Post-apocalyptic setting
Your character's world has ended and purgatory awaits them, a wasteland full of ruined buildings. The surrounding desert constantly wears down the buildings with a neverending wind. There aren't any monsters to worry about, no zombies or demons, but your characters are haunted by the ghosts of people they once knew and there's only one escape from
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It'd weirded him out the first few times he'd woken to Dean standing by the entrance like that, but he'd gotten used to it. There were worst things he hadn't gotten used to yet, like seeing Jess pinned to the ceiling every time he opened his eyes. Half the time, he wasn't sure if Dean wasn't just some spectral image, too. But Jess never spoke and Dean did. That, and Dean wasn't right. Everything about this was wrong, and Sam figured that had to mean it was real.
Either way, there was Dean again, by the doorway, when Sam propped himself up on one elbow. Or, what served for the doorway, at least. More like a hole in the wall, really. Needless to say, there was no door to go with it. They didn't need them anymore, so it didn't matter. No salt lines, no traps. He'd drawn one at first, back before he realized that there was only one demon left, and when he came back, he'd had to break the trap to let Dean out of it. It shouldn't have been that big of a deal, but it hit too close to home--everything. Made it too obvious how much was different. So Sam had given up on protective circles and devil's traps, and when Dean had started taking to playing watchdog every time Sam needed some shuteye, it'd stopped being necessary.
He looked for places with double beds if he could, though, if only because once when he hadn't, he'd found Dean perched on the end of his own bed and that'd just been kind of disturbing, even for him. Even if he didn't think he'd care now. Dean had forgotten...some stuff, and Sam had, too. After awhile, normal and strange had become more abstract than anything. Things just were. But old habits died hard and maybe he just needed something to feel better about, so he felt better about it when he could find a set of two instead of one.
Sam fumbled for his gun first, and his flashlight second, switching it on. A hazy beam of light flooded the room, which wasn't much of a room to speak of. A box with crumbling walls and a few more broken pieces of what used to be furniture inside.
"Rise and shine?" he said dryly, since he was fast running out of ways to greet his never-sleeping brother in the not-mornings and staring at Dean in silence while he cleared the buzz of sleep from his mind was just. Awkward.
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It was like being paralyzed, trapped within his own body, feeling his blood spilling from still fresh wounds. Felt it stop. Felt his body start to stiffen on him. Dean should be dead, after being torn apart like that when his time ran out...only he couldn't even remember his last couple of hours (days?), only suddenly looking up at a blinding light, hearing voices. Human voices? Demons, come to get a piece of Dean Winchester since he was the only game in town now that Dad booked it? All he knew was they cut into him when he was already dead, kept going and the next day, they'd start over, and over, and Dean would've screamed if he could just control his body. It should've been impossible, but every night, when they left him strapped to that table, shut off the lights on him, Dean clung to anything to keep him focused - first he clung to ideas of escape, to figuring out out what they'd done with him, what they wanted and if he could use anything against him.
Days passed. It got worse. Sometimes injections, pills, drugs, sometimes just good, old fashioned knives and hooks, pulling, trying to find something he couldn't see. Sometimes he'd get some control, and he'd spasm on the table when they began the water tests, convulsing away still trapped by the straps when they dripped something on him and it burned like acid on his skin. The room was sound-proofed - when he could still scream at the beginning of those days, no one seemed to hear and eventually all he could do was grunt with a ruined voice. And still they kept going.
Dean then stopped trying to think about escape.
He thought about Dad holding out in Hell for a year.
Dean wasn't that man. He tried and tried and tried to be even half the man Dad was but he just couldn't cut it.
Dean then thought of Sammy as he sat there in the dark, feeling his blood congeal every night, the burns from the water tests still sore and the room dead silent, cold as he waited for the hours to pass and them to return. Eventually that was all that was left, this thought of Sam Sam Sam circling around and around, until he started to forget why he clung to it like a life-preserver and there was just the pain with the water and the white powder and the lonely, maddening nights by himself before it started all over again...
The memories came and went, sometimes of things like sitting in a car, sometimes of the last couple of months on that table, dead but alive. Dean by now had gotten used to them and when Sammy tried to ask about them, he'd just paste on that smartass grin and shrug. Then every night, he'd make sure his brother was safe, and he'd keep watch until dawn. The world now was just a shell of itself but to Dean, he didn't see a difference. Now he didn't need to sleep, not with this body that was just a shell of itself, with organs were torn apart by those dogs - he remembered those now - and his heart wasn't pumping. Dean decided now that he wasn't in that room, that Sammy found him, that he'd just deal with it. What he remembered of being alive and human? There were a lot of inconveniences that slowed a guy down: eating, breathing, sleeping, leaks, all of that which he didn't really need to do but Sam still did. It wasn't easy to find supplies for Sam in the ruins, but Dean had all night. Sometimes for an hour or so, he'd take off, come back with food, long stale after the end of the world, and leave it there, take his place again standing guard.
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"Had an awesome party all night," Dean said. He crossed the room toward the window where the weak sunlight was flickering through and peered outside. Dust-devils swirled in the streets, over the gaping cracks and wrecks of cars, some of the bodies still trapped inside with the deteriorating seat-belts still strapped across the ribcages. He just looked at them, didn't feel any remorse - or much of anything - and turned his attention back to Sam. His little brother, the center of everything. When there wasn't anything left, there was just Sammy, and Dean felt nothing wrong with zeroing in on that. "Checked around last night. No ghosts so far, but they could still be on their way. You finally get a chick after you and it's some stiff."
From what he remembered of being Dean Winchester, human, he remembered hunting these things. Normally they haunted places, objects, not usually people. Now they were, following a person place to place. Dean could do a lot of things like survive getting shot, having a bridge collapse under him a week ago scouting ahead for Sam, and crawl out with some broken bones and still keep walking, but ghosts? He couldn't fight those, not even with whatever it was that kept him standing upright. All he could do was make sure Sammy kept moving fast enough that maybe they could lose any spirits trying to haunt his little brother since the end of the world.
Edited at 2009-07-12 05:52 am UTC
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Sam reached for the flimsy plastic water bottle (half full, but better than nothing) inside the duffel. One of those disposal ones that everyone always ran out to buy cases upon cases of when any news of the world ending filtered out, except he didn't think there was any news this time. Not for them, anyway. One day he just woke up, stuck in the same old institute, with Ruby instead of Dean; Dean was gone by then and Sam hadn't expected him to be back, hadn't really wanted it, anyway. Every time Dean came back from the dead, it was like the world was asking, here, let's see how long you can keep him alive this time.
So Dean wasn't there and he woke up and everything was falling down. And that was it. Then there was this, a broken world populated with ninety percent corpses, ten percent ragtag survivors. If you could call them that. Might as well be ghosts, same as the ones following everyone. He didn't know what they were; they didn't hurt anyone physically, but hell, seeing her face-his first failure, was what his mind had labeled it as, even if he tried not to think too much on it-day in and day out. Yeah, that wasn't quite the picnic.
And if there wasn't her, there was Dean, who followed him just the same. Sometimes if he went long enough without seeing that flash of black or if he got something more out of Dean than the impassionate way he dodged around piles of corpses-not that Sam was much better, barely giving them a second glance these days-sometimes he could pretend. Maybe. But he didn't do that too often, either. No point in dreaming about what he couldn't have; he'd done that once before and it'd gotten him nothing but a pile of dead bodies and this. Here. Whatever it was. He thought about calling it his own personal hell, but that sounded too pretentious.
Still. He had Dean. A pale shadow, maybe, but if he could say different about himself-well. He couldn't. He'd dragged Dean out of that crumbling building, what was left of the experimental lab, and it wasn't until he was halfway out that Dean had woken up with eyes pitch black. Sam's immediate instinct had been to exorcise him, possessed he'd thought, but-Jesus, the protective tattoo. The one he'd drawn on with his own hand. It was supposed to keep a demon out, but when a demon was made from within, God, what was there to do with that? That he'd had to break through the trap by the door before he could carry Dean any further was screwed up as it was.
But it was...Dean, he'd realized later. Maybe he was lying to himself and the demon was just pretending, but he knew his brother, and he just-he knew it was Dean. Besides, no demon should've been able to get in. No, it was Dean. Whether that was a good thing or not, he couldn't decide. All he knew was that either way, it was a crap situation so it was pretty damn useless to weigh the pros and cons. What was done was done, anyway. Sam had given up on trying to singlehandedly change...fate or whatever. Dean had been dragged to hell the way he'd meant to be, the world had ended, and he'd been extremely stupid to think he could've done something about that. Right now, he had Dean and it wasn't so much settling for second-best as it was holding onto what little he'd somehow managed not to completely destroy.
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He glanced out the makeshift window, slates of wood nailed over a small square opening. Daylight was filtering through, but it wasn't really bright. The sun didn't come up the same anymore. Even during the day, it was all dim and hazy.
"You found a way to go?" He already knew the answer. Dean always found a way. Came back sometimes with injuries no living person could've survived, but that wasn't a problem for Dean anymore. Somehow, his brother avoided messing up his face in any irreparable way. Not a surprise; demon or not, Dean was, in some ways, still Dean.
He pointedly ignored the comment about Jessica. It was something he didn't like to talk about, but Dean's sympathetic ability faltered a little on occasion. Either that, or Dean always would've dropped those kinds of remarks and Sam simply didn't know anymore what Dean-the Dean he used to have-was like. It all blurred together, real and false memories, the past and present. Nightmares that woke him up, and with Dean constantly awake, Sam couldn't even convince himself that Dean was too busy sleeping to have noticed.
For a demon, though, Dean was still a good several steps or a hundred ahead of the others in terms of, well, not killing everything in his path. Sam didn't know if one day, if that would end some day or if Sam being here meant Dean might hold onto his humanity more. Ruby seemed to have. Who knew? Dean forgot a lot, but Sam-he remembered Sam. And maybe that was enough for the both of them.
Pulling his duffel bag closer, he tossed the water bottle back inside. He'd scrounged it up shortly before things fell apart so bad. It was kinda falling apart now, though nothing a little duct tape hadn't fixed. If there was anything more indestructible than duct tape, Sam hadn't found it. Except Twinkies, possibly.
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"There's a Walmart down the street, few blocks away on Willow," Dean said, eyes only on Sam. He used to be the first thing he'd pick out in a room, and now, 'cause of all of this, he always would be. "Most of it's been picked over, but way I figure it, we can find you some supplies over there through Receiving: part of it's collapsed, though, probably why the others before us didn't get in that far. Shouldn't be a problem for us."
Dean crossed his arms over his chest. The white shirt was smudged with dirt and his own blood; it was mostly there to just cover up the big lines of plastic stitches criss-crossing his whole torso from when they sewed him up after his run-in with the hellhounds, more proof that at one point in his actual life, Dean had about enough time to cough up blood, and have his own insides slopped all over the outside as he died. Dean knew it bothered Sam to have those visible, so when his brother handed him a shirt, he didn't reply with anything other than taking it and pulling it over his head. There was a long tear down the side from the bridge collapse incident, and sooner or later, he'd have to replace it. If he could. There was always the option of looking around on the freeway, where there were a lot more cars, some bodies that weren't as far along as the others. He could always help himself to something from there.
On Dean's list of priorities, with Sam always and forever at the top, "New Shirt" was way at the bottom, right there with "Check Broken Ankle". What they needed - what Sammy needed - was more food, more water, more whatever it took to keep him alive and just out of reach of those spirits. Sometimes Dean had these daydreams, only he wasn't sure he could have real dreams anymore; what he did know was he'd be sitting there, waiting for Sam to finish eating, and he'd be be thinking about how much he wished he could pull these spirits apart, about how despite how much he kept screaming in that room until he couldn't, Dean had been watching, silently learning what they'd been doing to him.
Sometimes he caught glimpses of shadows, people maybe, out of the corner of his eye but when he looked, they were gone. He wasn't sure if he was being haunted, like Sam was in danger of being, or if it was just an after-effect of being whatever he was now.
"You want to stay here another night or we gonna keep moving west?"
It looked like Sam was as ready as he was gonna be. Dean turned, easily picked up his own duffle - overloaded, heavy for a human but not even a second thought for him - and nodded at Sam, tossing him a scarf to keep his head covered and protect him from the sand and dirt being kicked up by the wind. He didn't mind being a pack-mule, especially when he was carrying every bit of scrounged ammo and possible weapon they could find. So far they'd only run into humans, some insane, some just getting by (and getting in Dean's way, which meant he'd kill them for whatever little supplies they had, using the time when Sam slept to be productive), but there was no saying what monsters survived. Dean had, after all, even if he'd been locked up in some lab until Doomsday arrived and Sam was suddenly there to bust them out like some big damn hero. Dean's own memory of that was iffy.
One of these days he'd ask for details.
Dean didn't wait for Sam's answer, trusting him to decide what was up as he led the way to the hallway outside. Even if Sam decided to stay another night, it didn't change the fact he needed to search for supplies today while it was still light outside. The elevators at the end of the ruined hall were out with no power, which meant navigating broken beams - he always went first to check how stable they were, and it wasn't just the fact he couldn't die that made him always take point - and inching their way down the busted emergency stairs and the door to the outside ground level.
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Sam didn't look up, slipping the gun into the back of his jeans. It wasn't the one he used to own, obviously, but it was a decent one, a functional Glock that Dean had come back with one day. Too decent to have just been left lying around, even if its owner had been long dead. Unless Dean had been extremely lucky, someone should've snapped it up within minutes, if not seconds. Sam didn't think Dean had been lucky. He never asked, though, where or how Dean came back with some of this stuff, because he knew. He saw how little was out there, how vicious people would become just to get their hands on a steak knife or a slice of bread.
No, luck had nothing to do with it. If Sam had long lost parts of his conscience, he doubted Dean was doing much better with his. But there was nothing to discuss; Dean would confirm it the way Sam knew he would. Broaching the topic was an exercise in considering all the ways they went wrong at best and he did that enough during the long stretches of silence, nights when he couldn't sleep and it was too dangerous to go for a walk. (Sometimes he did it, anyway, with Dean never visible as he followed, but never too far away, either.)
Not, he thought as he shouldered his own pack, that he knew why they were both fighting so hard to survive when there wasn't much to live for, when they'd outlived their time years ago. He should've been dead, Dean was dead, and neither of them could claim to be human anymore. He felt it. Maybe he always had, but he felt it acutely now, the blood running through him; there was a part of him that thought wrong wrong wrong, but when even people occasionally turned into rabid animals, the concept of humanity became relative.
Could've just been instinct that kept them going. People, hardwired to keep on plodding along for no prize at the end.
Sam caught the scarf and followed Dean out into the shambles of the apartment. There used to be live wires in these places, but those were growing fewer and far between. He kept an eye out straight ahead; Dean couldn't die, but it didn't mean Sam wasn't worried about the body itself. If it got too damaged-there were limits, and Dean was technically trapped. The tattoo made sure of that. Sam had thought about removing it, but demons still felt a certain amount of pain and peeling off a chunk off of Dean's chest was just...he didn't want to go down that path until they had no choice. And anyway, Dean possessing his own body was one thing; seeing his brother reflected within another person's eyes? God, he didn't know if he could-well he could, but. Best avoided, that was all.
The temperature was rising just the slightest in the daylight, barely but there. The wind wasn't stopping, though. Sometimes it slowed, but that was about it. He scratched the back of his neck, strands of hair that were starting to get a bit long even by his standards brushing his fingers.
"Keep moving," he said finally, a good five or ten minutes later, though he didn't bother clarifying what he was talking about. They'd just be moving to more of the same-more wind, more dust, more bodies with ragged flesh that had been chewed away by whatever scavengers remained-but he didn't feel like staying even if some of the survivors had set up more permanent bases. Settling down wasn't for either of them; remaining in one place for too long only made him edgy.
He stepped over a dead raccoon without a second look down at the way its belly had burst, spilling onto the asphalt. "We need a damn car."
It'd more than a long time and she'd always been Dean's, and while he'd never admit it-yeah, he missed the Impala. Vehicles-working vehicles-were next to impossible to come by these days, but if they dug around enough, if they came upon enough of an open road that wasn't blocked by fallen buildings, they might get lucky enough to do more than walk everywhere.
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He didn't tell Sam yet he wasn't sure if he could remember how to drive a car anymore.
It felt like it'd been so long...
The wind had died down a little by the time they started crossing the huge parking lot. The few vehicles still in the lot were all useless: one was tipped over, tires punctured, the next two burned out, and the fourth and fifth riddled with what looked a lot like bullet-holes. Dean's own knowledge of cars was full of holes, but you needed just common sense to look at the hole blown in the engine, the signs of some kind of leak, and figure out that it probably wasn't gonna do them much good. He hadn't been able to scout enough to find out just how many survivors were around holed up in the city or underground - his last encounter with that scavenger in the subway, a teenage boy, hadn't netted him anything but a wilting head of lettuce and a rusted butterfly knife. Asking if there were any survivor gangs roving around - are we in anyone's territory - hadn't crossed his mind until he'd already broken the boy's neck. Not exactly one of his shining moments there. In his defense, Dean was still new to this whole demon thing: Sam didn't call him one to his face, true, but Dean remembered enough about his demons to know not dying, and getting stuck with traps and salt usually put you on the other side of the human line. Right now, though, he needed to focus. The only thing he could think of was to get Sam inside, under cover as soon as possible, and make this quick. Let him do the dirty work.
Gangs or no gangs.
A few more minutes and Dean led them into Receiving: a sole trailer sat still attached to the back with a hole gaping in its side. There wasn't anything but cardboard and wood pallets, Dean announced after a quick peek inside, and led them to the back, up a pile of rubble from the partially collapsed ceiling and stopping to help Sam up if he needed it.
Dean pointed at a spot of rubble, "Think there's a door under here, Sam. Give me a few minutes and I'll get it cleared."
The ex-hunter went to work, moving blocks of concrete and twisted metal without even thinking about it, working at a fast pace 'cause if he didn't, Sam was exposed longer and longer on turf that could be "owned" already. The door itself was already damaged from the wreck, which meant that all Dean had to do with was hook his fingers and pull, the metal peeling like melted butter until they had enough space for a grown man to squeeze into. Dean stuck his head in: funny thing about being dead, but not. You didn't really need flashlights anymore. It wasn't exactly like he had night-vision or anything fancy...actually, he couldn't really explain it. Sometimes he forgot he could see better now, and it took a reminder from Sam that what he could do wasn't normal. Times like these, Dead didn't even care to pretend he was still a living, breathing human.
He could take on a bunch of scavengers. But Sam. Sam had limits, Sam just had to get shot or stabbed once and he'd lose him forever. The terror Dean felt at that thought would've kept him up at night if he could still sleep. Now he just stood watch over his little brother, watched him do what he couldn't, and wondered if today would be the day he'd finally lose him.
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Besides, it wasn't...it was either that or-what? Talk?
Yeah. Right. The days of easy conversation between them, that was basically over. It'd been over since Dean had shown up, seemingly back from the dead way back when. They'd never managed to bridge that gap and now Sam didn't even bother trying. All the things he'd kept from Dean, that'd spilled into the open. There was nothing to pretend about anymore.
Anyway, Dean needed something to do, Sam knew that. If sending him out to scavenge kept him occupied, from going stir-crazy or whatever, so be it. Benefits on both ends, he supposed.
Though he suspected Dean would actually be perfectly okay with watching him all day and night. It was just Sam who felt...unnerved by that. He'd always been the first thing on Dean's mind, the same way Dean was always the first thing on his, but there was a difference between that and the way Dean was now. It could've been worse-so much worse, in truth-but it didn't mean he was sitting comfortable with it, either. It wasn't that things were different. They really weren't. Still the two of them, together, Dean watching his back. It was that things were completely the same, but off. Little changes that jarred him. It was easy to adapt to an entirely new situation, but with this, he found himself lulled into feeling as if everything could be okay until that flash of black eyes or when Dean bled and Sam found himself distracted by the blood itself rather than the injury, and then he was yo-yo'd back to reality.
While Dean moved the rubble, Sam stood waiting, the Glock held loose, but ready, in his hand. There was no telling what might come out when they were heading into unexplored territory. People were just as dangerous as the few wild animals that had cropped up. Desperate times and all that. Plus, those rats? Were brutal. And huge, too, likely from gorging themselves on the human feast spread out before them.
Sam took one last glance behind him before slipping inside the opening Dean had made. He could've sworn-but the problem with being in a broken wasteland like this was that there was always gonna be something around the corner. Instincts weren't the most useful when they were going haywire every second.
Still.
He set the flashlight on the floor to illuminate the area while keeping his hands free to start rifling through the boxes. Some of them were crushed beneath wooden beams and what looked like the tail end of a goddamn news chopper had smashed through part of the wall, sending plaster spilling to the cracked tiled floors. There were fewer bodies in here. People didn't flee inside Wal-Marts, after all. Most of the corpses lined the streets, especially the highways. As if they could outrun the apocalypse by driving fast enough.
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That wasn't edible.
He moved onto the next box, keeping one eye on his surroundings even though he knew Dean would be standing guard as usual. But Dean, different though he was now, was still only a single set of eyes. He'd learned a long time ago how easy it was, that slip into oops, you're dead. A fall, a look in the wrong direction.
Some of these boxes, though, a couple of them were empty or picked through. Sam hesitated, cast another look around him. It was possible that it was just the employees or customers who were in here before everything ended. It'd happened fast, but not too fast for people to panic and scrabble for whatever supplies they could get their hands on.
Even so...But he couldn't see anything right now. Playing it safe wasn't gonna get them anywhere; they'd be long dead by now. He adjusted his grip on his gun and kept on searching.
The fourth box he flipped through finally yielded something useful. Water. Bottled, perfect condition. Or, as perfect as they came these days. He grabbed a few, tossing some to Dean to carry, though he didn't take more than what he needed. The weight slowed them down and as scarce as water was, it did rain sometimes. That and-wasn't like he was planning for the long future. He just needed enough to last him a few days, maybe a week if they stretched it. The length of time it took for them to settle at another place, find somewhere else to raid. The truth was, he didn't know how much longer he'd be around. This gig, it was dangerous enough even before civilization collapsed. A couple of hunters knew old age, but the ones who did, they started out late. Fifteen, twenty years max. He and Dean?
Yeah, they were nearing their time. Dean had reached it already. Sam was gonna hit his sooner or later, and he was torn between wanting to just get it over with already and being completely unsure of what would happen to Dean if he died. Dean couldn't die, couldn't really even be hurt, but that wasn't the only way-he knew death wasn't what Dean feared the most. Of course he knew, he'd have to be freaking blind twice over not to know.
Sam had died on Dean once, and he still felt guilty as hell about it. And that was really the only thing that kept him going, that he couldn't do that again to Dean, couldn't up and die on him, though a small, petty part of him sometimes thought, why not, he's done it to you how many times now?
But he owed Dean that much. That much and more.
He pushed to his feet, knees dusty where the fabric of the jeans had torn so that they were no longer protecting them, and that was when he felt more than heard it, the barest whisper of a scuff of movement. He didn't even waste time shooting a glance at Dean as he brought his gun up, knew his brother had picked up on it if he did. The problem was how goddamn dark it was. One flashlight was hardly enough to illuminate the place properly, and despite the streaks of light filtering through the holes in the walls, it didn't exactly reach the corners of the room, places that'd make for good cover.
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Voices.
Coming in from outside.
It was faint, though definitely coming closer. Dean watched as Sam's flashlight bobbed off to the side as he concealed himself; after a second of hesitation, Dean did the same, even though he knew there was just no point in him of all people hiding. It didn't matter if he got caught looting.
Yeah, so someone had not only beaten them here, but made it their base, too. Or as much of a base as some wrecked warehouse could be. Dean watched from behind the dusty forklift, feeling that weird warm feeling in his chest whenever danger came his way - it wasn't like adrenaline (did his body even produce that anymore?) - and he knew he could, should, just go out there and rip them apart. The more encounters he had with living humans, with anyone other than Sammy, and it grew stronger and stronger. Again, something he didn't think his brother needed to hear right now, especially when Dean was doing his best to stick to whatever memories he had left about the man he was supposed to be.
The people didn't come in from the new hole he'd made. Instead, they must've come in through an entrance he missed (Dean was genuinely pissed about that, how could he've missed something?) and they just barely moved past Sam's hiding spot. A flare sputtered into life, casting the room and the grungy man holding it in green, along with his two pals.
"Telling you, there's someone here," he said, growling as he removed the cloth covering his face. Dean supposed he should've seen a human being, but he just saw meat on two legs, weakness, and something that, if it couldn't fight back, it didn't deserve to live. The big AK at his side didn't even register to Dean.
The woman, shaking out tangled mousy brown hair from a tattered hat, inspected one of the opened boxes. "Got ourselves some looters, Johnson. Look."
Johnson looked. His head snapped up, eyes searching. "Spread out."
Dean would've held his breath. He didn't need to: he could fake breathing if he had to, remember to make his chest go up and down. Right now all he cared about was making sure Sam got outta here safe, and it didn't matter if there were three strangers in the way. If they found Sam, he had no doubt they'd probably kill him: he would, if he were them, 'cause it was one less mouth to feed, one less competitor for limited supplies. Dean found himself tense, so tense and agitated he was almost trembling, as Mousey got closer to Sam's hiding spot.
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Dean went for Guy 2, had just enough time to jump him and drive the rusted bowie knife he'd been carrying since day one deep into his guts and twist it, drag it, and start spilling intestines all over the Receiving floor. The stench of blood hit Dean almost like a solid smack, and that second of distraction was enough to give Mousey and Johnson time to react, the two drawing their weapons. Dean went for them, felt something - bullet - hit his thigh but he kept moving, ignored all his broken bones from all these months and pushed the body he was riding forward.
Distantly he could hear Sam's Glock reports cracking in the room as he covered him.
Dean got up close to Johnson, too close to use that gun, and he struck at him just as Johnson swung with the butt of the AK at the side of his head. Dean staggered, missing his chest entirely and just managing to knock the flare out of his hand, sending it skidding across the floor. Another strike and Dean found himself on his knees for a split second before he drove himself up to lunge again at the man. Something about the way he moved vaguely said military to Dean. Years ago it would've meant something. More gunfire. Dean didn't miss the second time navigating in the dark and stabbing again with the old bowie knife.
When he turned around, he saw Mousey disappearing out the door he'd just opened. Dean couldn't let her go, even if there was some sick, twisted part of him that was starting to find this fun and not just a job. He took off after her.
She made it about several yards past the trailer outside before he caught up to her and tackled her to the ground. Dean was in a frenzy, feeling that weird warm rush in his chest and his head as he straddled her, grabbed her head in his hands, fingers entangled in her hair and smacked it on the asphalt. Her scream cut off as he did it again and again. It was only when she stopped moving and blood began to well out underneath her head that Dean realized he'd somehow gotten stabbed in the process - the bitch had stabbed him with his own knife, almost right in the heart
Must've been when he'd wrestled her to the ground.
Dean stood up, the weak sunlight on his exposed shoulders and head as he reached up and tugged his bowie knife out of his chest. Spurt of blood, then nothing aside from a tiny, slow trickle. Okay, as usual, he thought as he looked up.
Was that something glinting off in the distance?
Dean had about less than a millisecond to register the glint, a loud crack of a rifle, and suddenly something punched him right in the face. The bullet pierced him in the center of his forehead, kicking him back a step. Blood sprayed from the bullet-hole. His head jerked back.
A flash of white. Dean promptly went down like a puppet with its strings cut, collapsing over the dead woman in a crumpled heap, black eyes staring.
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Clearly.
His brother might've been able to see better, somehow, but you didn't spend your whole life hunting things that prowled the night without knowing how to hit a target despite bad lighting. When a flicker of something shifted out of the corner of his eye, just to his right, he fired exactly twice. Just two. Even in the running chaos of a freaking ambush, he was fully aware of just how limited their ammo was.
He didn't need more than two, anyway. He heard more than saw the figure hit the ground. The guy could've still been alive, but Sam didn't stop to check, trusting his aim to have done the job. Besides, Dean had disappeared past the glow of the flashlight. And he knew he should've been keeping an eye on the fight, especially when he didn't know how many there were-three at least-but the overwhelming need to locate his brother right then overrode everything else. It didn't matter that Dean wasn't so easy to kill anymore, they didn't know enough about the way Dean was made to assume anything for sure. There was no way he was losing his brother to this, a mistake-
He wasn't distracted for long, split second at most, but it was enough so that by the time he snapped his attention back, all he got was a sudden flare of heat spiking through his arm. He cursed, managed not to drop his weapon because that would be bad, and yeah, Dean was still here. Easy enough to hear it when his brother was moving in for the kill. Warm, sticky blood spilled down his arm. He realized that it suddenly got way too quiet in here. Quiet and even darker. He glanced over and saw for the first time that the pile of metal and concrete Dean had moved out of the way had tumbled over the opening again.
Great.
And since when did combat move too fast for him? But when there was Dean, tearing a vicious path without hesitation, he should've been used to it by now. Something said he should've cared more that they'd just wasted a bunch of kids who were just trying to survive, too. He thought about it for a bit, but he couldn't find the energy for pity or guilt. There was so much more to feel guilty about. In the face of it all, this seemed trivial.
When he moved to the rubble to start digging his way back out, he could hear faint screaming in the distance. A girl's voice. Damn it. This wasn't the first time he'd witnessed Dean get like this, not even close, but even so, it was-
Just one more reminder, he supposed. He shook it off, kept on going and ignoring the jolt of pain in his arm that came with every movement. He didn't know what was happening out there, but he wasn't just going to sit and wait for Dean to dig him out.
And that was when the final shot cut through the silence.
Sonofabitch. Sam started moving faster, knocking aside a metal beam with the heel of his boot.
Because it wasn't Dean who'd fired. He knew it wasn't. Dean didn't use a gun, hadn't ever since Sam pulled him out of the lab. Even when he had the chance to get his hands on one, he avoided it until he had no choice. With Dean, it was knives or crowbars or his bare hands. They never quite discussed it and the only time it came up, Dean had passed it off as saving their bullets for Sam. Sam hadn't called him out on his bullshit. He hadn't wanted to and he still didn't.
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He pulled the trigger before the kid could even turn around.
Sam sidestepped the body. He didn't feel like looking, like making it personal. It wasn't. He'd used up all his personal anger at Lilith and the so-called doctors who turned his brother into what he was. Most of what he had left was the reflexive instinct of removing whatever happened to take down his brother.
Dean was in a heap, slung over the broken concrete and metal. Sam didn't even register the bite of the concrete when he dropped to his knees. Blood pooled nearby, but it wasn't all Dean's. Still, he could almost taste it, his own blood thrumming within. Shit, he couldn't-
His gaze flickered over to the girl, forcing his attention away and letting the brutally crushed skull capture his focus instead. Blood and flecks of brain matter decorated the asphalt. God. Yeah. Dean's handiwork, through and through. It probably wasn't a good thing that he could recognize it now, so easily.
Sam frowned down at Dean, resisting the automatic urge to feel for a pulse. From experience, he knew Dean should've been getting up by now. At the very least, Dean should've been awake. Something was wrong, though he couldn't possibly imagine what. Those kids, they weren't hunters. Just people. They wouldn't have recognized a demon, never mind known how to exorcise one and that was assuming Dean could be exorcised. Which he couldn't.
There was only one person who could take Dean out, kill him for good, and that was Sam.
His eyes tracked over the injuries Dean had gathered. One bullet to the thigh, knife to the heart, bullet to the head. For a moment, he felt a rise of instinctual panic. Too familiar, this was too goddamn familiar, blood everywhere and Dean completely unresponsive, and it was the opaque black eyes staring up at him that snapped him out of it.
It was impossible that the leg injury or even the stab wound in his chest had dropped Dean like this. He'd seen his brother walk away from impalements, brush it off, taking only a few minutes to recover. What hadn't ever happened was a bullet to the head. That one, that one was new. Demons might've simply set up shop in a body, but it didn't mean they weren't linked to it, in a way. Knock one over the head and it'd still go unconscious. Or shoot them in the head, in this case.
A quick check revealed no exit wound. He never thought he'd thank someone for having such perfect aim, but he was now. A slip to one side or the other, and half of Dean's face would've been blown off. Even if Dean could get up and walk again after that...He wasn't gonna go there.
Either way, a certain amount of first aid was needed, despite Dean's recovery rate. Which meant he needed that bullet out. Jesus, this was-leaking brain fluid and blood everywhere with a bullet buried inside, and Sam was sitting here contemplating how to pull it out so his brother could get up and walk again. The only thought that crossed his mind was, What would Dad say?
He still had a bullet buried in his own arm, but that could wait. Or...it couldn't, not really, but it'd have to. He couldn't sit there with Dean's corpse staring up at him, black eyes or not. Not until he knew for sure that Dean would be okay. The question was, what the hell was he supposed to do here? Grab a pair of tweezers and dig?
That or-
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No time like the present, though. He had no idea if Dean was aware of him or not, but...there wasn't a lot of options. Besides, it'd been awhile, and he just-he'd be finding Ruby soon, but for now. Right now.
He picked up the knife, slicing a thin line across the inside of Dean's wrist. Across, not down, because he didn't want to spill all of Dean's blood. That wasn't the point. He closed his lips around the cut, aware but uncaring of how he must've looked to anyone walking by. The heady rush had been novel once. Now it was less of a rush as it was just leveling himself out, making sure he kept his abilities the way they were supposed to be. Make sure he didn't go around passing out again or hallucinating rather than simply seeing the spirits.
She hovered, never far. Flowing white dress, even though Sam couldn't recall Jess ever owning a white dress. Mostly, she just looked like she felt sorry for him. Could've been his imagination, though.
He wiped away a fleck of blood at the corner of his lips with his thumb. He leaned over Dean, closed his eyes and felt. That tug of a thread he could always latch onto. The dull throb between his eyes started almost instantly, building up until it was a sharp spike that made him start to consider that perhaps digging a bullet out of his dead brother's head wasn't such a bad idea after all. It took less than a minute, but it might as well have been forever before he heard the faint clink of the bullet.
He opened his eyes, tasted blood when he licked his lips. His blood, this time, running from one nostril and pooling just above his lip. He stared at Dean and thought about saying his brother's name, but the notion of talking seemed a bit beyond him at the moment, fingers still pressed against his temple as if doing that actually helped.
Damn it, if Dean still didn't wake up after this-
He wasn't going to think about that.
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The next thing he knew, he was coming to, which was an experience in itself to a guy who couldn't sleep anymore. It'd been so long since he'd actually been unconscious that at first he didn't know what happened, only that there was a gap and it didn't have anything to do with those tests that turned him into whatever he was now. He didn't jolt awake, slowly coming out of it and realizing he could see again.
His eyes were already open, having been frozen that way when he'd been knocked on his ass by the slug. He must've fallen down, 'cause all he got was the ground sideways, starting to run red with Mousey's blood and his. Dean could feel he was lying partially on her, the warmth fading from the dead woman. He could even feel something else leaking from his head, although what it was, he couldn't tell yet.
Dean Winchester couldn't move.
He told his corpse to get up, shrug this off like it did everything else he'd run into after Landels. It stubbornly refused. It was the first time he'd been unable to move, to do whatever he wanted, since he woke up dead months ago. In the first few seconds, with his body simply lying there like the lump of meat it actually was, Dean didn't panic. Maybe it was just jump-starting, especially since he hadn't run into anything before that could stop him cold like that - and anyway, he wasn't dead dead, seeing as he was still here in his body. The seconds turned into a minute. Then several more minutes of lying there, limp. Trapped.
Okay, now he was thinking panicking looked like a good idea.
Dean had a bridge collapse on him, fallen through his share of floors testing them for Sam, and been shot and stabbed more times than he'd been used to in his previous life, but he hadn't ever been trapped like this, not even those few times Sam left him in a room with salt or a devil’s trap on accident. At least he could still move his own body those times, even if it was just to pace impatiently about the room until his brother came back to break the lines. Terror began to well up in him as he fought again and again to pick his corpse up, with about as much success as beating his head at a wall. Didn't stop him from trying, just like he'd tried to squirm away in Landels, do anything those months ago on that table while they mutilated him. Dean could feel, think. That was it; he couldn't even move his head or his eyes. Dean was starting to go into a full-blown panic attack when it sank in this could be permanent.
Why didn't Sam exorcise him when he had the chance?
What if he was gonna spend centuries lying on the floor of a friggen Wal-Mart, with the floor as the last, only, thing he could see and the blasting of the wind outside the only thing he could hear?
That room in Landels, the one with the metal, the hooks, the injections? It didn't have a monopoly on the idea of Hell, not by a long shot. Being undead, immortal, whatever he was now didn't mean he still wasn't scared shitless about Hell, in whatever form it came in. At least in the Hell he'd been expecting to go to when the hellhounds came, he'd always thought in the back of his mind he could claw his way out sooner or later.
If Dean's heart functioned, it would've been hammering in his chest. It sat silent, one of the only organs he had not reduced to red paste from the hellhounds mauling him.
The worst part was knowing the only thing stopping him from escaping wasn't the bullet lodged somewhere in his head. The tattoo. The one he couldn't even touch himself. It didn't hurt, but whenever he tried to instinctively flail, escape out of his own meat suit, Dean simply couldn't. Then he thought about getting stuck here, unable to help his little brother, leaving him alone in this wasteland while he rotted here (could his body even rot?). Dean lay there for several minutes, paralyzed, and the only change of pace was the sounds of footsteps that didn’t sound at all like Sammy’s. Soon enough a shadow fell over him. Dean couldn’t see the person, eyes still frozen forward, but he could feel whoever it was running his hands over his back, patting him down, rifling through his pockets.
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