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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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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Dean couldn’t believe this. In that second, he wanted nothing more to roll over and rip the man apart. Where was Sam?
The man obviously thought he was dead. Anyone would be, especially if - and Dean didn’t even want to admit this - it’d been a pretty damn good shot, right smack in the middle of his forehead. Dean felt the man finish checking the back of his bloodied jacket and jeans, and that was when he rolled him over. Dean flopped over on his back, still limp, still unable to move and knowing if anything was gonna drive him insane aside from the thought of being trapped, being unable to protect Sammy, it was how teasingly close the rifleman was and why wasn’t he bleeding? Even paralyzed, Dean felt that impulse to wipe that - that human off the map. Hell, he should’ve been able to possess him, jump from his own corpse to that living body. Dean’s black eyes stared up at the rifleman, a kid not much younger than Sammy, and whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t to see eyes like that.
The kid abruptly stood up, bringing him slightly past Dean’s limited range of vision. All he got was a pair of legs and, suddenly, the sound of Sammy’s Glock firing. The legs suddenly vanished. Thump. Body hitting the ground. Sammy appeared at his side, bending over him. Relief flooded through him. Don’t leave me, the part of Dean still trapped in that lab gibbered in the back of his mind, take me with you, Sammy. Don’t leave me here!
Dean didn’t know what Sam could do. What if there was another sniper?
Whatever he was expecting, trying his best to keep it together in his own body, he wasn’t expecting Sam to reach out of his line of sight and come back with his own bowie knife. Dean barely remembered getting the weapon from some little girl claiming she was a goddess - all he knew was it was rusted, the blade itself still sharpened cause he made sure to maintain that part. Dean felt Sam pick up his wrist, pushing back the sleeve of his tattered jacket, the movement jostling him so that his head lolled and, incidentally, gave him a better view of what was going on than the sky. Sam had his wrist exposed and, as he watched, his little brother turned the bowie knife’s rusted blade down and drew it across his skin. Compared to a head-shot, it didn’t hurt much. Blood welled out, sluggish compared to a human but still coming out, which would’ve relieved him a long time ago that it wasn’t totally congealed. He knew what Sam was doing even before he lifted his unresponsive wrist up and began drinking his blood, blood that Dean had no idea if it was still human (just of the, y’know, dead variety), all demon, or something in-between: all he knew was it seemed to help Sam, it kept him running in a way food couldn’t, and that he would’ve let him do this even if he wasn’t inconveniently paralyzed this second.
Juicing up didn’t seem to be the only thing on Sam’s mind. His brother leaned over him, close, one hand cupping the side of his head; Dean felt it then, something wrong, something invading him. The bullet lodged in his head was impossibly starting to move on its own, even if it didn’t want to come quietly - he could feel the damn thing moving jerkily in his own skull, kicking about, sliding, stopping, but definitely making progress even if it was one of the weirdest, most uncomfortable things he’d sat through in a long time. If Dean could’ve moved, his eyes would’ve flicked to Sam’s, ‘cause while his body’s brain was being shredded to pieces, worse than when the slug punched through him the first time, that didn’t mean his mind was gone. He could still put two and two together. He’d known Sam could use telekinesis, but it’d always been extremely limited, and he’d be lucky to even get a spoon to bend.
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Or he had help.
Ruby was dead, though. So either it was some major solo study sessions or Sammy found someone else than that bitch.
Why didn’t you tell me?
But that was a stupid question. Dean would do anything for Sammy…didn’t mean his little brother owed him squat: Dean couldn’t even die and go to Hell like he was supposed to. If Sam kept things from him, he probably had it coming. He didn’t have to like it, but that was just how things were. Even with this extended lifespan he had (“lifespan”, what a joke), Dean couldn’t ever begin to make up that night when doomsday hit and Sam came for him. When Sam didn’t leave him behind even though he’d been dead for months and was still dead.
Eventually the bullet came out, pulled by an invisible force that Dean could feel, almost like an irritating hum on the roof of his mouth. More fluids leaked out the wound, not even warm like Mousey had been. Dean stared as Sam watched him, waiting, cradling his head as his nose bled, thanks to the massive strain he’d put on himself trying to help him.
Dean didn’t revive immediately, even with the bullet out of his head. Control of his corpse came in bits and pieces. It was several more minutes before Dean suddenly shifted, grunting as his eyelids fluttered, black eyes able to move, to focus on something other than whatever was immediately right in front of him. His first instinctive impulse was to suck in a breath, except his lungs didn’t work very well these days, if at all, and it was just going through the motions more than anything else, a habit he hadn’t kicked. Dean felt the rest of the fog start to clear, although he was still too winded to get to his feet. His head turned slowly toward Sam, black eyes fixed on his brother even as he unconsciously drew up his bleeding wrist to his chest, his old instinct to put pressure on it and stem the blood-flow even though he knew perfectly well it was useless. Dean seemed to remember what he was doing, his hand loosely dropping to his side.
“Thanks, Obi-Wan,” he said. “You’re my only hope.”
He didn’t even know where that came from: it just popped right out on its own. Somehow felt like it was the right thing to say.
By then he could sit up, the ringing sensation inside his ears gone, the only thing still bothering him was a weird tingling in his arms and legs. Dean reached up, touched his fingers to the bullet-hole in his forehead, and came away with blood and some kinda clear fluid he guessed was supposed to be inside his head, not trickling out like it was still doing and going down the bridge of his nose. He glanced at it, wiped some of it away, and then looked back at Sam, concerned, and zeroed in on the sign of blood on his brother: he'd taken a shoulder hit in the firefight. Dean knew he'd have to patch his brother up. Might not be a headshot, but his brother could bleed out even if he couldn't if they didn't get it looked at.
Thanks to Landels, his memory of first-aid was crap; the first week after their escape, when they stepped outside and found the world a wasteland, Sam sat him down so he could relearn everything about how to treat injuries. This had been before they both realized Dean literally didn't need it and that it was only for Sam's benefit now - Dean didn't personally see a difference, and dove into the "lessons". Sam's life could depend on it. Now he was glad he'd brought the heavy duffle with the ammo and first aid supplies, even if he'd left it inside Receiving.
“Let’s get you inside, Sammy,” he said, as if he hadn’t just got shot in the head. “You need water, and I've gotta look at that," he added, nodding at the injured shoulder.
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They were beyond cheating death at this point.
Sam pressed the back of his hand beneath his nose, trying to stem the flow of blood. Was he supposed to tip his head back or forward? He could never remember; everyone had that one thing they mixed up constantly and that was his. Dean might've been able to tell him once, but Dean didn't know anything now aside from what Sam had told him. A part of him wanted to set Dean in front of a rusted car and a box of tools, see if Dean could recall how to rebuild things the way he could before. The memories weren't all gone. Some of it was buried deep in there.
Like Obi-Wan, apparently. Though he knew Dean didn't actually understand the reference he was making. The demons that crawled out of hell before could absorb the memories of their host, brush up on their pop culture while they walked among the humans, but none of those were options for Dean. Sometimes Sam would say something and all he'd get was a look, as if Dean knew he was meant to understand, but couldn't. It'd hurt too much to see that look, so Sam had stopped making comments of the sort. One more item on a long list of things he'd given up.
Blood loss and the pounding between his eyes made the world spin, sent him stumbling when he pushed to his feet. He didn't say anything, too busy focusing on not keeling over. He couldn't even feel the bullet in his arm anymore. The headache overpowered that, and he almost tripped over the ledge of the opening as he went inside. With the building cleared out ("cleared out", now there was a euphemism), they might as well stay here despite his plans to head out further. No point in travelling while he was bleeding out. They could use a day or two here, especially with supplies right on hand. He knew they couldn't stay beyond that, though. It was cleared out now, but there was no telling for how long that'd be the case. He figured if no more unexpected visitors dropped in by nightfall, they were safe for a bit. As safe as they ever managed to be, that was.
Bracing one hand on a stacked pile of crates, he sat down, a little heavier than he'd intended. As he waited for Dean to rummage out the first aid supplies, he tucked his gun away again and began peering at the ragged edges of the bullet hole, blood still trickling. He'd probably obtained more gunshot wounds in the past month or so than his whole life combined. Hunters went through a crapload of ammunition themselves, but few shifters or spirits picked up a gun and fired back.
Technically, he could've taken care of the injury on his own. It wasn't as if he was unfamiliar with the process. If he looked, he could spot the rough scars that came from uneven stitching, done when he was too drunk, too uncaring, to sew properly. He got better after Ruby showed up.
But he'd figured out early on that while he couldn't give Dean what he should've been able to give-couldn't save him or fix him or turn back time, hell he couldn't even bring himself to tell Dean everything half the time-he could give him this. He could give Dean something to do, make sure Dean didn't feel useless or like he wasn't needed. Unless Sam was on his own or they were in a tight spot, he always let his brother patch him up.
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Looking at it like that, Dean was surprised Sammy came back for him, even fished the bullet out of his head.
He found the duffle right where he left it, shoving aside a sawed off shot-gun to get to two bottles of water and the first aid kit. It was small, dented to hell and covered in black scuff marks from the action it'd seen. Honestly, he had no idea how old it was, but when he came back with that and gave it to Sam, he'd actually been proud of himself for finding it. Dean brought it over, sitting down next to his little brother, laying the kit on his lap and passing him a bottle of water before he set to work patching up his brother. The one thing they were missing was alcohol, and he wasn't sure how safe water was for cleaning wounds like this. Dean kept having that niggling feeling once upon a time he did know. Dean went to work on his brother, removing the outer layers of tattered clothing, using the water - water Sammy very much needed, and not just for this - to clean his brother's wound. It was ragged at the edges, bleeding fast 'cause Sam was alive with a healthy, pumping heart. Dean did his best to wash out the blood and the general debris, running over the treatment exactly like Sam showed him.
Next he picked up the tweezers, ran water over them - the thought we need to sterilize these, seriously popped up suddenly in his head, sliding away into that fog as soon as it appeared - and braced his brother.
Dean met Sam's eyes, his own eyes no longer that opaque, soulless black anymore. Aside from the gaping, bleeding bullet-hole smack in the center of his head, he looked human again, could've even passed for alive. He was pretty sure he had full control of his corpse again. He was also pretty sure that even if he was okay now, Sam wasn't, and this was gonna hurt like a bitch for him. Dean hated having to make this worse for his brother, though he didn't say anything aside from that brief look before he looked down, focusing at his job. At first he couldn't locate the bullet, lodged in there farther then he thought and the tweezers not getting any purchase on his first try. Dean kept at it, his hand almost impossibly steady - he couldn't shake, tremble, unless he forced himself to.
A dead steady hand was one of the few benefits of his new lease on (un)life. Couldn't get jittery nerves if your nervous system was dead. All he could do was ape being alive, and half the time he didn't see the point, especially when Sam knew what he was these days and seemed okay with it.
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