And Deposit Your Trash in the Receptacles Provided (7/8)
Title: And Deposit Your Trash in the Receptacles Provided (7/8)
Author: innocentculprit aka solosundance
Characters: Dean, Sam, Ruby
Genre: Gen, h/c
Rating: PG-13 for much bad language
Spoilers: begins immediately post 4x14 Sex and Violence
Disclaimer: Nothing to do with Kripke’s awesome show belongs to me
Summary: Between the Winchesters and the Apocalypse lies engine trouble and a bad breakdown in communication. Oh, and ghosts. Nasty ones.
A/N: Continuing from Please Exit Hell Quietly Through the Rear Doors and pursuing the trashed S4 boys theme. An angel-free zone. Beta’d with style and grace by the immaculate
mara_snh
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six
Sam drove back to the motel without a word. Next to him, Dean leaned on the passenger door, leveling a one-eyed squint on the road ahead, good hand crumpled under his chin.
When the car rolled to a halt, Sam killed the engine and glanced over.
“You okay?”
“Fuck,” Dean said. “Tired.”
That seemed part-way lucid, at least. Dean was able to haul himself out of the car and walk unaided the twenty yards to the single block of rooms. No carrying involved, which was always a bonus.
“We’re in six,” Sam told him.
It had begun to rain. A curtain of pearly beads streamed down under the light outside their door. Inside the room, Dean shook himself like a dog, made a grumpy noise at the bright light that Sam flicked on as he came in behind. All business, Dean fought his way out of his jacket, weaving just a little in a lopsided, Quasimodo shuffle. He stripped down unaided, announced he was going to take a shower and then charted a determined course towards it. Sam was encouraged that he had enough strength to keep the bathroom door closed for a few seconds so he couldn’t be followed. As soon as Sam heard the water slapping on the tiles he barged in anyhow, because no way Dean was going down in the deathtrap of a motel bathroom.
Actually, Dean didn’t complain at having Sam present in the end, just gave him a resentful shove when he got too close at the toweling-down stage.
Out of the shower, half-dry and wobbly, Dean noodled around trying to climb into something clean. Sam watched him poking in the pile of clothes upended from his duffel onto one of the beds. He was eyeing the closets speculatively.
Right. As if unpacking was the smart move at this late stage in the game.
The rain had begun to come down harder, probably winding up for a full-blown tempest, making the windowpanes rattle.
“Listen, man, I want to sleep.”
Sam hoped he didn’t sound as needy and pathetic as he actually felt. What he wanted was to put a few more hours of blank between himself and the know-it-all spirits. Between himself and his slow-motion train wreck brother.
Dean dug into his duffel, rooted violently, sending balled-up socks bouncing in all directions.
“I could really--” he began, and then picked up the duffel in one hand and threw it into a corner. It hit the wall with a thump and dropped to the floor. “Fuck.”
Their easy, well-worn routines were falling apart. Mess everywhere, first-aid kit nearly empty, not a single bag of chips or can of soda to their names. They hadn’t even laid the salt lines.
“You don’t need it, Dean. We have ...” Sam waved his hands, indicating a multitude of alternatives, “ ... Vicodin.”
Dean turned around to smirk at him. “I don’t see it as a substitute.”
“Whatever.”
“Jack’s in the car,” Dean said as if to himself.
Jack. Since when had the goddamn stuff become like a another brother?
“And it’s staying there. Time to sleep.”
“Ruby.”
“What?”
“Ruby, Sam.”
Sounded like a first-round throw.
Sam wondered if it was worth having a conversation about this right now. “Yeah,” he said, as agreeable and patient as he could manage. “So that, back there at Gina’s? That was a bad dream, because you’re exhausted and you need to rest. Just lie down.”
“What’s going on?” Dean asked, changing the topic and sitting abruptly on the side of his bed as if his legs wouldn’t hold him up one second more. He flapped a hand at the window, which looked as if it was only just about managing to withstand the onslaught of weather.
“Later, dude. Come on, legs up.”
Sam was aware that his new older-brother utterances were starting to piss Dean the hell off but it was getting too easy now.
“I feel like fucking shit, Sam.”
“So stop being a jerk and get into bed.”
“I ... Ruby, Sam.”
Man, when Dean got his teeth into something ... Sam made a conscious effort to unclench his own.
“You were dreaming, okay?” Sam suspected his voice was beginning to sound more ragged and Dean squinted up at him, slightly wary now. “Look, man, I need to sleep even if you don’t, so please, would you just give me a break here?”
“I’m not stopping you.”
“Dean!”
Dean frowned as if the sudden volume of Sam’s bark pained him. He rolled back against the pillows, defeated for the time being. Sam sat down next to him armed with water and supplies. He laid a towel across his knees and Dean obediently dropped his hand on it, then put his other arm over his eyes. Sam snipped at the second lot of tape and bandaging that Dean had trashed today.
“Auto repair.” A mumble.
“We’ll get there, Dean. Is this hurting you?” Sam paused. “Because it should be.”
A dismissive noise from under the arm. “Just be careful with those fuckin’ scissors.”
Sam shifted back, pushing against Dean’s thighs with his butt to get more room. He reached over and angled the lamp on the nightstand.
“I’m sorry,” he said but Dean hadn’t made a sound. The state of the hand Sam was poking at should really have been agony, but Dean was calm, chest rising and falling evenly, although he’d started to shiver from time to time, like a draft was coming at him.
Sam felt faint prickles, like pins and needles, run up the back of his own head. It happened sometimes, if he thought he’d gained a small insight into Hell that he wasn’t supposed to have. A certain stunned look in Dean’s eyes would be enough to do it, a look that washed the life right out of his face sometimes, just for a second or two. Or else it would be noises in his sleep. Not usually words, just noises that made Sam want to start throwing punches.
Now this.
The magnitude of Dean saying nothing at all.
--------------
The problem, Dean decided, was that he’d fallen asleep.
Not entirely his fault. What with Gina’s place having been so warm and the milky chocolate crap doing the whole milky chocolate crap number on him and all. And Gina being ... well, Gina had been kind, a newsworthy phenomenon that filled him with regret and illogical irritation.
If she hadn’t been so goddamn kind, and if Chester hadn’t been so goddamn interested, and if all that kindness and interest hadn’t goddamn relaxed him so much, he was sure he would have been all right.
He had a solid-gold healing system, after all, passed down by a father who’d made Walking Wounded his own personal lifestyle choice. The system hadn’t failed Dean yet and he was holding out for it to kick into play any time now. He knew (because he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t shit-faced) that the burned hand needed attention, but he also knew that he’d recovered quickly from worse without the need for any professional intervention at all. Dean thought he remembered trying to tell Sam that and being told to shut the fuck up.
In the back of his mind Dean wondered if cheating death three times already had something to do with it. Not that he thought he was immortal, which would have scared the shit out of him. No, he just seemed to have a weird talent for bouncing back. So, sure, although he’d ridden this mess of a hand pretty hard, as long as Sammy was still wielding bandages and there were drugs dropping from the sky, Dean figured in a few days he’d be back behind the wheel.
It hurt, of course it hurt. It hurt so much his left eye was getting stuck in a screwed-up wince, and there was a tremor in his jaw from fighting it and his fingers were swollen and useless and a pain in the ass. But there hadn’t been a point yet at which he didn’t feel more or less in control.
It wasn’t until that freakin’ nightmare dream thing jumped him at Gina’s that he realized he might have lost it.
Throwing up on the sidewalk hadn’t helped. Instead of feeling marginally better, like he usually did following a wholesale hurl, he’d lost all sense of balance and had gone down like a fucking ton of bricks, only saved from a split skull by the freakishly rapid movement of Sam from the other side of the Impala. He hadn’t passed out, but the street had whirled and pitched at him until he hadn’t dared lift his head to face it, hadn’t been able to frame a single word, either to protest the grip that Sam had on the back of his neck, or the fact that he was sitting in a slippery puddle of his own vomit.
Dean hadn’t remembered the journey back to the motel very clearly, although he was sure he’d never lost consciousness. He’d been aware of unbroken time passing, of movement, even of walking himself across a car lot and through a door. In fact, Dean was pretty sure he’d taken his own clothes off and stood in the shower. He was uncomfortably sure that he’d stood in a damn drafty lukewarm shower with his bandaged hand poking out of the curtain while Sam had squirted something minty at him and he’d pawed ineffectually at himself with his other hand.
Sam had definitely talked to him. He may even have answered. He certainly remembered trying to explain that he hadn’t wanted to lie down and close his eyes right now because he thought the freakin’ nightmare thing was going to come back. It would have been Ruby again, on the attack, or Alastair, digging around in his head with pinching fingers.
And now Sam was sorry about something. Like, really, abjectly sorry. Dean couldn’t fix on what Sam was sorry about on this occasion. Then he stopped trying to fix on the what and began to fix instead on some whys instead. Like, why the hell was it so freakin’ cold? Freezing, bone-deep cold.
And despite the fact that he didn’t want to lie down, he was flat on his back in bed, shuddering with cold and cursing at Sam for jabbing him with the scissors and Sam was fucking cursing at him too because he was trying to hold Dean’s hand still on his knees.
Dean knew he was falling asleep again.
He tried not to. He chewed whatever Sam gave him instead of swallowing. He tried to spit it out but Sam wouldn’t let him. A gritty, bitter mouthful washed down with something lukewarm and sweet. Took maybe ten minutes but then it kicked right in. Dean blinked against it, over and over again.
He didn’t like the dream that was coming.
-----------
Sam fell asleep with 1:55 on the clock. He could hear the rain drumming on the covered walkway outside the motel door, relentless. As soon as he lay down, gathering two fistfuls of sheet up to his chest, the sound began to take him away. He rolled his head back and forth on the pillow a few times to unstick his neck and then stopped with his face turned to Dean’s bed. Then he let himself go.
Two hours later Sam woke up with another one of those prickles, icy-wet at the back of his neck. A tangle of sirens wailed in the near distance. He sat up.
If possible, it was raining harder than ever. There was a hollow, slapping sound coming from somewhere, water tumbling from old guttering. Sam had goosebumps on his arms. A pressure headache ran in a taut line from one temple to the other. He could feel the weight of water hanging over the town like a stone.
The beds in the room were close together so he reached out to touch his brother’s cheek. It was hot and dry. Dean was lying still and stiff on his back, head tilted away. He hissed a little at the contact but didn’t rouse any more than that.
“Dean?”
Sam flipped on the light.
Dean was hot, but not too hot. Sometimes after a bruising hunt he’d do this - run a low-grade fever and get everything out of his system. The thermometer would notch up close to worrying, then Dean would sweat it all out in buckets and wake up with a headache and a lousy attitude. His own personal detox.
This could be that.
Sam reached for the other cheek, tilted Dean’s face toward him.
“Dean?”
Dean pulled his good arm up, covered his eyes with his elbow again.
“Shush,” he said.
“I’ll get you some water.”
In the bathroom, Sam ran the water as cold as he could, rinsed out the glass on the shelf which had a dead cockroach in it and filled it halfway. He tipped two Vicodins into his palm, looked up and tried to connect with the smooth-faced image in the mirror, tried to stare himself down.
When Sam came out the bathroom, Ruby was there.
She was sitting on the side of Dean’s bed.
Sam’s eyes snapped to the motel-room door, which was closed, and then back to her hair, which was bone dry, shiny and lustrous as ever.
Dean’s arm had slipped off his eyes and was lying crooked on the pillow over his head. He didn’t seem aware of her. Sam could see small muscles twitching across his face and around his eyes. Some tough and draining scene was being played out in his mind and Sam wanted to get him away from it as soon as possible.
“Glad you could make it,” Ruby said. The sarcasm in her voice was thick as cream. “Did you have to bring him by the way? He doesn’t seem to be in very good shape.”
“What’s going on?”
Despite his huge desire to throw her off Dean’s bed, Sam decided he ought to accord her a little bit of respect, seeing as how she’d reverted to talking about his brother like he was a fifth wheel.
“You were right to come, Sam. I mean, I wanted you to come, just didn’t figure you’d go extra-curricular on me.”
“Yeah, well things have changed. I need to look after him.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes. I do. Just for a little while.”
“Oh stop it, Sam, we don’t have time.”
“You’re gonna tell me Lilith’s in town?”
Ruby folded her arms across her chest. “If not tonight, then soon. Seems to me she likes this shithole - although who knows why - and she’s doing her best to fuck it up. I wouldn’t bank on the chainsaw twins up there on the mountain being the only spirits she’s poked awake. You’ve noticed all the weather and combusting that’s been going on I suppose?”
“But what the hell for? This is a windy little town in the mountains, not a seal for her to break.”
Ruby rose from the bed and Sam felt relief swell like a small balloon in his chest. Dean had just made one of those noises and Sam wanted her out of there and Dean awake.
“Maybe she wants to see what you’ll do.” Ruby walked closer with a bit of hip swing. “I dunno, Sam, maybe it’s a power-play, maybe she wants the damn angels to do some smiting, whatever it takes to turn this place, any place, belly-up. It’s what’ll happen everywhere, you know, if you don’t stop her.”
“Just like that, in little old North Silverbridge?”
“Something’s building up, Sam, and we need to go find out what. We need to go right now.”
“I’m not leaving him here like this. I’m just ... not.”
“Well that’s touching, as always, really. But he’s not much use, I mean ... well, is he? When you get down to it? I don’t care what he’s been told, right now he’s not destined for anything except rehab. Your gig, Sam. Always has been.”
Ruby approached the side of Dean’s bed again, peered at him. Then she leaned over and touched his face. Sam’s fingers curled into tense fists but he kept them pressed into his thighs.
“Leave him alone.”
“His brain’s frying,” she observed, withdrawing her hand. “You know, I might have something that could help with that. It wouldn’t be the first time.” Her eyes hovered on Sam for a second. “Not that he knows how to appreciate being helped.” She stroked the silky hollow at the base of her neck with one finger and then swallowed. “Not like you do, Sam.” A fleeting, half-smile of affection, “When you haven’t got your head up your ass.”
“So, what? You just happen to have some witch’s brew in your pocket?”
“I might. That depends.”
Sam’s tongue swirled around the dry, bitter taste in his mouth. “On what?”
“On whether you’re going to cowboy up, cowboy.”
“Crap, Ruby, don’t use him to make me do things.”
Ruby bent down again, splayed her fingers across Dean’s brow and tutted when he flinched. “It’s very easy, Sam. You stop stalling and come with me now, I’ll slip him some magic juice that’ll make it all better.”
“He’ll get better fine without you.”
“Oh really? Look, I know you Winchesters like to laugh in the face of weakness, but your brother’s just not that tough of a Winchester anymore, is he? Being down in the Pit as long as he was, looks like it just knocked the stuffing right out of him. This fever he’s got going needs more than a bottle of pills and Sammy with an icepack, and I know you, Sam. If you were going to shuffle him off to an ER you’d have done it by now. So that leaves me.”
Sam wanted to kick her ass-first out the door.
But he also just wanted her. He wanted to cling to those satin arms until her breath panted hot against his ear and his blood hummed with life. He could have that, and Dean, too, safely back from wherever he thought he was.
Dean safely back.
Ruby slouched on one hip and scowled at his indecision.
“Oh and by the way, Sam, this offer expires in about ten seconds. It’s a one-chance-only kind of a deal. So, what do you say?”
At that moment Dean dragged in a breath, exhaled through clacking teeth. His elbow cracked the nightstand hard, but Ruby was at his side before the injured hand followed through. She caught hold of him by the wrist, tried to guide the whole arm back to the bed.
“Hush,” she said.
Sam wished she’d let go, even if it meant Dean back-handed the lamp and hurt himself more.
Ruby shook her head at him. “Jealousy, Sam? Trust me, it’ll make you sick as a dog. Don’t go there.” Her fingers uncurled from Dean’s wrist, moved up his arm and back to his forehead, an unbroken contact.
Sam made a move towards her, couldn’t stop himself. Ruby pressed the flat of her hand hard above Dean’s eyes, the tips of her fingers and thumb disappearing into his hair. She was frowning slightly as if she was doing something she’d rather not be doing. Sam could see the sinews in her hand, the line of Dean’s jaw sharp as he clenched his teeth.
“Stop. Ruby ... just stop.”
“What exactly do you think I’m doing here?”
“I really don’t ...”
“Oh you really don’t like it? Oh, okay.” She withdrew the hand again. “You are coming, right?”
“Fuck,” Sam said.
Ruby straightened from the bed. “How long are we going to dance around with this, Sam? I’ve got what you need and now I’ve got what your brother needs. Is it really so hard? Come on, we’ve been doing so well, really getting somewhere with all this. I mean, somewhere good. Last time was ... well, you remember last time.”
Four demons. One night. It had been a rush like nothing else Sam had yet experienced. Even remembering it was a rush. But that had just been private, him and Ruby alone. Dean had been unconscious after losing out to a bottle of cheap tequila and never even knew he was gone.
Ruby looked like she was reading his mind but wasn’t overly impressed with what he was thinking. “Look, you want him picked up off the floor and dusted down, right? I can do that.” She narrowed her eyes as if she could see him clearer that way. “Head up your ass again, Sam?” She dug in her pocket, held out a little pouch.
Sam sat back down on his bed, set down the glass of water and the pills, reached across and felt his brother’s face with his forearm.
OK, so hotter now, hotter than when he woke up. How was that even possible, so quickly? His gaze wandered over Dean and towards Ruby. He really hoped he knew her well enough now, to trust that she hadn’t ... somehow ...
Ruby seemed to read his expression perfectly as usual and looked reproachful. “Sam, I’m a demon, not a voodoo witch doctor. Believe me, I don’t want to hurt your brother. We’ve had our little disagreements, sure, but come on ... haven’t I had plenty of chances to finish him off, if that was my evil plan? Which it isn’t.” She hefted the pouch into her palm, tossed it across the bed and Sam caught it. “You’re looking tired.” The concern that laced her voice was aphrodisiac, made Sam catch his breath. “So shall we get this show on the road? Quicker we go, quicker you’ll be back.”
Sam pulled on the drawstring of the pouch, held it up to his nose and sniffed.
Shit. It smelled pretty good.
---------
After falling into a hazy sleep, crunched-up pills still embedded in his molars, Dean tumbled out of bed and into the burning void.
There wasn’t much to see. No slideshow projecting in his skull. He didn’t bump into Alastair for a change, or even into Ruby who’d taken to marching uninvited across his bumpy dream-fields quite a lot lately. No evisceration or bloodletting.
Just regular burning. No visual, no audio, only sensation.
It was repetitive, near-surface dreaming, the kind he didn’t actually believe in but struggled to avoid. However much booze he knocked back it seemed he still had to dream in order to wake up.
This time the transition from dream to reality was short and sharp. Diurnal rhythms, or ice, had smothered the fever that had been stalking him. He opened his eyes on a breath, rose to sitting, winced at the rush of cool air across his clammy chest, blinked against the wetness in his eyes.
At first he thought someone had been knocking on the door.
Dean breathed, frowned. He rotated his head sluggishly from side to side looking for his gun, then realized it was rain he had heard, hammering against the roof over the walkway outside. A few seconds passed as full awareness slithered over his shoulders and down his body like a wet sheet.
Dean glanced down at the white mitten of bandaging wrapped around his hand, taped neatly at the wrist.
Ow. Fuck. Burns.
The room was empty. Sam’s bed was unoccupied.
Shit. Fuck. Sammy.
He wasn’t here, and that meant only one thing.
What’s the point? What is the freakin’ point?
A wave of such hopelessness crashed over him, that the weight of it nearly made him drop his chin on his chest. He felt something flare inside his head, right in his anger-management center. The bad hand jerked violently to the side, swept the nightstand clear of its contents. A glass of water, a bottle of pills and a neat pile of bandaging sprayed across the room and clattered to the floor,
“Sonofabitch!” Dean shouted after them.
Part Eight
Author: innocentculprit aka solosundance
Characters: Dean, Sam, Ruby
Genre: Gen, h/c
Rating: PG-13 for much bad language
Spoilers: begins immediately post 4x14 Sex and Violence
Disclaimer: Nothing to do with Kripke’s awesome show belongs to me
Summary: Between the Winchesters and the Apocalypse lies engine trouble and a bad breakdown in communication. Oh, and ghosts. Nasty ones.
A/N: Continuing from Please Exit Hell Quietly Through the Rear Doors and pursuing the trashed S4 boys theme. An angel-free zone. Beta’d with style and grace by the immaculate
mara_snh
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six
Sam drove back to the motel without a word. Next to him, Dean leaned on the passenger door, leveling a one-eyed squint on the road ahead, good hand crumpled under his chin.
When the car rolled to a halt, Sam killed the engine and glanced over.
“You okay?”
“Fuck,” Dean said. “Tired.”
That seemed part-way lucid, at least. Dean was able to haul himself out of the car and walk unaided the twenty yards to the single block of rooms. No carrying involved, which was always a bonus.
“We’re in six,” Sam told him.
It had begun to rain. A curtain of pearly beads streamed down under the light outside their door. Inside the room, Dean shook himself like a dog, made a grumpy noise at the bright light that Sam flicked on as he came in behind. All business, Dean fought his way out of his jacket, weaving just a little in a lopsided, Quasimodo shuffle. He stripped down unaided, announced he was going to take a shower and then charted a determined course towards it. Sam was encouraged that he had enough strength to keep the bathroom door closed for a few seconds so he couldn’t be followed. As soon as Sam heard the water slapping on the tiles he barged in anyhow, because no way Dean was going down in the deathtrap of a motel bathroom.
Actually, Dean didn’t complain at having Sam present in the end, just gave him a resentful shove when he got too close at the toweling-down stage.
Out of the shower, half-dry and wobbly, Dean noodled around trying to climb into something clean. Sam watched him poking in the pile of clothes upended from his duffel onto one of the beds. He was eyeing the closets speculatively.
Right. As if unpacking was the smart move at this late stage in the game.
The rain had begun to come down harder, probably winding up for a full-blown tempest, making the windowpanes rattle.
“Listen, man, I want to sleep.”
Sam hoped he didn’t sound as needy and pathetic as he actually felt. What he wanted was to put a few more hours of blank between himself and the know-it-all spirits. Between himself and his slow-motion train wreck brother.
Dean dug into his duffel, rooted violently, sending balled-up socks bouncing in all directions.
“I could really--” he began, and then picked up the duffel in one hand and threw it into a corner. It hit the wall with a thump and dropped to the floor. “Fuck.”
Their easy, well-worn routines were falling apart. Mess everywhere, first-aid kit nearly empty, not a single bag of chips or can of soda to their names. They hadn’t even laid the salt lines.
“You don’t need it, Dean. We have ...” Sam waved his hands, indicating a multitude of alternatives, “ ... Vicodin.”
Dean turned around to smirk at him. “I don’t see it as a substitute.”
“Whatever.”
“Jack’s in the car,” Dean said as if to himself.
Jack. Since when had the goddamn stuff become like a another brother?
“And it’s staying there. Time to sleep.”
“Ruby.”
“What?”
“Ruby, Sam.”
Sounded like a first-round throw.
Sam wondered if it was worth having a conversation about this right now. “Yeah,” he said, as agreeable and patient as he could manage. “So that, back there at Gina’s? That was a bad dream, because you’re exhausted and you need to rest. Just lie down.”
“What’s going on?” Dean asked, changing the topic and sitting abruptly on the side of his bed as if his legs wouldn’t hold him up one second more. He flapped a hand at the window, which looked as if it was only just about managing to withstand the onslaught of weather.
“Later, dude. Come on, legs up.”
Sam was aware that his new older-brother utterances were starting to piss Dean the hell off but it was getting too easy now.
“I feel like fucking shit, Sam.”
“So stop being a jerk and get into bed.”
“I ... Ruby, Sam.”
Man, when Dean got his teeth into something ... Sam made a conscious effort to unclench his own.
“You were dreaming, okay?” Sam suspected his voice was beginning to sound more ragged and Dean squinted up at him, slightly wary now. “Look, man, I need to sleep even if you don’t, so please, would you just give me a break here?”
“I’m not stopping you.”
“Dean!”
Dean frowned as if the sudden volume of Sam’s bark pained him. He rolled back against the pillows, defeated for the time being. Sam sat down next to him armed with water and supplies. He laid a towel across his knees and Dean obediently dropped his hand on it, then put his other arm over his eyes. Sam snipped at the second lot of tape and bandaging that Dean had trashed today.
“Auto repair.” A mumble.
“We’ll get there, Dean. Is this hurting you?” Sam paused. “Because it should be.”
A dismissive noise from under the arm. “Just be careful with those fuckin’ scissors.”
Sam shifted back, pushing against Dean’s thighs with his butt to get more room. He reached over and angled the lamp on the nightstand.
“I’m sorry,” he said but Dean hadn’t made a sound. The state of the hand Sam was poking at should really have been agony, but Dean was calm, chest rising and falling evenly, although he’d started to shiver from time to time, like a draft was coming at him.
Sam felt faint prickles, like pins and needles, run up the back of his own head. It happened sometimes, if he thought he’d gained a small insight into Hell that he wasn’t supposed to have. A certain stunned look in Dean’s eyes would be enough to do it, a look that washed the life right out of his face sometimes, just for a second or two. Or else it would be noises in his sleep. Not usually words, just noises that made Sam want to start throwing punches.
Now this.
The magnitude of Dean saying nothing at all.
--------------
The problem, Dean decided, was that he’d fallen asleep.
Not entirely his fault. What with Gina’s place having been so warm and the milky chocolate crap doing the whole milky chocolate crap number on him and all. And Gina being ... well, Gina had been kind, a newsworthy phenomenon that filled him with regret and illogical irritation.
If she hadn’t been so goddamn kind, and if Chester hadn’t been so goddamn interested, and if all that kindness and interest hadn’t goddamn relaxed him so much, he was sure he would have been all right.
He had a solid-gold healing system, after all, passed down by a father who’d made Walking Wounded his own personal lifestyle choice. The system hadn’t failed Dean yet and he was holding out for it to kick into play any time now. He knew (because he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t shit-faced) that the burned hand needed attention, but he also knew that he’d recovered quickly from worse without the need for any professional intervention at all. Dean thought he remembered trying to tell Sam that and being told to shut the fuck up.
In the back of his mind Dean wondered if cheating death three times already had something to do with it. Not that he thought he was immortal, which would have scared the shit out of him. No, he just seemed to have a weird talent for bouncing back. So, sure, although he’d ridden this mess of a hand pretty hard, as long as Sammy was still wielding bandages and there were drugs dropping from the sky, Dean figured in a few days he’d be back behind the wheel.
It hurt, of course it hurt. It hurt so much his left eye was getting stuck in a screwed-up wince, and there was a tremor in his jaw from fighting it and his fingers were swollen and useless and a pain in the ass. But there hadn’t been a point yet at which he didn’t feel more or less in control.
It wasn’t until that freakin’ nightmare dream thing jumped him at Gina’s that he realized he might have lost it.
Throwing up on the sidewalk hadn’t helped. Instead of feeling marginally better, like he usually did following a wholesale hurl, he’d lost all sense of balance and had gone down like a fucking ton of bricks, only saved from a split skull by the freakishly rapid movement of Sam from the other side of the Impala. He hadn’t passed out, but the street had whirled and pitched at him until he hadn’t dared lift his head to face it, hadn’t been able to frame a single word, either to protest the grip that Sam had on the back of his neck, or the fact that he was sitting in a slippery puddle of his own vomit.
Dean hadn’t remembered the journey back to the motel very clearly, although he was sure he’d never lost consciousness. He’d been aware of unbroken time passing, of movement, even of walking himself across a car lot and through a door. In fact, Dean was pretty sure he’d taken his own clothes off and stood in the shower. He was uncomfortably sure that he’d stood in a damn drafty lukewarm shower with his bandaged hand poking out of the curtain while Sam had squirted something minty at him and he’d pawed ineffectually at himself with his other hand.
Sam had definitely talked to him. He may even have answered. He certainly remembered trying to explain that he hadn’t wanted to lie down and close his eyes right now because he thought the freakin’ nightmare thing was going to come back. It would have been Ruby again, on the attack, or Alastair, digging around in his head with pinching fingers.
And now Sam was sorry about something. Like, really, abjectly sorry. Dean couldn’t fix on what Sam was sorry about on this occasion. Then he stopped trying to fix on the what and began to fix instead on some whys instead. Like, why the hell was it so freakin’ cold? Freezing, bone-deep cold.
And despite the fact that he didn’t want to lie down, he was flat on his back in bed, shuddering with cold and cursing at Sam for jabbing him with the scissors and Sam was fucking cursing at him too because he was trying to hold Dean’s hand still on his knees.
Dean knew he was falling asleep again.
He tried not to. He chewed whatever Sam gave him instead of swallowing. He tried to spit it out but Sam wouldn’t let him. A gritty, bitter mouthful washed down with something lukewarm and sweet. Took maybe ten minutes but then it kicked right in. Dean blinked against it, over and over again.
He didn’t like the dream that was coming.
-----------
Sam fell asleep with 1:55 on the clock. He could hear the rain drumming on the covered walkway outside the motel door, relentless. As soon as he lay down, gathering two fistfuls of sheet up to his chest, the sound began to take him away. He rolled his head back and forth on the pillow a few times to unstick his neck and then stopped with his face turned to Dean’s bed. Then he let himself go.
Two hours later Sam woke up with another one of those prickles, icy-wet at the back of his neck. A tangle of sirens wailed in the near distance. He sat up.
If possible, it was raining harder than ever. There was a hollow, slapping sound coming from somewhere, water tumbling from old guttering. Sam had goosebumps on his arms. A pressure headache ran in a taut line from one temple to the other. He could feel the weight of water hanging over the town like a stone.
The beds in the room were close together so he reached out to touch his brother’s cheek. It was hot and dry. Dean was lying still and stiff on his back, head tilted away. He hissed a little at the contact but didn’t rouse any more than that.
“Dean?”
Sam flipped on the light.
Dean was hot, but not too hot. Sometimes after a bruising hunt he’d do this - run a low-grade fever and get everything out of his system. The thermometer would notch up close to worrying, then Dean would sweat it all out in buckets and wake up with a headache and a lousy attitude. His own personal detox.
This could be that.
Sam reached for the other cheek, tilted Dean’s face toward him.
“Dean?”
Dean pulled his good arm up, covered his eyes with his elbow again.
“Shush,” he said.
“I’ll get you some water.”
In the bathroom, Sam ran the water as cold as he could, rinsed out the glass on the shelf which had a dead cockroach in it and filled it halfway. He tipped two Vicodins into his palm, looked up and tried to connect with the smooth-faced image in the mirror, tried to stare himself down.
When Sam came out the bathroom, Ruby was there.
She was sitting on the side of Dean’s bed.
Sam’s eyes snapped to the motel-room door, which was closed, and then back to her hair, which was bone dry, shiny and lustrous as ever.
Dean’s arm had slipped off his eyes and was lying crooked on the pillow over his head. He didn’t seem aware of her. Sam could see small muscles twitching across his face and around his eyes. Some tough and draining scene was being played out in his mind and Sam wanted to get him away from it as soon as possible.
“Glad you could make it,” Ruby said. The sarcasm in her voice was thick as cream. “Did you have to bring him by the way? He doesn’t seem to be in very good shape.”
“What’s going on?”
Despite his huge desire to throw her off Dean’s bed, Sam decided he ought to accord her a little bit of respect, seeing as how she’d reverted to talking about his brother like he was a fifth wheel.
“You were right to come, Sam. I mean, I wanted you to come, just didn’t figure you’d go extra-curricular on me.”
“Yeah, well things have changed. I need to look after him.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes. I do. Just for a little while.”
“Oh stop it, Sam, we don’t have time.”
“You’re gonna tell me Lilith’s in town?”
Ruby folded her arms across her chest. “If not tonight, then soon. Seems to me she likes this shithole - although who knows why - and she’s doing her best to fuck it up. I wouldn’t bank on the chainsaw twins up there on the mountain being the only spirits she’s poked awake. You’ve noticed all the weather and combusting that’s been going on I suppose?”
“But what the hell for? This is a windy little town in the mountains, not a seal for her to break.”
Ruby rose from the bed and Sam felt relief swell like a small balloon in his chest. Dean had just made one of those noises and Sam wanted her out of there and Dean awake.
“Maybe she wants to see what you’ll do.” Ruby walked closer with a bit of hip swing. “I dunno, Sam, maybe it’s a power-play, maybe she wants the damn angels to do some smiting, whatever it takes to turn this place, any place, belly-up. It’s what’ll happen everywhere, you know, if you don’t stop her.”
“Just like that, in little old North Silverbridge?”
“Something’s building up, Sam, and we need to go find out what. We need to go right now.”
“I’m not leaving him here like this. I’m just ... not.”
“Well that’s touching, as always, really. But he’s not much use, I mean ... well, is he? When you get down to it? I don’t care what he’s been told, right now he’s not destined for anything except rehab. Your gig, Sam. Always has been.”
Ruby approached the side of Dean’s bed again, peered at him. Then she leaned over and touched his face. Sam’s fingers curled into tense fists but he kept them pressed into his thighs.
“Leave him alone.”
“His brain’s frying,” she observed, withdrawing her hand. “You know, I might have something that could help with that. It wouldn’t be the first time.” Her eyes hovered on Sam for a second. “Not that he knows how to appreciate being helped.” She stroked the silky hollow at the base of her neck with one finger and then swallowed. “Not like you do, Sam.” A fleeting, half-smile of affection, “When you haven’t got your head up your ass.”
“So, what? You just happen to have some witch’s brew in your pocket?”
“I might. That depends.”
Sam’s tongue swirled around the dry, bitter taste in his mouth. “On what?”
“On whether you’re going to cowboy up, cowboy.”
“Crap, Ruby, don’t use him to make me do things.”
Ruby bent down again, splayed her fingers across Dean’s brow and tutted when he flinched. “It’s very easy, Sam. You stop stalling and come with me now, I’ll slip him some magic juice that’ll make it all better.”
“He’ll get better fine without you.”
“Oh really? Look, I know you Winchesters like to laugh in the face of weakness, but your brother’s just not that tough of a Winchester anymore, is he? Being down in the Pit as long as he was, looks like it just knocked the stuffing right out of him. This fever he’s got going needs more than a bottle of pills and Sammy with an icepack, and I know you, Sam. If you were going to shuffle him off to an ER you’d have done it by now. So that leaves me.”
Sam wanted to kick her ass-first out the door.
But he also just wanted her. He wanted to cling to those satin arms until her breath panted hot against his ear and his blood hummed with life. He could have that, and Dean, too, safely back from wherever he thought he was.
Dean safely back.
Ruby slouched on one hip and scowled at his indecision.
“Oh and by the way, Sam, this offer expires in about ten seconds. It’s a one-chance-only kind of a deal. So, what do you say?”
At that moment Dean dragged in a breath, exhaled through clacking teeth. His elbow cracked the nightstand hard, but Ruby was at his side before the injured hand followed through. She caught hold of him by the wrist, tried to guide the whole arm back to the bed.
“Hush,” she said.
Sam wished she’d let go, even if it meant Dean back-handed the lamp and hurt himself more.
Ruby shook her head at him. “Jealousy, Sam? Trust me, it’ll make you sick as a dog. Don’t go there.” Her fingers uncurled from Dean’s wrist, moved up his arm and back to his forehead, an unbroken contact.
Sam made a move towards her, couldn’t stop himself. Ruby pressed the flat of her hand hard above Dean’s eyes, the tips of her fingers and thumb disappearing into his hair. She was frowning slightly as if she was doing something she’d rather not be doing. Sam could see the sinews in her hand, the line of Dean’s jaw sharp as he clenched his teeth.
“Stop. Ruby ... just stop.”
“What exactly do you think I’m doing here?”
“I really don’t ...”
“Oh you really don’t like it? Oh, okay.” She withdrew the hand again. “You are coming, right?”
“Fuck,” Sam said.
Ruby straightened from the bed. “How long are we going to dance around with this, Sam? I’ve got what you need and now I’ve got what your brother needs. Is it really so hard? Come on, we’ve been doing so well, really getting somewhere with all this. I mean, somewhere good. Last time was ... well, you remember last time.”
Four demons. One night. It had been a rush like nothing else Sam had yet experienced. Even remembering it was a rush. But that had just been private, him and Ruby alone. Dean had been unconscious after losing out to a bottle of cheap tequila and never even knew he was gone.
Ruby looked like she was reading his mind but wasn’t overly impressed with what he was thinking. “Look, you want him picked up off the floor and dusted down, right? I can do that.” She narrowed her eyes as if she could see him clearer that way. “Head up your ass again, Sam?” She dug in her pocket, held out a little pouch.
Sam sat back down on his bed, set down the glass of water and the pills, reached across and felt his brother’s face with his forearm.
OK, so hotter now, hotter than when he woke up. How was that even possible, so quickly? His gaze wandered over Dean and towards Ruby. He really hoped he knew her well enough now, to trust that she hadn’t ... somehow ...
Ruby seemed to read his expression perfectly as usual and looked reproachful. “Sam, I’m a demon, not a voodoo witch doctor. Believe me, I don’t want to hurt your brother. We’ve had our little disagreements, sure, but come on ... haven’t I had plenty of chances to finish him off, if that was my evil plan? Which it isn’t.” She hefted the pouch into her palm, tossed it across the bed and Sam caught it. “You’re looking tired.” The concern that laced her voice was aphrodisiac, made Sam catch his breath. “So shall we get this show on the road? Quicker we go, quicker you’ll be back.”
Sam pulled on the drawstring of the pouch, held it up to his nose and sniffed.
Shit. It smelled pretty good.
---------
After falling into a hazy sleep, crunched-up pills still embedded in his molars, Dean tumbled out of bed and into the burning void.
There wasn’t much to see. No slideshow projecting in his skull. He didn’t bump into Alastair for a change, or even into Ruby who’d taken to marching uninvited across his bumpy dream-fields quite a lot lately. No evisceration or bloodletting.
Just regular burning. No visual, no audio, only sensation.
It was repetitive, near-surface dreaming, the kind he didn’t actually believe in but struggled to avoid. However much booze he knocked back it seemed he still had to dream in order to wake up.
This time the transition from dream to reality was short and sharp. Diurnal rhythms, or ice, had smothered the fever that had been stalking him. He opened his eyes on a breath, rose to sitting, winced at the rush of cool air across his clammy chest, blinked against the wetness in his eyes.
At first he thought someone had been knocking on the door.
Dean breathed, frowned. He rotated his head sluggishly from side to side looking for his gun, then realized it was rain he had heard, hammering against the roof over the walkway outside. A few seconds passed as full awareness slithered over his shoulders and down his body like a wet sheet.
Dean glanced down at the white mitten of bandaging wrapped around his hand, taped neatly at the wrist.
Ow. Fuck. Burns.
The room was empty. Sam’s bed was unoccupied.
Shit. Fuck. Sammy.
He wasn’t here, and that meant only one thing.
What’s the point? What is the freakin’ point?
A wave of such hopelessness crashed over him, that the weight of it nearly made him drop his chin on his chest. He felt something flare inside his head, right in his anger-management center. The bad hand jerked violently to the side, swept the nightstand clear of its contents. A glass of water, a bottle of pills and a neat pile of bandaging sprayed across the room and clattered to the floor,
“Sonofabitch!” Dean shouted after them.
Part Eight