The Green Mile 3/3, [PG-13], Dean, Sam, Gen
Title: The Green Mile 3/3
Author: chocca2
Genre: Gen
Warning/spoilers: naughty language, spoilers for season three
Words: 2100
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Dean , Sam
Disclaimer: Ha, Me? Own the Winchesters? Only in my dreams *wink*
Summary: Set after ‘Jus in Bello’ season three. Dean’s deal is hanging over him like a freshly sharpened guillotine. Sam and Bobby they are doing the best they can to find a way out. But life still goes on, and Bobby sends the boys to Ohio to look into a haunted farmhouse. Things don’t go according to plan.
A/N: Sweet charity fic for unplugged32 who bought me in the final auction. Thank you so much to all of you who have read and reviewed and have been so patient for this last chapter... THANK YOU.
Kindly beta’d by ficwriter1966, she’s been supportive and thorough in bring out the best in me. I couldn’t have asked for more from her. Any other faults my own.
[chapter 1] [ chapter 2][ chapter 3]
~~~
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius
~~~
Dean woke to the sound of gun fire as it rebounded against the damp walls of the basement. Stale air pungent with gun powder and sweat. One side of his face was laid flat against concrete, pooled with blood. His only view was of Sam’s scuffed boot.
He heard his brother empty another round of shots to the left. The last one was released to the right before it went silent.
Too fucking silent.
He blinked, cursed, and nearly bit his tongue clean off when his brother appeared on the floor in front of him. Gasping, scrambling and bucking like a fish out of water, Sam grabbed at his neck, struggled against the invisible strangle.
Dean took the opportunity to test the theory of how you could be beaten six ways from Sunday and still move like the wind. It took only seconds for him to drag himself to his feet, leap in one direction to retrieve the iron shears and deliver a crazy array of swoops that cut through the materialized entity.
The spirit shrieked before releasing his brother, then dispersed into the air.
In the same amount of time it took him to get vertical, Dean collapsed into a heap beside Sam. Every nerve ending in his body sent him the memo that he was still alive and still very fucked up.
“Sammy?”
Dean rolled his head to the side, spat out a gelatinous glob of mucus and blood.
“Yeah,” Sam replied around a frenzy of coughs.
“Dig.”
Sam didn’t question the logic; he helped Dean sit up, placed the iron shears in his grip and got to work.
While Sam dug, Dean tried not to pass out. He also looked for stuff that would burn. Accelerant was useful, but it wasn’t the only thing their Dad had taught them to use when burning bones. And sometimes you just had to make do even if you were beat up and bleeding like a stuck pig.
The scavenge around the basement nearly brought him to tears from the agony but it was worth it.
“Found salt, dude. How you doing over there?” Dean panted.
“Dean, I got something.” Sam said right before something got him.
[]-[]-[]
“Sammy, watch out!” Sam heard his brother yell but he was already on the ground when everything began to fade.
Being strangled the first time had sucked. Strangulation the second time was excruciating and made the previous go-round feel like foreplay.
The time it took the spirit to show it self, knock him to the ground and have him in a deadly a chokehold again was less than a second.
He couldn’t breathe.
Sam caught a glimpse of Dean from the corner of his eye before his vision blurred into a white haze.
“Hang in there, Sammy!” Dean called out.
Sam felt like he was hanging except he couldn’t move his legs, kick or try anything to free himself. The spirit was strong and unrelenting, and there was absolutely no give.
“Deeee…” Sam ground out between strangled gasps of breath.
His lips tingled, warm then cold--icy to a point he couldn’t feel them anymore. He couldn’t feel anything.
[]-[]-[]
Dean managed to crawl the few inches to the grave just as his leg cramped up and called it quits. He seasoned the remains with salt and liquor then chased the concoction with a lit match.
The light hurt his eyes; hungry orange and yellow flames illuminated the room. For the first time the basement and the destruction were clear in view.
Sam was out for the count or dead. Dean couldn’t stomach the latter so he clung to the thread of hope with a death grip, concentrated to see if Sam was breathing.
Just when his vision began to fade, he spotted a familiar face appear from nowhere.
“Bobby?”
Bobby charged towards them, scrabbling to his knees.
“Check on Sammy,” Dean croaked before closing his eyes.
“Sam’s gonna be fine, Dean. You sit tight,-- I’m gonna help him out to the car and come back for you.”
The warm squeeze on his shoulder made him relax a fraction. “’Kay.”
It felt like no time had passed, he must have blacked out because Bobby was back shaking him and talking too fucking loud. “Come on, Dean. Wake up for me, kid.”
“Nurrgh.”
He was vertical. The throbbing leg confirmed he was vertical and in a world of pain.
“Let me do most the work. Focus on staying conscious. Less than a couple of meters.”
Those meters felt like miles but they made it. He’d never been so pleased to feel the comfort of cold leather. Something inside him unwound and the tenseness in his shoulders eased. Sam was alive, he was in his car, he was home.
[]-[]-[]
The mechanical hum stirred Dean awake. Sam was to his left, slouched awkwardly against the window; a foggy patch marked his breath. He blinked a few times to clear the haze of a pain-induced sleep, then rested his head on the cool glass to watch the wash of green, yellow and orange of the meadow and sunset as they whizzed through the country road.
He grimaced and risked a look out the back window. All he could see was smoke and flames on the horizon. It wasn’t his time after all; he wasn’t ready to drive towards the flames. With so little time left he didn’t think he’d ever be ready.
Sam groaned beside him and Dean placed a trembling hand on his shoulder and spoke softly. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”
[]-[]-[]
Dean could feel the tug and pull of damaged flesh, the cold and sharp of the needle. He wanted to scream out loud and tell whoever it was to quit torturing him but he opted for passing out instead.
When he next woke he knew he was on a bed. Crisp starchy sheets, florescent light and stained ceiling spelled out motel.
“’Bout time -- you boys are gonna send me to into an early grave. Gold medal for scaring the shit outta me.”
Dean grunted, regretted it as he gagged.
“Dammit, boy, don’t you dare! I’m done cleaning up puke. Trashcan’s on your left, brother’s on your right. Cell, pain pills and gun on the night stand. I’ll be back soon.”
He swallowed, panting while trying to push away the nausea. “Bobby?” He hiccupped and swallowed bile, turned his head to his left. He knew he couldn’t have been dead because it couldn’t hurt this much to be dead. Dying, on the other hand…
“I gotta pick up my car and go grab a few things.”
Dean groaned and licked his chapped lips.
“Trashcan, night stand, brother,” Bobby repeated. “Don’t you move an inch till I get back. I mean it, Dean.”
Dean heard the door open, followed by an almost inaudible and reassuring, “You’re safe,” that let him slip back into unconsciousness.
[]-[]-[]
Sam was out of it. Sad thing about it was that it was probably the best rest he’d had since finding out about Dean’s deal. Dean made a mental note that he could knock Sam out if he refused to give that particular subject a rest. His kid brother just didn’t know when to call it quits. Dean groaned as he went for the pills and glass of water Bobby had left out for him. He placed a shaky palm on Sam’s face, stirring his brother of his concussed haze.
“Take them, Sam.”
Dean watched his brother mouth open and close in a futile attempt to talk. “Sorry, didn’t get that, Sammy. You don’t take them, I’m gonna down them all for myself.” Dean chuckled and moaned. “Fuck.”
“You ‘kay, Dee?”
“Peachy…Sonofabitch.” His leg was still pretty sore. Whatever Bobby had given him previously was out of his system and not masking any pain.
After Sam shuffled had himself upright against the headboard, Dean took the glass and offered meds, placed them in Sam’s palm and the glass to his lips. “You have ‘em, Dean,” his brother slurred.
Dean didn’t object; he dumped the remaining pills on his tongue and washed them down with tepid sips of water, willing them to stay down long enough to take the razor-sharp edge off or until he could pass out again, whichever came first.
“How’d we get here?” Sam asked.
“I dragged your sorry asses here, is how.” Bobby walked in with their duffels gripped in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other. There was a first aid kit balanced against his chest. He kicked the door shut.
After another round of wound-licking, a puking contest between Dean and Sam, Bobby filled the gap between blackouts, the motel room and patch ups. Somehow they both managed to piss away two days of temporary consciousness. An interesting story if he’d heard it all. It was Sam who later recapped the finer details. Turned out he was pretty banged up and the concussion was serious.
Sam and Dean couldn’t have been thankful enough for the “gut feeling” that led Bobby to drive over. That and the fact they he’d left over a hundred panicked phone messages. Alarms bells brought him there just in the nick of time. He’d single-handedly dragged and bundled them into his car before doing a rough clean-up job on the Littmans’ house and drove Dean’s car as far as he could before calling the authorities.
A phone went off in the small room, screen illuminating the pale walls. Dean turned his attention to Bobby who looked at the screen and sighed, “The Littmans.” He moved to the door as he told them, “I’m gonna take this outside.”
Dean cringed and nodded apologetically. The Littmans’ house was a mess. It was free of spooks but the damage done was a hefty bill to pay for that luxury. They agreed to go with the “We were away on holiday, gas fire” story Bobby had skillfully conjured. It eliminated a lot of questions from the cops, also allowed for insurance to cover most of the damage.
Sam appeared in Dean’s view with the first aid kit. “Move over,” he said. “I’m gonna change your dressing.”
“Sure thing, Florence.”
Sam remained stern faced. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice, smartass.”
“Oh, lighten up, Sammy.”
“Whatever.” Sam got to work. He was fast and gentle and far too good at patching Dean up, too accustomed to cleaning away blood and closing his wounds. They both were. It was all wrong but their reality made it a necessity. Just like laughing in the face of death even when death no longer smiled back.
“Thank you.” The words slipped from his lips.
Sam’s gaze shifted between Dean’s eyes and his bandaged arms. “No problem, dude.”
“I mean it, Sammy. I appreciate what you’re doing; I know you’re doing the best you can. No matter how this plays out in the end, that’s what’s important to me. That’s all I can ask of you.”
Sam bobbed his head, pressed his lips together and continued to nod silently.
“I just wanted you to know that. You should know that.”
Sam opened his mouth to say something but shook his head and smiled. “Thanks, man. That’s all I could have asked from you.”
----- End -----
Thank you so much for reading.
Good, bad ugly? I wanna know.
That’s one fic down, I have a sick!Dean and spn_females fic in the works so keep a look out.
Author: chocca2
Genre: Gen
Warning/spoilers: naughty language, spoilers for season three
Words: 2100
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Dean , Sam
Disclaimer: Ha, Me? Own the Winchesters? Only in my dreams *wink*
Summary: Set after ‘Jus in Bello’ season three. Dean’s deal is hanging over him like a freshly sharpened guillotine. Sam and Bobby they are doing the best they can to find a way out. But life still goes on, and Bobby sends the boys to Ohio to look into a haunted farmhouse. Things don’t go according to plan.
A/N: Sweet charity fic for unplugged32 who bought me in the final auction. Thank you so much to all of you who have read and reviewed and have been so patient for this last chapter... THANK YOU.
Kindly beta’d by ficwriter1966, she’s been supportive and thorough in bring out the best in me. I couldn’t have asked for more from her. Any other faults my own.
[chapter 1] [ chapter 2][ chapter 3]
~~~
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius
~~~
Dean woke to the sound of gun fire as it rebounded against the damp walls of the basement. Stale air pungent with gun powder and sweat. One side of his face was laid flat against concrete, pooled with blood. His only view was of Sam’s scuffed boot.
He heard his brother empty another round of shots to the left. The last one was released to the right before it went silent.
Too fucking silent.
He blinked, cursed, and nearly bit his tongue clean off when his brother appeared on the floor in front of him. Gasping, scrambling and bucking like a fish out of water, Sam grabbed at his neck, struggled against the invisible strangle.
Dean took the opportunity to test the theory of how you could be beaten six ways from Sunday and still move like the wind. It took only seconds for him to drag himself to his feet, leap in one direction to retrieve the iron shears and deliver a crazy array of swoops that cut through the materialized entity.
The spirit shrieked before releasing his brother, then dispersed into the air.
In the same amount of time it took him to get vertical, Dean collapsed into a heap beside Sam. Every nerve ending in his body sent him the memo that he was still alive and still very fucked up.
“Sammy?”
Dean rolled his head to the side, spat out a gelatinous glob of mucus and blood.
“Yeah,” Sam replied around a frenzy of coughs.
“Dig.”
Sam didn’t question the logic; he helped Dean sit up, placed the iron shears in his grip and got to work.
While Sam dug, Dean tried not to pass out. He also looked for stuff that would burn. Accelerant was useful, but it wasn’t the only thing their Dad had taught them to use when burning bones. And sometimes you just had to make do even if you were beat up and bleeding like a stuck pig.
The scavenge around the basement nearly brought him to tears from the agony but it was worth it.
“Found salt, dude. How you doing over there?” Dean panted.
“Dean, I got something.” Sam said right before something got him.
[]-[]-[]
“Sammy, watch out!” Sam heard his brother yell but he was already on the ground when everything began to fade.
Being strangled the first time had sucked. Strangulation the second time was excruciating and made the previous go-round feel like foreplay.
The time it took the spirit to show it self, knock him to the ground and have him in a deadly a chokehold again was less than a second.
He couldn’t breathe.
Sam caught a glimpse of Dean from the corner of his eye before his vision blurred into a white haze.
“Hang in there, Sammy!” Dean called out.
Sam felt like he was hanging except he couldn’t move his legs, kick or try anything to free himself. The spirit was strong and unrelenting, and there was absolutely no give.
“Deeee…” Sam ground out between strangled gasps of breath.
His lips tingled, warm then cold--icy to a point he couldn’t feel them anymore. He couldn’t feel anything.
[]-[]-[]
Dean managed to crawl the few inches to the grave just as his leg cramped up and called it quits. He seasoned the remains with salt and liquor then chased the concoction with a lit match.
The light hurt his eyes; hungry orange and yellow flames illuminated the room. For the first time the basement and the destruction were clear in view.
Sam was out for the count or dead. Dean couldn’t stomach the latter so he clung to the thread of hope with a death grip, concentrated to see if Sam was breathing.
Just when his vision began to fade, he spotted a familiar face appear from nowhere.
“Bobby?”
Bobby charged towards them, scrabbling to his knees.
“Check on Sammy,” Dean croaked before closing his eyes.
“Sam’s gonna be fine, Dean. You sit tight,-- I’m gonna help him out to the car and come back for you.”
The warm squeeze on his shoulder made him relax a fraction. “’Kay.”
It felt like no time had passed, he must have blacked out because Bobby was back shaking him and talking too fucking loud. “Come on, Dean. Wake up for me, kid.”
“Nurrgh.”
He was vertical. The throbbing leg confirmed he was vertical and in a world of pain.
“Let me do most the work. Focus on staying conscious. Less than a couple of meters.”
Those meters felt like miles but they made it. He’d never been so pleased to feel the comfort of cold leather. Something inside him unwound and the tenseness in his shoulders eased. Sam was alive, he was in his car, he was home.
[]-[]-[]
The mechanical hum stirred Dean awake. Sam was to his left, slouched awkwardly against the window; a foggy patch marked his breath. He blinked a few times to clear the haze of a pain-induced sleep, then rested his head on the cool glass to watch the wash of green, yellow and orange of the meadow and sunset as they whizzed through the country road.
He grimaced and risked a look out the back window. All he could see was smoke and flames on the horizon. It wasn’t his time after all; he wasn’t ready to drive towards the flames. With so little time left he didn’t think he’d ever be ready.
Sam groaned beside him and Dean placed a trembling hand on his shoulder and spoke softly. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”
[]-[]-[]
Dean could feel the tug and pull of damaged flesh, the cold and sharp of the needle. He wanted to scream out loud and tell whoever it was to quit torturing him but he opted for passing out instead.
When he next woke he knew he was on a bed. Crisp starchy sheets, florescent light and stained ceiling spelled out motel.
“’Bout time -- you boys are gonna send me to into an early grave. Gold medal for scaring the shit outta me.”
Dean grunted, regretted it as he gagged.
“Dammit, boy, don’t you dare! I’m done cleaning up puke. Trashcan’s on your left, brother’s on your right. Cell, pain pills and gun on the night stand. I’ll be back soon.”
He swallowed, panting while trying to push away the nausea. “Bobby?” He hiccupped and swallowed bile, turned his head to his left. He knew he couldn’t have been dead because it couldn’t hurt this much to be dead. Dying, on the other hand…
“I gotta pick up my car and go grab a few things.”
Dean groaned and licked his chapped lips.
“Trashcan, night stand, brother,” Bobby repeated. “Don’t you move an inch till I get back. I mean it, Dean.”
Dean heard the door open, followed by an almost inaudible and reassuring, “You’re safe,” that let him slip back into unconsciousness.
[]-[]-[]
Sam was out of it. Sad thing about it was that it was probably the best rest he’d had since finding out about Dean’s deal. Dean made a mental note that he could knock Sam out if he refused to give that particular subject a rest. His kid brother just didn’t know when to call it quits. Dean groaned as he went for the pills and glass of water Bobby had left out for him. He placed a shaky palm on Sam’s face, stirring his brother of his concussed haze.
“Take them, Sam.”
Dean watched his brother mouth open and close in a futile attempt to talk. “Sorry, didn’t get that, Sammy. You don’t take them, I’m gonna down them all for myself.” Dean chuckled and moaned. “Fuck.”
“You ‘kay, Dee?”
“Peachy…Sonofabitch.” His leg was still pretty sore. Whatever Bobby had given him previously was out of his system and not masking any pain.
After Sam shuffled had himself upright against the headboard, Dean took the glass and offered meds, placed them in Sam’s palm and the glass to his lips. “You have ‘em, Dean,” his brother slurred.
Dean didn’t object; he dumped the remaining pills on his tongue and washed them down with tepid sips of water, willing them to stay down long enough to take the razor-sharp edge off or until he could pass out again, whichever came first.
“How’d we get here?” Sam asked.
“I dragged your sorry asses here, is how.” Bobby walked in with their duffels gripped in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other. There was a first aid kit balanced against his chest. He kicked the door shut.
After another round of wound-licking, a puking contest between Dean and Sam, Bobby filled the gap between blackouts, the motel room and patch ups. Somehow they both managed to piss away two days of temporary consciousness. An interesting story if he’d heard it all. It was Sam who later recapped the finer details. Turned out he was pretty banged up and the concussion was serious.
Sam and Dean couldn’t have been thankful enough for the “gut feeling” that led Bobby to drive over. That and the fact they he’d left over a hundred panicked phone messages. Alarms bells brought him there just in the nick of time. He’d single-handedly dragged and bundled them into his car before doing a rough clean-up job on the Littmans’ house and drove Dean’s car as far as he could before calling the authorities.
A phone went off in the small room, screen illuminating the pale walls. Dean turned his attention to Bobby who looked at the screen and sighed, “The Littmans.” He moved to the door as he told them, “I’m gonna take this outside.”
Dean cringed and nodded apologetically. The Littmans’ house was a mess. It was free of spooks but the damage done was a hefty bill to pay for that luxury. They agreed to go with the “We were away on holiday, gas fire” story Bobby had skillfully conjured. It eliminated a lot of questions from the cops, also allowed for insurance to cover most of the damage.
Sam appeared in Dean’s view with the first aid kit. “Move over,” he said. “I’m gonna change your dressing.”
“Sure thing, Florence.”
Sam remained stern faced. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice, smartass.”
“Oh, lighten up, Sammy.”
“Whatever.” Sam got to work. He was fast and gentle and far too good at patching Dean up, too accustomed to cleaning away blood and closing his wounds. They both were. It was all wrong but their reality made it a necessity. Just like laughing in the face of death even when death no longer smiled back.
“Thank you.” The words slipped from his lips.
Sam’s gaze shifted between Dean’s eyes and his bandaged arms. “No problem, dude.”
“I mean it, Sammy. I appreciate what you’re doing; I know you’re doing the best you can. No matter how this plays out in the end, that’s what’s important to me. That’s all I can ask of you.”
Sam bobbed his head, pressed his lips together and continued to nod silently.
“I just wanted you to know that. You should know that.”
Sam opened his mouth to say something but shook his head and smiled. “Thanks, man. That’s all I could have asked from you.”
----- End -----
Thank you so much for reading.
Good, bad ugly? I wanna know.
That’s one fic down, I have a sick!Dean and spn_females fic in the works so keep a look out.