SPN: Take Care Of You 1/1
SUMMARY: Written for the prompt: What if Jake's attempt to kill Sam at the end of "All Hell Breaks Loose Part 1" didn't kill him? What if Sam managed to get away somehow? Bleeding out, in pain and confused, Sam tries to make his way to Dean's side. Except, that's sort of hard when he's hallucinating that Jessica is with him. Somehow, Sam makes it to Dean, but whether he dies or not is up to you. Please give me a long Dean trying to comfort/help Sam scene though!
TAKE CARE OF YOU
In the end, it still came down to sheer, unbridled panic. The shock of how Sam had vanished had itself vanished in the terrible pain of Dean's first vision ever, to be replaced with near blind panic that they would arrive at Cold Oak too late.
They very nearly did. Dean saw Sam engaged in some freaky hand to hand - and losing. He was out of the Impala and racing that way, screaming Sam's name, before Bobby had finished parking her.
Sam swept his opponent's feet out from under him and staggered a step back, struggling to draw in breath. He saw Dean and smiled, turning to take a step toward his brother.
Dean's eyes widened as he saw the soldier - he was in camo fatigues, he couldn't have been anything else - stagger to his feet and wrap his hand around a wickedly sharp piece of metal. "Sammy!"
Dean's eyes, his expression, his voice - whatever it was that alerted him, the change in Sam was instant. The smile fled and he started to turn back - when the soldier struck.
Sam grunted, arching back slightly as the piece of metal jabbed deep into his back - even then, he tried to pull away and the blow was at an angle. Then the soldier twisted the makeshift knife before he pulled it out.
Dean didn't even remember drawing his gun. All he knew was that it was in his hand and he was firing, pumping bullet after bullet into the body of the freak who'd stabbed his brother.
He was only peripherally aware of Bobby doing the same thing.
When the soldier fell, eyes fixed and glassy, he was of no further interest to Dean. The only thing that mattered at that moment was his own heartbeat thudding in his ears to the tune of Sammy Sammy Sammy.
Sam lay on his stomach in the dirt, his body twitching every few seconds and one hand weakly reaching for the obscene swath of crimson painted on his back.
"Hey," Dean raced over and tugged him to his knees. "Hey, you with me? Huh?"
He was rewarded with parting lashes and lids that appeared to weigh a ton being ratcheted open by sheer force of will to reveal hazel slits. "..........hur'zz...."
"Sammy, stay with me, huh? Come on...." He looked up as the rumble finally invaded his worry and realised that Bobby had pulled the Impala up beside them. He reached up and tugged the back door open. "Gonna get you help, you hear me? Gonna get you help, you're gonna be okay."
".....kay...."
That was all the permission Dean needed. He hauled himself and his giant of a brother into the back seat of the Impala, wrestling Sam's legs until he was kneeling in the seatwell, his head cradled onto Dean's lap so Dean could use his discarded t-shirt to apply pressure on the wound.
Dean was barely aware that Bobby had closed the back door and raced around to the driver's seat. He was barely aware that someone else was driving his precious Baby. He was barely aware that they'd begun to take off at a high rate of speed, leaving Cold Oak far behind.
Dean's entire world had shrunk to the young man sprawled across his lap. To the faint tremours that wracked his body every now and again. To subconsciously timing each groaned puff of air that briefly warmed his knees.
"We're gonna take care of you, huh?" Dean kept assuring him. "We're gonna take care of you. Just hold on, Sammy. Just hold on."
".......ss....."
Dean winced. "I know it hurts, I know it does. We'll get you patched up...."
"......jess......"
Dean froze. "She....she's not here, Sammy."
"....see....."
"No. No, no, no, you don't get to do that. Hold on - Bobby! How far to the hospital?"
"At least an hour, Dean!" Bobby yelled over his seat. "I'm goin' fast as I can!"
Dean swore softly and lifted the shirt to check on the wound. "Bleeding's slowin' - hang on, Sammy."
".......not much......choice," Sam slurred weakly. "Hurts, Dean...."
"I know. We'll take care of you, I swear. Just told on, Sammy. We're going to take care of you...."
".....broken.....record."
Dean blinked, looking down at the very pale face. "You teasin' me?"
"........why....not?"
That tease brought unbidden tears to Dean's eyes even as a smile tugged at his lip. "Bitch," he whispered affectionately, carding his left hand through his brother's sweat-slick hair.
"...J-Jerk," came the breathy reply. Followed by a grunt and a soft, "....D?"
"I'm here," Dean said, pressing hard on the wound and balancing Sam on his lap with the other. "I'm here and we're getting you help."
"Dean...." Sam whimpered. ".......can't .... can't f-feel....my legs....."
Almost instantly, the tone of the engine changed as Bobby pressed down harder on the accelerator. If anyone could coax even more speed out of the old workhorse of a car - that wasn't Dean - Bobby would be it.
"Hear that?" Dean said, trying to push the words into Sam's brain. "We're that much closer to help. We're that much closer to---" His head snapped up as a familiar wail and red and blue lights flared into the cabin. "Oh, not now!"
Bobby clawed his phone out and dialed one-handed. "Sheriff Mills! I need her now - this is an emergency!" A second later, he said, "Sheriff, this is Bobby Singer! One of your people is chasin' a black Impala ---" A sharp intake of breath and he yelled, "You're chasin' me,Jody! I've got a stabbing victim in the back seat and we've got to get him to the hospital be---"
Before he could finish that word, the police car suddenly changed the siren from 'alert' to 'clear the road' and swung around in front of the Impala, accelerating to match the speed.
"Thank you, Sheriff," Bobby said, his voice catching. "I owe you another one." He dropped the phone on the seat beside him and focused on driving. "We're fifteen minutes out, Sam! Hold on!"
"....tryin'....." he wheezed. "......please.....shut up....Jess......don't....wanna go...."
Crap, he's really seeing Jess, Dean breathed heavily. "You stay with me, you hear me, Sammy? You hear me?" Silence. "Hey - Sammy? ....Sammy?"
When the silence stretched on, Dean fumbled at Sam's neck for a pulse, while he screamed, "Bobby!"
"We're turning off now!" came the yell. "Hospital's in sight!"
"Don't do you this, Sammy, don't you do this to me...." Dean let out a gasp when he finally felt a weak pulse. "Atta boy - hold on, Sammy, hold on!"
The first sign they'd arrived was the brightening of the night sky around them. Dean glanced up and out the window to see the glaring lights of Sioux Falls General Hospital. The police car pulled through the ambulance bay, with the Impala right behind. Dean barely had time to register that there was a gurney waiting - the Sheriff must have called ahead - before they had stopped and the attendant jerked open the back door.
"Watch his back, he's been stabbed," Dean said as four hands reached in and - with Dean's help - got all six-feet-and-a-ridiculous-amount of Sam onto the gurney and raced him inside.
Dean stumbled as he got out of the Impala and raced after them. Behind him, he heard a woman's voice ask, "Who in the world---"
And Bobby's reply, "My nephews...."
Then he was inside and nothing else registered but getting to his little brother's side.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Bobby finally untangled himself from the sheriff's attentions and headed into the hospital to find Dean slumped in the corner of the waiting room, staring into a steaming styrofoam cup as if it held the secrets of the universe. "How is he?" he asked by way of hello.
Dean just shook his head, sighing and shifting his grip on the cup. When Bobby sat down, he whispered, "He can't feel his legs, Bobby. He... He said he can't feel his legs. And when I was k-kicked out, they were yellin' something about dialysis...."
Bobby drew in a sharp breath. "That ain't good," he said with a heaping helping of understatement.
"Heard you tell the law we were your nephews......used your last name for ours in there. Hope that was okay."
Bobby snorted. "More than. I've even got a pair of insurance cards in those names. Your daddy and me, we figured someday you might need them. So he was my brother and you're my nephews. Much as you were here growin' up, it fit."
Dean looked up at him, his eyes surprisingly - or maybe not so much, given the events of the last few hours - shimmering with tears. "Bobby....."
Anything else he was going to say was forever lost when a man walked out and asked, "For Sam Singer?"
Dean stood up so fast that the cup was forgotten, crashing to the ground in a chilling parallel to another cup of coffee abandoned on a hospital floor almost a year before. "Here," he said. "He's my brother...."
The doctor took them to where Sam lay, still and silent, on his stomach with a nurse taping a tube into his mouth. "We are moving him to surgery to repair his kidney. The knife did a bit of damage and it could threaten his life if we don't take care of it now. We are replacing the blood he lost and we are guardedly optimistic, since you got him here so fast."
"His legs," Dean asked. "Will.... Will he walk again?"
At the doctor's expression, Bobby added, "He told us on the way he couldn't feel his legs."
The doctor stepped aside as the nurse wheeled the bed out of the room, heading for surgery. "Mister Singer, on this, I can put your mind at ease. Do you know what a Babinski Reflex is?" When Dean tore his eyes away from the retreating bed, the doctor repeated his question. At the negative headshake, he explained, "It's a reaction to pain when the bottom of the foot is stimulated. His Babinskis are intact and his legs were twitching when we examined his kidney. He may not be able to feel them right now with all the other trauma done to his lower back, but his legs are operational."
Dean gasped, actually taking a step backward in his relief.
The doctor finished, "The next 48 to 72 hours are crucial. But he's a young man and he's strong. Which is why I am guardedly optimistic about his recovery. We're very much in 'wait and see' mode - if he survives the surgery, the battle is half won."
Dean snarled, "You mean 'when' he survives."
Sighing heavily, the doctor said, "Your brother is a very sick young man right now. At this point it's anybody's guess. We'll know more once we get in there and see the exact damage done. Someone will come and let you know."
Dean blinked, looking around and realising that the doctor had somehow brought them back out into the waiitng room as they'd talked. "Yeah," he said, frowning as he watched the doctor walk away. "....thanks."
Bobby pulled him into a chair and they sat together, engaged in that hardest of human endeavours.
Waiting for word.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It seemed like years later when a nurse arrived. "Dean Winchester? Come with me, please." They stood up and she held out a hand to Bobby. "Just Dean."
Bobby watched them go, heading down the hallway before turning right instead of left. Bobby frowned - he was sure that the recovery rooms were to the left. He stood up to get a refill for his coffee, when he froze. His eyes went wide when he replayed the nurse's words.
She had called him Dean Winchester. Not Dean Singer.
Bobby was on the move before that completely wound its way out of his brain. He turned right and found himself on the way to the basement.
He heard Dean shouting, "---hell do you want?"
He heard a man laugh. "Dean, Dean, Dean. All I want is for you to do me one favour. Just one tiny little favour."
"What makes you think I'll do anything for you? You killed my mother! You killed my brother's girl!"
Bobby froze. "Oh, shit," he breathed.
The man's voice was oily slick as he replied, "Cause if you do this - I'll bring your brother back to health. And if you don't - I'll kill him. Simple as that."
"You wouldn't kill Sam. For some twisted reason, you need him."
"I don't need him as much as you think. Any of the special children would do. But I would have to wait a generation. This way is so much easier, don't you think? You do one tiny thing and you get to live with him - without my interference - for the rest of your natural lives. Refuse me - and I'll detonate my blood within his veins and burn him from the inside out."
Bobby stepped forward, enough to see Dean squaring off against a smaller man with a smarmy smile and eyes that were yellow from corner to corner. He watched as the man drew the Colt from underneath the unzipped part of his jumpsuit. "It's unloaded," he said as he handed it to Dean. "And we both know it won't work without that one final special bullet."
Dean opened it and snarled to find it was, indeed, unloaded. He closed the chamber and snarled, "And what am I supposed to do with this?"
"Take it here." He handed him a set of co-ordinates. "And put the barrel into the hole on the monument. Then walk away. That's all. Do that and your brother will live."
A hand lightly touched Bobby's shoulder. He spun, his elbow flying backward. The man behind him arched his body so it didn't make contact and put his finger to his lips.
"You?" Bobby hissed. "What the hell are you doing here? Haven't those two been through enough without--"
"Yeah," the man breathed. "They have. Which is why I'm here."
"You lost me," Bobby said.
"Hopefully it's not too late to save this situation." He looked over Bobby's shoulder, and despite himself, Bobby turned to look as well.
He saw Dean raise the unloaded gun and point it at the Yellow-Eyed Demon, who started to laugh. "What good is that going to do?" he laughed. "It's empty!"
"Makes me feel better," Dean snarked. "Demons lie. How do I know that you're not going to just kill us both outright - after I've stuck this in that stone?"
The Yellow-Eyed Demon smirked. "Well, I suppose you're just going to have to trust me."
"Oh, screw this," Bobby heard the man behind him hiss, and the distinct sound of snapping fingers.
Dean's eyes cut briefly to the gun he held, then he slowly and deliberately drew the hammer back. "I don't," he said - and pulled the trigger.
The shot echoed loud in the small room, and the Yellow-Eyed Demon gasped as a third eye bloomed bloodlessly on his forehead. ".....but....." he gasped as he started to light from inside. "......but....." He collapsed to his knees, then pitched forward on his face, burning till he was utterly consumed.
Dean staggered backward, till he hit the wall and leaned against it as he dropped the Colt and ran both hands over his face. "......you're avenged, Mom....Jess.....Dad.....you're avenged."
Bobby spun to face the man behind him. "Why the hell would a Trickster help us do this?"
The Trickster smirked at him. "I owed someone a favour. We're even now." His head tilted. "And you're welcome." A snap of the fingers and he was gone.
"A favour?" Bobby frowned. Then he shook his head and went to Dean. "You okay?"
He looked up. "......We need to get to Sammy."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When they arrived at the room where Sam was recovering, they saw the nurses bathing his face. One of them turned and looked at him. "He had a seizure about ten minutes ago. Fortunately, it was a short one and we think it was from the medication. It shouldn't happen again."
Dean checked his watch. Ten minutes - when he killed the Yellow-Eyed Demon. He looked up at the nurse. "But he'll be okay, right?"
"All the signs are good," she smiled at him.
Dean came and sat by his brother, curling his fingers over his wrist. "It's over," he whispered to Sam. "It's all over. Now all you need to do is heal."
Bobby left with the nurses to find the doctor and leave the brothers alone. None of them saw Dean slide into a relieved but wary sleep as his fingers remained curled onto Sam's wrist.
None of them saw the covers raise of their own accord and tuck over the youngest Winchester, or saw Dean's hair move as if fingers were brushed through it.
None of them saw the spirit straighten from his boys and nod at the Trickster he had once let go free. A nod, a smile, and a snap of the fingers, and the room was empty of all but the living.
Some time later, Dean stirred when he felt fingers in his hair. He blinked at the bed, where sleepy but warm hazel eyes were looking back at him. He straightened and took his brother's hand that had been tangled in his hair in his own hand. ".....Sammy....."
Sam smiled tiredly in reply and slurred out, ".....we made it...."
Then, as Dean pressed the call button, Sam closed his eyes and slid into a healing sleep.
END
TAKE CARE OF YOU
In the end, it still came down to sheer, unbridled panic. The shock of how Sam had vanished had itself vanished in the terrible pain of Dean's first vision ever, to be replaced with near blind panic that they would arrive at Cold Oak too late.
They very nearly did. Dean saw Sam engaged in some freaky hand to hand - and losing. He was out of the Impala and racing that way, screaming Sam's name, before Bobby had finished parking her.
Sam swept his opponent's feet out from under him and staggered a step back, struggling to draw in breath. He saw Dean and smiled, turning to take a step toward his brother.
Dean's eyes widened as he saw the soldier - he was in camo fatigues, he couldn't have been anything else - stagger to his feet and wrap his hand around a wickedly sharp piece of metal. "Sammy!"
Dean's eyes, his expression, his voice - whatever it was that alerted him, the change in Sam was instant. The smile fled and he started to turn back - when the soldier struck.
Sam grunted, arching back slightly as the piece of metal jabbed deep into his back - even then, he tried to pull away and the blow was at an angle. Then the soldier twisted the makeshift knife before he pulled it out.
Dean didn't even remember drawing his gun. All he knew was that it was in his hand and he was firing, pumping bullet after bullet into the body of the freak who'd stabbed his brother.
He was only peripherally aware of Bobby doing the same thing.
When the soldier fell, eyes fixed and glassy, he was of no further interest to Dean. The only thing that mattered at that moment was his own heartbeat thudding in his ears to the tune of Sammy Sammy Sammy.
Sam lay on his stomach in the dirt, his body twitching every few seconds and one hand weakly reaching for the obscene swath of crimson painted on his back.
"Hey," Dean raced over and tugged him to his knees. "Hey, you with me? Huh?"
He was rewarded with parting lashes and lids that appeared to weigh a ton being ratcheted open by sheer force of will to reveal hazel slits. "..........hur'zz...."
"Sammy, stay with me, huh? Come on...." He looked up as the rumble finally invaded his worry and realised that Bobby had pulled the Impala up beside them. He reached up and tugged the back door open. "Gonna get you help, you hear me? Gonna get you help, you're gonna be okay."
".....kay...."
That was all the permission Dean needed. He hauled himself and his giant of a brother into the back seat of the Impala, wrestling Sam's legs until he was kneeling in the seatwell, his head cradled onto Dean's lap so Dean could use his discarded t-shirt to apply pressure on the wound.
Dean was barely aware that Bobby had closed the back door and raced around to the driver's seat. He was barely aware that someone else was driving his precious Baby. He was barely aware that they'd begun to take off at a high rate of speed, leaving Cold Oak far behind.
Dean's entire world had shrunk to the young man sprawled across his lap. To the faint tremours that wracked his body every now and again. To subconsciously timing each groaned puff of air that briefly warmed his knees.
"We're gonna take care of you, huh?" Dean kept assuring him. "We're gonna take care of you. Just hold on, Sammy. Just hold on."
".......ss....."
Dean winced. "I know it hurts, I know it does. We'll get you patched up...."
"......jess......"
Dean froze. "She....she's not here, Sammy."
"....see....."
"No. No, no, no, you don't get to do that. Hold on - Bobby! How far to the hospital?"
"At least an hour, Dean!" Bobby yelled over his seat. "I'm goin' fast as I can!"
Dean swore softly and lifted the shirt to check on the wound. "Bleeding's slowin' - hang on, Sammy."
".......not much......choice," Sam slurred weakly. "Hurts, Dean...."
"I know. We'll take care of you, I swear. Just told on, Sammy. We're going to take care of you...."
".....broken.....record."
Dean blinked, looking down at the very pale face. "You teasin' me?"
"........why....not?"
That tease brought unbidden tears to Dean's eyes even as a smile tugged at his lip. "Bitch," he whispered affectionately, carding his left hand through his brother's sweat-slick hair.
"...J-Jerk," came the breathy reply. Followed by a grunt and a soft, "....D?"
"I'm here," Dean said, pressing hard on the wound and balancing Sam on his lap with the other. "I'm here and we're getting you help."
"Dean...." Sam whimpered. ".......can't .... can't f-feel....my legs....."
Almost instantly, the tone of the engine changed as Bobby pressed down harder on the accelerator. If anyone could coax even more speed out of the old workhorse of a car - that wasn't Dean - Bobby would be it.
"Hear that?" Dean said, trying to push the words into Sam's brain. "We're that much closer to help. We're that much closer to---" His head snapped up as a familiar wail and red and blue lights flared into the cabin. "Oh, not now!"
Bobby clawed his phone out and dialed one-handed. "Sheriff Mills! I need her now - this is an emergency!" A second later, he said, "Sheriff, this is Bobby Singer! One of your people is chasin' a black Impala ---" A sharp intake of breath and he yelled, "You're chasin' me,Jody! I've got a stabbing victim in the back seat and we've got to get him to the hospital be---"
Before he could finish that word, the police car suddenly changed the siren from 'alert' to 'clear the road' and swung around in front of the Impala, accelerating to match the speed.
"Thank you, Sheriff," Bobby said, his voice catching. "I owe you another one." He dropped the phone on the seat beside him and focused on driving. "We're fifteen minutes out, Sam! Hold on!"
"....tryin'....." he wheezed. "......please.....shut up....Jess......don't....wanna go...."
Crap, he's really seeing Jess, Dean breathed heavily. "You stay with me, you hear me, Sammy? You hear me?" Silence. "Hey - Sammy? ....Sammy?"
When the silence stretched on, Dean fumbled at Sam's neck for a pulse, while he screamed, "Bobby!"
"We're turning off now!" came the yell. "Hospital's in sight!"
"Don't do you this, Sammy, don't you do this to me...." Dean let out a gasp when he finally felt a weak pulse. "Atta boy - hold on, Sammy, hold on!"
The first sign they'd arrived was the brightening of the night sky around them. Dean glanced up and out the window to see the glaring lights of Sioux Falls General Hospital. The police car pulled through the ambulance bay, with the Impala right behind. Dean barely had time to register that there was a gurney waiting - the Sheriff must have called ahead - before they had stopped and the attendant jerked open the back door.
"Watch his back, he's been stabbed," Dean said as four hands reached in and - with Dean's help - got all six-feet-and-a-ridiculous-amount of Sam onto the gurney and raced him inside.
Dean stumbled as he got out of the Impala and raced after them. Behind him, he heard a woman's voice ask, "Who in the world---"
And Bobby's reply, "My nephews...."
Then he was inside and nothing else registered but getting to his little brother's side.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Bobby finally untangled himself from the sheriff's attentions and headed into the hospital to find Dean slumped in the corner of the waiting room, staring into a steaming styrofoam cup as if it held the secrets of the universe. "How is he?" he asked by way of hello.
Dean just shook his head, sighing and shifting his grip on the cup. When Bobby sat down, he whispered, "He can't feel his legs, Bobby. He... He said he can't feel his legs. And when I was k-kicked out, they were yellin' something about dialysis...."
Bobby drew in a sharp breath. "That ain't good," he said with a heaping helping of understatement.
"Heard you tell the law we were your nephews......used your last name for ours in there. Hope that was okay."
Bobby snorted. "More than. I've even got a pair of insurance cards in those names. Your daddy and me, we figured someday you might need them. So he was my brother and you're my nephews. Much as you were here growin' up, it fit."
Dean looked up at him, his eyes surprisingly - or maybe not so much, given the events of the last few hours - shimmering with tears. "Bobby....."
Anything else he was going to say was forever lost when a man walked out and asked, "For Sam Singer?"
Dean stood up so fast that the cup was forgotten, crashing to the ground in a chilling parallel to another cup of coffee abandoned on a hospital floor almost a year before. "Here," he said. "He's my brother...."
The doctor took them to where Sam lay, still and silent, on his stomach with a nurse taping a tube into his mouth. "We are moving him to surgery to repair his kidney. The knife did a bit of damage and it could threaten his life if we don't take care of it now. We are replacing the blood he lost and we are guardedly optimistic, since you got him here so fast."
"His legs," Dean asked. "Will.... Will he walk again?"
At the doctor's expression, Bobby added, "He told us on the way he couldn't feel his legs."
The doctor stepped aside as the nurse wheeled the bed out of the room, heading for surgery. "Mister Singer, on this, I can put your mind at ease. Do you know what a Babinski Reflex is?" When Dean tore his eyes away from the retreating bed, the doctor repeated his question. At the negative headshake, he explained, "It's a reaction to pain when the bottom of the foot is stimulated. His Babinskis are intact and his legs were twitching when we examined his kidney. He may not be able to feel them right now with all the other trauma done to his lower back, but his legs are operational."
Dean gasped, actually taking a step backward in his relief.
The doctor finished, "The next 48 to 72 hours are crucial. But he's a young man and he's strong. Which is why I am guardedly optimistic about his recovery. We're very much in 'wait and see' mode - if he survives the surgery, the battle is half won."
Dean snarled, "You mean 'when' he survives."
Sighing heavily, the doctor said, "Your brother is a very sick young man right now. At this point it's anybody's guess. We'll know more once we get in there and see the exact damage done. Someone will come and let you know."
Dean blinked, looking around and realising that the doctor had somehow brought them back out into the waiitng room as they'd talked. "Yeah," he said, frowning as he watched the doctor walk away. "....thanks."
Bobby pulled him into a chair and they sat together, engaged in that hardest of human endeavours.
Waiting for word.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It seemed like years later when a nurse arrived. "Dean Winchester? Come with me, please." They stood up and she held out a hand to Bobby. "Just Dean."
Bobby watched them go, heading down the hallway before turning right instead of left. Bobby frowned - he was sure that the recovery rooms were to the left. He stood up to get a refill for his coffee, when he froze. His eyes went wide when he replayed the nurse's words.
She had called him Dean Winchester. Not Dean Singer.
Bobby was on the move before that completely wound its way out of his brain. He turned right and found himself on the way to the basement.
He heard Dean shouting, "---hell do you want?"
He heard a man laugh. "Dean, Dean, Dean. All I want is for you to do me one favour. Just one tiny little favour."
"What makes you think I'll do anything for you? You killed my mother! You killed my brother's girl!"
Bobby froze. "Oh, shit," he breathed.
The man's voice was oily slick as he replied, "Cause if you do this - I'll bring your brother back to health. And if you don't - I'll kill him. Simple as that."
"You wouldn't kill Sam. For some twisted reason, you need him."
"I don't need him as much as you think. Any of the special children would do. But I would have to wait a generation. This way is so much easier, don't you think? You do one tiny thing and you get to live with him - without my interference - for the rest of your natural lives. Refuse me - and I'll detonate my blood within his veins and burn him from the inside out."
Bobby stepped forward, enough to see Dean squaring off against a smaller man with a smarmy smile and eyes that were yellow from corner to corner. He watched as the man drew the Colt from underneath the unzipped part of his jumpsuit. "It's unloaded," he said as he handed it to Dean. "And we both know it won't work without that one final special bullet."
Dean opened it and snarled to find it was, indeed, unloaded. He closed the chamber and snarled, "And what am I supposed to do with this?"
"Take it here." He handed him a set of co-ordinates. "And put the barrel into the hole on the monument. Then walk away. That's all. Do that and your brother will live."
A hand lightly touched Bobby's shoulder. He spun, his elbow flying backward. The man behind him arched his body so it didn't make contact and put his finger to his lips.
"You?" Bobby hissed. "What the hell are you doing here? Haven't those two been through enough without--"
"Yeah," the man breathed. "They have. Which is why I'm here."
"You lost me," Bobby said.
"Hopefully it's not too late to save this situation." He looked over Bobby's shoulder, and despite himself, Bobby turned to look as well.
He saw Dean raise the unloaded gun and point it at the Yellow-Eyed Demon, who started to laugh. "What good is that going to do?" he laughed. "It's empty!"
"Makes me feel better," Dean snarked. "Demons lie. How do I know that you're not going to just kill us both outright - after I've stuck this in that stone?"
The Yellow-Eyed Demon smirked. "Well, I suppose you're just going to have to trust me."
"Oh, screw this," Bobby heard the man behind him hiss, and the distinct sound of snapping fingers.
Dean's eyes cut briefly to the gun he held, then he slowly and deliberately drew the hammer back. "I don't," he said - and pulled the trigger.
The shot echoed loud in the small room, and the Yellow-Eyed Demon gasped as a third eye bloomed bloodlessly on his forehead. ".....but....." he gasped as he started to light from inside. "......but....." He collapsed to his knees, then pitched forward on his face, burning till he was utterly consumed.
Dean staggered backward, till he hit the wall and leaned against it as he dropped the Colt and ran both hands over his face. "......you're avenged, Mom....Jess.....Dad.....you're avenged."
Bobby spun to face the man behind him. "Why the hell would a Trickster help us do this?"
The Trickster smirked at him. "I owed someone a favour. We're even now." His head tilted. "And you're welcome." A snap of the fingers and he was gone.
"A favour?" Bobby frowned. Then he shook his head and went to Dean. "You okay?"
He looked up. "......We need to get to Sammy."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When they arrived at the room where Sam was recovering, they saw the nurses bathing his face. One of them turned and looked at him. "He had a seizure about ten minutes ago. Fortunately, it was a short one and we think it was from the medication. It shouldn't happen again."
Dean checked his watch. Ten minutes - when he killed the Yellow-Eyed Demon. He looked up at the nurse. "But he'll be okay, right?"
"All the signs are good," she smiled at him.
Dean came and sat by his brother, curling his fingers over his wrist. "It's over," he whispered to Sam. "It's all over. Now all you need to do is heal."
Bobby left with the nurses to find the doctor and leave the brothers alone. None of them saw Dean slide into a relieved but wary sleep as his fingers remained curled onto Sam's wrist.
None of them saw the covers raise of their own accord and tuck over the youngest Winchester, or saw Dean's hair move as if fingers were brushed through it.
None of them saw the spirit straighten from his boys and nod at the Trickster he had once let go free. A nod, a smile, and a snap of the fingers, and the room was empty of all but the living.
Some time later, Dean stirred when he felt fingers in his hair. He blinked at the bed, where sleepy but warm hazel eyes were looking back at him. He straightened and took his brother's hand that had been tangled in his hair in his own hand. ".....Sammy....."
Sam smiled tiredly in reply and slurred out, ".....we made it...."
Then, as Dean pressed the call button, Sam closed his eyes and slid into a healing sleep.
END