands clenched into fists.
"Sammy, c'mon dude."
He looked up, a sob hiccupping out of him as he saw green eyes looking back at him.
"Dean?"
A crooked grin, faltering a little as Dean rasped again, "Yeah."
He never remembered crossing the space between them, just suddenly found himself grabbing at his brother's hand feeling Dean squeeze back, not caring that the bones in his hand grated together painfully as he laughed and sobbed, collapsing against the side of the bed. Dean threw an arm around his shoulders, leaning closer, mumbling nonsense promises in his ear as the younger man wept himself into an exhausted stupor.
Tom stood on one side, gaping at the man he'd known was dying, was dead, just minutes before and now clutched at his brother's shirt, kicking frustratedly at the blankets still wrapped tightly around him. Dean finally looked up at him over Sam's shoulder, quirking one eyebrow.
"Wanna give me a hand here doc? A guy could die of heatstroke in this place."
Stumbling to the bed, Tom yanked at the blankets, his hands shaking so much he could barely force his fingers to close on the thick material.
"Hey."
He stopped at the quiet, hoarse call, looked up at Dean.
"It's okay."
He laughed, wincing as he heard the manic edge to it.
"Okay? What the fuck is ‘okay'? I just saw a...a...a man appear out of nowhere, fucking heal you just by touching your head and giving you a damn charm and then disappear again! ‘Okay' is so far gone I can't even remember it now!"
Dean looked surprised, pried one hand free of his brother's shirt to grab the small charm left behind on his chest.
"The hell...?"
"Exactly," Tom muttered, finally ripping the blankets free and throwing them in an untidy heap at the foot of the bed.
"Look, I'm sorry you had to find out like that. Hell, I'm sorry you had to find out at all, okay? But welcome to the real world, doc. All those things that go bump in the night, all the stories you thought were just made up to scare the kids, it's real. Now you've just gotta deal with it."
The doctor sagged against the footboard, hand automatically reaching out for the chart hanging on the end, searching for something familiar to cling to.
"How? How do I deal with it?"
He watched Dean shrug from the corner of his eye, one hand still twisted in his brother's shirt.
"You just do. You move on, forget as much as you can, if that's what you want to do."
"What if I don't want to?"
Dean stared at him for a moment, surprised again.
"You find a way to live with it. Maybe you ignore it. Maybe you try and help people who need it."
"Like you do? Sam told me you're investigators, helping people the cops can't. I guess this is why they can't?"
He flicked a hand out to point around the room, taking in the scattered paraphernalia from the spell.
"Yeah. Pretty much."
The doctor laughed again.
"This is nuts."
"Tell me about it. I got strangled by a poltergeist and healed by a god of the dead, all in three freakin' days."
Tom shook his head, still gazing blankly at the chart in his hand.
"It... he... called you hunter."
"Yeah. Like you said, we help people. That normally means hunting down whatever evil son-of-a-bitch is trying to eat them. Or worse."
"Why?"
Dean frowned at him.
"Why do it? You get hurt, hell, you get killed. And I'm sorry, but it doesn't exactly look like you get paid much for it."
"Mostly, we don't get paid at all, doc. Hunters; we all got into this in different ways. Sammy and me, our dad raised us into it. Long story. Most people lost someone. Went looking for answers, and found this instead. We do it because we want to kill as much of what's out there as we can. Because we want revenge."
"And that's it? That's enough?"
"It has to be."
"It isn't."
The muffled voice broke the long pause. Sam raised his head, eyes bloodshot, tearstains turning his cheeks blotchy.
"Revenge isn't enough." the younger man didn't look at him, stared fixedly at his brother. "Revenge just gets you killed."
Dean grinned, quick and crooked and mirthless.
"Been there, Sammy, done - "
"Shut up, Dean."
Tom watched the brothers draw back a little, saw Dean drop his chin, keeping his eyes up as Sam scowled at him.
"You don't do this for revenge, you never have. But it's gonna kill you just as fast."
"What do you want me to do, Sam?"
"I don't know, Dean! That's just it! I don't know. But I buried you, man. I had to bury you, and then three nights ago I had to resuscitate you, then I had to listen to them tell me they couldn't save you and I can't, Dean, I can't do that again."
Dean frowned, feeling his heart pick up speed, cursing the fact that he still wore the electrodes that betrayed it to the room. Sam's eyes flickered over to the screens, back to him. Scowling, he yanked angrily at the wires, tugging them free, the monitors screaming flatline.
"I can't stop, Sammy. I won't."
"I know."
He swallowed hard at his brother's whisper, almost as rough as his own, dimly aware of the doctor flicking switches, silencing the frantic wail of the alarms.
"I have to finish this."
I have to make up for what I did. Somehow.
This time Sam just nodded morosely, still staring at him, searching his face. Finally he smiled weakly and clambered back to his feet. Dean watched him turn to the doctor, still hovering uncertainly and winced as he shifted up in his bed a little. Once again every muscle ached, his throat seemingly lined with broken glass and lethargy seeped into him, making every task monumental. Getting tired of this, he thought as he settled back against the pillows, listening to his brother calm the nervous, scared man.
"What happened, Sam? He.... What was that thing?"
"It was a Loa. A Haitian god, kind of."
"Oh come on. You can't seriously expect - "
"Tom, look. I promise, I'll explain everything. But not right now. Okay? Right now I need you to make sure no-one heard anything."
Sam's quiet, confident tone seemed to get through to the doctor and Tom cast one more glance at Dean and scurried out of the room. The weary hunter turned the charm over in his hands, rubbing his thumb over the raised shape on one side. It was the same shape he'd seen his brother cast on the floor, four roughly drawn arrows forming a cross, their heads mirrored to make a diamond shape at the tip of each line. Two circles twisted around each other, centered on the point where the arrows crossed, four more lines radiating out from the same place, each ending in a kind of foot.
"A Ghede, Sammy?"
"Yeah. Papa Ghede."
Dean closed his eyes as his brother named the Haitian god, feeling the spike of fear he'd been too numb to appreciate before. He knew how dangerous the Loa could be, the thought of his brother summoning one when he was helpless, when all he could do was lie there, barely aware of what was happening, unable to protect the only family he had left sent a pale echo of the awful cold sweeping through him, ice creeping along his veins, clawing at his nerves.
He shivered, cursed silently at the look of panic that crossed Sam's face.
"I'm fine, Sammy. Really."
"You sure? If you're cold - "
"I'm not. I promise, okay? But you shouldn't've done that, Sam."
"Done what? Saved your ass?"
"Summoned a freaking god of the dead to save my ass!"
His voice broke on the shout, cracking painfully and he winced, grabbed for the small plastic cup of water on the cupboard by the bed.
"I told you, Dean. I couldn't let you go, knowing you'd be dragged straight back down to the pit again. I couldn't bury you again."
There was nothing he could say to that. Nothing he could say when the fear turned his mouth dry, a bitter taste of burning metal sharp on his tongue, stealing his breath away.
...He don' burn no more. He don' have ta remember the t'ings he done, there, here...
He shut his eyes, wanting to forget again, wanting more than anything to be rid of the memories choking him, cutting him deeper than the hellhounds claws had ever managed. But scorching through every memory was the gentle touch of tears and whispers that brushed against his skin and pulled him back from the dark, put the world back in its place beneath him again as they stood in a crappy hotel room in Illinois.
"Yeah, okay," he managed, fighting down the screams, not his own that were bubbling up his throat from the hollow, cold place at the base of his spine. He fingered the charm again, felt a wave of fire surge through him, driving the chill back. "So when can I get the hell out of here? I'm starving."
Sam laughed, and the sound chased away the ice and the flames, the dark and the memories, grinning up at his brother as he tucked the charm into a fist.
"You really feel okay?"
"Yeah. Like nothing happened."
Like he wasn't revelling in the warmth of the sheets beneath his skin.
"A little tired, I guess. Kinda like I just ran a marathon and went ten rounds with Ali at the end."
Like he didn't feel every bit of heat from the sun on the other side of the room.
"But that's all."
Like the cold, dark place at the base of his spine didn't send a twist of fear corkscrewing through his nerves every time he thought of it.
The metal in his hand heated, almost searing hot for the barest moment and the shadow faded away again. He shrugged at his brother, glad, for the first time in a very, very long time that keeping a game face on was instinctual now, thoughtless. His knuckles whitened around the charm.
"Okay. I'll be right back."
"Sure, Sammy."
He watched the door long after it clicked shut behind his brother, not seeing it at all. For so long, he'd hidden behind a mask, from the world, his brother.
From himself.
And then he'd tasted graveyard dirt on a demon's tongue, and for the first time he wished he knew how to burn the masks away. He never worked out where the courage to blurt out those four words to his brother came from; ‘I don't wanna die,' but once they'd crossed his lips it was like a dam shattering inside. ‘I don't wanna go to hell.' And finally, the unsaid was heard, spoken in the silences and the words he never voiced, and Sam heard it, wonder of wonders his brother heard it and answered it.
But it was too late. Hell came for him; and a lifetime already lived was twisted into pure suffering, shattered and broken so many times he couldn't even tell when he'd lost himself anymore. The worst part of it was that sometimes, when the nightmares ripped him back to a world not much better than his dreams, he didn't know if he even cared. There were moments, when he struggled to breathe, to pin down the screams and the feel of the handle turning and turning in his grip and never let it out, when he wondered if it would be easier to just let go again. To just give in to the voice in the back of his soul that told him he'd taken enough hurt, enough suffering for a thousand lifetimes and wasn't it time he let someone else shoulder that burden? It was that tiny, quiet voice that finally broke him after thirty years, not his voice, not even the demons that circled him, too close, underneath his skin.
It was his brother's voice, his father's, a shifting tone that had always been Sammy, would always be John, rough and soft and so broken it hurt more to hear it than the demons claws.
More than the angel's searing grip on his shoulder.
The memory of that searing, agonising touch was faint, faded as if by a hundred years, the touch of one of the host as unbearable to the hunter as Castiel's unmasked voice was.
Now, it slipped further away and Dean found himself sorry to feel it go, the burning pain somehow fulfilling even as he felt it scorch him away to nothing. All he had left was the pale shadow of it, hot against his palm, driving back the cold and the dark as he gripped the charm so tightly the dull edges dug into his skin, stopping just short of drawing blood. He closed his eyes, clung to it fiercely and let the nightmares that never quite ended when he woke fall far beyond his reach.
He didn't open his eyes when the door clicked open, listening to his brother's footsteps, another, less familiar pair following the younger man's lazy, weary tread.
"Hey," Sam murmured, eyeing his brother as Dean lounged back against the pillows, face pale, lashes brushing the shadows bruising his eyes. Only the faintest hint of tension in his shoulders, the white knuckled fist resting loosely on his chest the only sign he was still awake.
Sam felt the doctor beside him hesitate, glancing between him and the apparently oblivious hunter on the bed.
"He's awake," he reassured her, smiling as he caught sight of his brother's lips twitching into a faint grin. The younger man watched as she stepped briskly forward, pulling a small torch from her pocket and leaning over the bed. He frowned as Dean winced away from the light a little, glaring tiredly back at her as she fiddled with the wires, refitting them fussily until the monitors began their steady beep again. Finally she turned towards him, brows pinched together in confusion.
"Your brother's fine. His temperature's pretty much normal, he's responsive and alert - "
"An' he's right here," Dean drawled hoarsely, dry as the desert, irritation snapping through his languid reminder. Sam rolled his eyes, fought back another grin; let it play at the edges of his lips. He knew the older man hated being talked over, the familiar snark doing more to settle his nerves than any of the doctor's words ever could.
"Oh, um... sorry," she sputtered, clearly flustered by the irate glare flashing up at her.
"Ignore him, doc, he's grouchy in the morning."
The glare swung his way as Sam spoke up, softened into a broad smile as Dean sank back into the pillows again.
"Well, you'll be a little sore for a day or so, after the convulsions. And you'll probably find you tire quite easily for a little longer, maybe a week. I'd like to keep you in one more night, just to be sure, but take it easy, and you'll be fine."
She smiled at them both, but Sam could see the anxious speculation in her eyes as she left, the confusion edged with something sharper - fear. He sighed, knowing that look meant they had less time than he would have liked before they had to move on, before the ‘miracle' was reported and interest they didn't need, grew.
It seemed his brother was thinking along similar lines, as he watched Dean swing his legs over the edge of the bed, swaying against the fists he pressed into the mattress.
"Dean," he started, knowing already there would be nothing he could say that would change the stubborn hunter's mind.
"We gotta go before she calls the damn Pope, Sam. Or World freakin' Weekly, more likely. They probably pay better."
"One night?" he almost begged, hating the look of resignation that crossed his brother's eyes as Dean pushed himself slowly to his feet, a flicker of pain twisting his ashen features.
"No, Sam. We gotta book."
Anger bubbled up the younger man's throat, hot and sour as he sighed bitterly. If there was one thing he hadn't missed in the years he was at Stanford, it was watching his family struggle alone through hurt and pain that would bring most people to their knees. But two years apart only seemed to have made it worse, heightened his brother's innate suspicion, and the four years they'd spent together since had done nothing to ease it.
He gritted his teeth as he stepped to his brother's side, slipping one hand under Dean's elbow, afterimages playing behind his eyes, overlaying his brother as the older man's shoulders slumped and he visibly fought to push back the weakness. Sam forced away the memories of Dean leaning against the car, something behind the cracked masks in his eyes broken and weeping as blood seeped from the livid gash across his brow, the confession; "One year. I got one year," turning the victory hollow; pushed the sound of his brother screaming, fabric and skin tearing, bone shattering beneath claws he couldn't see and then the silence, the hideous, awful silence that hurt so much more than the screams. He forced the sight and the sound into the back of his mind and slammed the door on them.
"Fine," he ground out, taking his brother's weight as they shuffled across the room to the small bathroom. "But have you seen how you look?"
"Ah, bite me."
"Seriously, man, I'm talking Night of the Living Dead here."
His fingers tightened around Dean's arm, belying the mocking tone as the older man stumbled, a tautly controlled breath hissing out between tightly clenched teeth. Sam could feel his brother's muscles trembling under his hand, against his side as Dean leant into him, squeezing side by side through the doorway. He eased the exhausted hunter down to sit on the edge of the bathtub, tried not to look at the hand that snaked out and latched onto the handrail bolted to the wall. The tall man turned, stalked back into the main room, snatching the bag with his brother's clothes inside from the cupboard beside the bed. Ripping the plastic open, he recoiled at the smell of stale sweat that hit him.
"Damn."
The denim and cotton was damp, greasy against his skin as he dragged them free, shaking them out and wrinkling his nose in disgust. He headed back to the bathroom, tossing the filthy clothes at his brother, waiting in the doorway as Dean slowly stepped first one foot, then the other into his musty jeans. The older man pulled the denim up to mid-thigh before stopping, sucking in a shuddering breath, head hanging low to brush his chest, shoulders visibly trembling.
Sam took a breath, watched his brother's spine tighten, lips thinning to a harsh, determined line as Dean hauled himself to his feet, dragging his jeans up over his hips, long fingers fumbling with the fly as he leant against the tiles on the wall. The emergency alarm cord pulled tight as he leant forward, caught between his arm and the ceramic and Sam almost stepped forward, almost lifted his brother's jacket to Dean's hand.
Then the hunter's fingers caught in the thick cotton and he pulled it up with him as he straightened. Sam let out the breath still trapped in his lungs, waited while his brother eased into the jacket, leaving the stained t-shirt behind on the floor.
"We goin' or what?"
"You want your shoes first?"
Dean scowled at him and he smirked back, deliberately setting aside his worries for now as he turned back to the bed.
"Smartass."
His brother's hoarse; rasping whisper made him pause, doubt creeping up in his mind again. He knew they weren't ready, either of them, the hospital room suddenly seeming as if it was the only safe place, the corridors outside populated with people who wanted to turn them in and lock them up, with things that wanted to kill them. Or eat them. He could have laughed at the memory of his brother's face as the older man blurted out the same words, but he didn't, too caught up in the echo of the Ghede's voice. ‘...Dere ain't no goin' back. Not for eider of ya... Jus' remember, Samuel, in times ta come, dis was your choice. Yours alone.'
I couldn't let you go, Dean. I just couldn't. I don't know what it meant, what I've done to us both, but I couldn't let you go again.
"Sammy?"
"Yeah. Coming."
When he held the boots out, his brother hesitated before taking them, the older man's fingers brushing against his, for just a fraction of a second too long. He didn't look up, let himself believe the lie Dean offered, just for a while. But something twisted deep inside him as the older man stood, swayed into him, cursing softly in a low, ragged gasp.
~~HoC~~
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