Supernatural Fic: End of Violet, Beginning of Orange
Title: End of Violet, Beginning of Orange
Author: Emrys
Spoiler Alerts: Season 4, up to and including, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester"
Category: Gen/Hurt/Comfort
Pairing: N/A
Summary: Halloween's over, but that doesn't mean all the creepy-crawly, ghoulie ghouls have gone home. Dean gets taken by a monster.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the television program, Supernatural. That all belongs to the CW and Eric Kripke. I'm not receiving any sort of revenue for this fic.
A/N: This story takes place very soon after Season 4’s, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester.” I didn’t notice that episode occurring in any particular state, so I guessed Virginia…seemed as good a place as any! So, basically, Halloween’s just over, but more weirdness ensues.
I want to thank gaelicspirit for doing a bang-up beta job on this story. She’s the reason why Dean stutters correctly and why the fic isn’t totally broken up by an army of commas! She’s also the all-seeing “and which season are you talking about?” eye! Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to take a look, Gaelic! Having said all that…any mistakes are mine. Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!
Warnings for language. Naughty, naughty.
Enjoy!
End of Violet, Beginning of Orange
‘Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.’
~~Herman Melville
They’re eating breakfast in a strange little diner in Virginia when Sam first suggests there might be a case in upstate New York. Dean can’t keep his eyes off the glass-eyed face of an antelope that’s mounted in the wood-boarded wall beside him. He wonders what happened to the old-fashioned chrome and neon diners in this town, then glances at his breakfast.
He’s not particularly hungry, but out of habit born from a childhood full of hungry days, he’ll eat at least part of the pancake and bacon breakfast Sam ordered for him. He looks dubiously at the faux horn-handled fork on the table, but picks it up, and shoves a hefty portion of pancake in his mouth before answering Sam.
“One leg sticking out of the ground?” he asks. He hates the feel of the fork handle in his hand and becomes vaguely queasy as the pancake slides down his throat. Eyeing the antelope again, he suppresses a shiver. Hanging dead animals on a wall is just plain weird.
“Yeah,” Sam says, summarizing from the Internet article he’s reading. “They were both buried upside down with their left legs sticking up out of the ground. The legs were both cut from knee to ankle, and the ground around them was soaked in blood.”
“Gruesome,” Dean says, shoving more pancake in his mouth and trying very, very hard to believe the antelope isn’t staring at him.
“And they were alive when they were buried,” Sam says, in a horrified whisper.
Dean drops the fork.
“There goes my appetite,” he says, grimacing. He picks a tooth with a wayward finger.
“The coroner found dirt in the lungs and mouths of the victims. Suffocation was pronounced as the cause of death.”
“You think?” Dean asks, then adds, “Definitely sounds like one of ours, though.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, pushing the computer away.
Sam takes a sip of coffee, and looks distastefully at the silverware. Dean watches as his brother visibly sets aside his own disgust, picks up his fork and starts eating eggs.
“Guess we’ll head up north after we’re done here,” Dean says. He shoves another forkful of pancake into his mouth. Anything Sam can do, Dean can do better. “Keep an eye on it though, okay?”
Sam nods and closes the laptop lid.
Dean takes a sip of bitter coffee and wipes his mouth with a syrup stained napkin. His hands shake miserably, and he tries to hide them from Sam by stuffing them under the table. Sam looks at him with naked pain, and Dean can’t watch that agony leaking out of his brother. He just can’t.
So instead he looks out a window, but now he can’t avoid the antelope on the wall. It’s at head level and is like another guest at the table. His hands start shaking harder, and nausea roils in his stomach.
It’s not staring at me. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not! he thinks, frantically.
And he’s convinced.
The antelope isn’t staring at him.
Totally convinced.
He really is.
Really.
But then…
Well, then…
…the antelope turns its head.
It looks at him. Stares. Fucking no doubt about it.
The glass eyes twinkle and shine.
What the fuck? is all Dean has time to think before he’s lost in the dark void of dead eyes.
His breathing snags and then comes faster. Faster and faster, and then too fast. And as he falls into the pitch of mortal ends and hellish beginnings, he screams and screams and screams and….
….startles awake.
What the fuck? he thinks, but that echoing sentiment only returns him to the nightmare of an antelope on a wall. It takes an effort, but he ignores the still lurking dream that unsettlingly seems like a memory to him.
A vague, all-around ache bothers him, and he tries to move. It’s a mistake, because he can’t move. Not at all. He just can’t. He’s dizzy and weak, and any effort causes blind, white pain.
“Dean!”
“Huh?” he grunts. That sounded like Sam. What is going on?
“Dean-”
“S-Sammy? That you?” Even speaking thrums bright electric sparks down his throat and through his muscles. It doesn’t seem fair, because this is what Hell felt like. He thought he got out of there. He thought an angel plucked him from those black pits. But maybe he was wrong. Maybe….
“Dean-”
“What the…f-fuck, man?”
“Hold on, Dean. I just need to unlock the cage door. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Dean thinks Sam sounds desperate. If that really is Sam, somewhere in the darker parts of Hell. But Dean got out of Hell. Didn’t he?
“Am I b-back there?” he asks in a painful whisper. “Is this Hell?”
He doesn’t even know who he’s asking; it just seems the right thing to do.
“No, Dean. You’re not. Just…I don’t know. Stay awake. Can you do that for me?” Sam asks, as a loud clatter of metal rings out.
“Is that really you, Sam?” Dean asks. Whatever the response, he’s not going to believe it. Not really.
“Yes, Dean, it’s me,” Sam says, sounding relieved. “I think she’s a witch.”
“What?”
“A witch.”
Dean looks around and sees oily, metal bars surrounding him. He closes his eyes and tries to stop breathing. Breathing always hurts in Hell, and it’s not a necessary thing.
“Dean! Keep talking!”
Dean silently curses and starts breathing again.
“What are you t-talking about, S-Sammy?”
There’s a pause that makes the dark seem darker. Despite himself, Dean gets scared. As much as he wants to believe his brother isn’t here in Hell with him is as much as he wants to believe his brother is. The conflict of both needing Sam and dreading, fearing, hating the idea of him in Hell draws tears to Dean’s eyes. His throat clogs, and his nose runs. He can’t wipe anything away.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Sam asks, and Dean doesn’t know how to respond.
The tears drag down his face in a silent parade and his breath hitches again. He’s confused. He wants to answer his brother, but he can’t.
“Dean,” Sam says, obviously putting an effort into being patient, “what’s the last thing you remember?”
Against his will, Dean’s body drags in a deep breath, and he inhales some tears. Closing his eyes, he decides on the truth.
“Some freaky, st-stuffed an-telope,” he says. The words scratch his throat; speaking feels like vomiting jagged and broken pieces of glass.
Sam’s response is immediate.
“That was over a week ago!”
“Goody, m-memory loss,” Dean says, trying to hide his fear. “My favorite.”
Things fade out. He drifts away to someplace less painful.
For a moment.
Only a moment.
Then reality clears, and Sam’s with him. Sam’s with him, and he’s clasping Dean’s shoulders. Dean’s body shudders with pain.
“Is this Hell again?” he whispers.
“No, Dean,” Sam says, in a voice that sounds strange and strained. “It’s just a simple job. Not even related to Lucifer and the seals as far as I can tell.”
“Simple job,” Dean murmurs, feeling himself drift away again. “That’s good. That’s real good.”
Sam shakes him, and he screams from the pain the movement causes. He screams for a while, and when he stops he’s exhausted. But not so exhausted he can’t hear Sam’s distress.
“Shit! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Dean! I didn’t know! Easy, just…I won’t shake you again, okay?”
Dean’s face is damp where Sam’s tears have mingled with his own. Suddenly, he’s irritated.
“Cut it out Sam. I’m all right.”
Another of Sam’s tears falls and hits him squarely on the nose. Sam’s hands still clutch Dean’s shoulders tightly. Even though Dean can’t stand the pain his brother’s touch causes, he’s not going to ask Sam to stop holding onto him.
“You’re not all right,” Sam says, outright crying now. “You’re really not.”
oOo
Dean comes around sometime during a trek up a flight of questionable wooden stairs. The pain is excruciating.
“Sammy?” he asks the hulking figure who has a strong grasp on his arm and around his waist. A wave of nausea hits, but he doesn’t vomit. It’s a near thing.
“Yeah, Dean. Yeah, it’s me.”
“Wh-what?” It’s all he can manage. The air around him is black and blurred by pain and sweat and tears.
“We have to get out of here, Dean. We can’t be here when she gets back. Just hold on and let me do all the work. You’re hurt,” Sam whispers tightly.
“Okay,” Dean says. He doesn’t have the strength or will to argue.
They make their way upward, and for Dean the trip is eternal. Unsteady steps, firecrackers of pain and confusion, the sound of Sam’s heavy breathing as he drags them on and on and on. This is his life now. Forever.
So when Sam stops, he jolts, because he isn’t prepared for an ending.
“Is this H-Hell?” he asks. The words slur and twist on his tongue. He doesn’t particularly care.
“No, Dean. It’s not. Please stop asking that,” Sam says.
Dean doesn’t respond.
Sam does a strange juggling act that Dean can’t quite see. Dean’s hand slips and slides against something. A door. A wooden door with badly peeling paint. He can’t tell what color the paint is, because it’s too dark. A splinter stabs his thumb.
“Gimme a second. Just gimme one second, and we’ll be out of here Dean,” Sam whispers. His teeth must be clenched because his voice is tight and too controlled.
“Okay, o-okay, Sam,” Dean mutters. His teeth chatter in his mouth.
A few ticking and snapping sounds later, and the door opens. Beside him, Sam breathes a great sigh.
“C’mon, Dean.”
“All right.”
Sam drags him through dark and quiet rooms. Dean still can’t see clearly. What he can make out is strange and fantastical. Ghoulish, grinning faces and mummified heads. Crooked noses and beady eyes. Long fingers with reaching hands.
“God,” he groans, then flinches. Punishment is fearsome in Hell when God’s name is called.
“It’s all right, Dean. It’s just the haunted house. We’ll be out in a minute. It’ll only be a minute.”
“H-haunted house?”
“Don’t worry. It’s the fun kind,” Sam whispers, sounding grim.
“Fun k-kind?” Dean’s teeth chatter so badly now that thick, ropey tendrils of pain twist and writhe beneath his skull. They penetrate his brain and dig deep.
“It’s just after Halloween, Dean. Remember? This is the kind of haunted house where people go for a fun scare, you know?”
Dean seriously considers his brother’s words as he’s pushed and pulled and dragged along. He can come to only one conclusion.
“People are cr-crazy,” he says. Beside him in the dark, Sam chuckles quietly. Cynically.
Dean stumbles and sucks in a breath. This must really be Hell, he thinks. He’s too confused to make any other guess at what’s going on. He faces his future with resigned bleakness.
A stretched out hand with sharp nails brushes against his exposed arm. He wants to scream, but shudders and moans instead.
“Shh, shh,” Sam soothes. “It’s all right. It’s not real.”
Another door appears in front of them, but this one is easily opened with a deft twist of Sam’s wrist. They stumble out into crisp, nighttime air. Sam drags Dean forward one step, then two. He pauses and listens. Dean feels like a small animal with a fast beating heart; prey about to be pounced upon.
“Sam-”
“I don’t see her,” Sam says. “The Impala’s not far. Can you make it?”
Dean carefully nods his head, even though he’s not actually sure. Whatever. He’ll make it or die. It’s a familiar choice.
They lumber down a porch and head toward a great, flat field. The moon is full and shining silver overhead. For the first time, Dean sees more than blurry darkness. There are woods to the right of the landscape before them, but tall, scraggly vegetation is evident straight on ahead. He hears the distant, yet ominous sound of dry leaves scraping against each other as a cool breeze rushes through them.
“You were out there in the corn maze when you disappeared,” Sam murmurs, moving them along. “It’s supposed to be fun, but it’s not, is it? Not tonight.”
Not ever, Dean thinks.
Sam pulls a stalk of something from Dean’s hair. Dean remembers corn stalks around him. Too many to count. Dizzying in their numbers. He tries to remember more, but he can’t. It’s a blank.
“I was in there?” he asks Sam.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “I checked out the hayride trail.”
Dean huffs out a painful laugh and groans. He tries to remember where they are, what’s going on, and still he can’t.
“What…what was I doing out there?” he asks, feeling vacant.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sam says, dragging him further into the field, under the moon’s bright, silver light. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Why don’t I remember?”
“I think you have a concussion,” Sam says, sounding upset. “I think you fell down the stairs.”
It’s as good an explanation as any other, especially since Dean feels like he fell down some stairs.
“Oh,” he says. His eyes close as a wave of pain ignites his head. “I…I don’t…r-remember.” He feels himself sagging and tries to muster up the energy to keep going.
Sam lifts him up, supports him further.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sam says. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
oOo
Dean trips in the field. He falls and the moon swings in the sky as he topples over. He closes his eyes as argent light stabs at them.
“Dean, man, we’re almost there. I can see the Impala from here. C’mon, we gotta go.”
Dean nods. Groans. He tries to get a foot under his own weight, but he just ends up scraping at the anemic green, autumnal grass.
“C’mon, Dean. I’ll help,” Sam says.
Dean feels Sam’s muscles bunch in preparation of lifting him, when a screeching noise sails out at them from some nearby trees.
“Wh-what the hell w-was that?” Dean asks.
“C’mon,” Sam says, tense and afraid.
The screeching comes again, and it’s now accompanied by a heavy rustling. Dean’s still blinded by moonlight, but he can tell something’s coming. They need to move.
Except, he can’t. He just can’t.
“Go on, S-Sam. L-leave-”
Sam won’t let him finish.
“Fuck you,” he says, and lifts.
Sam’s arm is back around Dean’s waist, and Dean leans heavily on his brother. They only get five weaving, stuttering steps closer to the Impala before the screeching thing charges. Sam turns both their bodies toward the raucous noise, and he tenses in anticipation of an attack.
Dean barely makes out the shape of an iron-haired, unkempt and bony woman. She’s yelling as she runs toward them in bare and dirt-speckled feet.
“No, no, no! Can’t go! Can’t let them go! Look at them! Look at their teeth! Their teeth, teeth, teeth! Sharp, white, pointed teeth. Like sharks. Sharks on land that bite and rend!”
Dean hears her words clearly and doesn’t understand.
Ten feet away from them, the woman abruptly stops. Her eyes roll, and her face is wild but cunning. She hops forward on crooked legs, and Sam scuttles away from her. He drags Dean along with him.
“Listen, I don’t know what you want, lady, but my brother and I, we’re getting out of here,” Sam says, tersely.
Dean can tell his brother’s afraid of this old bat, but he doesn’t know why. Why should anyone the size of Sam be frightened by such a strange, old bitty?
“You’re destroyers!” the crazed woman yells. “Destroyers! You must die! You must, must, must, must-”
She continues yelling as she suddenly springs forward. Dean’s dead weight; he knows it in some vague and fuzzy way. He pulls away from Sam, drops to the ground that smells faintly of seasonal endings and decay. The scent is sweet. Like rotten apples.
It takes Sam only a fraction of a moment to let his brother go, before he moves forward and strikes out at his bizarre attacker. Dean is flat on his back, so he curls onto his side to see. The woman has a wooden stake-a wooden stake?!-in her hand. She thrusts it forward, aiming for Sam’s heart.
Sam steps aside and easily disarms her. He practically sits on the woman as he struggles to remove his belt from around his waist. Dean huffs out an amused breath. A crazy woman tried to use surprise and brute force against a hunter. Against Sam. Sasquatch. Dean starts outright laughing, and he can’t stop. It hurts.
After a brief and pitiful scuffle, Sam uses his belt to tie the woman’s arms. She gives up after that. Just sits in the grass and stares at nothing with her glazed and spinning eyes. Sam takes a deep breath, then rushes over to Dean.
“That i-isn’t a w-itch, Sam,” Dean says, between puffs of weak laughter. “That’s j-just s-some crazy b-bitch.”
Sam looks grim and distraught. Dean can’t remember why he’s laughing and stops.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “No witch would pull a stunt like that. But she’s killed people, Dean. She almost killed you.”
Dean looks at the pathetic wild woman who’s now rocking slowly. Forward. Backward. Then forward again.
“That’s r-rid…ridiculous,” he says.
Then he passes out.
oOo
Dean startles awake, grunts, settles. He thinks about that stuffed antelope on the diner wall. He thinks about the dream he had about the antelope. A dream which really wasn’t a dream so much as it was a replaying of history. His own personal, fucked up history.
His mouth tastes like crossroads dirt. He wants to vomit but doesn’t have the energy. He moans and trembles instead.
“Hey, Dean. Hey,” Sam says from somewhere nearby.
There’s a shuffling noise, and then Sam’s face is in Dean’s line of vision.
“Where are we?” Dean whispers.
“Hotel, outside of Port Ewen. We’re safe now.”
“Okay,” Dean says, trusting.
“Go to sleep. You still need rest,” Sam says, carefully touching Dean’s shoulder.
Dean tenses, then moves into the comfort. He falls asleep with the pressure of his brother’s hand on his cold skin, and the taste of dirt in his mouth.
oOo
Screams and pain and pitch and ash and infinite, infinite, infinite blood, gore, bleached, broken, bones and screams and screams and screams and…
oOo
…he wakes up again. Sam sits beside him on the bed. He looks uneasy and upset.
“I’ve been here before, haven’t I?” Dean whispers. He feels like he’s in a dream.
“Yes,” Sam says. “You’re sick, but you’ll be okay soon.”
“All right,” Dean says.
He falls asleep.
oOo
Pain, pain, pain, oh God, just pain, oh Sam, sticky, spearing, gory, gutting, pain, pain, pain, pain…
oOo
“Sammy?” Dean whispers and opens his eyes. He can tell by the slanted light trickling from the window that darkness is coming. “Is the door salted?” he asks. Whispers. Shudders.
Sam stirs next to him.
“Yes, Dean. Of course.”
He doesn’t sound peeved by the questioning. That’s good.
“Why am I so tired? Why did I go crazy?” he asks.
Sam makes a funny rattling sound deep in his throat. Dean realizes he spoke his questions out loud.
“We think it was the concussion combined with, well, with the trauma you experienced in Hell,” Sam says. His voice sounds like rusty, brittle wire.
Dean involuntarily flinches. He wishes he knew when to keep his mouth shut.
“You believed you were being tortured again. It looks like you were drugged, and that you fell or were pushed down the cellar stairs. Between the concussion, drugs and the iron cage I found you in, it’s not hard to believe you thought you were back…there. The pain was real. The remembered trauma was real. It paralyzed you.”
I can’t hunt like this, Dean thinks. I’m a danger to him.
“It’ll be okay,” Sam says. “You just need time. Anyone who’s been through what you have would need time.”
You don’t know what I’ve been through, Sammy, Dean thinks.
He should get out of bed, but he’s still shaking badly under the blankets. He doesn’t want Sam to see.
“Get some rest, Dean.”
Dean closes his eyes. Somehow his mixed up brain puts two and two together as he skirts the edge of consciousness. Realization wakes him.
“What did you mean by ‘we’?” he asks, suspiciously. His eyes are still closed.
“Huh?” Sam asks, trying to sound stupid.
“Before you said, ‘We think it was the concussion’. Who exactly is ‘we’?” Dean asks. He opens his eyes partway and studies his brother through their narrowness. Sam struggles then resigns himself.
“Cas was here,” he admits. His hair shuffles in his eyes as he bends his head forward.
“Cas was here,” Dean repeats, irritated.
“He came by to make sure you were okay.”
“How’d he even know something was wrong?”
“He’s an angel, Dean,” Sam says, evasively.
“You called out for him,” Dean says, pointedly.
Sam hesitates, and Dean knows he’s right. Of course he’s right.
“Sam-”
“You wouldn’t rest, Dean. Not until he came. You needed to rest.”
“Sam, I don’t need coddling. Especially not by a freakin’ angel,” Dean replies, although he’s secretly thankful his brother had the presence of mind to confer with Cas and not Ruby.
A pained look crosses Sam’s face. Dean’s heart feels pinched.
“You were screaming, Dean. Screaming.”
Sam turns away. Dean closes his eyes.
“Okay, Sam. Okay.”
There’s a pause. A moment’s silence. Then a broken whisper.
“Okay, Dean.”
Dean lapses into sleep. He has dreams but ignores them.
oOo
One more time, he wakes up. He still jerks and jitters under the blankets. It’s early morning. He smells coffee and wants some when Sam shuffles into his view carrying a steaming cup. Dean feels awake. Truly awake.
“Can I have some of that?” he asks.
Sam smiles hesitantly and passes the mug over. The tremor in Dean’s hand is barely noticeable as he accepts the cup. The coffee is delicious and washes away the taste of dirt in his mouth.
He leans back against the headboard of the motel bed. Smiles hesitantly. Sam cocks his head. They stay like that for a little while.
Eventually Dean asks, “So, what happened?”
Sam huffs out a sharp and bitter bite of laughter.
“This hunt wasn’t supernatural. Not really. Just a crazy woman going around killing people because she thought they were vampires. Seems like she was drawn to the haunted house because there was a lot of activity out there right before Halloween. Probably figured it was where all the vampires hung out, so she stayed even after the crowds left. She must’ve thought more vampires would come along eventually.”
“Halloween is quickly becoming my least favorite holiday.” Dean says, grimacing. “Not even the candy can make up for all the other shit.”
Sam shrugs and looks guilty. Dean can tell he’s thinking of Samhain.
“Anyway,” Sam says, continuing. “She dug holes, drugged her victims, then buried them upside down in the dirt. When they started to struggle, she bled them to make them weaker.”
“Classic,” Dean whispers, horrified. He thinks how that could have happened to him. How it would have happened to him if Sam hadn’t found him in time.
“The authorities have her now. I made an anonymous call,” Sam says, grim and tired. “Maybe once upon a time she saw real vampires. Maybe she didn’t. Who knows?”
“Humans are worse then what we hunt,” Dean says. “I never understand it, though.” He grips a blanket edge and twitches beneath its meager warmth. “I’ll never get it.”
“Neither will I,” Sam says.
Sam’s mouth is a grim line that makes him look older than he is. Dean wants to weep. Where has his little brother gone?
His eyes slide shut, and he sees Hell. He jumps and a few tears slip past his control. Sam takes the coffee cup from his fidgety hands.
“Dean, we should talk. Cas said you were having flashbacks from Hell. I think we should talk about that.”
Dean adds a few more bricks to his mental barriers. Cements them tightly to the whole.
“I’ve said all I’m going to say on this subject, Sam,” he says. A growled warning.
“But Dean-”
“Go away, Sam,” Dean says.
Sam doesn’t go away. Dean sighs. Closes his eyes. Pretends to sleep but thinks instead.
He thinks how he’s the angels’ bitch, and how Sam is quickly becoming Ruby’s. He thinks how he’s been to Hell and back. Ridden-hard and soul-sweaty. He thinks that of course he’s not all right.
But that doesn’t mean he has to admit it.
“I’m good enough,” he says to his brother who still hasn’t gone. “Now go away. Let me sleep.”
Sam sighs heavily, but he goes. Starts washing dishes in the kitchenette.
Dean doesn’t sleep. Instead, he stares out the window.
At the purple and orange morning sky.